[THINK TANK] Fighter

[Squirrelloid]

Any fighter fix needs to first decide what it wants the fighter to be doing at each and every level. Without some concept of what the fighter is supposed to contribute, its impossible to actually arrive somewhere that is reasonable and level appropriate.

One things for certain, just throwing more numbers at the fighter isn't going to work.

[hogarth]

Squirrelloid wrote:

Any fighter fix needs to first decide what it wants the fighter to be doing at each and every level. Without some concept of what the fighter is supposed to contribute, its impossible to actually arrive somewhere that is reasonable and level appropriate.

One things for certain, just throwing more numbers at the fighter isn't going to work.

One thing to note, S: It is almost certain that you will not be happy with the final version of the Pathfinder fighter. Just because of the goal of "backward compatibility", it will have to be substantially similar to the old one. So you can do all of the lobbying in the world for a re-imagined fighter, but I suspect it's just a waste of time.

If you really want a fighter who can compete with a wizard in terms of abilities, maybe 4e is the right game for you (and Frank, K, etc.). I'm not saying that to be flippant; it looks like they have paid a lot of attention to the issue of balancing the classes against each other.

[Squirrelloid]

hogarth wrote:

Squirrelloid wrote:

Any fighter fix needs to first decide what it wants the fighter to be doing at each and every level. Without some concept of what the fighter is supposed to contribute, its impossible to actually arrive somewhere that is reasonable and level appropriate.

One things for certain, just throwing more numbers at the fighter isn't going to work.

One thing to note, S: It is almost certain that you will not be happy with the final version of the Pathfinder fighter. Just because of the goal of "backward compatibility", it will have to be substantially similar to the old one. So you can do all of the lobbying in the world for a re-imagined fighter, but I suspect it's just a waste of time.

They re-imagined the Barbarian with an entirely new mechanic. I don't see re-imagining fighter as a problem, especially when it *desperately needs it*.

Hey, I thought 3.P was trying to fix the problems in D+D. Class balance is one of the outstanding ones (immediately after all the spells that break the universe). If they aren't going to make a serious attempt at fixing class balance, why not just use core material as is? Any changes are a problem for backkwards compatibility - once you add a whole new rage mechanic to barbarians you've already made a statement that class abilities are potential casualties in the backwards compatibility goal. And there is a compelling need here. I also thought they were trying to make Fighters desirable to play for 15-20 levels... they haven't made it desirable to play for *1* level yet.

They certainly didn't have to make wizards even more uber. I've been running a wizard playtest. Arcane bonding items is broken. Its not quite as bad as rings of infinite wishes at 11th level from Planar Binding an Efreet, but its pretty bad. And worse yet, its doing exactly what it was obviously written to do, which means people won't just rule 0 it out of existence.

hogarth wrote:

If you really want a fighter who can compete with a wizard in terms of abilities, maybe 4e is the right game for you (and Frank, K, etc.). I'm not saying that to be flippant; it looks like they have paid a lot of attention to the issue of balancing the classes against each other.

I'm not going to go into the problems I see with 4E just from the previews, its a long list, and it starts with having quit Magic the Gathering 8 years ago because I was done with that nonsense - i don't want to play it as an RPG. It only gets worse from there.

I'm hoping Paizo is seriously interested in playtesting their material at all levels and making appropriate changes. If not, well, I don't have to buy the beta when it gets released.

[hogarth]

Squirrelloid wrote:

They re-imagined the Barbarian with an entirely new mechanic. I don't see re-imagining fighter as a problem, especially when it *desperately needs it*.

Personally, I don't think the barbarian change is that radical; since there are already (non-core) feats and abilities that can be triggered by a use of barbarian rage, it's not a large semantic leap (for me) to have abilities triggered by one round's worth of barbarian rage. Tastes will differ, naturally.

Squirreloid wrote:

Hey, I thought 3.P was trying to fix the problems in D+D. Class balance is one of the outstanding ones (immediately after all the spells that break the universe). If they aren't going to make a serious attempt at fixing class balance, why not just use core material as is?

That is an excellent question, and one I don't have a good answer to other than: "If you like the Pathfinder version better than the 3.5 version, use it."

For my part, I'll take the rules I like from Pathfinder and leave behind the ones I don't like. I suspect most people will do the same. If you'd prefer to use someone else's version of the fighter class better, or if you'd prefer to get rid of the fighter class completely and substitute it with the warblade out of the Tome of Battle, you'd be crazy not to do so.

I'd be happy enough seeing a few extra bells and whistles for the fighter (like the new rogue talents or barbarian rage abilities). Yes, that'd make it the same lousy class with a new coat of paint. What I DON'T want to see (from an aesthetic point of view) is the kind of calculus that says: "A level 7 wizard can cast a Split Ray Sudden Maximized Scorching Ray spell that does 56 damage as a touch attack, so the fighter needs to be able to do that much damage as a touch attack, too."

[Paul Watson]

hogarth wrote:

I'd be happy enough seeing a few extra bells and whistles for the fighter (like the new rogue talents or barbarian rage abilities). What I DON'T want to see (from an aesthetic point of view) is the kind of calculus that says: "A level 7 wizard can cast a Split Ray Sudden Maximized Scorching Ray spell that does 56 damage as a touch attack, so the fighter needs to be able to do that much damage as a touch attack, too."

That sounds about right. The Fighter is only as good as his feats. Something like the idea from the Book of Experimental Might where a feat taken as a Fighter bonus feat is an improvement on the regular feat would be the way to go for me. Or make more feats Fighter only (thinking in particular of the "Greater" feats that cap most of the feat chains. Anyone else can be good, but it takes a Fighter to master the art of combat). Neither of these change the essence of the Fighter class as the feat monkey, but they would help make him distinct. Either that or give him some "Fighter talents" similar to Rogue talents that can get taken in place of a feat. But at the moment the fighter has more breadth of talent, but not more depth. It's nice to be good at a lot of things, but its nicer to be great at a couple, too.

Maybe with the changes to CMB give fighters a bonus equal to their base attack/4 (so +1 per attack, basically). Again, everyone can be good at performing tricks in a fight, but the Fighter is better at them.

Trying to pigeonhole the Fighter into being one thing is a mistake, IMHO. The Fighter has to encompass a lot of different concepts, from Swashbuckler to Knight to Archer to Hoplite to Gladiator. Unless you're willing to have a separate class for each and every concept of Fighting Man, the Fighter has to be able to pick which path is for that character.

[Squirrelloid]

hogarth wrote:

I'd be happy enough seeing a few extra bells and whistles for the fighter (like the new rogue talents or barbarian rage abilities). What I DON'T want to see (from an aesthetic point of view) is the kind of calculus that says: "A level 7 wizard can cast a Split Ray Sudden Maximized Scorching Ray spell that does 56 damage as a touch attack, so the fighter needs to be able to do that much damage as a touch attack, too."

As amusing a parody as that is of my position, I hardly am espousing something that literally true. Its possible to give classes level-appropriate abilities that aren't identical. You're interested not in what other classes are doing so much (although its intermediate knowledge) as you are in how that translates into beating challenges and what challenges they beat. That way you can see which types of challenges are well-covered by existing archetypes who are well-designed (ie, balanced), and which ones aren't (and are suitable candidates to focus classes that are lacking in performance against). You then take a look at what abilities would both be thematic for the class in question and necessary to deal with monsters of that type.

So, for example, caster monsters aren't well-foiled as a general rule by the current classes - basically the wizard *can* deal with them, but it can be a close fight as it approaches mirror-match territory. This is an area where a class could be designed such that they performed well against that kind of threat. The Barbarian could be the 'blow through magic and drop an axe on the mage's head' class, but then we should be looking at giving him abilities that actually do that, something my Barbarian class rewrite endeavoured to do. This gives him level-appropriate abilities that let him add something to a party, making him a valuable member of his group as opposed to dead weight.

Another niche currently missing is a true tank niche - a class who can actually make monsters deal with him rather than his buddies. I gave my barbarian rewrite a few of those, but this niche could just as easily belong to the fighter. However, deciding who should have this role requires an idea of what we think these classes should be doing at 10th, 15th, and 20th level.

(As to the 'it must remain generic' - that's a really generic role statement about mechanical outcome. The number of implementations possible are quite varied and multiple options could be made available to the fighter, not to mention generic abilities over which players and DMs could put their own flavor).

[hogarth]

Squirrelloid wrote:

As amusing a parody as that is of my position, I hardly am espousing something that literally true. Its possible to give classes level-appropriate abilities that aren't identical. You're interested not in what other classes are doing so much (although its intermediate knowledge) as you are in how that translates into beating challenges and what challenges they beat.

Sure, but if you look at a bunch of challenges, half of which only a wizard or cleric can beat consistently, then the implication is that every class should be "wizard-like" or "cleric-like" in the role it plays within a party.

P.S. I should probably excuse myself from this discussion because I've never played a fighter or a barbarian. Why? Because I like having a character who can do lots of different "stuff" -- inside or outside of combat -- and that generally means being a spellcaster/manifester.

[Quandary]

Hm, I think it's pretty obvious to all that the Fighter as written, while great in that they have alot of Feats to work with, doesn't compare with the new Paizo-fied spellcasters (Wizards with spontaneous casting via Bonded Item with higher spell levels than Sorcerors to boot?!?!? At least that should be @ 1 level lower than their highest spell, otherwise it's a joke on Sorcerors), and their special class abilities are nothing more than mere +1/x bonuses, which just don't cut it.

I saw a great post on here a while back, that I thought was worthwhile to bring up again:
Give the Fighter the ability to segmentize their turn. This means that they can take an immediate action, and put the rest of their actions on hold until a later point in the round. So if the BadGuy moves to escape, they can cut him off. Or take advantage of a flanking position one of their allies opens up. Or move to protect a spellcaster, and then wait until the caster's spell goes off before taking advantage of the buff and Full Attacking. It's not unbalancing, and really lets the Fighter make the most of their tactical abilities. It probably should be something like a 3rd or 4th level ability to prevent 1-level dipping.

That doesn't really bring the Figher up to the level of the game, though.
I think the easiest path, and most non-Flavor disrupting, is to actually make the Figher the "Master of Feats" like they're already supposed to be.

Why not let the Fighter's Fighter Bonus Feats IGNORE one 'level' of the Feat 'Trees'. This means, for example, the Fighter could 'skip' Dodge, and take Mobility straight away. They could only 'skip' Feats with their Fighter Bonus Feats, but could still 'build on' any Feats they have with their regular odd-level feats. I don't think this is too over-powering, and really makes the Fighter the "Feat Master" they're obviously supposed to be. (And since the Ranged Weapon Path Ranger already 'skips' a Feat, the mechanic is already built into the game)

I don't think adding other special abilities (magical/pseudo magical, etc.) is the way to go. I think allowing the Barbarian a certain amount of pseudo-magical abilities works flavor-wise, but I really think this one change with Feats really lets the Fighter shine where they're supposed to. At higher levels, the Fighter should really be equipped with items (Prot/Evil, Freedom/Movement, Charges of True Strike to pull off insane CMB moves, etc.) to help cover up their weaknesses, and in a party, they should be the ones that the caster wants to Buff so that they can multiply all their Feats with the benefits of the Buffs.

Adding this change to the Fighter Bonus Feat really helps the Fighter 'wade thru' the forest of not-that-great Feats to get to the 'good stuff', while maintaining the "really easy to use" aspect, which I think is an important and viable role for the Fighter class, i.e. easy for beginner players to pick up and not have alot of abilities to "keep track of" (as well as BadGuys that are simple to generate and play for the DM). I do think Paizo really needs to improve some of the Feats they have, besides adding in new ones... (How about a "Bleed" which applies significant DoT that forces Spellcraft checks? Or "Disorientating" strikes which interfere with casting or limit actions? Etc, Etc.) The Fighter needs good feats to really become on-par with the game as a whole. But I'm sure that will happen by the time the final product is released to print...