FatR is often needlessly snide and obnoxious about it, but his point in this instance stands. Take out artificer and archivist, and you've still got 3 classes (cleric, wizard, druid) who are allowed to do things that are essentially game-breaking, but it's OK, because it's magic, right? But try to give melee combatants ANY sort of useful tricks outside of stand-and-swing, and people freak out and yell about how unfair and unbalanced it is. It's a double-standard that's been getting steadily worse and more restrictive towards melee guys since the start of the game. In the current edition, it's worse than ever.
Although I rarely play Melee types very much, I will be very interested to see what you and HD come up with as House Rules for the Melee artists.
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I am going to right now say I am not suggesting that Paizo get rid of the Fighter. I am trying to provoke meaningful productive discussion by stating the reasons I am not allowing the Fighter in my game.
1. Too Generic
The Fighter has to cover everybody that can use weapons good. This seriously limits what class features might be available if you want to change it. You have to consider whether it would fit all of the available archetypes.
With all the different feats available in PFRPG, especially the combat feats, i think it makes it even easier to specialize in one thing with sub-specialties in a couple different things. Making the Fighter useful in many, many situations.
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. There are better Fighter classes, such as the Barbarian, but when you try to improve the Fighter you run into problem #1.
As far as damage output, well sure, barbarian has rage. There are, of course, the weapon specialization feats, as well as others that increase damage of the fighter. I'd say he's just as good as the other 'fighter' types.
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. I want to play an adventurer that has a role in the party including both in and out of combat capabilities.
I admit, some of these are surmountable to a certain degree. But I'm not going to bother. In my game you can be a Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, Knight or Swashbuckler, but not a Fighter. So what do you think?
Well sure, out-of-game, it's called a Fighter. But in-game characters know nothing about out-of-game mechanics/titles. Just because the class is called fighter, doesn't mean that's what he is. He could be Captain of the Guard, A valorous knight, or a street thug with an attitude. In game, your fighter is only limited in what he does out of combat by your imagination.
I'd say banning the fighter because he might seem bland or weak is a bad call. If i did that, my group would be comprised of Cleric, Druid, Wizard only..
that's my 2cp
QUOTE]that allow them a full move as an immediate action, and another one that allows any hit to cause a dimensional anchor effect, THEN they can prevent that sort of thing. But without those types of abilities, they can't cope at high levels.IF you allowed that, mage slayers would be in every potted plant, and the mage would never be able to get away. That would definately be unbalanced (against the mage)
But a cleric can do the same thing at range (negating the need for immediate movement), with a TOUCH attack rather than a regular attack, and without spending ANY feats -- instead, it costs him a single daily 4th level spell slot. Or he can craft a wand, and do it basically at will. By your argument, the entire world is ALREADY unbalanced against the wizard... and yet he seems to do just fine.
THIS is the key issue, for me: why are basic options that cost a spellcaster next to nothing considered perfectly OK... whereas the same option, slightly nerfed, and requiring a whole chain of feats, is suddenly "unbalanced" if a fighter gets it? This is the mind-set I can't understand.
Dont get me wrong, I am the number one fan of bring back the effectiveness of the 1e fighter. In fact as fighter variants and subclasses came about (read barb, ranger, pally) it became extremely rare to see a pure fighter by 2e, and one is 3e was even rarer.
The barbarian HAD too much compared to the fighter ( I think pathfinder fixed that)Movement feats would be an intersting way to deal with the broken 3e combat without changing the whole way combat works, allowing better backwards compatability.
In fact I like this idea better, because that means not everyone can do it for free, and lets the fighter (who has more feats avaialble) to do it more often, more reliably an earlier, which gives the fighter edge over the other Full BABS and clerics and rogues (for that matter) but doesnt keep everyone from doing something special ONLY the fighter can (because then combat wouls still be broken for other meleers)
AND at the same time, leaving that limitation in place for MONSTERS, so they aren't runnign about raging all over a party (not ever monster is going to have movement feats like this)
So yes movement feat chain coupled with the fact the fighters get the most feats in the game, fixes the things that miffed me most about 3e (the nerfed fighter and the broken ombat rules)
sweet deal!
Let me just say I've always liked the fighter BECAUSE he was vanilla.
I could role six stats, say the character had chainmail, dagger, longsword and shield,10 hitpoints and I was playing DnD in five minutes!
I could walk into any first level game in the local hobby shop about to start and say " I wanna play" without putting any thought into character creation (right away) AND have something to contribute to the group (game mechanics wise)
As play went on, and magic items were randomly generated, I had the highest likelyhood that I could use it.
So if the +2 morningstar became available,I just used a weapon proficiency slot (which I had tons of, always) and it was mine!
Nowadays morningstar ( a proficency noone ever chose) is now common simple weapon,almost everyone can use. It took the random "grab up the rare magic weapon" away from something the fighter could do.
Making magic items "creatable" by PCs is cool, but there should be quests involved, rare materials, HUGE XP loss and Stat point loss (like creation of old it was a ritual)
Quickie PC magic items stole the coolness of something as simple as the +2 dagger, when you found it. It could hit better and do more average damage than the shortsword and it was useable by the mage in combat if need be. That was part of its 'passive' MAGIC quality.
So basically the fighter COULD have the highest probability of using the most magic weapons, the soonest.
The randomness of the game and what you found helped make the vanilla 1st level fighter, into something different every time.
No new player needed to learn tons of things to just start and play "make him a fighter", almost everyone 10 and up understood "I want to kill the monster with my sword!"
It was ALL that was required.
in 1e, an 11th level fighter was something to be feared and could be an encounter all by himself, that the party would have to fight against, if the party was low enough level.
But even today, the quickest way to get into the game of analready existing group, without holding up game play is to say "make me a fighter!" (as it is likely there is not one already)
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For the record, as I feel it needs to be reiterated, neither Kirth nor I are in favor of taking ANYTHING away from the Wizard, and, in fact, we (or I at least) find the increasing nerfing of spells in 3x/PfRPG a tad annoying; however, we ARE advocates of giving fighters what they need to at least be on the same playing field as wizards at higher levels. Not equal to, mind you, just capable of holding their own and having meaningful impact on combats at high levels.
No offense to anyone who says the fighter is fine at, say, 17th level, but I seriously think your DM might be pulling punches to make the fighter feel better. The DM should be able to play every monster or NPC to their fullest without taking away the fighter's fun, but that is difficult in 3x due to the way actions are structured (full/standard/move/swift/immediate/free). If you know AD&D, you know that the round dytnamic was reversed. In older editions, wizards were not as mobile without expending spells (teleport/dimension door/etc...) as they could not "move and cast" or "cast and move" (casting times were too long for that, and somantic compnents to spells actually MEANT something...), and fighters were much more mobile (full move AND full attack). Spellcasting monsters faced similar restrictions as well, making mind flayers and beholders a bit more manageable for the melee types.
Fighters are beasts at low levels (up to 5th), decent at mid levels (up to 10th or so), but they DO drop off in relevance dramatically after that.
Also, as a side note to the "but wizards can't have every spell prepared" camp: once you eliminate the "suck" spells (just about the entire school of evocation, for one group) and the spells a wizard wouldn't have memorized for downtime, their spell list pretty much defaults into spells useful for a wide variety of circumstances...
lol maybe we should convert to an older version of D&D lol :)
Edit: BTW, i've never played any version of D&D before 3.0, though i do hear it was loads of fun, and the Evoker (specialist wizard) was actually scary..
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lol maybe we should convert to an older version of D&D lol :)
Nah, there is a lot to like about 3x (characters are more interesting to make, for one). They just changed the one thing that was actually better in AD&D...
Edit: BTW, i've never played any version of D&D before 3.0, though i do hear it was loads of fun, and the Evoker (specialist wizard) was actually scary..
Oh, Evokers were to be feared in AD&D. In 3x, I think they sat in the corner with a "dunce cap" alot in wizard school...
As it stands, there is an opportunity cost to every spellcaster's action. It's called a spell slot. You can only cast X per day, and the folks who claim that the wizard is always best ignore it (which is what makes me so irritated.) Sure, you can go nova on an encounter and rule, but what do you do for an encore other than nap?
The way the rules are written, though, actively supports that model of "wizarding": nova, then rest. You have (a) prewritten adventures that insert "rest points" every 4 encounters or so; (b) spells appearing at low levels (rope trick) that make it easy to rest and regain spells; (c) easy ability to craft staves, etc. to make sure one or two extra encounters aren't going to deplete your reserves; and (d) monster damage capabilities that are sure to deplete a melee guy's hp faster than the caster depletes his spells. Shifting the 4 encounters-rest-repeat model to something like 26 encounters then rest would also require restructuring the whole healing thing (hp are the fighter's spell slots!), the xp progression assumptions, and the adventure-building assumptions that 3.X is based on.
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So, what level does the fighter start to suck? I'm at 6th with my crew, and I'm really not seeing it yet. I'm seeing equal but different, but....Kirth is usually not an insane babblemonkey and enough people are crying wolf that I think there might be a wolf somewhere, or at least a dog or other large predator about.
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So, what level does the fighter start to suck? I'm at 6th with my crew, and I'm really not seeing it yet. I'm seeing equal but different, but....Kirth is usually not an insane babblemonkey and enough people are crying wolf that I think there might be a wolf somewhere, or at least a dog or other large predator about.
For me, it has always been around 12th level or so. The only 3x fighter I've played that was decent past that point was an Eberron Warforged Juggernaut, but that is mostly because Claudius was immune to quite a bit of what a magic wielder could throw at him....
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I'd guess around the 12th mark Heathy. I haven't an experience in that area except for my first game, playing a monk in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, where we got to 11th level. I know I was feeling the pain through that meatgrinder. And having played from 15th to 30th, I can say it is there too.
Edit: Egads, Derek and I speak the same.
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Here's my Big Question, though: You don't see "rest points" in classic Gygax-era dungeons like Queen of the Demonweb Pits and Lost Caverns of Tjancgoeth. What changed in 3.0 that made four-and-rest the standard? Why is that change a good thing? How can we swing that pendulum back, if it can or should be done?
Actually, in both of those adventures, resting was discussed. The Demonweb Pits pointed out some of the dangers of resting on the three levels preceding Lolth's 4th "Level of Gates". Tsojancath mentioned finding a suitable hidey-hole as well (as did it's sequel, WG4).
I don't think rope trick is as reliable an answer as the mageophiles make it out to be, as some other posters have pointed out - it's not viable as a hidey hole until 9th level, and you can't bring bags of holding into the nappy-hole.
Again, for the 4th time (?), it's only at high levels that this problem exists: the levels at which resting and returning is trivially easy, by the rules. Eliminate rope trick, plane shift, teleport, and Mordenkainen's mansion, and you've got a good start at eliminating the nova problem. And Bagpuss hit the nail on the head; I really want the written rules to actually support better fighters, and not have to rely on DM modifications.
So, what level does the fighter start to suck? I'm at 6th with my crew, and I'm really not seeing it yet. I'm seeing equal but different, but....Kirth is usually not an insane babblemonkey and enough people are crying wolf that I think there might be a wolf somewhere, or at least a dog or other large predator about.
Thanks, Heath. I think it's a coyote, though. Probably not a chupacabra. In answer, I never really saw this problem until the APs (before that, I stayed from 1st to 15th). But then I ran "Age of Worms," and then "Savage Tide" straight through. After those experiences (1st through 19th levels with near-iconic parties), it was clear as day. At low levels (up to maybe 8th), fighters and barbarians were hands-down the best characters. After 11th level or so, the melee guys were starting to lose a bit of allure, but were still OK, and it was easy to rationalize away; after 15th they were flat-out underperforming, but salvageable... but after 17th they might as well not even be there.
Here's my Big Question, though: You don't see "rest points" in classic Gygax-era dungeons like Queen of the Demonweb Pits and Lost Caverns of Tjancgoeth. What changed in 3.0 that made four-and-rest the standard? Why is that change a good thing? How can we swing that pendulum back, if it can or should be done?
That change is not, in my opinion, a good thing. Like Derek and I have been saying, much of the fighter's "coolness" can be given back to him by just shifting the rules a bit back to his favor: what if you could move and full attack, but you couldn't move and cast spells, for example? What if fighters went back to having all the best saving throws? What if, instead of eliminating xp costs for item crafting, we increased them tenfold, so that a party might have a 17th level fighter, a 17th level rogue, and a 15th level wizard?
Leadership? Great, I'd love it... but Pathfinder lacks any rules for army-scale combat, so we're back to individual/small group scale.
At that end of things, at high levels, I'd love to see some real tactical excellence: the ability to interrupt spellcasting by charging from across the room; the ability to intercept anyone who tries to tumble past him; the ability to withstand save-or-die/save-or-lose spells through sheer force of will; the ability to anticipate enemies' movements (and hence feats allowing him see through mirror image and blink, and to not get sneak attacked). I want him to reliably inflict lots of damage with any weapon, rather than be forced into THW/Power Attack builds. I'd like him to be able to protect his friends.
What the wizard is to spells at high level, I want the fighter to be to tactical combat, and the barbarian to be to sheer destruction. At 20th level, you're likely the best in the world, if not the best of your era. A small fraction of what Benedict of Amber (Roger Zelazny) can do, you should be able to do, too.
Increasing threatened squares seems like a good start. What if, at a certain level, you threatened squares like a Large or Huge creature? And what if you could force enemies to save, or to take AoO, if they cast a spell or took other actions in that space?
I agree that's the best way to start; we need "effective reach." I've tried to come at that obliquely, by proposing (a) the ability to trade iterative attacks for movement, and (b) the ability to "save up" attacks and/or movement for use as immediate actions during the enemy's turn. That was an effort to kill two birds with one stone: lack of threat area, and lack of meaningful combat mobility. Maybe it's a more elegant solution to simply increase threat range... maybe it expands by 5 ft. per iterative attack gained (max. 20 ft. at BAB +16)?
Two things that must change are the static DCs for casting defensively and for tumbling to avoid AoOs. For those, I'd have automatic AoOs, but you could use your Spellcraft or Acrobatics check result, respectively, as your AC against those attacks.
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here are a list of classes who should have low will saves:
1.Barbarian (raging monster who have little control of their emotions) 2.Bards (come on, wtf. bards are more strong willed than swordsmen, they are frigging minstrels )
3.Sorcerers (every bloodline should have a different prime save)
4.Rogues (no need for explaination)
5.Paladins (with the CHA to saves, they are doing pretty good)
thats plenty of class with poor will saves. the spellcasters still have plenty of PC targets to get with will save spells. (warriors should still not have will primary, another difference between the cool fighter and the town guards that are running away from the invading Minotaurs!)
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Well, I was livin' out in the country, so I know a lil bit about bailing wire engineering....reckin I'd just jack up the +3 slicer they're supposed to have to a +4 vegematic, and give them some crazier armor or some s@&%.Edit: Egads, Derek and I speak the same.Great minds and all ;)
That is one way I do it, when I DM: give the fighters some level inappropriate whupass...
A small fraction of what Benedict of Amber (Roger Zelazny) can do, you should be able to do, too.
Nice name drop! Props to you, sir! :)
Excellent series btw.
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what do we want for fighters from 12-20th level?
Oh let me see, maybe to set sail with captain morgan, but never leave dry land?
It seems to me, most people that are trying to criticize others who want the fighter to be better/viable, have to be those people who only started playing the game at 3.x.
All these people are the same people who cry nerf nerf! to things like spells, or druids.
take a trip back with meto the days of 1e and 2e where the fighter, (even if many levels lower than the wizard) was known as the mage slayer.....
scene setting: the rule book was blue, the art was lame and you wanted a low thaco if you were any good in combat.
Fights broke out between parties of adventurers often laden with THREE fighters (the best class) a rogue (for comedy relief) a magic-user who planted his feet and chanted for three minutes to get off a good spell and a cleric, who never fought but ran back and forth between keeping baddies off the magic user and healing fighters.
In most combats encounters the magic user got off one or two spells.
Somatic gestures were required to cast almost all spells, which included strange standing postures, waving of the hands and hopping around on pogo sticks. If this was interupted, the spell was toast and lost, it took a single point of damage to interupt a spell, something a really nasty goblin was capable of and while runnign in fear that the goblinmight cut you down, the only spell your 8th level magic user could cast went something like this "help me help me, by all the powers i weild, please one of you fighter come get if of of me, I cant hit the goblins armor class".
Obviously it was frutstrating to play a magic user, most clerics could cast spells fine, as a goblin with a dagger wasnt going to get through yor platemail.
So WoTC fixed it, they took the whole world and turned it upside down. Instead of fixing issues with the mage, they took what was good about the fighter and gave it to the mage, and took what was good bad about the mage and gave it to the fighter.
All most people are saying is give bak what the fighter has had in older versions.
In my game, doing a full move ruins the somatic properties of the spell (ie you are not performing them properly) and they only "pew pew" spellcasters that can do full moves are ones casting with still spell as a feat.
Not doing the right somatic gestures is the same as being silenced, the spell is lost. If you move before the spell in that round (which is only six seconds) you do not have the opportunity to properly perform the somatic gestures (which include foot and leg positions)
I believe this was the orginal intent of the 3.x game and it was lost, thereby having every rules lawyer look at what they COULD do in a game by looking at the mechanics, rather tan paying attention to HOW spells are cast, and why the still spell feat was invented.
running about, flying and thinking of other things donesnt let one concentrate, ready spell components, recall ancient long forgotten mystical words, all in the space of 6 seconds.
regardless, 3.x broke something pathfinder needs to fix, fighter movement.
If that one thing was fixed, it would bring the fighter back from the dead.
not only did spells used to be full round actions, most of the really powerful ones used to take multiple rounds to cast!
In the same set of rules, fighters ran amuck with full movement and full attacks, with a full attack bonus to every attack AND they only had to roll a 2 to half your fireball damage or avoid being charmed.
magic-users were kinda like rugs, they spent most of the time on the ground collecting boot prints, UNLESS protected properly by one or more of the fighters.
IF the magic user was wearing boot prints and couldnt get off his HUGE spell, it was the fighters fault.
So they fixed the mage by nerfing the fighter, now all the mage-o-philes are cyring they dont want to get nerfed. Fighters were major nerfed when 3.x was printed.
there were 3 versions of the game for the first 20 years where this was not true (basic, 1e and 2e)
All we want is the movement back we always had. (until WoTC started breathing in too many paint fumes and flubbed up the combat/action rules,)
What we were talking about is two things 1) a major change to the entire rules of the universe and 2) a massive nerf to fighters attack per round.
we arent even asking to have the attack unnerfed, just the universe breaking reality change. Put movement back in melee combat. (ie fighter full attacks and full move)
Simple.
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I'm in favor of making spells full-round actions. I'm a little mless enamored of making multiple attacks and moving your full move every round. I like the tactical decisions implicit in doing one or the other.
A five-foot step before or after a full-round? Or, just to make things complex, a five-foot step after *each* attack in an interation? Combine that with Cleave, and you could have a lot of fun mowing your way through low-level minions. On a high level baddy, it would let you muscle your way to a flanking position. Any interest?
The problem is that mobile opponents will soak an AoO and leave the meleer behind while they go for the dangers (the casters, who often aren't squishies -- they can have better AC and concealment, etc, than the meleers -- but who are the melee-ending threats) leaving the meleer to have to chase and only able at best to make one attack. When they only make one attack, they aren't doing serious damage, so they're failing. The 5' step after each attack you suggest would be OK on a crowded battlefield, but against a small number of big bads, you're not likely to be able to make all the attacks you need to make in order to get that next 5' step. Also, 5' steps are immune to AoOs and I don't think that this movement we want in addition to attacks should be -- it's normal movement and has tactical consequences.
It seems to me that the tactical aspect of the current system just doesn't work against opponents played as if they're intelligent, ie, they move to attack the casters and ignore the meleers. Even melee brutes without pounce, losing their own multiple attacks, are better off ignoring the meleers. Now, we can resolve that by playing the opponents in a 'realistic' way, ie, as if the mechanics matched what we'd like to be the case, but as we're talking about game mechanical design, it seems that we should be trying to make the mechanics match what we'd like to be the case, even if it's only preserving meleer relevance, which I think is the best we can hope for and the result still look somewhat like 3.x combat (it's still mechanically basically the same, but it's as if everyone has some free access to some hypothetical feats to be released in some future 3.5 splatbook that never actually happened).
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Increasing threatened squares seems like a good start. What if, at a certain level, you threatened squares like a Large or Huge creature? And what if you could force enemies to save, or to take AoO, if they cast a spell or took other actions in that space?I agree that's the best way to start; we need "effective reach." I've tried to come at that obliquely, by proposing (a) the ability to trade iterative attacks for movement, and (b) the ability to "save up" attacks and/or movement for use as immediate actions during the enemy's turn. That was an effort to kill two birds with one stone: lack of threat area, and lack of meaningful combat mobility. Maybe it's a more elegant solution to simply increase threat range... maybe it expands by 5 ft. per iterative attack gained (max. 20 ft. at BAB +16)?
Two things that must change are the static DCs for casting defensively and for tumbling to avoid AoOs. For those, I'd have automatic AoOs, but you could use your Spellcraft or Acrobatics check result, respectively, as your AC against those attacks.
The Lunge feat Jason introduced does increase threatened range. Now we just need an AoO stopper feat to stack with it, to give the fighter some decent battlefield control (Shall Not Pass is too good to stack with extended range, Jason says, and I'm inclined to agree, on reflection).
IT does not make sense for someone to say you can full move and full attack, but you can full move a pew pew pew spells, except to say that you dont want spellcasters to actually be threatened by meleers.
IF you can move and pew, you can move and hew!
I am going to right now say I am not suggesting that Paizo get rid of the Fighter. I am trying to provoke meaningful productive discussion by stating the reasons I am not allowing the Fighter in my game.
1. Too Generic
The Fighter has to cover everybody that can use weapons good. This seriously limits what class features might be available if you want to change it. You have to consider whether it would fit all of the available archetypes.
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. There are better Fighter classes, such as the Barbarian, but when you try to improve the Fighter you run into problem #1.
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. I want to play an adventurer that has a role in the party including both in and out of combat capabilities.
I admit, some of these are surmountable to a certain degree. But I'm not going to bother. In my game you can be a Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, Knight or Swashbuckler, but not a Fighter. So what do you think?
Hmm. Really, I haven't run into any of these problems. My players and I have always made our fighters our own, and given them different flavors, even if it's just a knighly-type or a mercenary, solving problem 1 and 3.
My players also don't powergame (after a lengthy campaign where excessive powergaming occurred, we realized it's not so fun), and so far I've seen no problems with power levels with fighters. Sure, Wizards have more damage-dealing capacity, but that's their draw: they give up armor and weapons and are little pansies in melee in exchange for great magical (and thus damage-dealing) capacity. Even if that's not a viable argument for you, a high-level great-cleaving fighter with good bonuses to attacks and damage from Weapon Training, heinously high ACs from Armor Training, combined with the ridiculous damage-dealing potentials of the style specialization feat trees (Two-Weapon Fighting, Overhand Chop, etc) seems to keep pace with a Wizard any day.
Like I said, at least in my groups, it's been a complete non-issue. I really like the Pathfinder Fighter, and I don't see it being too weak or too strong (given the players don't optimize).