James Jacobs wrote:

One of the things I'd like to see the fighter remain: Simple. In 3.5 it's an easy class to handle, but its bonus feats allow veteran players to get relatively complex if you draw those feats from various other books.

But at its core, it's a VERY simple class. It's the one you hand to the new player, and he doesn't have to wade through spells, skills, or unusual rules and flavor restrictions. He gets to play the game with minimal character creation hurdles, and in theory, gets to see more complex characters played by other players and over the course of a campaign learns the game.

Making the fighter equally or more complex to, say, the monk or the druid or the ranger is bad for the game.

My point exactly. And those of you who find this boring, keep in mind that the fighter is a basic-style class. If it's not your cup of tea go ahead and use your warblades or whatever.

It just won't be in my game.

My feeling is that the Barbarian serves this role better than a Fighter. It's easy to make a Fighter that becomes ineffectual rather quickly. Pretty hard to mess up a Barbarian.

I mentioned this elsewhere, but I'll elaborate a bit more here.

As much as I hate using MMO terminology, that is what I'll do (Heck, Gary Gygax uses it, so I don't feel that bad about it). The Fighter should be the tank. Right now, the class does it fairly well at low level, but at high levels, forget it.

What the Fighter needs is significantly more hit points. The Fighter should be able to withstand at least a maximized disintegrate that defeats his fortitude save. As it stands, if you're a 20th level fighter you have roughly 120 hp. Let's say you've focused on Con a bit, with a +5 bonus. That brings us up to 220 hp. Then you throw in Improved Toughness feat for another 20 h.p. That gets you up to 240 (maximized Disintegrate).

But you're still only at 240. Say you then have an amulet of health +4 -- that nets you another 80 h.p. But then comes Power Word, Kill.

The h.p. system simply doesn't scale correctly as level increases. The Fighter should be the King of H.P., and be able to absorb multiple threats. I had proposed giving the Fighter 2d8 HD per level, but I'm not sure if that helps or not. The HD might need an even more drastic bump.

I also think the Fighter should be given three good saves -- with heavy armor obviously impacting the reflex save.

Paizo's solution of adding AC doesn't work, in my opinion based on experience. At high levels, there's so many ways to deal damage that bypass armor, or monsters have high BAB or what have you. You simply are going to get hit.

High h.p. allows you to stay in the game longer to be able to use all the nifty feats you've acquired.

Cerion wrote:

Uhm, I didn't mention specific sources for a reason. We can trade examples all day -- but that doesn't add to the point. If you choose to ignore the obvious Fantasy sources where the fighter is a fearsome character in his own right, then you're simply being stubborn for the sake of winning an internet argument and not interested in a dialogue.

LOL I have made a good a point as you have.My point was the same as yours really just stated it in a different way.Fighters should be fearsome fighters,not wizard want a be's.that was my point there not gonna be the same.wizards are fearsome and so are fighters but not the same way.A fighter should be powerful and fearsome without having to dip into magic so many seem to want.You and a few others missed my point But it's cool were all here because we like the game .You have you ideal I have mine and I can respect yours.

Seriously, wtf? I never proposed that fighters should be wizard wannabes. You're the one that brought that up, and then tried (even now) to ascribe that view to me so that you could then refute it. That is a convenient way to win an argument, but it's certainly intellectually dishonest.

My proposal, stated as plainly as I can (and have) is that fighters, as a class, need a better balancing scheme than even 3.75 offers. That doesn't mean they become wizards, or clerics, or thieves, or whatever. It means that fighters remain effective at high levels. Currently, in 3.5 they rarely are, and I don't see 3.75 going far enough.

What I see fighters needing is more staying power. The AC bump in 3.75 is nice, but at high levels you're simply going to get hit. One addition I believe could help would be to give the Fighter a 50% increase in hit points. Say 2d8 per level. This may also help with regard to the Fighter's poor reflex save (something I don't think should be changed). That might not even be drastic enough...I'd have to playtest it. A Fighter needs a better ability to survive so that his specialties (AoO, Archer, Trip, etc) can play a more significant role.

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

ever read howard man . Conan didn't fight magic unless he had no choice he often ran away .I do think fighters need some love but I keep hearing make them like warblades over and over .but thats not a fighter . give them feats or something I just myself don't want to see a mage/fighter as the core fighter.I also keep hearing make everyone weaker so the fighter can keep up. the fighter will never be as good as a wizard at mass damage a high level wizard should be able to make army's tremble thats a common fantasy therm to.But a skilled fighter up close should be able to do some damage .

I support this statement.

Uhm, I didn't mention specific sources for a reason. We can trade examples all day -- but that doesn't add to the point. If you choose to ignore the obvious Fantasy sources where the fighter is a fearsome character in his own right, then you're simply being stubborn for the sake of winning an internet argument and not interested in a dialogue.

Cerion wrote:

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

Look guys A fighter will never be as good as a wizard ,or a cleric or a druid. thats not the point the point is he is a none magic class. he don't have to be as good as magic users if he was he would need magic and then he is not a fighter any longer.the alpha is great the fighter should be great at NON MAGIC death dealing he's not a caster. classes should not be all balanced to one another if they where why not have just once class its all the same right.

That makes absolutely no sense at all. I'm not being facetious. Your point lacks clarity.

Ok . let me see if I can make more sence.

1 A fighter will never be as good as a wizard ,or a cleric or a druid.

they wont and they should not be.

I don't see why Fighters should not be as powerful as spell-users. It certainly isn't a truism of the fantasy genre, something our hobby tries to emulate. Now should Fighters be able to cast Wish? No. But a Fighter can be balanced in other ways.

2 he don't have to be as good as magic users if he was he would need magic and then he is not a fighter any longer.

seems every ones wants then to be as good at people using magic to be good. sword vs. maximized fireball we all know how that goes.

Except again you're using the game system to define the context, when the context should be Fantasy literature.

3 the fighter should be great at NON MAGIC death dealing he's not a caster.

kinda self explaining there.a fighter is not a warblade. he is not a duskblade.he is not a hex blade. he is joe avage that is good at making things die with pieces of metal.over time he becomes better but still he is someone who uses skill and traning not magic.

You seem to be saying the same thing over and over. You presume that magic intrinsically is more powerful, and that the only way one can become powerful is through magic. This is not a universal case in Fantasy.

4 classes should not be all balanced to one another if they where why not have just once class its all the same right.

Like I said a wizard and a fighter are not the same in combat. a cleric an a fighter are not the same in combat. a druid and a fighter are not the same in combat. a rouge and a fighter are not the same in combat.
each have there own skills. does the wizard need nerfed just because a fighter cant do as much damge as a prepared mage?
does the rogue need nerfed because he has sneak attack and can sometimes out damage a fighter?
why not make every one fighters and not have classes that way no one can be better at anything then some one else.

Uhm, yeah...I never said any class needed "nerfing" (lol, can we stop with the video game references?). My point is that the fighter still lacks the punch to hang with the new and improved classes. And Balance does not equate to sameness -- that's a strawman argument.

As an illustrative example, you could have a party of three fighters. Two are 12 level (an Archer focused and an AoO battlefield controller), and one is 6th level (a Bullrushing shock trooper). No one would say that party is balanced, and I daresay no one would approve of such an imbalance. So you raise the 6th level to 12th level. Now we have balance, and yet they are all different and perform different functions in combat.

...

Look guys A fighter will never be as good as a wizard ,or a cleric or a druid. thats not the point the point is he is a none magic class. he don't have to be as good as magic users if he was he would need magic and then he is not a fighter any longer.the alpha is great the fighter should be great at NON MAGIC death dealing he's not a caster. classes should not be all balanced to one another if they where why not have just once class its all the same right.

That makes absolutely no sense at all. I'm not being facetious. Your point lacks clarity.

Hey there all,

There is a bit of a power upgrade for some the classes in the PFRPG A1, but this was done for exactly the reasons cited in this thread. Many of the core classes are so unattractive at higher levels that all of the other options were obviously superior. This seemed flawed to us and so we have taken steps to rectify it. Let me know what you think.

As for not upgrading other classes from non-OGL sources, I am afraid that there is little that I can do about that. They are no open after all.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Here's one thought we had in our group, mainly regarding fighters. Fighter's got a much-needed bump in power; however, every other class received a huge bump in power as well. Fighter's, as a class, are right back to where they were, relatively speaking, as in 3.5.

In other words, the 3.75 Fighter would fit well with the old 3.5 classes. But since the other 3.5 classes also got bumped up powerwise, the Fighter remains the red-headed stepchild.

Having played an archer-focused fighter through level 12 in 3.5, I must say I do not like the change to this feat.

The real benefit of Manyshot wasn't the increased arrows, but that it only took a standard action. This means I could move and fire a volley of arrows albeit with a penalty. With your version of Manyshot, I'm rooted in place again.

I would prefer to have options in combat. If I'm able to stand still and fire arrows, then I have the option of Rapid shot with full attack. But if I'm tactically forced to move, I have one option in this rule set, move and fire one arrow. At high levels, that is devestating.

Also, Manyshot in this ruleset is virtually redundant with Rapid Shot. They both produce the same results though I avoid the -2 penalty to hit with Manyshot. But at high levels, with high BAB, this -2 becomes nearly meaningless anyway. Furthermore, since precision based damage isn't applied to the second arrow of Manyshot, I'm going to be using Rapid Shot. At least in 3.5, if I wanted to sacrifice precision-based damage to use Manyshot, I did so to gain the move action.

Finally, though I won't go into detail about combat chaining as it is dealt with elsewhere on this board, let me just say I'm not a fan of being locked into chaining shots. The tactical dynamics in 3.5 are very nice, but also change from round to round. I may have to move after my Rapid Shot, thus ruining my Manyshot.