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The problem as I see it is that when you compare a fighter to any other Martial PC class he comes out looking generally not so well.
This is due to the fact that the differences between a Fighter (PC class) and a Warrior (NPC class) are as follows.
1.) Bravery class feature: Situational bonus against a narrow selection of effects. (Conclusion: not a serious factor)
2.) Armor Training: Additional movement in medium and heavy armors and AC if the fighter has a dexterity score greater than 13. The ACP part of this ability will not be a major factor in most games, and is very situational. (Conclusion: The movement gain is the big pay-off of this ability. Approximate GP value 5,000 gp... However it can be argued that the additional four AC added to full-plate will make it worthwhile as this will allow a two hand fighter to partially make up for not having a shield and obtaining a 20 dexterity is not prohibitive if done in small bites over a 20 level progression.)
3.) Weapon Training: Additional Hit/Damage with up to four separate weapon groups
(Conclusion: A fighter will have +6hit/+6 damage at maximum by level 17 and with dueling gloves. This is very noticeable. Most fighters will take <Primary Weapon Group>, <Bows>, ..., .... This is limited in scope but flexible enough to be a major class feature. The only problem is that all other martials have a method of applying their special damage abilities whenever they wish if absolutely needed.Example: Rage, Instant Enemy...)
4.) Armor Mastery: DR 5/- that is obtained at level 19...
(Conclusion: Negligible class feature sue to late access and existence of items granting the same. Gold cost is 15,000 gp for adamantite full-plate which grants DR3/-. Average damage at level 19 should be ~60 per hit so this class feature is ~20 hp per round extra however a fighter at level 19 should have only 205 hit-points. Average DPR should be around 240 so this feature is mostly wasted due to its late arrival.)
5.) Weapon Mastery: Auto confirm critical hits and increase the critical modifier on all weapons used.
(Conclusion: Amazing, best DPR boost in the game. It is the level 20 capstone however so sees limited play in most tables.)
6.) Feats: 11 bonus combat feats.
(Conclusion: This is the main class feature for a fighter. It allows for the use of incredibly demanding feat chains. The problem with this ability is that it only makes up ground for what a fighter does not possess that other martials do. It is used to buy necessary combat feats and therefore leave open general feats for "Flexibility". However doing so still does not allow the fighter to make up for the spell casting, Animal companions, or rage powers of other classes. To do so he needs to spend both his normal and bonus feats on combat specific feats. Therefore this class feature is usually spent in a DPR comparison area just "Keeping up with the Jonse's".)
7.) Fighter Specific Feats: These are feats that you are required to be a specific level of fighter to take.
(Conclusion: These feats are almost exclusively about increasing DPR or combat ability. They offer numerical superiority but few options and the most valuable of these are tied to specific weapons not even specific weapon groups. This forces a Fighter even more into a pigeonhole.)
This means that a fighter if he wants to have the ability to do what a barbarian or ranger does in terms of DPR has to be basically just a better Warrior.
The issues here is that all other martial have abilities that allow for a difference in kind of play whereupon the fighter's abilities only offer a difference in degree of play.
As has been pointed out if you look at beastiary monsters and standard 3 point buy NPC adversaries it is not required to be completly optimized to succeed in pathfinder scenerios.
The main problem is when all of the martial classes are optimized to the same degree the fighter will have to choose between have better DPR and no options or identical/less DPR and fewer options than the rest of the martials.
TL;DR: Fighter is just a warrior with a very small amount of extra gold and bigger numbers until 20.
This is boring to some people, and is limiting to how some people want to play.
I changed the fighter slightly in my game.
Dynamic Training: At 1st level a fighter selects either his reflex or will saving throw. The selected saving throw uses the progression listed under his fortitude saving throw rather than its normal progression.
At first level a fighter selects three exotic weapons and adds them to the list of weapons with which he is proficient.
Bravery (Ex): Starting at 2nd level, a fighter gains several benefits from his internal courage and fortitude. He gains a +1 bonus on Will saves against fear. This bonus increases by +1 for every four levels beyond 2nd.
He further gains a small pool of courage within himself upon which he can draw in times of need to perform deeds of great heroism. This pool contains one point of courage per fighter level plus one point for each point of the fighter’s wisdom modifier. A fighter may spend courage points from this pool for various effects.
A fighter may spend one courage point to reroll any saving throw which he fails. Any saving throw may only be rerolled once by this effect. This is a free action that may be taken at any time.
A fighter may spend one point of courage to automatically confirm a critical hit. This is a free action that may be taken at any time.
A fighter may as a swift action spend one point of courage to grant an adjacent ally a +2 circumstance bonus to AC for one round.
A fighter may as a swift action spend one courage point to allow, for one round, all feats or abilities he possesses or is under the effect of, to treat his currently wielded weapon as another weapon chosen when spending the courage point for this ability.
A fighter’s pool of courage refills to its normal maximum after 8 hours of rest, this rest may not occur more than once in a 24 hour period. A fighter regains one point of courage each 24 hour period regardless of rest obtained.
Armor Training (Ex): Added the ability to sleep in medium armor at 3rd without penalty and heavy armor at 7th without penalty.
4 + Int modifier.
Added Perception to the list.
My players seem to like it and I have no problems so far however this is only anecdotal evidence.
I guess the the Barbarian ''wins'' in the long run, but only if you actually get to the high levels. As for one-shoting most anything during the lower levels, a Power Attacking Fighter can do that just as well. Plus, the Fighter do not need to take Raging Vitality as a feat tax just to survive. A Barbarian without Raging Vitality would be extremely lucky to make it to the high levels. Unless he takes Heavy Armor Proeficiency, a raging Barbarian is 10% more likely to get hit than an equally built Ranger and 25%+(5% per +1 extra Dex bonus granted by armor training) more likely to get hit than an equally built Fighter (feats not included). Saying that a Barbarian will rarely get hit until level 7-9 is just wrong, unless you're only fighting against 1st-level humanoids until level 7.A Barbarian will drain the healing ressources of the party faster than a Fighter because of his abysmal AC.Eh, past the "auto-hit line" that doesn't matter much, and at lower levels a Barbarian can one-shot most anything anyway. He might be a slight drain at levels 7-9 or summat but before that he'll rarely get hit and after that it won't really matter.At low levels barbarians share AC with fighters because heavy armor is unaffordable. The best armor that any martial can begin the game with is chainmail. From there, barring full plate, other heavy armors are pretty terrible (splint mail is +1 AC over chainmail or breastplate but at +0 maximum dexterity). At these levels there is very little difference between a fighter and barbarian in terms of AC when not raging, though the barbarian is faster and has the option to rage when needed which allows him to trade AC for killing power (which can in turn bring down enemies faster to avoid suffering more damage).
As levels rise, the issue of AC while raging more or less goes away in core due to rage powers like Guarded Stance (+1 dodge to AC for a number of rounds equal to Con, activated as a...
Ashiel, I have to admit that you are mostly right, but, during low- to mid-levels, it is not as bad as you are implying for the Figther. Like I said before, the Barbarian wins in the long run because the Fighter just can't keep up with the scaling bonuses of the Barbarian's rage powers, but up to level 10 the Fighter can keep up with the Barbarian just fine. Check this out (these are not optimised builds, and it is assumed that the Barbarian and the Fighter share the same ability scores) :
Barbarian
Level 1- Raging Vitality, Rage (-2 AC penalty). -2 AC under Fighter
Level 2- Guarded Stance (+1 AC – move action to activate). -2 AC under Fighter
Level 3- Dodge (+1 AC). -1 AC under Fighter
Level 4- Beast Totem, Lesser, +1 breastplate (+1 AC over breastplate). -3 AC under Fighter
Level 5- Power Attack. -3 AC under Fighter
Level 6- Beast Totem (+1 AC), Guarded Stance (+1 AC). -1 AC under Fighter
Level 7- Heavy Armor Proficiency. -1 AC under Fighter
Level 8- Beast Totem (+1 AC), mithral full plate (+2 AC over +1 breastplate). +2 AC over Fighter
Level 9- Improved Critical. +2 AC over Fighter
Level 10- Beast Totem, Greater. +2 AC over Fighter
Fighter (armor training ignored)
Level 1- Weapon Focus, Iron Will. +2 AC over Barbarian
Level 2- Dodge (+1 AC). +2 AC over Barbarian
Level 3- Toughness. +1 AC over Barbarian
Level 4- Full plate (+3 AC over breastplate), Weapon Specialization. +3 AC over Barbarian
Level 5- Power Attack, Weapon Training 1. +3 AC over Barbarian
Level 6- Quick Draw. +1 AC over Barbarian
Level 7- Great Fortitude. +1 AC over Barbarian
Level 8- Improved Critical. -2 AC under Barbarian, has 10,500 extra gp to spend on armor
Level 9- Critical Focus. -2 AC under Barbarian, has 10,500 extra gp to spend on armor
Level 10- Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Training 2. -2 AC under Barbarian, has 10,500 extra gp to spend on armor
The ''turning point'' in the AC progression is when the Barbarian can afford a mithral full plate (level 8th), but this armor takes a huge chuck of the Barbarian's wealth at this level, gold that the Fighter can spend on other things, like a belt/gloves of dexterity to make a better use of his armor training class feature, a better cloak of resistance, a better ring of protection or another ''+1'' enhancement bonus for his full plate. There's also the fact that Guarded Stance only works against melee attacks and requires a move action to activate, which means that it couldn't be always ''on'' without decreasing the Barbarian's DPR. There's also the ''tower shield'' factor: if you plan on going sword'n'board, just play a fighter (phalanx soldier) for awesome defenses and battlefield control.
Anyhow, it seems that the ''sweet spot'' for the Fighter is level 4-5 (when he gets his full plate). At 11th-level and over, the Fighter begins to shrink before the might of the Barbarian (greater rage, scaling bonus, better rage powers, etc.)
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Huh... It seems I posted this on the wrong thread... So I must summon the power of Ctrl+C; Ctrl+V:
I don't think Fighters are any better than Rangers, Paladins, Barbarians or Gunslingers. Fighters simply have somewhat higher DPR and AC (maybe).
This is not the same as being better at fighting. It comes back to my argument of options vs numbers. It's better to have 4 possible ways of solving the problem than 1 really good way, because if this one way is ineffective, then you're screwed.
Fighters allow many possible builds, but most often, each individual build will only be good at one fighting style and mediocre at a 2nd one (probably archery).
Basically, you get to choose what trick you want, but you're still a one (maybe 2) trick pony.
This is more a problem with the system than the class, though, it just happens to be more punishing for Fighters. Extremely long feat chains, unreasonable feat prerequisites, lack of mobility, high gear dependence and nerfed combat maneuvers hurt Fighters really bad. It hurts everyone, actually, but Fighters suffer the most.
Out of combat, the class adds nothing to the character's usefulness. I'm not saying a Fighter can't be useful when he's not fighting, just that if he's, it's most likely not thanks to his class features. Hell, except for Knowledge(dungeons), Intimidate and Knowledge(Engineering), he has the exactly same skills of a commoner, except the commoner gets Perception.
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So my thoughts so far
Im in the camp of fighters being a fun class to play, and functionally workable. Do they measure up to every other class? Meh, I dont have a clue and dont care. If you have a party that includes a fighter, barbarian, paladin, and druid, will the fighter feel marginalized? Possibly. But this is true for other classes as well, if you have a bomber alchemist, gunslinger and archer all in the same group, chances are one of them will feel underwhelmed and wind up exactly in the same boat as the above fighter despite being a solid class. If you have 2 wizards and a sorcerer, same thing. In a more balanced party, you shouldn't have to make these comparisons as each will have there roles and there will be less toe stepping then these forums suggest. If you consider it acceptable to play a sub-optimal but fun or interesting barbarian, whats wrong with playing a fighter if you consider it to be suboptimal to the barbarian?
As for personal tastes, I actually think playing wizards or even archers boring. The thrill is in the close combat melee with swords flashing, weaving, ducking and dodging and grabbing your opponent by the throat to slam him to the ground. Dosent invalidate magic or archery, just personal play style. The comment on the first page about fighters being boring and the wizard overlord in the sky is reversed for me, why would you want to be out of the fight? Boring. Get stuck in lads!
Side note, I really enjoy the idea of a pure mundane fighter over a 'magically touched' (in the head :P) character. I really love the barbarian, but even his rage is supernatural (same with his ability to fly, breath fire, eat magic and punch spells). Being pure mundane is just fun.
Having said that, I have had loads of fun with my fighters that I have made, here are a few.
My goblin mobile fighter was fun. His name was football. He focused on the goblin feat, roll with it and the monkey style feat to run past someone, get kicked hard and fly into a second guy, bounce off him and hit the ground then proceed to chew his ankles off from the floor. Was hilarious. I love goblins :D
My second one was a human unarmed fighter that loved to stick his fingers inside of people and wiggle them around, maybe grab a kidney and pull it out or poke holes in his lungs all the while letting massive amounts of blood flow. Boar style, Hamatula strike, impaling critical Bleeding critical, and a wounding AOMF went well here :D He could also do some combat maneuvers quite decently.
Third one was an Orc Unbreakable warrior. He focused on the deathless innate line of feats, the orc favoured class bonus (+2 con for purposes of dieing) and a good con score to become nigh unkillable and still capable of fighting when 90% dead (wich was around -30). When he walked into town missing an arm, a chunk of his skull gone, 15 arrows sticking out of his body and a few gaping holes in his stomach, skipping the infirmary to go to the bar for a drink, it didn't matter that he had a low cha score, people listened to his story!
A neat trick that I found thats 'semi-legal' is to take fire gods blessing feat, fast healing feat and some fire resistance. set yourself on fire and heal 1/2 con +1 every turn while the fire resistance keeps you from taking damage, voila, you have pseudo fast healing!
But anyway, I found ways to make the fighter interesting and viable and personally, its one of my favourite classes.
Yup, pretty much this. Only BBEGs can reliably hit a fighter while lowly grunts/mooks/sword-fodders or whaterver you call them can quickly put a Barbarian down if they are numerous enough.you must clearly lack a barbarian. they are by far, the best beatstick.
when you get higher level, monsters are hitting the fighter on a 2 or better anyway.
First, monster hitting witha 2 is just not true. It is probably 6+.
second, if the fighter get hitted with the first attack and second attack and the barbarian get hitted with all five monsters attack then the fighter have the advantage.
Third, all fights are not against BBEG. In a recent campaing the barbarian with a Low AC alsmot get killed in one turn by the arrows from hobgoblins. He recived 45 points of damae, every single arrow hit him. IN the same situation the paladin with a shield get hitted once for 5 of damage.
well, i play in an 8-12 person group with APL+6-8 foes (for a 12 person party). translating to APL+14-16 encounters for your typical 4 person party. loaded with stuff that could be considered a BBEG in most campaigns. and our party is nearly all martial.
... make fighter only feats scalable abilities from other feats. Weapon spec is built into weapon focus if a fighter takes it that feat that lets you pierce DR built into PA for fighters ETC ETC ...
I totally agree with this, I think it would be a good way to fix the Fighter. Also, the Fighter's hit dices should be d12s: he's the only ''mundane'' fighting class in the game, so he deserves to be on top of the hp scale (just below the raging barbarian).
I still don't see why I would rather have a Rogue than a Ranger, even if resources didn't become so high and my DM weren't handwaving things like "He managed to hire 30 more guards in 8 hours".
well, i play in an 8-12 person group with APL+6-8 foes (for a 12 person party). translating to APL+14-16 encounters for your typical 4 person party. loaded with stuff that could be considered a BBEG in most campaigns. and our party is nearly all martial.Yup, pretty much this. Only BBEGs can reliably hit a fighter while lowly grunts/mooks/sword-fodders or whaterver you call them can quickly put a Barbarian down if they are numerous enough.you must clearly lack a barbarian. they are by far, the best beatstick.
when you get higher level, monsters are hitting the fighter on a 2 or better anyway.
First, monster hitting witha 2 is just not true. It is probably 6+.
second, if the fighter get hitted with the first attack and second attack and the barbarian get hitted with all five monsters attack then the fighter have the advantage.
Third, all fights are not against BBEG. In a recent campaing the barbarian with a Low AC alsmot get killed in one turn by the arrows from hobgoblins. He recived 45 points of damae, every single arrow hit him. IN the same situation the paladin with a shield get hitted once for 5 of damage.
Never played with so many people around the table. I'm guessing that the dynamic of the game must be very different from a game with a 4-5 men party.
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Ashiel, I have to admit that you are mostly right, but, during low- to mid-levels, it is not as bad as you are implying for the Figther. Like I said before, the Barbarian wins in the long run because the Fighter just can't keep up with the scaling bonuses of the Barbarian's rage powers, but up to level 10 the Fighter can keep up with the Barbarian just fine. Check this out (these are not optimised builds, and it is assumed that the Barbarian and the Fighter share the same ability scores) :
Barbarian
Level 1- Raging Vitality, Rage (-2 AC penalty). -2 AC under Fighter
At level 1 the Fighter has nothing over the Barbarian. He only has +1 feat. No weapon training, no armor training. He might get some extra AC with his bonus feat. Barbarian has +10 ft. of movement (effectively like beginning with armor training except he's actually faster than you), +2 HP, and fights as well as you do because you don't have training/specialization yet. However, the Barbarian has Rage which means on demand he can get +2/+2 or +2/+3 to hit and damage and +2 to will saves and +2 Hp for the duration at a drawback of -2 AC. So the barbarian wins here because he still fights as good as you and has the option to fight better for less AC (effectively going into full-DPS/caster-kill mode).
Level 2- Guarded Stance (+1 AC – move action to activate). -2 AC under Fighter
Still fighting as good as the fighter at this level because we just grabbed a rage power. Which may or may not be guarded stance (personally I think guarded stance is a bit wasteful to get until a bit later, and would recommend something like No Escape or Superstition as both greatly improve her combat effectiveness (No Escape means you can't withdraw from her, and Superstition is +2 to saves vs magics).
At this level you're still as good at fighting as the Fighter and unless the Fighter is specifically pumping feats into AC will have a similar or identical AC. At this level the Barbarian has the option to enter get +2/+2 or +2/+3 to hit and damage, +4 Hp, and +2 to saves, for -2 AC, and can do so longer and/or more often; except now when doing so she is far more dangerous in melee due to withdraw-prevention or more sturdy vs spells. You're also still faster than the fighter in medium armor.
We also get Uncanny Dodge which allows us to retain dodge bonuses while flat footed. This means from now on we begin battles with +4 dodge to AC from using the total defense action while wandering around (AKA - barbarian danger sense). The bonus is actually significantly higher with a few ranks in Acrobatics and also allows us to retain benefits of feats such as Dodge in these circumstances and against enemies we cannot see.
We can also take Lesser Beast Totem at this level and have 2 attacks per round while raging at 1d4 + full strength modifier each, which means that we're kind of like a two-weapon fighter with non of the drawbacks (rage bonus to hit and damage applies to both attacks and both attacks are at full attack bonus). This is useful since we can cast aside our shield and go full on damage-mode if the situation calls for it (options are good).
Level 3- Dodge (+1 AC). -1 AC under Fighter
If we take Dodge at 3rd level (as opposed to 1st as if it were me I'd go Dodge at 1st instead and Power Attack around 3rd). We still fight better than the Fighter at this level however because we have similar combat power while not raging and more combat power while raging. Plus we now have Trap Sense which is situationally useful but it's a defense (and actually nice in megadungeons).
Level 4- Beast Totem, Lesser, +1 breastplate (+1 AC over breastplate). -3 AC under Fighter
Again, keep in mind that our AC is only below the fighter's in the case that we are raging. Yet we still have similar hit and damage modifiers to the fighter when we aren't. At this level the Fighter can compete in hit and damage with one of his weapons (costing him 2/3 of his bonus feats). Our barbarian still has better flat-footed AC. And we still are better warriors when we activate our rage.
And a +1 breastplate is 1,350 gp and is medium armor with a +7 AC. The only way the Fighter is beating us in AC due to armor is if he's wearing heavy armor, which means he's still moving slower and has a harsher check penalty than our barbarian while paying more to get it (full plate is 1,500 gp vs our breastplate).
Our rage is now giving +8 Hp during the rage as well, which is a significant bump in hit points, which means that if we're going to go down anyway we can buy another round or so of fighting against most enemies, allowing a chance to get healed.
Level 5- Power Attack. -3 AC under Fighter
See above. Except now we have Improved Uncanny Dodge and cannot be flanked or sneak attacked.
The ''turning point'' in the AC progression is when the Barbarian can afford a mithral full plate (level 8th), but this armor takes a huge chuck of the Barbarian's wealth at this level, gold that the Fighter can spend on other things, like a belt/gloves of dexterity to make a better use of his armor training class feature, a better cloak of resistance, a better ring of protection or another ''+1'' enhancement bonus for his full plate.
I think a major factor here to keep in mind is that at the levels where the barbarian is at a disadvantage in armor class while raging are also the levels where he really doesn't have to rage to match the fighter. He is basically a stronger, faster, more skilled fighter at these levels with the option of trading -2 AC for +2/+2 or +2/+3 to hit and +2 to Will saving throws. Then as early as 2nd level begins gaining very meaningful ways of impacting combat (preventing withdraws, getting +2 bonuses to all saves vs magic that stack with the +2 to will saves, or gaining multiple attacks) and retaining dodge and dexterity bonuses to AC. IMHO, the barbarian's AC is great and he has options and other defenses besides AC (and can split the difference while raging by fighting defensively if he wants to activate a rage power at the cost of -2 attack instead of -2 AC, and with a few ranks in Acrobatics he actually gets -2 to hit while raging and +1 to AC).
So...options! ^-^
Plus you have to count the defenses and immunities to flanking which are granted by Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge. Those are big deals, especially since spells like invisibility and deeper darkness are easily found in the low-level arena (dark folk are especially worrisome to low level parties because of their ability to turn out all the lights and sneak attack you to death).
Now in a pure race in AC, the fighter can pull ahead by a bit if you're really optimizing AC. Dodge, Shield Focus, and an Armored Kilt at low levels is probably the best way to optimize AC. But the Barbarian can do the same and still fight very competently (though I personally prefer to have barbarians take feats that round out their defenses like Iron Will and Lightning Reflexes {combined with the natural bonuses from Rage and Superstitious it makes barbarians exceptionally sturdy vs spells and the like} and possibly Toughness.
At low levels your AC should remain solid regardless of what martial character you're using. Keeping up in the AC race becomes harder as enemies have progressively higher to-hit bonuses, whereas at low levels enemies usually have fairly low hit modifiers in relation to martial ACs unless they're catching you off guard or flanking (which barbarians are immune to at 2nd and 5th level respectively).
However your other defenses are much harder to shore up at low levels. Reflex and Will saves can end you quite easily at low levels. Grease, colorspray, cause fear, charm person, sleep, and so forth can be quite dangerous.
There's also the fact that Guarded Stance only works against melee attacks and requires a move action to activate, which means that it couldn't be always ''on'' without decreasing the Barbarian's DPR. There's also the ''tower shield'' factor: if you plan on going sword'n'board, just play a fighter (phalanx soldier) for awesome defenses and battlefield control.
Barbarian do the sword & board thing pretty good as well. The only thing the phalanx fighter does that's really special is wield a reach weapon in one hand (most of his other abilities actually make him a worse fighter). If you were really, really, reeeeaaaally wanting to do that then you could dip 3 levels of phalanx fighter. In most cases you'd be better off going strait barbarian though.
Anyhow, it seems that the ''sweet spot'' for the Fighter is level 4-5 (when he gets his full plate). At 11th-level and over, the Fighter begins to shrink before the might of the Barbarian (greater rage, scaling bonus, better rage powers, etc.)
And yet the "sweet spot" for the fighter is also where the barbarian is rocking socks like crazy. The barbarian still fights as well as the fighter at these levels because the fighter's top end combat modifiers with his best weapon is +2/+3 (+1 weapon focus & +1 weapon training / +2 weapon specialization & weapon training) at the cost of 2/3 feats (which largely swallows any of the perks of being a fighter). Meanwhile the barbarian is sporting +2/+3 to hit with all melee weapons, can do ranged weapons well (and sport a +2 to damage if using an adaptive bow), cannot be caught flat footed (thus +4 to AC when you're just walking around 'cause you're just total defensing like a caster concentrating on a spell), cannot be flanked, moves faster, has more hit points, has more skill points, has better class skills, and has more meaningful defensive options and more meaningful combat options (because stuff like No Escape crushes anything a fighter has access to at this level, as the closest thing a fighter can get is Step-up - which the barbarian can take also, making both 5 ft. steps and withdrawing a no-go).
I'm not trying to argue. I'm just pointing these things out.
Oh, and uncanny dodge means you can also make attacks of opportunity during the surprise round and before you have acted. Which means if I want someone to protect my party, a barbarian with a reach weapon is a damn good choice. Some crazy creature with pounce comes running out of the brush to maul my wizard? The barbarian smacks the snot out of it with his reach weapon before anyone knows what happened.
How come no one mentions that the fighter has pretty much the biggest and most amazing amount of archetypes that can spice up a character pretty well both mechanic and fluffwise?
Dunno bout you, but Lore Warden makes a fighter damn near perfect for me, a skilled martial class with feats to boot. Want +4 to Diplomacy, pick up Ease of Faith trait(if allowed), bam, diplomacy is a class skill.
Mobility archetype gives some great options too, especially for two weapon wielders, I personally love the idea of charging around and slicing everyone along the way.
Might not be optimal, but if I wanted that, I'd play wow or some rollplay, not Pathfinder.
How come no one mentions that the fighter has pretty much the biggest and most amazing amount of archetypes that can spice up a character pretty well both mechanic and fluffwise?
Because for the most part his archetypes just give him things he should've had to begin with. ESPECIALLY Lore Warden.
Apparently Heavy armor is too OP to have 4+Int skills.
Oh, and uncanny dodge means you can also make attacks of opportunity during the surprise round and before you have acted. Which means if I want someone to protect my party, a barbarian with a reach weapon is a damn good choice. Some crazy creature with pounce comes running out of the brush to maul my wizard? The barbarian smacks the snot out of it with his reach weapon before anyone knows what happened.
You also forgot the extra hp given by the Raging Vitality feat. :P
The feats/rage powers were chosen (in no particular order) only to determine how those classes compare when they're trying to be as resilient as possible with a two-handed main fighting style in mind. Of course, I could have used archetype (invulnarable rager or armored hulk vs armor master or unbreakable), but I have chosen to stick with vanilla classes.
I a have to admit that the Fighter seems to fall short in comparison to the Barbarian, especially with the inclusion or the rage powers from the APG (superstition, beast totem). Raging Vitality is also from the APG. I think that the core-only Barbarian and the core-only Fighter were more in line with each other.
I'm now convinced that the Fighter would really need a buff or two to be on par with the Barbarian and the Paladin from the APG. Of all the classes, it is probably the only one who really deserves d12s as hit dice (maybe the Cavalier too). I fact, I think that some of the Cavalier's class feature and class skill should have been given to the vanilla Fighter (most people here complain about the Fighter being useless out of combat and that would have solved a lot of things). Armor Training should have come with minor cumulative DR instead of going from DR 0 at level 18 to DR 5 at level 19. Like proftobe suggested above, Figther's only feats should be upgraded version of vanilla feat instead of feat ''tax'' (a Fighter who takes weapon focus also gains +2 to damage roll at level 4; a Fighter who takes shield focus also gains a cumulative +1 shield bonus to AC at level 8th; a Fighter who takes Improved Critical also gains +4 to confirm is critical roll; and so on...)
How come no one mentions that the fighter has pretty much the biggest and most amazing amount of archetypes that can spice up a character pretty well both mechanic and fluffwise?
Dunno bout you, but Lore Warden makes a fighter damn near perfect for me, a skilled martial class with feats to boot. Want +4 to Diplomacy, pick up Ease of Faith trait(if allowed), bam, diplomacy is a class skill.
Mobility archetype gives some great options too, especially for two weapon wielders, I personally love the idea of charging around and slicing everyone along the way.
Might not be optimal, but if I wanted that, I'd play wow or some rollplay, not Pathfinder.
Mostly because archetypes are often pretty major modifications to a class, especially for fighters who almost always modify or give up their few abilities, often which are often double-edged.
Lore warden for example gives up proficiency with medium and heavy armor and with shields. In exchange you get...2 skill points per level that can only be spent in a very limited number of skills all focused on an ability score that does very little for you. In this case we just lost one of the few things that fighters usually are pretty good at (armor class) and made them worse than bards at tanking.
Lore Warden gets combat expertise for free, but the loss of armor means that your combat expertise is not really giving you any real benefit until you reclaim your massive AC loss from the loss of armor and shields. The best way to fix this is probably with multiclassing into Barbarian or Ranger to make up for this loss.
You lose armor training for a decent buff to CMB and CMD (two things all martials are already good at) but lack survivability because unless your foes are actively using combat maneuvers against you then you're not getting any improvement to your defenses.
Know thy enemy is a sight-based and requires you to spend a standard action and make a specific Knowledge check vs an enemy to get a limited bonus to attack and damage against that foe similar to favored enemy rank 1 and you can only apply it to one foe at a time.
Their 11th level ability is legitimately pretty cool if your Acrobatics (not a class skill) is quite high but is also pretty useless if you're not actively getting critically hit and is an immediate action, which means it doesn't really do anything beneficial against enemies who who aren't beating you with sticks. Since it's an opposed roll it's also pretty dicey and unreliable (but hey, it's a defense vs sudden destruction).
14th lets you do the favored enemy thing as a swift action. Bonus is still +2.
At 19th level you lose armor mastery to auto confirm a critical hit once per round. Yet you automatically confirm all critical hits with a chosen weapon at 20th level anyway, so this is probably just abandoning armor training.
In fact, most of the archetypes generally give up things that Fighters actually have that are good in exchange for things that either aren't better or are worse.
MEANWHILE...
Barbarian archetypes like Breaker trade fast movement for +level to damage on sunder attempts, and get another +6 to hit and damage with improvised or broken weapons (and the ability to ignore penalties from both improvised and broken weapons) on top of her existing bonuses for rage.
Elememtal kin barbarian gets bonus rage rounds every time they are hit with even fairly weak (relatively) energy attacks. If an elemental kin barbarian at 3rd level is hit by acid arrow, that spell just keeps charging the barbarian up each time it deals damage, increasing the amount of time the barbarian can keep raging. And the amount of rage rounds you gain from said damage increases as you gain levels. At high levels suffering even minor energy damage can give you +6 rounds of rage for the day, which is like being given the extra rage feat multiple times each time you get blasted. They give up? Trap Sense.
Superstitious archetype barbarians gain a scaling bonus to Initiative and AC during surprise rounds (up to +6 for each), as well as low-light vision, darkvision +60 ft., scent, blindsense 30 ft., and blightsight 30 ft. They give up? Trap sense and damage reduction.
AND ALSO...
Most archetypal powers which are cool actually come in the form of Rage Powers which allows the Barbarian to simply select them as desired without being forced to trade away other abilities that she has going for her.
The feats/rage powers were chosen (in no particular order) only to determine how those classes compare when they're trying to be as resilient as possible with a two-handed main fighting style in mind. Of course, I could have used archetype (invulnarable rager or armored hulk vs armor master or unbreakable), but I have chosen to stick with vanilla classes.
I prefer vanilla too in general. :)
I a have to admit that the Fighter seems to fall short in comparison to the Barbarian, especially with the inclusion or the rage powers from the APG (superstition, beast totem). Raging Vitality is also from the APG. I think that the core-only Barbarian and the core-only Fighter were more in line with each other.
Superstition is core. The superstitious archetype is in the APG but the rage power is core. The superstitious archetype grants a lot of abilities which ruin stealth, concealment, and illusions.
All in all, it's been good talking about it. You made great points. On a side note I tend to try and keep a variety of weapons on hand for different uses. It's actually one of the reasons I feel like a barbarian is usually better off than a fighter at low levels as well. I mean, you can sword & board for extra AC and still Rage for +2 to hit and damage with your 1 hander while power attacking for extra damage. Then being able to switch to a pole-arm when you need reach. Or pull out an adaptive bow and push damage (AC penalty isn't a huge deal when you're using archery). Or you can grab a greataxe/greatsword/scythe and splatter your foes all two-hander like. XD
Best fighter has is weapon focus line and training and those only apply to one weapon/group and tends to be only marginally better than martial classes without it, whom have tons more to make up for it.
Superstition is core.
I missed that one. Still, maybe it's because my characters find themselves at death's doors more often that I'd like, but I couldn't bring myself to play a Barbarian without Raging Vitality or, at the very least, Diehard. Losing 2hp/lvl when dropping below 0 hp when raging sounds like a huge drawback to me. :S
Here is my two cents on why fighters are awesome. As someone on the first page stated, they are always one. ALWAYS ON. Yeah, magic is great and powerful and all that, but watch the wizard become a paper weight in an antimagic field.
So in the anti magic field the fighter's better. ok.
No how is it when you are attacked at night? The fighter grabs his weapon, curses that he doesn't have the time to don his proper armor and engages. The wizard grabs his component pouch and just beginns casting.Just one example that the fighter is not always on. At least not fully.
Sure, the fighter could spend a feat to get endurance or he could spend gold to get a light backup armor he can sleep in. But endurance doesn't help with heavy armor and the light backup armor will either be crappy or very expensive. Try to explain to your party that you need the +3 chain shirt you just found in addition to your +3 plate armor because you need something to sleep in.
Superstition is core.I missed that one. Still, maybe it's because my characters find themselves at death's doors more often that I'd like, but I couldn't bring myself to play a Barbarian without Raging Vitality or, at the very least, Diehard. Losing 2hp/lvl when dropping below 0 hp when raging sounds like a huge drawback to me. :S
Please don't take this as an insult (because it's not directed at you specifically nor is it intended to be insulting) but that's a natural newbie mistake. People have been thinking that way since 3E was out. The idea that raging is a bad idea because of the sudden HP loss. The catch is simple though. If coming out of a Rage will kill you, then you were already dead (because it means that without raging you're already below 0 HP and dying and/ore getting finished off).
See if you've got +8 HP from Rage and dropping from the Rage would put you into unconsciousness, then if you weren't raging you were already unconscious! If anything you're better off Raging even without Raging vitality because it buys you more time to avoid getting hosed. Because once you've dropped to negative HP you're out of the fight anyway. Remember this mantra: If rage would kill you, you're already dead.
Now the Raging Vitality feat is good though. Especially at high levels because at high levels you can have truly astounding amounts of HP, and when that's finally broken through, it's nice to have yet ANOTHER line of defense to buy time for your healer to cast heal or something. I mean, a 20th level Barbarian has +80 HP during a rage. If they managed to carve their way through your normal HP+80, you should have been dead a long, long time ago. But being able to further enjoy falling into negatives is icing on the cake. :P
Fun fact. A Barbarian with a +0 Constitution has 135 HP at 20th level. And 215 HP when raging. However, a Barbarian in core who begins with a 13 Constitution can amass a +6 enhancement and +5 inherent modifier by 20th level, which can give you +7 HP / level. Such a Barbarian has 275 HP when not raging and 355 HP when raging.
A Fighter with the same Constitution taps out at 254.5 HP. So if your Barbarian is living on Rage alone, the Fighter's already dead. XD
Here is my two cents on why fighters are awesome. As someone on the first page stated, they are always one. ALWAYS ON. Yeah, magic is great and powerful and all that, but watch the wizard become a paper weight in an antimagic field.So in the anti magic field the fighter's better. ok.
No how is it when you are attacked at night? The fighter grabs his weapon, curses that he doesn't have the time to don his proper armor and engages. The wizard grabs his component pouch and just beginns casting.
Just one example that the fighter is not always on. At least not fully.Sure, the fighter could spend a feat to get endurance or he could spend gold to get a light backup armor he can sleep in. But endurance doesn't help with heavy armor and the light backup armor will either be crappy or very expensive. Try to explain to your party that you need the +3 chain shirt you just found in addition to your +3 plate armor because you need something to sleep in.
Humorously my wizard carries multiple spell components pouches and sleeps with them. She is also wearing 5 holy symbols right now (part of her conceptual back story and I plan to go mystic theurge with her). The entirety of her equipment can be slept in (including her armor because she is also wearing armor that provides +1 AC at the moment, and later). I've also considered tearing some pages out of a spellbook and keeping them in a separate stash for when I need them (at high levels I will probably take Spell Mastery but don't want to at low levels due to the limited breadth of options for it).
This very thing happened to us in Rappan Athuk (I've been playing a couple of sessions now and really digging the game since our GM is great). There was an encounter that occurred during our rest period (we had to stop 'cause the martials were wounded and healing was running dry). During said encounter the synthesist was without his exoskeleton and the other martial (I think a barbarian) fortunately was the one on watch at the time so he hadn't taken his armor off yet (so he got lucky and got to keep his armor for the fight).
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Fighters are so dependent on magical gear that the fighter becomes ridiculously vulnerable in an antimagic field too. To say nothing of how rare and limited antimagic fields are.
My fighter carries her own scrolls of anti-magic field, and will use them when advantageous.
It's not easy to grapple a wizard who is flying, or invisible, or shielded by Mirror Images. And even then, Freedom of Movement lasts a long time.
This is why my fighter carries scrolls of anti-magic
Do you house-rule that fighters automatically regain all HP for free after every combat?
If not, then the fighter stops quite abruptly.
Nope. She can self-heal just fine. Carries her own wands and needs no help using them.
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Fun fact. A Barbarian with a +0 Constitution has 135 HP at 20th level. And 215 HP when raging. However, a Barbarian in core who begins with a 13 Constitution can amass a +6 enhancement and +5 inherent modifier by 20th...
What was the barbarian's AC?
My fighter's is 52, going to 55 if fighting defensively.
She also has access to mirror image and displacement.
Odds are she'll still be standing when the barbarian runs out of hp.
Wrong they don't get pounce which is very useful for a two hand fighter build. Though I hate to point out that ranged builds as a whole do consistently more damage per round and can deal with flying opponents.The main "problems" I'm seeing here are the complaints of people who believe fighters are less powerful than optimized builds of other classes, or than full casters.
My response: Who cares? The optimization crowd obsessed with DPR, 1-round rocket tag combats, and being the most powerful character in the game is only one small segment of the gaming community, and I've heard their opinions (over and over again) and they are welcome to them. They have precious little connection to the reality of the way every group I've played with over the last 35 years plays the game.
Key and only important question for me: Is a fighter character fun to play?
Answer: YMMV. Fighters aren't for everyone. I rarely play one actually, but every now and then it's fun to just be big and bad and go medieval on your opponents.
Bottom line: This is a game we play for fun (at least most of us, I occasionally wonder about some posters). Each and every class and option within those classes is awesome in its own way if the person playing it is having fun doing so, and so are the other people at the table.
The most optimized DPR build(excluding summoners and highly specific stuff like smite evil) is to full round attack with a two handed weapon with power attack and weapon focus.
This is also a very common build. Its one a fighter can do just as well as any other martial.
The issue is that other classes have better contributions outside of DPR. Paladins have healing and much better saves. Rangers have more skill points, better saves and powers/spells.
Of course, y'all completely ignored my main point that I could care less whether the fighter has the best DPR or not.
Seriously, when people look back at the favorite characters they ever played, do they really rank them by DPR or whatever other measurement optimizers come up with? Or do they do it by how much fun they were to play? Maybe for some folks those are one and the same, but I suspect not for most.
Seriously, when people look back at the favorite characters they ever played, do they really rank them by DPR or whatever other measurement optimizers come up with? Or do they do it by how much fun they were to play? Maybe for some folks those are one and the same, but I suspect not for most.
One of my coolest PCs has been a dwarven axe and board fighter with dwarven full plate. But back then (AD&D) killing stuff with your weapon was enough most of the time. And not everyone and their brother had weired spell-like abilities and other over the top stuff.
In the end, when he died it was not because some enemy killed him but because a wizard thought it was a good idea to target his ice storm on the screaming dwarf who was being grappled by an efreet within a wall of fire.
My pc had just freed himself from the grapple and was juming out of the Firewall when the icestorm (damage variant, not extinguish fire variant) hit and killed him. Thanks for that.
And while I really liked playing fighters back then and while I really like PF, playing a fighter today in PF feels like taking a knife to a gunfight, one involving bazookas and the like.
Fun fact. A Barbarian with a +0 Constitution has 135 HP at 20th level. And 215 HP when raging. However, a Barbarian in core who begins with a 13 Constitution can amass a +6 enhancement and +5 inherent modifier by 20th...What was the barbarian's AC?
My fighter's is 52, going to 55 if fighting defensively.
She also has access to mirror image and displacement.Odds are she'll still be standing when the barbarian runs out of hp.
Depends on the build. The barbarian I mentioned was just talking Constitution. If if I wanted to go balls to the walls defense optimization I'd probably go with...
Base 14 Dexterity + 1 level increase + 6 enhancement + 5 inherent = +8 Dex.
Beast Totem = +5 natural
+5 Mithral Celestial Plate w/ Kilt = +15 armor
+5 heavy shield = +7 shield
+5 amulet of natural armor = +5 enhancement to natural armor
+5 ring of protection = +5 deflection to armor
-2 when Raging
Net result is AC 53 without fighting defensively or using combat expertise. Add Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge. Since I'm not counting feats, I could add Dodge & Shield Focus to up to AC 55 without fighting defensively. Using the extra skill points as a Barbarian I'd invest into Acrobatics to increase the bonus from fighting defensively and using a total defense to +3 and +6 respectively. The other skill points above the Fighter could be dumped into UMD to use magic items as needed.
Rage powers I think I'd take are Lesser Beast Totem, Beast Totem, Superstitious, No Escape, Eater of Magic, and that would leave 5 other rage powers to play around with (primarily for offensive options like the one that gives my level to a CMB each time I rage).
I'd trade Trapsense for Elemental Kin which can easily give me near unlimited rage at high levels since each time I take energy damage equal to my level or greater I would gain +6 rounds worth of rage.
I haven't really scratched my feats, so if I was really trying to push the AC thing, picking up Improved Unarmed Strike and Crane Style would be cute to get more AC by fighting defensively at all times (and for another +4 to AC that stacks with dodge & uncanny dodge, which would bring us to about AC 59); but since the high-end hit bonuses of enemies at 20th level generally cap out around +40 (+30 by the monster creation chart but I'm also accounting for buffs and bosses), and still that would give a lot of evasion, before counting evasive buffs like blur or displacement. I could get my AC to the mid 60s with a few more rage powers but since evasion is capped at 95%, there's not really much need. Better to emphasize offense now that I have an incredible physical and spell evasion.
EDIT: Eater of Magic and Elemental Kin is a fun combination as well since you get two saving throws versus spells, SLAs, and supernatural effects, gain temporary HP when if you fail then succeed, and then if you suffer energy damage of level+ then you get lots of extra rounds worth of rage to cycle. At this point your mages can carpet bomb the hell out of you and your enemies and you'll be standing in the middle of the smoking crater with a big glowing grin on your face.
EDIT 2: I also didn't list the damage reduction that I have as a defense, so there's that as well. DR 5/- is pretty significant over the course of lots of attacks.
All that being said, you really don't need to be this focused to do everything that you need to do. Honestly the thing about this that amuses me is that I've still got 4 level up bonuses to put into Strength, tons of HP, and enough Rage powers to make the fighter cry himself to sleep ('cause the Fighter wasted like 6+ feats trying to be good at combat maneuvers and I get to add my level to combat maneuvers every time I rage-cycle with one rage power).
And I haven't actually buffed yet...sooooo...you really don't need to get this extreme to be effective.
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In my last campaign, our progression was segmented into three parts, resulting in me playing three separate characters. Because I love “the martials”, I played a human Paladin, dwarven Barbarian, and a dwarven Fighter. The tactical end result was that DPR and survivability were roughly the same for all three. I didn’t optimize much, because well, that’s not why I play. Even not optimized, all three were murder machines in comparison to my adventuring company compatriots (Wizard, Rogue, Cleric, Ranger).
FWIW, I had the most fun playing the fighter. I like the concept even if the execution is slightly flawed. The fighter (to me) is the legionnaire, the door kicker, the foot soldier, the infantryman, the Varangian Guardsman, and the Mandalorian. Concept is my first thought when creating a character, not DPR or supernatural abilities. Not that those are bad things, and they work well when I want to play one of those classes.
TL;DR: IMO if you want to play a soldier, a bad a$$ trooper, then fighter works just fine and has more than enough toys in the box to do the job. If you’re group/DM is expecting you to fly/shoot lasers/heal then, obviously, they don’t want a fighter.
(more skill points w/o sacrificing Feats would be nice though, just saying)
Also, Dazing Assault + Come & Get Me is just ****ing stupid.
EDIT: Picture it. Your barbarian takes a -5 penalty to melee attacks for 1 round and you use Come & Get Me. Now every time you're attacked that round, you get an AoO versus your attacker at your full BAB-5. If you hit, you deal full damage and they must make a DC 21-30 saving throw or become dazed for one round; potentially preventing them from even making the attack (because your attack interrupts their own). You can keep stuff stunlocked like crazy because with Combat Reflexes you can force a saving throw for every attack they make.
Once you're dazed, you're full-attack fodder.
In the high levels the problem with combat maneuvers is not the CMB Vs CMD mechanics but the absurd immunities monster have.Weapon training, weapon focus and greater weapon focus and gloves od fueling all add to sunder/disarm and trips attemps. They probably also add to dirty tricks. If the fighter is a spear wielder with hamatula strike then all the thing I listed add to the grapple CMB. If the fighter have an impact weapon or using shield slam then all those things add to the bull rush CMB.
Fighters can raise their CMD by +1 per Favored Class bonus in two manuvers. They don't get anything to HELP their attacks on manuvers, however.
==Aelryinth
And...also CMD. A lot of monsters have pretty beefy CMD unbuffed. I went throuh and checked them all once during a conversation where some poster (I think Shallowsoul but I forget) was going on and on about rogues and their Acrobatics to tumble into positions for sneak attacking, and I actually laid out low, high, and average CMDs for enemies of each CR. By the high levels CMD is often through the roof counting no buffs. Not even counting immunities. When you also consider that tripping is about the only practical combat maneuver to use against most enemies (disarm relies on them not relying on natural attacks or SLAs, sunder requires them to use items, tripping requires them to care, bull rushing is usually dumb, grappling is usually worse for you, etc) it's very uninspiring. :\
Of course a Barbarian gets +level to combat maneuvers, so CMD be damned! It's like having x2 BAB! :P
Fun fact. A Barbarian with a +0 Constitution has 135 HP at 20th level. And 215 HP when raging. However, a Barbarian in core who begins with a 13 Constitution can amass a +6 enhancement and +5 inherent modifier by 20th...What was the barbarian's AC?
My fighter's is 52, going to 55 if fighting defensively.
She also has access to mirror image and displacement.Odds are she'll still be standing when the barbarian runs out of hp.
Depends on the build. The barbarian I mentioned was just talking Constitution. If if I wanted to go balls to the walls defense optimization I'd probably go with...
Base 14 Dexterity + 1 level increase + 6 enhancement + 5 inherent = +8 Dex.
Beast Totem = +5 natural
+5 Mithral Celestial Plate w/ Kilt = +15 armor
+5 heavy shield = +7 shield
+5 amulet of natural armor = +5 enhancement to natural armor
+5 ring of protection = +5 deflection to armor
-2 when Raging
Net result is AC 53 without fighting defensively or using combat expertise. Add Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge. Since I'm not counting feats, I could add Dodge & Shield Focus to up to AC 55 without fighting defensively. Using the extra skill points as a Barbarian I'd invest into Acrobatics to increase the bonus from fighting defensively and using a total defense to +3 and +6 respectively. The other skill points above the Fighter could be dumped into UMD to use magic items as needed.Rage powers I think I'd take are Lesser Beast Totem, Beast Totem, Superstitious, No Escape, Eater of Magic, and that would leave 5 other rage powers to play around with (primarily for offensive options like the one that gives my level to a CMB each time I rage).
I'd trade Trapsense for Elemental Kin which can easily give me near unlimited rage at high levels since each time I take energy damage equal to my level or greater I would gain +6 rounds worth of rage.
I haven't really scratched my feats, so if I was really trying to push the AC thing, picking up Improved...
HAHA,you have to use a shield to equal the ac of a fighter. so what you are saying is that to almost equal the figther in AC you nerfed your damage output, you hindered the thing you do best, maximize the damage from your strengh
Figthers will always be the masters of combat for this reason. they are the abrahams battle tank of the game, they don't need to make comprimises, they can have insane, to hit, to damage, combat manuvers and high ac, and high will saves plus have extra feats that are incredibley useful my person favorites (master craftmans/craft wonderous/arms and equipment) what they sacrafice is out of combat versaility. there is nothing wrong with the class. if you want to be the ultimate war machine you be a fighter, if you want something else, then be a barbarian, or ranger or paladin or any other full BAB class.
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HAHA,you have to use a shield to equal the ac of a fighter. so what you are saying is that to almost equal the figther in AC you nerfed your damage output, you hindered the thing you do best, maximize the damage from your strengh
Figthers will always be the masters of combat for this reason. they are the abrahams battle tank of the game, they don't need to make comprimises, they can have insane, to hit, to damage, combat manuvers and high ac, and high will saves plus have extra feats that are incredibley useful my person favorites (master craftmans/craft wonderous/arms and equipment) what they sacrafice is out of combat versaility. there is nothing wrong with the class. if you want to be the ultimate war machine you be a fighter, if you want something else, then be a barbarian, or ranger or paladin or any other full BAB class.
Man, that's so funny. I needed a good laugh today. :D
I'm not exactly sure what your idea of nerfed damage output is though. Martials don't have to even try to deal great damage. If it begins with Power and ends with Attack then it's pretty much covered. Getting an unbuffed AC that high without a shield isn't something you're going to see often. However, the biggest difference is that this Barbarian is also not only insanely resistant to physical damage but even more insanely resistant to spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities (in some cases getting hit with such things actually makes 'er stronger).
It's pretty damn hard to keep your damage output looking good when you're a lawn ornament, buried at the center of the planet, trapped inside a cage of force, turned against your companions, randomly attacking people each round in a manic confusion, enjoying losing every other round or having a -4 to all checks while cursed, paralyzed with fear, turned into a bunny rabbit, having your soul trapped in a gem, turned into a fine layer of ashes, thrown into a pit of acid, etc.
In high level combat martials must be incredibly sturdy and resilient. There is no other option for survival. You cannot kill things fast enough to negate the need for exceptional defenses. At high levels, facing down a small army of fiends is not unusual.
The damage difference from Strength that the barbarian lost is only a difference of 2 points. A total of 8 points if you're power-attacking. Given that said barbarian should by 20th level be swinging for x+26 with a one hander before weapon enhancements or buffs, versus x+34 with a two-hander, I'm entirely fine with being both hard hitting and pressing survival. Especially since - and get this because it's really cool - you can put the shield down and two-hand your weapon when you really need those extra points of damage. Neat huh?
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Not even counting immunities. When you also consider that tripping is about the only practical combat maneuver to use against most enemies (disarm relies on them not relying on natural attacks or SLAs, sunder requires them to use items, tripping requires them to care, bull rushing is usually dumb, grappling is usually worse for you, etc) it's very uninspiring. :\
You never even looked at the fighter build I posted did you?
She has shield slam: two free bull rushes / round.
That means she can reposition and/or knock down two opponents a round without dedicating specific attacks towards combat maneuvers. Being able to dictate where your opponents are standing is not a trivial ability. Being able to put two opponents a round prone while doing damage is even better.
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Not even counting immunities. When you also consider that tripping is about the only practical combat maneuver to use against most enemies (disarm relies on them not relying on natural attacks or SLAs, sunder requires them to use items, tripping requires them to care, bull rushing is usually dumb, grappling is usually worse for you, etc) it's very uninspiring. :\You never even looked at the fighter build I posted did you?
She has shield slam: two free bull rushes / round.
That means she can reposition and/or knock down two opponents a round without dedicating specific attacks towards combat maneuvers. Being able to dictate where your opponents are standing is not a trivial ability. Being able to put two opponents a round prone while doing damage is even better.
You haven't posted any builds here. You just said that your fighter had AC 52 and challenged if a Barbarian could do that. What's funny is I actually agree with your first post in the whole thread.
The fighter is like any other class. It is what you build it for. The problem is, most people try to build just for DPR and ignore everything else.
I just believe that the Fighter has little that contributes to the "everything else" part. Yet I agree with you that DPR is not the end all be all for a well rounded martial. It's one of the reasons I got such a laugh out of ikarinokami's insistence that taking +7 AC over +8 damage was somehow crippling the hypothetical barbarian when I was demonstrating how a barbarian can hit high ACs without really investing a huge amount of their character in it (no more than one rage power and fewer than 1/2 feats). DPR isn't really a huge thing to me.
You might want to check out Spellbooks & Scroll Variant Rules for some fun options in customizing your spellbooks and adding protections. It's a conversion from 3.5, but the numbers have been heavily crunched and nobody's complained about it being unbalanced yet.
I'm playing a wizard->cleric->mystic theurge (not the most optimal but it fits the character) right now in a campaign. Just recently made it to 2nd level (as of last session). I've filled 1/4th of my starting spellbook. I've already got plans to procure additional books for more spells and some books for traveling purposes and backups. Theft is rarely a concern because I do not keep such books in places where they can be stolen (Slight of Hand has its limits, especially upon 3rd level when I'll be able to comfortably booby-trap my spellbook) and at higher levels my main books will be in a scry-proof location.
Thank you Caedwyr. I'll check it out! ^.^
In the meantime, my plan was to booby trap my spellbook as a magical resetting trap. I'll be able to do that at 3rd level, and it will be very painful to anyone who shouldn't be dicking around with my book. :P
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You haven't posted any builds here. You just said that your fighter had AC 52 and challenged if a Barbarian could do that. What's funny is I actually agree with your first post in the whole thread.
My apologies: the build is posted in the other fighter thread at levels 15 and 20.
On the topic of high AC.
This:
2) An offensive bonus is more valuable than a defensive bonus of the same number.
The game favors offense over defense. Attack bonuses increase faster than AC bonuses, and that's intentional so higher-level fights don't become stale (you hit more often at higher levels, and your iteratives are at least somewhat viable). So if you take away a class ability that gives +X to AC or saving throws and replace it with an ability that gives +X to attack rolls or DCs, that is a powerup.
Perhaps a fighter can get higher AC than a Barbarian, but silly high AC really doesn't matter.
If coming out of a Rage will kill you, then you were already dead (because it means that without raging you're already below 0 HP and dying and/ore getting finished off).
But being dying is not the same thing as being dead, and I prefer the former over the latter. A raging Barbarian of level 3 or more that drops below 0hp is probably dead, not dying. I guess it depends on how the GM is playing the bad guys. Are they going to coup-de-grace you as soon as you drop below 0hp or are they going to focus on a new target as soon as you're not a threat anymore? Trying to heal a dying character in the middle of a battle is not very effective until you get heal: then performing coup-de-grace on fallen opponents becomes a viable tactic.
At my table there is always someone playing a fighter or fighter archetype. I've never seen another class out damage the fighter if the fighter is striving to max out damage. Of course I'm assuming a 15 pt buy here. Rangers and Paladins shoot past the fighter really quick the higher the stats are. In 15 point buy I'd go fighter in 25 pt I'd go Ranger.
