Why don't fighters / rogues / etc get "epic" at high levels?


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A low level fighter can hit an enemy pretty damn hard.

A low level wizard can put someone to sleep, or fire missiles of pure magic at them, etc. etc.

A high level wizard can more or less remake reality to his will

A high level fighter... can hit an enemy really hard.

Why don't those sort of classes get more epic features at higher levels? By level 7 or so you've already surpassed what any real human can do in terms of raw numbers... so why not let a level 20 someone do some really insane things?

They're already insane in some ways: A level 20 fighter can swim through lava, jump out of an airplane thousands of feet into the air, or stab himself through the gut.. and in all cases he could walk away afterwards without much trouble.

But why not a fighter who's so skilled with his sword he can create near-magical effects with it? Or so skilled with his sword he can slice through all these magical barriers most people hide behind?

A rogue so damn good he can hide without even needing to duck behind something (HiPS) or steal things he shouldn't even be able to reach... just because they're that damn good?

It just seems like in some ways a max level character is so far beyond what a normal person can do and yet in others they're left with pretty straight forward and linear options and I'm just wondering... why?


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Because martials are balanced like Pathfinder is Lord of the Rings and casters are balanced like Pathfinder is ancient mythology.


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Arachnofiend wrote:
Because martials are balanced like Pathfinder is Lord of the Rings and casters are balanced like Pathfinder is ancient mythology.

First, I don't want this to be a caster vs martial thread. The wizard was just an example of the comparable progression here.

I understand the LoTR thing, but LotR ends at level 6 or so... everything past that is way beyond the scope of that setting. A level 20 fighter, theoretically, is way beyond the scope of most high fantasy fiction in general.


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It's simple. There's a large group of people who believe that Martial = realistic. If someone couldn't do it in real life, they protest. They tend to ignore all the things that the martials can already do that completely laugh at realism.

Mid Level Martials should be like RWBY characters. Those who disagree can take it up with Ruby. (Seriously... counting days til season 2 here...)


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Casters rule, martials drool. That's the short of it.


Anzyr wrote:

It's simple. There's a large group of people who believe that Martial = realistic. If someone couldn't do it in real life, they protest. They tend to ignore all the things that the martials can already do that completely laugh at realism.

Mid Level Martials should be like RWBY characters. Those who disagree can take it up with Ruby.

Arguing realism is perfectly valid in its own scope

My point being though that by the time you're level 10 you've far left the scope of realism in many ways. A level 10 fighter can regularly double the world longjump record and with some effort and luck could triple it. He has enough health to survive falls off cliffs and can be run through with a sword multiple times. He can also beat up a bear with his bare hands with minimal effort (etc).

It then gets disassociative though because in every respect that isn't within those few confines he's as effective as he was at level 1.

And aren't disasociative mechanics really bad?


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swoosh wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
Because martials are balanced like Pathfinder is Lord of the Rings and casters are balanced like Pathfinder is ancient mythology.

First, I don't want this to be a caster vs martial thread. The wizard was just an example of the comparable progression here.

I understand the LoTR thing, but LotR ends at level 6 or so... everything past that is way beyond the scope of that setting. A level 20 fighter, theoretically, is way beyond the scope of most high fantasy fiction in general.

That's kinda the long and short of it, though.

If casters don't do anything beyond what Gandalf does, casters are fine and balanced with the martials.

If the martials are designed to look more like Gilgamesh or Cu Chulainn than Aragorn, then martials are fine and balanced with the casters.

It's only necessary for martials to be epic at high levels because casters are epic at high levels. I don't really see how you can have this discussion without comparing the two.


swoosh wrote:
Anzyr wrote:

It's simple. There's a large group of people who believe that Martial = realistic. If someone couldn't do it in real life, they protest. They tend to ignore all the things that the martials can already do that completely laugh at realism.

Mid Level Martials should be like RWBY characters. Those who disagree can take it up with Ruby.

Arguing realism is perfectly valid in its own scope

My point being though that by the time you're level 10 you've far left the scope of realism in many ways. A level 10 fighter can regularly double the world longjump record and with some effort and luck could triple it. He has enough health to survive falls off cliffs and can be run through with a sword multiple times. He can also beat up a bear with his bare hands with minimal effort (etc).

It then gets disassociative though because in every respect that isn't damage or survivability or skill ranks the fighter remains as competent as he was at level 1.

Oh I agree, I meant the people that think martials = realism, continue to apply the rules of our Level 1-6 universe to level 10+ characters. And honestly, I can't think of many people in real life history that could be contenders for being level 6. I wouldn't be shocked if no one ever got higher then Level 4.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

This has been contemplated for quite a long time.

It could also be asked, why can't a wizard contribute more at lower levels? A fighter can continue a fight as long as their hit points are positive (sometimes even longer than that). A first level mage fires off four spells and then becomes as useful in combat as a first level commoner. Maybe even less as wizards tend not to gain high physical stats.

If mages were effective at all levels, there would be little point to play anything else statistically.

If martials were equal to mages at high levels, most people would never play mages since mages would always be in the shadow of the martial characters.

This leaves the age old power graph of D&D / Pathfinder. At low levels the martial PCs must protect the weaker mages in the group, outshining them in combat. At high levels, mages alter reality and hopefully protect the martials that once protected them.

Is it fair? That's up to debate. Yet it tends to be far more common to have low level play than high level. So odds are, the martial characters would shine longer and more often than mages.


KestrelZ wrote:

This has been contemplated for quite a long time.

It could also be asked, why can't a wizard contribute more at lower levels? A fighter can continue a fight as long as their hit points are positive (sometimes even longer than that). A first level mage fires off four spells and then becomes as useful in combat as a first level commoner. Maybe even less as wizards tend not to gain high physical stats.

If mages were effective at all levels, there would be little point to play anything else statistically.

If martials were equal to mages at high levels, most people would never play mages since mages would always be in the shadow of the martial characters.

This leaves the age old power graph of D&D / Pathfinder. At low levels the martial PCs must protect the weaker mages in the group, outshining them in combat. At high levels, mages alter reality and hopefully protect the martials that once protected them.

Is it fair? That's up to debate. Yet it tends to be far more common to have low level play than high level. So odds are, the martial characters would shine longer and more often than mages.

Mages outshine martials at low levels to. A martial might be able to drop one guy in a turn. A caster using Color Spray can drop the encounter. Which is neat that you brought there being no reason play anything else statistically. Because... well surprise... there isn't. At least not if we're speaking statistically.


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Rogues and Fighters do get epic at high levels. They just don't get as different as casters do.

Fighters can jump from space and be perfectly fine, drink gallons of poison without consequence, can wrestle rhinos to the ground single handily.

GMs just don't tend to throw low level mooks at the party so it's harder to notice. APs tend to be a little better about that.


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KestrelZ wrote:


It could also be asked, why can't a wizard contribute more at lower levels? A fighter can continue a fight as long as their hit points are positive (sometimes even longer than that). A first level mage fires off four spells and then becomes as useful in combat as a first level commoner.
Maybe even less as wizards tend not to gain high physical stats.

If mages were effective at all levels, there would be little point to play anything else statistically.

If martials were equal to mages at high levels, most people would never play mages since mages would always be in the shadow of the martial characters.

This paradigm hasn't been true since 3.0 was released though. First level spells can often win fights with a single casting... making the "mages are useless at low levels" adage kind of an exaggeration in the modern RPG world.

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This leaves the age old power graph of D&D / Pathfinder. At low levels the martial PCs must protect the weaker mages in the group, outshining them in combat. At high levels, mages alter reality and hopefully protect the martials that once protected them.

The "age old power graph" was built for a 1e and 2e world where mages were completely ineffective at low levels though. Not a 3e/PF/4e/5e world where mages are never bad.

Either way this is rather tangential to the question at hand as to why fighters don't have nonlinear options at higher levels (and even if we do take the point for granted I'm not sure you can argue the minor power gap from 1-3 is a good trade for the massive power gap from 7th-20th)

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Rogues and Fighters do get epic at high levels. They just don't get as different as casters do.

Fighters can jump from space and be perfectly fine, drink gallons of poison without consequence, can wrestle rhinos to the ground single handily.

I mentioned that in my OP. I know fighters can do crazy things when related to damage and health.

My larger point here was that outside that window the fighter's options remain very linear. The 20th level fighter isn't any better at sundering magic and isn't particularly more competent at nonstandard tricks or shenanigans than the 5th level fighter. He does hit tremendously harder and have tremendously more defense, but the fighter's growth is strictly linear, his options only expand outward rather than forward in a limited degree.

Essentially it's this:

The first level fighter walks up to an enemy and attacks them. The 20th level fighter walks up to an enemy and attacks them... better. There's no real horizontal progression there. No epic feats of martial prowess, just doing the same thing a lot harder.


Ya, but they can't say... attack every enemy between point A and B. Which is sad. And they still rely on move - Full Attack. Like they have since level 6. Merely by looking it would be difficult to tell a level 1 from a level 20 fighter, if their opponents made any effort to force the Fighter to move.


swoosh wrote:
First, I don't want this to be a caster vs martial thread. The wizard was just an example of the comparable progression here.

That's... actually a large part of it though. Casters are built on a system where they get exponentially stronger, but martials are much more linear. Martials are built on a system where they full attack from level one and onward and rarely get options that do something other than supplement their full attack scheme. Casters are built on a system where they continually gain more and more powerful options and their old options continue to scale with them usually. All martials are built on this full attack gig and all casters are built on vancian casting.


swoosh wrote:
The first level fighter walks up to an enemy and attacks them. The 20th level fighter walks up to an enemy and attacks them... better. There's no real horizontal progression there. No epic feats of martial prowess, just doing the same thing a lot harder.

True, but should every class progress the same way?

Of course I've tried making up things like you are suggesting.


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I've often found that the disparity usually comes from optimized characters rather than more broadly defined ones.

I have a high caster party (one magi, 2 sorcerers, one bard and a fighter/ranger/barbarian) and I've found that the sorcerers have to pick up the crossbow in a number of encounters. as a result they are a little more diverse. they haven't dumped their Str and con scores, so their Cha scores are not as high for instance. and their feat selection is a little more martial.

The fighter crossed into barbarian and ranger so he could cover more useful ground, adding skills across the board and class features rather than power trough his favourite feat trees. He wants to add rogue so he can have some of the sneak attack goodness if ever he has to aid one of the casters (obviously, by flanking) and the extra skills are nice.

all in all, if you play the optimized versions, you get what you get. If you diversify, then things change (and tend to throw the CR system out of whack a bit)

Batts

Paizo Employee Design Manager

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To actually talk about the OP's topic...

I've always kind of thought it was dumb that high level skills are still bounded by silly restrictions like maximum move speed, etc.

I'd like to see characters with 20 ranks in climb have a climb speed and the ability to do things like climb a wall with their toes while fighting with a sword and shield, or characters with 20 ranks in swim have a swim speed and the ability to hold their breath for hours at a time. Characters with 20 ranks in acrobatics should be able to simulate overland flight with Hulk-style jumps, and characters with 20 ranks in Perception should be able to pierce invisibility by detecting the subtle movements of air around a hidden opponent.

I get the whole realism thing, but let's face the fact that that was already left in the dust back around 7th level. Frankly, I think it's more of a stretch to say that a guy who can benchpress a dump-truck and weave through a kraken's tentacles without ever being touched can't jump more than 30 feet ever without magical assistance.


Iczer wrote:
I've often found that the disparity usually comes from optimized characters rather than more broadly defined ones.

Nothing you stated actually made the classes less linear though. You can multiclass a fighter with rogue and ranger, but he still ends up as a guy who wants to whack things, but now he has some skill points to throw around and can get sneak attack damage when it applies.

Sorcerer with a crossbow doesn't work quiet as well at higher levels when your 10 BAB behind and you have access to a wide variety of spells and large quantity of spells. Nothing stops any character from just picking up a crossbow really, though some might use it slightly better than others, almost all of them use them the same way(attack/full attack), and to be honest that applies to most weapons because weapons don't have amazing abilities or dynamic tactics attached so much as slightly different numbers. Some key off martial maneuvers better, but maneuvers have their own problems and require a rather large investment.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

You want a martial like that.... then play one of the magical martial characters.... Paladin, Ranger,. You want more magic in your martial? Play a Magus or a Bardor take the eldritch knight path. Or pick up some magic items., or go mythic.

There are those of us who LIKE our martials to be defined solely by their skill of arms and sheer toughness in battle. The fighter is just fine he way it is for these people.


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LazarX wrote:

You want a martial like that.... then play one of the magical martial characters.... Paladin, Ranger,. You want more magic in your martial? Play a Magus or a Bardor take the eldritch knight path. Or pick up some magic items., or go mythic.

There are those of us who LIKE our martials to be defined solely by their skill of arms and sheer toughness in battle. The fighter is just fine he way it is for these people.

Or... The game could allow for more fantastic characters at high levels, and if you don't like it, you just play at lower levels, where realistic martial characters make sense. There are those of us who LIKE our high level martials to actually have high-level abilities.

Your preference is no more valid than anyone else's.

Scarab Sages

swoosh wrote:

A high level wizard can more or less remake reality to his will

A high level fighter... can hit an enemy really hard.

Dead is Dead.

In terms of balance, it does not matter if you killed your opponent with swords or sorcery. If you want to kill your opponents with magic, play a caster. If you want to kill your opponent with weapons, play a fighter. The end result is the same.


Lemmy wrote:
Or... The game could allow for more fantastic characters at high levels, and if you don't like it, you just play at lower levels, where realistic martial characters make sense. There are those of us who LIKE our high level martials to actually have high-level abilities.

The game could have a really mundane character at high levels still, and other characters who get all those fancy super powers. His effectiveness might be questioned, but its a thing. But... the game really only has two options, with "Am full attack!" and vancian casting being those two.

No one said "put magic in martials' except Lazar. I don't know what that's about. You can have fantastic abilities without being magical.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Lemmy wrote:
LazarX wrote:

You want a martial like that.... then play one of the magical martial characters.... Paladin, Ranger,. You want more magic in your martial? Play a Magus or a Bardor take the eldritch knight path. Or pick up some magic items., or go mythic.

There are those of us who LIKE our martials to be defined solely by their skill of arms and sheer toughness in battle. The fighter is just fine he way it is for these people.

Or... The game could allow for more fantastic characters at high levels, and if you don't like it, you just play at lower levels, where realistic martial characters make sense. There are those of us who LIKE our high level martials to actually have high-level abilities.

Your preference is no more valid than anyone else's.

And I'm saying that the high level abilities EXIST. Or can you stop beating around the bush and actually DEFINE what you want? I've seen some epic martials in my day, but maybe my epic, and Fred Down the Street's epic, and your epic aren't the same thing. Then again some folks consider Conan pretty damm epic as well.


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Artanthos wrote:
swoosh wrote:

A high level wizard can more or less remake reality to his will

A high level fighter... can hit an enemy really hard.

Dead is Dead.

In terms of balance, it does not matter if you killed your opponent with swords or sorcery. If you want to kill your opponents with magic, play a caster. If you want to kill your opponent with weapons, play a fighter. The end result is the same.

There's more to the game than killing though. You have to reach a foe to full attack after all, and that infers quiet a bit! You have to survive, surpass challenges, maybe socialize, get through traps maybe, scale a wall, travel far and wide, become the very best, train them in your cause, etc.


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Exactly. I don't want Fighters flying or shooting fireballs, but I'd love seeing them being at higher levels being able to do some of the stuff Cu Chulainn did.

Silver Crusade

Artanthos wrote:
swoosh wrote:

A high level wizard can more or less remake reality to his will

A high level fighter... can hit an enemy really hard.

Dead is Dead.

In terms of balance, it does not matter if you killed your opponent with swords or sorcery. If you want to kill your opponents with magic, play a caster. If you want to kill your opponent with weapons, play a fighter. The end result is the same.

In the same vein, boring is boring. The Fighter never does anything more than swings a sword/fires an arrow. Ever. They make the same attack roll they always did. That's not epic, that's monotonous. Barbarians eventually cleave magic...at level 6. The closest thing a Fighter can come to that is moderately inconveniencing a spellcaster.

I'd rather Fighters played like actual heroes from literature, like Cu Chulainn, actually cleave a mountain. If you asked a 1st and a 20th level Fighter a solution to their problem, they'd give the same answer. Try the same with most other classes, you'll get some different responses.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
N. Jolly wrote:


I'd rather Fighters played like actual heroes from literature, like Cu Chulainn, actually cleave a mountain. If you asked a 1st and a 20th level Fighter a solution to their problem, they'd give the same answer. Try the same with most other classes, you'll get some different responses.

So in other words, you want magic in your fighters... that's how you define epic and it's a fair definition. Some of us however don't think you make a fighter epic by turning him into a wizard. So is Conan not epic at all for you then? He doesn't cleave any mountains, but he does put down a demigod or two in his time, and seize a kingdom for himself.

What makes a fighter epic at high levels are the goals he shoots for and attains. And the tricks that would have been far beyond him in the beginning of his career.


N. Jolly wrote:
Artanthos wrote:
swoosh wrote:

A high level wizard can more or less remake reality to his will

A high level fighter... can hit an enemy really hard.

Dead is Dead.

In terms of balance, it does not matter if you killed your opponent with swords or sorcery. If you want to kill your opponents with magic, play a caster. If you want to kill your opponent with weapons, play a fighter. The end result is the same.

In the same vein, boring is boring. The Fighter never does anything more than swings a sword/fires an arrow. Ever. They make the same attack roll they always did. That's not epic, that's monotonous. Barbarians eventually cleave magic...at level 6. The closest thing a Fighter can come to that is moderately inconveniencing a spellcaster.

I'd rather Fighters played like actual heroes from literature, like Cu Chulainn, actually cleave a mountain. If you asked a 1st and a 20th level Fighter a solution to their problem, they'd give the same answer. Try the same with most other classes, you'll get some different responses.

Expanding on this, you actually have to be able to, y'know, cause the death. As fighters and martials get higher level they rely, increasingly, on highly vulnerable 'solutions' to remain mobile & active. One dispel drops you from your epic encounter, and probably from the sky in point of fact.


LazarX wrote:
N. Jolly wrote:
I'd rather Fighters played like actual heroes from literature, like Cu Chulainn, actually cleave a mountain. If you asked a 1st and a 20th level Fighter a solution to their problem, they'd give the same answer. Try the same with most other classes, you'll get some different responses.
So in other words, you want magic in your fighters... that's how you define epic and it's a fair definition. Some of us however don't think you make a fighter epic by turning him into a wizard.

Cu Chullain was a wizard? Throwing fireballs n stuff?


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What a unique thread, and not one that has half a dozen similarly hot button issue threads on the front page.

But, since you asked: they do. The damage output and single target debuffing capabilities of a high level fighter, as well as the versatility in weapons Weapon Training gives, is very impressive, and can cause lots of issues in actual games.

There's just a meme going around, still left over from 3.5 despite being thoroughly false in PF, that martials are weak. Actual play rarely shows this to be the case.


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LazarX wrote:

You want a martial like that.... then play one of the magical martial characters.... Paladin, Ranger,. You want more magic in your martial? Play a Magus or a Bardor take the eldritch knight path. Or pick up some magic items., or go mythic.

There are those of us who LIKE our martials to be defined solely by their skill of arms and sheer toughness in battle. The fighter is just fine he way it is for these people.

Except sometimes people don't want to play a guy who wags his fingers and things happen. Sometimes people want to play the guy who can slice down walls in a single blow. The warrior who can cut through the magical defenses of the squishy caster. The warrior who can charge through a unit of soldiers faster than they can realize and cut down people on the way down (like greater bladed dash). Or sometimes people want to play the warrior who is like a literally whirlwind of death, moving through the battlefield and cutting down the enemy. SOmetimes people want to play the guy who can cut down with such strength that he creates a blade of air or creates a create a crater.

I mean, there are PLENTY of examples in fiction of what a High level martials should be able to do.


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Cheapy wrote:
But, since you asked: they do. The damage output and single target debuffing capabilities of a high level fighter, as well as the versatility in weapons Weapon Training gives, is very impressive, and can cause lots of issues in actual games.

Weapons training isn't versatility, it wants you to use a specific weapon group or be less, and high damage output is something everyone does and why they are linear because its mostly what they do, and where is this debuff thing? Is that something inherent in the class?

Silver Crusade

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LazarX wrote:
What makes a fighter epic at high levels are the goals he shoots for and attains. And the tricks that would have been far beyond him in the beginning of his career.

So what makes a Fighter epic aren't there abilities? That's what I'm drawing from what you said. Any other class can say that their abilities AND goals are what make them epic.

And I'll admit I'm not too up on Conan, so I don't know how he defeated this demigod, but as for getting his own kingdom, a commoner can do that, so that's not really a fair point of comparison. It'd be difficult for a commoner to do that, but in the same way, a Fighter has no class features or skills that help out with that unless they're literally walking from person to person making intimidate checks saying "COME AND LIVE IN SCENIC MY COUNTRY!"

I want super high/long jumps, blocking spells with a blade, inhuman speed, and other things that are physically beyond human limits. I want to be able to pull off literal herculean task because of my strength and prowess, to feel like I'm able to do something at higher levels besides swing better and take more damage.


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Cheapy wrote:
There's just a meme going around, still left over from 3.5 despite being thoroughly false in PF, that martials are weak. Actual play rarely shows this to be the case.

For what its worth, saying they're linear or not epic isn't the same as saying their weak imo. Pathfinder actually hasn't done much to make them less linear since 3.5, in fact the loss of resources from the sourcebooks might actually have made them more so.


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Cheapy wrote:
There's just a meme going around, still left over from 3.5 despite being thoroughly false in PF, that martials are weak. Actual play rarely shows this to be the case.

No. What's happening is that the PF play community is undergoing the same evolution 3.X did. Pathfinder caught on very well with a few specific types of player (this is not meant to imply anything negative), then expanded rapidly. Like 3.5 before it, common assumptions about the system are being challenged, and the information is being fought. What's different here is that people view the challenges to those assumptions as baggage from 3.X when they really are not.

The tools involved are different, but the end result is ultimately the same. Fighters, barbarians, they never get the tools they need to deal in a complex and changing game world. Casters get those tools from the zero day and then upgrade and augment them with better tools.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
K177Y C47 wrote:
LazarX wrote:

You want a martial like that.... then play one of the magical martial characters.... Paladin, Ranger,. You want more magic in your martial? Play a Magus or a Bardor take the eldritch knight path. Or pick up some magic items., or go mythic.

There are those of us who LIKE our martials to be defined solely by their skill of arms and sheer toughness in battle. The fighter is just fine he way it is for these people.

Except sometimes people don't want to play a guy who wags his fingers and things happen. Sometimes people want to play the guy who can slice down walls in a single blow. The warrior who can cut through the magical defenses of the squishy caster. The warrior who can charge through a unit of soldiers faster than they can realize and cut down people on the way down (like greater bladed dash). Or sometimes people want to play the warrior who is like a literally whirlwind of death, moving through the battlefield and cutting down the enemy. SOmetimes people want to play the guy who can cut down with such strength that he creates a blade of air or creates a create a crater.

I mean, there are PLENTY of examples in fiction of what a High level martials should be able to do.

And there are fighter builds that pretty much give you a lot from that list. The power attacking two handed fighter with furious focus and vital strike will pretty much one shot anyone he hits. Or blow past the hardness oof a door in his path. The rest of what you want is basically the equivalent of high powered magical spells, even if you're not using the term.

Silver Crusade

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LazarX wrote:
And there are fighter builds that pretty much give you a lot from that list. The power attacking two handed fighter with furious focus and vital strike will pretty much one shot anyone he hits. Or blow past the hardness oof a door in his path. The rest of what you want is basically the equivalent of high powered magical spells, even if you're not using the term.

I'd argue (especially going non myth Vital Strike) that said Fighter is one shotting anything level appropriate with that set up.

And they said cut through magical defenses (like blur/displacement/mirror image/etc), not a door. Any other melee class can cut through a door, and cutting through a door is something I'd expect at like 3-5th level, not epic.

The rest goes into what some would consider a spell and others would consider something that fictional fighters are capable of and have never been in PF. You want to play a fictional fighter who can actually do things like that, you pick a Barbarian and tell the Fighter to wait at camp while you actually develop new ways to deal with problems.


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LazarX wrote:

You want a martial like that.... then play one of the magical martial characters.... Paladin, Ranger,. You want more magic in your martial? Play a Magus or a Bardor take the eldritch knight path. Or pick up some magic items., or go mythic.

There are those of us who LIKE our martials to be defined solely by their skill of arms and sheer toughness in battle. The fighter is just fine he way it is for these people.

I never said I wanted to play a magical character. I said I wanted to play a high level fighter or rogue who has skills and abilities that are "just that good".

If you're saying you prefer your fighter to not be even remotely unrealistic or supernatural you're already out of luck because the figher can jump out of an airplane while stabbing himself in the stomach with his own sword and shake it off and go on with his day afterwards.

Artanthos wrote:
swoosh wrote:

A high level wizard can more or less remake reality to his will

A high level fighter... can hit an enemy really hard.

Dead is Dead.

In terms of balance, it does not matter if you killed your opponent with swords or sorcery. If you want to kill your opponents with magic, play a caster. If you want to kill your opponent with weapons, play a fighter. The end result is the same.

If combat and damage were the only thing this game was about, you'd have a point.

My main concern was with lateral power growth though.

Cheapy wrote:


There's just a meme going around, still left over from 3.5 despite being thoroughly false in PF, that martials are weak. Actual play rarely shows this to be the case.

Uh. I specifically said that I wasn't talking about power here and I specifically said that this wasn't about caster vs martial. So I'm not sure where you're getting this "meme" I'm throwing around, because this thread is explicitly not supposed to be that.

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But, since you asked: they do. The damage output and single target debuffing capabilities of a high level fighter, as well as the versatility in weapons Weapon Training gives, is very impressive, and can cause lots of issues in actual games.

Hitting hard is good, but hitting hard is just vertical growth of what the fighter already does.

As I said, the question was more of versatility and horizontal growth. The wizard was brought up merely as an example of someone who's power expands both outward and upward, rather than just upward.

The fundamental issue I have here is that if you want to emulate an epic fighter of legend, the fighter is generally a poor class to do it because his play never significantly evolves beyond walking up to an enemy and full attacking.

Moreover I don't see why there's such hostility to the thought, it's not like having more options would prevent the current paradigm from still being used: The wizard gaining access to wish and gate and planar binding and simulacrum etc. doesn't stop the blaster wizard from still having fun with fireball after all,


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swoosh wrote:


If combat and damage were the only thing this game was about, you'd have a point.

This! This right here is what drives me insane about these discussions on these boards!

People make this argument that fighter or barbarian or monk or whoever the flavor of the week is does damage just fine, so they are therefore an okay class. And my response to this is, inevitably: so what? Damage is the formality that ends combat, not the be-all end-all even within combat. What about being able to fulfill, I dunno, narrative roles?

Why is it that fighters are portrayed as town watchmen despite having no access to the skills & skill points needed to be effective officers of the law? Why are fighters portrayed as kings and leaders when they don't have the diplomacy or even the sense motive to play at the games of politics? Martials are flung into narrative roles they cannot fulfill and then expected to keep up with those roles as the game reaches mythological levels of plot (world-shattering disasters, ascendant demon princes, etc).

Sovereign Court

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My naswer is that modular design is in its infancy right now. Designers were trying to accomodate too many tastes with a single inflexible frame. Going forward I'd like to see designers put a dial on power/epic that can be adjusted by the table. "You want x playstyle? Only play this part of the game then" should not be acceptable for anyone.


Pan wrote:
My naswer is that modular design is in its infancy right now.

Is it in its infancy? I mean, gaming has been using it for at least a decade now.

Sovereign Court

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MrSin wrote:
Pan wrote:
My naswer is that modular design is in its infancy right now.
Is it in its infancy? I mean, gaming has been using it for at least a decade now.

Yeah well it doesnt work very well currently otherwise we wouldnt be having this conversation. I'd consider modular design still in its infancy.

Scarab Sages

MrSin wrote:
There's more to the game than killing though. You have to reach a foe to full attack after all, and that infers quiet a bit! You have to survive, surpass challenges, maybe socialize, get through traps maybe, scale a wall, travel far and wide, become the very best, train them in your cause, etc.

All classes are capable of all of those, unless the player chooses to neglect them.


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MrSin wrote:
Pan wrote:
My naswer is that modular design is in its infancy right now.
Is it in its infancy? I mean, gaming has been using it for at least a decade now.

He's right though, in regards to tabletops modular play hasn't been implemented very effectively or very well and is sort of new to the genre.

I know it's one of the big advertising features of 5e, but 5e looks like kind of a mess.

Scarab Sages

Prince of Knives wrote:
swoosh wrote:


If combat and damage were the only thing this game was about, you'd have a point.

This! This right here is what drives me insane about these discussions on these boards!

People make this argument that fighter or barbarian or monk or whoever the flavor of the week is does damage just fine, so they are therefore an okay class. And my response to this is, inevitably: so what? Damage is the formality that ends combat, not the be-all end-all even within combat. What about being able to fulfill, I dunno, narrative roles?

Why is it that fighters are portrayed as town watchmen despite having no access to the skills & skill points needed to be effective officers of the law? Why are fighters portrayed as kings and leaders when they don't have the diplomacy or even the sense motive to play at the games of politics? Martials are flung into narrative roles they cannot fulfill and then expected to keep up with those roles as the game reaches mythological levels of plot (world-shattering disasters, ascendant demon princes, etc).

I make no such assumption. I build characters that are capable of doing many things, including combat.


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LazarX wrote:
Lemmy wrote:
LazarX wrote:

You want a martial like that.... then play one of the magical martial characters.... Paladin, Ranger,. You want more magic in your martial? Play a Magus or a Bardor take the eldritch knight path. Or pick up some magic items., or go mythic.

There are those of us who LIKE our martials to be defined solely by their skill of arms and sheer toughness in battle. The fighter is just fine he way it is for these people.

Or... The game could allow for more fantastic characters at high levels, and if you don't like it, you just play at lower levels, where realistic martial characters make sense. There are those of us who LIKE our high level martials to actually have high-level abilities.

Your preference is no more valid than anyone else's.

And I'm saying that the high level abilities EXIST. Or can you stop beating around the bush and actually DEFINE what you want? I've seen some epic martials in my day, but maybe my epic, and Fred Down the Street's epic, and your epic aren't the same thing. Then again some folks consider Conan pretty damm epic as well.

Very high mobility (martials should leave their species movement speed behind around level 5 and continue to exceed it) both in terms of ground covered and being able to flexibly use it in combat (Moving between attacks in a full attack pattern, potentially multiples times, possibly a significant distance)

Might-Against-Magic (The ability to Parry spells of the touch and ranged touch attack varieties, the ability to carve a hole into area spells, the ability to shake off mind or body affecting magic beyond the baseline saving throw roulette)
Immense Raw Power (Cleaving a hole in a plateau or punching holes in castle walls)
Incredible Feats of Skill (High Skill Ranks should provide things like running on walls/water/air, becoming invisible, slipping through crevices significantly smaller than the Escape Artist.....)


swoosh wrote:
The first level fighter walks up to an enemy and attacks them. The 20th level fighter walks up to an enemy and attacks them... better. There's no real horizontal progression there. No epic feats of martial prowess, just doing the same thing a lot harder.

Attacking people better is pretty much the definition of martial prowess.

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