|
I'm saying that its failing is that none of the things it gets to do are appropriate at high levels.I contest this. Pathfinder fighters are just fine in high-level fights, even using just core Pathfinder rules. They can't do anything well besides fight, but they're excellent at fighting. And don't give me any of that "but they can't save-or-suck so they're irrelevant" bull; for one, they can with the critical feats, and for two, you can be quite competent at killing high-level monsters without having to use spells.Since Zurai proved that fighters do fine at fighting in their specialty, we're back at this point.
They can't do anything well besides cause HP damage. Anything else a fighter might try is limited in "realistic" ways, while any other class gets ridiculous tricks because of magic. The fighter is doubly screwed in this regard because its class-specific features which aren't +damage are low-key and generally weak.
I disagree with this stance. Fighters could potentially perform any skill with with enough proficiency to have a good chance to pass level appropriate checks.
What they cannot do is perform magic. I personally don't need them to be able to do so to have fun with the class. While admittedly, sometimes its fun to play classes with spells and see what you can cook up, its equally fun to sometimes be the fighter and be the best physical damage dealer and the PC that the other PCs are relying on to keep those big bads off of softies and shorties.
And because of the skill system I can have a fighter with relevant stats in non combat abilities aside from climbing and swimming.
I short I have played fighters in 3.x and Pathfinder and DMed games with fighters in them. No one is feeling "screwed" I run organized play events at my FLGS and folks play using fighters and have a great time as well. In fact the only chorus I hear crying the poor fate of the fighters and their poor lot in life is on the interwebs, and that sentiment never manages to make it into my real games. Of course YMMV.
love,
malkav
|
Duh, aren't fighters for people who want to *hit things* and be *good at it* while having no issues with lack of ability to move mountains and summon angels ? Because, since 1976 the Fighters hit things and not much else, while casters throw wishes and baleful polymorph around.
What happened in 3ed is that the Fighter got more options (Feats and Skills), but due to shift in mechanics his primary ability *hitting things* became less viable. Borked damage/monster HP ratio and stuff.
Now we have PF, and as Zurai's examples show, the Fighter once again can *hit things hard*. So we're back to Gygax days.
The only two problems I see are:
1. Player who picks a Fighter and expects to be able to do crazy stuff. There's ToB/duskblades/ek's for such people, and the rulebooks (firstly) and DMs (secondly) have the task of explaining people what the class can do and what it can't.
2. Other classes being better than Fighter at hitting things. The Paladin, under the right circumstances, comes ahead - but he has the whole RP burden attached, so it's not a class for everyone.
The only two problems I see are:
1. Player who picks a Fighter and expects to be able to do crazy stuff. There's ToB/duskblades/ek's for such people, and the rulebooks (firstly) and DMs (secondly) have the task of explaining people what does the class can and what it can't.
2. Other classes being better than Fighter at hitting things. The Paladin, under the right circumstances, comes ahead - but he has the whole RP burden attached, so it's not a class for everyone.
There's a third:
An optimized fighter only hits things well in his one specialty. Going back to Zurai's example, if the fighter doesn't get his full-round archery salvo before the balor gets to act, he pretty much gets owned. Moreso if the balor has someplace out of LOS from which to summon. This is not "All you get to do is do damage and that'll have to be enough." (That's rather the paladin's thing, actually.) This is "You get to win when you can make full-round archery attacks and get outshined by the cohort at anything else."
Fighters are still one-trick ponies; PF just buffed the trick.
I fully concur with Gorbacz... and i really don't see why you "insert class name here" have to OWN absolute everything that the master can throw you in your cr... in Pathfinder the classes seems more balanced than the old D&D version, and that is what I pretend to have, a game that don't make my players feel that the game is utterly broken...
A fighter switch-hitter could fill the role of a "warrior" in the party, as an X sorcerer not optimized can fill the rol for the "mage"... i believe that in a "arena" scenario, a party would have a chance against a balor, in my game the balor is going to win almost always, because im a fanatic of planescape and all the background is in that setting...
What im trying to say is, you are being real stubborn in comparing a balor to a fighter and say "the class is still crap, cause they have only one trick"... i believe that almost any other class has no oportunity in "solo-ing" the balor.... if you have a problem with the fighter, don't play with the class, or if you wanna do other things, multiclass, in my opinion the fighter is nice option in the current state...
|
Having run some Pathfinder sessions and listened to some frankly crazy musings from one of the players, I'm wondering how is the Pathfinder Fighter better than in 3.5. Armor training is a big one and so are the vital strikes but is the sum of those two things really that big?No, but that stuff along with Weapon Training and *literally* gaining a Feat at every level adds up to something pretty nice, especially if you're using other 3.5 books like PHB2 and Complete Warrior.
It adds up to niceness even if you're not using WOTC's questionable splat material. You simply can not put a price tag on weapon and especially armor training. The Fighter actually has become a class that's worth taking to the capstone. It's as simple as that.
|
|
2. Other classes being better than Fighter at hitting things. The Paladin, under the right circumstances, comes ahead - but he has the whole RP burden attached, so it's not a class for everyone.
The Paladin's bonus is pretty situational. In a more grey campaign where most of what you fight doesn't have the evil subtype or isn't undead, the fighter comes to the primary role when it comes to laying down the hurt.
Don't forget the following when it comes to looking at top tier Paladin vis a top Tier Fighter.
1. The Paladin is still moving at the slow 20 ft movement rate where the Fighter is moving 6 squares to his 4. THIS is a biggie.
2. The Fighter will have a greater variety of maneuvers and tricks and will overall be taking less damage than the Paladin and dealing out a good deal more when they're fighting an enemy which the Paladin doesn't have her special bonuses on.
Duh, aren't fighters for people who want to *hit things* and be *good at it* while having no issues with lack of ability to move mountains and summon angels ? Because, since 1976 the Fighters hit things and not much else, while casters throw wishes and baleful polymorph around.
What happened in 3ed is that the Fighter got more options (Feats and Skills), but due to shift in mechanics his primary ability *hitting things* became less viable. Borked damage/monster HP ratio and stuff.
Now we have PF, and as Zurai's examples show, the Fighter once again can *hit things hard*. So we're back to Gygax days.
The only two problems I see are:
1. Player who picks a Fighter and expects to be able to do crazy stuff. There's ToB/duskblades/ek's for such people, and the rulebooks (firstly) and DMs (secondly) have the task of explaining people what the class can do and what it can't.
2. Other classes being better than Fighter at hitting things. The Paladin, under the right circumstances, comes ahead - but he has the whole RP burden attached, so it's not a class for everyone.
They CAN do other things. Feats help them do this. Maybe folks feel like Feats aren't powerful enough, but I happen to strongly disagree with this. The Paladin has a niche. The Fighter is good against almost any opponent his party might encounter and will have an increasing number of tricks to make him even better in MULTIPLE niche scenarios as he gains levels.
Having run some Pathfinder sessions and listened to some frankly crazy musings from one of the players, I'm wondering how is the Pathfinder Fighter better than in 3.5. Armor training is a big one and so are the vital strikes but is the sum of those two things really that big?
Pathfinder is a gigantic nerf for fighter, except maybe for games where GM actively engages in anti-optimization and encourages the same in players. With both tripmachine and ubercharger archetypes nerfed out of existence, and defenses only slightly stronger, there seems to be only one remaining way to keep up with monsters at medium and high levels, and that's archery.
there seems to be only one remaining way to keep up with monsters at medium and high levels, and that's archery.
Only if you're doing the Fighterman solo combatant optimization. The Fighterman solo combat optimization was the result of a ridiculous challenge which was met with gusto. If you want a class that will be able to consistently defeat monsters of an equal CR without optimization, you're playing the wrong game.
The Fighterman optimization, since it passed with overwhelming flying colors, proved that a Fighter does NOT need to be optimized to be useful in a 4-man party. He can take different feats, have all sorts of different tricks, and do consistently good damage against nearly all opponents.
Duh, aren't fighters for people who want to *hit things* and be *good at it* while having no issues with lack of ability to move mountains and summon angels ? Because, since 1976 the Fighters hit things and not much else, while casters throw wishes and baleful polymorph around.
What happened in 3ed is that the Fighter got more options (Feats and Skills), but due to shift in mechanics his primary ability *hitting things* became less viable. Borked damage/monster HP ratio and stuff.
I don't know about pre-2E days, because I wasn't there, but AD&D 2E all but said directly that fighters are completely obsolete past level 9.
Now we have PF, and as Zurai's examples show, the Fighter once again can *hit things hard*. So we're back to Gygax days.
And at Gygax days all PCs who managed to succeed and leave their mark on Greyhawk, except one, were wizards. Strange, that.
Only if you're doing the Fighterman solo combatant optimization. The Fighterman solo combat optimization was the result of a ridiculous challenge which was met with gusto.
I don't know what the heck you're talking about. I talking about builds that can kinda-sorta try to contribute in a party that intends to take on a medium-high adventure where opponents act like sapient beings. Or, heck, on any pre-Second Darkness Paizo AP even if opponents still act like mobs (and party presumably returns their GM the courtesy by refraning from 5-minute adventuring days and scry&fry).
If you want a class that will be able to consistently defeat monsters of an equal CR without optimization, you're playing the wrong game.
Yes I do. Because CR systems directly tells me that I should be able to so. Because good classes can do so. (Excnange CR for CR -1 in PF). Because adventures expect from me to do so.
The Fighterman optimization, since it passed with overwhelming flying colors,
I still don't know what the heck you're talking about. If you think that uberchargers, and ubertrippers, and gatling archers are actually overpowered, rather than merely being able to keep playing the same game (as long as high-tier classes do not put an equal or greater effort into optimization) you're sorely mistaken.
|
|
To this point, it's often the FIGHTERS that get the best fantasy treatment, mostly because they get the most epic scenes. Yes, it was the wiz that enchanted the sword, but it's the fighter that used it! Even the best wiz fantasy characters often have partial fighter traits.
In a way that's part of the problem. The expectation from a lot of the people who set up examples where the test of the fighter's worthiness is his ability (or lack of) to solo same CR monsters (giants being a favorite target) and crying woe when of course the inevitable failure occurs. They seem to forget that unlike Conan novels and even some "D+D" novels the game is not balanced around solo Heroes, but groups of characters playing a synergistic assemblage of roles.
|
|
If you want a class that will be able to consistently defeat monsters of an equal CR without optimization, you're playing the wrong game.Yes I do. Because CR systems directly tells me that I should be able to so. Because good classes can do so. (Excnange CR for CR -1 in PF). Because adventures expect from me to do so.
Again that is NOT what the CR system is for. the CR formula is balanced on PARTIES, not solo individuals. It assumes that there is someone with the heavy armor laying down face to face hurt, a spellcaster doing some controlling or blasting magic, a striker who's getting in cheap shots while the big bruiser is engaging the foes and a healer/buffer who's either keeping people alive or making them for effective in combat.
What is it going to take to disabuse this notion that the CR system is balanced at all for solo character types?
If you want a class that will be able to consistently defeat monsters of an equal CR without optimization, you're playing the wrong game.Yes I do. Because CR systems directly tells me that I should be able to so. Because good classes can do so. (Excnange CR for CR -1 in PF).
No it doesn't. A 15th lvl character is roughly equal to CR 14. In head to head combat there should be a 50/50 win/loss ratio. A 15th lvl character should expect to win consistently against a CR 11 creature.
I'm saying that its failing is that none of the things it gets to do are appropriate at high levels.I contest this. Pathfinder fighters are just fine in high-level fights, even using just core Pathfinder rules. They can't do anything well besides fight, but they're excellent at fighting. And don't give me any of that "but they can't save-or-suck so they're irrelevant" bull; for one, they can with the critical feats, and for two, you can be quite competent at killing high-level monsters without having to use spells.Since Zurai proved that fighters do fine at fighting in their specialty, we're back at this point.
They can't do anything well besides cause HP damage. Anything else a fighter might try is limited in "realistic" ways, while any other class gets ridiculous tricks because of magic. The fighter is doubly screwed in this regard because its class-specific features which aren't +damage are low-key and generally weak.
Isn't that all fighter is about though. I mean if I want anything more I take different class. Maybe I want stealthy fighter, I'd take ranger before taking an actual fighter. Thing is there are times where all I want to do is play a fighter. The charm of the fighter is its simplicity and the fact that you get something meaningful every level. That being a +1 BAB, 1 Feat, and 1 Class ability every level. I like that. Now a wizard they get something but it's just not the same in that nothing is significant unless it's a new spell level. I find the same thing with Clerics and Sorcerer. This just my preference here and this purely opinion so take that as such. I mean you could feel the extra level 1st spell is great with increased saves and +1 bab at 2nd level.
I disagree entirely. Remember that any spell with the equivelant of "save negates" was essentially worthless at high level.
Except... you also had "no save, just die" spells, like Rock to Mud. And Evocation killed things better than fighters (barring dart-throwing abuses and shit) could ever hope to. And seemingly every second supplement was bringing new pieces of mechanical awesomeness - for wizards alone.
Except in the pantheon books, where half the dieties were fighters or clerics (often both).
And your point? We all know, that world-writer fiat can do anything.
Besides, literature is often much kinder to Wiz than D&D games. You rarely hear the Wiz in a book say "sorry, I don't have that one today" or "her, I need everyone to stop and rest so I can get my spell back!".
It seems that you never encountered even mediocre wizard players. And, again, what's your point supposed to be? Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tenser and co weren't literary characters, they were goddamn PCs.
To this point, it's often the FIGHTERS that get the best fantasy treatment, mostly because they get the most epic scenes. Yes, it was the wiz that enchanted the sword, but it's the fighter that used it! Even the best wiz fantasy characters often have partial fighter traits.
I strongly disagree. In approximately 95% of books where magic-users actually go on adventuring with fighters, they prove to be simply more capable, powerful and awesome, period. Even in low-magic settings fighty types generally require McGuffins to keep up with magic-users in plot importance and/or to defeat evil magic-users. Even if said fighty types are main characters. As about high-magic settings... Elric (of Melnibone) can (and did) wreck his whole world and Rand Al'Thor can (and did) nuke armies and toy with fundamental constants of the universe; while Corum is, basically, artifact delivery boy and Matt can... sword things, be lucky and, IIRC have protection against being directly fried by magic. Which side is more awesome and epic in these pairs is obvious. And also, swording things is not "fighter trait". Magic users do it because they just do everything, both in DnD and in fiction.
No it doesn't. A 15th lvl character is roughly equal to CR 14. In head to head combat there should be a 50/50 win/loss ratio. A 15th lvl character should expect to win consistently against a CR 11 creature.
If you want a class that will be able to consistently defeat monsters of an equal CR without optimization, you're playing the wrong game.Yes I do. Because CR systems directly tells me that I should be able to so. Because good classes can do so. (Excnange CR for CR -1 in PF).
Yes it does. I mentioned that PF lowered CR for PCs. 50% wins is fairly consistent in my book. Though perhaps "regularly" is a better world. Anyway, if I need to pull massive optimization for these 50% wins, this is a sympthom of a weak, lagging class.
|
|
It seems that you never encountered even mediocre wizard players. And, again, what's your point supposed to be? Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tenser and co weren't literary characters, they were goddamn PCs.
That was true about Bigby and Tensor and the rest of the Eight. Mordenkainen was more Gygax's DM insert, from what I gather. What's worth noting is that quite a few of them like say, Murlynd were defintely not "optimised" characters by today's "standards", but highly fun flavorwise.
Again that is NOT what the CR system is for. the CR formula is balanced on PARTIES, not solo individuals. It assumes that there is someone with the heavy armor laying down face to face hurt, a spellcaster doing some controlling or blasting magic, a striker who's getting in cheap shots while the big bruiser is engaging the foes and a healer/buffer who's either keeping people alive or making them for effective in combat.
No, it does not, if it had assumed such inability to figure out how to play DnD on the part of PCs, CRs would have been higher. In practice, CRs both in MMs and, again APs, except for Second Darkness and later, generally assume, that the party knows better than attempting so-called "tanking", except against mooks, and does not waste time on combat healing. Also that either damage dealers kill everything in 1-2 rounds, or PCs drop lots of disables/debuffs. Because many boss and semi-boss opponentss have uncomfortably high chances of killing their target on their second undebuffed action (despite any reasonable sort of pre-Heal healing, of course).
What is it going to take to disabuse this notion that the CR system is balanced at all for solo character types?
When a character labeled as CR X, it stands to reason to expect from him being actually as strong as CR X. Also, Pathfinder already did CR adjustment to compensate for PCs' supposed synergy.
What is it going to take to disabuse this notion that the CR system is balanced at all for solo character types?
I'm starting to think that the only line of defense is the Dungeon Masters themselves.
I just hope that there's enough sense at Paizo to take the rabble rousing with a grain of salt. From what I've seen of their work, fortunately, I think they're up to the challenge.
I still don't know what the heck you're talking about.
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathf inderRPG/general/anArcherFighterSGTToIllustrateAPoint&page=1
If you think that uberchargers, and ubertrippers, and gatling archers are actually overpowered, rather than merely being able to keep playing the same game (as long as high-tier classes do not put an equal or greater effort into optimization) you're sorely mistaken.
I don't think they're overpowered. I think they're, like Paladins, highly specialized. In some situations, this makes them highly effective. Other situations, you have to finagle things to be effective. Some situations, you might be marginally effective.
A fighter built without optimization is prepared for MANY situations, puts out a reasonable amount of damage consistently, and can perform a great deal of tricks and maneuvers with above average capabilities.
I'm sounding like a broken record because it's a fact and I don't need to bend it to make it seem more truthy where the opposing argument must rely on niche situations and tricks of CR to make their point.
|
|
Now, let me start off by saying that I have never run PCs above 8th level; I play PFS exclusively, there is very little high level content, and the game ends at 12th level (because the designers themselves admit the game breaks after this point).
With all of this said, parties with dedicated fighters (Fighter/Pally) do FAR better than those without. It's harder to trap up parties, a lot of the fights are based on party being suprised (so no hyper-buff, at least not often), and the pcs are expected to clear about 5 fights without resting.
The tanks simply have more staying power. This was NOT the case in 3.5, where the worse melees (why play Ftr past 2), the degenerate alt-book spells, and overpowered arcane/divine prestige classes made straight tanks worthless.
I had the same prejudices it seems most of you do, looking at it from the 3.5 conversion. But it really doesn't work that way, especially in the non-high campaigns
I think too many look at level 20 and say "ooo... Fighters suck". But really, do you play these? We played 3.5 to 15 at one point, and it was just pointless. So the real key is to look at the mid-levels and try parties with and without Ftrs/Pallys... I think doing that, you will come to the same conclusion as I have: fighters have grown, and those without them are far worse off.
I removed an insulting post.
Make this fighter who has level-appropriate ability to handle multiple niche scenarios, if you please, Loopy. We already have a fighter who can handle level-appropriate challenges in the BMX Bandit way: in that if the challenge is a BMX race, he's got it handled, otherwise he's in trouble.
Not chiming in. Just chuckling at the BMX Bandit reference. I think I'll forever think of Wizard/Fighter on the Angel Summoner/BMX Bandit paradigm.
|
|
Again that is NOT what the CR system is for. the CR formula is balanced on PARTIES, not solo individuals. It assumes that there is someone with the heavy armor laying down face to face hurt, a spellcaster doing some controlling or blasting magic, a striker who's getting in cheap shots while the big bruiser is engaging the foes and a healer/buffer who's either keeping people alive or making them for effective in combat.No, it does not, if it had assumed such inability to figure out how to play DnD on the part of PCs, CRs would have been higher. In practice, CRs both in MMs and, again APs, except for Second Darkness and later, generally assume, that the party knows better than attempting so-called "tanking", except against mooks, and does not waste time on combat healing. Also that either damage dealers kill everything in 1-2 rounds, or PCs drop lots of disables/debuffs. Because many boss and semi-boss opponentss have uncomfortably high chances of killing their target on their second undebuffed action (despite any reasonable sort of pre-Heal healing, of course).
When a character labeled as CR X, it stands to reason to expect from him being actually as strong as CR X. Also, Pathfinder already did CR adjustment to compensate for PCs' supposed synergy.
What is it going to take to disabuse this notion that the CR system is balanced at all for solo character types?
None of what you said has any precedence in any version of the rules. Orignal 3.x DMGs... the CR system basically states that an encoutnter of a given CR will exhaust on the average 25 percent of the daily resources of the adventuring PARTY... not solo hero as it has NEVER been the assumption that D+D adventures are solo heroics. CR was never meant to be assumed 1 on 1 it is Party Vs. Encounter. Whether the encounter is a monster, a mob, or a trap.
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/general/anArcherFighterSGTToIllustrateAPoint&page=1
Link does not work, but I see that it is an archer fighter. Well, I never said that archer fighters were destroyed as well in PF. Of course, they still need 3.X weapon enhancements to avoid being shut down by a single spell.
I don't think they're overpowered. I think they're, like Paladins, highly specialized.
PF Paladin is not "highly specialized". Unless you cout "fitting excelelently in 95+% of published 3.X/AP adventures" as "specialized". Let's face it, developers expect adventurers to fight evil things as their primary job. 3.X Paladin was, being either a mounted charger or a load.
A fighter built without optimization is prepared for MANY situations,
puts out a reasonable amount of damage consistently, and can perform a great deal of tricks and maneuvers with above average capabilities.
"Tricks and maneuvers" are wastage of precious standard actions in PF. Their results generally would have been barely justified with 100% success rate. As about everything else. If you're not one of three fighter builds I mentioned, you're not "prepared for MANY situations". You're not prepared for any. There is literally no type of enemy that you're good against. Melee brutes will eventually start to outfight you, unless you somehow start with 18/18/17 in physical, get an artifact sword or whatever. Even then too, just later. The rest you often don't even get to really fight. Sucking equally in many things is not a valid niche. That's why bards always needed a strong focus to shine in 3.X.
I'm sounding like a broken record because it's a fact and I don't need to bend it to make it seem more truthy where the opposing argument must rely on niche situations and tricks of CR to make their point.
By "tricks of CR", you mean CR going past 7? And by "niche situations" fighting just about anything from MM?
Link does not work, but I see that it is an archer fighter. Well, I never said that archer fighters were destroyed as well in PF. Of course, they still need 3.X weapon enhancements to avoid being shut down by a single spell.
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/general/anArcherFighterSGTToIllustrateAPoint&page=1
And, as the designer of the Fighter in question, I have no clue what the hell you're talking about re: 3.5 weapon enhancements. FighterMan uses a straight +5 weapon and +5 armor. No special enchantments whatsoever. He's entirely 100% generic and 100% Pathfinder Core.
Well, it would seem that YOU, friend, have never encountered even mediocre DM's.
On the contrary. My DMs always were good enough to know the system and not use implied arbitrarily shafting of things that work.
And it seems that you also are not quite versed in fantasy literature, as I do not believe that anyone who is would make the argument that wiz in fantasy novels are routinely presented as being more powerful that the fighters.
Yes they are. Let's look at a few classic examples. LotR. Gandalf is way above everyone else on good guys sude. He's both the mastermind and the biggest asskicker. Leiber. One of PCs is a weak wizard who must rely on swording, but if we look at NPCs, Sheelba and Ningauble are way above eberyone else and the main characters cannot help but dance to their tune. Moorcock. I believe I just covered him. And this is the three main literary inspirations of DnD. Face it, "magic=hax" was ingrained in fantasy from the beginnings.
Rock to mud as a "no save, just die"?? I might have expected that from Lance of Disruption, or Spectral Force, or even some uses of Demi-shadow Monsters, but Rock to Mud?? Clearly, once again, I am not playing the same game as others...
Reread it. It is.
THE POINT (and pay attention): Fighters contribute as much to the party as anyone else, but in a focused manner. Wizards cannot, contrary to popular opinion, do everything because they are limited by realistic constraints, like Vancian casting. Fighters and their ilk have three major advantages - basic combat usefulness, high hp, and fewer contingent powers. In any situation, the fighter may be outperformed by a teammate. However, under adverse conditions, the fighter is not only the best option to have, it is an essential part of the parties survivability. When, after a Dinemsional Lock and Mord Disjunction, you find yourself fighting some non-evil creature with big DR, high SR, and immune to flank and SA, only the fighter is worth bringing into the fight.
If a party (actually deserving such high-level measures) was successfully dimensionlocked and hit by Disjunction, fighter's probability of contributing is about 0%. First, withour magic gear he's horribly gimped. Second the dude, who just did all of that, probably never was an enemy he could fight, gear or not.
And so on. Fighter is one of the worst classes at standing against adverse conditions. Too few tricks, most of them very contingent on situations; and no good defenses. No, hps don't count, if only because tons of things bypass them.
Moreover, I must stress once again, that doing everything poorly is not a valid party role. Not that fighter actually can do everything even poorly...
Yes, it's hyperbole, but the basic point that those advantages cannot be mitigated short of actually killing the fighter still stands.
Or stripping him of gear. Or not giving the time to don armor. Or making him enemy's mind-slave. Or droppind a BC spell on him. Not that he ever had those advantages to begin with.
OR, rather than just yelling, you could present which classes you think would do better. In fact, tell us what the most optimized party is, in your opinion. Just core classes.
3.X? Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Rogue. PF? Wizard, Cleric, Druid + Wizard/Druid.
Gandalf is way above everyone else on good guys sude. He's both the mastermind and the biggest asskicker.
Gandalf isn't a wizard in D&D terms, he's an outsider. Literally; he's one of the Maiar, the empowered servants of the Valar, who are the gods. Neither the Valar nor the Maiar are native to Middle-Earth.
In addition, Gandalf is NOT the "mastermind and biggest asskicker". Gandalf didn't plan for most of the events in LotR. He didn't plan to have Frodo carry the Ring, he didn't plan to confront a Balrog (in fact, he actively fought against going into Moria), he didn't plan for the party to split after Lorien, he didn't plan for Frodo to be nearly killed by Shelob, and he didn't plan for Smeagol to be the one to finally destroy the Ring out of sheer luck because Frodo was finally giving in to the corruption.
As for asskicking, he's no better a swordsman than Aragorn and the only spells he uses in LotR are light and abjurations.
And, as the designer of the Fighter in question, I have no clue what the hell you're talking about re: 3.5 weapon enhancements. FighterMan uses a straight +5 weapon and +5 armor. No special enchantments whatsoever. He's entirely 100% generic and 100% Pathfinder Core.
Archers need them to not be entirely neutralized with such ease as your fighter can be (by, say, Wind Wall). At 20th level this does not matter, though.
We covered wind wall already in this thread. It can only be cast on the ground, so it's fairly useless to flying casters, and it's a static defense. Simply moving defeats wind wall.
Gandalf isn't a wizard in D&D terms, he's an outsider. Literally; he's one of the Maiar, the empowered servants of the Valar, who are the gods. Neither the Valar nor the Maiar are native to Middle-Earth.
Thanks for enlightening the ignorant me, but let's talk about things that were in the actual text and not things that weren't even meant to be published. Also, the origin of his power is not even relevant. He had a mortal, if unaging, body (initially, anyway). He had magic mojo, fairly unimpressive by DnD standards. This mojo made him considerably superior to characters who could only sword things.
In addition, Gandalf is NOT the "mastermind and biggest asskicker". Gandalf didn't plan for most of the events in LotR.
But he did. He concocted and put into motion the entire plan of good guys, then orchestrated many key parts of their military victories. The fact that his plans weren't perfect doesn't mean that he didn't have them and didn't succeed at them.
He didn't plan to have Frodo carry the Ring,
Read the book. He did. He not-too-subtly planted the idea at Chapter 2, during the initial revelation. He couldn't command or force Frodo of course, but he clearly very much hoped that Frodo volunteers and did whatever he could to prepare him.
As for asskicking, he's no better a swordsman than Aragorn and the only spells he uses in LotR are light and abjurations.
Do you even read the book? Who fought Balrog from which others were able to only run? Who was punking and scattering Nazgul whenever they met?
We covered wind wall already in this thread. It can only be cast on the ground, so it's fairly useless to flying casters, and it's a static defense. Simply moving defeats wind wall.
Not if it encloses the caster. But again, irrelevant by level 20th. Everything you meet is either underwater, can remove line of sight/remove itself from line of sight on its first action or is completely unkillable (tarrasque).
the forum eat my words :'(
short version: read this.
let's talk about things that were in the actual text and not things that weren't even meant to be published.
The Silmarillion was "meant to be published", actually. It was actually the intended follow-up to The Hobbit. Furthermore, Tolkein specifically requested that the book be published, although it wasn't finished when he died.
He had a mortal, if unaging, body (initially, anyway).
The Wizards/Maiar were not "mortals" by any fantasy sense of the term.
Do you even read the book? Who fought Balrog from which others were able to only run? Who was punking and scattering Nazgul whenever they met?
Only able to run? Gandalf ordered them to run. They would have, could have, fought the Balrog of Moria. Mortals, in the true sense of the word, had killed other Balrogs in the past (in fact, one of the Elven Lords killed several in one battle).
And I think Aragorn did quite a good job "punking and scattering Nazgul" at Weathertop. There were five Nazgul who attacked Aragorn and the Hobbits there, and he fought off all of them, discorporating at least one.
PF Paladin is not "highly specialized". Unless you cout "fitting excelelently in 95+% of published 3.X/AP adventures" as "specialized". Let's face it, developers expect adventurers to fight evil things as their primary job. 3.X Paladin was, being either a mounted charger or a load.
I have no argument as I have never ran any published adventures. At least 80% of the opponents my players fight are likely to be un-smite-able.
"Tricks and maneuvers" are wastage of precious standard actions in PF. Their results generally would have been barely justified with 100% success rate. As about everything else. If you're not one of three fighter builds I mentioned, you're not "prepared for MANY situations". You're not prepared for any. There is literally no type of enemy that you're good against. Melee brutes will eventually start to outfight you, unless you somehow start with 18/18/17 in physical, get an artifact sword or whatever. Even then too, just later. The rest you often don't even get to really fight. Sucking equally in many things is not a valid niche. That's why bards always needed a strong focus to shine in 3.X.
So every ability that is granted to a class must be usable in every encounter and stack upon every other ability the character has for it to "not suck" in your opinion?
Sir, your opinion leaves much to be desired.
By "tricks of CR", you mean CR going past 7?
Commendably snarky. Of course, I meant the insinuation that a CR 15 fighter ought to hold his own against any CR 14 or 15 opponent by himself.
And by "niche situations" fighting just about anything from MM?
No. I mean that, in general, my argument that the fighter is able in most situations and therefore is a viable class is far more relevant than arguments which select a niche example of a weakness of Fighters or a Fighter build and declare "I won" based on what should be a rare happenstance. This isn't Magic: the Gathering. Just because your caster has access to wind wall doesn't mean that a ranged Fighter is trumped. Far from it.
Couple things:
Regarding "situational" bonuses, this onus falls on the GM. Ultimately, he is there to make sure the players have a good time. If one of his players takes skills or feats that only apply in certain situations, he better damn well make sure that those situations come up, to give that player a chance to shine.
This is the old Favored Enemy debate all over again. The answer to this is always that the GM ought, and has a duty, to tailor the game to the strengths of the party, unless he wants to piss off his players and ruin their fun.
Secondly:
We should start calling him ArcherMan, not FighterMan. I mean, yes, he's a fighter, but he's like a human machinegun. Perhaps MG42Man would work?
Likewise, human lawnmower guy with the double oversized weapons... what do we call him?
Secondly:
We should start calling him ArcherMan, not FighterMan. I mean, yes, he's a fighter, but he's like a human machinegun. Perhaps MG42Man would work?
Likewise, human lawnmower guy with the double oversized weapons... what do we call him?
To be honest, his original name was "Fighter". I changed it to "FighterMan" because that sounded more flippant.
To be honest, his original name was "Fighter". I changed it to "FighterMan" because that sounded more flippant.Secondly:
We should start calling him ArcherMan, not FighterMan. I mean, yes, he's a fighter, but he's like a human machinegun. Perhaps MG42Man would work?
Likewise, human lawnmower guy with the double oversized weapons... what do we call him?
FighterMan and LawnmowerMan, then. They make a cute pair. Anyone with artistic skills want to sketch these two guys?
THe Paizo fighter is the undisputed master of personal combat with his class buffs. Movement in armor, enhanced combat killing ability, enhanced AC...these were all advantages the Fighter had in the past, and now has again. Good show.
They don't address all the Fighter's problems.
1) He should get either a good reflex or will save, his choice. A fighter is going to be finesse or tank. In fact, there's no reason a Fighter shouldn't have all good saves. AD@D clearly had the fighter with the best saves all around...which is one of the reasons they dominated in personal play, they always made their saves.
I'm sorry, but a bonus against fear that doesn't even measure up to a strong Will save isn't even worth a feat. It doesn't matter if a Fighter doesn't have magic if he's the least likely to ever be affected by it.
2) the whole move and do damage shtick. It's the single biggest problem in the game for ALL Melees. Sure, the Vital Strike series makes up for it. TO9S did it with manuvers that delivered full attack damage as a standard action. This is something that should be a class feature for all the Melee classes, not something you have to blow a feat on.
A spellcaster does not have to take a Full Attack action to use his best class ability. A fighter DOES have to do so to maximize his damage output.
==
The 'feat fix' in terms of numbers is NOT a Fighter Fix. It's a Paizo character fix. So are the extra skill points or hit points, and the change to skills.
The Feat Power fix is a fix TO feats, not # of them. Yes, it's nice to have higher level powers. However, the same system of pre-reqs, lower level feats to grab higher ones, and so forth is still in place. It's silly. Mages don't need Fireball to cast Delayed Blast Fireball. Fighters shouldn't need to keep Vital Strike if they want Greater Vital Strike...it should jsut improve. Ditto the Spec tree.
Gear is not an excuse for class weaknesses...it simply means that you MUST cover a gaping hole. However, it is also not a viable attack...all classes are dependent on gear. The fact that spellcasters can sub spells for gear just means they are using class resources to do what items do. The flip side of this is that if they are in non-combat situations, they can use their class abilities on other things, while those who rely on gear are still stuck with it.
It's a flexibility issue for the Fighter, not a weakness.
======
The To9S Warblade has 43 class abilities. 43! The Paizo fighter has 20, + starting armor/weapon profs. The Warblade also gets 4 skill points, and incorporates higher skills into manuvers to make those skill points doubly useful.
All of the Paizo caster classes get an ability every level, + spellcasting. Unless you can cogitently believe that +2 hp/level and +5 BAB are equal to spellcasting level/20, there's going to be a balance problem here. Feat selection allows you to make a very unique permanent character, but spell selection allows you to make a very unique character every day from the same chassis. There's no comparison.
===
And as for the literary comparisons with Fighters, the biggest difference between literary wizards and fighters is levels.
Forgotten Realms is spilling over with archmages...at least 30-50 of them, they seem to pop up and die in droves. Elminister is level freaking 29 in Spellfire, and he's waltzing around with level 6-9 adventurers. Of course he looks like a god.
Even in Rolemaster, Gandalf is a freaking Demigod. Aragorn is just really, really good.
In Leiber, Shiela and Ningauble are archmages 20+, and Outsiders to boot. Fafrhd and the Mouser? level 15 at their best.
Conan doesn't do anything beyond level 12, and arguably level 6 from a 'real world' viewpoint. But he's a 1E fighter, because he has awesome saves...and probably 18 in every stat. None of the spellcasters are above 10th, either.
Elric fights with a sword because using magic in combat is stupid and likely to get you killed...which is also a theme in most literature.
D@D is unique in that it now allows wizards to mix it up in melee and cast spells and get away with it. That's not something you see in almost any literary tradition. Wizards stay back from the fight and die if they get in combat. In 1E and 2E, you could foil any spellcaster because it always took a full round to cast a spell, and doing 1 hit point of damage to them interrupted the spell. One archer could lock down a whole party of mages without effort. So could anyone with a bunch of thrown rocks.
===Aelryinth
Thank you for adding validity and maturity to the side of the debate that I do not necessarily agree with, Aelryinth.