You ae missing the point againg, if it can be done it can be don, if th player do it poorly is playres fault not class fault.
Alaso, besides spells, what rebuild...
That sounds like an excellent design philosophy. Why don't you start a gaming company? I'm certain it would go well! Why not start with a superhero game?
EDIT:
Paladins don't need evil enemies. They are OMGWTF-AWESOME if their enemies happen to be evil, but are still quite capable of preforming with quite literally any weapon they pick up and don't lose their class features because they're swapping between a bow, a mace, or an axe..
Unless somebody sunder his weapon.
Agreed on that though. The fighter gets his sword sundered? "Oh well, I have a backup one here and I'll get the other one fixed asap"
The paladin gets his sword sundered? "Oh well, now I'm going to be a lot weaker for a month, basically a warrior against anyone non-evil"
When you lower CRs/add NPC levels until they match, you'll probably make them harder as you automatically optimize to a larger degree than the AP designers.
I dunno, adding a second level to Giggles or 2 levels of expert to whats-his-face with the acid isn't exactly high-octane optimization or anything. I have optimized encounters to be more interesting when helping a friend of mine though. He wanted to GM a CotCT game but didn't want to go through the trouble of converting stuff and so I offered to do it for him. He's not unskilled at the game's crunch (the dude is very good with Fighters and not in the "I think Fighters are the best ever", as he's very knowledgeable about the crunch overall but just really loves his Fighters. :P) and so we discussed how stuff would go.
What was absolutely hilarious was...
[Spoiler="Awkwardness in the First Adventure"]During the raid on Gaedren Lamm's dockhouse, the party encountered a slightly tuned up version of Giggles, Hookshanks, and what's his face. The party dispatched them quite easily, but the party's gunslinger got the snot beat out of him by the orphaned commoners with mops and brooms. Yep, out of all the NPCs who got changed, the commoners whose only difference was +1 HP KO'd a party member with broom handles!Agreed. I have the AP in front of me as we speak, and it's a very weird encounter, I'll even say badly written. The things you mention - that the imps are immune to most things the dragons do while the dragons are designed to be the saviours of the day - indicate that that's an _accident_ in the design, and not intended. Maybe the designer though pseudodragons had the "good" subtype, which would make sense and let them bypass the DR. I think that was a simple mistake from the dev's.
But:
minor CotC spoiler:
In this event, a flight of four imps swoops down to attack the PCs, seeing them as possible easy targets for gold and mayhem.This to me indicates that it's not an "in for the kill" backstab type of encounter, but rather a "wooohooo some poor sods are out there, let's see what happens if we smash'em!".
Doesn't fit much with the nature of Imps though to assume that. Imps are described as vicious and dangerous. It seemed pretty obvious to me that the Imps would see a party of well-armed individuals who are of no real threat to them and see them as easy prey. Adventurers have treasure, Imps want treasure, incite outsider on mortal violence.
I agree that in most AP's have one or two encounters that can be really hard for some parties, but generally, most encounters are pretty easy for an optimized party.
I mean, aren't the iconics meant to be able to finish their adventure paths?
Last I looked the iconics in the CotCT path wouldn't be particularly unoptimized if you just converted them over to Pathfinder and re-arranged their ability scores appropriately to the changes (the Paladin would likely swap Dex/Wis since Paladins don't need Wisdom for spells like they did in 3.5). The Ranger, Wizard, Paladin, and Bard in the books seem pretty decent to me.
Though I've heard quite a few things about difficult encounters through APs. Many of them by name, but some merely random encounters. Some months back there was a lot of hubbub about a shadow demon TPKing everyone in a particular AP. :P
Look at the encounter fix Shisumo linked though. The intended difficulty was a fair bit lower! Bypass DR and +4 damage? Yes please!
PS it'd be nice if someone from this thread that feels up for it checks out my suggested houserule/fix:
linky
If I was to have a Fighter on my team, I think I'd want it to be yours, Lemmy. :)
Glad you like it. Hopefully, Paizo publishs more feats and items to make non-specing Fighters viable.
The only thing I'd suggest is perhaps dropping the Barditch down to a +1 and grabbing an amulet of natural armor and a ring of protection. AC 23 is pretty low at 9th level (you can easily hit AC 20 with mundane gear and a +2 Dex at 1st level with your starting cash), and I think the +10% evasion from a Ring and Amulet would help more than the +5% hit from the additional +1 would go further in ensuring you last for more hits. You're a martial anyway, so you've got a nice phat BAB helping you out, and hopefully you'll get some buffs from your party (heroism is a favorite).
You're probably right. I got the +2 Bardiche because that's what I like to call "Improved/Greater Trip for Fighters", aka: GET A REACH WEAPON AND LUNGE, THEN TRIP'EM FROM FAR ENOUGH THAT THEY CAN'T TAKE THEIR AoO!!!
All in caps, of course, to make it sound as if Trip and Disarm were actually viable and worthwhile investments for fighters...Meanwhile, you have a nice presence, and the fact you seem focused on Intimidating enemies means you can at least debuff some stuff reasonably well (honestly being able to inflict a -2 to checks on a hit is pretty cool for tag-teaming with your party mages and lowers the incoming damage you'll get since the -2 is a -10% to hit and confirm criticals of enemies you strike with it). I feel your pain on the skills issue and such, but at least this Fighter looks like he'd be pretty fun to play and has some presence in the battlefield, and your clearly a competent off-archer which means flying enemies and distance battles are not unkind to you.
Yeah, I particullary love Cornugon Smash because it actually expands the Fighter's options, Shaken is a decent debuff if you have a caster friend with powerful SoL spells. Dazzled is even less powerful than Shaken, but it's still something other than damage, so I took it just for that, although I must admit that I really missed those 4 skill points :(.
Anyway, with a Power Attack, Mr.McFighter can give the enemy a -3 to attack rolls and -2 to all saves and skill checks, which is particullary helpful, given his lowish AC.Of course, Boris McBoring leaps ahead in melee DPR and AC. But, then again, he's boring as f!~@.
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Paladins don't need evil enemies. They are OMGWTF-AWESOME if their enemies happen to be evil, but are still quite capable of preforming with quite literally any weapon they pick up and don't lose their class features because they're swapping between a bow, a mace, or an axe..
Unless somebody sunder his weapon.
Why would I care? I'm not anchored to a particular weapon. I can just pick up another one. Draw my club for goodness sakes. When was the last time you specced clubs as a fighter? I didn't. Hell, you can't even reliably try to guess what weapons your GM is going to use so you can loot them off your enemies. You pick spears? Well you're fighting kobolds and all their weapons are the wrong size. Damnit. Okay, you picked short swords, but all these orcs are wielding axes. Damnit again. Well this time you're good, 'cause you decided to attempt to dual-spec bows and longswords, mother ****er you're fighting giants hurling rocks and wielding Katanas. WHO THE **** GAVE THEM KATANAS!?
BLARG!
You ae missing the point againg, if it can be done it can be don, if th player do it poorly is playres fault not class fault.
Alaso, besides spells, what rebuild...
That sounds like an excellent design philosophy. Why don't you start a gaming company? I'm certain it would go well! Why not start with a superhero game?
I mean every class can be used wrongly, it is not special about fighter so i do not see how that can be an argument.
In a current campaing of Red hand of doom the paladin choose dodge, ewp (bastard sword), combat expertise. He do somthng like 1d10+2 of damage. bad choises are bad choises, and with fighter and most of classes they can not be cnaged so easily.
I pretty much thing EWP:Bastard Sword blows regardless of your class. I'm curious though. Which of those poor choices prevents him from tanking, hitting stuff, and healing stuff?
Paladins don't need evil enemies. They are OMGWTF-AWESOME if their enemies happen to be evil, but are still quite capable of preforming with quite literally any weapon they pick up and don't lose their class features because they're swapping between a bow, a mace, or an axe..
Unless somebody sunder his weapon.
Agreed on that though. The fighter gets his sword sundered? "Oh well, I have a backup one here and I'll get the other one fixed asap"
The paladin gets his sword sundered? "Oh well, now I'm going to be a lot weaker for a month, basically a warrior against anyone non-evil"
Oh my, it's almost as if the Paladin had only two class features, Smite Evil and Weapon Bond!
Oh wait, he doesn't. By the time he has to pay any special attention to getting his particular weapon sundered (assuming he chose that over a mount, which I'm pretty sure many people wouldn't), he can also heal people several times a day while simultaneously removing one negative condition from them (that includes a self-heal as a swift action), cast one or two spells (including Magic Weapon which at fifth level acts exactly like the weapon bond), and grant his allies a +4 bonus on saving throws vs fear while being immune to fear and disease himself. That... doesn't sound like "basically a warrior", and doesn't take into account what happens should someone evil cross his path after all.
Mind you, this is just at the lowest level when getting your chosen weapon sundered becomes an issue for the paladin, and doesn't account for feat selection in any way.
Paladins get as many feats as warriors, that's why I didn't account for that. And yes, it was obviously a hyperbole, but if you're in a campaign that isn't heavy on smiteable foes, getting your bonded weapon sundered at 10th-12th level will feel far worse for the paladin than the fighter.
Paladins get as many feats as warriors, that's why I didn't account for that. And yes, it was obviously a hyperbole, but if you're in a campaign that isn't heavy on smiteable foes, getting your bonded weapon sundered at 10th-12th level will feel far worse for the paladin than the fighter.
If you're in a campaign light on evil foes, a Paladin isn't that hot a choice anyway. At least if you aim for being the damage dealer - he still makes an outstanding tank and a good secondary healer/buffer.
Even if you want to be the damage dealer, at the levels you speak of a Paladin can carry his weight with spells like Righteous Vigor and/or Deadly Juggernaut - weapon bond is by no means necessary to stay competitive.
I pretty much thing EWP:Bastard Sword blows regardless of your class. I'm curious though. Which of those poor choices prevents him from tanking, hitting stuff, and healing stuff?You ae missing the point againg, if it can be done it can be don, if th player do it poorly is playres fault not class fault.
Alaso, besides spells, what rebuild...
That sounds like an excellent design philosophy. Why don't you start a gaming company? I'm certain it would go well! Why not start with a superhero game?
I mean every class can be used wrongly, it is not special about fighter so i do not see how that can be an argument.
In a current campaing of Red hand of doom the paladin choose dodge, ewp (bastard sword), combat expertise. He do somthng like 1d10+2 of damage. bad choises are bad choises, and with fighter and most of classes they can not be cnaged so easily.
He tank and cure great, but he does +10/+5 1d10+3 (including weapon bond).
Is he actually interested in dealing damage, or is he content with being a tank/healer?
Paladins get as many feats as warriors, that's why I didn't account for that. And yes, it was obviously a hyperbole, but if you're in a campaign that isn't heavy on smiteable foes, getting your bonded weapon sundered at 10th-12th level will feel far worse for the paladin than the fighter.If you're in a campaign light on evil foes, a Paladin isn't that hot a choice anyway.
Agreed, but those campaigns shouldn't be ignored when discussing how paladins and fighters compare.
(that said I do think paladins come out ahead by quite a bit - it's the attitude of fighters having no noticeable strengths over paladins that I disagree with - they both have pretty good abilities over each others, paladin's just got more of them)
Fighters definitely have more build flexibility than Paladins.
While you can build a TWF Paladin it's a very feat starved build and is generally kinda hard under lower point buys simply due to the high cost of entry into the TWF chain.
That seems to limit many Paladins to THF, Archer and regular non-TWF Sword and Board. TWF Sword and Board is somewhat viable but like regular TWF it's got a high cost of entry and is hard under low point buys. However the increased AC associated with shield bonus and shield enhancement bonuses can be worthwhile.
Paladins tend to share many of the same skill point issues that fighters do especially since Charisma is a nonviable dump stat. Basically the major saving grace is that they can afford to somewhat dump Wisdom or Dexterity in addition to Intelligence and still have a decent set of saves.
Smite is of course situational and tends to benefit from lazy encounter design with one or a small number of opponents. Against large number of foes the Paladin definitely lags behind the fighter in terms of raw damage dealing capabilities.
In a smite-heavy campaigns (lots of evil, lots of single opponents) I don't think TWF is so hard for a paladin since strength matters less if you get your level to damage on like half your attacks.
The reasons why I don't think low skill points is as much of an issue to a paladin is that:
1. It's gonna have an awesome charisma mod and has charisma class skills and thus still can be decent at diplomacy/intimidate (without spending a feat on intimidating prowess).
2. It's got a few interesting out-of-combat spells like Zone of Truth and abilities like immunity to disease that can matter in RP situations.
True being a diplomacy god is a useful role that the Paladin typically has access to that the Fighter doesn't. I think Intimidate with Intimidating Prowess is a viable strategy for Fighters needing some sort of social skill but it's less broadly applicable and sometimes intimidating people isn't always the best solution.
I tend to think that both Paladins and Fighters tend to be largely relegated to pack mule for exploration phases of the game due to lacking perception and a relative lack of good exploration skills or the skill points to invest in them.
I find that the Paladin tends to be more durable than the Fighter but is also less capable of generating the massive offensive numbers outside smite situations. So it's kinda a matter of where you stand on the relative importance of offense vs defense.
We had two fighters and a two-weapon paladin in my Age of Wyrms campaign and no one felt they were over shadowed by anyone else.
The paladin ended up with a holy avenger and a sunsword. One fighter was a sword and board who felt he was a knight. The other was a two-handed fighter that dealt a crap ton of damage and never cared about hardness or damage reduction. They all had something to do and always felt like they were useful in and out of combat.
If a weapon bonded with a celestial spirit is destroyed, the paladin loses the use of this ability for 30 days, or until she gains a level, whichever comes first. During this 30-day period, the paladin takes a –1 penalty on attack and weapon damage rolls.
Paladins don't need evil enemies. They are OMGWTF-AWESOME if their enemies happen to be evil, but are still quite capable of preforming with quite literally any weapon they pick up and don't lose their class features because they're swapping between a bow, a mace, or an axe..
Unless somebody sunder his weapon.
Why would I care? I'm not anchored to a particular weapon. I can just pick up another one. Draw my club for goodness sakes. When was the last time you specced clubs as a fighter? I didn't. Hell, you can't even reliably try to guess what weapons your GM is going to use so you can loot them off your enemies. You pick spears? Well you're fighting kobolds and all their weapons are the wrong size. Damnit. Okay, you picked short swords, but all these orcs are wielding axes. Damnit again. Well this time you're good, 'cause you decided to attempt to dual-spec bows and longswords, mother ****er you're fighting giants hurling rocks and wielding Katanas. WHO THE **** GAVE THEM KATANAS!?
BLARG!
Yeah, but I didn't say anything about Weapon Bond. Though a bonded weapon is a difficult thing to destroy. The hardness of your average iron weapon is 10 + (its current enhancement bonus * 2) and has an extra +5 HP per enhancement bonus. Good luck getting sundered out of no-where.
Assuming you don't take the horse. I kinda like the horse personally, but I check to see if the GM accepts that the horse can be dismissed and recalled (it doesn't actually say the horse can be dismissed after being called as the 3.5 Paladin could). If not, I go with Weapon Bond but am pretty slow to use it. I just don't feel a NEED to use it in most fights. Martials have plenty of hit and damage on their plate simply because they are martials. They're not like 3/4 BAB classes and need lots of buffing to contribute.
Divine Bond can be applied to any weapon, and sundering is sucky (as in it's a bad idea because the vast majority of your enemies are going to suck at doing it unless they like flushing feats down the drain) and at high levels its exceptionally difficult to do (seriously you have to overcome the Paladin's CMD (which is high because it's 10 + full BAB + Str + Dex + Deflection + Dodge + Insight + Luck, etc) and then you have to actually deal damage to the thing (and hardness is like damage reduction on the 'roids, as it's really not hard to get a weapon that has DR of 20-30 as a Paladin and you can't critically hit them because they're objects). But in the odd chance you do, bummer, you have a -1 to some stuff for a while.
Of course, Paladins have options. Divine Favor adds +3 to hit and damage for 10 rounds, greater magic weapon adds up to a +5 to a weapon for up to 20 hours. Holy sword turns any weapon into a +5 holy weapon with a continuous magic circle against evil active on it (which penetrates DR as a real +5 weapon). And then they have Arcane Bond as well.
But I'm okay with good enough martial + lots of other stuff. And at best what you've explained is that if the Paladin happens to have his weapon destroyed in the window that he is using his Divine Bond ability on it he takes a small penalty until it recharges. A Fighter who lacks the correct weapon loses half his class (4 feats for specialization and his Weapon Training).
Which makes me think perhaps you missed the reason I think this is bad. It's not that I think that the Fighter is going to be randomly losing his weapon left and right. What I do think however is it greatly limits what weapons he can use. Follow me for a moment while I elaborate.
Example of Why Specializing Is Bad
Our hypothetical Fighter decides he wants to-hit and to-damage that exceeds that of a Paladin or rivals that of a Barbarian or Ranger. So he decides he's going to full-spec the Longsword. Why the longsword? Because the longsword is an incredibly versatile melee weapon (it can be wielded in one or two hands as needed to go from sword & board to shield and back again). So he decides Longsword is his friend. So he begins play with a longsword and Weapon Focus (Longsword).
During the early adventures the party encounters lots of goblins, kobolds, orcs, gnolls, and some drow. Unfortuntely, it seems that most of the enemies that you are coming across seem to favor weapons that are either too small for you or things like axes, clubs, scimitars, daggers, and so forth. Your party picks up quite a bit of masterwork goodies from their leaders and you have to sell off some of it at half price to buy a masterwork longsword yourself. The Ranger, Paladin, and Barbarian just picked up new upgrades while they were adventuring. Heck, the masterwork battleaxe on that one orc leader was pretty sexy for the Ranger who now has a +1 to hit (just like you with your Weapon Focus). They didn't have to trade items in at half price to get a mwk weapon they could use.
Later, around mid levels, the party is encountering more impressive foes. Now you're fighting higher level enemies. A few more exotic things. You trudge through lots of longspears, you find a +1 mace that the party's Paladin claims since "well you don't need it, sword boy". The rogue decides that +1 longspear would be the hax for his flanking and he has proficiency! The barbarian says "Oh look, a +1 frost scimitar, just what I've wanted since I found it!" and goes on about his merry way. Finally, you overcome an Erinyes in brutal combat (a called Erinyes, not a summoned one) and claim your +1 longsword at long last. Finally! The Ranger grabs her +1 flaming composite (+5 Strength) longbow! Que fanfare music.
At higher levels still, you face off against a powerful undead warrior wielding a life drinker. This +1 axe of energy draining is freaking awesome. You really want to use this, but dang, you're like 13th level now and you're already 4 feats invested into that Longsword, and you exchanged all that treasure to keep upgrading this weapon and didn't get to loot cool stuff and use it as you went (so money is tight), and it burns. It burns knowing that to use this weapon that is really cool, you, the master of weaponry can't use it without losing 4 feats worth of +hit and +damage and your primary weapon training. It dawns on you...Fighters can't have nice things unless they're made to order.
So you had 3 martials in your campaign out of how many total PCs?
What did skills did these characters have to bring to the table in terms of exploration and social interactions? Granted AoW isn't really a social heavy AP but there are definitely outlets from social interaction and exploration.
If we assume Int 8 is pretty common for most fighters and paladins what are they investing their precious skill points in?
Fighter: Intimidate + Survival with some Perception?
Paladin: Diplomacy + Sense Motive with some Perception or UMD?
Do you spend skill points in stuff like climb and swim knowing that you are unlikely to be able to negate the armor check penalty before spells like overland flight negate the need to invest in climb?
That's the problem I see in terms of skill usage given a meager skill point budget. Even with human skill point bonuses and preferred class bonuses you simply don't have a significant number of skill points to contribute to big areas of the game.
While some people are content to just leave social interaction and exploration to the rogues and bards I think it's definitely preferable to be more broadly useful than just standing around rubbing oil on your pecs when combat isn't happening.
Ashiel, need to get gear made to order is a massive issue for most of the classes though.
Loot bundles rarely come in a format that means that the PC has the right gear at the right time without trading excess gear in or having someone craft it for you. NPC wealth is very rarely going to be concentrated in the one big item (especially very important but very expensive items like belts of physical perfection). Even when they start showing up as loot bundles they are often going to be a lower tier than the PCs generally want or need.
Sooner or later you are going to have to cash in to get those important deflection items (forge ring is basically NPC only) and even stuff like Craft Magic Armor are largely going to depend on NPC crafters. Stuff like Amulets of Mighty Fist basically mean you have to beg the PC wizard or an NPC to craft for you.
So most GMs fudge a little and make sure at least a certain percentage of loot packages are in very friendly formats so that the longsword fighter always has a level appropriate weapon when he needs one. Same with the greatsword barbarian and short sword rogue.
Plus let's be honest almost every martial character is going weapon focus for their primary attack sooner or later. +1 to hit is simply too valuable to pass up for most builds.
Nicos I think the argument is basically that needing to purchase items made to order tends to be costly due to the need to trade in existing loot (at a substantial reduction in value) and then purchase a new item in it's place.
If you are a TWF heavily invested in Kukris the need to continually invest in upgrading those Kukris in order to maximize you return on WF/WS/GWF/GWS/Imp Crit/etc is pretty extensive.
In contrast if you can make do with whatever gear comes your way from looting the corpses of your kills you can actually have more gear than the specialist.
The truth of the matter is that almost no classes can really just get by with living with what they find anymore. It's just to advantageous to boost the big 6 whenever possible and that almost always means PC or NPC craft to order.
So you had 3 martials in your campaign out of how many total PCs?
What did skills did these characters have to bring to the table in terms of exploration and social interactions? Granted AoW isn't really a social heavy AP but there are definitely outlets from social interaction and exploration.
If we assume Int 8 is pretty common for most fighters and paladins what are they investing their precious skill points in?
Fighter: Intimidate + Survival with some Perception?
Paladin: Diplomacy + Sense Motive with some Perception or UMD?Do you spend skill points in stuff like climb and swim knowing that you are unlikely to be able to negate the armor check penalty before spells like overland flight negate the need to invest in climb?
That's the problem I see in terms of skill usage given a meager skill point budget. Even with human skill point bonuses and preferred class bonuses you simply don't have a significant number of skill points to contribute to big areas of the game.
While some people are content to just leave social interaction and exploration to the rogues and bards I think it's definitely preferable to be more broadly useful than just standing around rubbing oil on your pecs when combat isn't happening.
There was a barbarian/rogue (2 levels of barbarian), wizard, sorcerer/ranger/arcane archer/shadow scout, an inquisitor, plus the martials.
Climb is such an easy skill that they didn't worry about it much. With just a few ranks, some knotted rope, and aid another, there is little problem with climbing. Swim was only an issue in the beginning. Social skills were handled by several party members including one of the fighters (he focused on Diplomacy).
The more characters there are, the easier it is to spread the skills out among the party. Only one or two characters need some skills. My group works well as a team which helps as well.
None of the characters had Intelligence as a dump stat except the ranger and he regretted that decision when he was hit with a critical hit from the Critical Hit deck that caused his Intelligence to drop to 2 (he was hit hard by an invisible stalker and slammed against the wall).
In the end though, it doesn't really matter. As long as they all had fun and no one thought that their character wasn't part of the group then everything worked out great. They weren't the most optimized but they had a lot of fun.
It s funny because I remember you arguing about the raw of buying thing in settlement. Las time i saw it i can buy a +1 longsword in a small town.
And your argument seems like specializang in longsword is bad if your DM make enemies that for some reason never used good longsword.
If the game I am playing do not have longswords I would stop taking feat in LS after weapon focus, and retrain WF as soon as posible.
Your missing my point. My point is you have 0% control over random item drops for your character. You find what you find and you have to purchase anything else. As it turns out there is a crap-load of different weapons. No seriously, check this out.
HERE IS ANOTHER LIST OF WEAPONS.
EVEN CORE ONLY HAS TONS OF WEAPONS.
Now what you're doing is you are specializing in ONE of those weapons. We're talking about devoting 4 feats to a single type of weapon here to get your bonuses to look in any way special next to your peers (without full specialization, your to-hit and to-damage is not impressive, sorry). God forbid you choose a weapon that is exotic and thus rarer than usual!
There are a lot of possibilities as to what sort of equipment you can come across. I chose a Longsword because they're arguably one of the most common and well-rounded martial weapons (probably one of the safest bets you could make other than bows) and yet still you have 0% control over what you are encountering. Don't whine and tell me that it's the GM's responsibility to change his NPCs and make you look good, or to dump a magic sword there specifically for you. If you make such a suggestion you forfeit this argument for the fighter.
The fact is, you are at the mercy of what is dropped. If the GM arms his NPCs with glaives, then you're out of luck. If his orcs wield axes, you're out of luck. If his hobgoblins wield masterwork longswords you're cool but if it's another 8 levels before you see an interesting weapon in your grouping again, tough luck. And you're absolutely right. You CAN'T BUY ITEMS that are too expensive without GM-fiat, because frankly Pathfinder doesn't assume Magic Marts R Us are selling exceptionally powerful items all over the place. So you can reliably buy a +2 weapon. That much is certain, and is the same for all classes (Rangers can't buy +3 weapons either, don't feel bad).
But the difference is when you fight that called Ghaele Azata and claim that +4 holy greatsword then you know good and well that you can keep it, use it, and will do just fine with it. You don't have to feel "bummer, I'm not specced in greatswords". You can't enjoy getting interesting item drops, and random item generation is your bane. Good luck, happy gaming, hope the GM coddles you.
Plus let's be honest almost every martial character is going weapon focus for their primary attack sooner or later. +1 to hit is simply too valuable to pass up for most builds.
I can't remember the last time I took Weapon Focus on ANY PC other than a Fighter.
Plus let's be honest almost every martial character is going weapon focus for their primary attack sooner or later. +1 to hit is simply too valuable to pass up for most builds.
Even when other classes take weapon focus, it doesn't hurt them too much to drop a +2 Greatsword to grab a +3 Greataxe. All they lose is the Weapon Focus's +1 to hit, which the better enhancement bonus makes up for anyhow. The +3 Greataxe is still an improvement over the +2 Greatsword.
A Fighter considering switching from a +2 Greatsword to a new +3 Greataxe is losing Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Specialization, and all levels of Weapon Training. The +3 Greataxe is actually significantly worse than the +2 Greatsword.
Other classes lose the benefit of maybe one feat; fighters lose the benefit of several feats and a primary class feature.
I think it's quite telling that Fighters are supposed to be the versatile masters of combat who can command any style effectively (whereas, for example, Rangers are "locked" into one chosen Combat Style), but their Weapon Training class feature and all of their special class-exclusive feats only work with one weapon or one group of weapons, whereas, for example, a Barbarian's Strength bonus works with all melee weapons. It's like the class features were specifically designed with the intent of not letting Fighters have that sort of versatility.
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I'm going to go off on the "GM-Fiat" garbage again. The GM runs the game and it supposed to actually make some decisions once in a while. That means that there will be many times when the GM makes things happen. Too often people misuse the term. GM-Fiat is more about railroading or fudging constantly. Actually populating a world and placing things in it for the party to purchase or ignore is NOT GM-Fiat.
I'm really tired of that term being misused to the point of being devalued.
The Pathfinder game assumes that there are items for purchase. The Core Book and the Game Mastery Guide both give suggestions on how to handle it. I don't have the Equipment Guide but I would suspect that it may also have something. If not, I would be disappointed.
The fighter doesn't need to specialize in a specific weapon. He can get by with groups if necessary for a short period of time. If he's a human, he can become more versatile with appropriate feats, allowing him to specialize in groups of weapons. However, specialization gives him a whopping +2 to hit and +4 damage. He can find ways to deal with that minor problem if he needs to. If the player can't figure it out, then maybe playing a martial character isn't right for him.
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Really? The only time I ever see weapon focus is on fighters, and on archery rangers who need it as a prerequisite for Point-blank Master.
@Bob
I see what you're getting at, but it's also the GM's responsibility to run a world, not a theme park for the PCs. Your enemies should be using and holding on to items that they could have reasonably found/bought/made, and that are useful to them. This may coincide with that the party wants occasionally, but most of the time it's going to be an assortment of weapons and armor they don't specialize in (given the vast amount of items in Pathfinder's armory), and miscellaneous magical items that may or may not be of use.
If the world revolves around the PCs this is less of an issue, but I don't really want to play in a world where Mak-Mok the Kobold King decided to go out and buy a medium sized greatsword just so our good friend the fighter would be able to loot it from his rotting corpse.
I think it's quite telling that Fighters are supposed to be the versatile masters of combat who can command any style effectively (whereas, for example, Rangers are "locked" into one chosen Combat Style), but their Weapon Training class feature and all of their special class-exclusive feats only work with one weapon or one group of weapons, whereas, for example, a Barbarian's Strength bonus works with all melee weapons. It's like the class features were specifically designed with the intent of not letting Fighters have that sort of versatility.
I didn't realize that the fighter can't use his strength bonus with his weapons.
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I'm not sure you understood my post, but in case you didn't know, Barbarians get this sweet class feature at first level where they can get +4 Strength and +4 Constitution. That's a +2 to hit / +2 to damage (+3 to damage with THF) - the equivalent of three fighter feats - and it applies to all melee weapons, not just one specific weapon. And the bonus gets better as you level!
Fighters do not get any bonuses to their Strength score to help with all weapons. I double-checked! It is true. They don't.
I understand your confusion, though. When I see one class getting bonuses to all weapons, as well as a variety of unique abilities, and I see another class getting +'s with only a few specific familiar weapons and fewer skill points per level, sometimes I think the latter is the Barbarian. It's an understandable misconception.
Plus let's be honest almost every martial character is going weapon focus for their primary attack sooner or later. +1 to hit is simply too valuable to pass up for most builds.I can't remember the last time I took Weapon Focus on ANY PC other than a Fighter.
Hrmm, I find that it's pretty common as a skill across almost all the martial classes (fighter, paladin, ranger, rogues) due to the almost universal applicability of a +1 to hit and the consequential increases to average damage especially for classes that tend to rely on a large number of attacks.
The TWF rogue in particular definitely benefits from weapon focus on paired light weapons due to the sheer number of attacks they are generally spamming and the reduced accuracy of those attacks vis-a-vis full BAB classes. Weapon Finesse is more critical but weapon focus (short sword) is definitely extremely common in my experience.
Weapon focus for casters is substantially less common outside of true battle clerics but the free proficiency in your god's martial weapon often make clerics a decent candidate for weapon focus.
Monks of course need every +1 they can possibly get.
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Even when other classes take weapon focus, it doesn't hurt them too much to drop a +2 Greatsword to grab a +3 Greataxe. All they lose is the Weapon Focus's +1 to hit, which the better enhancement bonus makes up for anyhow. The +3 Greataxe is still an improvement over the +2 Greatsword.A Fighter considering switching from a +2 Greatsword to a new +3 Greataxe is losing Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Specialization, and all levels of Weapon Training. The +3 Greataxe is actually significantly worse than the +2 Greatsword.
Other classes lose the benefit of maybe one feat; fighters lose the benefit of several feats and a primary class feature.
I think it's quite telling that Fighters are supposed to be the versatile masters of combat who can command any style effectively (whereas, for example, Rangers are "locked" into one chosen Combat Style), but their Weapon Training class feature and all of their special class-exclusive feats only work with one weapon or one group of weapons, whereas, for example, a Barbarian's Strength bonus works with all melee weapons. It's like the class features were specifically designed with the intent of not letting Fighters have that sort of versatility.
I think the fighter "versatility" is almost exclusively centered around build versatility rather than play versatility. You can build a generalist fighter but he's going to take a major hit to his effectiveness in combat.
The specialist is almost always going to run into situations where the new shiny is inferior to his optimized equipment. This is kinda a universal problem but particularly focused on the fighter's weapon of choice.
However after a certain point (+2 or so) the chances of getting a weapon that is better suited to you than what you can build yourself become vanishingly small simply due to the limitations of NPC wealth limits and the need to patch multiple areas (namely saves, stat boosters, etc). Yeah you can have a solo NPC with an outrageously overcost +3 or +4 weapon but sinking that much into a single weapon tends to nuke your NPC wealth budget and make those NPCs easy pickings.
Do I wish that the fighter could still basically take whatever random junk was thrown his way and be awesome with it? Of course but unfortunately each iteration of the game seems to reward greater and greater martial specialization.
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Just so we are clear, longswords and shortswords are probably the two most common swords used in fantasy and I have never come across an adventure where these were rare unless it was intended.
I have said this once and I will say it again, keep back ups of your specialty weapon. Anybody that isn't a complete idiot is going to keep a back up. These arguments about the fighter not going to have his weapon get dummer and dummer and yet every enemy the ranger fights, ends up being his favored enemy.
Amazing isn't it?
I'm not sure you understood my post, but in case you didn't know, Barbarians get this sweet class feature at first level where they can get +4 Strength and +4 Constitution. That's a +2 to hit / +2 to damage (+3 to damage with THF) - the equivalent of three fighter feats - and it applies to all melee weapons, not just one specific weapon. And the bonus gets better as you level!
Fighters do not get any bonuses to their Strength score to help with all weapons. I double-checked! It is true. They don't.
I understand your confusion, though. When I see one class getting bonuses to all weapons, as well as a variety of unique abilities, and I see another class getting +'s with only a few specific familiar weapons and fewer skill points per level, sometimes I think the latter is the Barbarian. It's an understandable misconception.
I understood your post. I was being flippant because the fighter can still use his full strength bonus too and he doesn't have to be raging to get a boost. That means, even at low levels, the fighter can remain consistent. At higher levels the barbarian can rage longer and more often but that doesn't mean that he will always be able to and he can run out of rages. I've seen it happen with high level barbarians. Granted they used abilities that burned rounds of rage, but that only goes to show that it's not a guarantee.
The wizard, cleric, paladin, and in fact, every class in the game can benefit from their strength score. It isn't unique. It isn't a class feature. It may be more likely that one class or another is going to have a higher strength but it isn't a given.
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It's not about losing your primary weapon which is going to be a pretty rare situation (Sunder is crap, locking gauntlets pretty much negate disarm, stealing weapons is dirty GMing) it's more about taking advantage of better equipment whenever it shows up.
That's not an insignificant advantage particularly in campaigns where you can't pretty much get an item crafted or upgraded on demand but I also think that it can be overstated and depends almost exclusively on GM play style.
Hell in in 1e-2e where PC crafting was largely non-existent I rarely if ever used random loot drops. It's so much more fun to make sure that the PCs have the proper equipment whenever they need it than to stick them with a ton of vendor trash that they need to cash in to pay for better equipment.
Not that I don't still throw in a decent number of oddball wondrous items but if someone is specialized in a even somewhat common weapon (longsword, greatsword, shortsword) chances are they are going to find +1 and +2 versions of those weapons sooner or later. Now if they really want to have elven curve blades or mancatcher then they are almost always going to need to use Knowledge skills to track down likely locations of more potent but rare weapons or they are going to go down the commisioning route.
I agree with shallowsoul,always carry a backup. Even if it's much less powerful than your standard. Or go Adamantine. Worth the money for a hardness bypassing super-sword with a ton of hp.
But on the Subject of Fighter Feats: yes they are somewhat boring, yes they just lest you do what others can do anyway, no they aren't worthless. Ignoring the fighter only feats (which are mostly great) the option to take more difficult prerequisite feats is great. Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack, etc, are all good flavorful feats that get little use. Add in that you get so many and by higher levels you have the option of doing all kinds of neat feat combos.
Going back to Fighter only feats, most are good. The staple Weapon Specialization gives a flat +2 damage. While most seem to turn up their noses at this, that's the same damage bonus a raging Barbarian's STR bonus gives them with a one handed weapon. But all of the time. There are many others, and I'm sure they've all been mentioned before, so I wont get into all of them.
I feel the Fighter bonus feats are worth it.
Happy gaming!
P.S. Always longswords.
in a party of 10 PCs, 1 of which starts saturday December 1st.
we have
2 multiclassed human barbarian/fighters
2 martial oracles, 1 an angelkin, the other a nagaji
1 dwarf fighter
1 drow rogue
1 human bard
1 gnome sorcerer
1 halfling witch
and 1 possibly human cleric whom will be just starting
5 melee martials, 2 skill monkeys, one of which doubles as a pseudo martial, 2 arcane casters that contribute little besides damage, and 1 dedicated divine caster yet to come.
our fighter does the least damage in the party out of the dedicated martials. but then, he doesn't have the optimization that the 2 oracles have, nor the sheer multiclass synergy of the barbarians.
Martial Oracles are still full casters last I checked ;)
That a massive group though, you should feel lucky nobody seem to have taken a pet class like summoner or druid. Even then once people start getting better summons and bound creatures that's going to be one busy playmat.
I don't even want to know how many wands of CLW that sort of group requires for non-combat healing as there is no way the cleric and oracles are likely to be able to keep up with demand.
I agree with shallowsoul,always carry a backup. Even if it's much less powerful than your standard. Or go Adamantine. Worth the money for a hardness bypassing super-sword with a ton of hp.
But on the Subject of Fighter Feats: yes they are somewhat boring, yes they just lest you do what others can do anyway, no they aren't worthless. Ignoring the fighter only feats (which are mostly great) the option to take more difficult prerequisite feats is great. Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack, etc, are all good flavorful feats that get little use. Add in that you get so many and by higher levels you have the option of doing all kinds of neat feat combos.
Going back to Fighter only feats, most are good. The staple Weapon Specialization gives a flat +2 damage. While most seem to turn up their noses at this, that's the same damage bonus a raging Barbarian's STR bonus gives them with a one handed weapon. But all of the time. There are many others, and I'm sure they've all been mentioned before, so I wont get into all of them.
I feel the Fighter bonus feats are worth it.
Happy gaming!
P.S. Always longswords.
One of the biggest problems with feats like Spring Attack and Whirlwind Attack is that they are too situational with too little benefit to be worth the investment with many fighters. It's not that the feats are bad it's that the situations where they are useful are few and far between.
That's what many people see as a problem with the feat chains, many of the feats either have a tax (Combat Expertise) or don't do enough on their own (Spring Attack doesn't let the fighter get enough damage in). I have to agree. I can build a fighter that can make use of those feats and I can find a use for them in some games but overall, I don't think that they see much use because of their limitations.
Other feats, the boring ones, are useful almost all the time. Even though there are some acting like the fighter will be without his favored weapon on a regular basis, the reality is that most fighters will have their favored weapons most of the time and they will want to take feats that make those weapons better. Those feats, while boring, are more useful because they can be relied on.
The fighter can benefit from a rewrite of the combat section of the book. If some of the feats became options for everyone, like Whirlwind, the fighter could take other feats to make that better. He could expand his options.
The problem with this approach is that it requires a rewrite of the combat section and I know many who just don't want that many house rules. So some feats just won't see much use. There are a lot of thing in the game like that so I don't worry about it much.
Martial Oracles are still full casters last I checked ;)
That a massive group though, you should feel lucky nobody seem to have taken a pet class like summoner or druid. Even then once people start getting better summons and bound creatures that's going to be one busy playmat.
I don't even want to know how many wands of CLW that sort of group requires for non-combat healing as there is no way the cleric and oracles are likely to be able to keep up with demand.
the bard and the witch contribute a bit of healing as well.
and we tend to be on a seafaring campaign where we have 1 encounter days, but the 1 encounter days are combined APL+6-APL+8 for a 10 person party. which is APL +12-APL+14 for a 4 person party. the battlemats are very busy.
in fact, we use wands of infernal healing, because they are cheaper and heal more, despite taking longer. but even with that, we are still dirt poor due to keeping up with the healing needs.
I would definitely concur with Bob, if you are willing to heavily modify combat rules many of the problems with the fighter can be minimized especially the incredible tendency towards WF/GWF/WS/GWS.
Personally I think WF/WS should be applicable to the entire weapon group like weapon training is and there should be an option to apply weapon focus to both weapons in a TWF style that uses mismatched weapons (such as longsword/shortsword, rapier/dagger, longsword/shield, etc) because let's face it TWF needs all the help it can get.
Twinned shortsword or kukri is fun and all but sometimes you want TWF using mismatched weapons without taking a massive hit.
Making the +X feats more broadly applicable as well as reducing the number of feat taxes and giving some feats autoscaling (VS being split over 3 feats is bad, TWF is incredibly feat thirsty, etc) can go a long way towards giving back the fighter his master of weapons crown.
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in a party of 10 PCs, 1 of which starts saturday December 1st.
we have
2 multiclassed human barbarian/fighters
2 martial oracles, 1 an angelkin, the other a nagaji
1 dwarf fighter
1 drow rogue
1 human bard
1 gnome sorcerer
1 halfling witch
and 1 possibly human cleric whom will be just starting5 melee martials, 2 skill monkeys, one of which doubles as a pseudo martial, 2 arcane casters that contribute little besides damage, and 1 dedicated divine caster yet to come.
our fighter does the least damage in the party out of the dedicated martials. but then, he doesn't have the optimization that the 2 oracles have, nor the sheer multiclass synergy of the barbarians.
How about post those fighter builds so we can take a look at them. Just saying they do the least damage is just here say.
the bard and the witch contribute a bit of healing as well.
and we tend to be on a seafaring campaign where we have 1 encounter days, but the 1 encounter days are combined APL+6-APL+8 for a 10 person party. which is APL +12-APL+14 for a 4 person party. the battlemats are very busy.
in fact, we use wands of infernal healing, because they are cheaper and heal more, despite taking longer. but even with that, we are still dirt poor due to keeping up with the healing needs.
I imagine those APL +6 or +8 encounter involve a ton of foes instead of a small number of really big foes simply due to the extreme likelihood that a CR+6 or so monster can one shot just about any PC given a full attack?
In those situations I can definitely see why your casters tend to be dedicated AoE blasters. Frying mook spam can be quite satisfying and is something I kinda miss in the transition from 2e to 3.x and the decline of the evoker.