The Main Problem with Fighters


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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LazarX wrote:

Did you also make a comparison on how effective those Paladin goodies are when they're not pitted against their special foes?

Lay on hands, Divine Grace, Aura of Courage, Divine health, mercy, Channel possitive Energy, Divine Bond, Aura of resolve and Aura of Righteousness work perfectly when they aren't pitted against their special foes.

Detect Evil and Smite Evil doesn't, though. Although "evil" is a VERY broad kind of "special foe".

Even if the guy trying to scare you is neutral, being inmune to fear >>>>>>>>>>> bravery. And you get +4 to your team mates saves as a freebie.


LazarX wrote:
Did you also make a comparison on how effective those Paladin goodies are when they're not pitted against their special foes?

Lay on Hands, Divine Bond, Great Saves, immunity to many crippling effects... None of those need an evil enemy to work. In normal conditions, Paladins are great, in optimal conditions they are friggin awesome! In normal conditions, Fighter are meh. In optimal conditions, they're decent.

LazarX wrote:
Did you also make a comparison on how many Alignment (or call them what they really are Make a Paladin Fail) threads there are on these boards? Did you give the Fighter credit for not bringing that kind of baggage into a group whose players don't want to be stuck with Lancelot?

Valid point. Although I'd still rather have a goody-two-shoes guy who could heal me and resist the necromancer's mind-control spell than the true neutral guy who can only hit stuff with his sharp tool. And not that much better than anyone else.

LazarX wrote:
All of the Paladin's goodies come with some heavy mandatory baggage on them.

Well, at least they get some goodies.

What about Rangers and Barbarians? They're pretty much Fighter+++. Also, neither them nor Paladins are even close to being OP. The real problem is that Fighters are weak, not that other martials are too powerful.


LazarX wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
Second, if the trend of the game is power creep, why is Fighter the only class that hasn't gotten better, if that were the case? Every other class (well, except Rogue) has benefited from new options, from the Monk to the Sorcerer. Surely, some of the myriad new Feats would have increased the Fighter's power, even if only by accident.

The premise is wrong. The Fighter has made vast improvements over his prior incarnation in 3.X, and the Cleric can't freely steal his thunder the way he could back then. He's the only martial who freely moves around in armor, and he has a variety of lockdown tricks.

So the fighter can't teleport, and can't raise mountains, and he doesn't have out of combat magic tricks. That's not what the character is supposed to be. He' s the mano y mano hero, the one that wizards turn to when they need strong arms and guts.

But we're not talking about his incarnation in 3.x, we're talking about his incarnation in Pathfinder. I don't particularly care what he was like in 3.x, and how much better he is in this game, since I'm not playing that. And "better" does not automatically mean "good" except comparatively. If I cook up a pot of scorched cabbage, is saying it tastes "better" than a turd a compliment?

And your argument is essentially "So what if he can't do anything except hit things! He's a Fighter!" which completely sidesteps the argument of "Why should the Fighter be the only class that is ONLY useful in combat without significant investment?". It's not like he gets phenomenal cosmic combat ability to make up for it, he's on par with the other martial classes at best, and they get a bunch of extra tricks and out of combat utility to go with that.


Lemmy wrote:

Valid point. Although I'd still rather have a goody-two-shoes guy who could heal me and resist the necromancer's mind-control spell than the true neutral guy who can only hit stuff with his sharp tool. And not that much better than anyone else.

If your party doesn't want to party with a wannabe hero of Lawful Good alignement, then you can make an Antipaladin :P

Silver Crusade

gustavo iglesias wrote:
Blayde MacRonan wrote:
I'm not trying to start a flame war with this. I just want to see the discussion continue on its merits. And sometimes to do that, you must dispel certain fallacies. The eidolon as 'always on' is one such fallacy.

There's nothing that forbid you to summon the eidolon in the first 10 rounds of your first level, and do not unsummon it, EVER.

That said, the summoner has options to absorb evolutions. Those evolutions (like for example, wings) are always on within himself. Wings > skill focus Climb, in 99.99999999999% of situations.

I think you're missing the point of the post, which is that the eidolon is not 'always on'. The summoner has to make a conscious decision to bring it into play, but does so at the expense of using the summon monster ability. Likewise, the same summoner can choose to use the summon monster ability, but does so at the expense of being able to summon the eidolon. Familiars and animal companions have no such limitations and thus qualify as being 'always on', as (barring death), they are always around.

Evolutions don't play into it, nor does the choice of "when" you summon the eidolon.

I like the fighter as a class. I like the other martial classes as well, and thus concede that the fighter does have its problems when compared to them. In my mind, the fighter should be the 'go to' martial class in Pathfinder. That's the reason why it used as a baseline to compare the other martials. And compared to the ranger, barbarian, paladin or even the cavalier.... the fighter is just not as good. They have their merits, but so do the others and they're often better than what the fighter has going for it.

EDIT.


Blayde MacRonan wrote:


I think you're missing the point of the post, which is that the eidolon is not 'always on'. The summoner has to make a conscious decision to bring it into play, but does so at the expense of using the summon monster ability. Likewise, the same summoner can choose to use the summon monster ability, but does so at the expense of being able to summon the eidolon. Familiars and animal companions have no such limitations and thus qualify as being 'always on', as (barring death), they are always around.

I already addressed the main point with:


There's nothing that forbid you to summon the eidolon in the first 10 rounds of your first level, and do not unsummon it, EVER.

The summoner can bring the Eidolon at first level, and NEVER unsummon it. So, barring death, it's always on.

Sure, while he has the Eidolon on, he doesn't have access to their improved Summon Monster SLA. I'd like to point that the fighter doesn't have access to the Summon Monster SLA when they have their feats on, either.

So the comparison is:

The fighter has their feats, always on. They can't summon, ever, must always keep their feats.

The summoner has their eidolon always on, BUT could unsummon him to get improved summon monsters IF doing so is even more beneficial than having the Eidolon.

If a permanent Eidolon is better than a permanent feat, then a permanent Eidolon that you could swap for other things that are even more beneficial in a given circumastance, is even better than a permanent Eidolon, and thus even better than a permanent feat.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Rynjin wrote:
And your argument is essentially "So what if he can't do anything except hit things! He's a Fighter!" which completely sidesteps the argument of "Why should the Fighter be the only class that is ONLY useful in combat without significant investment?". It's not like he gets phenomenal cosmic combat ability to make up for it, he's on par with the other martial classes at best, and they get a bunch of extra tricks and out of combat utility to go with that..

That's the point of being a Fighter.. He Fights. He's Hercules, Or he's if he wants skills, he's got his buddy Iolaus who isn't nearly as good as busting heads, but he's handy with the pratical matters. Or even better, he's Roy Greenhilt, who's intelligent enough to implement his skills in evaluating the area in which he's fighting and make use of both his strengths and his team. And while the Paladin may be busy self-healing, the Fighter is locking down his opponent with combat maneuvers. and setting his opponents up for failure with either his allied rogue or his own combat reflexes ready to take any advantage of his opponent's moves. And he'll have more options to run the battlefield because he'll have more feats to bring to bear.


Which is nice, in theory, except the Fighter in this game DOESN'T fight significantly better than his fellows, and he's still not as skilled.

He doesn't have more options than any other class, especially not ones he's good at.

The Fighter is like Kuwabara, he's pretty good at fighting for a while but after a time Kurama says "Yeah nope, I'm stronger, faster, AND smarter. Suck deez foxy nuts."


LazarX wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
And your argument is essentially "So what if he can't do anything except hit things! He's a Fighter!" which completely sidesteps the argument of "Why should the Fighter be the only class that is ONLY useful in combat without significant investment?". It's not like he gets phenomenal cosmic combat ability to make up for it, he's on par with the other martial classes at best, and they get a bunch of extra tricks and out of combat utility to go with that..
That's the point of being a Fighter.. He Fights. He's Hercules, Or he's if he wants skills, he's got his buddy Iolaus who isn't nearly as good as busting heads, but he's handy with the pratical matters. Or even better, he's Roy Greenhilt, who's intelligent enough to implement his skills in evaluating the area in which he's fighting and make use of both his strengths and his team. And while the Paladin may be busy self-healing, the Fighter is locking down his opponent with combat maneuvers. and setting his opponents up for failure with either his allied rogue or his own combat reflexes ready to take any advantage of his opponent's moves. And he'll have more options to run the battlefield because he'll have more feats to bring to bear.

Self healing is swift action. He can do it while he locks his opponent with combat maneuvers, or obliterate him with smite evil.

Iolaus woul be much better at being handy with practical matter if he gets Ranger or Cavalier or Paladin or Barbarian as their main class, as those classes have more skill points, and/or better class kill lists.

The fighter has more combat feats, but doesn't have more combat options. Compared to a ranger, for example:

A 10th level fighter gets 6 feats. Also gets Bravery, Armor training and weapon training.

A 10th level Ranger gets 5 feats (two of them fixed, Track and Endurance), can get 3 of those feats without prereq (which is handy and worth at least a feat by itself), also gets favored enemy, favored terrain, wild empathy, hunters bond, evasion, woodland stride, spells, and two good saves

Silver Crusade

gustavo iglesias wrote:
Blayde MacRonan wrote:


I think you're missing the point of the post, which is that the eidolon is not 'always on'. The summoner has to make a conscious decision to bring it into play, but does so at the expense of using the summon monster ability. Likewise, the same summoner can choose to use the summon monster ability, but does so at the expense of being able to summon the eidolon. Familiars and animal companions have no such limitations and thus qualify as being 'always on', as (barring death), they are always around.

I already addressed the main point with:


There's nothing that forbid you to summon the eidolon in the first 10 rounds of your first level, and do not unsummon it, EVER.

The summoner can bring the Eidolon at first level, and NEVER unsummon it. So, barring death, it's always on.

Sure, while he has the Eidolon on, he doesn't have access to their improved Summon Monster SLA. I'd like to point that the fighter doesn't have access to the Summon Monster SLA when they have their feats on, either.

So the comparison is:

The fighter has their feats, always on. They can't summon, ever, must always keep their feats.

The summoner has their eidolon always on, BUT could unsummon him to get improved summon monsters IF doing so is even more beneficial than having the Eidolon.

If a permanent Eidolon is better than a permanent feat, then a permanent Eidolon that you could swap for other things that are even more beneficial in a given circumastance, is even better than a permanent Eidolon, and thus even better than a permanent feat.

If you have to dismiss the eidolon to use the summon monster ability, then the ability is not on. Which once again was the point of the original post. Pointing out that the fighter can't use the 'summon monster' ability is a straw man, or at best comparing apples to oranges. It never had the ability in the first place.

However, with that being said, a fighter actually can have the ability to summon an eidolon (it's 3PP but KQ #21 introduced the seraphic cohort archetype for the fighter which, at the cost of their bonus feats, gives them the 'angelic protector' ability that allows them to summon an angel form eidolon to aid them in battle).


That's like saying if you have to unplug your toaster to use your microwave the electricity's not always on. That's just silly.

That said, the Eidolon disappears when you sleep. So no, not always active.


Screw it, this isn't the proper thread for 'fixes' anyway. It's a complaint thread in general discussion not the houserules board.

Attempted Fighter fix withdrawn.


Rynjin wrote:
hustonj wrote:

Again, back to my original post that the anti-fighters soundly ignored.

The problem is NOT the Fighter class.

The problem is the ever-increasing power creep love being provided for everyone else.

All the anti-fighter crowd keeps doing is pointing at the results of the ongoing power creep and demanding that the failure for one of the foundation bedrocks of the system to "keep up" is inherent in the construction of the foundation stone. Zark's "Great post" helps display this point pretty well. Even more so when you remember that Pathifinder STARTED as power creep from D&D 3.x.

The problem is NOT in the foundation stone.

The problem is in all the cruft that keeps getting tacked onto the system.

This comes up in EVERY game engine where there has been enough expansion publishing. There's been a lot of expansion publishing for Pathfinder.

One, I disagree with your premise. At the baseline Fighter was always worse than Barbarian and Ranger. None of the new options added a significant amount of power to either class, they just gave them more options.

I have to disagree here. It's not true that a baseline Barbarian could get a better AC than a baseline Fighter when raging. It's also not true that a baseline Ranger (thus without instant enemy) could outdamage the baseline Fighter when not fighting one of his favored enemies. And yes, some of the new options added a significant amount of power to either class (beast totem = scaling AC bonus and pounce, extra rage power, spell sunder, instant enemy, etc.)

In other words, the Fighter might have be equal to (or slightly worse than) the Barbarian and the Ranger in core, but splatbooks only made things worse for the Fighter.

I think I'm going to give the Fighter (and only the Fighter) some of the Warblade's class features and the ability to select combat maneuvers from ToB:tBot9S with his bonus feats.


Yes, the Barbarian had/has less AC. The Ranger had/has slightly less damage when not fighting his FE.

They were/are still better. They had more options outside of combat, and just as many in it, with 1 or 2 less to-hit/damage.


I love my fighter. I'm a caster's worst nightmare with step-and-strike + spellbreaker + Ray Shield. Step-and-strike also gives me a decent trick to aid in battlefield control. The class's armor training perks greatly enhance the utility of full plate since you aren't stuck at +1 dex.

My fighter's AC is typically around 40 (level 13), yet he still does plenty of dpr. The monk can out damage me against low AC monsters, and our ranged ranger does more damage situationally, but I'm the more consistent source of damage. I would have fun with more perks, but I don't feel like I need them or that I'm being shorted in any way.


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gustavo iglesias wrote:
hustonj wrote:

Again, back to my original post that the anti-fighters soundly ignored.

The problem is NOT the Fighter class.

The problem is the ever-increasing power creep love being provided for everyone else.

So the problem is not that the fighter is worse, but that everyone else is better?

O.o

ALMOST, but not quite.

The problem is that in all of the ongoing, continued publications, other classes have continued to receive multiple power-ups of increasing capability, while the Fighter has gone largely ignored by those same authors, and (even worse) some of the authors have REDUCED a Fighter's capabilities by adding rules which water-down the abilities the Fighter has (Additional CMB-based maneuvers in the Advanced Player's Guide is a quick example).

Quote:
Quote:

All the anti-fighter crowd keeps doing is pointing at the results of the ongoing power creep and demanding that the failure for one of the foundation bedrocks of the system to "keep up" is inherent in the construction of the foundation stone. Zark's "Great post" helps display this point pretty well. Even more so when you remember that Pathifinder STARTED as power creep from D&D 3.x.

The problem is NOT in the foundation stone.

The problem is in all the cruft that keeps getting tacked onto the system.

This comes up in EVERY game engine where there has been enough expansion publishing. There's been a lot of expansion publishing for Pathfinder.

Using CRB alone, Zark's Great Post shows that the Fighter has 9 fighter feats, vs 28 rage powers alone.

Even without expansion publishing, the fighter falls short in options to the barbarian. We don't include here classes with spells, just to give the fighter a small chance.

Again, you start by DEMANDING that Pathfinder's core book is the baseline. It isn't. It is pretty far down the power creep line.

They guys saying they don't care about the 3.x comparisons are refusing to recognize that Pathfinder STARTED with most of the 3.x power creep internalized! The game Paizo publishes STARTED with cruft that the customers wanted included. Claiming that the previous history of the system is irrelevant is identical to claiming that, say, Greek history is irrelevant in discussing what a Republic is today. If you don't know where the things came from, how can you expect to know how they've changed?

The power creep and authors who continue to choose to ignore including Fighter specific power creep options are the problem. The class itself is a perfect foundation stone for the game engine.


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Rynjin wrote:


One, I disagree with your premise. At the baseline Fighter was always worse than Barbarian and Ranger. None of the new options added a significant amount of power to either class, they just gave them more options.

with baseline do you mean core?

Cause lets see what a couple of option the barbarian loses if we remove non-core material:
Mounts, invulnerable rager, furious corageous weapons, all totems rage powers (including wings, natural armor bonuses and POUNCE!), spell sunder and a bunch of other barbarian rage powers.

and now lets see rangers:

Instant enemy. Two handed, shield, mounted and naturar styles. boon companion, a lot of spells.

What figter loses: Gloves of dueling.

if you want to compare classes in core do it fair.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
RhesusPieces wrote:
I love my fighter. I'm a caster's worst nightmare with step-and-strike + spellbreaker + Ray Shield.

You might want to watch out.

Cast a Quickened Spell wrote:
You can cast a quickened spell (see the Quicken Spell feat), or any spell whose casting time is designated as a free or swift action, as a swift action. Only one such spell can be cast in any round, and such spells don't count toward your normal limit of one spell per round. Casting a spell as a swift action doesn't incur an attack of opportunity.


Nicos wrote:
Rynjin wrote:


One, I disagree with your premise. At the baseline Fighter was always worse than Barbarian and Ranger. None of the new options added a significant amount of power to either class, they just gave them more options.

with baseline do you mean core?

Cause lets see what a couple of option the barbarian loses if we remove non-core material:
Mounts, invulnerable rager, furious corageous weapons, all totems rage powers (including wings, natural armor bonuses and POUNCE!), spell sunder and a bunch of other barbarian rage powers.

and now lets see rangers:

Instant enemy. Two handed, shield, mounted and naturar styles. boon companion, a lot of spells.

What figter loses: Gloves of dueling.

if you want to compare classes in core do it fair.

And yet what they don't lose are Rage and Favored Enemy, 4+Int and 6+Int skill points, and a plethora of other abilities that the Fighter has never had and likely never will have because people for some reason think he's already on par with just about any other class in the game. Furthermore, you may notice I never once mentioned any of those things in your post, even in passing.

You assume that the problem lies with perceived power creep. That is not the case. Core only, Barbarians/Rangers are still overall more effective than Fighters. They lose out, again, on 1-2 to-hit/damage and gain so much more in return.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
RhesusPieces wrote:
I love my fighter. I'm a caster's worst nightmare with step-and-strike + spellbreaker + Ray Shield.

You might want to watch out.

Cast a Quickened Spell wrote:
You can cast a quickened spell (see the Quicken Spell feat), or any spell whose casting time is designated as a free or swift action, as a swift action. Only one such spell can be cast in any round, and such spells don't count toward your normal limit of one spell per round. Casting a spell as a swift action doesn't incur an attack of opportunity.

Well sure, he's not invincible. No character is, but I have a clear path to victory. Charge attack in the first round. When it's the caster's turn, he'll likely 5ft step away first since he doesn't know I have this ability. I get my AoO for about 35 damge, and the caster's spell likely fizzles. Maybe the caster gets in a quickened spell now, but I deflect it if it's a ray and saves aren't bad. You better hope you take me down with that one shot because then I full attack and it's nighty-night.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
RhesusPieces wrote:
Well sure, he's not invincible. No character is, but I have a clear path to victory. Charge attack in the first round. When it's the caster's turn, he'll likely 5ft step away first since he doesn't know I have this ability. I get my AoO for about 35 damge, and the caster's spell likely fizzles. Maybe the caster gets in a quickened spell now, but don't they still need to pass the concentration check? Plus, if the spell is a ray, I deflect it. Also, my saves aren't bad. You better hope you take me down with that one shot because then I full attack and it's nighty-night.

You only have to make a concentration check if damaged while casting, which will not happen if you don't get the AoO. Escape spells are good choices for quickening, such as dimension door. Hopefully you will be able to engage him again next round, although the range of DD makes that iffy.


Rynjin wrote:


You assume that the problem lies with perceived power creep. That is not the case. Core only, Barbarians/Rangers are still overall more effective than Fighters. They lose out, again, on 1-2 to-hit/damage and gain so much more in return.

I disagree. i doubt that if you make the builds there will be as you say.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
RhesusPieces wrote:
Well sure, he's not invincible. No character is, but I have a clear path to victory. Charge attack in the first round. When it's the caster's turn, he'll likely 5ft step away first since he doesn't know I have this ability. I get my AoO for about 35 damge, and the caster's spell likely fizzles. Maybe the caster gets in a quickened spell now, but don't they still need to pass the concentration check? Plus, if the spell is a ray, I deflect it. Also, my saves aren't bad. You better hope you take me down with that one shot because then I full attack and it's nighty-night.
You only have to make a concentration check if damaged while casting, which will not happen if you don't get the AoO. Escape spells are good choices for quickening, such as dimension door. Hopefully you will be able to engage him again next round, although the range of DD makes that iffy.

I suppose his build will be great against monsters with Spell like abilities and archers, and not full spellcasters like bards and inquisitors.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
RhesusPieces wrote:
Well sure, he's not invincible. No character is, but I have a clear path to victory. Charge attack in the first round. When it's the caster's turn, he'll likely 5ft step away first since he doesn't know I have this ability. I get my AoO for about 35 damge, and the caster's spell likely fizzles. Maybe the caster gets in a quickened spell now, but don't they still need to pass the concentration check? Plus, if the spell is a ray, I deflect it. Also, my saves aren't bad. You better hope you take me down with that one shot because then I full attack and it's nighty-night.
You only have to make a concentration check if damaged while casting, which will not happen if you don't get the AoO. Escape spells are good choices for quickening, such as dimension door. Hopefully you will be able to engage him again next round, although the range of DD makes that iffy.

Ok, he steps and I damage him. Then, a burns a spell to teleport away. This seems like a pretty good start to the fight and a decent contribution to the party.


Nicos wrote:
Rynjin wrote:


You assume that the problem lies with perceived power creep. That is not the case. Core only, Barbarians/Rangers are still overall more effective than Fighters. They lose out, again, on 1-2 to-hit/damage and gain so much more in return.
I disagree. i doubt that if you make the builds there will be as you say.

I already made an archer Ranger in comparison to someone else' archer Fighter. He was behind something like 2 to-hit and damage, up by 4 on each when facing his main Favored Enemy (up by 2 against a secondary, and equal on a tertiary, in that case), and had roughly the same values in the same skills (plus more) with almost no investment in skills (10 Int, but he did have Skill Focus: Perception). Roughly the same AC (mine may have been a bit higher) and HP.

RhesusPieces wrote:
Ok, he steps and I damage him. Then, a burns a spell to teleport away. This seems like a pretty good start to the fight and a decent contribution to the party.

That NPC Wizard is now 500 feet away, and likely has a nice selection of long range spells to attack you with. As an NPC, he has no qualms about blowing his wad on this one battle. You've damaged him a bit, but now he's in position to return the favor (or worse).

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
RhesusPieces wrote:
Ok, he steps and I damage him. Then, a burns a spell to teleport away. This seems like a pretty good start to the fight and a decent contribution to the party.

Sure. Unless he has a contingency dimension door, or uses a quickened spell to avoid the AoO outright.


Rynjin wrote:

Yes, the Barbarian had/has less AC. The Ranger had/has slightly less damage when not fighting his FE.

They were/are still better. They had more options outside of combat, and just as many in it, with 1 or 2 less to-hit/damage.

The Ranger and Barbarian were glass cannons back then, while the Fighter and Paladin were the real tanks. Only the Paladin was stealing the ''niche'' of the Fighter back then while being more useful outside of combat. Hell, the Paladin was/is even a better tank than the Fighter, because he's more resilient, has more hp, better saves and sometimes better AC than the Fighter. Now, thanks to power creep, every martial classes, and even some non-martial classes (magus, summoner), got away with the Fighter's pie, leaving nothing behing for the poor sucker.


Rynjin wrote:
Nicos wrote:
Rynjin wrote:


You assume that the problem lies with perceived power creep. That is not the case. Core only, Barbarians/Rangers are still overall more effective than Fighters. They lose out, again, on 1-2 to-hit/damage and gain so much more in return.
I disagree. i doubt that if you make the builds there will be as you say.

I already made an archer Ranger in comparison to someone else' archer Fighter. He was behind something like 2 to-hit and damage, up by 4 on each when facing his main Favored Enemy (up by 2 against a secondary, and equal on a tertiary, in that case), and had roughly the same values in the same skills (plus more) with almost no investment in skills (10 Int, but he did have Skill Focus: Perception). Roughly the same AC (mine may have been a bit higher) and HP.

RhesusPieces wrote:
Ok, he steps and I damage him. Then, a burns a spell to teleport away. This seems like a pretty good start to the fight and a decent contribution to the party.

That NPC Wizard is now 500 feet away, and likely has a nice selection of long range spells to attack you with. As an NPC, he has no qualms about blowing his wad on this one battle. You've damaged him a bit, but now he's in position to return the favor (or worse).

I mised that. But if you do not mind We could do the same exercise with me making fighters and you makeing barbarian and/or rangers.

I believe fighters wil not lag behind those other 2 classes. We could compare, DPR. combat options, non ombat options, AC and saves.

if you accept you can post your builds here

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2piog&page=5?Build-Thread-3-Swinging-Swords -and-Kickin-Ass#222


Maerimydra wrote:
Rynjin wrote:

Yes, the Barbarian had/has less AC. The Ranger had/has slightly less damage when not fighting his FE.

They were/are still better. They had more options outside of combat, and just as many in it, with 1 or 2 less to-hit/damage.

The Ranger and Barbarian were glass canons back then, while the Fighter and Paladin were the real tanks. Only the Paladin was stealing the ''niche'' of the Fighter back then while being more useful outside of combat. Hell, the Paladin was/is even a better tank than the Fighter, because he's more resilient, has more hp, better saves and sometimes better AC than the Fighter. Now, thanks to power creep, every martial classes, and even some non-martial classes (magus, summoner), got away with the Fighter's pie, leaving nothing behing for the poor sucker.

How so? The Ranger does just fine with Medium armor and d10 hit dice, and the Barbarian has always rocked the almighty d12, how in the hell is either of them a Glass Cannon (that is, a character who can dish it out but not take it).

The Fighter never had anything, but you're correct there are a bunch of classes that have more than him. The gap is just slightly more apparent now since every single class has gained new options over time, while Fighter has remained bottom b#!+& of the supposed frontliners.

Nicos wrote:

I mised that. But if you do not mind We could do the same exercise with me making fighters and you makeing barbarian and/or rangers.

I believe fighters wil not lag behind those other 2 classes. We could compare, DPR. combat options, non ombat options, AC and saves.

if you accept you can post your builds here

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2piog&page=5?Build-Thread-3-Swinging-Swords -and-Kickin-Ass#222

Sure, as long as its not TWF-ers. I hate building them, mostly because I suck at it. Kinda hate archers too but they're an important build so I can't really wiggle out of that one.


Rynjin wrote:
The gap is just slightly more apparent now since every single class has gained new options over time, while Fighter has remained bottom b~*+~ of the supposed frontliners.

That is my point exactly. But I would replace the word ''slightly'' with ''blatantly''.


Rynjin wrote:

Sure, as long as its not TWF-ers. I hate building them, mostly because I suck at it. Kinda hate archers too but they're an important build so I can't really wiggle out of that one.

Great.

You can build them as you like of course.


But power creep isn't the issue. Creep has been very small in this game so far.

The issue is that the classes that were already better than the Fighter have crept forward a few inches, while the Fighter has stayed behind, making the issue readily apparent.

The creep in this case has been nothing but good for this game (remember: creep is not universally bad), adding interesting and fun options where there previously were none, and expanding already fun niche builds.

For everyone except Fighter. Which I would like to fix.

Nicos wrote:
Rynjin wrote:

Sure, as long as its not TWF-ers. I hate building them, mostly because I suck at it. Kinda hate archers too but they're an important build so I can't really wiggle out of that one.

Great.

You can build them as you like of course.

Okie. Send me a PM or something when yours are up, I'ma play some Sleeping Dogs while I mope that we had to move our game to tomorrow.


Rynjin wrote:
How so? The Ranger does just fine with Medium armor and d10 hit dice, and the Barbarian has always rocked the almighty d12, how in the hell is either of them a Glass Cannon (that is, a character who can dish it out but not take it).

I already explained why the core Barbarian was a glass cannon and drained more healing ressources than the Fighter in a previous post, and that remains true until he can shell out 10K gp and a feat for a mithral full plate. Of course, with splatbooks, this is not true anymore. Also, the ''almighty'' d12 translates into only 1 more hp per level.


Well, that and Rage which adds at least twice his level extra in HP because Con bonuses are cool like that.


Rynjin wrote:
Nicos wrote:
Rynjin wrote:


You assume that the problem lies with perceived power creep. That is not the case. Core only, Barbarians/Rangers are still overall more effective than Fighters. They lose out, again, on 1-2 to-hit/damage and gain so much more in return.
I disagree. i doubt that if you make the builds there will be as you say.

I already made an archer Ranger in comparison to someone else' archer Fighter. He was behind something like 2 to-hit and damage, up by 4 on each when facing his main Favored Enemy (up by 2 against a secondary, and equal on a tertiary, in that case), and had roughly the same values in the same skills (plus more) with almost no investment in skills (10 Int, but he did have Skill Focus: Perception). Roughly the same AC (mine may have been a bit higher) and HP.

RhesusPieces wrote:
Ok, he steps and I damage him. Then, a burns a spell to teleport away. This seems like a pretty good start to the fight and a decent contribution to the party.

That NPC Wizard is now 500 feet away, and likely has a nice selection of long range spells to attack you with. As an NPC, he has no qualms about blowing his wad on this one battle. You've damaged him a bit, but now he's in position to return the favor (or worse).

Ok, and there are casters in my party that can attack him as well. I still damaged him and forced him to spend a spell and action fleeing. You aren't pointing out a weakness in my build, but rather a feature of powerful mages. You could make the same point regardless of my fighter's build. Plus, it's not as if every caster is going to be able to cast dimension door as a swift action or otherwise. The build is cool. It just seems like you want to pick nits to be a grouch.


Rynjin wrote:

Well, that and Rage which adds at least twice his level extra in HP because Con bonuses are cool like that.

Damage taken while raging still need to be healed, which could translate into a higher healing ressources drain. Being 25% (or more, thanks to armor training) more likely to being hit is not something insignificant, even more so if you are fighting multiple opponents. Now, a raging POUNCING Barbarian will probably take less damage than a Fighter over the course of a battle because he will kill his opponents a lot faster. This is how good Pounce really is and this is where I disagree with you: the power creep in Pathfinder is not as slight as you suggest. Is the core Fighter lacking a bit? Yeah, I agree with you, but splatbooks made things much, much worse.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

LazarX wrote:
Aelryinth wrote:

Which, not incidentally, allows the Paladin to get by with an 8 Wis where the fighter has the 8 Cha. The fighter gets to a 12 or 14 Wis for a bonus to his +0 Will save, and the paladin gets a bonus to ALL his saves, including his +1 Will save.

I did a level by level comparison of what the paladin gets and the fighter gets, and its not pretty. I don't think anything of what the paladin gets is unwarranted, given the LG alignment and restrictions of his code, but I do think the fighter should get a lot more...and they should get it through feat synergy.

==Aelryinth

Did you also make a comparison on how effective those Paladin goodies are when they're not pitted against their special foes?

Did you also make a comparison on how many Alignment (or call them what they really are Make a Paladin Fail) threads there are on these boards? Did you give the Fighter credit for not bringing that kind of baggage into a group whose players don't want to be stuck with Lancelot?

All of the Paladin's goodies come with some heavy mandatory baggage on them.

Alignment issus vs the rest of the party are a party issue, not a paladin issue.

DM's who are trying to make a paladin fall are a seperate issue. Some DM's just don't like true blue heroes.

That's not heavy mandatory baggage. It's a play style. Calling it heavy mandatory baggage means that you can't play a LG mage, cleric, bard, rogue or other LG person, who basically operates to a variant of the exact same code...they all have the same 'mandatory heavy baggage' because someone wants to play a LG hero.

As for not vs best enemy...yes. There's bonded weapon, which translates into a +1 to a +5 weapon enhancement vs neutral enemies, which nicely takes care of most of the discrepency in damage between the paladin and fighter, is usuable multiple times a day, and has a variety of effects you can choose from.

And there's spellcasting on top of it. As has been noted many times, if you have a spell that gives you an ability when you want it and need it, and a feat that does the same, the spell is better because you can do something else with that slot at other times.

==Aelryinth

Shadow Lodge

gustavo iglesias wrote:


The problem is: the paladin get feats too. Actually, he gets AS MUCH non combat feats as the fighter does. DId you take Skill focus UMD? The paladin did too, and can actually use a lot of items without rolling (Cure Light Wound Wands, for example). Did you get Skill focus Diplomacy? The paladin did too (and he has diplomacy as a class skill, BTW). Did you learn a lot of languages through high intelligence and ranks in Linguistics? The paladin did too.

The paladin gets as much verstaility in out of combat feats than the fighter. Exactly the same feats. The difference, though, is that when you substract points from CON or STR to raise your INT and CHA as a fighter, you are reducing your combat prowess, to increase out of combat versatility...

and here is the counter to your counter. immunity to charms? fighters can get that also.

+high saves? fighters can get that also, guarding blade for the win.

anything you can do i can do better is a very worthless mentality to have in this game. i can build a fighter to do everything you can do, atleast to a degree,now i may not be better, but that doesnt matter. the only difference between a palading getting immuntiy to charm/dominate effects is that my fighter has to buy that ability with gold.

THIS ^ is the biggest weakness of the fighter, they have to buy the utility that is given to other classes. and the sucky part of that is how fighters dont gain more wealth, or have a competent item creation system available. i mean yes they have that silly master crafter feat but then they have to buy the other feats necessary to create magical items... why that hell wasnt that just a fighter class feature?


Where does a Fighter get immunity to charms?


TheSideKick wrote:

and here is the counter to your counter. immunity to charms? fighters can get that also.

+high saves? fighters can get that also, guarding blade for the win.

anything you can do i can do better is a very worthless mentality to have in this game. i can build a fighter to do everything you can do, atleast to a degree,now i may not be better, but that doesnt matter. the only difference between a palading getting immuntiy to charm/dominate effects is that my fighter has to buy that ability with gold.

THIS ^ is the biggest weakness of the fighter, they have to buy the utility that is given to other classes. and the sucky part of that is how fighters dont gain more wealth, or have a competent item creation system available. i mean yes they have that silly master crafter feat but then they have to buy the other feats necessary to create magical items... why that hell wasnt that just a fighter class feature?

I'd like to see a Fighter with such high saves and immunity to anything, actually.

Also, Fighters don't get more gold than anyone, so the point is moot. Whatever a Fighter can buy, so can a Paladin.

In fact, the Paladin will probably have more money, since he doesn't need Cloaks of Resistance and similar items up til very high levels. He also uses fewer party resources than any Fighter. (e.g.:They don't need to spend as many charges of healing wands since they can swift-action heal themselves, or any spells to save them from mind-control since they not only have awesome will saves, they also eventually become immune to charm and compulsion effects)

Hell, Paladins can even craft magic items if they want! And they can do it without spending two feats for what's worth half a feat.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

He's referring to the unbreakable fighter archetype, which has better mental defenses...at very high levels.

Which is a non-argument, as that archetype basically gives up all the figher's other offensive and defensive power to have the saves he should get normally.

Whereas EVERY SINGLE PALADIN gets Cha to saves, and a good will save.

==Aelryinth


I see.

Also, is this the item he's refering to?

Becuase it seems pretty useless to me. By the time you can afford it, how often do character get knocked into negatives instead of killed?
And wouldn't it be better to invest in something that prevents being knocked unconscious/killed in the first place?

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

Feh, if you're down, it won't stop a thrown dagger from offing you, or something from attacking you...all it does is attack them.

meh. I'm assuming he's talking about some parrying defense someplace.

==Aelryinth


So did I, but that was the only Guarding Blade I could find in the PFSRD.

Sovereign Court

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gustavo iglesias wrote:
Blayde MacRonan wrote:
I'm not trying to start a flame war with this. I just want to see the discussion continue on its merits. And sometimes to do that, you must dispel certain fallacies. The eidolon as 'always on' is one such fallacy.

There's nothing that forbid you to summon the eidolon in the first 10 rounds of your first level, and do not unsummon it, EVER.

That said, the summoner has options to absorb evolutions. Those evolutions (like for example, wings) are always on within himself. Wings > skill focus Climb, in 99.99999999999% of situations.

Yes there is. The Eidolon is auto dismissed whenever teh Summoner is knocked unconscious or falls asleep.


I think he might have meant this enchantment which lets you transfer you weapon's enhancement bonus to your saves. It's a nice save boost that I believe stacks with most existing sae boosters, but it comes at the price of nerfing your offensive capabilities.


Chengar Qordath wrote:
I think he might have meant this enchantment which lets you transfer you weapon's enhancement bonus to your saves. It's a nice save boost that I believe stacks with most existing sae boosters, but it comes at the price of nerfing your offensive capabilities.

Ah, I see. That makes sense. It's an useful enchantment... And still miles behind the Paladin, who gets awesome saves and can still boost his weapons, instead of nerfing them.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

The correct rebuttal/restatement is:

"Because anyone can use the Guarded weapon enhancement to up their saves, the fact Fighters have cruddy saves is irrelevant?"

Which, naturally enough, is pretty stupid.

==Aelryinth


Aelryinth wrote:

The correct rebuttal/restatement is:

"Because anyone can use the Guarded weapon enhancement to up their saves, the fact Fighters have cruddy saves is irrelevant?"

Which, naturally enough, is pretty stupid.

==Aelryinth

Funnily enough it is still more useful for a paladin who can use divine bond to replace the bonuses he loses from the weapon.


Aelryinth wrote:


The correct rebuttal/restatement is:

"Because anyone can use the Guarded weapon enhancement to up their saves, the fact Fighters have cruddy saves is irrelevant?"

Which, naturally enough, is pretty stupid.

==Aelryinth

I don't disagree with you. Except for the "S" word. Remember the "most important rule" just above the submit button? It's easy to disagree with someone and post the reasons. There's no need to disparage someone's opinion or thoughts, and essentially them. Doing so by rewording / retstating their post as a mockery is particularly... obnoxious.

His refrain to your comment would probably be that yes, anyone can use it and that it sucks that Fighters have to pay money for what anyone else would get for free. Which is the opinion he expressed upthread. I think he realizes anyone could do so, but doubts they would because they already have that base covered...

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