
FatR |

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?
No. We assume, that all wizards have more than one brain cell. They have, you know, Intelligence as a primary ability. Therefore, whenever they need to raise spells in the middle of battle, they do so from Resilient Sphere, raised by their Contingency as a reaction to an ambush (the only scenario when the wizard might ever need to buff in combat). Note, that ambusing Overland Flying invisible (from a relatively cheap ring, if your DM does not allow non-core material) wizard is not exactly an easy feat. Otherwise their divination spells ensure that they pretty much never unprepared for battle. Then there is the fact, that the high-level wizard can retreat into an extradimensional space to rest and rememorize whenever he feels like to. Nothing forces him to stay in the real world for one round longer than duration of his buffs. Then there is the fact, that he can Greater Teleport to his enemies after confirming their location. While all buffs are still active. And this is really freaking basic, by the way. This is nothing compared to truly abusive stuff a wizard can pull by 17th level.

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No. We assume, that all wizards have more than one brain cell. They have, you know, Intelligence as a primary ability. Therefore, whenever they need to raise spells in the middle of battle, they do so from Resilient Sphere, raised by their Contingency as a reaction to an ambush (the only scenario when the wizard might ever need to buff in combat).
Resilient sphere does not affect your person and so cannot be cast with contingency.
Assuming resilient sphere is cast for buffing, it must be dismissed, meaning the ambushers are sitting around, waiting for it to go down, so they can attack with readied actions.And we assume this attacking party has no disintegrate or dispel magic available.
As for divination spells, I have never seen any spell that gives automatic and complete identification of future enemies, or specific and detailed identification of their capabilities, the specific moment they will attack, or the exact manner in which they will attack. They can keep you from being flat-footed (if you are 17th level or higher, and for no more than 3 hours and 20 minutes of any particular day per casting of a 9th level spell), give you an awesome bonus to one roll (if you are 15th level or higher), spy out the area around you (if you are 15th level, can beat the rogue's Hide check, and are not fatally delayed watching them replay 10 hours of nothing for 10 rounds until they get to the point when they spot the ambusher), detect all magic within 120 feet (if you are 13th level or higher, for up to 20 minutes per day per 7th level spell, or 40 minutes per day per 8th level spell), gives you some information about someone (if you are 13th level, can make what may be a DC 30 caster level check, and can burn 100 xp every time you feel the need to cast it), or increasingly less spectacular benefits.
Finally, there is a spell a 7th level character can cast that can in fact force any high level wizard to stay in the real world for 7 minutes or more over the duration of his buffs.

FatR |

Resilient sphere does not affect your person and so cannot be cast with contingency.
Sure it can, because it, you know, does affect a creature, in this case, your person, by placing it into an invulnerable sphere centered on that creature and Contingency does not specify range as "Personal".
Assuming resilient sphere is cast for buffing, it must be dismissed, meaning the ambushers are sitting around, waiting for it to go down, so they can attack with readied actions.
It is cast from Contingency to avoid a succesful amnush, see above. If you have any reason to suspect, that you cannot handle the now-revealed attacker (and your buddies, CoDzilla and blender rogue, aren't busy reducing him to mincemeat, maybe because they have just been killed by whatever ambushed you, maybe because you're loner), you can just go ethereal on your first action, then dispel the sphere and quickened-teleport the hell away (if your DM forbids teleportation from it).
And we assume this attacking party has no disintegrate or dispel magic available.
Then they are spellcasters, and pretty kickass ones (UMDers have practically no chance to both negate the sphere and do something to you, before you get away). Yeah a spellcaster can be kiiled by a better spellcaster. Now tell us something we don't know.
As for divination spells, I have never seen any spell that gives automatic and complete identification of future enemies, or specific and detailed identification of their capabilities, the specific moment they will attack, or the exact manner in which they will attack.
Strawman much? Anyway, Scrying alone owns everything that is revealed yourself as your enemy and is not better caster than you. Even if the victim notices, it cannot really do shit, because it cannot stay on alert against every conceivable form of assault 24/7, and you don't have to hurry. For party adventuring, Contact Other Plane provides general ideas about enemy forces, Prying Eyes detect everything that is not a dedicated ambusher, already lying in wait (you'll be surprised how rare they are in most adventures), Scrying/Clairvoyance can be used to double-check sensitive spots. Oh, and you have easy summons to trigger traps as well as calling for bad-ass bodyguards. You're not at serious risk of running out of spells, because scrolls are dirt-cheap, and you have quite a lot of said spells even without them.
Finally, there is a spell a 7th level character can cast that can in fact force any high level wizard to stay in the real world for 7 minutes or more over the duration of his buffs.
Yeah a spellcaster can be kiiled by a better spellcaster (you pretty much must be a better spellcaster to catch a wizard in the position of weakness and get past its defences that block the line of effect, including the above-mentioned Spehere and disable his quite-probable Rod of Absorbtion). Now, again, tell us something we don't know.
In short, you pretty much need a plot reason for a spellcaster to stand and fight, otherwise a competent high-level wizard is rather unlikely to be forced to do so. Even if he does not use the real cheese.
And last, but not least: while it is not quite possible to destroy the caster that just has the above-mentioned tricks, everyting that can destroy him, will destroy any core melee much, much harder. Most of them aren't any good at surviving ambushes, and their ability to counter any sort of attack that is not melee is way more limited.

Mairkurion {tm} |

Bagpuss wrote:
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.You reckon? ;)
Me, I'd just like a place where ideas and s#~@ can get exchanged, and you don't have to deal with cybertosterone and tedious mouthduels.
Just another one of your eccentricities...

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Sure it can, because it, you know, does affect a creature, in this case, your person, by placing it into an invulnerable sphere centered on that creature and Contingency does not specify range as "Personal".
It does not have to specify that as a range. It says it has to affect you personally. Resilient sphere does not. The effect is in an area, not on a creature. It cannot be used with contingency.
It is cast from Contingency to avoid a succesful amnush, see above. If you have any reason to suspect, that you cannot handle the now-revealed attacker (and your buddies, CoDzilla and blender rogue, aren't busy reducing him to mincemeat, maybe because they have just been killed by whatever ambushed you, maybe because you're loner), you can just go ethereal on your first action, then dispel the sphere and quickened-teleport the hell away (if your DM forbids teleportation from it).
Above is against the rules.
If you leave then you have lost the encounter.And that assumes the initial attack did not carry an affect that blocks extra-dimensional travel.
Then they are spellcasters, and pretty kickass ones (UMDers have practically no chance to both negate the sphere and do something to you, before you get away). Yeah a spellcaster can be kiiled by a better spellcaster. Now tell us something we don't know.
Not at all. They can easily be of lower level and still be able to use disintegrate or roll well on dispel magic. So a spellcaster can have his protections broken by a worse spellcaster.
Strawman much?
No, I just play by the rules.
Scrying does not give any initial information about the target. You cannot randomly scry on "the guy who will attack me next".Yeah a spellcaster can be kiiled by a better spellcaster (you pretty much must be a better spellcaster to catch a wizard in the position of weakness and get past its defences that block the line of effect, including the above-mentioned Spehere and disable his quite-probable Rod of Absorbtion). Now, again, tell us something we don't know.
Yet again, this is a spellcaster of lower level. A 7th level wizard can block any dimensional travel by a 20th level wizard.
Even assuming you break the rules and use the resilient sphere, it does not activate until after the initial spell has hit and taken effect.A rod of absorbtion is nice, but not an automatic possession of every character over a particular level.
In short, you pretty much need a plot reason for a spellcaster to stand and fight, otherwise a competent high-level wizard is rather unlikely to be forced to do so. Even if he does not use the real cheese.
No, you just need the rules, as written.

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1. Too Generic
The fighter has to be generic, so the class can be fit into a range of cultures. Not every culture has knights or swashbucklers, but the majority do have fighters (soldiers, warriors etc). If you want to make the fighter more specific, change the name for your campaign setting.
If you want your fighter to be a knight, take the appropriate feats for combat (e.g. mounted combat). If you want your fighter to be an archer take the archery feats. The great strength of the class is that it is generic and gains access to a wide range of feats.
2. Too Weak
I have never found the fighter class to be weak. In fact, the large number of feats give an excellent range of options that can be customised. Too be honest, if you think the fighter is weak, then your game is way over powered or your not approaching the class right.
You shouldn't feel a need to encourage players to take the other base classes (e.g. duskblade, knight, swashbuckler etc) over the fighter. The knight class is a terrible option and doesn't really allow a player to experience what it meant to be a knight. Not all knights were perfect paragons of chivalry. The knight class is way to restrictive and not that realistic.
3. The Name
A fighter is not limited to fighting. He could also be a blacksmith, a politicians, even a noble. His primary skill is war, but it would not be his everyday bread and butter. Most professional soldiers do not experience constant combat, they have other skills and training as well. The Roman legioneer is a good example.
Again, change the name. You don't have to call the class "fighter", adapt it for your campaign.

FatR |

You know, Samuel Weiss, I can answer, because your post literally piles incorrect assumptions and invalid rules interpretations one on another, but why bother, if you so blatantly discarded any pretense of making an actual argument by insisting on obviously invalid interpretation, even after being corrected? Anyone can check SRD and see that Resilient Sphere is "Effect" (that affects a target creature and this, of course, can include the caster), not "Area". And that was not changed in PBeta.

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You know, Samuel Weiss, I can answer, because your post literally piles incorrect assumptions and invalid rules interpretations one on another, but why bother, if you so blatantly discarded any pretense of making an actual argument by insisting on obviously invalid interpretation, even after being corrected? Anyone can check SRD and see that Resilient Sphere is "Effect" (that affects a target creature and this, of course, can include the caster), not "Area". And that was not changed in PBeta.
You must have a different SRD than I do:
"Effect: Some spells create or summon things rather than affecting things that are already present.
You must designate the location where these things are to appear, either by seeing it or defining it. Range determines how far away an effect can appear, but if the effect is mobile it can move regardless of the spell’s range."
That is absolutely different from "Target or Targets", which is a separate entry.
You might also consider this:
"Subjects, Effects, and Areas: If the spell affects creatures directly the result travels with the subjects for the spell’s duration. If the spell creates an effect, the effect lasts for the duration. The effect might move or remain still. Such an effect can be destroyed prior to when its duration ends. If the spell affects an area then the spell stays with that area for its duration.
Creatures become subject to the spell when they enter the area and are no longer subject to it when they leave."

FatR |

"Effect: Some spells create or summon things rather than affecting things that are already present.
You must designate the location where these things are to appear, either by seeing it or defining it. Range determines how far away an effect can appear, but if the effect is mobile it can move regardless of the spell’s range."That is absolutely different from "Target or Targets", which is a separate entry.
However, Contingency does not restrict itself to spells that define "target or targets". It says "The spell to be brought into effect by the contingency must be one that affects your person". Doesn't Resilient Sphere satifsy the condition of affecting caster's person, considering, that its effect is "globe of shimmering force encloses a creature", and said creature can be the caster, and it cannot be cast in empty space, like Walls of, and it even gives a personal saving throw, wheh used offensively? Sure it does. You have better case arguing, that Globe of Invulnerability cannot be contingencied.
You might also consider this:
"Subjects, Effects, and Areas: If the spell affects creatures directly the result travels with the subjects for the spell’s duration. If the spell creates an effect, the effect lasts for the duration. The effect might move or remain still. Such an effect can be destroyed prior to when its duration ends. If the spell affects an area then the spell stays with that area for its duration.
Creatures become subject to the spell when they enter the area and are no longer subject to it when they leave."
You might also consider the spells like Imprisonment, that affect creatures directly, but deny movement and make them immovable by outside force. Just like RS.
Also note, that Contingency can interrupt the attack before it lands. Also note, that Resilient Sphere is only really preferable to teleport home to a mage of 12-14 level or one that travels with the party. Really paranoid high-level loners can be just whisked away to their secret lair whenever they're targeted by any hostile effect they're not aware of: there is no such thing as "losing the encounter" by the rules, so they can just try to ger their XP and loot another day. Those more willing to take risks, say, PC wizards, can use Blink instead and still have better chance of ignoring whatever crap is thrown at them than any core melee. They also still can buff themselves and their buddies head to toes each morning and return to their Magnificient Mansions whenever buffs start to expire.

Kirth Gersen |

I have never found the fighter class to be weak. In fact, the large number of feats give an excellent range of options that can be customised. Too be honest, if you think the fighter is weak, then your game is way over powered or your not approaching the class right.
If by "way overpowered," you mean "extends above 9th level," then we're in perfect agreement. Fighters are great from 1st-4th level or so; much better than almost anyone else except barbarians. 5th-10th they're starting to get a little out of their element, but are still usually valuable, viable characters. 11th+ level, and there's absolutely nothing they can do that the spellcasters can't do better.

Schmoe |

Samuel Weiss wrote:However, Contingency does not restrict itself to spells that define "target or targets". It says "The spell to be brought into effect by the contingency must be one that affects your person". Doesn't Resilient Sphere satifsy the condition of affecting caster's person, considering, that its effect is "globe of shimmering force encloses a creature", and said creature can be the caster, and it cannot be cast in empty space, like Walls of, and it even gives a personal saving throw, wheh used offensively? Sure it does. You have better case arguing, that Globe of Invulnerability cannot be contingencied."Effect: Some spells create or summon things rather than affecting things that are already present.
You must designate the location where these things are to appear, either by seeing it or defining it. Range determines how far away an effect can appear, but if the effect is mobile it can move regardless of the spell’s range."That is absolutely different from "Target or Targets", which is a separate entry.
I think your interpretation of "affects your person" is erroneous. The sphere simply occupies a space, it only affects someone when that someone attempts to interact with it. Whether you are inside or outside of the sphere is irrelevant, as it does not directly affect you. It is analogous to saying a tree in the forest affects your person, because it can block your movement.
The only tractable interpretation of "affects your person" is to mean something that directly acts upon you, such as Mage Armor, Teleport, Blink, etc.

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I think your interpretation of "affects your person" is erroneous. The sphere simply occupies a space, it only affects someone when that someone attempts to interact with it. Whether you are inside or outside of the sphere is irrelevant, as it does not directly affect you. It is analogous to saying a tree in the forest affects your person, because it can block your movement.
The only tractable interpretation of "affects your person" is to mean something that directly acts upon you, such as Mage Armor, Teleport, Blink, etc.
Exactly.

Big Dummy |
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...
I agree with a lot of these issues people have raised about Fighters and Combat in 3.5. We came up with a house rule based on using a "roll many / keep one" dice system four years ago, which we have found really brings a lot of flexibility and dynamic qualities back to a fighter and to combat in general in our games. It was so successful that I made it the basis of a new martial-arts based combat supplement PDF I did which is doing pretty well now, but the basic mechanic which we call "Martial Pool" is Open Content so anybody can use it.
I've described it in detail in the thread linked below on EnWorld if anyone is interested, someone there saw this thread and recommended I post a comment here about it.
this is another related thread about using historical basis for ideas to make gaming (and combat) more interesting.
BD

Matthew Hooper |
I adore the fighter - always have, always will. It's "boring" like a pile of building block are boring - you can do all sorts of things with them. I've never found them to be weak, primarily because I find their actual game play to be vastly different from these "thought experiments" that occur on the threads.
Maneuver on the game board is a much bigger deal than these thought experiments give credit for. A great cleaving fighter with a two-handed weapon has done an astounding job of emulating a fireball in game's I've played. (It's also a lot more fun, shifting around to get that perfect chain lined up...)
In my experience, a high-level fighter doesn't even use the standard attack on the solo. That's what trip, grapple, sunder, and disarm are for. Sunder the wizard's spell component pouch, grapple him to keep him immobile and speechless. A silent, stilled teleport? Excellent. We trimmed one of the caster's highest-level spell from the list before the adventure even started. Trip the enemy brute repeatedly, and he's essentially slowed. You *do* have options other than "full attack every round" - you just have to open your mind.
Fighters also excel at manipulating the numbers - power attack and combat expertise are a very big deal. (I'm not amused by the nerfing of those feats.) A fighter can go from a high AC brick to a potent striker from one round to the next, just by shuffling his BaB and AC around - numbers he's got an abundance of at both ends.
In short, the class has a lot of potential that just isn't immediately obvious. If you're going to give wizards every option, give the fighter every option too. (Flying spell? Who needs it? I'll take that hippogriff... and a mounted combat feat or two. And a harpoon, just for grins. I'll be happy to fight you in an environment where I move faster and with more agility than you.) It's only as weak of a class are your own imagination.

PetRock |
In short, the class has a lot of potential that just isn't immediately obvious. If you're going to give wizards every option, give the fighter every option too. (Flying spell? Who needs it? I'll take that hippogriff... and a mounted combat feat or two. And a harpoon, just for grins. I'll be happy to fight you in an environment where I move faster and with more agility than you.) It's only as weak of a class are your own imagination.
Unfortunately, a mount is considered equipment, and everyone ,including the wizards and druids, get the same amount (in gp value) of equipment. And why, if I was a BBEG wizard, would I settle for a hippogriff or griffon mount when I can summon something akin to a dragon (or three), and still have the gold you spent on your mount? Those mounted feats you have will be useless class features when your mount dies.
As for grapples, a quickened (silent and still if necessary) dimensioned door ends those. If you actually get close enough to grapple a wizard. Sundering the component pouch might work, a little, if one of the value feats spent wasn't eshew material components, but range is an issue again, as is a second magic pouch (it's real cheap).
Now, I like the fighter. I liked them in D&D, when I got the little red and blue books, and I like them now, when I have the Pathfinder book. But I understand the spell casters are more potent than a fighter, much more useful to the party, and versatile than a fighter can be.
One trick is to look at the BBEG. In most games, it's a spellcaster, because they are powerful all by themselves, can summon help, and use a large number of area effect spells to hurt the whole, or large number of heroes. A BBEG fighter...what kind of tactics, feats, and magic items would you use to challenge a group of heroes?

Matthew Hooper |
As for grapples, a quickened (silent and still if necessary) dimensioned door ends those.
I always adore these sorts of answers to questions...
Tell me, when was the last time you actually memorized a quickened, silent, still dimension door in a game? Or saw one on an NPC's character sheet?
The answer is, um, you haven't. Because a quickened, silent, still dimension door is a tenth-level spell. A silent, still dimension door is a sixth level spell... which spell in your arsenal are you giving up for that defensive measure? Let me know if you use a magic item in response, so I can use equipment in kind to answer that. Remember, unlike the fighter, your challenges are finite. Fighters don't have that sort of limit. More to the point, is it realistic to posit that a wizard has every possible spell that can answer these challenges available to him every time? Or is it more realistic to assume you've got a caster with a well-balanced grouping of spells instead of corner-case solutions? Remember, you only have X number of spells, preselected every day, not every published spell, at your disposal.
Also note that you're using sixth level spells to answer my counter to your third level spells. How much further do you have to ramp up your wizard's power to deal with my fighter?
As for the summoned dragon... well, you can't. They aren't on the list of summonable creatures. Maybe an air elemental or two, or your own griffon if you want a mount. But my mount's got a lot more staying power than your summoned critter, thanks to the Mounted Combat feat. And if I can outrun your griffons for a couple of rounds - not too hard - they'll disappear. What's the next sixth level spell you'd like to waste on this? You've got, what, three more? Again, your challenges are finite.

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i more than fair to sacrifice a high level slot to TOTALLY NEUTRALIZE an equal or higher CR. you dont have to kill a foe to defeat him. you can also demoralized him by making all his feeble attempts at stopping you meaningless. also it should be noted that your hippogriff still has horrible hitpoints and bad saves at high levels, meaning youll probably take full damage from the damage spells ( if the wizards dumb enough to have them) and then fall for some more damage ( hope you got extra mounts) that why i only play mounted paladins, its just not useful as anything else because them mounts dont last.
what is trip/sunder/disarm/bullrush/feint going to do to the giant monsters such as Dragons? nothing at all but waste your round. so if the purview of the Fighter is to take on other low level Fighters, then its doing its job well.

Matthew Hooper |
If I'm mounted on a hippogriff - all right, a pegasus - I an readily stand off out of the range of your spells and shoot you with arrows. Admittedly, I have to take a steep penalty to do it, but for a dedicated archer a -8 penalty is not insurmountable. Yeah, yeah, protection from arrows. Eventually, I can break it down - it only absorbs so many points of damage. Or you can spot me a +1 bow. How many of those did you have memorized again?
Likewise the dragon - breath weapons only extend out about 140 feet, well outside arrow range. Bard showed how to do it - if you want to kill a dragon like Smaug, use an arrow. It might take forever, but the numbers are on your side. The dragon's faster than the pegasus, but the pegasus is more maneuverable - keep drawing angles, and you can keep him at bay. Eventually, the dragon goes down.
More to the point, a pegasus costs 3,000 gold pieces. That's roughly the starting gold for a 4th level fighter. Can you supply a CR 4, or 4th level wizard, who can respond to a pegasus-mounted archer? Or is this just an "archmages beat everything" argument?

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A great cleaving fighter with a two-handed weapon has done an astounding job of emulating a fireball in game's I've played. (It's also a lot more fun, shifting around to get that perfect chain lined up...)
Except fireball isn't the valuable spell it was in earlier editions...
You later mention Power Attack and Combat Expertise. You are aware that they're both pretty much nerfed in PFRPG? As an aside, Mattastrophic and Jess Door make an extremely persuasive case that they should both be combat options open to all, rather than feats (much less nerfed feats).

Matthew Hooper |
You later mention Power Attack and Combat Expertise. You are aware that they're both pretty much nerfed in PFRPG? As an aside, Mattastrophic and Jess Door make an extremely persuasive case that they should both be combat options open to all, rather than feats (much less nerfed feats).
I have, and I am oh so unhappy about it. I hope they either return the feats or just make them open options...

Big Dummy |
Bagpuss wrote:
You later mention Power Attack and Combat Expertise. You are aware that they're both pretty much nerfed in PFRPG? As an aside, Mattastrophic and Jess Door make an extremely persuasive case that they should both be combat options open to all, rather than feats (much less nerfed feats).I have, and I am oh so unhappy about it. I hope they either return the feats or just make them open options...
You should really try a Martial Pool man you'll like it... good alternative to the standard way of dealing with fighting defensively, full combat options, AoO, combat expertise, power attack and all that silly stuff without getting bogged down in tons of arithmetic.
I'm just sayin.
BD..

Gallogliach |
Link to a Martial Pool rule set, please?
It's based on whats called a "roll many / keep one" system. It's the basis for a new combat supplement I wrote, but I've made the 'Martial Pool' mechanic Open Game Content so anybody can use it.
This is a description of it from another forum:
The Martial Pool is a system we have been using in our house rules for about four years now, it’s a new way of rolling combat dice for 3.5 OGL games. The system works like this. Each person gets a ‘pool’ of up to four twenty sided dice, they can roll each dice for individual attacks or what we call “active” defense, or they can combine two or more dice together for the same roll and only count the highest number.
We see this as a way to avoid the dreaded ‘flat curve’, as a sort of a sweet spot between the way a dice pool works and the twenty sided dice. You get the speed and reduced arithmetic of the former with the wide probability range of the latter, while still keeping the twenty sided dice we know and love in DnD.
How we got there
We were running a gritty, low-magic campaign with an emphasis on martial arts and the tactics of fighting. We had made up our own special "Martial Feats" based on armed combat techniques from some 500 year old medieval fighting manuals which were translated by modern publishers around 1999 (called 'Fechtbuchs').
We were already using a defense roll with damage reduction like in D20 modern or Conan RPG, and we already had weapons rated for attack and defense, and had come up with some mechanics for bypassing armor. We felt that our combat system was enhanced over the standard system, but the back and forth still seemed a little too routine and mechanical especially in longer fights, and people kept getting really frustrated with the whole ‘flat curve’ thing with the 20 sided dice. I remember one of our players had just bought a new set of rather nice dice, he rolled a “1” on an important attack, and got so aggravated he threw the whole set of dice out the window and into the bushes in my back yard.
From our group of a bunch of gun nuts and sword nuts, we had different suggestions on how we could ‘take it to the next level’ with our combat system. We talked about Gurps, The Riddle of Steel, Burning Wheel, older games like Runequest and Rolemaster, the Grim and Gritty damage model, all sorts of other systems. We decided that we were more interested in the mechanics of the fight than on a complex damage model for our game. I personally felt tracking damage was simply too much accounting work, and frankly, since a lot of us were into martial arts we were more interested in who could cut the other guy first than rates of arterial bleeding or lung deflation. (maybe because in sparring, you never get to that part)
We looked at the dice pool mechanic from shadowrun, and tried out a few sessions of that game. We really liked how the dice pool seemed to be pretty fast and cut down on the headache of arithmetic somewhat. But we felt the range of probability from a six-sider or a ten-sider was too narrow, and changing the dice would be too much of a departure from DnD anyway. So we thought about a dice pool of twenty sided dice, but the dice pool itself was just too many dice to mess with, it quickly starts to get out of hand. Who wants to carry that many dice? And I didn’t really like playing with target numbers either once I started looking at how to make the stats work etc.
How it works
So we came up with this ‘new’ idea. Why not keep the basic DnD mechanic of how the twenty sided die works, but only let the players roll two or more dice and take the best number? The idea occurred to us when we were rolling some characters, using that standard character generation method of rolling 4d6 and dropping the lowest die. Why not roll two or three d20s and drop your crappiest roll?
So we started thinking of how to implement this. I liked the idea of letting the player decide how to manage some of their dice for offense and some for defense, like in the Riddle of Steel and some other games. But that meant it would be quite likely that a player might run out of defensive dice. So we came up with the idea of passive defense.
Passive defense is like the armor class, except armor isn’t part of it. We give everybody a defense rating based on BAB, Dex bonus and the defensive value of their weapon. So passive defense is your defense rating plus 8. Active defense is defense rating plus your die roll. So effectively it’s a slightly higher average, plus to make this even more interesting, we decided that a natural 20 rolled on defense is automatically a counterattack. A tie when the defender meant you hit his weapon (if he had one) which leads to weapons being broken right and left. Makes maces more valuable than axes in certain respects.
This also fit well for attacks of opportunity. Instead of basic AoO on your Dex bonus, it’s based on your Martial Pool. If you have dice left, you can make an AoO, if you don’t you can’t. This gives you something else interesting to think about – do you use all your dice in attacks on that group of wolves or save some to keep one from rushing in to bowl you over? A feint could be modified so that it sucks away one of your martial pool points, so you could for example, feint at somebody, and if they fell for it, rush in to grapple range.
In fact we found this basic mechanic worked really well with all of our special “martial’ feats we had come up with. We were able to take away a lot of the arithmetic, +4 bonus to this or -4 to that, and play with the martial pool instead. It lent itself very well to all kinds of special circumstances which could give you a ‘free dice’, or an extra die for your pool – thus increasing your odds for a good die roll.
Bottom line, we have had a ball with this. It has made combat much more interesting for us and never routine. Some of the fighter characters occasionally fight duels over matters of honor now – to the first blood. Our wizards or the one guy who is holding off the enemy horde use all their dice for active defense. It lends itself to all kinds of drama. The desperate attempt to stab that soft spot in the dragons scales can be tried with a four dice attack.
To keep this managable, we made a rule on the die, fighters get 1 die in their pool per BAB, but it maxes out at four dice. This way the lower level mooks still only get their one die.
If you had a system which was even more combat oriented than ours, you could increase the ‘Martial Pool’ to a much higher number. We wanted to keep it fast.
Who might like it
Not everybody would like this. If you are in a campaign where you are slaughtering orcs by the dozen, this could get a little tedious. I’m not sure how well it would work for a higher level campaign either, I think all of our testing was mostly done with mid level characters. It worked really well for us in our game, and beta testers of the new combat rules manual I wrote seemed to like it a lot, but they were mostly HEMA, escrima or Iaido people I knew through martial arts forums. I think quite a few people might also have fun with this idea, but definitely not everybody. A lot of people really aren’t interested in the mechanics of combat and many folks who play RPGs are really turned off by anything resembling realism. I think this is suitable for those few games where there is a heavy emphasis on tactics or realism or real cinematic combat as it seems to enhance drama somewhat.
I think this is a natural for Samurai based games, historically based games set in the middle ages or renaissance, or pirate / three musketeers type games. I also think certain gritty types of horror genre games like a lot of your Call of Cthulhu (Cthulhu Dark Ages?) type games might be suitable, where a fight is a fairly rare and deadly thing. It might be a good fit for high action zombie settings? I haven’t played many sci fi type settings in a long, long time but I think it could be really cool for a setting like the Matrix. It would probably be a lot of fun for a Star Wars setting. It might be good for some superheroes settings, I'm not sure.
And basically any games with an emphasis on martial arts or cinematic combat.

KujakuDM |

Why is it that people don't realize that to have all of those spells the wizard would have had to spend a lot of his gold on buying scrolls and writing them to a book. Wizards generally don't have as much gold expended in magic items as a fighter would.
And if you say they craft magic items then you also need to realize they wouldn't have as many metamagic feats.
A wizard can't be perfect just like a fighter cant be.
Your reasons against a fighter defeating a wizard are as moot as your reasons that the fighter is bad.

Elondir |

Back to the OP, the fighter can be balanced well by letting one make all iterative attacks at full attack bonus instead of with penalties. You can go further and automatically grant the weapon specialization, weapon focus, and whirlwind attack trees for free.
And don't forget to let them find decent weapons and armor.

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I am not sure why people feel the fighter sucks. They get feats and if used correctly make fighters tough. What does a wizard with 4 metoer storms say when a warrior has him grappled?
Nothing.
The point I would like to make is that with the right feats, weapons the fighter can dish out massive damage with their attacks. They can grapple spellcasters. They can cut them in half.
All classes are generic to a degree and the point of customization is to add what you like. Fighter is the most customizable class in the game. I think that the fighters that you make must be missing something. I think fighters are a good class to keep around.

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I am not sure why people feel the fighter sucks. They get feats and if used correctly make fighters tough. What does a wizard with 4 metoer storms say when a warrior has him grappled?
Silent Dimension Door, Quickened Meteor Swarm. Or just Quicken Maze to take the fighter out of battle completely.
Circumstances always factor in, so it really just depends on how each is being played. The problem with the fighter is his utter dependance on his equipment.

Matthew Hooper |
Silent Dimension Door, Quickened Meteor Swarm. Or just Quicken Maze to take the fighter out of battle completely.
You cannot quicken either of these spells - quickening adds four levels to each spell, making them thirteenth and twelfth level spells. (Greater rod of quickening, you say? Excellent! I'll take 170,000 gp of equipment too... a ring of spell storing (anti-magic field) sounds good...)
More to the point, the fighter can grapple at every level. What's the fourth-level wizard's response? Or again, is this just an "archmages beat everything" argument?

FatR |

Likewise the dragon - breath weapons only extend out about 140 feet, well outside arrow range. Bard showed how to do it - if you want to kill a dragon like Smaug, use an arrow. It might take forever, but the numbers are on your side. The dragon's faster than the pegasus, but the pegasus is more maneuverable - keep drawing angles, and you can keep him at bay. Eventually, the dragon goes down.
Do you realize, that unless you have detection magic the first sign of DnD dragon's attack often is a breath weapon to your face, cause invisibility is totally available to almost every adult dragon and, better yet, about half of them have burrow speed and can surprise you from underground or escape there, if anything goes wrong? That's just for starters, before we use any tricks from supplements. Smaug isn't even a true dragon by 3.X standards.
More to the point, a pegasus costs 3,000 gold pieces. That's roughly the starting gold for a 4th level fighter. Can you supply a CR 4, or 4th level wizard, who can respond to a pegasus-mounted archer? Or is this just an "archmages beat everything" argument?
First, you can buy stuff that costs more thah half your WBL at character creation. So wait for 5th level. Second, yes I can. A 4th level vanilla wizard that is adventuring without a party sees the threat he cannot immediately counter and casts, again, invisibility. Good luck finding him. A 5th level wizard can then try to sneak up on you in the air. And a 5th level wizard that is anywhere near geared towards such encounters can just shoot pegasus to death from his own bow, because his defences are way superior (protection vs. arrows + mirror image, with both sides hitting mostly on natural 20s that will be enough counter archer's Rapid Shot).

FatR |

Why is it that people don't realize that to have all of those spells the wizard would have had to spend a lot of his gold on buying scrolls and writing them to a book. Wizards generally don't have as much gold expended in magic items as a fighter would.
2 spells/level for free (3 spells/level if you prefer elven racial levels to specialization). Looted spellbooks. The fact that the wizard can craft for himself. The fact that wizards don't really need items as much.
Your reasons against a fighter defeating a wizard are as moot as your reasons that the fighter is bad.
Fighter is bad because he falls behind level-appropriate opponents, unless casters buff him. And even then, unless the build is top-notch.

FatR |

I think your interpretation of "affects your person" is erroneous. The sphere simply occupies a space, it only affects someone when that someone attempts to interact with it. Whether you are inside or outside of the sphere is irrelevant, as it does not directly affect you. It is analogous to saying a tree in the forest affects your person, because it can block your movement.
The only tractable interpretation of "affects your person" is to mean something that directly acts upon you, such as Mage Armor, Teleport, Blink, etc.
As you wish. Then a lone wizard teleports to safety, a party wizard suddenly gets a spell that drastically increases his chances of survival. Fighter, in the same situation, does nothing, except sucking up attacks (also note, that among the base classes, the fighter is probably the least likely to notice ambush in time).

FatR |

You cannot quicken either of these spells - quickening adds four levels to each spell, making them thirteenth and twelfth level spells. (Greater rod of quickening, you say? Excellent! I'll take 170,000 gp of equipment too... a ring of spell storing (anti-magic field) sounds good...)
Wizards totally have multiple ways to reduce metamagic costs (even more in Pathfinder). Except they do not use them on weak stuff like Meteor Swarms. If we talk about damage, how about no-save, no-SR Maximized, Empowered, Repeated (or Twin, Maximized, for better chance to deal damage AND disable the victim) Orb of Fire from 9th level slot, even before PrCs, or Pathfinder generalists, or metamagic rods?
Casting an anti-magic field is nothing an exotic form of conceding against 17-th level spellsaster. Because you just have disabled your equipment, therefore you're just chew toy for any reasonably tough monster. And full spellcasters can summon them. Alot.More to the point, the fighter can grapple at every level. What's the fourth-level wizard's response?
Win initiative (wizard's is far better), cast Glitterdust, shoot the fighter from safe distance. Use Expeditions Retreat, do not allow fighter to close. Attack from Invisibility. Specialize on grapple-enhancing spells and tear the fighter a new one in grapple. (Not optimal against normal foes, great for humiliation purposes.)

FatR |

you right about the latter. They seem dependant upon their gear at higher levels, but so are wizards with arcane bonds. Break their item they have trouble casting spells. Steal their spellbook and they are screwed. The only class that seems to not be dependant on gear is the monk.
The monk is the most gear-dependent class in the game %). Because the gear is the only way to somewhat compensate their inherent suckage. Also, care to explain, how exactly you plan to steal archmage's spellbook?

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baronofhilliard wrote:you right about the latter. They seem dependant upon their gear at higher levels, but so are wizards with arcane bonds. Break their item they have trouble casting spells. Steal their spellbook and they are screwed. The only class that seems to not be dependant on gear is the monk.The monk is the most gear-dependent class in the game %). Because the gear is the only way to somewhat compensate their inherent suckage. Also, care to explain, how exactly you plan to steal archmage's spellbook?
Swing and a miss with all respect. you strip away all gear from every class and the monk owns. That was the point of that. Not every mage is epic. Not every mage is an arch mage.
The point is not that a wizard expecting to fight a fighter chooses the terms and prepares the perfect combination of spells. Like that fella said which I agree with completely, often combat depends on the circumstances.
The fighter is a great class that is simple to start if he is finessed he can be a bruttle machine of melee.

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You cannot quicken either of these spells - quickening adds four levels to each spell, making them thirteenth and twelfth level spells. (Greater rod of quickening, you say? Excellent! I'll take 170,000 gp of equipment too... a ring of spell storing (anti-magic field) sounds good...)
More to the point, the fighter can grapple at every level. What's the fourth-level wizard's response? Or again, is this just an "archmages beat everything" argument?
I'm sorry, you were the one to mention 4 9th level spell slots. Merely responding to the field you set out.
And yes, he can Sudden Quicken one of those spells once per day.
More of a 'high/epic level play is ridiculous' argument.

FatR |

Swing and a miss with all respect. you strip away all gear from every class and the monk owns.
No without gear the monk is nothing. For that matter, he can't do much with gear, too, unless he is thoroughly optimized, and the rest of the party is not. Druid can own without gear, because druids are just that awesome. Sorcerer with Eschew Components feat can own without gear, because this situation plays to his schtick. Monk cannot hold a candle to them.
The point is not that a wizard expecting to fight a fighter chooses the terms and prepares the perfect combination of spells. Like that fella said which I agree with completely, often combat depends on the circumstances.
Exactly. That's another reason why fighter sucks. He cannot adapt to cicumstances. If the situation does not favor him, he's automatically out of luck. While full casters can react to wide range of circumstances just from their standard lists ("fighting a melee brute" is one of these circumstances, so destroying fighter does not requiring choosing or preparing anything, although I admit that before level 7 success is not completely assured) and can rebuild themselves according to the task every morning.
The fighter is a great class that is simple to start if he is finessed he can be a bruttle machine of melee.
Maybe you wanted to say "brittle"? Well, yes, that actually is a correct description %).

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I am not sure why people feel the fighter sucks. They get feats and if used correctly make fighters tough. What does a wizard with 4 metoer storms say when a warrior has him grappled?
Seriously, any wizard that can cast "four meteor swarms" must have been asleep if he let a fighter grapple him. The circumstances that would allow any melee character to get close enough to a wizard to affect his person from close range come up maybe once in a blue moon. I'm talking "total suprise, just rounded a corner, was busy looking at his shoes" kind of rare.
And what feat allows fighters to fly?
Furthermore, with a base "6" in will at 20th level, even with "owl's wisdom", most fighters are going to fail the mind affect spell, and, depending on the spell, wind up using all those feats on their own party.
Lastly, how many wizards do parties run into solo? What, high level spell slingers can't afford to hire high level meat shields anymore?
Melee characters rock the house at low levels, kinda hold their own at mid levels, and are glorified valets at high levels. Just the way the system works.

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one thing that need to be stated is that the game is not balanced, with a rolling stat method you could have one barbarian with 14str 10dex 11con 9int 11wis 10cha and another party member who is also a barbarian with a 20str 16dex 18con 14int 16wis 15CHA.....and they are both the same CR. so dont think that by it being stated in the rules that a 15 level Fighter is the same CR as a 15 level Wizard, that its true.
it may be true that if you have two totally inept players make a Fighter and a wizard, the newb playing the Fighter has a better chance of being at least a little useful. even if he picks endurance, and run as his two first level feats he should have the presence of mind to put good stats into physicals. and the newb wizard might memorize a magic missile and cast it at the full hitpoint enemy. but anyone playing the game for a while knows to throw your will save spells at melee characters. tactically slow people will definitely make the wizard look weaker. but anyone who pays attention to how the mechanics work soon realize that spellcasters are the class for the elite (i prefer playing nonspellcasters and trying to make them on par with spellcasters, THAT is one Motherf&^%ing hard game!)
you should see my latest build, feral/halfogre/lupin paladin with mageslayer/blind fighting/pierce magical concealment/serenity. ive got a +13 to fort and a +14 to Will as a "2nd" level character. i just need to figure a way to get my touch ac up so im not nerfed my touch attacks (flying is also somewhat of a problem) i tried building it as a fighter, but the will save was unrepairable