What sourcebooks are the feats Improved Balance and Perfect Balance from?
What sourcebooks are the feats Improved Balance and Perfect Balance from?
They are not feats. They are class features of the Two weapon fighter variant in the APG.
Btw, you can trip fliers that fly by Ex methods by 3.5 rules, it was deemed "stalling" as you limit their ability to maintain their forward momentum, or pull them to the ground, or other such nonsense. It was typed out in the faq I believe.
I have nothing to add to your argument as I use and allow 3.5 material in our games, I'm also on the boat of fighters are harder to make than casters, because you need to pre-plan your entire character or risk becoming a laughing stock.
What sourcebooks are the feats Improved Balance and Perfect Balance from?They are not feats. They are class features of the Two weapon fighter variant in the APG.
Ah thanks for clearing that up. Have yet to read all the new alternate class features in the APG
Ah thanks for clearing that up. Have yet to read all the new alternate class features in the APGWhat sourcebooks are the feats Improved Balance and Perfect Balance from?They are not feats. They are class features of the Two weapon fighter variant in the APG.
I only know about it because I just made a high level fighter. I have yet to read the entire book also.
I need a lexicon to keep up with all the acronyms in this post.
I'm such a noob...
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i've gotta say i disagree with the op. i played a falcion fighter, all party just core, in council of thieves. he took all the important feats when possible (spec, focus, impr crit, ect) and he held more than his own. there were a few complaints that he was too awesome. once he got impr crit, he was crit all over the place, he crit the bbg 3 time in 1 turn. plus his ac kept him very hard to hit, and mobile. because he could dish it out he kept alot of focus on him, and didnt take alot in return.
Where is this Rogue ability "Vanish" that you mention? (Makes me think of WoW). Can't find any mention of it.
Where is this Rogue ability "Vanish" that you mention? (Makes me think of WoW). Can't find any mention of it.
Vanish is a level 1 wiz/sorc spell from the AGP that allow ya to go invis for 1 round/level. A rouge can take it with the major magic talent at level 4, allow him to cast it 2/day.
Where is this Rogue ability "Vanish" that you mention? (Makes me think of WoW). Can't find any mention of it.Vanish is a level 1 wiz/sorc spell from the AGP that allow ya to go invis for 1 round/level. A rouge can take it with the major magic talent at level 4, allow him to cast it 2/day.
Oh sweet, thanks. I haven't gone through the APG that much and missed it completely.
While I don't really agree with the OP, there are some nice toys in the AGP which I haven't dug into myself.
While I don't really agree with the OP, there are some nice toys in the AGP which I haven't dug into myself.
I'm just getting back into the RPG world (haven't had much activity since the hey day of 2.0), and this OMG OP caster nonsense seems a little bit over-dramtic. I mean, sure, casters at higher levels SHOULD be awesome - it's like that in almost every single piece of fantasy fiction, but creative DMing can overcome any unbalance.
Well most of the OMG caster, assume he auto has any spell he needs at any given time he happens to need that spell. They also tend to assume he can have any and all magic items and spells he wants, which often juts is not the case.I really have not seen the issue outside of char op boards myself.
Castes are good, just not the untouchable gods some make em out to be is all.
I am sure some will be along to tell me how wrong I am, but eh that is the way it goes.
Oh and welcome to the boards Passes Neverminding the Rum
My advice is to allow ToB classes.
While I don't really agree with the OP, there are some nice toys in the AGP which I haven't dug into myself.I'm just getting back into the RPG world (haven't had much activity since the hey day of 2.0), and this OMG OP caster nonsense seems a little bit over-dramtic. I mean, sure, casters at higher levels SHOULD be awesome - it's like that in almost every single piece of fantasy fiction, but creative DMing can overcome any unbalance.
Name one.
Beowulf?
Gilgamesh?
Sir Roland?
Everyone involoved in the Three Kingdoms?
Go. Name the caster from fiction that can fly around invisible and throw fireballs while summoning monsters and charming others. Let's hear it.
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While I don't really agree with the OP, there are some nice toys in the AGP which I haven't dug into myself.I'm just getting back into the RPG world (haven't had much activity since the hey day of 2.0), and this OMG OP caster nonsense seems a little bit over-dramtic. I mean, sure, casters at higher levels SHOULD be awesome - it's like that in almost every single piece of fantasy fiction, but creative DMing can overcome any unbalance.Name one.
Beowulf?
Gilgamesh?
Sir Roland?
Everyone involoved in the Three Kingdoms?
Go. Name the caster from fiction that can fly around invisible and throw fireballs while summoning monsters and charming others. Let's hear it.
...........Batman?
My advice is to allow ToB classes.
ToB is great for action economy or to roll a new save. If your problem is caster/noncaster disparity, does not help.
Go. Name the caster from fiction that can fly around invisible and throw fireballs while summoning monsters and charming others. Let's hear it.
I would call your examples more along the lines of "mythology" than anything else, so going that route I'll name one: Merlin. Also, I didn't say every caster in fiction flies around invisible throwing fireballs while summoning monsters, I just said they are usually pretty powerful if they've survived that long.
Gandalf (although not an actual "wizard" per se, he's the archetype a lot of this stuff is based on")
Raistlin
Theleb K'aarna
Turjan
Allanon
any Aes Sedai
When dealing with magic in this sense, it's completely based in fiction. Fighters and rogues are at least somewhat a template of real world people with added abilities and powers. Wizards encompass everything that is "fiction" about fiction. Once you cross that line and have guys running around doing everything that's impossible in the real world, it gets pretty tricky trying to represent that in a game with strict rules.
So yes, a wizard with unfettered access to every ability at his disposal is going to be tough to match by other characters with abilities mired in real world examples. Which is why the DM is the stopgap. Enforcing the limits of vancian magic, creative encounters, etc.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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A good example is the feat (forget the name) from PHB2 which allowed to to treat 4 squares of difficult terrain as normal terrain with an easy balance check. It also allowed a acrobatics check to resist being knocked prone if you were tripped. No steep Preqs just great mobility
See the Nimble Moves and Acrobatic Moves feats in the PF Core Rules, which allow you to ignore (respectively) 5 feet and 20 feet of impediment from difficult terrain.
No benefit vs. being tripped, however.
I would call your examples more along the lines of "mythology" than anything else, so going that route I'll name one: Merlin. Also, I didn't say every caster in fiction flies around invisible throwing fireballs while summoning monsters, I just said they are usually pretty powerful if they've survived that long.
Merlin is a cambion, not a human wizard. A DMNPC, if you will.
Gandalf (although not an actual "wizard" per se, he's the archetype a lot of this stuff is based on")
Same as Merlin, though replace "Cambion" with "archangel"
Raistlin
You cannot quote a D&D wizard to prove your point about D&D wizards. Come on :|
Theleb K'aarna
Used rituals and pacts with otherworldly creatures. Not a D&D wizard. Killed by a sword through the skull. Actions done during the story to show his power: Try to run away, beg others to attack for him. Created in 1962.
Turjan
Really, using a Vancian wizard to prove a point about D&D :|.
But, alright.
Knows 4 spells. Max. Is a scientist more then he is a wizard. Only connection to D&D wizards is that he appears in a Vance novel. Created in 1950
Allanon
Druid, not a wizard. Another DMNPC, not a main protagonist. Made in 1977.
any Aes Sedai
Barely do g*~%+&n anything in the books, spend most their time with political infighting and man-hatin'. Most often found being defeated by people who don't use magic. Number of world changing events they do: zero. Made in
When dealing with magic in this sense, it's completely based in fiction. Fighters and rogues are at least somewhat a template of real world people with added abilities and powers. Wizards encompass everything that is "fiction" about fiction. Once you cross that line and have guys running around doing everything that's impossible in the real world, it gets pretty tricky trying to represent that in a game with strict rules.
No, it's not.
Look at your examples - how many fit the D&D wizard? None, not a single one. Because when we look at mythology and heroic fantasy, what we see are warrior-style protagonists killing wizards, dragons, and other beasts. Hell, not one of your examples is more then 60 years old.
The problem is that people look at fighter and see "real life person." You shouldn't. The fighter is Beowulf or Hercules. An epic level rogue is Coyote or Loki. It's fantasy roleplaying, not magical roleplaying.
So yes, a wizard with unfettered access to every ability at his disposal is going to be tough to match by other characters with abilities mired in real world examples. Which is why the DM is the stopgap. Enforcing the limits of vancian magic, creative encounters, etc.
No, that's why we stop trying to claim that fighters need to be realistic. This isn't a magical roleplaying game, it's a fantasy roleplaying game. Two different things. Characters are meant to be fantastic.
Beowulf ripped off the arm of Grendel and spent hours underwater to find the lair. Not realistic.
Zhang Fei intimidated ten thousand men, causing an entire army to stop and refuse to cross a bridge. Not realistic.
Cu Chulainn was capable of entering a berserker rage so powerful his very body twisted and changed under warp spasms. Not realistic.
Dian Wei not only held off an army at a different bridge from Zhang Fei, he did it not with intimidation, but with his fists. First killing any man who tried to cross bare handed, then grabbing a discarded weapon and using that until it broke, then grabbing two enemy soldiers and using them as weapons. Cursed his enemies even as he died - and died standing, causing everyone else to refuse to cross the bridge until they knew for certain he was dead, giving Cao Cao more then enough time to escape.
In fact, just about everytime there is a bridge, it's guranteed a martial character will stop an entire army from crossing it singlehandedly. Never realistic.
Gilgamesh wrestled a god. On top of many, many other accomplishments.
Hercules was doing heroism all over the damn place.
Here's something people need to realize - the idea of a wizard living in a tower and learning magic, and the idea that the other heroes in the world are not fantastic or not somehow inherently magic? That's modern. That's modern as hell. The reason your examples at best go back 60 years is because that's when it was more or less invented.
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Of course none of them are D&D wizards. They were written by authors, not rolled up at the gaming table (even Raistlin in the books is different from the young Raistlin played at the table). But they are representations of the types of characters people play RPG's to be like. Technically, yes Trujan used four spells in a story that was 38 pages. Shame on Vance for not listing the entire contents of his spellbook! But that didn't stop Gygax from designing an entire game with a magic system based on characters just like said Trujan.
By your logic, any character put to paper is supposed to be as epic as Beowulf? Hardly. I have never run a game with that intent or had players with that state of mind.
There are inherent flaws in a terrestrial gaming system meant to emulate the stuff of fantasy fiction. Period. And the easiest area to become exceedingly flawed is magic - because there are no real world examples. I honestly think that most of the people boohooing about overpowered magic in any game aren't being creative enough to take what's outlined in the rules and make it their own.
Of course none of them are D&D wizards. They were written by authors, not rolled up at the gaming table (even Raistlin in the books is different from the young Raistlin played at the table). But they are representations of the types of characters people play RPG's to be like. Technically, yes Trujan used four spells in a story that was 38 pages. Shame on Vance for not listing the entire contents of his spellbook! But that didn't stop Gygax from designing an entire game with a magic system based on characters just like said Trujan.
By your logic, any character put to paper is supposed to be as epic as Beowulf? Hardly. I have never run a game with that intent or had players with that state of mind.
There are inherent flaws in a terrestrial gaming system meant to emulate the stuff of fantasy fiction. Period. And the easiest area to become exceedingly flawed is magic - because there are no real world examples. I honestly think that most of the people boohooing about overpowered magic in any game aren't being creative enough to take what's outlined in the rules and make it their own.
You are missing the issue.
The issue is that, in every source of fantasy, in every myth, in every fictional anything, wizards are severely limited and/or set aside as what DMNPCs would be in a stnadard D&D game.
Only - only - in D&D are they given the free pass to do anything. To be a flying invisible hydra that throws fireballs. That is not mythological, that is not from any fiction series, it's not from any style of fantasy writing.
When you read mythology, what do you see as the protagonists, nine times out of ten? Warriors. Greek and roman myth is almost entirely about martial heroes. European myth is about religious martial heroes. Celtic myth is about faeries and fey-born heroes. Eastern myth is all about powerful spirits, gods, and those that speak to them, and almost all of them ahve - you guessed it - powerful martial spirit.
The idea of the "wizard protagonist" is an exceedingly modern won.
The issue is, your initial statement of "wizards are meant to rule the world after awhile, it's what they do in fantasy." That's not true though. In almost all sources of fantasy, wizards don't really increase that much in strength, especially not to the degree that D&D wizards do.
As for "should warriors all be like Beowulf?," there's two things here. First: You've already stated that wizards should be epic in scale, so why shouldn't martial classes be? And second, to answer the question itself, let's ask our friendly 2e PHB:
"The fighter is a warrior, an expert in weapons and, if he is clever, tactics and strategy. There are many famous fighter from legend: Hercules, Perseus, Hiawatha, Beowulf, Siegfried, Cuchulain, Little John, Tristan, and Sinbad. History is crowded with great generals and warriors: El Cid, Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Spartacus, Richard the Lionheart, and Belisarius. Your fighter could be modeled after any of these, or he could be unique. A visit to your local library can uncover many heroic fighters. "
The answer, it would seem, is "yes."
a lot of good stuff about warriors...
Totally agree.
Unfortunately, I don't think I've ever seen a D&D game where the fighters seemed like legendary heroes. I've played since 2e (briefly) and all of the fighters I saw were definitely more "meatshield" and less "Beowulf". I've played other systems to get that feel, and most still come up short.
It would be great to see a D&D that allowed a martial character to really seem like a hero of legend, but I'm not holding my breath.
There are a few myths out that have magicians capable of D&D-like shenanigans.
But these magicians are generally demigods or tricksters or both.
Virgilius and Merlin are capable of 9th-level type spells. The former is based vaguely on Vergil the poet, no less. Both have their own starring roles.
Maugis or Maligigi is a heroic wizard in the Charlemagne legends.
But most of the parallels are in trickster legends, satire, or children's stories. I think Coyote technically would be a Sorcerer.
I admit, however, that magic-users are disproportionately the villains, or are non-humans in most stories.
The reason for this bias in rpgs is simple: Gandalf, and Merlin before him. Gandalf's powers were always implied to be far greater than he revealed.
Plus Gygax and his friends obviously loved wizards. They were the stars in the first rp campaigns.
Well, like I said, neither Gandalf nor Merlin were really even wizards, at least not how D&D sees them. Gandalf was an archangel and Merlin was a Cambion. And Gandalf in the books never does much that isn't solved by level 1 spell Light and the prestidigitation cantrip ;p
It's also important to note that a mundane hero is also very modern. When you look at historical and mythological heroes, they themselves were frequently very magical.
Basically, as time went on, the origin of heroes changed from being destined to having free will. As scientific belief and historical mythology were traded for "rational thought," what you got instead were normal heroes who could do extraordinary things. It's where you get things like characters who are The Best Detectives or who trained in secret and exotic martial arts.
The problem, then, is that D&D combines two completely at odds philosophies. Wizards are definitively belonging to the first group of the destined. Wizards, historically speaking, were typically those who were either creatures of magic themselves, such as Merlin, or who made pacts with otherworldly beings. Arabic sorcerers were characterized by the pacts and ability to confer with the jinn. All throughout the Old Testament there are plenty of mentions of evil sorcerers who use the power of false gods and demons. Sorcerery by all means is the providence of higher beings - it was not something that simple mortal men did on their own, it had to be granted to them by the gods or spirits.
Fighters, however, belong to the second group, the ordinary men who do the extraordinary. The difficulty is, D&D settings as a whole are based, like wizards, in the first realm - the realm of the magical. This is why Fighters Can't Have Nice Things - because they aren't magical in a world where everything else is. To that end, they lose their "do the extraordinary" and just become "ordinary men" - because the setting demands that magic be the explanation for all extraordinary and fighters don't have it.
That's why I talk about the artificial and wrong assumption of magic vs reality that plagues the game. It should be fantastic, not magical. That's really the depressing thing - both groups could exist together, with "ordinary men who do the extraordinary" and "clearly supernatural powers," so long as the base assumption for the game is one based on fantasy, not magic - when we accept, in other words, that fantasy can exist without magic.
The main problem with the melee/wizard is the 3.0 'revising' of the spellcasters and melees.
1) Melees lost their ability to do full attacks, all the time, even while moving.
2) Melees lost exclusive access to great strength, great con bonuses.
3) Ability scores were uncapped for everyone.
4) Everyone got multiple attacks.
5) Every other class improved it's BAB and at/rd.
6) Melees went from best avg saves to one good save.
7) Melees lost full Dex with armor.
8) Monsters got bigger, tougher, with Con and Str bonuses. Melees didn't really get anything to kill them faster with or be less hit by.
Spellcasters...
1) Now got to cast with standard actions, instead of full round actions. I.e. they are NEVER INTERRUPTED.
2) Spellcasting became a whole lot more flexible.
3) Spellcasting became far more SUCCESSFUL with scaling saves required.
4) Scaling Con bonuses for everyone meant no melee has a HP advantage.
5) Unlimited ability score scaling means that if you get your Str/Con high enough, you can replace a fighter.
6) Spells mean you are not equipment dependent.
7) Getting spells is like getting handed a crapload of 1/day magic items...it's a huge bunch of gold handed your way. Everyone improved in melee, but melees didn't really improve at all in magic. If anything, they lost exclusivity.
8) The number of ways to get AC increased dramatically, and the melee has a much harder time accessing them then a wizard.
Seriously, go back to 1E. A wizard getting into a fight with a fighter was going to die. Any spell he started went off at his NEXT initiative. If he got hit at all in the interim, he lost the spell...AND he couldn't move while casting! Against a competent fighter, a wizard was a push toy, and a single archer could lock him down completely unless he could get out of line of sight.
Nobody but fighter-types could get a natural str of 18%, or use a Girdle of Giant Str for 19+.
Only melee-types could get +3 or better HP to Con.
Multiple attacks were a CLASS FEATURE, not an extension of BAB.
Start doing the following:
Make all normal spellcasting a full round action.
Make evocations (battle magic) and abjurations (defensive magic) standard actions.
Limit full spellcasters to +2 Con, partial spellcasters to +4 (rangers, Paladins, etc), and only non-magical Fighter types to +5.
Give full Dex in armor you are proficient with, without requiring class benefits.
Give Fighters anti-magic options. Like, bonuses to saves, or even spell resistance, if they have no magical ability. Having no magic should be a gift in its own way, instead of an out and out penalty.
Make multiple attacks a class feature, not a BAB feature...and don't give it to spellcasters. I'm seriously of the belief a Melee Fighter should have all good saves. You never found Conan lacking willpower or agility, did you?
Bring full melee attacks back as just standard actions. Do you realize that 5/2 rounds = 250% dmg, = virtually the exact same dmg as someone with 4 iteratives (100%+75%+50%+25%)?
Allow the TWF penalties to go away.
Allow Feat chains to replace/scale, like manuvers in TO9S do.
Defenses on Melees should naturally trump defenses on spellcasters, who should have to buff to the 9's to equal them. And those defenses shouldn't be reliant on magical toys.
==Aelryinth
The main problem with the melee/wizard is the 3.0 'revising' of the spellcasters and melees.
I agree with about 75% of these. Granted, the balance in 1E was swung a little too far to the mêlée side, but a lot of your suggestions are easily put into play in PRG/3.5.
I'm working on some houseruling to make the mêlée classes (mainly Fighter, Barb, Rogue) a little more fantastic and superhero-y. Just have to do some more forum digging...
ProfessorCirnoyou you seem to really hate dnd wizies lol. while yes i do agree there powerfull and have nothing to do with your concept of fantasy but your missing one point. Your generalization of fantasy isn't quite correct. you seem to to be convinced that your concept of fantasy is really mythology. Mythology was mostly based on true heroes that existed or for people to explain things they couldn't grasp, so they made up gods and magic for everything to explain RL. Fantasy is NOT mythology. but mythology IS fantasy. Ofc wizards in mythology didn't turn invisible flying around casting fireballs that was not the point of mythology. mythology were myths created to give explanations or exaggerate real heroes exploits and people believed them to be true not just stories. example, there was no way for people to explain night and day so it must be gods chasing each other across the sky. or Hercules was so successful in battle and stronger than the avg man so he must have been a half god. and traditional myths about wizards spells were feeble by DND standards because they were things REAL people did that could not be explained by most. "oh that guy talks to animals he is a wizard. or he healed this sick child so he has magic". they didn't have myths about wizards flying around hurling fire because well no one could or it was beyond there imaginations! or but if an old traveler back then was pinned in a tree by town law folk and blew a mouthful of liqueur and spit fire maybe we would have some myths like that. while myths were extraordinary to the extreme they still had a bit of realism to them that people could grasp and imagine...maybe it was possible with the help of the gods... It was one thing to make a hero larger than life and pass the exaggeration as a believable story on, but a completely another to pass a hero off with powers obviously a lie and deceit. exmaple, Hercules was the size of 2 houses and fought with a sword of pure lightning and could shoot fireballs out of his eyes. This would be taken as a comedy by the people and would never live on to become a myth. Your assuming fantasy is based on mythology and it's not. it was INSPIRED by mythology there is a big difference. peoples imaginations back then while very active were also fairly limited. compare our stories and imaginations now to people back then. we can easily imagine technology getting to the point where robots or AI take over the world, or time travel, or alternate dimensions, and alien worlds with intelligent life. things like that compared to people back then was really beyond there imagination. 1000-2000 years from now there might even be stories or things that are even beyond our imaginations of today.
more to the topic though. while wizards are strong, me and all my players disagreed flat out that the whole game is favored around wizards or there so overtly overpowered. a lone wizard is nothing without his meat shields and will quickly get choped down or chased off against a balanced party. One thing that bugs me about a LOT of posts and threads is so many people only see one side of a larger picture of it and compare a wizard vs a melee fighter one on one. yeah the fighter will probably lose in every such match up. am i the only Dm who runs a party? i've always played Dnd as a TEAM game it's never about the individual. a lone fighter will die in the end and a lone wizard will die even sooner, thats why adventurers form groups in the first place-safety in numbers and specialists for every possible occasion so they can survive adventuring life. characters are SUPPOSE to complement each other and work together. It's not ment for every character to split off in combat and go one on one on the enemies. the fighter has flaws and so does every class. if the fighter can't get into melee because of terrain or finds a fight he's severely at a disadvantage at then i would say the party casters are not doing there part in the party, not that the fighter is gimped. casters should be supporting the party not going it alone. If you play in such a party that your fighter is so at a disadvantage because of lack teamwork it not the classes fault its the players. On another note fighters have access to magic items and NO skills are banned anymore so take some dang ranks in UMD and get some magic items bedsides dumping everything into your sword and armor. Simple items that gain you flight when you need it, or dimension door, or invisibility and a lot of the fighters situational disadvantages vanish. it sounds to me like players just want to be able to do everything and overcome everything without needing the rest of the part. thats not a design issue in the fighter it's a player fault. a player of mine was looking over the PF fighter and stated "with as many feats and abilities they get now if you can't make a good character it's not the class that sucks it's the player!" and he's dead on. fighters ONLY get 11 more feats than everyone else?! are your serious?! how many you need to make a class competitive 100? If you can't make the PF fighter work even with just core rules then something is seriously wrong with your party not the class.
Spellcasters...9) Spellcasters in 3.x got to prep all of their spells in one hour.
Before that, high-level spellcasters would be lucky if they could prep all of their spells with a single 24-hour effort.
This is one thing that people do not remember so many times, but is dramatically important. PREPARE a gate was not like prepare a magic missile - barring the castin, PREPARING was a different deal.
That was better both from an immersion, and a balance standpoint. The vancian casting was setted to an use of more than one day.
Of course, in 3.x, balance the Sorcerer around this could be very difficult, I guess...
Nope. Just takes 1 turn/spell level to get casting power back, same thing.
AD&D wizards had low level blasting spells that were effective all the way up to level 20 for a reason. They also didn't have the three fight work day at higher levels, because it would take far too long to get their spells back.
And yet nobody complained about weak wizards in 1E at all. And all the high level characters in the core Greyhawk and FR worlds were basically archmage wizards (90%, anyways).
Melee has some severe balance problems in 3E and still has.
If you're looking at basic things to balance them with spellcasters:
1) Give extra attacks as class features, and they always apply. If spellcasters can cast and move to full effect, Melees should be able to attack and move to full effect. If this works for monsters, fine. If you can't stomach that, at least give all Melees Pounce.
2) change Spellcaster spells to Evocations and Abjurations as standard actions, all other schools to largely full-round actions, and make summoning spells vulnerable to takeover with Dispel Magic (which kept a lot of wizards from using them). Blaster magic suddenly becomes the very best thing to use in a fight, and if you want to get fancy, you trade vulnerability for it.
==Aelryinth
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Unfortunately, I don't think I've ever seen a D&D game where the fighters seemed like legendary heroes. I've played since 2e (briefly) and all of the fighters I saw were definitely more "meatshield" and less "Beowulf". I've played other systems to get that feel, and most still come up short.
It would be great to see a D&D that allowed a martial character to really seem like a hero of legend, but I'm not holding my breath.
are you crazy? all heroes are legendary! when's the last time you saw a peasent stand upto a dragon,and survive? or a farmer not run in fear from a beholder? I know i would run screaming, and so would you.
if your martial charicters don't seem heroic enough, maybe you and your dm need to work on describing their actions better.
i think pathfinder, with the weapon and armor training, fixed alot of those problems, no one else can match the fighters mobility in armor, or his expertise with weapons.
also 4ed really leveled the field between the power sources, and uses better descriptions to explain how those fighters can do things comprable to casters.
if your martial charicters don't seem heroic enough, maybe you and your dm need to work on describing their actions better.
Aye aye!
To be honest I can't recall the last time one of our Wizards lept down a Deep Dragon's throat deliberately..
...and then clawed their way out clutching the cleric.
Epic!
Unfortunately, I don't think I've ever seen a D&D game where the fighters seemed like legendary heroes. I've played since 2e (briefly) and all of the fighters I saw were definitely more "meatshield" and less "Beowulf". I've played other systems to get that feel, and most still come up short.
It would be great to see a D&D that allowed a martial character to really seem like a hero of legend, but I'm not holding my breath.
are you crazy? all heroes are legendary! when's the last time you saw a peasent stand upto a dragon,and survive? or a farmer not run in fear from a beholder? I know i would run screaming, and so would you.
if your martial charicters don't seem heroic enough, maybe you and your dm need to work on describing their actions better.
i think pathfinder, with the weapon and armor training, fixed alot of those problems, no one else can match the fighters mobility in armor, or his expertise with weapons.
also 4ed really leveled the field between the power sources, and uses better descriptions to explain how those fighters can do things comprable to casters.
"My valiant warrior stands forth and challenges the evil beast!"
"It casts dominate. You turn and run away."
"My valiant warrior stands forth and challenges the evil beast!"
"It casts dominate. You turn and run away."
Assuming the beast is not immune to mind affecting, and does not pass the save. Your points are valid, but you exaggerate them quite a lot.
I agree 100% whit what Aelrynth said above (see my post) but say that a group of classes have problems does not mean that are unplayable and does not seem g%%@!+n heroes in what they do.
Of course, there are still spells or spell combos too strong and feats that should scale better. Nevertheless, one should learn to use maneuvers and think a little bit outside the box with meleers. This depends from the gamestyle of the GM I guess.
Some things are already covered. Sometimes the prereqs are too many and annoying, sometimes people should read carefully rules. A + 12 of a strenght surge of the barbarian can be very extraordinary.
Finally, we should be very careful about what we wish for. I'm perfectly ok with make feats scale better and put more "epic greek hero" stuff at high levels. I DO NO WANT TO SEE WHAT 4TH EDITION DID. If one likes 4th edition, it's the case play 4th edition, and does not try to change every game in 4th edition.
Ignoring your frankly wrong 4e stuff (I think? I don't know what you went into with "case play?"), I was refering to the fighter being dominated, with all his lovely terrible will score.
Even ignoring that though, what heroic things can martial classes do? Well, they can't rip off a monster's arm and then dive underwater for hours unaided like Beowulf. They can't go into horrible warp spasms that cause their very body to twist and mutate like Cu Chuulain. They can't do a lot of things, really.
In fact, the only thing they can do is charge the enemy and try full attacking it and then finding that most of the iteritive attacks miss and then they get dominated or hit with an attack that ignores their AC and killed.
The problem is that the only thing fighters can do is "Deal damage with one weapon I have specialized in," which is about as far from awesome mythological heroes as you can get. Yes, you can describe it in different ways, but at the end of the day, that's still all you're doing.
I'm not saying that fighters can't be heroic, just that D&D doesn't make them quite the "legendary heroes" that I think they could be. Once you get to high enough levels, wrestling with a Titan should be possible, and it shouldn't require a super-specialized build that precludes being good at other things.
I'm just agreeing with ProfessorCirno that a high powered melee hero shouldn't be limited to what seems realistic, but should instead be allowed to do fantastic things (like hold their breath for hours).
Are people honestly arguing that fighters are "good enough" in comparison to high level wizards, or just saying that "I can still have fun playing a fighter"? Because I agree with the latter, but not the former.
I removed a post that was less than polite.
Any spell he started went off at his NEXT initiative.
You're implying that was worse than it actually was. 1E spells weren't exactly full round actions in the sense you mean. Someone COULD beat initiative and interrupt them, but were far from guaranteed to get a chance to do so, especially for lower level spells.
It's not like 1E is without its serious crotch-kicks to fighters, either, one huge one being the weapon vs. AC hit charts. If the wizard can crank his AC far down into the negatives (and he certainly could -- look how good 1E Shield was, for example), good luck hitting him with any weapon other than two-handed sword, and even that got ugly.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Any spell he started went off at his NEXT initiative.You're implying that was worse than it actually was. 1E spells weren't exactly full round actions in the sense you mean. Someone COULD beat initiative and interrupt them, but were far from guaranteed to get a chance to do so, especially for lower level spells.
It's not like 1E is without its serious crotch-kicks to fighters, either, one huge one being the weapon vs. AC hit charts. If the wizard can crank his AC far down into the negatives (and he certainly could -- look how good 1E Shield was, for example), good luck hitting him with any weapon other than two-handed sword, and even that got ugly.
Weapon vs. AC was weapon vs. AC TYPE. Regardless of actual AC, the AC type of "no armor" is AC TYPE 10. Two-handed sword gains no bonus vs. that. Fist or open hand (or heavy crossbow) is actually best against that AC type, getting +4 to hit.
Also, 1st Ed shield only faced one way, frontwards. If you could move and get to the wizard's side or rear facing, it gave no benefit.
Weapon vs. AC was weapon vs. AC TYPE.
I remember thinking it should be that way, but actually wasn't.
I don't have my 1E books remotely handy, though, so I'll concede the point.