I never read Tome of Battle. What are some of the things folks didn't like about the options in it? Was it similar to the stuff in the Book of Nine Swords?
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....a player of moderate to above average capability [as a] caster brings more to the table and is less expendable.
I do not think this is the case necessarily, though it can be the case with specific players. Some people are better at playing clerics. Others are better at playing fighters. Some people will contribute greatly no matter what class they play. Others will fail to contribute meaningfully in all cases, no matter what.
The degree to which a character is expendable, I believe, is independent of character class.
The amount of combat effectiveness and plot contribution that a character can have is likewise independent of character class. All the classes are built for combat.
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I never read Tome of Battle. What are some of the things folks didn't like about the options in it? Was it similar to the stuff in the Book of Nine Swords?
Look at the cover of the Book of Nine Swords. Go ahead, look.
Notice how the title of the book is Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords?
Why does it seem that so many people don't seem to know that the Tome of Battle and the Book of Nine Swords are one and the same?
*LMAO*
Hey to my credit I never owned the book. I only vaguely skimmed through it's contents and didn't pay much attention to the book's title. Oh well.
So the stuff folks were upset about was the various "stances" that allowed Fighters to do huge amounts of damage in one hit? Were they level to CR balanced?
Notice how the title of the book is Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords?
Why does it seem that so many people don't seem to know that the Tome of Battle and the Book of Nine Swords are one and the same?
Actually after Googling the book cover it's -really- easy to see why folks would notice the "Book of Nine Swords" part and not the "Tome of Battle" part. The former is in enormous lettering and the latter is in teeny tiny lettering above the former.
I am baffled by the premise of this thread. I am currently playing an 11th level fighter, and he is nigh-unhittable (41 AC unbuffed), does large chunks of damage (minimum 11 when wielding his pick one-handed and not power attacking, maximum 110 on a max 2-handed, power-attack crit), his saves are f-11, r-9, w-11, has an init of 7, and can cause most enemies within 30' to be shaken for multiple rounds on any turn he chooses - and this includes many enemies with high wisdom scores.
He does not rely on casters to buff him for much other than a fly spell when he needs to fight an airborne enemy, but even then pulling out his bow is often better than trying to catch a faster flying enemy. His AC is so high in all categories that buffs are either inefective, or at most apply a bonus of 1 to his overall AC. I guess he wouldn't refuse a Bull's Strength if offered, but he seems to dish out plenty of hurt without it most of the time.
Because of his high AC, you would think maybe more intelligent enemies would ignore him on the battlefield and just go after the casters, but that is a mistake on their part most of the time, as he just beats even enemies several CR above his level to half or less of their health in a round, and is free to do so un-harassed.
He has proven to be so effective in combat, that the casters have chosen to use spells and abilities which impair or debuff the enemies and leave them vulnerable to the fighter's attack rather than to do any sort of direct damage most of the time.
So, based on my own experience, the fighter has plenty of power, and with good feat and ability-score choices can rival most other classes in saving throws, and inherently outshines all classes in physical defense. I just don't see the weakness. As an individual character without help from other party-members, he is a terrifying threat to any opponent, and with co-operation from some good players playing caster-classes is near certain doom to any who oppose him.
I am baffled by the premise of this thread...
He has proven to be so effective in combat, that the casters have chosen to use spells and abilities which impair or debuff the enemies and leave them vulnerable to the fighter's attack rather than to do any sort of direct damage most of the time.
Let me break it down for you.
Your fighter is probably not good, and your casters are most likely the reason you can fight things at all. Combat control and debuffing is so good that they actually don't need you at all.... they could have a summons or a henchman doing the actual damage because their spells are actually what's winning the combats.
That, or your DM is softballing things for you.
Run a mock combat against some monsters, but without the spellcasters and with the monsters making half-intelligent choices. Then tell us how that goes.
I am baffled by the premise of this thread...
He has proven to be so effective in combat, that the casters have chosen to use spells and abilities which impair or debuff the enemies and leave them vulnerable to the fighter's attack rather than to do any sort of direct damage most of the time.
Let me break it down for you.
Your fighter is probably not good, and your casters are most likely the reason you can fight things at all. Combat control and debuffing is so good that they actually don't need you at all.... they could have a summons or a henchman doing the actual damage because their spells are actually what's winning the combats.
That, or your DM is softballing things for you.
Run a mock combat against some monsters, but without the spellcasters and with the monsters making half-intelligent choices. Then tell us how that goes.
I would love to know how he has 41 AC at level 11. My level ten paladin has a 32 and I've seen an inquisitor with 41 at level 12 with full magic vestment buffs on all his equipment while judging for AC.
I'm amazed at the thread continuing this long.. Or perhaps I shouldn't be.
What it seems to me (and yes, appearances can be deceiving) is that there is a disparity in the playing styles of the group that is following this thread. Some err (or are completely) on building for the idea-- and I am of that camp-- while others are disputing the statistics involved in values.
I'm getting the impression that (and my opinion here) some want training wheels on their class, and others don't like the training wheels.. I seem to recall, someone stated earlier, that the party was supposed to be a team, thus requiring someone to step up and cover the holes..
Where has the fun gone? Did someone remove the "e" and add an "l" to the Role-Playing Game and make it official? Why worry about the numbers? Play the idea you have in your head, bring the "fantastic" back into "Fantasy".
I am baffled by the premise of this thread. I am currently playing an 11th level fighter, and he is nigh-unhittable (41 AC unbuffed), does large chunks of damage (minimum 11 when wielding his pick one-handed and not power attacking, maximum 110 on a max 2-handed, power-attack crit), his saves are f-11, r-9, w-11, has an init of 7, and can cause most enemies within 30' to be shaken for multiple rounds on any turn he chooses - and this includes many enemies with high wisdom scores.
How is his Will save that high at level 11? Correct me if my math is wrong but the base save is 3, even with Wisdom at 18 (Which you probably wouldn't have for a fighter) you'd get +4, and if you took Iron Will that would raise it by 2. So 3 + 4 + 2 = 9.
:/ I'm not trying to be start anything, but if you really have a build that good, it might be helpful for some builds who are between 5 and 7 at your level.
I am baffled by the premise of this thread. I am currently playing an 11th level fighter, and he is nigh-unhittable (41 AC unbuffed), does large chunks of damage (minimum 11 when wielding his pick one-handed and not power attacking, maximum 110 on a max 2-handed, power-attack crit), his saves are f-11, r-9, w-11, has an init of 7, and can cause most enemies within 30' to be shaken for multiple rounds on any turn he chooses - and this includes many enemies with high wisdom scores.
How is his Will save that high at level 11? Correct me if my math is wrong but the base save is 3, even with Wisdom at 18 (Which you probably wouldn't have for a fighter) you'd get +4, and if you took Iron Will that would raise it by 2. So 3 + 4 + 2 = 9.
:/ I'm not trying to be start anything, but if you really have a build that good, it might be helpful for some builds who are between 5 and 7 at your level.
His wisdom is 14 and he's wearing a +3 cloak, or his wisdom is 12 and he's wearing a +4 cloak. Or his wisdom is 10 and he's got a trait for will saves and a +4 cloak or his wisdom is 10 and he's got two traits for will saves and a +3 cloak or his wisdom is ... you get the drift. Cloak of resistance + trait bonuses. Maybe he's a halfling?
As has already been said, the original poster is probably salivating about the flaming he's caused. That's the first and last thing I'm going to say on this thread other than every class is "broken" or "unplayable" at some level. If they weren't gamers (notorious sooks that they are) would have nothing to whinge about.
I'm getting the impression that (and my opinion here) some want training wheels on their class, and others don't like the training wheels.. I seem to recall, someone stated earlier, that the party was supposed to be a team, thus requiring someone to step up and cover the holes..
Sure. The problem is that Fighter doesn't cover anything. He's amazingly bad at social encounters, terrible at solving encounters that adventurers face (like crossing lava rivers, disabling traps, investigation, etc.), and he can't fight level-appropriate enemies without heavy spellcasting support. Basically, he's the adventurer who's bad at adventuring and can easily be replaced by an NPC or henchmen.
And that's not fun for anyone. The Fighter player doesn't want to know that the DM had to cancel the last climatic encounter because he sucked up all the party's healing, and other players don't want to keep having to play at the Fighter's low fantasy when they could go high fantasy in a second.
I mean, I can't tell you the number of times I had to walk to the next part of the adventure and waste playtime and RL time on random monsters instead of flying there on my zombie manticore with a army of demons at my back. The possibility of people just ignoring the Fighter altogether while the spellcasters play Justice League and school the whole adventure is incredibly tempting.
His wisdom is 14 and he's wearing a +3 cloak, or his wisdom is 12 and he's wearing a +4 cloak. Or his wisdom is 10 and he's got a trait for will saves and a +4 cloak or his wisdom is 10 and he's got two traits for will saves and a +3 cloak or his wisdom is ... you get the drift. Cloak of resistance + trait bonuses. Maybe he's a halfling?
How is his Will save that high at level 11? Correct me if my math is wrong but the base save is 3, even with Wisdom at 18 (Which you probably wouldn't have for a fighter) you'd get +4, and if you took Iron Will that would raise it by 2. So 3 + 4 + 2 = 9.:/ I'm not trying to be start anything, but if you really have a build that good, it might be helpful for some builds who are between 5 and 7 at your level.
:O A Dexterous Halfling Fighter, probably with some uber powerful weapon (for extra damage) and a powerful cloak of Wisdom along with Feats to improve the saves and attacks. I guess the Dexterity part would explain the high AC, Reflex saves, and Initiative.
:O A Dexterous Halfling Fighter, probably with some uber powerful weapon (for extra damage) and a powerful cloak of Wisdom along with Feats to improve the saves and attacks. I guess the Dexterity part would explain the high AC, Reflex saves, and Initiative.His wisdom is 14 and he's wearing a +3 cloak, or his wisdom is 12 and he's wearing a +4 cloak. Or his wisdom is 10 and he's got a trait for will saves and a +4 cloak or his wisdom is 10 and he's got two traits for will saves and a +3 cloak or his wisdom is ... you get the drift. Cloak of resistance + trait bonuses. Maybe he's a halfling?
How is his Will save that high at level 11? Correct me if my math is wrong but the base save is 3, even with Wisdom at 18 (Which you probably wouldn't have for a fighter) you'd get +4, and if you took Iron Will that would raise it by 2. So 3 + 4 + 2 = 9.:/ I'm not trying to be start anything, but if you really have a build that good, it might be helpful for some builds who are between 5 and 7 at your level.
Well, the cloak is of resistance, not wisdom. He could be wearing a headband too, I guess.
He does max 55 damage non-crit and max 110 damage on a crit.
Pick one-handed minimum 11 means he deals 1 damage with the pick and 10 damage from... magic weapon bonuses + strength mod. I'd like to say his strength is +7 mod, and the pick is +2 magical. Weapon training 2 for +1 in picks!
"Two-handed weapon" doing 2d6 means 12 from that, so 43. 7 strength mod, so 12 from that. 31 left. 3 x 4 = 12, so 19 left. Another 2d6 from holy for 12 and 7 left? +4 weapon and weapon specialization... weapon training 1 in whatever weapon group this weapon is in for another +2?
I don't know. The whole thing seems very fringe case, like the DM gave him a big point buy or he got lucky on 4d6 drop lowest. I'd just like to know a breakdown.
Sure. The problem is that Fighter doesn't cover anything. He's amazingly bad at social encounters, terrible at solving encounters that adventurers face (like crossing lava rivers, disabling traps, investigation, etc.), and he can't fight level-appropriate enemies without heavy spellcasting support. Basically, he's the adventurer who's bad at adventuring and can easily be replaced by an NPC or henchmen.And that's not fun for anyone. The Fighter player doesn't want to know that the DM had to cancel the last climatic encounter because he sucked up all the party's healing, and other players don't want to keep having to play at the Fighter's low fantasy when they could go high fantasy in a second.
I mean, I can't tell you the number of times I had to walk to the next part of the adventure and waste playtime and RL time on random monsters instead of flying there on my zombie manticore with a army of demons at my back. The possibility of people just ignoring the Fighter altogether while the spellcasters play Justice League and school the whole adventure is incredibly tempting.
Sarcasm-sense slightly tingly. :)
Your post just made something occur to me.. It could be entirely possible that Magic causes-- and perpetuates-- the power creep. Like, well, magic!
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I'm amazed at the thread continuing this long.. Or perhaps I shouldn't be.
What it seems to me (and yes, appearances can be deceiving) is that there is a disparity in the playing styles of the group that is following this thread. Some err (or are completely) on building for the idea-- and I am of that camp-- while others are disputing the statistics involved in values.
I'm getting the impression that (and my opinion here) some want training wheels on their class, and others don't like the training wheels.. I seem to recall, someone stated earlier, that the party was supposed to be a team, thus requiring someone to step up and cover the holes..
Where has the fun gone? Did someone remove the "e" and add an "l" to the Role-Playing Game and make it official? Why worry about the numbers? Play the idea you have in your head, bring the "fantastic" back into "Fantasy".
Why has nobody given the post a numerical bonus yet?
+3
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Sure. The problem is that Fighter doesn't cover anything. He's amazingly bad at social encounters, terrible at solving encounters that adventurers face (like crossing lava rivers, disabling traps, investigation, etc.), and he can't fight level-appropriate enemies without heavy spellcasting support. Basically, he's the adventurer who's bad at adventuring and can easily be replaced by an NPC or henchmen.
That's not entirely true. The fighter has some great tools to solve all those things.
Social Encounters: Intimidate. While not useful in all situations, a fighter can easily browbeat his way through most social encounters he lacks the stats to otherwise handle. Not to mention the fact that with Intimidating Prowess and maybe a half-orc bonus, a fighter can easily be the character with "the best social roll" in the party. If he wants to go that route.
Crossing Lava Rivers: Well, the rogue is probably going to cross first, let's be real. But somebody has to hold the rope/chain while he does so, and do you really want that to be the wizard? No. You want somebody with hit points and strength right there.
Disabling Traps: My favorite method of disabling traps as a fighter is to find the biggest boulder I can carry and fill the trap with it. Heh. Of course, disabling traps IS traditionally an activity that occupies only the rogue, and leaves the wizard and fighter twiddling their thumbs (with the cleric prepping heal spells in case of failure).
Investigation: Intimidate again! Fighters make great interrogators. This is also an activity that rarely involves many die rolls, and fighters are no worse off than any other class if this is the case. Not to mention their excellent ability to break arms and take hostages nonlethally.
Can't Fight Level-Appropriate Enemies Without Spellcasting Support: Huh? The rest of that stuff, I understand and partially agree with, but this is just plain bananas. Fighters are awesome at fighting. I mean, they're fighters. It's what they do.
Low-level fighters: PWN level-appropriate enemies. Spell support isn't much of an issue unless there's swarms, and that's what alchemist's fire is for.
Mid-level fighters: May have some difficulty with level-appropriate enemies, but as long as someone is there to make the level-appropriate knowledge check, the fighter should be able to break DR/sunder heads/win.
High-level fighters: Finally may have some difficulty due to flying enemies, incorporeal enemies, enemies with high DR, etc. But if there's no spell support, high-level fighters can generally have access to whatever they need through magic items.
Has No Zombie Manticore or Army of Demons: This is why fighters get Ride and Handle Animal as class skills. So they can buy a griffin and fly there or ride a roc into battle. And as the king of feats, a fighter is most likely to be able to burn a feat and get Leadership. Which is very fitting and iconic. If somebody's going to own a castle and have a populace, it's going to be the fighter or the paladin. If anybody's going to jump onto the black dragon's back and ride it like a rodeo bull, it's probably going to be the fighter. This isn't a zombie manticore or an army of demons, but a griffin mount and army of people can be a reasonable substitute, and they can often get this at lower level than can a caster.
If these solutions aren't enough for your fighter, consider taking a single level of rogue. This should give you the skill points you need to pwn in all kinds of non-combat situations.
If your spellcasters want to play Justice League and ignore the fighter, go play a game where everybody's a spellcaster. You might have more fun that way, and nobody HAS to be a fighter if they don't want to be.
I only recently got into ToB. What was this infamous interpretation?
Barring the infamous interpretation of IHS, was a fine book.
IHS is Iron Heart Surge. It allows the character to end "one spell, effect, or other condition currently affecting you with a duration of 1 or more rounds". One interpretation of that is basically "any effect that isn't instantaneous" -- in other words, you could use IHS to force the sun to set (end daylight) or rise (end the night), resurrect yourself (end death), etc.
For the record, I think that's a pretty bad interpretation and one that is very obviously not intended. It is, however, a valid interpretation.
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Sure. The problem is that Fighter doesn't cover anything. He's amazingly bad at social encounters, terrible at solving encounters that adventurers face (like crossing lava rivers, disabling traps, investigation, etc.), and he can't fight level-appropriate enemies without heavy spellcasting support. Basically, he's the adventurer who's bad at adventuring and can easily be replaced by an NPC or henchmen.That's not entirely true. The fighter has some great tools to solve all those things.
Social Encounters: Intimidate. While not useful in all situations, a fighter can easily browbeat his way through most social encounters he lacks the stats to otherwise handle. Not to mention the fact that with Intimidating Prowess and maybe a half-orc bonus, a fighter can easily be the character with "the best social roll" in the party. If he wants to go that route.
Investigation: Intimidate again! Fighters make great interrogators. This is also an activity that rarely involves many die rolls, and fighters are no worse off than any other class if this is the case. Not to mention their excellent ability to break arms and take hostages nonlethally.
Intimidate is a terrible skill. It can literally get you thrown in jail when it succeeds! Look it up.
Crossing Lava Rivers: Well, the rogue is probably going to cross first, let's be real. But somebody has to hold the rope/chain while he does so, and do you really want that to be the wizard? No. You want somebody with hit points and strength right there.
Err, what? Yeh, spellcasters shine here with any number of spells because anyone dumb enough to cross lava on a chain deserves to miss a Climb check and take 20d6 of auto-damage when they fall in. I literally am not allowed by character limits on this post to list all the ways that spellcasters are better.
Disabling Traps: My favorite method of disabling traps as a fighter is to find the biggest boulder I can carry and fill the trap with it. Heh. Of course, disabling traps IS traditionally an activity that occupies only the rogue, and leaves the wizard and fighter twiddling their thumbs (with the cleric prepping heal spells in case of failure).
Wizards and clerics have a 1st level spell that finds traps, and often disarms them. It's called Summon Monster. Then they use a ranged attack to destroy said trap. Done.
The Fighter can't even find traps until he falls into one, thus demonstrating the epic waste of resources that is his existence.
Can't Fight Level-Appropriate Enemies Without Spellcasting Support: Huh? The rest of that stuff, I understand and partially agree with, but this is just plain bananas. Fighters are awesome at fighting. I mean, they're fighters. It's what they do....
The name is meaningless. Put a party of fighters up against some level-appropriate enemies and they die. Badly. Even the most cheezed out with PrCs warrior guy turns into a henchman at around 8th level. The Wizard pulls out a scroll of Animate Dead and just gets someone more valuable in combat than the fighter.
As for Ride and Handle Animal, how exactly are they getting the skill points for that? They get 2/level, and they need CON and DEX and STR first so INT is one of their dump stats and chances are good they actually have 1/level. They can't even train dragons or demons, or anything that can survive a real combat encounter. They won't even have a good Cha! And all that is before we are forced to admit the DM has to give the Fighter the option for these monsters in game, making it no different than the DM handing out an artifact sword because the fighter is super-weak and he feels sorry for him.
At this point I have to ask if you have ever even seen a fighter being played in DnD? I know at like 4th level he seems super-impressive, but once the spellcasters get enough slots to cast spells in every round of every combat, the Fighter is a sad panda.
I know this is a flamebait topic, so I'll just bow out here.
Smurf Season!
....a player of moderate to above average capability [as a] caster brings more to the table and is less expendable.I do not think this is the case necessarily, though it can be the case with specific players. Some people are better at playing clerics. Others are better at playing fighters. Some people will contribute greatly no matter what class they play. Others will fail to contribute meaningfully in all cases, no matter what.
The degree to which a character is expendable, I believe, is independent of character class.
The amount of combat effectiveness and plot contribution that a character can have is likewise independent of character class. All the classes are built for combat.
I was assuming the player in question was equal at both classes and is competent at least.
The degree to which a character is expendable has to do with group composition too. If there is a sorcerer and a wizard you can probably lose one and it wont be too much of an issue, but generally speaking if a campaign has a good mix of different encounter types I think a lesser melee type can fill in well enough. I don't see the bard filling in for a caster without making the campaign harder though. I chose the bard because it is a lesser caster. I do think a paladin can fill in for a fighter and do a decent job even though he does not meet the fighter's output in damage except in special circumstances. This all assumes of course the DM does not pull punches. I only put that out there because the "DM will adjust for the party" argument will come up, which may be true, but that has nothing to do with the classes themselves.
Smurf Season!
** spoiler omitted **
ROFLMAO! I guess your timing was just smurfing right.
Nevertheless, this thread and those like it are getting smurfing old. I say smurf the smurfing smurfers!
I am baffled by the premise of this thread. I am currently playing an 11th level fighter, and he is nigh-unhittable (41 AC unbuffed), does large chunks of damage (minimum 11 when wielding his pick one-handed and not power attacking, maximum 110 on a max 2-handed, power-attack crit), his saves are f-11, r-9, w-11, has an init of 7, and can cause most enemies within 30' to be shaken for multiple rounds on any turn he chooses - and this includes many enemies with high wisdom scores.
If your AC is 41 I am failing to see how you are doing large amounts of damage unless we have different views on large amounts of damage. I do think that the fighter is good at what it is supposed to do though which is not get hit too much, but when it does, take the hit it takes it well.
Casters should not be doing direct damage as a primary action, and ...
I will stop right here. I am sure someone else has already said everything I am going to say.
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K? One of these days, I'm going to play a fighter in one of your games. And he will kick ass. You will be surprised at how much ass he kicks, I can tell. But until that day comes, I see you're determined to believe they are inferior. You've probably had bad experiences with them. I've had very good experiences with fighters.
Wraithstrike - you do have a point. But usually, a party needs a fighty-type, a healy-type, an arcaney-type, and a sneaky-type in order to succeed against the standard array of dangerous stuff. The fact that there are more fighty-types than any other doesn't mean any one of them is less valuable in his party, though it does mean there's more likely a redundancy there.
A fighter, as the fighty-type, is no less valuable than either casty-type or the sneaky-type. And I do believe they are one of the most versatile classes in the game, right behind wizard and rogue.
Casters should not be doing direct damage as a primary action, and ...
I'm sure you were about to say but there's nothing wrong with a caster doing so, right?
Casters should not be doing direct damage as a primary action, and ...I'm sure you were about to say but there's nothing wrong with a caster doing so, right?
Nope. The caster has to make a fort save equal to the damage he dealt or die. It is in Appendix G of the core book. If you can't find it contact customer service for a new book.
Nope. The caster has to make a fort save equal to the damage he dealt or die. It is in Appendix G of the core book. If you can't find it contact customer service for a new book.Casters should not be doing direct damage as a primary action, and ...I'm sure you were about to say but there's nothing wrong with a caster doing so, right?
Drat. I knew my book looked off... >.<
K? One of these days, I'm going to play a fighter in one of your games. And he will kick ass. You will be surprised at how much ass he kicks, I can tell. But until that day comes, I see you're determined to believe they are inferior. You've probably had bad experiences with them. I've had very good experiences with fighters.
Wraithstrike - you do have a point. But usually, a party needs a fighty-type, a healy-type, an arcaney-type, and a sneaky-type in order to succeed against the standard array of dangerous stuff. The fact that there are more fighty-types than any other doesn't mean any one of them is less valuable in his party, though it does mean there's more likely a redundancy there.
A fighter, as the fighty-type, is no less valuable than either casty-type or the sneaky-type. And I do believe they are one of the most versatile classes in the game, right behind wizard and rogue.
Two mediocre meleers can replace the damagey guy. Two mediocre casters don't generally replace a dedicated caster. I am not saying the fighter can be replaced with ease, but it can be done. I don't consider myself to be anti-fighter, but I have played and DM'd in a game without 1 of the 2 caster types, and a game without Mr.Damage, and the game without the either caster type divine or arcane was more difficult as a player, and to DM without having to alter things.
Drat. I knew my book looked off... >.<Nope. The caster has to make a fort save equal to the damage he dealt or die. It is in Appendix G of the core book. If you can't find it contact customer service for a new book.Casters should not be doing direct damage as a primary action, and ...I'm sure you were about to say but there's nothing wrong with a caster doing so, right?
That is my good deed for the day. :)
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1. I love how the OP made a drive-by flamebait and never turned up again. Thanks, Maddd0g, you're like a, uh, Mad Dog.
2. Fighters in Pathfinder are actually good at stabbing people in the face. Weapon training, more feats and new feats given them some serious kicks They're even best at it, Paladins in some situations excepted.
3. They're not really that good at anything else, crunch-wise.
4. If you want to play a class that hits a lot and does double/triple digit damage per round, Fighter is a great choice.
5. But if you also want to do, erm, anything else, Fighter might not be the best choice.
Okay, I had this debate with a group I was in before, so I'll say this. We ran a group of nothing but Melee (1 barbarian, 2 fighters, 1 paladin, and 1 archer ranger) and the group survived several encounters, social, ecological, and martial, swimmingly. The Fighter was one of the best social characters in the game. He didn't dump his Cha score and took the Intimidate skill, and used it in a non-retarded way. He didn't even need Intimidating Prowess (It didn't stop him from taking it at level 4 though). Can intimidate get you thrown in jail? Yeah. But so can Sleight of Hand, or Handle Animal (Sick 'em!), or Stealth, Or Use Magic Device (the constabulary frowns on wands of Fireball used on peasants), just to name a few.
Afterwards, we ran a group of all casters. We had 1 wizard, 1 sorcerer, 1 Druid (caster spec, Str was the dump stat), 1 bard, and 1 cleric (also caster spec, and wore scale mail at the heaviest). The group didn't even make it to level 3. I threw the same encounters at them, in the same numbers. A group of zombies, some planars (imps and the like). At higher levels (we auto-leveled the casters up to 10th level, but the melee managed to make it there all on their own) and both groups fought the same things as each other (golems, undead, and enemy parties (each enemy party consisted of a Fighter, a Cleric, a Rogue, a Wizard, and a Ranger) to name a few). The caster party did well with so many more spells at their disposal, but the melee didn't do shabby either. Even with no real magical healing or buffing to speak of, the melee classes managed to survive and defeat all their opponents.
I understand the chubby so many people get about casters, but the fighter is a good, solid class that can hold its own pretty easily. Are there chinks in the fighter's armor? Yes. But there are chinks in everyone's armor. Let me spell out a few, some of which you all may have heard of.
Barbarian - Low AC makes Barbarian a sad boy. Even by the time he gets his 5/-- DR, most enemies are either going to have something to bypass it or they'll just do so much damage that 5 damage off won't mean much.
Bard - Players that don't know how to play them. No offense to anyone, bard is probably the hardest class to play. They just usually end up being useless because they try to do to much and end up not being good at any one thing. Also, their spell selection is pretty limited, and their AC generally isn't great.
Cleric - Anti-magic fields affect clerical spells too. One of the most dastardly ways to take out enemy casters is to make an Arcane Archer and have the spell arrow be anti-magic field. Then just aim at a square right by the casters. Bam.
Druid - Anti-magic fields affect wild shape too. Seriously, any evil warlord worth his weight should have several of these up.
Fighter - Low Will saves. Dominate spells are fun to play with.
Monk - Golems. Really.
Paladins - Ethical debates. Seriously. I had a paladin in a group I was running who just got so frusterated when he found out the group of planars he was tracking were a group of Azata. Chaos comes in good flavors too.
Ranger - Unfamiliar terrain/enemies as well urban settings.
Rogue - Separation. The Rogue is usually a scout, and if they get into a fight alone, well, you can't sneak attack something you can't flank. Oh, and Oozes and golems.
Sorcerer/Wizard - Anti-magic Field arrows. Surprise rogues. Surprise fighters with the Step-up and Disruptive feats.
This is by NO MEANS a comprehensive list. But fighters are a fine class with several options and a few weaknesses that make them interesting. I love playing fighters. Not as much as I love playing Paladins or Rangers, but I digress. There is nothing wrong with fighters, even at high level, even without a lot of magic items. If your fighter is getting dominated all the time, then your GM isn't being very inventive or they're just picking on you. Likewise, if you're playing a mage, and you run into anti-magic fields all the time, then something is wrong with your GM too. The trick is to switch it up in your game and give EVERYONE a chance to shine. Work as a group, but let everyone have their moment. That's the way.
Man that sounds like horrible playing on the part of the casters as the all caster parties I have seen did fine. Especially horrible on the part of the casters in the enemy party.
Not really. It's just that, especially at low level, spells don't do enough damage and you don't have nearly enough of them, especially if you can't hit/the enemies don't make their saves. As always, dice luck does play a bit of a part in it.
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IHS is Iron Heart Surge. It allows the character to end "one spell, effect, or other condition currently affecting you with a duration of 1 or more rounds". One interpretation of that is basically "any effect that isn't instantaneous" -- in other words, you could use IHS to force the sun to set (end daylight) or rise (end the night), resurrect yourself (end death), etc.
For the record, I think that's a pretty bad interpretation and one that is very obviously not intended. It is, however, a valid interpretation.
That's the greatest frakking thing I've ever read in life. In life.
I wonder if I can convince my GM that level 1 is a condition lasting more than 1 round? Level 2, as well. Level 3, too. And 4...
I only recently got into ToB. What was this infamous interpretation?
Barring the infamous interpretation of IHS, was a fine book.IHS is Iron Heart Surge. It allows the character to end "one spell, effect, or other condition currently affecting you with a duration of 1 or more rounds". One interpretation of that is basically "any effect that isn't instantaneous" -- in other words, you could use IHS to force the sun to set (end daylight) or rise (end the night), resurrect yourself (end death), etc.
For the record, I think that's a pretty bad interpretation and one that is very obviously not intended. It is, however, a valid interpretation.
I agree. the fact is that RAW IHS does not remove things that should logically remove as intended (if I see it correctly, it should be a "CROMM" moment by the meleer part, that can be hampered by puny tricks and magic of the enemy).
But a little bit of common sense can make the maneuver usable and fine. Not a big deal.
Anyway, even if I appreciated the attempt of ToB, I prefer the approcah to meleers of pathfinder. Just, I wish in future editions the way feats scale will be adjusted better.
K? One of these days, I'm going to play a fighter in one of your games. And he will kick ass. You will be surprised at how much ass he kicks, I can tell. But until that day comes, I see you're determined to believe they are inferior. You've probably had bad experiences with them. I've had very good experiences with fighters.
I don't need experience to run the numbers. Take four fighters and run them through level-appropriate challenges out of some random adventure on your bookshelf and they die. Take four clerics or four wizards and they win. You don't need a mountain of experience to run the numbers.
But yes, in my experience Fighters don't even keep up with the Wizard's zombie he got for free with Animated Dead because the damage is the same, but the party doesn't need to waste healing on the zombie.
Fighters are big noise at 4th level with proper spellcaster support, but at 7th to 8th level they turn into an actual impediment to completing adventures. Some builds last a bit longer if you use fifteen sourcebooks and cherry pick PrCs and feats, but even the out-of-the-box Pathfinder Core Wizard who got hit with the nerf-stick makes the Fighter feel silly for trying to play the same game.
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I don't need experience to run the numbers. Take four fighters and run them through level-appropriate challenges out of some random adventure on your bookshelf and they die. Take four clerics or four wizards and they win. You don't need a mountain of experience to run the numbers.
But yes, in my experience Fighters don't even keep up with the Wizard's zombie he got for free with Animated Dead because the damage is the same, but the party doesn't need to waste healing on the zombie.
Fighters are big noise at 4th level with proper spellcaster support, but at 7th to 8th level they turn into an actual impediment to completing adventures. Some builds last a bit longer if you use fifteen sourcebooks and cherry pick PrCs and feats, but even the out-of-the-box Pathfinder Core Wizard who got hit with the nerf-stick makes the Fighter feel silly for trying to play the same game.
Please stop talking. I've been keeping up on this thread since it started and you pushed it over the top.
You are a blatant and obvious troll, and you will be flagged as such.
On the off chance that you are being serious, my suggestion is as follows. Find an actual play group and stop playing the game in your head and in spreadsheets because if you actually believe an single fluid ounce of that dribble you are spouting, then it is clear that you have never actually PLAYED in a PFRPG game, and quite possibly from your lack of understanding maybe any 3.X D&D game at all.
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Now, now, now. K may be a hardcore Denist, but he is behaving nicely and voicing his view on the matter. There's no ad hominem or other crap in his posts. If there is any blatant trolling in this thread then it's OP.
Last I checked leading with ignorant statements, backing up opinions with unproduced "math," and showing obvious flaws in logic while maintaining a high post/counter post ratio are all clear and obvious signs that a bridge is looming overhead.
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Now, now, now. K may be a hardcore Denist, but he is behaving nicely and voicing his view on the matter. There's no ad hominem or other crap in his posts. If there is any blatant trolling in this thread then it's OP.Last I checked leading with ignorant statements, backing up opinions with unproduced "math," and showing obvious flaws in logic while maintaining a high post/counter post ratio are all clear and obvious signs that a bridge is looming overhead.
I know that some can't stand the Frank Trollman School of Snarky Posting (heck, it puts me off sometimes as well), but I'd like to point out that several other posters in this thread have also made "ignorant" statements, showed no math to back their arguments with and displayed obvious flaws in logic. Damn, even my post was full of that !
So, on to Hardcore Facts.
1. A properly optimized lvl Fighter 20 can two-round a CR 20 encounter. Reference: Zurai's Fighter vs. Balor thread.
2. Which is cool, but he is THE most one-dimensional class in D&D. Reference: Fighter class ability list.
3. If you like such classes, then Fighter is a great choice. But if you are trying to tell me that a Fighter can do anything else apart from stabbing things in the face, please don't.
K, speaking about versatility of spells and stuff is completely reasonable comparing classes, and of course spellcasters are very powerful in this aspect. That's undenaiable.
Sitations that can be solved by magic are more than those that can be solved by physical means - even if people tend to understimate skills and ability to simply use magic item (regardless the class). That's undenaiable.
BUT if you come here sayin the fighter can't keep up in raw damage, you IMMEDIATELY stop to be able to be taken seriously.
This is like people comparing animal companion and fighter. As if animal companion could use properly a towershield, a bow, or make a knowledge (nobility) check.
Fighter need to be played smart and built properly. True. You never see one played this way if you compare summon or animated dead damage to him.
Can you sneak past an enemy position with a bunch of zombies moaning "braaainss"? What kind of game you play? Monster and PCs meet in the middle of the road and roll initiative? This is like people saying that grease is an auto-win. Ever met enemies near a swamp? A volcanic area (hmm, smells like fried)?
I find surprising how many things people ignore in their examples. What happened to this game? Only raw damage counts? And with this sentence I don't talk about RP. I talk about diverse situations, tactics and counter-measures.
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EDIT: ah, Frank Trollman School. WOW. Just now I remember. Ignore my statements above. I really like a lot of ideas in tome and stuff - I LOVE how feats scales, this is a thing that I keep saying from 3.0.
Nevertheless, sometimes I have the impression of read and talk bout RPG with people with Tourette syndrome. Is not very comfortable deal with the snarky-ness every time, even if I can agree, with varying degree, about a lot of things.
3. If you like such classes, then Fighter is a great choice. But if you are trying to tell me that a Fighter can do anything else apart from stabbing things in the face, please don't.
Of course he can do other stuff, it's just that there's always another class that does it better. He's still better than some classes at some things, especially at lower levels. He's better than a wizard at intimidate, a better swimmer than a rogue, paladin or the like, and he's better at riding and survival than the sorcerer.
Since he's so frikkin good at stabbing people in the face as he is by default, you CAN sacrifice a single feat for some out-of-combat RP stuff. I gave my fighter Skill Focus (Survival) since he's a traveling freedom fighter since many years. He's still able to do his schtick in combat, and out of combat he's got something to do when on an adventure - he's the one who leads the work in setting up the camp, hunting for food and the like.
Now, it's a low-level game and I agree that at higher levels skills lose in value, but he'll still be far better than most people in the world are, something that can be used for RP purposes. Even Skill Focus (Healing) and a maxed rank for being a veteran soldier that had to serve as a field medic means he's going to be able to give advice and out-of-box thinking to the village cleric in stopping the spreading zombification disease.
1. A properly optimized lvl Fighter 20 can two-round a CR 20 encounter. Reference: Zurai's Fighter vs. Balor thread.
2. Which is cool, but he is THE most one-dimensional class in D&D. Reference: Fighter class ability list.
3. If you like such classes, then Fighter is a great choice. But if you are trying to tell me that a Fighter can do anything else apart from stabbing things in the face, please don't.
I dunno about 2&3. What generally needs to be done in an adventure. Someone needs to ask around about stuff (party face), someone needs to put evidence together (usually the players as a whole), then once the dungeon portion begins you need someone to disarm traps and/or scout (usually a rogue) and kill things in the face (in which everyone participates). I've played fighters that were the party face and it worked. In the end it is how you decide to PLAY your character, not the raw numbers, that matter more.
I tend to view Wizard not as auto-win class but someone who makes everyone around them better at what they do. Haste the damagers, invis on the scouts, summon flankers for the rogue, and throw up a wall to keep the reinforcements from interfering. Most awesome sauce "i win" spells only win when there's a stabinator there to take advantage of what you've wrought. Grease? Awesome everyone's on the floor. Now they're just gonna get up and murder you to death unless someone takes advantage of their compromised tactical position. Same with web. Web by itself? Meh. Web+an archer=awesome bel grande with a side of rad.
In the end, a good deal of the challenges in this game are combat challenges, and you can only win those by killing guys to death. Wizard makes killing guys to death trivial, sure, but someone still has to do the dirty work.
For the record, my favorite core classes are Wizard and Fighter. Almost equally. Bard and Ranger coming in close behind.
Logical Discussions: "Bearing fruit from Trolls since time immemorial."
Mmmmm....apples.
The problem with the "you're a team" argument is that I never see it bandied about on other classes.
Where are the threads where people point out wizard flaws with "You're a team, it's ok, you have a fighter there!"
A fighter without spellcasters is missing all his buffs, which hurts him pretty badly, and he's 100% reliant on magic items.
A wizard with no other party member can still cast a spell to summon fighters.