Not a contradiction at all. Many of the applicable protections are short term. It's also possible that a mind affecting spell can be cast on a wizard by a creature suddenly teleporting in. And even clerics and wizards can roll ones on saves. If you're talking about constant items, many of those are ones that fighters can get and use as well.Then you as a party find ways to DEAL with it. Use a protection spell or effect to block the domination, or if worse comes to worse, dominate the fighter yourself to neutralise the effect.
Here's some news kiddies, clerics, wizards, can ALSO wind up being the ones who fail will saves. IT DOES happen.
Bolded your contradictory subjects. A Cleric or Wizard is going to have protection spells or effects on them already, meaning they won't be making Will Saves in the first place, so them supposedly failing Will Saves is equally as nonsense as Fighters who don't deal with Will Saves not failing them.
That's assuming the Wizard or Cleric aren't already shored-up against Will Saves anyway; in which case, they are. Or they're too good and have too many steps ahead of the enemy for it to matter. A fighter doesn't get that luxury.
Also, Wizards don't fail Will Saves, they fail Fort saves. And then they die. No extra saves, ect, ect. . . Wail of the Banshee and then both Wizards are dead, and the fighter has to win without them.
Also, Wizards don't fail Will Saves, they fail Fort saves. And then they die. No extra saves, ect, ect. . . Wail of the Banshee and then both Wizards are dead, and the fighter has to win without them.Not a contradiction at all. Many of the applicable protections are short term. It's also possible that a mind affecting spell can be cast on a wizard by a creature suddenly teleporting in. And even clerics and wizards can roll ones on saves. If you're talking about constant items, many of those are ones that fighters can get and use as well.Then you as a party find ways to DEAL with it. Use a protection spell or effect to block the domination, or if worse comes to worse, dominate the fighter yourself to neutralise the effect.
Here's some news kiddies, clerics, wizards, can ALSO wind up being the ones who fail will saves. IT DOES happen.
Bolded your contradictory subjects. A Cleric or Wizard is going to have protection spells or effects on them already, meaning they won't be making Will Saves in the first place, so them supposedly failing Will Saves is equally as nonsense as Fighters who don't deal with Will Saves not failing them.
That's assuming the Wizard or Cleric aren't already shored-up against Will Saves anyway; in which case, they are. Or they're too good and have too many steps ahead of the enemy for it to matter. A fighter doesn't get that luxury.
And then the Fighter gets his ass handed to him the next round, because whatever just killed the Wizards is also a full-progression spellcaster.
If you're talking about constant items, many of those are ones that fighters can get and use as well.
They're dependent on the luck of random drops, the DM's whim, buying them for double what it takes for a caster to craft them, or asking the party caster to make them for him.
Naw, plenty of monsters have Fort save SLAs and are simply chum for fighters. . .
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Naw, plenty of monsters have Fort save SLAs and are simply chum for fighters. . .
until you realize
that fighters are useless against fliers, casters, flying casters, and anything that can use a Will or Reflex based Save or Suck.
Also, Wizards don't fail Will Saves, they fail Fort saves. And then they die. No extra saves, ect, ect. . . Wail of the Banshee and then both Wizards are dead, and the fighter has to win without them.Not a contradiction at all. Many of the applicable protections are short term. It's also possible that a mind affecting spell can be cast on a wizard by a creature suddenly teleporting in. And even clerics and wizards can roll ones on saves. If you're talking about constant items, many of those are ones that fighters can get and use as well.Then you as a party find ways to DEAL with it. Use a protection spell or effect to block the domination, or if worse comes to worse, dominate the fighter yourself to neutralise the effect.
Here's some news kiddies, clerics, wizards, can ALSO wind up being the ones who fail will saves. IT DOES happen.
Bolded your contradictory subjects. A Cleric or Wizard is going to have protection spells or effects on them already, meaning they won't be making Will Saves in the first place, so them supposedly failing Will Saves is equally as nonsense as Fighters who don't deal with Will Saves not failing them.
That's assuming the Wizard or Cleric aren't already shored-up against Will Saves anyway; in which case, they are. Or they're too good and have too many steps ahead of the enemy for it to matter. A fighter doesn't get that luxury.
Wait...the God Wizard doesn't have a Counterspell item on his person (the bane of all other casters), or can't cast a Quicken Spell for retaliation and then ready a Counter for when goober wants to cast his Wail of the Banshee? He must not be God then. Or Batman.
And Wizards have all of the spells they need to make having a Fortitude Save a complete joke. Even so, everybody knows Fortitude Saves aren't important anyway; everything that can't counter Fortitude-Save effects has good Fortitude Saves, and everything that can has bad Fortitude Saves, but that number doesn't matter.
@ LazarX: And they invest in those items at no cost to their spellcasting capabilities, because if they aren't casting spells, they aren't doing their job. A Fighter, on the other hand, when he invests in those items, loses out on a lot of damage that, in the hands of another more competent Martial, can do without, and quite easily.
Also, immunities and protections granted from spells > rolling 1's and surprise attacks, infinitely so. The God Wizard (AKA Batman) and the God Cleric (AKA Mr. Immortal) have these trump cards, making the need for Saving Throws a complete joke.
Naw, plenty of monsters have Fort save SLAs and are simply chum for fighters. . .until you realize
that fighters are useless against fliers, casters, flying casters, and anything that can use a Will or Reflex based Save or Suck.
Eh, no. the fighter have problem with the saves, but they are as fine as the other full BAB against the thing you listed.
Of course you can say that a spell sundering barbarian is better against caster, true. BUt then that barbarian sucks agaisnt fliers.
Side question: What the heck is Celestial Plate? As far as I can find, there is Celestial Mail, and a Celestial Shield. There is no 'Celestial' ability, or if there is, I can't find it.Armor Training is about the Dex bonus. Armor Mastery is about the speed.
Celestial Mail allows a +8 Dex bonus...26 Dex. Higher then almost any fighter is likely to get. Mithral Celestial Mail? 30 Dex? Why do you need Armor Training, again? If you don't have a 32+ Dex, Armor Training has NO BENEFIT for you.
Celestial Plate allows a +5 Dex bonus...a 20 Dex. And you can make Mithral Celestial Plate, allowing +7/24 Dex. Unless your fighter is going to get a higher Dex then 24, ARMOR TRAINING HAS NO VALUE FOR AC.
Is an underpriced item that can be found in an ap (rise of the runelodrs?). By iteself the item is not that insulting though, but hte posibility of mithral celestial full plate is silly.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-armor/specific-magic-armor/celest ial-plate-armor
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/additionalMonsters/daemon.html#_daemon,- olethrodaemon
This killed both Wizards in my party in a single action, but could virtually not affect the fighter on any meaningful level and died in two rounds. . .
@ Nathanael Love: End-Game Wizards without points in UMD+scrolls/wands of Death Ward, or casting spells such as Globe of Invulnerability, Prismatic Sphere, etc. end up dying by creatures that can cast Wail of the Banshee? A spell that they too can mimic, with an even higher Save DC, not including a Greater Metamagic Rod to make it even stronger?
Seems legit.
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@ Nathanael Love: End-Game Wizards without points in UMD+scrolls/wands of Death Ward, or casting spells such as Globe of Invulnerability, Prismatic Sphere, etc. end up dying by creatures that can cast Wail of the Banshee? A spell that they too can mimic, with an even higher Save DC, not including a Greater Metamagic Rod to make it even stronger?
Seems legit.
Not having a minute per day effect on 24 hours a day and losing initiative to something with a +12 is that incredulous to you?
Sorry. . . I forgot the rules of the Board "Wizard always wins initiative; every spell wizard could cast is ALWAYS active; Wizard always succeeds every save and everything that he targets always fails."
I ALWAYS overlook that section of the Core Rules somehow. . .
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Side question: What the heck is Celestial Plate? As far as I can find, there is Celestial Mail, and a Celestial Shield. There is no 'Celestial' ability, or if there is, I can't find it.
@ Nathanael Love: End-Game Wizards without points in UMD+scrolls/wands of Death Ward, or casting spells such as Globe of Invulnerability, Prismatic Sphere, etc. end up dying by creatures that can cast Wail of the Banshee? A spell that they too can mimic, with an even higher Save DC, not including a Greater Metamagic Rod to make it even stronger?
Seems legit.
Not having a minute per day effect on 24 hours a day and losing initiative to something with a +12 is that incredulous to you?
Sorry. . . I forgot the rules of the Board "Wizard always wins initiative; every spell wizard could cast is ALWAYS active; Wizard always succeeds every save and everything that he targets always fails."
I ALWAYS overlook that section of the Core Rules somehow. . .
Firstly, there is an item for it to be active at all times. If not, then having a Scroll of Quickened Death Ward available for UMD isn't difficult to possess if you're fighting things that have Wail of the Banshee as a spell.
Also, Wish is totally a thing too. Something which would otherwise laugh at the creature's spell.
Secondly, a Wizard who isn't boosting his Initiative is letting the enemy have the chance to make the encounter-changing move before he makes his. Such a Wizard is no God Wizard, and quite frankly he'd be in the same position as the Big Stupid Fighter who doesn't know if his master is the party Wizard or the enemy Wizard, and he most certainly is no Batman.
Thirdly, Wizards are the most powerful characters in the game, and are only as weak as the player's playstyle. This is fact, and there is nothing in the game outside of GM FIAT that says otherwise.
What weaknesses? Alignment restriction, adhering to a code of conduct, crappy touch AC, the ability to fall any moment, and not being as useful when NOT fighting evil creatures.
The alignment restriction is only a problem if the rest of the party and/or the DM make it one. It's a heroic alignment, play a hero!
Crappy Touch AC is exactly equal to every other melee.
Against non-evils, they have awesome saves, immunities, self-healing, spells, and can weapon bond for a +1 to +6 bonus that's as good as a Fighter's Weapon Training, and can do it for longer time periods and more often as they level, effectively giving themselves a customizable weapon.
==Aelryinth
+1
We had many Paladins in our Gaming group and the alignment restriction has never been a problem and isn’t a problem as long as the DM and the players are mature and not jerks.My Paladin is level 8 now and obviously the fighter generally deals more damage, but my paladin is far more versatile.
At level 11 my Paladin will pick quicken spell like ability and will be able to activate weapon bond as a swift action and when I fight non evil creatures and can just stand and soak up damage and wear the enemy down.
And I got spells to help me. Divine favor will be +3/+3 at level 10 thanks to a trait.
I can go on and on. Paladins rock,….but bards rock more :)
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what race is your paladin that your taking quicken spell like ability?
Any? You need GM permission since it's a Bestiary Feat, but there are no racial requirements.
Aren't all Paladin spells regular spells? Not SLA?
He's taking it for Divine Bond, not a spell, so he can enhance his weapon as a Swift.
Am I the only person who thinks that characters should have weaknesses?
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Am I the only person who thinks that characters should have weaknesses?
It's one thing for characters to have weaknesses. It's another thing for some classes to have weaknesses that they can cover with innate class abilities and smart play, and other classes to have weaknesses that can only be covered by permanent expenditure of feats or WBL, or by asking the first set of classes to spend resources and actions.
For another thing, "Not good at melee combat" and "Can't wear heavy armor" quickly become rather piddling weaknesses next to "Can't break the laws of nature".
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Because all classes should have all good saves?
Why yes, they should. That was one of the major balancing elements in 1st. and 2nd. edition D&D. High level fighters especially were very likely to shrug off spells cast at them.
Thank you for pointing out one of the areas in which WoTC really screwed up the game system.
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Divine Bond (Sp): Upon reaching 5th level, a paladin forms a divine bond with her god. This bond can take one of two forms. Once the form is chosen, it cannot be changed.
The first type of bond allows the paladin to enhance her weapon as a standard action by calling upon the aid of a celestial spirit for 1 minute per paladin level.
I am not out to argue, just doesn't seem like a SLA to me, again I said I could be wrong.
@ Nathanael Love: End-Game Wizards without points in UMD+scrolls/wands of Death Ward, or casting spells such as Globe of Invulnerability, Prismatic Sphere, etc. end up dying by creatures that can cast Wail of the Banshee? A spell that they too can mimic, with an even higher Save DC, not including a Greater Metamagic Rod to make it even stronger?
Seems legit.
Not having a minute per day effect on 24 hours a day and losing initiative to something with a +12 is that incredulous to you?
Sorry. . . I forgot the rules of the Board "Wizard always wins initiative; every spell wizard could cast is ALWAYS active; Wizard always succeeds every save and everything that he targets always fails."
I ALWAYS overlook that section of the Core Rules somehow. . .
Firstly, there is an item for it to be active at all times. If not, then having a Scroll of Quickened Death Ward available for UMD isn't difficult to possess if you're fighting things that have Wail of the Banshee as a spell.
Also, Wish is totally a thing too. Something which would otherwise laugh at the creature's spell.
Secondly, a Wizard who isn't boosting his Initiative is letting the enemy have the chance to make the encounter-changing move before he makes his. Such a Wizard is no God Wizard, and quite frankly he'd be in the same position as the Big Stupid Fighter who doesn't know if his master is the party Wizard or the enemy Wizard, and he most certainly is no Batman.
Thirdly, Wizards are the most powerful characters in the game, and are only as weak as the player's playstyle. This is fact, and there is nothing in the game outside of GM FIAT that says otherwise.
100% disagree. not every character has whichever item that makes them immune you mention.
Not every single Wizard has more than +12 Initiative and there are still dice rolls involved.
I see no way in which Wish has any effect in this situation, since again-- fail initiative, fail save, dead-- no chance to cast wish.
If by GM Fiat you mean a play-style wherein the Wizard ALWAYS gets to decide what's going to happen and PCs are never encountered.
Sorry-- the Creature I linked has Greater Teleport at will. It appears in the middle of the party because they have ticked off high level outsider lords, then initiative is rolled (didn't even give it a chance to get a surprise round) and it wins initiative. Then a save is failed.
Is this GM Fiat? Or is this simply an encounter in which GM doesn't bend over backwards to MAKE wizard the most broken class in the game?
Because if using all the possible elements of creatures against your players is GM fiat and you have to let Wizards always know what they are fighting ahead of time and spend rounds ahead of combat to prepare well. . .yes, in that playstyle this is a fact.
So Sick of this "Wizards win every encounter and fighters do nothing"
claim- Wizards have weaknesses too.
Also, at the point where your argument is that every single wizard on the planet has max ranks in UMD and a scroll of a 4th level Cleric spell at all time, I begin to get incredulous. . . you might as well say Fighter can have scroll of Wish. . .
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Has all spells prepared at all times, cuz divination.
Duh.
Am I the only person who thinks that characters should have weaknesses?
Probably not, it isjust htat fighter have more innate weakness.
Also, Wizards don't fail Will Saves, they fail Fort saves. And then they die. No extra saves, ect, ect. . . Wail of the Banshee and then both Wizards are dead, and the fighter has to win without them.Emergency Force Sphere. Hello blocking of line of effect as an immediate action. It is level 4 so if you are fighting something that can cast Wail of the Banshee you have lots of them. If you are very paranoid then you have it set as a Preferred Spell.
Next non argument?
Is not the izard flying? because I am seeing that emergency force sphere just create a dome not an actual spehre,lets assume that the wizard is flying because every scrodinger wizard is flying always.
Then the force sphere do not protect them against whail of the banshee, because it does not need line of effect, it is an spread effect.
and besides, now the wizard now that spell the enemie will have?
And besides, who says the wizard actually have great will saves? wizard wills ave is mediocrea at best.
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Spread effects won't bypass walls. And it's called a Force Sphere, not a dome, so it extends 360.
The fact remains that the wizard has spells that can help cover for his weaknesses on saves. Those are class features, independent of his general feats.
The fighter's only elective feats are combat feats, NONE of which help with saves. So, his class has no help for him at all.
Add to that the fact the fighter has MAD, and the wizard has SAD, and that doesn't help the mix much. The wizard also doesn't have the armor and weapon outlay a fighter does, which allows him to focus more on personal protection.
But the key thing is that the wizard has class features that help him cover his weaknesses and expand his strengths. The fighter has class features that do nothing for his weaknesses and only work with his current strengths. It's a completely different paradigm.
Yes, you can stick an ioun stone into a wayfinder and deal with MANY Will saves. But that means you've just forced a mandatory item purchase on a class, so you may as well make it a permanent ability. I'd prefer to have a good Will save over having to have a Wayfinder w Ioun Stone combination on all my fighters.
==Aelryinth
Note to self: If I ever play a high level wizard, contingency a teleport at level 15 to teleport me home if I lose initiative. Probably cause my friends all sorts of trouble, so good characters probably shouldn't do this...
I'm pretty sure emergency force sphere actually is a hemisphere.
@ Nathanael Love: When you're hitting the end-game and you aren't covering all the bases, you're only asking to die, if you're fighting creatures as strong as the one you're citing. An item which makes a spell become a 24 hour effect is in fact an actual item, and quite frankly is an investment that all Wizards should make if they want to be the God Wizard, AKA Batman.
And that's the whole point of pumping Initiative as a Wizard; you make the first move, you become the first (and with the right spell, only) creature in the encounter to make his encounter-shifting turn and end the encounter right then and there, or make it so trivial it no longer becomes a threat.
You're also missing Contingency, as Gregory pointed out, a fail-safe that all Wizards should have in place, several times over, in the off-chance they don't get their first move. I'd like to see whatever you're fighting try to bypass a Prismatic Sphere/Globe of Invulnerability/Whatever when they perform their original action and have it fail.
I hate to say it, but by the end-game, creatures with Greater Teleport (since you've been dealing with those kinds of creatures since approximately level 8 or so) getting the first move and slaughtering your entire party in the first round of combat only proves the God Wizard isn't truly being the God Wizard. At best he's a goober who can throw nukes if he's getting "surprised" by CR 20+ Demons who randomly tries to find him and kill him. (And if he is a God Wizard, they would only fail horribly.)
@ LazarX: Don't make me laugh; we've played adventures where we would be in town at level 1, or level 2 if we're lucky, and we would never hit a town again until approximately level 18 or so. And the spellcasters on those adventures still dominated, even if they had no access to a Magic Mart until the end-game.
Not to mention, when the end-game creatures all have spells to cast, it's a little hard to make a difficult or even interesting encounter without spellcaster creatures.
dot.
Design Manager
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I call BS. Fighters have this thing where they can actually specialise in two styles of combat rather well thanks to the number of bonus combat feats they have.I introduce you to the concept known as.... Archery.
I also introduce you to the concept known as.... Teamwork. In one of our fights we had a wizard in our party who helped dismantle the caster's protections with some counterspelling and a successful dispel and two. But it ultimately was the fighter who took him down, by no small part in readying his action to shoot when our wizard cast who in turn had readied his action to counter by dispel.
No, in your scenario the Wizard won the fight. You take the Wizard out of the equation, that fight doesn't get won. By contrast, you replace the Fighter with any other class with a bow, or even a lower CR ranged summon creature, and you get the same result. The Fighter didn't add anything to that scenario that couldn't have been accomplished by any other class, or by the wizard himself with a summoned pet.
Spread effects won't bypass walls. And it's called a Force Sphere, not a dome, so it extends 360.
==Aelryinth
Emergency Force Sphere
School evocation [force]; Level sorcerer/wizard 4
CASTING
Casting Time 1 immediate action
Components V
EFFECT
Range 5 ft.
Effect 5-ft.-radius hemisphere of force centered on you
Duration 1 round/level (D)
Saving Throw None; Spell Resistance no
DESCRIPTION
As wall of force, except you create a hemispherical of force with hardness 20 and a number of hit points equal to 10 per caster level. The bottom edge of the dome forms a relatively watertight space if you are standing on a reasonably flat surface. The dome shape means that falling debris (such as rocks from a collapsing ceiling) tend to tumble to the side and pile up around the base of the dome. If you make a DC 20 Craft (stonemasonry), Knowledge (engineering), or Profession (architect or engineer) check, the debris is stable enough that it retains its dome-like configuration when the spell ends, otherwise it collapses.
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Naw, plenty of monsters have Fort save SLAs and are simply chum for fighters. . .until you realize
that fighters are useless against fliers, casters, flying casters, and anything that can use a Will or Reflex based Save or Suck.
flyers: second best archer in the game, flyers = dead
casters: spell breaker, disruptive, step up and strike, teleport tactician, grapple, anchoring long sword,reflex: who cares, super high HP and a ring of evasion with a naturally high dex and a belt of physical perfection (or what ever quality you choose up until you can afford it)
will: iron will, cloak of resistance, trait bonus, improved iron will, deflect ray, +8 guardian/anchoring blade, +6 reflective shield, head band of wisdom base wisdom of 10 = will save of 22 (26 if a dwarf)
this is all on the same fighter btw. i see no blaring weaknesses. is this an optimized i hit for 50k 2 handed fighter, no! But man oh man this guy can lay some beats on casters.
Nobody is disagreeing that the fighter can put up the damage numbers. And when they talk about flying foes, they are talking about fighters who decided, you know, to be master swordsmen, and spend their feats on that, NOT on trying to ineffectively dual-path as archers.
Yes, archery is THE most effective way to be a fighter. Why? Because it's the most feat-dependent fighting style, catering to fighters; It doesn't get a 1.5 bonus for Power Attack or Str like melee does, which caters to non-fighters; and it doesn't force you to move to attack an enemy, which lends itself to full attacks.
Also keep in mind a very salient point here: By class design, a fighter is ALWAYS worse at a secondary weapon then his primary weapon. This goes double if he bothers to specialize in his primary.
Other melee classes? Damage does not change when you shift weapon styles. Barbs can get a bow that gives them full Str bonus; rangers still get FE; Paladins can still smite.
==Aelryinth
Spread effects won't bypass walls. And it's called a Force Sphere, not a dome, so it extends 360.
==Aelryinth
Emergency Force Sphere
School evocation [force]; Level sorcerer/wizard 4
CASTINGCasting Time 1 immediate action
Components V
EFFECTRange 5 ft.
Effect 5-ft.-radius hemisphere of force centered on you
Duration 1 round/level (D)
Saving Throw None; Spell Resistance noDESCRIPTION
As wall of force, except you create a hemispherical of force with hardness 20 and a number of hit points equal to 10 per caster level. The bottom edge of the dome forms a relatively watertight space if you are standing on a reasonably flat surface. The dome shape means that falling debris (such as rocks from a collapsing ceiling) tend to tumble to the side and pile up around the base of the dome. If you make a DC 20 Craft (stonemasonry), Knowledge (engineering), or Profession (architect or engineer) check, the debris is stable enough that it retains its dome-like configuration when the spell ends, otherwise it collapses.
ANd so they call a dome a sphere (rolls eyes). Forgive me for relying on the accuracy of the spell's name.
The point still stands. It's a solid barrier and interrupts line of effect. A Spread is not going to get through it anymore then it will get through a stone wall...which is much softer, actually.
==Aelryinth
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Nobody is disagreeing that the fighter can put up the damage numbers. And when they talk about flying foes, they are talking about fighters who decided, you know, to be master swordsmen, and spend their feats on that, NOT on trying to ineffectively dual-path as archers.
i think what you are trying to say is that a badly built fighter is bad? yeah i agree. a well built fighter isn't a focused DPR character but a rounded character. Paizo need to get there s&+* together and give fighters better anti caster tech. they have a good start but need to allow for spell sunder at will, like barbarians, and more ways to reach the casters.
as to the second point you only need 6 feats to be good at archery and one enchantment. feats are:precise shot, point blank shot, rapid shot, many shot, clustered shots, and improved precise shot. only enchantment you need is seeking, and adaptive but this is more for convenience.
the only difference between my archery and my two handed or my sword and shild melee is +1 to hit/damage, from weapon training, and maybe more wealth pushed in that direction. other then that its still fully viable. something you cant say for a barbarian who cant stack those feats like a fighter can.
21 feats for a fighter, means i would still have 15 left for melee and defenses. while that barbarian (non human) would only have 4 assuming he tried to be a ranged character and a melee character. now a barbarian doesn't need many more feats then power attack, improved sunder, furious focus, and dragon style. even then hes not getting all those feats until 19 while that fighter has already completed the core of his build by 12.
Am I the only person who thinks that characters should have weaknesses?It's one thing for characters to have weaknesses. It's another thing for some classes to have weaknesses that they can cover with innate class abilities and smart play, and other classes to have weaknesses that can only be covered by permanent expenditure of feats or WBL, or by asking the first set of classes to spend resources and actions.
For another thing, "Not good at melee combat" and "Can't wear heavy armor" quickly become rather piddling weaknesses next to "Can't break the laws of nature".
Any weakness that you can cover up so easily is not a weakness at all.
When I say that every character should have a weakness, I don't mean every class--I mean every character, no matter how they're built. Some weaknesses are more pronounced, some are more explicit, but every character outside of the Pun-Pun Realms absolutely should--must--have a weakness. Otherwise, what's the point if playing such a character?
Fighters are good at fighting. They do poorly against magic. That's a feature, not a bug. Different fighter builds may sacrifice some of the fighter's strengths to partially offset or mutate the weakness, but there is always something at which a given character will have little or no defense. That's good! It keeps the game interesting, provides a sense of danger, and gives other characters a chance to shine. Obsessing over making a character invincible is essentially trying to ruin the game.
The barbarian's main source of power is his rage. Rage works perfectly good with any weapon, he doesn't have to make an investment or choice between stuff.
The Fighter, by definition, is worse off with a secondary weapon, and worse yet with a tertiary.
And that's the main shtick of the Fighter, getting worse with every different weapon you hand him.
A Fighter who wants to be a master swordsman isn't a badly built fighter...he's a classic archetype. He won't always have access to ranged weapons, either, which is another problem.
To make an awesome archer requires a lot of feats, I DID point that out. To make an effective archer requires 2...Deadly Aim for more damage and Precise SHot so you don't shoot your friends. That's pretty much it. Rapid Shot and Multishot are gravy.
I would also like to point out that Fighters don't have 21 feats as Class Features. They have 11 Combat Feats, which are considerably more restrictive. You can't buy Iron Will with a Fighter's bonus feats. Those bonus feats are meant to offset the class feature's of other melees...you know, like Rage Powers, Smites, Favored Enemy, Superstitious, Cha to Saves, Immunity to broad forms of spells, Evasion, and the like.
Nor do they have magical gear as a class feature. Or +8 Weapons or +6 Shields, which aren't published anywhere official. Using magic items to try and replicate what other classes get as part of their class means you are automatically behind the curve.
==Aelryinth
Am I the only person who thinks that characters should have weaknesses?It's one thing for characters to have weaknesses. It's another thing for some classes to have weaknesses that they can cover with innate class abilities and smart play, and other classes to have weaknesses that can only be covered by permanent expenditure of feats or WBL, or by asking the first set of classes to spend resources and actions.
For another thing, "Not good at melee combat" and "Can't wear heavy armor" quickly become rather piddling weaknesses next to "Can't break the laws of nature".
Any weakness that you can cover up so easily is not a weakness at all.
When I say that every character should have a weakness, I don't mean every class--I mean every character, no matter how they're built. Some weaknesses are more pronounced, some are more explicit, but every character outside of the Pun-Pun Realms absolutely should--must--have a weakness. Otherwise, what's the point if playing such a character?
Fighters are good at fighting. They do poorly against magic. That's a feature, not a bug. Different fighter builds may sacrifice some of the fighter's strengths to partially offset or mutate the weakness, but there is always something at which a given character will have little or no defense. That's good! It keeps the game interesting, provides a sense of danger, and gives other characters a chance to shine. Obsessing over making a character invincible is essentially trying to ruin the game.
Fighters are good at fighting, and resisting all forms of attacks - that's why they are martial combatants. Except they aren't good at resisting attacks - that's a bug, not a feature.
The feature is that Fighters use absolutely no magic. Except that's a bug, too, because Fighters don't get anything to make up for it.
==Aelryinth
There's also one more question you should ask yourself; if the super-powerful, "end-gamey" playstyles are "horribly flawed" and the game being supposedly "not built around it" (even though there are rules for such gameplay), what becomes the absolute perfectly reasonable, flawless playstyle that one must judge the value from? There is no one right answer to this question, because it varies from gameplay to gameplay, and expecting a "One Size Fits All" answer from a game that comes as varied and different as this one is only wishful thinking.
There is a right answer to that question. Go pick up any AP, you'll note very few of them advanced to the highest levels of the game. You'll should also note the intended 15 point stat buy and the encounters designed within each. That is the base line for the game. That is the basis on which any design element should be judged. It could also be argued that it could be judged from PFS play. The entirety of Pathfinder is built 100% by the designers around what you find in the APs and PFS play. ANY other playstyle (yours, mine, anyones) that deviates from that is not a basis on which to make value judgements of class design or any other element.