Fighters in the Advanced Players Guide

[BYC]

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

A Man In Black wrote:

It's not a fighter because he wants fantastic abilities, and you're defining fighters as the non-fantastic guys in a fantasy game. This is a bankrupt definition.

No it is not, killing whole armys with a wave of you sword passes fantastic into the realm of clearly magic. I want it no were near the non magic fighter.

And fighters pull off all kinds of fantastic stuff, a 20th level archery based fighter is as good as a freaking gun or better. whats he pull down 8 arrows or better in 6 secs?

I am fine with fantastic, outright magic is not a fighter.

3.0 Great Cleave allowed this. It wasn't magic.

[A Man In Black]

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

Which is the very thing you are doing. "I am not having fun in my home game the system is flawed"

Funny just as many people thing it is fine as think it is not. What your wanting is not a fighter, its some kind of manga based arcane warrior. May be fine but should not replace the fighter

I haven't mentioned my home game once. And lots of people are possessed of really badly reasoned opinions; I don't see that as any reason to credit badly reasoned opinions. My train of argument runs "D&D is a fantastic game, and all classes can fight in fantastic ways and get additional fantastic schticks...except for the fighter. This is an imbalance."

Now. Give me examples of your "standard fantasy" with fighters who hit people with swords and do nothing else. Because last I checked, Fafhrd, Musashi, Boromir, Cu Chulainn, Ogami Itto, and Paris aren't manga-based arcane warriors and they each do many things beyond cutting people up with bits of metal in realistic ways (although Ogami Itto is from a manga, I'll give you that one).

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

No it is not, killing whole armys with a wave of you sword passes fantastic into the realm of clearly magic. I want it no were near the non magic fighter.

And fighters pull off all kinds of fantastic stuff, a 20th level archery based fighter is as good as a freaking gun or better. whats he pull down 8 arrows or better in 6 secs?

I am fine with fantastic, outright magic is not a fighter.

I've already addressed this.

Fighters, like all other classes, should get to be fantastic. If you define anything that isn't strictly realistic as magic, then yes, fighters need to be magical. If you accept stuff that's fantastic but isn't magic, then we can have a fighter who keeps up with the other classes not in the damage-per-round sense, but in the scope-of-abilities sense. This needs to include fantastic things both in combat and out of combat.

Shooting arrows about as twice as fast as an expert marksman in real life (six a round) at 16th level is not quite doing the job. It's a start, but it's just +X damage over what you've been doing since level 1. Increasing the fighter's numbers for Pathfinder: the Math Problem is not solving the issues.

[seekerofshadowlight]

No it couldn't ya was limited by movement and could not take a 5' step

and Man in black all those you listed can be done with the current fighter as much as any class in this system will allow anyhow. The 2 skill are still crippling for skill however

Ok guys I am done going back and forth you want a magic class, I will not except a magic class as a fighter. Pointless to go back and forth over it. We just have different ideals what a fighter is.

[BYC]

BYC wrote:

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

A Man In Black wrote:

It's not a fighter because he wants fantastic abilities, and you're defining fighters as the non-fantastic guys in a fantasy game. This is a bankrupt definition.

No it is not, killing whole armys with a wave of you sword passes fantastic into the realm of clearly magic. I want it no were near the non magic fighter.

And fighters pull off all kinds of fantastic stuff, a 20th level archery based fighter is as good as a freaking gun or better. whats he pull down 8 arrows or better in 6 secs?

I am fine with fantastic, outright magic is not a fighter.

3.0 Great Cleave allowed this. It wasn't magic.

Let me add another example. A Leap Attack barbarian using non-magic equipment can fell many fantastic creatures in 1 hit. If we can believe a barbarian can take down a dragon in one hit, why is taking down an army by himself "magical"?

In your campaigns, do the commoners know that a very high level fighter is doing his killing with pure skill as opposed to magic? What about epic level characters? Is being a demi-god from pure skill now ruining that character because he's "magic"?

[A Man In Black]

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

and Man in black all those you listed can be done with the current fighter as much as any class in this system will allow anyhow. The 2 skill are still crippling for skill however

Fafhrd can't be tricky or sneaky. Musashi's ability to be intimidating is limited, and there's no hope for strategic play when you have exactly one level-appropriate attack. Boromir can't be an inspiring leader of men. Cu Chulainn slices mountains with his sword. Ogami Itto can't single-handedly cut down the front line of a phalanx of warriors, and intimidating decays with level. Paris can't be sneaky, and fighters make poor wrestlers and diplomats (although I suppose Paris was not much of a diplomat).

The problem, really, is that you can't fit all of these guys into one class. When you make a class that has all of the things they have in common and nothing else, you end up with a tepid mess with an overbroad scope. This doesn't necessarily mean that the class has to be too weak (wizards have the same issue), but it does lead to problems when you're trying to match a fiction tropes to D&D.

[seekerofshadowlight]

A Man In Black wrote:

The problem, really, is that you can't fit all of these guys into one class. When you make a class that has all of the things they have in common and nothing else, you end up with a tepid mess with an overbroad scope. This doesn't necessarily mean that the class has to be too weak (wizards have the same issue), but it does lead to problems when you're trying to match a fiction tropes to D&D.

I agree with ya here. The issue with that really is a class based system I think.Maybe if ya used generic classes ya could pull it off, but yeah it's really hard to fit fiction characters into a system some time. A class based system is something of a straight jacket and ya just have issues matching 100% or even 50% sometimes

[A Man In Black]

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

I agree with ya here. The issue with that really is a class based system I think.Maybe if ya used generic classes ya could pull it off, but yeah it's really hard to fit fiction characters into a system some time. A class based system is something of a straight jacket and ya just have issues matching 100% or even 50% sometimes

That's the exact opposite of the problem. The problem is not that classes are too narrow; the problem is that fighters (and wizards) are too broad. The dilemma of this broadness is solved two different ways, both of them unsatisfactory.

The heroic fighting men of fiction, as a collective, can do basically anything. They're the protagonists, so they can solve pretty much any problem else you don't have a story. This team includes both Fafhrd and Cu Chulainn. It includes Ogami Itto and Ichigo Kurosaki (who is a manga arcane warrior, heh). It includes Paris and it includes Hercules (or even Zeus if you want). Now, I can imagine a smooth progression that goes from, say, Fafhrd to Cu Chulainn, but you're going to have issues fitting all of those low- and high-level concepts into one class.

Magical men of fiction suffer the same problem: as a collective, they can do basically anything, because they're plot devices. Plot devices do literally anything you need in order to move the plot along. Gandalf and Merlin and the royalty of Amber and Elric can all do anything as long as it moves the plot, and are enjoined only from doing things which subvert the plot.

The fighter class of 3e tries to cover only the thing all of the fighting men have in common: hitting people. This is unsatisfactory because hitting people is not a one-size-fits-all tool in combat in 3e, and also because everyone gets to participate in combat as well as do other things. The fighter ends up falling short because it emulates none of these heroic fighting men, frustrating those who expect more from being a master swordsman than hitting one or two guys with a sword.

The wizard class of 3e tries to cover all of the things that magical men have in common, and thus can do pretty much anything. This is unsatisfactory because a role-playing game cannot include the "don't subvert the plot" restriction of the plot device magical men, because that's strains credulity and isn't very fun. So wizards have no in-built limitations, other than being initially poor at melee combat and not being able to heal. This leads to a class that is exceedingly difficult to balance (I'd argue essentially impossible) in many different ways.

The solution to this problem, in my view, is to cut down both classes. In the case of the fighter, find a continuum of similar-themed heroes and make a class out of that. You could probably get a class out of Fafhrd, Conan, Cu Chulainn, and possibly Paris and Hercules; sneaky, willful, and possessed of more power than they can control. On the low end, they're sneaky until it's time to fight, when it's time to stand up and fight like a brute, and on the high end they're crafty but inhumanly strong and no obstacle can stand before them.

Inspiring men could be another class. Intimidating men/armybreakers are another possibility. The outline (not the implementation) of the monk is an excellent example of how to do this, since he graduates from "punchy guy" to "agile pressure-point master". The idea is not to make the fighter "magical", but to replace the essentially bankrupt core of the fighter class and make a new class that lets us make the characters we really wanted to make when we settle for the fighter class. (Incidentally, a similar solution to the wizard problem is to make classes like the bard, the invoker, the beguiler, the dread necro, the psion, etc. Not that those classes are perfect, but they pick a smaller portion of the overlarge wizard umbella and offer a more satisfying, more limited, and better balanced final product.)

In doing so, it's also important to realize that the fighter just needs to be replaced. You're adding more onto the fighter, not in the doing-more-DPR way, but in the doing-more-things way. There's no need to make the CW trainwrecks in an attempt to be "balanced" with the fighter. You're adding onto the core fighter class and not taking much (if anything at all) away, save possibly for superficial qualities. There's no reason for the Giant Among Men Fafhrd-through-Hercules class to do less damage than a PF fighter.

I just don't want to tell new players, "Well, if you want to make a character like [many heroic fighting men of fiction], you start in fighter then multiclass to another class."

[seekerofshadowlight]

I don't think to broad is an issue, But I can see where your coming from anyhow. I like that broad can make near anything ablity of the fighter. multiclasses was made so easy in 3e for just what your talking about, So you could play some of those ideals you liked but could not pull off with a single class, as to if it worked eh all depends on who ya ask.

Now as I have said I do not think the class needs a rewrite, I would like to see more fighter only feats and really think replacement training abiltys could address some of what your talking about. While what your talking about is not really what I want some of it does have some nice ideal bases to it

So let me ask you this. Keeping in mind this is an APG thread, how would you implement some of this as alt ablitys or feats or the like without reworking the class from the ground up.

On an unrelated note, your item for RPGsuperstar was well done. I liked it well, took me back to those magic instruments from FR.

[A Man In Black]

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

I don't think to broad is an issue, But I can see where your coming from anyhow. I like that broad can make near anything ablity of the fighter. multiclasses was made so easy in 3e for just what your talking about, So you could play some of those ideals you liked but could not pull off with a single class, as to if it worked eh all depends on who ya ask.

The problem with the fighter is that the concept is so broad that it only attempts to replicate a tiny part of the sort of hero we want to make, so the concept is hopelessly broad but the powers are hopelessly narrow. There isn't any hero of fiction that we can meaningfully replicate with the fighter class, save dimwitted bodyguards.

I'm not kidding or exaggerating to make a point. The sort of character you can make with the fighter class is freaking Caramon. That's terrible.

Quote:

I liked it well, took me back to those magic instruments from FR.

I appreciate the compliment. It was an homage to the bard school instruments from 1e (which may have made their way into a FR book), although I'm a bit chagrined that those instruments actually got updated for 3e in a Dragon magazine.

[Gorbacz]

With the Cavalier coming up soon, I am contemplating ditching the vanilla Fighter and trying to fit in any fighter-esque concept that my players come up with into other classes.

We have a tribal warrior (Barbarian), holy crusader (Paladin), bandit/tracker/hunter (Ranger), knight/cavalier (Cavalier), gis...erm...fighter/arcanist (Duskblade). What's left ? a gladiator, a "dirty" combatant (Mercenary/Bodyguard), a soldier, a swashbuckler and any eastern-themed types (samurai, mystical sword types).

If Paizo or 3PPs would fill those niches we could just go ignore the vanilla Fighter and point the players towards the variants depending on their vision of the "fighter".

[seekerofshadowlight]

We'll just have to disagree on the fighter then.

On your item, I think I shall be working it into some game at some point just because I liked it. And magic instruments get so little love at times.

[stringburka]

Who says a fighter can't be sneaky? Most of these heroes are humans with above-average intelligence (say at least 12) and usually quite great agility (dex 14). They get 4 to 5 skill points per level. They'd have the Stealthy and Skill Focus (Stealth) feats.
At level 5, where I guess Conan might be around, that's:
5 ranks +2 dex +3 foci +2 stealthy = +12 stealth.
He could sneak past a trained guard (+4 perception), just 3 meters away (-1 for the guard), with little problem.

When comparing heroes in litterature and such though, you have to aknowledge that you are comparing quite low-level heroes to each other.

Still, I agree that it would be nice with more fighter classes to specifically address different fighter concepts. I do think that, apart from the skill points per level, most of the problem is an imaginary one - the fighter doesn't feel good enough. It's been proven that an optimized fighter can own level-appropriate enemies and more than that in solo combat, so even unoptimized at combat (instead focusing a little on out of combat actions) it should hold it's own.

I think the problem might be descriped as that it's made to fit every style of fighter in-combat, but pidgeonholed it to a single stereotype outside combat.

A quick fix that might fix some of the out-of-combat problems, and supposedly wrong representation of the stereotypes, might be to let all fighters add a few class skills of their choice as well as upping the skills per level.

[A Man In Black]

stringburka wrote:

Who says a fighter can't be sneaky?

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. Dex is a fighters tertiary stat (barring archers), they have the fewest skill points in the game, they get no benefit from int other than skill points, they eat the cross-class penalty (which is reduced but hardly gone), and they have a near-complete lack of stealth-supporting class features. You made a character with a 14 and a 12 to spare after str, con, and wisdom, who burned two feats on sneaking and wears (next to) no armor and he still only sneaks past a level-appropriate foe about half the time. You do win the "Pathfinder made a relevant change so it's fixed" award, though.

The sneaky schtick needs more than just skills to support it, or elsewise you end up with "sneaky" characters who can't actually sneak past anything because they can't cross gaps in cover and can't ever beat typical perception mods. If you're no better than a commoner at a schtick, that schtick isn't "your" schtick even if you can get away with it on lower-level foes.

This is a problem that propagates to other skills. Str and con are not terribly useful for skills that meaningfully solve problems, so even with an enhanced skill list fighters are already a step behind. Plus, once you start trying to emulate every hero instead of no hero, you end up with the wizard problem after a while.

[The Wraith]

YuenglingDragon wrote:

The idea that a Wizard would just up and forget something he spent the morning memorizing has always seemed so contrived to me. It's shocking that it comes from a book and didn't start its life as a game mechanic. It's even odder for a spontaneous caster like the Sorcerer. Why does the sorcerer run out of lvl 2 spells but still have power left over for more than twice as many level 1 spells? What sort of energy would act that way?

Well, technically the 'forgets something' was the mechanic of older D&D editions (sorry, never read Vance's books, so I dunno if that was the case also in the novels).

In 3.x (and subsequently, Pathfinder), a Wizard/ Cleric/ Druid / whatsoever not-spontaneous spellcaster effectively CASTS all his spells the moment they prepare them. The act of casting the spell during the day is effectively only the trigger of the spell itself.
A spontaneous caster simple recollects the mystical energy needed for casting the spells every morning, and then triggers that energy the moment it casts the spell, effectively choosing the mystical formula on the spot.

I know, the effect seems rather silly, but it is akin to a person who uses a VCR to record a program from television. He has to put in the videotape, power on the VCR, set the channels on the VCR*
*the 'preparing caster' does this every time, because, well, his VCR doesn't have an internal memory to allow for registering the channel; on the contrary, the spontaneous caster has a VCR that allows him only to register a fixed number of channels, and NOTHING ELSE - once registered the first time, they have no menus to change their choice again*
an so on. When they have to register the program (= cast the spell), they simply press the 'REC' button...

[Snorter]

Madcap Storm King wrote:

New flashy fighter feats:

Combat Ballerina:
The monsters may laugh when you edge towards them on your tip-toes, but your graceful knee-bends hold a surprise attack.
Prerequisites: BAB +6, Spring Attack, Cleave, Jump 5 ranks
Benefit: When attacking the target of your spring attack, you may choose to make a jump check against his CMD as part of the attack. If you hit, you spin your opponent right round, baby, right round, like a record, baby, right round, round, round, and give him a -4 on attack rolls for one round. If you perform this attack on a sickened target, the attack instead nauseates them for 1 round.

Fixed that for ya.

Imagining Pete Burns performing the maneuvre, now that will truly justify the 'nauseated' condition.
:)

[stringburka]

"A Man In Black wrote:

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. Dex is a fighters tertiary stat (barring archers), they have the fewest skill points in the game, they get no benefit from int other than skill points, they eat the cross-class penalty (which is reduced but hardly gone), and they have a near-complete lack of stealth-supporting class features.

Not having read more than short bits of the Conan tales, what is the most advanced thing he sneaks past?

And is Conan on a 15-point buy?
Are litterature characters even made with any kind of D&D-optimization in mind? Not even the FR characters seem to be this.
From what I've read of Conan, I think a level 5 fighter might do it, on a 20 or 25 point buy.

[Madcap Storm King]

Snorter wrote:

Madcap Storm King wrote:

New flashy fighter feats:

Combat Ballerina:
The monsters may laugh when you edge towards them on your tip-toes, but your graceful knee-bends hold a surprise attack.
Prerequisites: BAB +6, Spring Attack, Cleave, Jump 5 ranks
Benefit: When attacking the target of your spring attack, you may choose to make a jump check against his CMD as part of the attack. If you hit, you spin your opponent right round, baby, right round, like a record, baby, right round, round, round, and give him a -4 on attack rolls for one round. If you perform this attack on a sickened target, the attack instead nauseates them for 1 round.

Fixed that for ya.

Imagining Pete Burns performing the maneuvre, now that will truly justify the 'nauseated' condition.
:)

That was the idea. :)

[seekerofshadowlight]

stringburka wrote:

"A Man In Black wrote:

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. Dex is a fighters tertiary stat (barring archers), they have the fewest skill points in the game, they get no benefit from int other than skill points, they eat the cross-class penalty (which is reduced but hardly gone), and they have a near-complete lack of stealth-supporting class features.

Not having read more than short bits of the Conan tales, what is the most advanced thing he sneaks past?

And is Conan on a 15-point buy?
Are litterature characters even made with any kind of D&D-optimization in mind? Not even the FR characters seem to be this.
From what I've read of Conan, I think a level 5 fighter might do it, on a 20 or 25 point buy.

heh fun link from years past, he is about a 68 point buy here, but it does fit the storys

Conan level and class by story

[see]

The ranger already has the "sneaky schtick" for BAB +1/level classes, if by "sneaky" you mean "stealthy". And has since, um, 1989.

There is room for more of a wily Odysseus/Sun Tzu trickery approach, where the character is deceptive and manipulative . . . and it probably could actually be implemented in terms of "combat" feats that do it on both the battlefield and have off-battlefield uses. Sort of a set of "tactical" feats, which instead of helping the fighter do direct damage on the field, have him make others around him do more damage . . .

Bluff and Sense Motive probably would have to be added to the class skills to support the concept. Maybe the feat-chain for the wily fighter would out and out add them to the class list.

[Xum]

stringburka wrote:

"A Man In Black wrote:

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. Dex is a fighters tertiary stat (barring archers), they have the fewest skill points in the game, they get no benefit from int other than skill points, they eat the cross-class penalty (which is reduced but hardly gone), and they have a near-complete lack of stealth-supporting class features.

Not having read more than short bits of the Conan tales, what is the most advanced thing he sneaks past?

And is Conan on a 15-point buy?
Are litterature characters even made with any kind of D&D-optimization in mind? Not even the FR characters seem to be this.
From what I've read of Conan, I think a level 5 fighter might do it, on a 20 or 25 point buy.

Translating Conan to the PF system would make him a Barbarian/Fighter/Rogue. As he is portraited in several steps of his life, he would have the Pirate class too, but there isn't one in Pathfinder. And his Ability scores would be WAY over the top.

The thing I'm seeing most as being a problem to the Fighter is the Ability Scores he gets, he needs lot's of stuff to be good in several aspecs. Musashi would be a fighter as would Boromir, but their Ability Scores would be nowhere near the point buy custumarily used, nor would their level for that matter.

[stringburka]

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

heh fun link from years past, he is about a 68 point buy here, but it does fit the storys

Conan level and class by story

Is there any basis to this in his abilities though, or is it just because people seem to think THEIR favorite character from literature must have at least a fantazillion levels?

Remember, Gandalf was a 5th-level magic user.

(though an interesting note is that he's multiclassed there XD)

[Matrixryu]

All this talk about making a fighter equivilent to a wizard in power at high levels reminds me of the problems that the star wars rpg ran into. They tried to make the 'heroic' non-force using classes be even with the jedi and sith. So, if Han Solo had a few more scoundrel levels in episode 5, he could have killed Darth Vader? Yea right. Of course, they had a game to balance...they just never explained why non force users never seemed to get past level 10 in the movies.

Just the fact that a fighter can keep up with a magic using class at all in d&d means he's doing something physically impossible. I mean, at high levels he can probably stand in lava for several minutes and bend steel bars. Being able to hit the ground so hard that you can cause shockwaves from shear strength isn't that much of a stretch, expecially when they're very likely to be wearing strength enhancing magical gear.

Alright, I'm not sure I would actually allow fighters to make shockwaves in one of my games, but I think you get the idea. Keeping with the 'flavor' of a fighter by not letting him do anything magical is fine, but at some point you have to reconize that at some level he passes the point where he's affected by realistic physical limitations. Fighters may be 'fine' as they are, but I don't think the current feats and abilities that they recieve really reflect how powerful they are theoretically becoming at high levels.

[Matrixryu]

stringburka wrote:

Is there any basis to this in his abilities though, or is it just because people seem to think THEIR favorite character from literature must have at least a fantazillion levels?

I can't help but point out that if Conan went through that many adventures and was anything less than level 20, then he either had a bad GM or wasn't able to find enounters which were difficult enough to give him good experience ;)

[stringburka]

Matrixryu wrote:

stringburka wrote:

Is there any basis to this in his abilities though, or is it just because people seem to think THEIR favorite character from literature must have at least a fantazillion levels?

I can't help but point out that if Conan went through that many adventures and was anything less than level 20, then he either had a bad GM or wasn't able to find enounters which were difficult enough to give him good experience ;)

Or he had a slower progression table, but basically, yes.

[Madcap Storm King]

stringburka wrote:

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

heh fun link from years past, he is about a 68 point buy here, but it does fit the storys

Conan level and class by story

Is there any basis to this in his abilities though, or is it just because people seem to think THEIR favorite character from literature must have at least a fantazillion levels?

Remember, Gandalf was a 5th-level magic user.

(though an interesting note is that he's multiclassed there XD)

Conan kills gods enough times that he's got to be epic by the time he's a king.

[stringburka]

Madcap Storm King wrote:

stringburka wrote:

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

heh fun link from years past, he is about a 68 point buy here, but it does fit the storys

Conan level and class by story

Is there any basis to this in his abilities though, or is it just because people seem to think THEIR favorite character from literature must have at least a fantazillion levels?

Remember, Gandalf was a 5th-level magic user.

(though an interesting note is that he's multiclassed there XD)

Conan kills gods enough times that he's got to be epic by the time he's a king.

Maybe I simply haven't read enough of him then. I'm not saying I'm right in this, since I haven't seen enough of him, just that often people envision their "heroes" as of being much higher level than they are. I've seen people arguing Legolas at least 15th level and those things just make me cry...

[Kirth Gersen]

I disagree strongly that fighters with Nice Things are "manga-inspired." My favorite example is Siegfried, from the old German Niebelungenlied (the epic set in Burgundy and Hungary, not the Wagner mishmash of Norse mythology). The dude has skin that can't be pierced by weapons, super-strength, inspires armies, etc. Not unlike Achilles from The Iliad (also non-Manga).

However, I also disagree with MIB that the broadness or narowness of focus is the primary issue. Drawing from a broad selection of abilities, of which you get only a limited number, is an easy fix there. ("I learned the trick of anticipating when a blinking opponent would blink back in, based on tactical reasoning. A useful trick, to be sure... but I could have been practicing Bob's technique of shooting eagles' wings and making them fall from the sky instead!")

[BYC]

Matrixryu wrote:

All this talk about making a fighter equivilent to a wizard in power at high levels reminds me of the problems that the star wars rpg ran into. They tried to make the 'heroic' non-force using classes be even with the jedi and sith. So, if Han Solo had a few more scoundrel levels in episode 5, he could have killed Darth Vader? Yea right. Of course, they had a game to balance...they just never explained why non force users never seemed to get past level 10 in the movies.

Just the fact that a fighter can keep up with a magic using class at all in d&d means he's doing something physically impossible. I mean, at high levels he can probably stand in lava for several minutes and bend steel bars. Being able to hit the ground so hard that you can cause shockwaves from shear strength isn't that much of a stretch, expecially when they're very likely to be wearing strength enhancing magical gear.

Alright, I'm not sure I would actually allow fighters to make shockwaves in one of my games, but I think you get the idea. Keeping with the 'flavor' of a fighter by not letting him do anything magical is fine, but at some point you have to reconize that at some level he passes the point where he's affected by realistic physical limitations. Fighters may be 'fine' as they are, but I don't think the current feats and abilities that they recieve really reflect how powerful they are theoretically becoming at high levels.

I feel the fighter should get more abilities, +1s, and other things that cannot be taken with feats or should be very hard for non-fighters to take. I feel those things would better capture fighters doing impossible things without people complaining about how it's "too magiky". Personally, I don't care. I can fluff it with magic, or I can fluff it with great skill. That's why I feel the mechanics that goes into making additional fighter abilities are more important. Things that are not based on pure role-play, but have an actual mechanical gameplay that affects non-combat ideally.

Although barbarians might be a little weak, I like the rage powers. People have mentioned Intimating Glare + Terrifying Howl. That's combat related, and it's not just hitting people hard. Fighters don't get those. They get feats that allow for better CMB use, but any class can take those. Maybe Dazzling Display, but other classes get those as well. If a barbarian player and fighter player both wanted to grapple and dedicate themselves to it, both can do it well. That's why the Weapon and Armor trainings are so good, because not are they an unique fighter-only thing, but they are good mechanically as well. I don't see why fighters have to hit things hard to be effective mechanically, and it'd be nice to be able to break from that a bit.

However, fighters (and all melee up to a point) have a lot of trouble outside combat. And lots of it is can't be solved by role-playing. In one campaign, the DM does a good job about making the world and our enemies feel real. The DM often does staggered attacks, with wave 1 (cannon fodder) first, and then later on, more skilled opponents. The party often uses Spot actively. However, a fighter has poor Spot. There's nothing he can really do about it, and the lack of logic and balance of that really bothers me. He can take Skill Focus and Alertness, but that just prevents him from being good at combat. In this case, it's not because the player is bad, or he did something wrong. He's just not good at Spot because the class doesn't do that skill well. The Pathfinder skill rework helps this, but it bothers me that things like Spot and Perception should be important to a fighter because he needs to be aware of his surroundings to fight better, but he's not good at it. There are tons of historic evidence to support this. What further bothers me is how the melee classes often get the shaft in these things because humans can replicate them in real life, so real rules need to apply. Since magic doesn't exist, or whatever nonsensical rules about those things are freely allowed.

Fighting trees for fighters and monks would be good additions. I think even if the mechanical benefits are low, the flavor it adds would be good to making fighters just "generic guy with sword". In depth weapon styles would be really good, as different weapons should be better at certain things, but the rules don't support the use of different weapons enough.

[Snorter]

stringburka wrote:

Is there any basis to this in his abilities though, or is it just because people seem to think THEIR favorite character from literature must have at least a fantazillion levels?

Part of the problem, is that people big up their heroes, by imagining the opposition they face are tougher than they actually were.

If you start from that dodgy premise, then it's only natural that come to the conclusion "They beat X, who was EPIC!!!! So they must have been EPIC++++infinity+++!!!"

EG; Mongoose' Conan RPG gives stats for the antagonists from 'The Frost Giant's Daughter'. Bear in mind this is one of the earliest stories, in-character, starring a young Conan in one of his first trips outside his homeland. By the RPG's own reckoning, he can't be more than level 5, 6 maybe?

The assumption is that he faces off against two(!) frost giants, who meet him at melee range, and he drops them both with a single swing each.
Even allowing for surprise round actions, even allowing for crits, even giving him the benefit of the doubt for having 2 attacks at BAB 6+, Cleave, etc, there's simply no way this could be done under the RAW, except for hoping you break 50 damage, and praying they both roll nat 1 for Fort save.
It was a total head-desk moment for me, reading the rules, as I just could not understand where the writers were coming from. It seemed to me they just took the lazy way out when writing the stats.
Count'em as ogres, fine.
Count'em as emaciated hill giants, fine.
But, just because they're 'frost giants', why do they have to be carbon copies of D&D Frost Giants?

Their little sister, dear God, was even worse.
In the story, the only abilities she displays are a fascination effect, immunity to cold, Endurance and Run feats, and a teleport/planeshift escape at the end (which isn't even forced to be her own doing, since she calls on her divine father for rescue).
Her tactics are to lure men into the snow, run them ragged, and let them die of exhaustion. No melee abilities are even implied, at all.
When Conan doesn't tire fast enough, and gains on her, she is frightened of this teenager.
What we get in the RPG, is a ripsnorting TPK-machine, that could tear apart a whole party.

I can see why the needs of a story differ from those of a game scenario, but it's easy to see how the arms-race inflation starts.
Beef up the monster Y to hold their own against a group of PCs.
See that fictional hero X beat monster Y by himself.
Make case that fictional PC class X needs to be able to beat monster Y single-handed.
Beef up monster Y to hold its own vs a group of PCs of class X,...

[YuenglingDragon]

BYC wrote:

I feel the fighter should get more abilities, +1s, and other things that cannot be taken with feats or should be very hard for non-fighters to take. I feel those things would better capture fighters doing impossible things without people complaining about how it's "too magiky".

There's an idea. I'll be damned if I know why the Sorcerer can get stat boosts starting at level 6 by taking levels in Dragon disciple (at the cost of being good to be sure) but a Fighter who could actually use those boosts can't, even post lvl 10.

This could be another "bloodline" class feature allowing at 6th level and every four levels thereafter, the Fighter to take a +2 bonus to one physical stat. Maybe start it earlier or have more frequest losses of bonus feats for +1 to stats but that's for a designer to figure out.

Ideas like this offer an opportunity for a player to make a Herculean character. There are plenty more ideas that aren't spell casting which some people are hung up on. Some sort of Brutal Toughness class feature that would replace weapon training with the ability to add half your con modifier to AC at lvl 5, full modifier at lvl 9, etc. An expansion of class features that could replace existing ones allows players to make the kind of heroic Fighter they want rather than, as MiB correctly points out, something little better than Caramon.

[stringburka]

Actually, stat boost might be a great idea. Not only does it fit and is flexible - but if it's enhancement boni, it also makes him less dependant on magic items, something that fits quite well.

[voska66]

A Man In Black wrote:

stringburka wrote:

Who says a fighter can't be sneaky?

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. Dex is a fighters tertiary stat (barring archers),

I've been finding since switching to Pathfinder that Dex is the secondary stat for a fighter. With out Dex your Armor training is severly limited in usefullness esepcially at high level. So as fighter to take full advantage of Armor Training you need a Dex scor of 14-16 to start with. Now I'd make Con the tertiary stat because you can kind of dump on that, I'd put 12 there at least but you can get away with a lesser con score because Fort save are you best an you can +2 hit points per level from feats and favored class.

In 3E though Dex was mostly useless to fighter and con was more important as toughness wasn't very useful and you had fewer feats. As well no favored class bonus. So you wanted +3 hit points which needed at 16 Con. In Pathfinder you can get that with 12 Con.

So with a decent Dex Fighters can be stealthy and Pathfinder fighters have reason to have a good Dex score.

Take a 12th level fighter with stealth 12, dex bonus +5(belt +4 and 16 dex), Stealthy Feat(+4), Skill focus stealth(+6), and shadow armor mitheral full plate +2(+5) for a stealth bonus of 32 while with ACP of 0. That's not bad. So it can be done and done fairly well. You average rogue would be about the same unless they specialized in stealth the feats and the fast stealth talent. Then that rogue would be be quite a bit better. But if I were a rogue I'd love fighter that could keep up stealth wise with my character for flanking and if some goes wrong.

Still after about 12the fighter and rogue can both suffer the same issues when it comes to being interesting among casters.

[YuenglingDragon]

stringburka wrote:

Actually, stat boost might be a great idea. Not only does it fit and is flexible - but if it's enhancement boni, it also makes him less dependant on magic items, something that fits quite well.

Dragon Disciple gives stat boosts that are typed like boosts from level advancement. I think this is preferable since it allows the Herculean Fighter to choose to get even more strength from enhancement bonuses or focus his funds elsewhere.

[A Man In Black]

stringburka wrote:

Not having read more than short bits of the Conan tales, what is the most advanced thing he sneaks past?

Whoa, stop. This is not Conan: the Barbarian the RPG. When people expect something to be part of their schtick in D&D, they expect it to work on level-appropriate foes, not hapless mooks. There are lots of sneaky fighting men in fiction and they don't all sneak past snoozing mundane guards.

If all you can handle with a skill is very easy challenges, you are not in any practical sense "skilled".

Xum wrote:

Translating Conan to the PF system would make him a Barbarian/Fighter/Rogue. As he is portraited in several steps of his life, he would have the Pirate class too, but there isn't one in Pathfinder. And his Ability scores would be WAY over the top.

Okay. Now, who's a fighting man of fiction who isn't heavily multiclassed? (I came up with one, but he's seriously a dimwitted bodyguard for real adventurers.) I still don't want to tell new players, "Well, if you want to make a character like [many heroic fighting men of fiction], you start in fighter then multiclass to another class."

Quote:

However, I also disagree with MIB that the broadness or narowness of focus is the primary issue. Drawing from a broad selection of abilities, of which you get only a limited number, is an easy fix there. ("I learned the trick of anticipating when a blinking opponent would blink back in, based on tactical reasoning. A useful trick, to be sure... but I could have been practicing Bob's technique of shooting eagles' wings and making them fall from the sky instead!")

It was a terrible movie, but remember the Wolverine movie, where Sabretooth fights a teleporting foe? That's a nice thing and not ARCANE MANGA ACTION.

voska66 wrote:

Take a 12th level fighter with stealth 12, dex bonus +5(belt +4 and 16 dex), Stealthy Feat(+4), Skill focus stealth(+6), and shadow armor mitheral full plate +2(+5) for a stealth bonus of 32 while with ACP of 0. That's not bad. So it can be done and done fairly well. You average rogue would be about the same unless they specialized in stealth the feats and the fast stealth talent. Then that rogue would be be quite a bit better. But if I were a rogue I'd love fighter that could keep up stealth wise with my character for flanking and if some goes wrong.

Still after about 12the fighter and rogue can both suffer the same issues when it comes to being interesting among casters.

So if you throw all of the possible resources after being stealthy and wait until the feats benefit from doubling after level 10, you can be the rogue's sidekick (and get to succeed against level-appropriate foes 45% of the time).

:/

You're right about skills and spells but that's a whole other ball of wax. You can't really fix that without completely redesigning one of the two from base principles. Since I'm proposing tearing the fighter apart, might as well stick to one big project at a time.

[Kirth Gersen]

A Man In Black wrote:

That's a nice thing and not ARCANE MANGA ACTION.

Which was EXACTLY the point. Haven't seen the movie, but it seems to me that a skilled-enough warrior, fighting a blinking opponent, would count the tempo of the "blinks" and keep track of where the arrivals are, and so end up with a pretty good idea of where to swing next. Hell, I would, and I'm sure not 11th level or whatever. You can extend that to deducing which one of a wizard's mirror images is actually the wizard. But if you call it "true seeing," people call foul and yell about magic-using fighters.

On the flip side, if you call it "tactical awareness" and give it "realistic" fluff, you can push it through and not too many people will scream about it. Bo9S (and 4e) made the mistake of referring to mundane things in magical terms. The opposite approach actually sits better with most people, with respect to the fighter: refer to the fantastic in nonmagical terms instead.

[Twowlves]

A Man In Black wrote:

stringburka wrote:

Who says a fighter can't be sneaky?

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. Dex is a fighters tertiary stat (barring archers), they have the fewest skill points in the game, they get no benefit from int other than skill points,

Ignoring the entire Combat Expertise feat chain are we? Other than Wizards, who does get anything other than more skill points from a high int?

A Man In Black wrote:

they eat the cross-class penalty (which is reduced but hardly gone), and they have a near-complete lack of stealth-supporting class features.

There is no "cross-class penalty". They don't get the +3 class skill bonus, but there is no penalty. And with a feat at every level, even non-human fighters can afford to use a feat that isn't 100% combat dedicated to use in defining his method of choice.

And what exactly, other than Hide in Plain Sight, would you consider to be a stealth-supporting class feature"? I'm pretty sure fighters can wear armor with the Shadow and Silent armor mods just like a rogue or ranger can.

[Xum]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

A Man In Black wrote:

That's a nice thing and not ARCANE MANGA ACTION.

Which was EXACTLY the point. Haven't seen the movie, but it seems to me that a skilled-enough warrior, fighting a blinking opponent, would count the tempo of the "blinks" and keep track of where the arrivals are, and so end up with a pretty good idea of where to swing next. Hell, I would, and I'm sure not 11th level or whatever. You can extend that to deducing which one of a wizard's mirror images is actually the wizard. But if you call it "true seeing," people call foul and yell about magic-using fighters. On the flip side, if you call it "tactical awareness" and give it "realistic" fluff, you can push it through and not too many people will scream about it. Bo9S (and 4e) made the mistake of referring to mundane things in magical terms. The opposite approach actually sits better with most people, with respect to the fighter: refer to the fantastic in nonmagical terms instead.

Pretty much, yeah. There are things however that scream MAGIC! Resistance however does not, and it would be a very cool ability for a fighter, spell resistance and something of the kind.

[A Man In Black]

Twowlves wrote:

Ignoring the entire Combat Expertise feat chain are we? Other than Wizards, who does get anything other than more skill points from a high int?

Yes, I am, those feats are misconceived from day 1 and the CMB/CMD system is a trainwreck. One problem at a time! Wizards can be skilled characters despite 2+int skill points (albeit in a very different schtick), which is the only reason I mentioned getting little from int at all.

Quote:

There is no "cross-class penalty". They don't get the +3 class skill bonus, but there is no penalty. And with a feat at every level, even non-human fighters can afford to use a feat that isn't 100% combat dedicated to use in defining his method of choice.

If the DCs are set based on the idea that everyone has a certain +3 bonus, not having that bonus is a penalty. Would you say having low BAB is a penalty, even though it's base attack bonus?

Quote:

And what exactly, other than Hide in Plain Sight, would you consider to be a stealth-supporting class feature"? I'm pretty sure fighters can wear armor with the Shadow and Silent armor mods just like a rogue or ranger can.

Skill mastery, for one. Sneak attack is another. Favored terrain and HIPS and Camouflage are too. Having access to Bluff (which is essential to being sneaky, for no good reason) is another.

Why is everyone picking apart my list of reasons individually? They come together to form a whole: fighters are the worst class in the game at sneaking. Fighters are less sneaky than any class you can name save for paladins.

Saying, "Well, you can throw a significant chunk of your discretionary resources at it" just proves that fighters can be as sneaky as commoners. That's nice, but if you can't beat level-appropriate challenges and you're no better than a commoner...you're not good at that thing.

Xum wrote:

Resistance however does not, and it would be a very cool ability for a fighter, spell resistance and something of the kind.

Why do more people cast Fireball than Magic Circle Against Evil or Prayer?

This isn't specifically a fighter issue, but exciting abilities are active. Exciting abilities give you something new to do. Passive defenses can make a class stronger, but they don't necessarily make it more exciting. When I say "the fighter is a bad class," I'm not (just) saying that "The fighter is not an efficient choice for fighting fire giants". I'm also saying that "The fighter labors under many restrictions that prevent it from having exciting, spotlight-claiming moments." Adding resistance to whatever can make the class more efficient for fighting whatever just like +1 to hit can, but it doesn't give fighters more to do.

I'm all for brainstorming, but the goal is to get fighters playing Pathfinder: the Adventure Game again and not Pathfinder: the Math Problem.

[stringburka]

A Man In Black wrote:

Whoa, stop. This is not Conan: the Barbarian the RPG. When people expect something to be part of their schtick in D&D, they expect it to work on level-appropriate foes, not hapless mooks. There are lots of sneaky fighting men in fiction and they don't all sneak past snoozing mundane guards.

If all you can handle with a skill is very easy challenges, you are not in any practical sense "skilled".

IIRC, I didn't bring up Conan archetypes. You were already making points about that "the fighter should be sneaky, because fictional fighters like Conan are". I'm saying maybe he's not more sneaky than he could be portrayed to be in D&D with the fighter class.

A Man In Black wrote:

Okay. Now, who's a fighting man of fiction who isn't heavily multiclassed? (I came up with one, but he's seriously a dimwitted bodyguard for real adventurers.)

Maybe that's why fighters are so easy to multiclass with? Maybe the idea is that fighter is something that you are to a certain degree, not just completely.

However, that goes for many classes compared to fictional characters. In discussions about Gandalf, I've seen people give him levels of ranger, paladin, bard, wizard, sorcerer and fighter.

Maybe classes are colors of a picture. Sure, you can make a painting in just shades of blue, but most really interesting pieces of art require more than that.

Not saying this is how it should be, but it's a thought.

[YuenglingDragon]

stringburka wrote:

Maybe that's why fighters are so easy to multiclass with? Maybe the idea is that fighter is something that you are to a certain degree, not just completely.

I don't buy that. In 3.5, sure you might dip into fighter for 1 or 2 levels for the bonus feats but now there are things like armor training and weapon training that we're supposed to want. The problem is that they're only a partial fix to the dreadful combat options of a Fighter and no fix at all to out of combat usage (barring the reduction in ACP for sneaking and jumping about and whatnot)

[A Man In Black]

stringburka wrote:

IIRC, I didn't bring up Conan archetypes. You were already making points about that "the fighter should be sneaky, because fictional fighters like Conan are". I'm saying maybe he's not more sneaky than he could be portrayed to be in D&D with the fighter class.

And I'm saying that when people want a sneaky character, sneaking past low-mod mundanes is not what they want. People expect their characters to be fantastic, and that at least includes handling level-appropriate challenges.

And Conan is hardly the only sneaky fighting man. Ogami Itto, Fafhrd, Cu Chulainn, and Paris are four examples I've named in this thread.

Quote:

Maybe that's why fighters are so easy to multiclass with? Maybe the idea is that fighter is something that you are to a certain degree, not just completely.

However, that goes for many classes compared to fictional characters. In discussions about Gandalf, I've seen people give him levels of ranger, paladin, bard, wizard, sorcerer and fighter.

I've been claiming that the fighter is an incomplete class with a too-narrow schtick that doesn't level from 1-20. Your claim is compatible with that.

Wizards aren't a good example, because wizards are another too-broad concept. However! I can't make Fafhrd with fighter, but I can do just fine covering the Grey Mouser with rogue. Galahad fits into cleric near-perfectly. Monk (for all its faults) near-perfectly covers a number of fictional characters, particularly Kwi-Chang-Caine.

I can totally sell someone rogue by giving them a Leiber collection. I can sell someone on cleric by telling them it's like playing Galahad. I can hook someone up with old episodes of Kung Fu to give them an idea of what playing a monk is like. To sell someone on a fighter, I can use...uh... Caramon and the two guards from Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

[Xum]

Man, I don't know. So far, all you've been saying are stuff other classes already do, so why wouldn't multiclass take care of it?

Aside from that, I do believe more options would be cool, like deflecting fireballs with a shield, ignoring breathweapons while behind it, and stuff like that. And off course some more class skills and skill points wouldn't hurt.

[Xum]

A Man In Black wrote:

...uh... Caramon and the two guards from Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

Or Leonidas and the 300 spartans.

[A Man In Black]

Xum wrote:

Man, I don't know. So far, all you've been saying are stuff other classes already do, so why wouldn't multiclass take care of it?

Inspiring other people. The marshall had a go at it but had a failed implementation. The warlord gets it right but it's 4e. There's no class to cover the guy who starts as a competent NCO and slowly turns into the heroic commander.

There's also no class to cover the gunslinger/samurai archetype of the master of a weapon who is so intensely skilled at what he does that he kills people with one stroke at low levels, kills many people with one stroke at mid levels, then doesn't even need to draw his sword by high ones. The CW samurai has a go at this but it's a complete disaster.

Quote:

Aside from that, I do believe more options would be cool, like deflecting fireballs with a shield, ignoring breathweapons while behind it, and stuff like that. And off course some more class skills and skill points wouldn't hurt.

Now this is a good place to start! What else goes with the dragonslayer hiding behind his shield? What does that character do in a story? What does he do at low levels and what does he do at high levels?

Xum wrote:

Or Leonidas and the 300 spartans.

Leonidas is a loremaster and an inspiring leader of men, and is capable at surviving in harsh conditions. I guess he's multiclassing ranger!

[seekerofshadowlight]

Eh, well not incomplete, just most fiction characters are not made to be classes or held by and game limit. Even some classic characters made for D&D fiction can not be made as straight classes as simply the writers did not hold to the bounds of the class based rule set as they wrote them.

Lets look at 3 iconic FR characters First Elminster The mage of the setting he is the iconic mage, the iconic archmage and he could not fit how he was written into the system without multi classing. In older editions he was a mage, but with 3e he was multi classed and fit better with how he was in the story and is a fighter/rogue/cleric/wizard. But you just see him at the end of his growth and see "master wizard"

The second would be Drizzt Do'Urden to many the Iconic ranger. Yet he is multi classed and mostly is just a fighter with a few level of Barbarian and ranger and it does fit his story better then saying he is a pure ranger. Yet ask anyone and they would say he's a ranger, but the truth is ranger is just the newest part of what he is

Third ya have Artemis Entreri, pretty much the Assassin , yet to match him in the story he is not simply a rogue or a rogue/assassin, he is much more then that and is stated as a Rogue/ranger/fighter/assassin and it is in line with his character more then a single class could be

In neither case do the classes fail, but it does show that multiclassing works to craft such pc's and that No fiction character starts out how they are they grow and build and change over time. Your looking at them from the end or the height of their skill and saying "I can't make that with one class , the class is flawed" but those examples where never meant to be made in a game system, they had not limits, no wall or rules to stop them from being just how the writer saw them.

So my point is your working with limits the writers never had and two all characters starts somewhere and sometimes, well most of it they grow past one class, no matter what class that happens to be.

[A Man In Black]

seekerofshadowlight wrote:

Lets look at 2 iconic FR characters First Elminster The mage of the setting he is the iconic mage, the iconic archmage and he could not fit how he was written into the system without multi classing. In older editions he was a mage, but with 3e he was multi classed and fit better with how he was in the story and is a fighter, rogue,cleric,wizard. But you just see him at the end of his growth and see "master wizard"

Wizards are a known issue. However:

Quote:

The second would be Drizzt Do'Urden to many the Iconic ranger. Yet he is multi classed and mostly is just a fighter with a few level of Barbarian and ranger and it does fit his story better then saying he is a pure ranger. Yet ask anyone and they would say he's a ranger, but the truth is ranger is just the newest part of what he is

And you can totally play a character that's like Drizzt in every essential way by going ranger 1-20. You won't necessarily do everything he does in every story because there are tons of those, but you'll dual-wield, have a pet, have all sorts of useful knowledge about any environment you want, and be really good against the guys you hate. I'm not looking for all the Drizzt stories at once; I just want to be able to hand a new player a Drizzt novel and say "This is what a ranger does."

I'm not looking for perfection. If I could play Conan the Leader of Men or Conan Laughs At Your Feeble Magic I'm good with not also playing Conan The Sneaky Bastard at the same time. PCs shouldn't be dominant in the way a single protagonist is, but each class needs to be fully-fleshed enough that you can point to a fictional character and get a good idea of what the class does.

[Carnivorous_Bean]

@ A Man in Black

Although I'd like to have the fighter perked up a bit myself, and I love the idea of the "bloodlines," I'd have to say, I'm a bit dubious about the "sneaky fighter" stuff you keep talking about, too.

There's a simple reason for this.

You can already build a sneaky fighter to an extent (as demonstrated above) by using feats and dexterity. This fighter will equal an average sort of rogue, although the rogue can be built to exceed the fighter at the same level.

What you appear to be calling for, though, is for the fighter to be able to EQUAL the rogue in stealth while retaining all of his fighter features -- that is, without having to give up any feats. Otherwise, in your view, he's nothing but a "sidekick" to the rogue.

However, if you make the fighter equal in stealth to the rogue, then what you end up with is that the ROGUE is suddenly useless. A weaker, less-armored character with fewer feats and less damage, whose stealthy role can be done just as well by the fighter -- who can also outfight the rogue in almost every way.

So, if you make the fighter equal to the rogue in stealth, you've suddenly made the rogue obsolete.

Smashing another class' utility to pieces in order to buff up another seems like a bass ackwards way of doing things, if you'll pardon my saying so. I intend no personal offense here. It's just that if you make the fighter able to equal the rogue's level of stealth without giving up anything in exchange, then the rogue's level of useless will be so high that it'll make the 3.5 fighter look like a paragon.

Because I'll take a super-sneaky guy with a greatsword, twice as many feats, and plate armor over a super-sneaky guy with a rusty shiv, a leather jerkin, and 10 skill ranks in Gerbil Bluffing any day. (I exaggerate humorously for effect, but that's pretty much what the proportion would be -- plate-armored ninja with greatsword class vs. leather-shirted ninja with kitchen knife class.)

I don't mind sneaky fighters. In fact, I kind of like the idea. But they've got to stay behind the rogue on the "sneak curve" -- even if that makes them the 'rogue's sidekick' -- because the rogue has to have SOMETHING that they're good at.