A proposal for a compromise solution to the Figher controversy


General Discussion (Prerelease)


Recently, there has been evident a certain controversy regarding the Fighter class. Some of the participants demanded far-reaching changes to the class, and the opposite side thought the class should remain as-is. There is no need to discuss the arguments of both sides, since they have been extensively, ably and repeatedly presented both at this board, on the old Character Optimization board on Wizards site, and elsewhere.

In order to justify my proposed compromise solution of that controversy, it will be however useful to summarize the most important points of both sides:

The defenders of the Fighter class defended usually one of the following, positions. It is important to note that those propositions differ widely as to the facts, but agree as to the proposed course of action - ie changing nothing.

1) The Fighter class is perfectly balanced as is. Some thought that it is equally or more powerful than wizard. Ohers agreed that the wizards might be a bit stronger, but thought this a reason to weaken the wizards, not to change the fighers.
2) The Fighter class is weaker than wizards - and there is nothing wrong with that. According to that opinion, there is no reason why different classes should be equally powerful. Some people are stronger, some weaker. In a high-magic setting powerful magicians should be powerful, and that is nothing wrong with that. Players who play fighters are competitive at lower levels. At higher levels they can roleplay weaker characters - this is equally interesting. Anyway, the Fighter has important roleplaying benefits which wizards don't get - they can be kings, they can mobilize armies, etc.
3) The Fighter is equally powerful to the Wizard if the Wizard and Cleric play fair and use their spells to help the Fighter.

The opposite side is, to be honest, not so creative and is reduced to repeating over and over that they would like to play a fighter which can contribute to the fight at high levels by himself. They also spitefully claim that wizards and clerics can buff as well eg druid's animal companion or an animated undead.

There is however one argument that the proponents of changes in the Fighter class cannot refute:

1) The Fighter represents a medieval knight, of course grown to legendary proportions, but ultimately unmagical and more or less realistic. The wizards and clerics can do the impossible, because they use magic which allows them to do so. The Fighter is an non-magical class, and it can do what can be imagined a super-strong super-skilled medieval knight could do. Even if the Fighter can do more, he can do more of the same kind of things.
On the other hand, proposed changes generally give fighters abilities which seem somewhat supernatural.

There is also a second even simpler irrefutable argument:

2) Any changes in the Fighter class would make Pathfinder incompatible with D&D 3.5 ed.

Paizo, confronted with this thankless task of squaring a circle, proposed giving the fighter some numerical bonuses to abilities. This was welcomed by some and protested by others. It didn't end the discussion, and as a disadvantage, it was not fully compatible with D&D 3.5 ed.

My aim is to satisfy all the sides.

1) First of all, the traditionals who are satisfied with D&D 3.5 fighters, either in itself, or for purposes of compatibility:

When looking at the NPC classes in Pathfinder rulebook, we see one class which is nearly never used: I mean, of course, the Warrior. My proposal is simple: to replace the Warrior with the Fighter, exactly as described in SRD. This is no loss: even if in some adventure there is a statblock of a Warrior, it can be used as is, since it has no special abilities. If an adventure suggest using a Warrior of eg 2 level, a fighter can be used instead - he certainly won't prove too dangerous!

2) For those who like the Pathfinder Fighter, the solution is equally simple. It can be seen that the fighter class features are roughly equivalent to feats. It would be therefore easy to change Bravery, Armor Training, Weapon Training etc into feat trees, and add the following note to the Fighter NPC class:

"The Fighter class can be used also for player characters. In that case, the Fighter receives a bonus feat each level, instead of each even level. Before a player takes the fighter class, he or she should consider the fact that according to some opinions the Fighter is weaker than other classes at high levels."

3) For those who want a fighter-like class with class features comparable to the classes commonly considered powerful: a wizard, cleric or druid, I suggest creating a new class. Such a class should from the beginning include the reason why it can compete with obviously magical classes in special powers - something which can be hardly expected from a medieval warrior. (As an aside, when abstracting from the concrete rules and considering the world which those rules purport to describe, it can be easily seen that a 20 level wizard could take over any modern state in a day, and a fighter - he could fight, I suppose).

There are two obvious sources of power which could be used by such a warrior:
a) He could be magical by himself - an einherjar from Valhalla, a demigod or a legendary hero with supernatural powers.
b) He could be exceptionally proficient in using the magical items and technology produced by wizards. The wizards can cast spells, but such a character is much better in using magical items than the wizards themselves. Similarly, modern pilots or soldiers are much better at flying or fighting than the engineers who create their planes or guns.

The first possibility seems better fitted to a barbarian, so I would propose that we develop the second.

Since the names of the basic classes are generally single words, I would call such a class eg. Warmaster. The particular features of such a class would need to be developed and playtested, of course. Below I want to suggest not so much concrete features, but ideas which would justify giving to a fighter-like character some basic magic-like powers.

The Warmaster would be a master of all weapons and tools of war, no matter whether they are swords, bows, exotic weapons or magical tools such as wands, scrolls or staves. He would be proficient with all weapons and armor. At lower levels he would gain class features which would allow him to fight proficiently both with close combat and ranged weapons (which would be equivalents of the relevant feats such as Combat Expertise, Power Attack, Precise Shot etc.)

At higher levels he would gain class features which would allow him to use scrolls etc, even if in full armor, to recharge wands, staves and scrolls at lower price, to create magical items etc. Finally, he would learn how to build some basic utility magical spells (Dimension Door, Plane Shift, Restoration, True Sight etc) into his gear, so that he would be able to use them eg once per day.

The basic features of the class could be:
Warmaster
Alignment: Any.
Hit Die: d10.
Class Skills
The warmaster’s class skills are Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy(Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (all) (Int), Perception (Wis), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int) and Use Magic Device (Cha).
Skill Ranks Per Level: 6 + Int modifier.

BaB: Good (1/1)
Saves: Fort: Good, Reflex: Poor, Will: Good.

Class Features:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Proficient with all simple, martial and exotic weapons, and with all armor (heavy, medium, and light) and shields (including tower shields).


baduin wrote:
The opposite side is, to be honest, not so creative and is reduced to repeateding over and over that they would like to play a fighter which can contribute to the fight at high levels by himself. They also spitefully claim that wizards and clerics can buff as well eg druid's animal companion or an animated undead.

This thread is definitely not biased.


baduin wrote:


2) The Fighter class is weaker than wizards - and there is nothing wrong with that. According to that opinion, there is no reason why different classes should be equally powerful. Some people are stronger, some weaker. In a high-magic setting powerful magicians should be powerful, and that is nothing wrong with that. Players who play fighters are competitive at lower levels. At higher levels they can roleplay weaker characters - this is equally interesting. Anyway, the Fighter has important roleplaying benefits which wizards don't get - they can be kings, they can mobilize armies, etc.

Anyone with leadership can raise armies, or be king.

Grand Lodge

Big B wrote:
The world is definitely not biased.

Fixed that for you. We should leave and make room for someone who will actually contribute.


I occurs to me, with a lot of different discussions, that either people aren't paying attention to how the Beta phase of the playtest is being run, or they don't care.

Classes will get addressed, eventually. The guys here at Paizo seem as if they would rather have some people with some play experience to back up their opinions, not because they don't want to hear opinions, but because sometimes that's easier to figure out why the poster has come up with their opinion.

Right now, we have the ability score and race section open for discussion, and the general playtest forum open, for those that have made up characters and run them through their paces.

Obviously you can post what you want (within a few pretty broad limits), but here is what I see happening with long discussions divorced from actual playtesting or from the general boundaries of the playtest framework.

1. Jason focuses on the posts that actually follow the format laid out, and the people that are posting what they want to talk about and when will complain that their opinions aren't being addressed, because they are all over the place on what, when, and where they want to talk about various issues.

2. Jason tries to address everything as it comes up, doesn't have enough time to usefully collect the focused data that the playtest was trying to address, and in the end, all of the decisions are made primarily based on internal data provided by the guys at Paizo, who are great, but who really wanted us to have a hand in this as well.

I understand that people are passionate about their opinions, and they want to make sure that their points are addressed, but the more I see topics proliferate and move further and further from the structure that has been laid out for the Beta playtest, the more this just seems like a general b!$%# session about your most and least favorite parts of the game and not a playtest where anyone really expects anything to come out of their conversations.

That having been said, lots of people have brought up lots of issues I would have never thought of, and that's great, but once in a while I would like to see those issues in actual context instead of being presented as something "everyone knows."


There is absolutely nothing that says Fighters can mobilize armies, be kings, etc. There is absolutely nothing that says Wizards or anyone else cannot do these things. This means at best they can only do the things everyone can do and therefore mean nothing.

However, let's discuss mechanics a bit shall we?

What mechanics make you a leader? Charisma. The Leadership feat (which is based off Charisma). Diplomacy (also based off Charisma).

Both Fighters and Wizards have the same typical Charisma. That is to say they dump stat it. Both could take an atypical (higher) Charisma. The Wizard has more room to do this as he only needs one really good stat (Intelligence) and two decent stats (Dex and Con) to function. The other 3 can be 8s, and he won't care much. Fighters are a bit more multiple attribute dependent, ergo they have fewer points to waste. The difference is still small, but there. Neither has Diplomacy, so really this one goes to the Sorcerer, Favored Soul, Cleric as the best leader...

Kings require more than that. Wizard beats Fighter, but Cleric still takes the crown.

Misrepresentation debunked.

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