I can see how some people would dislike fighters, but I think it's just a matter of taste. I can't stand playing Druids, even though they are arguably the most powerful class in the 3.5 PHB. I find the generic nature of the class excellent for turning the Fighter into any of a variety of archetypes.
While I agree that the Wizards starts out-pacing you for raw-damage-in-a-single-blow, it's very nice to not worry about running out of "swords" you can cast per day, get to attack three or four times versus the one spell most casters get in a round, and (by 16th level)you've got almost 20 feats, giving you a lot of options to customize what you can throw out, from extra damage to super mobility to status effects, and even boost up those weaker saves and pad out their skill points.
Admittedly, in a one-on-one fight, a high-level wizard will probably own a single fighter, but in any low-level fight the opposite is true. If you want a fighter-type that can effectively 'cast spells', then take a look at "The Book of Nine Swords" to bring in anime-style fighting maneuvers. I consider it unbalanced, but it might bring in the power level that you're looking for.
Well said! It's the fact that a 3.5 fighter is a Feat God that makes them so attractive to me. You can literally build any archetype fighter you wish. In fact, I usually have to play the wizard of the group because no one else wants to.
I miss fighters. I always played a fighter in 1e/2e. In 3e, at low levels, they were even cooler: now they had FEATS! They totally rocked. But then I started playing them past 6th level or so, and came to realize that the combat rules changed a lot from 1st edition to 3rd edition, and the fighter hadn't changed with them; he got left behind:
So, I don't want spells as a fighter, or magic powers. But I would sure like to get some of my combat prowess back -- because everything the fighter used to be able to do in 1e/2e is now impossible per the structured combat rules in 3.0/3.5/PF. So I'd like some feats that let me break some of those rules, and do what I used to do. Intercept and block enemies. Move and full attack. Disrupt spellcasting. Do enough damage to matter.
That is a good list of the issue, now if we can get some useful Fighter only feats to fix that
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That is a good list of the issue, now if we can get some useful Fighter only feats to fix that
Actually, I don't want that. The fact that the fighter accumulates feats so much faster is the best way to make the fighter the Master of the Battlefield (hmmm, sounds like an MMORPG), I think, but still allows other meleeing types to have some of that goodness (because they're also outpowered by the spellcasters, after all).
Why not some fighter-only (maybe a damage bonus playing off Weapon Training), and some general (a paladin would want to protect his friends, and a monk would want to move and attack -- and they, too, got shafted in the transition to the rigid square-based 3.0 combat rules).
Exactly. All of those issues (great consise list, BTW) apply to Barbarian's, Rangers & Paladins (& Rogues!).
Hell, melee Clerics should be able to interrupt now and then, too.
The nerfing of both iterative attacks w/ movement, and the interrupt mechanism (which was linked with Casting Time in 2nd Ed.) affects ALL melee characters to the detriment of spellcasters.
Beyond specific Feats which could at least partially return the previous functionality (definitely justifiable, IMHO, since spellcasting lost NOTHING and gained TONS in 3/3.5), I think Initiative Actions (Ready, Delay) and Spellcast-Interruption could be looked at in themselves.
Myself, having started in 2nd edition, the 'casting time' mechanism made sense and even gave high lever casters SOME reason to cast lower level spells. It had a more interesting dynamic in that melee characters' init speed tends to stay the same, but casters' init tends to slow if they use their highest spells. And I like how init speed even applied to melee characters, giving the 'heavy 2h smashers' slower init than quick weapons. 2nd Ed. gave SOME advantage to casting a lower level spell vs. your highest one. 3.5's Quicken Spell is just a FREEBIE, nothing else... Yet 3.5's Melee types don't have their OWN Immediate/Swift Actions (I like the direction Paizo has gone with the Barbarian with this.)
I don't know if we'll go back to that system (Casting Time/Weapon Speed), but I think Ready & Delay need to become easier to use and less penalizing - Such as if you ready an action but your trigger doesn't occur, you can still take a standard action before the next turn's first initiative. This tactic is very limited anyways, since no matter what, it only works for one round, after that, you can't "interrupt" any more (possibly if your DEX/ init mod is higher you could...?) Characers shouldn't be screwed for TRYING to use it's one-round advantage, and be forced to lose their action because their exact trigger didn't occur.
Concentration seems very ripe for change as well. With the precedent of the Skill-based CMB checks (Bluff/Feint & Acrobatics/Tumble), Concentration could be made to work similarly, giving it a slightly higher base DC (I also assume Feats will exist to allow multiple attacks on a standard move, for scaling at high levels). This would also neatly allow all the Skill-based "Combat Maneuvers" (Feint, Tumble, & Concentration) to be detailed in their own sub-section of the Combat Chapter, while the non-Combat applications of those skills (Acrobatics, Bluff, & Spellcraft) would be detailed in the Skill section.
I have good hopes for this.
Yes, it's the same skill as Spellcraft now,
but I think the specific Combat usage to resist interruption is still called "Concentration",
just like Acrobatics has "Tumble", and Bluff has "Feint".
That's what I meant about the Skill-Based "Combat Maneuvers", and how Spellcraft/ Concentration could be treated similarly to those, as well as Concentration being put in the same sub-section as the "Combat Skills".
Kirth has hit upon the dark of it. Lack of ability to move and attack is the main issue.
Um, actually, 1e/2e fighters make 3.x/Pf fighters look like nancys. sorry, it's true.
See my big breakdown of that topic, 10 or so posts above. Did I leave anything glaring off the list?
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Um, actually, 1e/2e fighters make 3.x/Pf fighters look like nancys. sorry, it's true.See my big breakdown of that topic, 10 or so posts above. Did I leave anything glaring off the list?
Only the "could shrug off wimpy m-u spells at high levels due to wicked good saves" ;)
(and, yeah, i replied to the earlier post before i even saw a "page two"...)
Only the "could shrug off wimpy m-u spells at high levels due to wicked good saves"
Yeah, I do seem to feel like they save a lot less often now than they used to, but chalked that up to nostalgia. Lemme look at the old DMG and compare with the new saves. If you're right, as I suspect you are, add that to the list, too.
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Only the "could shrug off wimpy m-u spells at high levels due to wicked good saves"Yeah, I do seem to feel like they save a lot less often now than they used to, but chalked that up to nostalgia. Lemme look at the old DMG and compare with the new saves. If you're right, as I suspect you are, add that to the list, too.
i just looked it up in the 1e dmg, yeah, fighters were much better against magic at high levels. with the exception of low level fort save spells, fighters had better saves against magic across the board in 1e.
so i guess you can safely add that to the list...
i just looked it up in the 1e dmg, yeah, fighters were much better against magic at high levels. with the exception of low level fort save spells, fighters had better saves against magic across the board in 1e.
Ah, that's why my subconscious prompted me to write those save-improving feats for the "new feat ideas" thread! Again, trying to bridge the gap between the 1e fighter and the 3e one.
Got my 1e DMG out now: let's look at a 15th level Fighter, and assume DC 20 saves (1e had no DCs) for the 3e guy (that's equivalent to a wizard with a 20 Int casting a 5th level spell):
Granted, resistance bonuses to saves were harder to come by in 1e, so assume the 3e guy will have a +4 resistance bonus by that level. Even so, the fighter's saves are still off by a fairly wide margin.
I dislike the book , but magic schools should have been a diff chapter
I am going to have to say that I don't agree about the fighter being weak. The fighter in my campaign regularly dishes out 30ish points of damage a round and he's gone over 50 points of damage three times in the last two game session. And as the player puts it, a wizard runs out of spells. He doesn't run out of halberd.
I agree that the fighter, including PBeta fighter is a class, that isn't any goof at its supposed job and cannot do any other. He has following problems in PBeta:
1)Extremely complicated to build and easy to screw up, i.e., extreme newbie trap. You must plan your career many levels in advance to be even remotely good. There is no way around it. Moreover, out of four possible combat styles (THF, TWF, sword and board, archery), two are hopelessly weak beyond low levels.
2)Plain weak. Fighters have no chance whatsoever of matching melee-oriented monsters of equal CR blow for blow. At medium and high levels this is blatantly obvious, but can be noticeable as soon as level 3, when you meet your first dire wolf (or even ogre, for that matter). At high levels, even suboptimal melee brutes squash fighters with CR higher by several points. Also, they have serious problems with catching most opponents that aren't melee-oriented. Even if they can catch them, they cannot deal any serious damage because of their inability to move more than 5' and full attack. In 3.5 this problem was solved by chargers, but they are nerfed in PBeta. In summary, fighters only shine when DM heavily overuses mooks (although on high levels even supposed mooks can overshadow a fighter) or plays enemies suboptimally. They can be automatically and totally screwed by large percentage of monsters, such as anything that flies and has decent ranged attacks, early big grapplers (later, FoM is mandatory), anything that targets Will save with save-or-loses (that's quite a few monsters), and anything specifically designed as anti-melee.
3)As a corollary to 2, fighters are hugely dependent on both buffing and enemy-debuffing by spellcasters, whenever their enemies aren't total mooks.
4)As a corollary to 3, "being able to fight even when spellcasters run out of spells" is total bull, unless your DM adjusts power of the encounters down every time. Not only spellcasters with half a brain practically never run out of spells beyond about level 9, at the latest (and they also have abilities to disengage and rest at any point in the adventure, by that moment, which can only be countered by other spellcasters hunting them down, or by a very strict time schedule), if they do, the party must rest or die - a fighter has neither the killpower to take on non-crippled level-appropriate enemies by yourself, nor magical healing, that is necessary to keep him on his feet in combat with said enemies.
5)Fighters do not do anything, that other classes cannot do better and do not bring any abilities, that would make them a better base for buffing that barb or melee-oriented cleric, to the table.
I think, that banning fighers is too radical, though. They can be useful as a dip or interesting to some players, although I would strongly advice any new player against playing a fighter.
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2)Plain weak. Fighters have no chance whatsoever of matching melee-oriented monsters of equal CR blow for blow. At medium and high levels this is blatantly obvious, but can be noticeable as soon as level 3, when you meet your first dire wolf (or even ogre, for that matter). At high levels, even suboptimal melee brutes squash fighters with CR higher by several points.
Fighters are also killed by melee brutes with CRs 3-4 higher than their level...
Of course, I am being facetious here. However, I don't recall seeing the rule where fighters are supposed to be effective against monsters of their CR. I am not saying fighters don't need a boost (they do) but comparing them against equal CR is counterproductive. In those rare cases when CR was "rigorously" determined during 3.0 development, CR was the result of empirical evidence derived from multiple playtests against a party of four with all spells of duration 10min/level running and the monster behaving "normally". If the party regularly expended 20% of its resources to defeat the monster, it was assigned a CR equal to the party level. No determination was made on what those 20% resources might be. It could well have been 90% of the fighter's hitpoints and 5 spell levels (to restore the fighter afterward or keep him standing). Is it any wonder the fighter can't stand against "melee brutes of his CR" by himself?
I am all for making the fighter better, but setting unrealistic standards that have no bearing on the fundamental design of the game is not going to get us anywhere but into yet more problem areas.
Even NPCs with PC classes are supposed to have CR of their level, which is important, say when putting them against the party. Spellcasters, generally, live up to their CR. Fighters? You can guess the answer. This is one of the best illustrations for their gap in power. While I agree, that making them equal to the best and the toughest melee creatures, such as advanced dire animals/other monsters with pounce and or dragons, would be unwise, now they have little hope of standing on their own even against weaker types, such as giants. Particularly if DM does not leave his monsters burdened with their standard packgages of weak feats.
Also, it is important to remember, that by making basic fighters and their peers significantly tougher, so that high-level monsters wouldn't be squashing them in 1-2 rounds we reduce the party's dependence on multiple layers of buffs. And the fact, that you supposed to have tons of buffs active at high levels seems to be among the major complaints.
Ah poor fighters, they are like drummers, they form the backbone of the band/party and nobody really appreciates them. fighters are far from generic what with feat, weapon and armour selections which allow for variety. i think that the class as a whole lacks the wow and luster of the other classes (anyone remeber the 3e ranger?) if you really wanted to you could create fighter specific feats (in the vein of greater weapon focus or weapon specialization) and don't forget you can use the fighter as a base class and use prestige classes like the duelist or dwarvern defender to fill the specific needs of you campaign
full attack + one move action
single attack at the end of a double move action
abolish casting on the defensive for spellcasters
fixed
Except you missed the punch line: Jason Bulmahn vetoes fix --> back to the drawing board. Which seems to be the case; he's not even looking at feats to fully do what you suggest, much less changing the combat rules back to the 1e/2e standard. Players: "Could we have a feat that lets you move and full attack?" Proposed feat appears that allows an extra 5-foot step or two, but costs all of your movement for 2 rounds, and has a boatload of other limitations and restirctions on it. I think he just really, really hates melee classes.
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i understand that mr Buhlman just wants to keep as close to 3.0 as possible, the pain for the mundane melee just springs from that (aka no hate, just to big of a change) I just dont know how a sorcerer having 1d6 hitpoints, two claw attacks, at will cantrips, can still be considered close to 3.5. spellcasters can have at will abilities WITHOUT having to take a feat for it. but all fighter fixes have to be within the feats.
how about a twice per day pounce ability as a Fighter only feat? I say if spellcasters can have at-wills then Fighter classes can choose to have per day abilities. seems like a fair trade.
(i must say that i do like the at-will abilities but detect magic is getting a little to much use though. hand of the Apprentice is too beefy, and no one is taking familiars anymore because the item of power option is just plain too good.)
1. Too Generic
One would think that's actually a blessing, not a curse. A Fighter is only as good as the player's ability to create a solid strategy and character build based on his feats. Where other classes are already structured regarding scope and strategy, the Fighter is the proverbial set of lego blocks for you as you do as you please. For one, being a lover of customization myself, I LOVE the fighter.
2. Too Weak
Honestly the Fighter is just too weak. In a world where wizards can use Meteor Swarms and such the ability to hit somebody with a sword really hard just isn't good enough.
Say, you've never played an actual high-level campaign, have you? Just how good is a mage that can't cast because a warrior keeps tripping and joint-locking him into submission? In addition, by the time a mage can cast Meteor Swarm the party is already assumed to be at a point where your Figther has enough magic equipment to be quite the irresistible force (or unmovable object) himself.
Stop thinking in linear "I attack" terms. Let your imagination fly, think of the kind of stunts made by Conan or Aragorn that leave your mouth agape, and translate those stunts into feats.
3. The Name
Why is the Fighter limited to fighting? I don't want to play a character that has no out of combat capabilities.
That's more of an historical context issue. The Fighter is assumed to come from a medieval society, from the times where people had no education whatsoever and could only devote themselves to one single trade (hence the reduced class skills and skill points).
If you want your archetypical jack-of-all trades fantasy adventurer play a Rogue (I'm playing one right now who happens to be pretty mean in combat and by lvl 6 will be plain vicious, then again is all about planning your build).
If you want an florentine swashbuckler play a Bard (who happens to be our resident illustrated, renaissance man).
If all you want is a Fighter with more skill points, play a Human (+1/level), devote his Favored Class bonus into yet another skill point/level, and give him a minimun Intelligence Score of 12, which will net you a total 5 skill points/level, nothing to sneeze at.
I want to play an adventurer that has a role in the party including both in and out of combat capabilities.
I kind of hear you on that one though, and while I wouldn't give the fighter more skill points (as that would step on the toes of the Bard, who happens to be the Fighter's historical evolution if you look at him the right way), I'd give him extra class skills... perhaps a feat somewhat like the wizards' Spell Mastery, but that allowed a Fighter to pick a number of Skills equal to 3+ his Intelligence Modifer, then treat them now as Class Skills.
In my game you can be a Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, Knight or Swashbuckler, but not a Fighter. So what do you think?
I think you need to think more outside the box.
P.D: Yes, I have played Fighters. I only wish they had more class skills.
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Okay; banning the fighter....
I see this conversation in your future.
New guy:
"Okay, here I am...uh....can I play a fighter?"
You:
"uh, no....I banned the fighter."
New guy:
"what the f+~+ for?"
You:
"uh, well...a plethora of reasons really."
New guy:
"Jeesh! Let me play a fighter."
You:
"Uh, no. It's illogical. You can play a barbarian or perhaps a ranger."
New guy:
"GTFOOH. I wanna play a fighter, I wanna play a fighter. You act like it's asking to play a ninja in Medieval France, or a triceratops man ninja in Medieval France or something. What's the big deal."
Don't ban the fighter. It's like, when your dad makes you wear a Minnesota Vikings football jersey to school, and you live in Dallas or something. It's weird.
Don't ban the fighter. It's like, when your dad makes you wear a Minnesota Vikings football jersey to school, and you live in Dallas or something. It's weird.
Heathy, is this just a random thought, or unresolved issue from your childhood? ;)
There aren't enough fighters...
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how can you joint lock someone who
1. scryed and knew you were coming, can you get around an alarm spell as a 18th level Fighter, no.
2. can silent and still ethereal jaunt, wraith form, balors nimbus or any number of spells custom made to get a wizard out of any mundane effect. (dont leave the wizard tower without one)
3. summoned a creature that has a better CMB than you, that skeletal dire bear totally owned you.
4. is flying... nuff said on that one.
there is no thinking out of the box with this problem, if a wizard is even sorta built right then they are in no risk by fighter types
Note: the ban on Fighter should read more like a pack of cigarettes. it may make you look cool early on, but these suckers will kill you in the end. not a ban more like a very very very sincere warning to newbs.
Say, you've never played an actual high-level campaign, have you? Just how good is a mage that can't cast because a warrior keeps tripping and joint-locking him into submission? In addition, by the time a mage can cast Meteor Swarm the party is already assumed to be at a point where your Figther has enough magic equipment to be quite the irresistible force (or unmovable object) himself.
We did. We also played with and against people that had enough brain cells to avoid crap spells, like Meteor Swarm, instead (at that level) opting for using No-Save-You-Lose spells, like Forcecage or Otto's Irresistible Dance (the first one got a save in PBeta, IIRC but this does not matter against fighters, because it is their weak save, therefore they are lucky to have 25% chance of making it). Or for gating in Pit Fiends to lay smackdown on their enemies.
Also, you DON'T have enough equipment for these levels. You must blow most of your WBL just to cover your bases, such as not dying in one round of melee combat (and you're still weaker than any melee-oriented monster of similar CR). And then you must get at least 2-3 immunities, flight and teleportation, just to avoid the most obvious ways of insta-killing or functionally disabling you.Stop thinking in linear "I attack" terms. Let your imagination fly, think of the kind of stunts made by Conan or Aragorn that leave your mouth agape, and translate those stunts into feats.
Conan and Aragorn were, what, 5-6th level, by the end of their careers? Admittedly, with relatively high abilities, but still, they hardly would have been able to prevail against a DnD-style troll in direct confrontation. And a troll is CR 5. Against any of high-level monsters or characters either of them is a smear on the floor before he realizes that he's being attacked. Say, how any of their stunts can help against something as trivial as flying, invisible wizard, which can choose from 3-4 ways of instantly disabling his opponents, often permanently?
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Conan, much like a prehistoric James Bond, was always getting captured by one of those egotistical wizard bastiches.
He usually whupped them by getting out of his jail cell, sneaking past the room with the giant spider, and sneaking up on the wizard and choking him out with his manacles. The wizard couldn't cast because his spell was verbal or something, and he was a spindly wizard-type guy who couldn't even do 5 pushups back in the day when he was 18 years ago and Atlantis just sunk, so he's got a big glass jaw in that respect.
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i wonder how he got past all the wards and alarms?............
He typically did so while the wizards was either stoned out of his gourd on lotus extract, engaged in casting some egregiously long spell that required total concentration (like say scrying on someone else so he could be fully prepared to unleash the smackdown on that person, or making a deal with some summoned critter to unleash a smackdown for him), or busy engaged in whatever mundane nefarious acts are relevant to his current plot and either not present for the escape or too preoccupied to do anything about it.
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Well, he usually had a buncha city boy fighters, or a elephant-head abomination that used to be the Prince of Keshmitistan until his usurping brother sold him out to the wizard for some payola scheme answer all the car alarms.
Like Mickey Spillane (or was it Yogi Barra?) said: when the story gets boring, you need to have a guy kick in the door and just start blasting.
Then, as Sam related, the wizard kept hitting his lotus bong and harassing the Zamboulian dancing girls.
Yeh; egotistical overreliance on minions FTW!!!
Ok let's see
how can you joint lock someone who
1. scryed and knew you were coming, can you get around an alarm spell as a 18th level Fighter, no.
1a) If you had read the description for the Scry spell, you'd know it generates an appendage most Rogues can spot on a Perception roll, so good luck trying to scry on a PC party.
1b) Whoever ever bothers learning a spell that doesn't last enough to be of any usefulness (an alarm that only lasts hours? You've gotta be kidding me. I'd never spend a single dollar on an alarm system that only worked from 10-12:00AM, I mean, why???).
2. can silent and still ethereal jaunt, wraith form, balors nimbus or any number of spells custom made to get a wizard out of any mundane effect. (dont leave the wizard tower without one)
2a) Sure, silent and still lvl 3-4 spells and deny yourself of 5th-6th level spells that you WILL need against high-level people, yeah that will work... not. Also, perhaps you don't know that you can't attack targets with spells while you're ethereal or incorporeal, and lo those spells are only used as escape means... escape means you might not live to use if the party's Rogue sneak attacks you first (even Mental Actions still use up an action, not every wizard knows Contingency).
2b) Oh so your DM gives your wizard PCs towers and all kind of made-up spells rigth out the bat? I'd really like to play in your muchkin paradise of a gaming table... so far I've only seen a single wizard PC with a tower in the 10 years I've been playing, and he was lvl 20.
3. summoned a creature that has a better CMB than you, that skeletal dire bear totally owned you.
And again, if you pay attention to the Summon Monster descriptions, you may find out that the monsters you can summon are usually inferior to the ones you fight, so unless you use up at least half your spells buffing your "pet", it makes a worthless tank. Also, just where are you going to get a dead Dire Bear to animate it? Or your DM also lets your players carry a dozen of them in their bag of holding? Also I'm soooo sure the party's Cleric is okay with that.
4. is flying... nuff said on that one.
Two words for you: Composite Bow. You can always lasso-him up too, after all, any adventurer worth his salt carries rope with him, right?
there is no thinking out of the box with this problem, if a wizard is even sorta built right then they are in no risk by fighter types
And just how many buffs and wards do you think a wizard can raise in the middle of battle? Particularly with 3.5's joke of spells? Or you assume all wizards have some sort of "Sequencer Robe" that allows them to raise all their buff spells on a free action?
Your problem is that you keep assuming wizards have all the spells in the world written in their spellbook, can summon all their resources at the same time (and in the same round), and have an unlimited amount of feats to spend on metamagic and Skill Focus: Spellcraft. If your DM actually allows for such atrocities then he has some serious issues as all the things you gripe about can't be any farther from the truth. Even with NPC wizards it's rather unlikely the mage can get as invincible in a wink unless your DM is cheating (even worse if he keeps coming up with custom spells, unless you guys fight liches on a regular basis)... and let's say your party's wizard did all you mentioned in a combat. Guess what? He's down to 25% of his spells, if not less, so one more combat on that same day and in the best case he's a liability to the party, in the worst he's dead (And there's -always- more combat that same day).
I strongly advise you actually get a clue of what you're talking about, it gets tiresome.
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comp bow? really? im invisible and flying and comp bows the answer? yes, a fighter with every potion and every weapon and feat could take out a wizard, unfortunately it doesnt happen in any games i play in. wizards can memorize multiple spells that have very specific ways to combat them. unless you are one well informed Fighter, your f'ed.
note: Fighters dont have perception or spellcraft (thank god i dont have to put double ranks!) and fighters have hard times with significantly lower cr at high levels give me a 9th level summons and a 18th level fighter and they will be too even to be just a spells worth.
dogburt, love the energy man, but your a bit to Wizard-centric ^^
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They can also read their post, and edit it to not sound like as much of a dick. I do it all the time.
Think of the person you're talking to. Imagine he can benchpress 450 lbs., can squatzilla 800 lbs., and has a poolstick in his hand, and you're talking to him at a bar. Then, kinda talk to him like that. It's just good manners, man.
And if HE'S popping off, well; go get the bouncer.
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They can also read their post, and edit it to not sound like as much of a dick. I do it all the time.
Think of the person you're talking to. Imagine he can benchpress 450 lbs., can squatzilla 800 lbs., and has a poolstick in his hand, and you're talking to him at a bar. Then, kinda talk to him like that. It's just good manners, man.
And if HE'S popping off, well; go get the bouncer.
It seems to me that the ability to insult people who might crush you like a bug in real life is a big part of the attraction, for some individuals. Personally, I'd prefer the excitement of doing it in person, if I was after that sort of excitement at all.