Joe Hell's page

I have seen this come up quite a few times on the messageboards, and the sages all nod their heads and agree that 'fighters are useless' and no one would play a martial character past 10th. I've even seen examples of whole parties of spellcasters who have finished this or that AP... And I don't get it.

In all of our campaigns, from 1st through 3.5 to Pathfinder we've always had players who love spellcasters, but never a shortage of warriors. At low levels the fighters have all the glory; holding the line, dealing the damage, being the last on their feet.

At mid-levels a fighter can be an absolute beast, dealing 30+ damage a round, while a wizard casts one of their three fireballs per day for approx 21 damage.

Even at higher levels, when a spellcaster's options really open up a single hit from a giant, or single area affect spell is likely to kill them. Fighters who are hasted and can fly can make mincemeat of anything.

I'm curious to know how your spellcasters are so powerful that they're taking out enemies before your martial characters have a chance to engage them.

Oh man, wait til Pat Robertson gets wind of this thread. 'FLEE FROM EVIL'!

PS. Killing goblin babies is evil.

We ran this two weeks ago and the fight was great fun. Although there are 6PCs (5 2nd-level and 1 1st-level) they were tired and out of spells by the time they found the temple. I'm also mean, so I got her to create a couple of sinspawn to hold the PCs off.

The party consisted of:
Human fighter (leader)
Human rogue
Human warlock (witch)
Elf ranger
Dwarf cleric of Torag
Half-elf magus

The players work well together tactically (even if the player with the warlock hasn't quite figured out 'spells' yet) and flanked and slaughtered the first sinspawn in one round. The ranger kept her bow ready for the quasit and shot her when she first appeared (no damage though, DR was too high). Encouraged, they stormed up onto the platform at the end of the temple to face the second sinspawn, only to get hit by the quasit's fear spell...

The fighter, rogue and ranger took to their heels, racing off into the darkness. Summoned hounds tore down the magus and flung him down the stairs, leaving the cleric and the warlock to battle the quasit, sinspawn and summoned creatures. And battle them they did! The cleric, calling on Torag for strength, stablised the magus then beat down the summoned creatures with his hammer. The warlock unleashed every scroll and wand he had on the sinspawn (to little effect :P), and all the while they made save after spell save. By the time the warriors returned the combatants were all exhausted. Erylium's spells were all gone, and sinspawn was dead and it looked like a long, drawn out battle of attrition was ahead, with the quasit attempting to whittle down the PCs with her dagger (1d2 damage!?). That is, until...

The fighter, ranseur in hand, leaps off the bank of the cleric as the quasit swoops low to fling her knife. Natural 20.... threat.... and promise! 36? (my memory fails me) points of damage later, the quasit is spitted on his spear.

I had her blood summon yet another sinspawn from the runewell, but even so it was game over for Lamashtu!