It's also that all the divine casters can double as melee with the right build while still being casters and the magus is by default a front liner, the bard can easily be built as a front liner, and the summoner comes with a front liner as a class feature.My bold.
If you mean the frontliner or a tank, No.
With light armor only, no. He is nothing near a full BAB class in heavy armor or a Barbarian. Same actually goes for the Magus until he gets medium armor prof and cam cast spells in medium armor.
Magus with Dex and scimitar have better AC than fighters right from the begining ( with shield spell), and once they can cast stuff like mirror image, displacement, etc... they are way beyond fighters in frontline tanking
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Some posters along this thread brought up the "if you don't like the fighter, play something else" argument.
My problem with that is that I (and several others) like the fighter and would love to play it but it is just too weak* to follow through with it.*in the "if you concentrate on combat you are useless out of combat, if you concentrate on out of combat you're not viable in combat any more" sense of things.
To the "how are damage dealers and healers balanced vs each other" question:
They don't need to be balanced that much because they don't step onto each other's toes unless one can do both his stuff and th other one's stuff.
So a life oracle who doesn't use weapons doesn't have to be very balances vs a fighter. But if a battle cleric is as good at melee as a fighter (I'm not saying they are) and is a full caster with channeling in addition to that is something that should be better balanced.
Same with the wild shape druid.
If class has more options it should be weaker at each option than the class who doesn't have other options.Edit: As is the fighter is a great class for multiclassing but bad to stay in.
But why do you expect the designers to change a class based on subjective statements?
Myself, and a lot of people I know don't have a problem with the fighter. We kick ass and take names from level 1 to 20 so it seems more like a personal problem than a class problem.
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Myself, and a lot of people I know don't have a problem with the fighter. We kick ass and take names from level 1 to 20 so it seems more like a personal problem than a class problem.
No one has a problem with a commoner, either, if the whole campaign is run on "gimme" mode. The thing is, with a well-designed system, you can play on any "setting" you like. You can still play easy mode and have your fighter (or commoner) kick ass and take names from level 1 to 20. Or you can play on hard-mode and have an equal challenge for the fighter and the wizard just to stay alive for one more encounter.
With massive class imbalances, though, the game can ONLY be played on "easy mode," unless everyone plays upper-tier classes, or unless the referee goes out of his way to rectify the imbalance at every turn.
If the fighter is fixed to be as long-term effective as the wizard in hard-mode games, easy-mode games are not affected in any way. One the other hand, if the fighter is not corrected, hard-mode games remain impossible barring the conditions above.
Why alienate half your fan base, if you can embrace them without affecting the other half at all? "Laziness" or "the half we have are doing it right and the other half are badwrongnofun" are not acceptable answers to me. So, to the people saying "the fighter is fine!", I reply, "it's fine as-is for half of us, but it could easily be made to be fine for all of us. Why not do that?"
Magus with Dex and scimitar have better AC than fighters right from the begining ( with shield spell), and once they can cast stuff like mirror image, displacement, etc... they are way beyond fighters in frontline tankingIt's also that all the divine casters can double as melee with the right build while still being casters and the magus is by default a front liner, the bard can easily be built as a front liner, and the summoner comes with a front liner as a class feature.My bold.
If you mean the frontliner or a tank, No.
With light armor only, no. He is nothing near a full BAB class in heavy armor or a Barbarian. Same actually goes for the Magus until he gets medium armor prof and cam cast spells in medium armor.
So we have the fully buffed dex Magus that burns all his spells on defensive spells vs. an unbuffed fighter that apparently don’t focus on AC and/or dex.
How many spells per day has a magus at level 1 or 2 or even at level 5?
Edit:
C’mon. I agree that the magus is great, and at higher levels he is silly good. But he doesn’t even get displacement until level 7, the same level he get medium armor. And there are so much better level 3 spells he can pick at level 7. Haste for one.
A 5th level fighter can have silly good AC and deal a tremendous amount of damage every round in every encounter. Saying a low level magus can compete with a fighter when it comes to AC and damage is simply not true. Its only true if the magus is fully buffed and has spells he can use in battle do deal damage vs a unbuffed fighter .
Myself, and a lot of people I know don't have a problem with the fighter. We kick ass and take names from level 1 to 20 so it seems more like a personal problem than a class problem.No one has a problem with a commoner, either, if the whole campaign is run on "gimme" mode. The thing is, with a well-designed system, you can play on any "setting" you like. You can still play easy mode and have your fighter (or commoner) kick ass and take names from level 1 to 20. Or you can play on hard-mode and have an equal challenge for the fighter and the wizard just to stay alive for one more encounter.
With massive class imbalances, though, the game can ONLY be played on "easy mode," unless everyone plays upper-tier classes, or unless the referee goes out of his way to rectify the imbalance at every turn.
If the fighter is fixed to be as long-term effective as the wizard in hard-mode games, easy-mode games are not affected in any way. One the other hand, if the fighter is not corrected, hard-mode games remain impossible barring the conditions above.
Why alienate half your fan base, if you can embrace them without affecting the other half at all? "Laziness" or "the half we have are doing it right and the other half are badwrongnofun" are not acceptable answers to me. So, to the people saying "the fighter is fine!", I reply, "it's fine as-is for half of us, but it could easily be made to be fine for all of us. Why not do that?"
This
@Nicos. For once we agree on something!
LOL :D
Why alienate half your fan base, if you can embrace them without affecting the other half at all? "Laziness" or "the half we have are doing it right and the other half are badwrongnofun" are not acceptable answers to me. So, to the people saying "the fighter is fine!", I reply, "it's fine as-is for half of us, but it could easily be made to be fine for all of us. Why not do that?"
Disclaimer first: I read these kind of thread for entertainment purposes (I have too much time on my hands, apparently), so I didn't want to get embroiled in the argument.
However, the claim of alienating "half the fan base" is pure BS. Take a step back and look at the two current threads dealing with caster/martial discrepancy, as well as some of the older ones. There are always the same few people arguing regularly there, with a few others sprinkled in between. The majority of the players - me included - just doesn't care about this issue. You are part of a very vocal minority. Claiming anything else is either major hyperbole or a matter of delusion.
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I felt the need to chime in real quickly here as well.
Just because we're not posting on the message boards doesn't mean we don't see a discrepancy between casters and martials. It just means we're not posting about it.
I felt the need to chime in real quickly here as well.
Just because we're not posting on the message boards doesn't mean we don't see a discrepancy between casters and martials. It just means we're not posting about it.
Agreed. I love my fighter, but I had to devote tons of character resources to be able to contribute out of combat (a feat, two traits, not dumping CHA), where the paladin in my group is barely optimized and can do that without having to spend hours tweaking his character AND still out damage me in combat. Let's not even get started on the druid...
Look, I have fun in my game and I worked hard to make my fighter viable, but the unfortunate truth is that I wouldn't have had to make any difficult decisions at all really if I had rolled a ranger or even a barbarian. I just didn't want the wilderness fluff and I wanted access to some of the more involved feat chains.
Fighters need help. Not just in comparison to casters, but in comparison to every other class in the game (except rogues and monks). They're out-shined by the other martials against evil opponents or favored enemies and the most useless class out of combat, hands down. Saying "it's a team game" doesn't negate this problem. If I was playing a team sport and my team was carrying me to victory every time, not only would that not be fun, I would feel crappy about it as well.
Not to mention, I have a pretty high level of system mastery. I can't even imagine what the poor people who roll fighters thinking they are a beginner class must feel like.
EDIT: I guess I just forfeited my point about not posting on the message boards. I guess I just wanted to point out that even those of us who play casually are capable of noticing problems with the fighter.
Apparently, U.Campaign will contain things to help the Fighter Out of Combat.
My favorite was:
"Pathfinder, or rather Failfinder, is a horrible piece of $#!*."
Then all of his reasons are mainly dealing with his Uber-Cheese Assassin Build Lost its Spells and some of its abilities.
The Forum even proved that the Build would be superior under Pathfinder than it was in 3.5 and he cussed them out calling them F'ing Paizo Fanboys and crap.
Apparently, U.Campaign will contain things to help the Fighter Out of Combat.
Will it? I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere. Gosh I hope it does! Poor guy only has 2 skillpoints and not much room or synergy with intellect.
Apparently, U.Campaign will contain things to help the Fighter Out of Combat.Will it? I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere. Gosh I hope it does! Poor guy only has 2 skillpoints and not much room or synergy with intellect.
It was hinted at having options for substituting Skills during Downtime. So maybe replacing Craft(Weapons) & Craft(Armour) with Profession(Soldier). This represents your skill at Maintaining your Gear being expanded to crafting the gear. Though it might have a higher DC.
Though that is something I do already.
Apparently, U.Campaign will contain things to help the Fighter Out of Combat.Will it? I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere. Gosh I hope it does! Poor guy only has 2 skillpoints and not much room or synergy with intellect.It was hinted at having options for substituting Skills during Downtime. So maybe replacing Craft(Weapons) & Craft(Armour) with Profession(Soldier). This represents your skill at Maintaining your Gear being expanded to crafting the gear. Though it might have a higher DC.
Though that is something I do already.
Sort of like bards do? Guess I'll have to wait and see. I keep being told this book or another will be the solution to a dozen problems. I want to see how much of it is DM disgression vs raw though.
Everything is GM Discretion.
Imo, barbarians are not dumb brutes and are very capable of filling many of the roles you gave as examples. Giving fighters the ability to do things with skillpoints and a wider skill list would be a nice start. I'd like to see the classes have some int synergy myself.
Barbarians are people with a rage mechanic. They can choose not to use the totems that make them hulk out or summon spirits to their aid. They can choose to use the rage mechanic to use manuevers and fight longer. Despite the name, barbarians don't have to be barbaric.
Rogues I have no idea what to do with myself, but to be fair I don't look at them much.
The Fighter Fix
Give the fighter 4+Int mod Skill points and add Diplomacy, Perception, and Acrobatics to their skill list.
Take Tower Shield Proficiency away from the fighter.
This feat is one that are not used by a lot of builds.
In place of this feat give the player one of the feats from the following list.
Feats: Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Weapon Focus, Tower Shield Proficiency, Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Power Attack, and Point Blank Shot.
The player can have back what was given up or take other base chain feats.
Replace Bravery with an ability that lets a character have any combat feat that they meet the Prerequisites for one round. The fighter can use this ability 3+Fighter level times per a day. Swift action to activate for one round(until the start of your next turn). You could call the ability Combat Master.
Change Armor training to add +1 dodge bonus instead of increasing the max dex limit with armor.
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Why take away heavy armor and tower shield becuase they aren't used a lot? Why not keep them so they're still options for people who use them? You still need it to use mithril full plate too, and it would leave paladin as the only guy using full plate.
Why not give them diplomacy too? The commanders of armies use Diplomacy in 3.5, and it doesn't hurt.
That said, giving them two free feats at the start makes them an amazing dip every other martial will take, and being able to use any feat they want at a given time leads to staring through books a lot, and it certainly doesn't help their weak saves.
Meh... Instead of the Feat for 1 Round why not just make it they can apply it to 1 Prerequisite for Combat Feats.
Leave Bravery as is then add in a Good Reflex Save.
He's not taking them away, he's removing them as the default and replacing them with a bundle of options that INCLUDE those Feats.
With his system a Fighter could get Heavy Armor, say "F+%% that" to Tower Shields, and grab Weapon Focus, Dodge, Power Attack, Exotic Weapons, etc. for free which is pretty cool-ish.
Though a Human Fighter snagging 5 Feats at 1st level would make him the dippiest of all dippable dipping sauce classes ever.
@ Mr Sin he's basically giving the Fighter an earlier and slightly more frequent (3+level instead of 3+wis) version of the War Cleric's ability to spend a swift action to gain the use of a Combat Feat for which he qualifies.
The ability is already IN the game.
Yeah thought I saw it somewhere, just couldn't remember where. I don't like that ability that much either then! I'm not going to change my opinion whether its here or not. Thanks for pointing it out though.
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He's not taking them away, he's removing them as the default and replacing them with a bundle of options that INCLUDE those Feats.
With his system a Fighter could get Heavy Armor, say "F*@+ that" to Tower Shields, and grab Weapon Focus, Dodge, Power Attack, Exotic Weapons, etc. for free which is pretty cool-ish.
Though a Human Fighter snagging 5 Feats at 1st level would make him the dippiest of all dippable dipping sauce classes ever.
Personally, I allow Fighters to switch proficiency with tower shield for Improved Unarmed Strike, Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Throw Anything, Cosmopolitan or Skill Focus.
I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a PC using tower shields.
They are kinda Niche...
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I've not been following this thread as much as I would like, but I don't recall this fact ever being brought up:
The fighter is a fighter regardless of alignment.
The same cannot be said of the barbarian and the paladin...
Ex-Barbarians: A barbarian who becomes lawful loses the ability to rage and cannot gain more levels as a barbarian. She retains all other benefits of the class.
That leaves only fast movement, uncanny dodge, trap sense, and damage reduction available to the ex-barbarian, as rage powers and indomitable will can only be used while raging. And depending on the ex-barbarian's level, she may not even have all of those options available to her.
And for the paladin, the situation gets much worse:
Ex-Paladins: A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and class features (including the service of the paladin's mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She may not progress any further in levels as a paladin. She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see atonement), as appropriate.
This is self-explanatory (and the subject of much debate on the forums).
My point is that as good as those two classes are, they can have those features taken away from them with an alignment shift (or in the case of the paladin, a code violation). Whereas the fighter suffers from no such drawback. A fighter is still a fighter whether lawful, chaotic, evil, good, or neutral in alignment.
I've seen it first hand, recently in fact in my own gaming sessions. The barbarian, in the full grip of a rage, failed her saving throw against an apostate devil's ohrwurm ability. For those that don't know what that is:
As a standard action, three times per day, a deimavigga can whisper a fundamental and terrifying multiversal truth to one creature within 5 feet. The target must make a DC 28 Will save or have the devil’s words take root in its psyche. Outsiders and elementals have a +2 bonus on their saves to resist this ability. Initially, the deimavigga’s words seem to have no effect. Anytime the victim tries to rest, though, he must make an additional DC 28 Will save or be affected as per the spell nightmare (even if the victim doesn’t technically sleep).After a night of suffering vivid dreams and wrestling with the devil’s words, the victim must make yet another DC 28 Will save or have its alignment shift one step toward lawful evil. Only by unlearning what the deimavigga told it can a victim be free of this effect, requiring a spell such as miracle, modify memory, or wish.
Each night after the first, the barbarian continued to fail her Will save until she hit Lawful Evil (she had been Chaotic Good), but the damage had been done upon becoming Lawful Neutral. Even with the +2 bonus that she got for being an oni-blooded tiefling, she still became an ex-barbarian. Steps are being taken to remedy the situation (she is going to unlearn what she learned from the devil, which essentially boiled down to being that she and it were the same no matter how much she fought against that legacy).
And this happened at level 13 against a fully optimized CAGM barbarian.
Once again, I don't disagree that more can be done for the fighter. That's not my point at all. My point is that for all the power at the disposal of the barbarian and paladin, they do have their weaknesses, something that the fighter does not suffer from.
You threw a DC 28 willsave or lose your class at a barbarian? Thats sounds mean! Hope she has a good way to get rid of that nearby, I'd be more than bothered as a player about my character becoming unplayable over that. Roleplay evil I can do, make my character unplayable and well...
Class restrictions are not a way to balance classes at all. It enforces one way to play thinking, and no matter what when in combat alignment doesn't change their actions or abilities. Only who they can be. It only serves to restrict them from being someone.
If you want to be like that Will saves in general will f~*% with a Fighter more than Barbarian due to the Fighter not having as big of a bonus to them.
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But by playing a barbarian or paladin, you willingly take that baggage upon yourself. Becoming an ex-barbarian or ex-paladin does not make the character unplayable, especially if the situation is only temporary (by RAW, there is nothing that states that an ex-barbarian has to stay that way for the rest of its career). And the decision is firmly in the player's hands as to whether or not it is a permanent one. I was merely pointing out the one real weakness that the classes suffer from, one that the fighter does not have.
A fighter is still a fighter regardless of alignment, retaining all of its class features no matter how inadequate they may be. You may not see it as a strength, but I do.
As far as the barbarian in my game is concerned, she attacked the devil when it was going after an NPC that was better able to deal with it. She had no way to know; she only did what she thought was best. It could have attacked her outright (and it would have, if it considered her a true threat). It could have used its evangelization power to charm her or mess with her mind in other creative, more insidous ways.
It didn't.
Taking into account the devil's 21 Intelligence and its own nature, I performed what I felt to be the least damaging option to the character (and player).
Still... ouch. Still a nasty save or die. I will stand by my opinion that alignment doesn't make balance. Not that I'm a fan of alignment to begin with, but its definitely not a balancing factor.
That still doesn't explain how the Fighter is superior to the Ranger, who has the same "strength" plus others.
And let's look at this Deimviagga for a moment.
It can toss out a DC 28 Will save that doesn't affect Fighters in a mechanical way, cool.
Of course, OTHER CR 17 creatures that toss out Will saves are going to screw the Fighter just as much, if not more. The whole "one creature screws these classes" argument is not a very solid one, when the "These multiple creatures screw the Fighter more than others due to a lower saves" argument exists.
An optimized barbarian will have a willsave of 13+wisdom at level 13. This is with human favored bonus in superstitious and no magic items, it is 9 without, and they can get an exclusive +2 by having a +2 courageous furious weapon. A fighter on the other hand will have 4 plus wisdom. Just putting it out there for comparison.
Edit: oh my gosh, I just realized what an awful boat that is to be on! the fighter needs +4 to his save just to meet it!
Monte Coook posted his entire Ptolus campaign on his website. This was during his WoTC glory days, and his crew played almost every week. Actually, I believe he had TWO crews playing seperate campaigns in the same place and time, and they rarely intersected...when they did, it was big!
SKR's character was a F/6 cleric5/ rogue/4 or something at the time of that big fight. I remember commenting on how he should have taken a different combo of classes (Cleric/6, rogue/3, etc) to Sean on Sean's msg boards, and he just replied that he took what felt right at the time.
The main reason he was a ftr/rogue was for the swashbuckler feel, but he picked up the cleric levels to have access to healing magic and to be able to cast Shield Other on someone else's caster PC.
He never got to finish the campaign because he was let go from WoTC and moved away, but his character was used later in the rousing finale.
==Aelryinth
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That still doesn't explain how the Fighter is superior to the Ranger, who has the same "strength" plus others.
And let's look at this Deimviagga for a moment.
It can toss out a DC 28 Will save that doesn't affect Fighters in a mechanical way, cool.
Of course, OTHER CR 17 creatures that toss out Will saves are going to screw the Fighter just as much, if not more. The whole "one creature screws these classes" argument is not a very solid one, when the "These multiple creatures screw the Fighter more than others due to a lower saves" argument exists.
The ranger comes with its own drawbacks, mostly related to terrain and enemy type. But to be fair those can be overcome in time. And there's no such thing as an ex-ranger.
Only ex-barbarians and ex-paladins.
Their used to be rules for a Bard and Ranger of a single type. They got rid of those restrictions though. Wish they would get rid of more, especially with archetypes like urban barbarian and barbarians learning how to read and be civilized. It really opened up more options when they did that without hurting the class.