Why fighters suck


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Grand Lodge

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Sorry, i couldnt respond to some messages i saw because they were locked, so here is my 2 cents on why some people think fighters suck.

Wizard Player: Well once again it looks like our big bad Fighter did not contribute very much. Whats wrong? That greatsword and full-plate to heavy for you?

Wizard, Bard and Paladin players all laugh.

Fighter Player: Oh sorry, when i made this character i thought that we might actually be sent on a time sensitive mission. Like when the evil necromancer was using an ancient artifact to summon legions of undead to terrorize the local towns and farms who were not able to defend themselves. I thought we might want to confront him as soon as possible, but i see i was wrong considering it took us 4 days to clear a 3 floor dungeon to get to him. Oh well, i guess we should go report our "success" to whoever is still alive.

Wizard, Bard, Paladin and GM get a sour look on there face and go post on the forums about how poorly the fighter did in there most recent game. GM makes plans to fudge the numbers next session to kill the Fighter for insulting the scenario he made.

The fighter is good because he does not rely on a LIMITED amount of spells or spell-like abilities to remain effective. If you cast all your high level spells every single encounter, or waste all of your smite evils on a grasshopper who looked at you wrong, or use up all your ki or rage or whatever class your playing, then you should have to live with those decisions. Instead your weak GM and his weak scenario allow you to just set up camp
and sleep away those silly things called LIMITS. You should be basing your use of spells and abilities based on how the current encounter is goin, not based on trying to out-do the fighter just because you can, mabey then you could get through a dungeon without sleeping after every 3 encounters.

Classes with spells or spell-like abilities are balanced with the classes that do not have them because there is a LIMIT ( notice the capital letters yet, they are important) to how many times they can do them. If you take away that LIMIT then you are causing the classes to become un-balanced, so there is nothing wrong with the fighter, there is something wrong with the way your GM runs his games.

Now that im done ranting go ahead and post about how your wizard doesnt spam all his high level spells and still manages to out-do the fighter in every way, or how your GM doesnt let you sleep but you still out-do the fighter over a long session because fighters are just that weak. Etc etc etc etc....


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A good caster doesn't spam all his stuff and need to rest after every few fights....
That said, I completely agree that if someone DOES try to constantly outdo the fighter/or whatever by blowing his load, then that is poor playing. If I was being the GM and saw this type of thing going on, I would throw more encounters at the party after the first few get blown away. Oh you wanna go sleep? Midnight ambush for you! A sensible caster will not have a problem with this type of campaign... if they dig their own hole that is their problem.
I would say about 80% at least of the characters I play are casters, and I never trust that the GM ISN'T going to throw that type of situation at me, and so I play accordingly. :)


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I suppose it's about that time of the week to have another one of these threads.


TO be clear fighters don't suck at level 1 if they have 18 strength two handed weapon they will tke donw most opponents. And the casters and other things don't have that much ammonition.

Grand Lodge

I know that people dont always spam, but all of the arguments ive seen against the fighter are always along the lines of my class can cast smite evil first so now i do more damage, or my class can do this, or do that. They fail to mention that these are limited abilities, so i assume that people who make these arguments are just goin to sleep whenever they please.

After readin my original post it seems sort of...rude or something...so sorry bout that lol, not my intention

Scarab Sages

So far, my friends pfs fighter is a mauler. He is 2nd level and has like a 24 ac, and can power attack with a bastard sword for 1d10+6 damage every round. He is pretty brutal, but likely to kind of top out in 5 levels. We are debating if he should multi class at that point.


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The fighter just needs to get good magic equipment and get the greedy casters to buff him instead of themselves. Then he can be as awesome as everyone else.


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Fighters have limits too - they're called hit points, and they tend to rely pretty heavily on those 'limited' casters to replace them...


Mercurial wrote:
Fighters have limits too - they're called hit points, and they tend to rely pretty heavily on those 'limited' casters to replace them...

Hps limits everyone, plus a wand of cure light wounds e very cheap and useful.

Grand Lodge

Spells, wands, potions, but yes, a fighter needs hit points just as much as any other class. So that is not an issue when comparing classes.


Power corrupts, as they say, and it is satisfying to blast a creature to nothing with a gesture and a few magic words.

But I agree that nuking your way through a couple of rooms then resting without the enemy regrouping to ambush you is counter to the suspension of disbelief. I don't take immersion as far a some but in my fantasy worlds, I need the people to behave realistically.


CombatFocused: The nice thing about those classes with limited use abilities is that they can burst when it is important. Look at the Paladin for instance. With 3 smites a day he can show off and kick ass against the boss, his lieutenant, and the toughest underling in that dungeon.. The Paladin shows the Fighter up in those challenging encounters, and still performs admirably in those easier battles that fill out the day. When compared to the Paladin's amazing saves, utility spells, and nice supply of the best in combat healing in the game, why play a Fighter?

All a Fighter has got going for him is doing damage. Being out damaged in pretty much every boss encounter is really disheartening.

But, in reality I think the biggest problem in the game is that martials can't have nice things. The fact that Ultimate Combat has a bunch of spells and wizard archetypes in it, even though UM came out right before it is disgusting. Why, oh why couldn't they have instead used that space for some rules governing more mundane solutions to problems? Some basic rules for crafting traps that are actually useful, accessable, and affordable for PCs is a perfect example of where the rules are lacking. That's what's really needed.


Merkatz wrote:

CombatFocused: The nice thing about those classes with limited use abilities is that they can burst when it is important. Look at the Paladin for instance. With 3 smites a day he can show off and kick ass against the boss, his lieutenant, and the toughest underling in that dungeon.. The Paladin shows the Fighter up in those challenging encounters, and still performs admirably in those easier battles that fill out the day. When compared to the Paladin's amazing saves, utility spells, and nice supply of the best in combat healing in the game, why play a Fighter?

All a Fighter has got going for him is doing damage. Being out damaged in pretty much every boss encounter is really disheartening.

But, in reality I think the biggest problem in the game is that martials can't have nice things. The fact that Ultimate Combat has a bunch of spells and wizard archetypes in it, even though UM came out right before it is disgusting. Why, oh why couldn't they have instead used that space for some rules governing more mundane solutions to problems? Some basic rules for crafting traps that are actually useful, accessable, and affordable for PCs is a perfect example of where the rules are lacking. That's what's really needed.

So what happens to the paladin if your GM says enough and throws a "neutral" creature at you? One of your biggest bonuses is now absolutely worthless. Big bonus to fighter. He doesn't change with his enemies. He affects everyone with strong consistent damage.

Can't even come close to saying that with paladin or ranger. It's tadaa! this guy is neutral. Congrats that good ol smites worthless

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Fighters suck because they fail at not sucking.


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CombatFocused wrote:
The fighter is good because he does not rely on a LIMITED amount of spells or spell-like abilities to remain effective.

Indeed, he does rely on a LIMITED amount of HP instead.

True story: in an AP, we decided to play the "standard 4-men band" with Kyra, Valeros, Merisiel and Seoni; I played Kyra. I never asked for rest.
Valeros or Merisiel: "How many cure spells have you left?"
Me: "None."
Merisiel or Valeros: "OK, let's rest."
Me or Seoni: "Don't you think we can do at least one more room? Everyone is full HP, and Seoni has some powerful spells left."
Valeros or Merisiel: "No, it's too dangerous."

But Valeros and Merisiel didn't rely on LIMITED amount of spells and spell-like abilities, and that's great, I guess.


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Without fighters the party dies. Yes they might be out damaged but they are the first line of defense. In our current campaign there are a few spell casters and two largely melee classes. There have been fights that one or both of the melee types was down or on the ropes, while the others have rarely felt that threat. From conversations I think they think the fights are easy. But when one or both frontliners go down . . . they will get mopped up pretty quick. Fighters buy the casters the time to get through several rounds of spells that control, blast and kill the enemy. Without the meat shield the casters are torn apart before they can drop the second pit, or blast.


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Thomas Long 175 wrote:

So what happens to the paladin if your GM says enough and throws a "neutral" creature at you? One of your biggest bonuses is now absolutely worthless. Big bonus to fighter. He doesn't change with his enemies. He affects everyone with strong consistent damage.

Can't even come close to saying that with paladin or ranger. It's tadaa! this guy is neutral. Congrats that good ol smites worthless

I love Fighters. Love 'em. Still, my Paladin outdamages them even against neutral foes if only by a little... but more importantly has swift self-heals which the Fighter doesn't, self-buffs which the Fighter doesn't, ridiculously high saves which the Fighter doesn't, the ability to custom make a magic weapon on the spot which the Fighter doesn't and the ability to continuously buff and protect my allies through auras as well as remove conditions, which the Fighter doesn't. All the while he's getting the same full BAB as the fighter, the same number of attacks per round, the same benefits from Power Attack and so on...

Its not a knock on the Fighter - along with Master Summoners I think that Oath of Vengeance Paladins are the strongest character options out there - but the Paladin's reliance on foes being evil is woefully over-stated.


... Does no one ever realize they are the only class that gets a feat every level, has access to Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus, and Greater Weapon Specialization?

Plus, they can easily do feat-starved builds.

Seriously, I question why everyone thinks they suck? I haven't played any fighters, but the large amounts of feats, to hit bonuses, and whatever you can shake a stick at.

Also, going off their class abilities:

*They can increase the max Dex on their armor and decrease the check penalty. And then they can move normally in heavy armor at level 7 WITHOUT mithril.

*They get a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls when using a weapon from their group. At level 17, it's a +4 to hit, +4 to damage.

*If your in a high level campaign, at level 20, he can auto-confirm all critical threats and increase the multiplier.

What I'm looking at is a possible +6 to hit, +8 damage over everyone else.


Gnomezrule wrote:
Without fighters the party dies. Yes they might be out damaged but they are the first line of defense. In our current campaign there are a few spell casters and two largely melee classes. There have been fights that one or both of the melee types was down or on the ropes, while the others have rarely felt that threat. From conversations I think they think the fights are easy. But when one or both frontliners go down . . . they will get mopped up pretty quick. Fighters buy the casters the time to get through several rounds of spells that control, blast and kill the enemy. Without the meat shield the casters are torn apart before they can drop the second pit, or blast.

Which is of course...nothing that a Paladin, Barbarian, Cavalier, Cleric, or Monk can't do.

The only thing the fighter brings to the party is dumb muscle, and many classes can do that while still bringing other talents too.


Two things happen

First is that the limited abilities start getting... a little less limited. Once you can do something for 16 rounds a day you pretty much CAN spam it. Once you have 16 combat spells it becomes a matter of saving the higher level ones for the last fight.

Secondly is that most missions are NOT on a timer. Too much plot fatigue for the DM to think up not only why something has to be done but why it has to be done RIGHT NOW. This lets the party camp (having the enemy come to you is better than you going to them because you choose your ground) or at higher levels camp in their own fortress, or teleport back to an inn somewhere to sleep with a beer a wench and a fire. Every cave complex needs veins of lead to prevent scry and die.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Indivar wrote:
So far, my friends pfs fighter is a mauler. He is 2nd level and has like a 24 ac, and can power attack with a bastard sword for 1d10+6 damage every round. He is pretty brutal, but likely to kind of top out in 5 levels. We are debating if he should multi class at that point.

1d10+6? lol. My fighter 1/barbarian 1 did 2d6+10 WITHOUT power attack!

(j/k) ;P


Gnomezrule wrote:
Without fighters the party dies. Yes they might be out damaged but they are the first line of defense. In our current campaign there are a few spell casters and two largely melee classes. There have been fights that one or both of the melee types was down or on the ropes, while the others have rarely felt that threat. From conversations I think they think the fights are easy. But when one or both frontliners go down . . . they will get mopped up pretty quick. Fighters buy the casters the time to get through several rounds of spells that control, blast and kill the enemy. Without the meat shield the casters are torn apart before they can drop the second pit, or blast.

Defined party compositions don't exist within this game. All you need is some creativity and and cooperation and there is no need for a front liner pc. Do I believe that fighters suck? No not really I think they're boring to play out of combat though.

Shadow Lodge

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My wizard isn't powerful enough. I need full BAB and all good saves to survive. And a d20 HD. And free two-weapon fighting feats. For flavor.

The Exchange

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To be fair though Norse, lead is a pretty common metal in Golarian :)

I'm running a party at level 13 right now. We're playing though Legacy of Fire. The ability to rest up is pretty damn thin on, since they have to clear whole sections of areas of enemies before it becomes safe enough to rest.

We have 4 regular players - Sorceror, Fighter, Cleric, Monk.

If any one of those guys is missing from a session, everyone sweats.

Could I replace the fighter with another melee type - Yep

Could I replace the sorceror with another caster type - yep.

Could I do without the roles - Nope

The fighter is a damage machine, but more importantly for the party, he gets in the road of things that could otherwise kill the squshies. His AC is good enough to not get hit often, and his health is high enough to not die easily when he is hit. Paladins are the only other class that can do this, but they're stuck with Lawful Good stuff that can also make them a pain in the butt for a gaming party.

Barbarians chew through hitpoints faster than healers like. Have one of these guys in your group and watch your expendable healing go through the roof.

Not much experience with cavaliers or Samurai so can't vouch for them.

Fighters strength means that with feats and inherent abilites now days, they can afford to spend their weatlh on items that otherwise get overlooked. My groups fighter has a ring of Displacement (take a cloak of same and convert to ring. It has half the charges so is less cost).

He would have some means of flying as well, except the sorceror can easily do this for the group so it never became an issue.

The strength a fighter brings is getting inherantly great abilites for fighting so gear can be used to fix the weaknesses.

People traditionally say fighters are awful outside of combat - Our fighter has dungeoneering and engineering, it helps in researching all sorts of stuff outside of combat. He has intimidate and perception. Given that most skill checks are static DC's for out of combat stuff (opposed rolls being the exception) then he contributes just fine. You only need to put skill points in for so long until it becomes redundant.

All of this is my personal experience. I'm sure number crunchers will come and show stats and percentages that will disagree, but then stats are only good in sterile and controlled environemnts. Pathfinder games aren't either of those. Dice have a strange way of failing to show up your stats (10 000 rolls or more to get consistant statistical convergence with theoretical numbers folks, that's a lot of combat.)

Cheers


Mercurial wrote:
Thomas Long 175 wrote:

So what happens to the paladin if your GM says enough and throws a "neutral" creature at you? One of your biggest bonuses is now absolutely worthless. Big bonus to fighter. He doesn't change with his enemies. He affects everyone with strong consistent damage.

Can't even come close to saying that with paladin or ranger. It's tadaa! this guy is neutral. Congrats that good ol smites worthless

I love Fighters. Love 'em. Still, my Paladin outdamages them even against neutral foes if only by a little... but more importantly has swift self-heals which the Fighter doesn't, self-buffs which the Fighter doesn't, ridiculously high saves which the Fighter doesn't, the ability to custom make a magic weapon on the spot which the Fighter doesn't and the ability to continuously buff and protect my allies through auras as well as remove conditions, which the Fighter doesn't.

Its not a knock on the Fighter - along with Master Summoners I think that Oath of Vengeance Paladins are the strongest character options out there - but the Paladin's reliance on foes being evil is woefully over-stated.

How does a paladin outdamage a fighter? A fighter can get his hands on everything a paladin can except for smite, and you just said this is when smite is rendered useless. I can't see one possible way that a paladin could outdamage a fighter.

There's nothing else a paladin can get that a fighter can't. Buffs, items, weapon bonuses, feats... If you built the two using the same weapons the fighter would come out on top in DPR everytime as far as I can see


TOZ wrote:
My wizard isn't powerful enough. I need full BAB and all good saves to survive. And a d20 HD. And free two-weapon fighting feats. For flavor.

Life as a wizard is tough man, suck it up.

The Exchange

TOZ wrote:
My wizard isn't powerful enough. I need full BAB and all good saves to survive. And a d20 HD. And free two-weapon fighting feats. For flavor.

I think your wizard should get this too TOZ, just cos you're a cool guy. Don't tell everyone else though ok, or we'll get thread in here whinging about power disparity ....oh...wait.


Thomas Long 175 wrote:
Mercurial wrote:
Thomas Long 175 wrote:

So what happens to the paladin if your GM says enough and throws a "neutral" creature at you? One of your biggest bonuses is now absolutely worthless. Big bonus to fighter. He doesn't change with his enemies. He affects everyone with strong consistent damage.

Can't even come close to saying that with paladin or ranger. It's tadaa! this guy is neutral. Congrats that good ol smites worthless

I love Fighters. Love 'em. Still, my Paladin outdamages them even against neutral foes if only by a little... but more importantly has swift self-heals which the Fighter doesn't, self-buffs which the Fighter doesn't, ridiculously high saves which the Fighter doesn't, the ability to custom make a magic weapon on the spot which the Fighter doesn't and the ability to continuously buff and protect my allies through auras as well as remove conditions, which the Fighter doesn't.

Its not a knock on the Fighter - along with Master Summoners I think that Oath of Vengeance Paladins are the strongest character options out there - but the Paladin's reliance on foes being evil is woefully over-stated.

How does a paladin outdamage a fighter? A fighter can get his hands on everything a paladin can except for smite, and you just said this is when smite is rendered useless. I can't see one possible way that a paladin could outdamage a fighter.

There's nothing else a paladin can get that a fighter can't. Buffs, items, weapon bonuses, feats... If you built the two using the same weapons the fighter would come out on top in DPR everytime as far as I can see

Divine bond, spells, heritage feats, and a badly optimized fighter.


Ravingdork wrote:
Indivar wrote:
So far, my friends pfs fighter is a mauler. He is 2nd level and has like a 24 ac, and can power attack with a bastard sword for 1d10+6 damage every round. He is pretty brutal, but likely to kind of top out in 5 levels. We are debating if he should multi class at that point.

1d10+6? lol. My fighter 1/barbarian 1 did 2d6+10 WITHOUT power attack!

(j/k) ;P

I'm in the process of building a Barbarian (Wild Rager), Ragechemist, monk, druid. at level 12 he can pull off 7 attacks a turn (all at highest BAB) with the lowest one after items and power attack at + 21 d6+21 (2 are that big, 4 are d6+27, 1 is d6+37). Oh and his Base will save is 8 (11 after wisdom) so no thats not a real problem here.


Thomas Long 175 wrote:
Mercurial wrote:
Thomas Long 175 wrote:

So what happens to the paladin if your GM says enough and throws a "neutral" creature at you? One of your biggest bonuses is now absolutely worthless. Big bonus to fighter. He doesn't change with his enemies. He affects everyone with strong consistent damage.

Can't even come close to saying that with paladin or ranger. It's tadaa! this guy is neutral. Congrats that good ol smites worthless

I love Fighters. Love 'em. Still, my Paladin outdamages them even against neutral foes if only by a little... but more importantly has swift self-heals which the Fighter doesn't, self-buffs which the Fighter doesn't, ridiculously high saves which the Fighter doesn't, the ability to custom make a magic weapon on the spot which the Fighter doesn't and the ability to continuously buff and protect my allies through auras as well as remove conditions, which the Fighter doesn't.

Its not a knock on the Fighter - along with Master Summoners I think that Oath of Vengeance Paladins are the strongest character options out there - but the Paladin's reliance on foes being evil is woefully over-stated.

How does a paladin outdamage a fighter? A fighter can get his hands on everything a paladin can except for smite, and you just said this is when smite is rendered useless. I can't see one possible way that a paladin could outdamage a fighter.

There's nothing else a paladin can get that a fighter can't. Buffs, items, weapon bonuses, feats... If you built the two using the same weapons the fighter would come out on top in DPR everytime as far as I can see

Heh - I've gone through this exact conversation twice already on these boards, so the math has been done.

How about this - pick a level or two and post me a build for a fighter that you think is representative of a high DPR and I'll post a Paladin of the same level and we'll see where we're at. No magical equipment, just the character's feats and class features for direct comparison.

Two points I want to make clear - the first is that we're talking about JUST DPR and even then JUST against non-evil foes, which tells me that you already acknowledge that the Paladin is superior in pretty much every other respect - survivability (which is more important that DPR), force multiplying through buffs and auras, overall versatility and combat against evil foes - which just happen to make up at least 75% of those you will face.

The second is that I love Fighters. The one I run most often gets Whirlwind Attack at 4th level with a two-handed weapon, Lunging Whirlwind Attack at 6th and DAZING Lunging Whirlwind Attack at 11th, something no other class could do. From a meta-gaming or optimization standpoint, Paladins are simply a little bit superior - which suits them, no?


Paladins also have heavy roleplaying restrictions.


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You have to love the open mindedness here. "That's not my playstyle so it sucks." "Gnomes and Halflings are slow they suck." "Fighters are boring they suck." "I don't like prepared casters they suck."


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I hate commoners because they get perception and my fighter doesn't

Shadow Lodge

Black_Lantern wrote:
Life as a wizard is tough man, suck it up.

No really, I need this class to have fun, but my DM won't allow it. Says it's not PF compatible.

The Exchange

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Cool, how did his lawful monk abilities combine with his chaotic barbarian stuff, that must be some trick to pull off?

Tell us the story of how he progressed in these multitude classes man, that must be a screamer of a tale.

How many rounds does he need to spend asking his opponents to "Please hold on" while he buffs himself to that level. Given the low level of all of those classes, his time for buffs must be pretty low too (since its based off caster level not character level. Arcane and Divine levels dont stack for that either I belive).

But hey, build him away and tell us how he works out.

Cheers

Edit - I must remember to use the reply button, since 4 people posted in teh time it took me to type the reply to Thomas Long. <sigh>


gnomezrule:
Your love of open mindedness sucks. ;-)

Scarab Sages

Ravingdork wrote:
Indivar wrote:
So far, my friends pfs fighter is a mauler. He is 2nd level and has like a 24 ac, and can power attack with a bastard sword for 1d10+6 damage every round. He is pretty brutal, but likely to kind of top out in 5 levels. We are debating if he should multi class at that point.

1d10+6? lol. My fighter 1/barbarian 1 did 2d6+10 WITHOUT power attack!

(j/k) ;P

The fighter i was refering to could PA 2 handed for d10+9 which is comparable. But he rarely gets hit also with 24 AC - thus the advantage over the need-to-be-healed-more-often barbarian. But hey who cares


Gnomezrule wrote:
You have to love the open mindedness here. "That's not my playstyle so it sucks." "Gnomes and Halflings are slow they suck." "Fighters are boring they suck." "I don't like prepared casters they suck."

You have to love a person picking at others for picking at others. I would say that the classes need a little more balance work wouldn't you agree? Also, you don't need to defend your play style or anything if you don't want to.

@TOZ Looks balanced to me man.


Black_Lantern wrote:
Paladins also have heavy roleplaying restrictions.

Correct.

Unless, of course, that's how the player WANTS to role-play his character...


Indivar wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:
Indivar wrote:
So far, my friends pfs fighter is a mauler. He is 2nd level and has like a 24 ac, and can power attack with a bastard sword for 1d10+6 damage every round. He is pretty brutal, but likely to kind of top out in 5 levels. We are debating if he should multi class at that point.

1d10+6? lol. My fighter 1/barbarian 1 did 2d6+10 WITHOUT power attack!

(j/k) ;P

The fighter i was refering to could PA 2 handed for d10+9 which is comparable. But he rarely gets hit also with 24 AC - thus the advantage over the need-to-be-healed-more-often barbarian. But hey who cares

Survivability for the win. At the end of the day, the one still alive will generally do the most damage.


Mercurial, what's the feats for that whirl wind build lol? My group could use a fighter build that's fun like that


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Cpt Jason wrote:
Mercurial, what's the feats for that whirl wind build lol? My group could use a fighter build that's fun like that

This is the build I use - Weaponmaster Archetype, Falchion

Traits:
Andoran Slave (+1 Will)
Defender of the Society (+1 AC when wearing medium or heavy armors)

Feats:
Human - Power Attack
1st - Cleave
1st - Dodge
2nd - Mobility
3rd - Combat Expertise
4th - Spring Attack
[Retrain Cleave to Whirlwind Attack]
5th - Furious Focus
6th - Lunge
7th - Weapon Focus: Falchion
8th - Greater Weapon Focus: Falchion
9th - Improved Critical: Falchion
10th - Critical Focus
11th - Dazing Assault
12th - Sickening Critical
13th - Staggering Critical
14th - Critical Mastery
15th - Weapon Specialization: Falchion
16th - Greater Weapon Specialization: Falchion
17th - Stunning Assault

You'll need to meet the attribute pre-req's though... our group uses a 25 point buy.

Attributes:
STR 16 +2 racial bonus, +1 at 4th, 8th, 12th and 16th
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 14
WIS 12
CHA 8


Don't want to get too off topic, but thanks


I love the fighter class, but mechanically both the ranger and paladin are more powerful. They get almost everything the fighter gets with a LOT more options. The fighter may win in dpr(debatable with weapon bond and instant enemy spell), but pallies win hand down defensive(svs and lay on hands) & they get auto-buffs. Rangers are better rogues than rogues in most situation. What they need is to slightly up the mechanics of some of the other classes to bring them up to par mechanically.

The problem is the game rewards specialization. fighters have to broad an interpretation. They should be the best at something. If that's melee damage it shouldn't be debatable they should be better by a wide margin. Most of the other classes have something that they're the best at by a wide margin(exceptions fighter, rogue, and monk).


Maybe we just need to balance everyone around the fighter instead of the other way around.


Black_Lantern wrote:
Gnomezrule wrote:
You have to love the open mindedness here. "That's not my playstyle so it sucks." "Gnomes and Halflings are slow they suck." "Fighters are boring they suck." "I don't like prepared casters they suck."

You have to love a person picking at others for picking at others. I would say that the classes need a little more balance work wouldn't you agree? Also, you don't need to defend your play style or anything if you don't want to.

@TOZ Looks balanced to me man.

Wow maya culpa. You got me. Judge not lest you be judged.

As the game changes yes there will always be a need to re-balance things. That said I am not sure I see that fighters are falling behind. I certainly think that there are roles that in previous editions are better filled by other full BAB classes. Fighters have the unique position of almost complete customization, further as many people have brought out what they do they can do again and again and after the casters are out of spells and after the ranger is out of arrows and after the barbarian is out of rounds of rage and again and again.


I've said it before and I'll say it again. The problem with the fighter is that it just gets more of what everybody else already has. His other bonuses are just mindless passives. Unless it has its own play mechanic, then it will suck.


Fighters are there to protect the group from the majority of attacks, since they need no prep work beyond having a ready weapon, and with the right feats, not even that. Having no specialties beyond weapons mastery and feats that buff that, they can normally attack anything and deal damage without worrying overmuch about alignment of the enemy, weapon restrictions of their own, and whether or not their damage is reduced because of a spent spell or ability. They can easily augment with magic items such as weapon, armor, and potion.

Paladins are hybrid cleric/fighter, and really can't be compared one on one vs. a fighter. It's apples vs oranges. To say a fighter is better or worse than a paladin is opinion.

Character combinations that do away with design restrictions are not canon and so can't be considered anything but home brew, and should never be compared to standard characters since that is, again, apples to oranges.

If you made standard characters, you'd find them quite acceptable, and if you thought, hey I'd like to have that neato ability, but my alignment is not compatible, then you should deal with it. If you do away with that, you are skewing the game. A good GM that lets you do that should start tossing mobs at you that have the same powers you do, and I doubt that would be much fun, since fights would never end, or as the WoW players would say 'IT'S EPIC'. First player to roll a 1 loses.

It's not the similarities between characters that make good gaming in RPG, it's the differences. Those differences invite companions, and that is where the fun starts. Twisting the rules to create a munchkin meta game character kind of defeats the whole purpose of a fun and challenging game, because it takes the challenge out.

Grand Lodge

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Divine bond, spells, smite....i thought i had already established the fact that limited use abilities allow the other classes to outshine the fighter. That was never the argument and i dont see why it keeps getting brought up.

Sounds to me like we have a bunch of fans of the 5 minute workday, and who do not like to play challenging games. If i knew how to delete this thread i would, because its clear people missed the point of my original post and continue to bring up abilities like smite.....yes...other classes have abilities fighters dont....those abilities rock....this was never under dispute.

The point of my original post was that the other classes have all these awesome abilities and the limit placed on them needs to be enforced by gm's. You take away the limit, you take away the balance, then you get on here and run your mouth about how much the fighter sucks....lol

But please, continue to ignore my point, and could we get at least one more person to post something about how his paladin can do more damage than a fighter when he uses smite or divine bond? I dont think it sunk in the first 50 times i read it. Thanks

The Exchange

To be fair though CF, what happens when your companions run out of abilities that can replenish your own limited stat - HP's?

See, some of the other classes have the ability to use cheap consumables for this like wands of cure whatever, whereas the fighter can't, unless he goes UMD somehow. Not something fighters are optimised for I'd say.

The five minute work day happens as often due to combats exhausting health as much as spells, particularly at high level play.

Don't get me wrong, I think the argument is ridiculous either way. Fighters are great, when used well and when synergised with the party. Then again, that's pretty much true of any class. If someone plays a wizard badly or a party don't learn to synergise, then you could paint the whole game as crappy. It isn't though, because each class is unique with their own strengths and weaknesses and this leads to a great group game where you have to work together. Stated already by a poster above I think.

Mostly people beat up on classes because of personal preference and how they like to play the game. I prefer to just play and enjoy it as it is. Works for me and my group. (Posting here just helps me take my mind off huge bouts of marking. Which I now have to return to. Sigh)

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