The moment you start applying logic to this, we get to point out the 20th-level fighter would never be more than five feet from his gear and would have his allies thirty feet away on the other side of the silent image curtain the bard put up.
Dude, at 20th level, everyone who hates you has access to scry-and-die. Your neighbor with the dog who digs up your flowerbed? The dog is a Conjurer and the neighbor is a Diviner.
You are paranoid or you are dead.
-.-
Dude... The point of the thread is not "How screwed is a Fighter during bath time?", but "How does a Fighter fare without his gear?". The answer is "Really freaking bad!". If the debate were about being ambushed during the night or as soon as the character wakwa up... Then Wizards would be the ones in trouble. But gear dependency? That one is on Fighters...
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To the OP - he bemoans his poor Willy saves, and proceeds to wipe the floor with the level tenners with his bath towel (capitalizing on improvised weapon, disarm shenanigans, treat as buckler) and one ranged attack with bar of soap or uses bar of soap to use grease as an (Ex) ability.
Also a quick soapy lather will provide CMD buff against grapples.
Smashing people into a porcelain bathtub should remove enough teeth to make a fine necklace. A wooden bathtub not so much, but still effective.
Recourse to perfumes, bubbles, unguents and perhaps a strigil.
And yes, you can use Weapon Finesse on bath towels. Was recently FAQ'ed. Like totes.
I'm looking at all the permanent spell effects. Between those, golem assistants, and school powers, the wizard does not even need to have spells prepared to thoroughly destroy this encounter.
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I'm looking at all the permanent spell effects. Between those, golem assistants, and school powers, the wizard does not even need to have spells prepared to thoroughly destroy this encounter.
Wait, if the wizard can have golem assistants, why can't the fighter? Golem Manuals are a thing, and are pretty cheap for a 20th level character.
Kitsune says Hi! At level 10 my save DC for enchantment effects is going to be around 26-28 for top level spells. He might save, but I certainly wouldn't bet on it - at 26, with a reroll, he has a 44% chance of saving; at 28, with the reroll, he has a 28% chance of saving. That's assuming a level 4 spell - if instead it's a Persistent Hideous Laughter, he has to make a slightly easier save but make it twice, an only gets a reroll on one of them.That being said, as has been mentioned, the 20th Level fighter is probably hosed without his gear due to poor will saves.They'd be terrible against 20th level threats. Against 10th level ones? He'd be at risk, sure, but hardly "hosed," and frankly that'd be true for most 20th level characters that aren't divine casters. I mean, starting Wis 12, +4 from a tome, Iron Will and Improved Iron Will gives him an inherent +11 with a reroll. Save DCs for a 10th level wizard will be, what, low-mid 20s? That's hardly a forgone conclusion - and remember that the wizard will undoubtedly die first if the fighter has any way to make that happen...
Chances are worse than math will tell you, because Improved Iron Will forces you to choose to reroll before knowing if you failed the roll, and because (outside of a theorycrafting environment) you won't know the DC.
So you end up rolling 13 on the d20, plus 11 (if you bought that +4 Wis tome), figure that's a decent roll and it's probably good enough, and then only after you choose not to reroll do you find out it wasn't.
That's one of the two main reasons that Improved Iron Will is one of those feats that gets a lot more credit in theorycrafting than its play performance deserves.
(the other is 1/day use)
Regardless
you have got to be kidding me.
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It hardly matters, because the idea that it's physically impossible to wear both a circlet and a headband is a) not in the game rules, and b) easily shown to be unrealistic by thirty seconds on Google image search.
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you have got to be kidding me.Regardless
Do you expect me to shit bat guano when it is a material component, too?
I expect you to have it on hand unless you have eschew materials as a feat.
I expect you to have it on hand unless you have eschew materials as a feat.
What part of being on hand means you need to wear it?
you have got to be kidding me.Regardless
I think Rhedyn may be right about this one. If we look at a spell like shield other, the text specifically states that the two rings that compose the focus of the spell must be worn.
"Components V, S, F (a pair of platinum rings worth 50 gp worn by both you and the target)"| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's one thing to say the Fighter is not necessarily going to have optimal choices. It's quite another to say the Fighter does have IUS or Lunge or Catch Off-Guard, and is not a two-weapon field, and did not invest in Improved Disarm, is not an archetype that grants unarmed options, has no SLAs gained from unusual feat choices, ... I'm actually wondering how many 20th level fighters found in the wild does not have at least ONE characteristic along these lines.
Just to provide some data points, d20pfsrd lists two Paizo-published 20th level fighters on its list of NPCs, and neither of them has even one of the things you mention.
A fighter certainly could have one of your options, but I don't think you can bear out your claim that any given 20th level fighter is all but certain to have at least one.
Please link the same source level 10 Wizard, rogue, fighter and cleric that attack the bather.
Please link the same source level 10 Wizard, rogue, fighter and cleric that attack the bather.
No thanks. I saw a suspicious claim about 20th level fighters and their feat choices, investigated it, found some stuff that suggests it was exaggerated, then posted the suggestion that it was exaggerated with the supporting links.
If you have an argument to make about 10th level NPCs, I would suggest that you make it, and you find the links to support it. ;)
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It's one thing to say the Fighter is not necessarily going to have optimal choices. It's quite another to say the Fighter does have IUS or Lunge or Catch Off-Guard, and is not a two-weapon field, and did not invest in Improved Disarm, is not an archetype that grants unarmed options, has no SLAs gained from unusual feat choices, ... I'm actually wondering how many 20th level fighters found in the wild does not have at least ONE characteristic along these lines.Just to provide some data points, d20pfsrd lists two Paizo-published 20th level fighters on its list of NPCs, and neither of them has even one of the things you mention.
A fighter certainly could have one of your options, but I don't think you can bear out your claim that any given 20th level fighter is all but certain to have at least one.
We can also look at the slightly lower level fighters in the NPC Codex, who only have 1-4 feats to catch up with those suggested options. The 18th level fighter has IUS (and is built around it), and the 17th level fighter has lunge. We have to get down to the 14th level fighter to find one with even a single rank in Use magic Device. There are only two fighters in the Codex who have Improved Disarm. Only one who has IUS. Two with Lunge. Etc.
Now, the lower level fighters aren't perfect data points, because it only takes 1 feat that they get at 20th level to get IUS or Lunge or any of the other one feat options. But it seems fair to say looking at the builds, that few of them have those as an 'expectation'.
I'm looking at all the permanent spell effects. Between those, golem assistants, and school powers, the wizard does not even need to have spells prepared to thoroughly destroy this encounter.Wait, if the wizard can have golem assistants, why can't the fighter? Golem Manuals are a thing, and are pretty cheap for a 20th level character.
Because Golem Manuals only matter if you have Craft Construct.
Which is relatively rare even for casters.
Title says it all. Lets assume he is naked (or at less without his weapon in hand). What are some good strategies for the fighter.
See this thread for reference to the source of the question.
By having his girlfriend (Calistria) wash (watch) his back.
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Simple. The 20th level fighter, always expecting an attack from silly minions and people in his bath, reaches for a statue and breaks it with his hand. Succor back to his 20th level cleric's friend home, where his cleric friend uses sending to his wizard friend. The wizard friend uses instant summons from the Leomund's chest they store multiple sets of gear on to don his armor. The 20th level cleric goes discern location, casts greater planar binding to add in a planetar/greater demon/etc, and they all teleport to the enemy's location while the 10th level party either makes tracks after realizing their foe has disappeared, and then dies when the four man crew comes to kill them. Also, see the plate armor amulet thingy that you can wear around your neck that creates a suit of full plate, plus I'm sure there is a charm bracelet of insta-weapon or something that disguises itself as a bath brush.
Contingency works really well in these situations.... Or even bring back the 9th level variant chain contingency from 2nd Ed, where you could chain 3 spells together.
Simple. The 20th level fighter, always expecting an attack from silly minions and people in his bath, reaches for a statue and breaks it with his hand.
[...]
Contingency works really well in these situations.... Or even bring back the 9th level variant chain contingency from 2nd Ed, where you could chain 3 spells together.
Contingency is a personal only spell, the party wizard cannot make a contingency for the fighter to use. 3.0's chain contingency had the same limitation (don't know about 2E).
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I'm looking at all the permanent spell effects. Between those, golem assistants, and school powers, the wizard does not even need to have spells prepared to thoroughly destroy this encounter.Wait, if the wizard can have golem assistants, why can't the fighter? Golem Manuals are a thing, and are pretty cheap for a 20th level character.Because Golem Manuals only matter if you have Craft Construct.
Which is relatively rare even for casters.
Actually you don't need Craft Construct:
A golem manual contains information, incantations, and magical power that help a character to craft a golem. The instructions therein grant a +5 competence bonus on skill checks made to craft the golem's body. Each manual also holds the prerequisite spells needed for a specific golem (although these spells can only be used to create a golem and cannot be copied), effectively granting the builder use of the Craft Construct feat during the construction of the golem, and an increase to her caster level for the purpose of crafting a golem.
The spells included in a golem manual require a spell trigger activation and can be activated only to assist in the construction of a golem. The cost of the book does not include the cost of constructing the golem's body. Once the golem is finished, the writing in the manual fades and the book is consumed in flames. When the book's ashes are sprinkled upon the golem, it becomes fully animated.
The only iffy part is the spell-trigger part, but since that's only a DC 20 and the only downside is rolling a 1 stops you from trying again for 24 hours, the fighter will eventually get his golem created even if he has only 1 rank in UMD.
It's one thing to say the Fighter is not necessarily going to have optimal choices. It's quite another to say the Fighter does have IUS or Lunge or Catch Off-Guard, and is not a two-weapon field, and did not invest in Improved Disarm, is not an archetype that grants unarmed options, has no SLAs gained from unusual feat choices, ... I'm actually wondering how many 20th level fighters found in the wild does not have at least ONE characteristic along these lines.Just to provide some data points, d20pfsrd lists two Paizo-published 20th level fighters on its list of NPCs, and neither of them has even one of the things you mention.
A fighter certainly could have one of your options, but I don't think you can bear out your claim that any given 20th level fighter is all but certain to have at least one.
I don't think an Int 8 fighter with Linguistics and a dwarf wielding an elven curve blade are representative examples. They definitely aren't "found in the wild" Fighter 20 builds. The Infernal Champion is clearly intended as a beatstick in some sort of infernal-themed encounter; he's a monster, not a PC.
As far as golems, you just hire someone to make you one, and then they command it to obey you.
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If you can provide a better source for generic 20th level fighters, I'm all eyes and ears. Until then, those two represent 100% of the official Paizo statted 20th level fighters, and the only non-theorycrafted set of stats.
First, those are not generic 20th level fighters. They are from the NPC Codex. While you can grab codex characters to use as pre-mades, that isn't their primary purpose. For our purposes, their gear is less of an issue. However, you have to choose an appropriate NPC out of that book.
Second, I would like to see some evidence that those are non-theorycrafted sets of stats. If they are generic but not, as I said, a plausible set of stats for a Fig 20 played in an actual campaign, it's still not helpful. My assumption is that those characters are built to be, first of all, useful to a GM, second, as simple as possible (but no simpler), and third, not player-killers. Those are three marks against them.
The Infernal Champion is not a generic character in any sense. The concept is not a PC concept, and the build is unusual on numerous levels.
As noted above, many of the lower level fighters are more general and capable, and extrapolating in a basic way from those builds is already an improvement. Since we don't even need gear, you can pretty much just add a few feats to one of the lower level builds.
I will accept the Crime Lord with Lunge and Improved Iron Will as a PC-suitable build, or the Elven Recluse with four additional feats of your choice.
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Generally when I hear Fighter the default would be a 2H weapon user, Str based.
So a quick no gear 20 PB build would look something like:
Str: 16
Dex: 14
Con: 14
Int: 12
Wis: 12
Cha: 7
By 20th, stats boosted to:
Str: 28 (+2 Human, +5 leveling, +5 Inherent from Tomes or Wishes)
Dex: 18 (+4 Inherent...just cheaper than going +5 for no further benefit)
Con: 18 (ditto above)
Int: 12
Wis: 16 (ditto Con/Dex)
Cha: 7
With Feats like:
1.) Power Attack
1.) Furious Focus
1.) Intimidating Prowess
2.) Weapon Focus
3.) Iron Will
4.) Weapon Specialization
5.) Skill Focus: Perception
6.) Lunge
7.) Cornugon Smash
8.) Hurtful
9.) Greater Weapon Focus
10.) Blind Fight
11.) Improved Blind Fight
12.) Greater Weapon Specialization
13.) Point Blank Shot
14.) Precise Shot
15.) Greater Blind Fight
16.) Dazing Assault
17.) ???
18.) ???
19.) ???
20.) ???
Note: "???" denotes more that these are "wild card" slots, not that I don't know what to put there. Those are the Feats you'd fill up with some of those Feats I consider standard if you wanted to do something wonky like a Racial Heritage: Orc into Endurance/Die Hard and the Deathless Feat line, or Aasimar to grab Wings, or Animal Ally, or what have you.
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Second, I would like to see some evidence that those are non-theorycrafted sets of stats. If they are generic but not, as I said, a plausible set of stats for a Fig 20 played in an actual campaign, it's still not helpful.
It's seems kind of a stretch to take actual Paizo-published fighters and label their stats theorycrafting.
I will accept the Crime Lord with Lunge and Improved Iron Will as a PC-suitable build, or the Elven Recluse with four additional feats of your choice.
So wait, we're checking whether any given fighter might have one of the feats you mentioned, but the only fighters acceptable for the check-in are ones who do in fact have one of the feats you mentioned, and other fighters don't count?
Well, sure, then, by that standard fighters without those feats in the wild are vanishingly rare.
Well, I'm not terribly happy with the methodology used to choose these two, sure, but I'm not convinced either of those fighters is a big threat to a 10th level party that jumps them naked, so let's do some analysis and see if the feats keep them a credible threat to a 10th level party. Let's go with the crime lord, I bet he still can't fight his way out of the tub, and his 19th level is close enough to 20th that I can probably get away with just slapping +1 BAB and a hit die on him and calling it even. (I'd even give him Improved Disarm for the benefit of the doubt, but he doesn't have Combat Expertise and his Int 12 is just too dumb to learn it).
CR 10 is expected to have ~130 hit points. Crime lord with an extra d10, but without his bear's endurance, has 174. Somewhat high.
CR 10 is expected to have an armor class of 24 or so. Crime lord has AC 15, or 17 if he wears his ring in the bath. Sharply below expectation. I guess we know where the extra hit points will go, and then some.
CR 10 is expected to have a high attack of +18. Crime lord (using power attack because otherwise his damage is d2+4) is right on target, although they probably aren't anticipating that a CR 10 will provoke an AoO on each attack like a crime lord's unarmed strike does.
CR 10 is expected to have average damage of about 45. Crime lord (using power attack) has average damage of 17-18. That's probably unfair to the crime lord, actually, I don't know what CR 10 deals 45 damage. Let's compare the crime lord to a fire giant, who also power attacks at +18. 3d6+24 (average 35) or 1d2+16. (17-18). About half.
CR 10 is expected to have a good save of +14. Crime lord's good save (Fort) with an extra hit die is +15. Good for him.
CR 10 is expected to have a poor save of +9. Crime lord's Reflex without gear is +9 and his Will +7 (with a reroll). Call it even due to Improved Iron Will.
Specials are kind of irrelevant. The crime lord's feats don't give him much up his sleeve to begin with, and the few tricks he does have (step up and spellbreaker) don't work without a weapon.
Overall, not only is he not a strong enough encounter to likely defeat a 10th level party (which would be CR 14 or so by the game's baseline assumptions, although a heavily optimized 10th level party might take on higher), he's not even hitting some of the "run of the mill encounter" CR 10 stuff.
Honestly, even if he had Improved Disarm, or got lucky and got hands on one of the party's weapons some other way, he's still going to be at or below standard CR 10 offensive numbers, unless it's an ugrosh. So even with the weapon, he ends up with low-to-average CR 10 offense, lower than CR 10 melee defense (hp+AC), average CR 10 saves. Meaning an average 10th level party can probably expect to beat him handily.
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I'd been calling the Infernal Champion "General Meathead" for a reason.
His build is terrible. After spending 21 feats, the only thing he can do is crit fishing with a falchion.
That dwarven weapon master guy is goofier, but still pretty much the same thing; again, all he can really do is crit fishing with a elven curve blade.
He spent 21 feats and made a really boring character who's hosed the moment he loses his weapon.
@ Rynjin - that fighter would be fine as an NPC opponent, but be pretty lackluster as a PC. (Aside: I'd ditch the precise shot for rapid shot - weapon training + gloves of dueling actually work pretty well for boosting accuracy, and if you're going ranged odds are really good there isn't any sort of melee to be shooting into anyways.)
I'd expect an actual PC fighter to have some combat maneuvers (yes, I'm aware you consider combat maneuvers useless - I shall continue to respectfully disagree on that), both for shutting down enemy melee and for comboing with the rest of his party. Just what he should have will change with party composition and tactics. He has the feats to custom tailor his list to play to his party's strengths; he's doing himself a disservice if he doesn't.
So wait, we're checking whether any given fighter might have one of the feats you mentioned, but the only fighters acceptable for the check-in are ones who do in fact have one of the feats you mentioned, and other fighters don't count?
Those were just the first two I found, counting up, that looked like they could be PCs. Feel free to suggest any more suitable writeups from the list.
Well, I'm not terribly happy with the methodology used to choose these two, sure, but I'm not convinced either of those fighters is a big threat to a 10th level party that jumps them naked, so let's do some analysis and see if the feats keep them a credible threat to a 10th level party.
Being a "big threat" really isn't the point of the exercise. A solo character getting jumped is already in trouble. The point is to be a credible threat, which has nothing at all to with comparing their raw numbers to a fire giant. Fire giants don't have 21 feats, for one thing.
What I see is CMB +23 and weapon training (close +2), and TWF. It seems a cinch this guy is going to disarm the rogue and take his dagger. Agree or disagree?
What I see is CMB +23 and weapon training (close +2), and TWF. It seems a cinch this guy is going to disarm the rogue and take his dagger. Agree or disagree?
I more or less disagree. Partly because there might not be a rogue with a dagger to pick on. If you've got a barbarian with Strength Surge and, say, a ranger with a bow for the two martial types, where's that leave him? There's a lot of classes kicking around that are less of a pushover than a rogue.
I also see him probably spending a turn to get a wrong size dagger, even if there is a dagger rogue around to pick on, which kind of takes his weapon training attack bonus right back away again, only now he's missing a bunch of hit points.
Mostly I disagree (substantively, if not technically) because even if he's lucky enough to have a rogue with a proper sized dagger waiting around for him to take it, he's still not much of a threat. He will have trouble providing a CR 10 encounter to a 10th level party, much less a deadly one. I don't see our newly dagger armed fighter surviving the fight either way, which is what this thread calls for. I did address this at the bottom of my previous post.
It is possible he'll get his hands on a dagger from a rogue, or something like that (not guaranteed, not necessarily likely) but I don't think it changes all that much about the scenario. He's used like half his hitpoints up, and probably his reroll (on the chance that it indeed saved him from his +7 Will), just getting a weapon that he's not that good with, and now he's done with his turn (because TWF is full round) and about to face another round of attacks (and if we're assuming he took his dagger from a twf-rogue, that other dagger will be making another sneak attacking full attack against negligible AC). If he survives them all, hooray, on round two his heroic efforts have taken him from 1d2+16 to 1d4+18.
So no. It's not certain that he can get his hands on a dagger, it's not certain there will be one to take, and it's not going to help him much either way, he's mostly trading no AoOs on his unarmed strike for eating a round of regular offense that might outright defeat him (saves from casters), and if not will still badly wound him (damage from others).
Sorry, edition issues. The new succor is http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/refuge Refuge. So he breaks that and goes poofy.
Unless the party has a dimensional anchor spell ready, then even with rocket tag the fighter should be able to escape.
I certainly agree that particular builds, particular spells from someone else, or particular (bath-friendly) magic items could all put the odds more in favor of survival.
Sorry, edition issues. The new succor is http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/r/refuge Refuge. So he breaks that and goes poofy.
I like this idea, have the item be a fake tooth that you can put in and use like a suicide pill. Either option works, teleporting away, or bringing your level 20 Wizard/Sorcerer buddy in to help you (while also not caring if they dimensional anchor you).
@ Rynjin - that fighter would be fine as an NPC opponent, but be pretty lackluster as a PC. (Aside: I'd ditch the precise shot for rapid shot - weapon training + gloves of dueling actually work pretty well for boosting accuracy, and if you're going ranged odds are really good there isn't any sort of melee to be shooting into anyways.)I'd expect an actual PC fighter to have some combat maneuvers (yes, I'm aware you consider combat maneuvers useless - I shall continue to respectfully disagree on that), both for shutting down enemy melee and for comboing with the rest of his party. Just what he should have will change with party composition and tactics. He has the feats to custom tailor his list to play to his party's strengths; he's doing himself a disservice if he doesn't.
I just don't see how you CAN disagree. By 20th level the only worthwhile Combat Maneuver is Grapple, which takes a hell of a lot of Feats.
A solid 75% of the Bestiary is immune to Trip (due to either size, flight, no legs, too many legs, etc.), another 15% is highly resistant, and the final 10% MIGHT be vulnerable to it.
Disarm? Most things don't use weapons. At high levels the ones that do usually have an ability that simply lets them MAKE a weapon as a free action or some such.
Dirty Trick is kind of a wild card. I can't really comment on it since Dirty Trick is explicitly reliant on GM Fiat for what works and what doesn't. With a lenient GM it's the frickin' KING of combat maneuvers.
Bull Rush eats your standard to knock a guy five feet that way. Whoopee. Also size restricted as I recall. Cool with Shield Slam though.
Reposition is literally just "Worse Bull Rush". I don't even know why this exists.
Ditto Drag. Why?
Overrun is good if you're a woolly mammoth. Are you a woolly mammoth?
So that leaves Grapple: The combat maneuver with the most Feat support next to Trip. You cannot do Grapple as a "half measure" because if you do you're screwing yourself as much as the enemy.
Grapple is BRUTAL if you specialize in it, but I'd hardly call a Grapple specialist the "standard Fighter".
IME campaigns with the majority of enemies being medium sized Humanoids with no special abilities are rare. I'd say nonexistent if some of you people didn't swear up and down you'd been in one, because I've never seen one for myself at all.
Disarm? Most things don't use weapons. At high levels the ones that do usually have an ability that simply lets them MAKE a weapon as a free action or some such.
I don't know about that. My group went through Kingmaker, and we're now on book 4 of RotRL, and I'd say at least 75% of the truly dangerous things we've fought used weapons. RotRL especially, since you're fighting mostly giants, plus those damn lamia. From what I've seen from other APs, it seems that most of the boss-type enemies are things with PCs levels, many of which are weapon users.
I've played RotRL and the only dangerous things were spellcasters mostly. And one Crusader from 3.5 specifically made to f*~# my Barbarian's shit up by the GM. =)
Then I've played or run Carrion Crown (No weapons there), Serpent's Skull (ditto), Skull and Shackles (Weapons, yes, but most everything has 3 Natural Attacks as backup), and Age of Worms (Not a ton of weapon users. Got a lot of mileage from Shield Slam though).
Between several homebrews, only two have heavily featured weapon users. One of them is mine, which I made to do so in part because I'd found Urban games with humanoids rare.
What I see is CMB +23 and weapon training (close +2), and TWF. It seems a cinch this guy is going to disarm the rogue and take his dagger. Agree or disagree?I more or less disagree. Partly because there might not be a rogue with a dagger to pick on.
Okay, then what exactly is the party we are talking about here?
If you've got a barbarian with Strength Surge and, say, a ranger with a bow for the two martial types, where's that leave him? There's a lot of classes kicking around that are less of a pushover than a rogue.
He can sunder the bow. How he deals with the barbarian depends on a lot of variables.
It is possible he'll get his hands on a dagger from a rogue, or something like that (not guaranteed, not necessarily likely) but I don't think it changes all that much about the scenario. He's used like half his hitpoints up, and probably his reroll (on the chance that it indeed saved him from his +7 Will), just getting a weapon that he's not that good with, and now he's done with his turn (because TWF is full round) and about to face another round of attacks (and if we're assuming he took his dagger from a twf-rogue, that other dagger will be making another sneak attacking full attack against negligible AC). If he survives them all, hooray, on round two his heroic efforts have taken him from 1d2+16 to 1d4+18.
If it's a TWF rogue, he takes both daggers. It's not even a contest. If he's a TWF fighter himself, he has a decent chance of grabbing both daggers and killing the rogue in the first round.
The standard party in my eyes consists of:
-One Frontliner. IME USUALLY a Barbarian, but sometimes a Paladin or Fighter or Brawler.
-One Arcane caster and a Cleric OR 2 Half casters. Bards, Inquisitors, and Alchemists are popular.
-A "Rogue", This could be anything from a Slayer to a Vivisectionist. Rarely an actual Rogue.
What I see is CMB +23 and weapon training (close +2), and TWF. It seems a cinch this guy is going to disarm the rogue and take his dagger. Agree or disagree?I more or less disagree. Partly because there might not be a rogue with a dagger to pick on.
Okay, then what exactly is the party we are talking about here?
If you've got a barbarian with Strength Surge and, say, a ranger with a bow for the two martial types, where's that leave him? There's a lot of classes kicking around that are less of a pushover than a rogue.
He can sunder the bow. How he deals with the barbarian depends on a lot of variables.
If it's a TWF rogue, he takes both daggers. It's not even a contest. If he's a TWF fighter himself, he has a decent chance of grabbing both daggers and killing the rogue in the first round.
It is possible he'll get his hands on a dagger from a rogue, or something like that (not guaranteed, not necessarily likely) but I don't think it changes all that much about the scenario. He's used like half his hitpoints up, and probably his reroll (on the chance that it indeed saved him from his +7 Will), just getting a weapon that he's not that good with, and now he's done with his turn (because TWF is full round) and about to face another round of attacks (and if we're assuming he took his dagger from a twf-rogue, that other dagger will be making another sneak attacking full attack against negligible AC). If he survives them all, hooray, on round two his heroic efforts have taken him from 1d2+16 to 1d4+18.
I think you're wrong again, and in this case, wrong in a way that is fairly easy to nail down.
I don't think he can sunder the bow. He's going to have to Power Attack and take the -4 to deal lethal damage unarmed just to deal enough damage to get past hardness, which means his CMB is at -10, against a good CMD (archers are generally quite good because of primary Dex plus secondary Str plus full BAB). To sunder a +3 bow he'll need to beat hardness 11 and deal 35 damage, with d2+18, at +15/10/5/0 (or 13/13/8/3/-2 twf) against archer CMD that is likely 28-32 or so. (10 base, 10 BAB, 6-8 Dex, 2 Str? 0-2 deflection?)
Similarly, I don't think it's likely that he takes two daggers even if there is a dagger rogue, and taking both daggers and killing the rogue, forget likely, that is a wild claim with no basis in probability at all and you shouldn't be making it.
He's got weapon training in close +2, but is TWFing, which gives him CMB at +23 and 23/18/13/8. He has to take a -4 to try to disarm unarmed (on both daggers; the first because he's unarmed, the second because he has to use the unarmed disarm, not the new dagger, or else he can't actually take the second dagger on a success).
So he's disarming at +19 and +19/14/9/4. He uses one of his +19s to soak an AoO (failing the CMB due to the damage penalty) and the other to, reasonably likely, grab a dagger. If he succeeds he's got +14/+9/4 to grab the other dagger. Okay but not great odds now of it happening at all, since even rogue CMD is not negligible by level 10 (probably around 25). If by some good fortune he succeeds on both his +19 and +14 roll (odds of success on both rolls in a row: 37.5% against CMD 25), he's got two daggers and can now roll melee attacks at +8 and +3 for 1d4+18 damage each. Even if he hits with both - and he's below 50% even on the first, even Paizo's NPC-wealth 10th level rogues have more than 19 AC, and AC scales quite nicely with PC wealth - he's not going to deal enough damage to kill a 10th level rogue.
Your claims here seem to have no merit at all. He doesn't seem likely to sunder the bow. It is a contest against the dagger rogue (even his roll to get the first dagger at +19 vs. likely 25 or so is not a gimme, all his subsequent rolls are at or under 50%), and he's got vanishingly low chances (double crits needed on unlikely-to-hit-at-all attacks) to actually kill the rogue that round even if he wins every single roll, defensive (saves and such on the surprise round and round 1) and offensive (his disarms) up to the point he starts attacking.
It was already discussed upthread how trivial it is for the fighter to disarm an opponent, even without Improved Disarm. I'm not going to spend time retreading that discussion.
If something that changes the above has already been said, cool, I won't ask you to type it out again, but at least link it if you're going to bring it up.
Personally I thought it was pretty generous. I was even using unbuffed CMDs for the guys who jump him in the bath and assuming he gets a round one full attack on the archer's bow without needing to move, plus that nothing that happened before he got his attacks in has hampered him at all (for instance, he's not shaken from a fear or a Cornugon Smash or whatever, he's not rolling twice take worst from an ill omen... nothing bad happens to him in the surprise round his +1 Perception cost him, or from anyone who beat him in initiative).
But failing that, I do invite you to respond to the "he still won't kill the rogue" or "he still won't sunder the bow" parts of the point even if you won't respond to the disarming stuff.
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Parties usually just are. They bring what they have. If someone wanted to play a rogue, they bring that. If they wanted to play a wild shaping druid (far more common on these boards than in my games, lamentably, given my love for running wilderness campaigns), they bring that instead.
I think the real point here is that if the naked fighter doesn't have a good chance of getting two daggers away from a rogue and killing him on the first round, there's no appreciable chance of him getting a greataxe away from a barbarian, or the mouth away from a dinosaur druid.
Also, regarding the sunder thing...did they errata the rule that says that only a weapon of equal or greater enhancement can harm another? Because if that's still the case, a +1 bow is immune to the fighter's fists.
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I think part of the distinction is that a naked NPC fighter vs 3 or 4 level 10 PCs will very likely be hosed, but a naked PC fighter vs 3 or 4 NPCs has a good chance of causing some havoc before escaping.