Well they have no issues so their is nothing to discuss.said post #2899 in yet another fighters thread, clearly no issues here.
Exactly. If there was a problem, it wouldn't take 3000+ post to find.
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Problems were found long ago.
Problem is drilling simple concepts into some people's adamantine plated skulls.
It is a shame your puny spells can't penetrate this hardness. If only there was some sort of weapon that would cut through such a skull.
Oh wait there is! Too bad your janitor martials are on strike and won't help you.
Is this thread coming back to life? For a while it was dead . . .
What remaining problems of the Fighter are there left that we haven't come up with solutions to? People talked of more skill points and more skills, borrowing the gunslinger's "deeds" ability into a "Drive" ability for the Fighter ( with a few changes ), and accelerated natural healing for a Fighter. What's left?
The fact that they have no problems!
I'll jump in. I think "narrative power" is the real weakness of fighters, and they'd be much better if they could choose from a wider variety of things to be or do. I just played a synthesist summoner, and I loved the ability to switch "types."
On any given turn, a sorcerer can pick between way more options than a fighter can. So I don't see why there's not a fighter archetype focused around quick draw, and quickly changing among weapons. Perhaps something like experimental fighters who are proficient weapons with no weapons, except the three they've trained with for that day. So instead of picking spells the way a wizard does, the fighter picks weapons.
Or give fighters the 'well prepared' special ability, where they pack their gear in such a way that they have three items which can be "quick drawn" as a free action. The rest are packed as normal.
Oh, wow! I made it! I actually made it through this entire thread! Go me!
(sorry for the necro)
So, yeah, I am in the process of making a fighter fix (discussion thread here). You folks might find it interesting. It gives the fighter an actual class feature (versatility, the ability to double up on fighter bonus feats, but only have half of them available at any moment) available from level 1, gives him a new strong save, 4+Int skill points, and as class skills he gets heal as default, and a choice of two more from a pool of pairs, with each skill appearing in at least two options. I also gave him an ability to power through some disabling conditions.
Now, while all this may seem extreme to some of you, bear in mind that the (in combat) abilities I included in the fighter fix only bring the fighter almost up to the paladin's standard of combat staying power, and give him the limited flexibility to adapt to a situation via feat set swapping. The chief differences between the paladin and fighter now is that the pally has a slight edge in survivability thanks to self-heals, buff spells, and condition removal, while the fighter has an equally small advantage in damage dealing and switch-hitting. Out of combat, the fighter still has no special "thing" that he does, but he can actually go the mundane route now and use skills where applicable.
Now, to comment on some of the ideas recently mentioned...
* Changing skills to modifier amount per level: There are no Con skills. There are only a few Dex skills. There is a grand total of two Str skills. 4+int is a far more elegant solution to the problem.
* Giving him his level or 1/2 level as bonus to certain skills: This might be a solution, but I dislike it as being "archetype limiting". The selection of skills is also very small. Might work for others.
* Fixing the feats will fix the fighter: No, it will not. I know this because, right now, I am in the middle of a feat rework. As long as combat feats stay "you get to do more damage" and not go into "you get to penetrate magic barriers and mentally dominate denizens of the lower planes", they will not fix the martial in relation to the caster. And all martials suffer from the feats being what they are. However, feats really do need some help.
* All feats should be twice as good for a fighter: I really, really dislike the idea of "this option is available to all classes, but this one class is supergood with it, so you're something of a dunce if you take it and you're not that class". Unless it's something minor and generic, like +1 HP and skill point per each feat, in which case I wonder what the point is...
* Giving the fighter a resource for extra goodness will help: Maybe. However, I, personally, like the idea of a "with an IV line of CLW, I can go all night long" fighter. But I don't see it as an entirely unworkable idea.
* The fighter needs world-defining narrative power: HOLY CAN OF WORMS, BATMAN! This, in and of itself, is enough to open up an entire 20+ page thread. Right now, I'll just point out that casters have the *option*, but not the *default class feature* of world-defining narrative power, and this thing really is campaign-specific.
Yesss...but those options must be specifically skirted around and ignored to never come into play.
If you're a caster who doesn't take Fly or Teleport or the like, you are a caster who either somehow doesn't know they exist, or has decided not to take them to nerf yourself.
An option (which is still better than not having an option, by the way) that is pretty much a given isn't a real option.
I think this is mostly down to how you write adventures. A fighter starts the day at peak kickassitude. When he goes to bed he's still at peak kickassitude. He's always a peak kickassitude. Fighters and Rogues are the only classes that can fight for 48 hours straight without losing most of their combat efficiency. They don't need any magic critter buddies, they don't need prep time, they don't need cumbersome spell books (that are actually major limitations on Wizards, but which most adventures completely ignore). They don't need instruments. They don't need tongues. They don't need anything, really. If they have their gear then the fighter will sword you to death and the rogue will pump sneak attack arrows into you until you die. If they don't have their gear then one or the other will brain you with a rock.
And if your entire game consists of a series of mindless fights, one after another after another, and you hand out free infinite healing, then fighters will have no problems! But the thing is, many people's games aren't like that from median to upper levels -- there are story goals and such, like "stop the evil witch-queen from taking over the world," which can be solved far more easily and more efficiently using other tools. Yeah, there might be a fight now and then, but the focus is elsewhere -- into areas in which fighters are useless.
Note that this isn't the case in fiction and literature. By end of the first book of the Barsoom novels, John Carter commands the most powerful navy in the world. By the end of book 3, he controls the entrire military apparatus of essentially every nation on the planet. This enables him to exert his will beyond merely the length of his sword or the range of his gun. He has narrative power, which fighters in the game are no longer given. (In 1st edition, when your fighter hit 9th level, you got an entire army as a class feature!)
I think this is mostly down to how you write adventures. A fighter starts the day at peak kickassitude. When he goes to bed he's still at peak kickassitude. He's always a peak kickassitude. Fighters and Rogues are the only classes that can fight for 48 hours straight without losing most of their combat efficiency. They don't need any magic critter buddies, they don't need prep time, they don't need cumbersome spell books (that are actually major limitations on Wizards, but which most adventures completely ignore). They don't need instruments. They don't need tongues. They don't need anything, really. If they have their gear then the fighter will sword you to death and the rogue will pump sneak attack arrows into you until you die. If they don't have their gear then one or the other will brain you with a rock.
Wizards are great if you're battling a dragon, or devils, or whatever random magic bugbear of the week your DM dug out of the back of the manual. When you're fighting 600 level 1 fighters on horseback, though, your wizard is utterly useless. Totally, utterly useless. Against magic threats the casters are great. Against mundane threats? Not so much. They don't have the endurance to fight pitched battles. After sixteen hours of fighting a wizard is just a dagger and some cantrips, huddled in a corner wearing armor he's not proficient with rocking gently and trying to ignore the screaming. The fighter, through the simple expedient of a wand of cure light wounds, is still happily making orphans atop a rather substantial pile of the dead.
Musashi was a fighter. Beowulf was a fighter. Ajax was a fighter. Hercules was a fighter. Rustam was a fighter. Gilgamesh was a figher. Zhang Fei, Zhuge Liang, and Guan Yu are all fighters. Roland was a fighter (Paladin in name only!) Arthur was a fighter. Conan was a fighter. Little John, Friar Tuck, Gui de Guisborne, and the Sheriff of Nottingham were fighters. The vast majority of the guys in all of the Sagas were fighters. Thor, for all that he was a god, was a...
Well that is because the stories FORCED them to become the best... But in D&D fighters are weak... Even in a battle against 600 lvl 1 fighters, any wizard of level 7 or higher could take them out. A single fireball could wipe out a large portion of them. And heck, the wizard does not even NEED to kill them. Sleep, Cause Fear, and Battlefield Control spells could decimate the army. A fighter would most assuredly die. Why? Because, statistically speaking, 1/20 will hit. With 600 people, that is 30 hits. And that is assuming every person only gets a single swing. If each of them are wielding a longsword (generally seen as a "basic" weapon) with a 14 str (not that uncommon for a basic NPC fighter) that is an average of 5.5 damage. With 30 hits that is 165 damage. With a FIghter of level 7 with a 14 con that is 52.5 HP. And that is not including the possibility of crit hits. Additionally, the fighter has to get within melee range for him to do anything (unless he is an archer build), whereas the wizard can hit stop them before they can even become a threat(CC spells do wonders). The fighter's biggest niche is actually against a single really big enemy. Why? because an optimized fighter can take down a balor in a single full attack.
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I think this is mostly down to how you write adventures. A fighter starts the day at peak kickassitude. When he goes to bed he's still at peak kickassitude. He's always a peak kickassitude.
Which is all well and good, but that peak isn't very high compared to the peaks of other classes, and isn't an overwhelming difference over their valleys either.
Fighters and Rogues are the only classes that can fight for 48 hours straight without losing most of their combat efficiency.
Technically true, but a class that can be at 120% most of the day and falls back to 90% when he runs out is better than a class who's at 100% all the time.
They don't need anything, really. If they have their gear then the fighter will sword you to death and the rogue will pump sneak attack arrows into you until you die.
And a Barbarian will sword you to death as well. As will a Ranger or Paladin. And they have the potential to sword MUCH harder than the Fighter.
Ranged Sneak Attack is a joke if the game is following the rules. I don't really need to elaborate on this one.
If they don't have their gear then one or the other will brain you with a rock.
Ah, yes, the 3/4 BaB class taking that -4 for using an imporvised weapon is so scary.
The Fighter could maybe pull it off, but again...so can a Barbarian, Ranger, or Paladin. What's your point?
Wizards are great if you're battling a dragon, or devils, or whatever random magic bugbear of the week your DM dug out of the back of the manual. When you're fighting 600 level 1 fighters on horseback, though, your wizard is utterly useless. Totally, utterly useless.
Level 10 Fighter vs 600 Level 1 Fighters: Kills 2-4 Fighters per round (iterative attacks and OHKOs)
Level 10 Wizard vs 600 Level 1 Fighters: Kills ~24 Fighters per round (Fireball).
Yep. Totally useless. This is ignoring other, better options for teh Wizard as well.
Against magic threats the casters are great. Against mundane threats? Not so much. They don't have the endurance to fight pitched battles. After sixteen hours of fighting a wizard is just a dagger and some cantrips, huddled in a corner wearing armor he's not proficient with rocking gently and trying to ignore the screaming. The fighter, through the simple expedient of a wand of cure light wounds, is still happily making orphans atop a rather substantial pile of the dead.
Suuuuuure he is.
Or, more likely, he's buried under a pile of bodies on the battlefield somewhere because sheer force of numbers even from CR 1/2 enemies is enough to take down any character you'd care to imagine.
...Beowulf was a fighter...Hercules was a fighter... Gilgamesh was a figher....Conan was a fighter... Thor, for all that he was a god, was a fighter...John Carter of Mars was a fighter...Guts was a fighter.
Rrrriiiight, sure they were.
That was why their main schticks all involved things a Fighter cannot do.
Beowulf, Hercules, Conan (debatable, but since Barbarian is in his name...), John Carter, and Guts were all clearly Barbarians. Because the Fighter has no access to a lot of the Feats they can pull off. Rage Powers cover many of them, or provide a closer approximation than anything else non-Mythic.
Thor defies classification, mostly, but he's not a Fighter. Fighters don't fly or shoot lightning bolts under their own power.
Musashi's a Samurai.
You get the idea.
Meanwhile, look at your list of actual fighters. Many of those are side characters, like Little John or Boromir, not the actual protagonists of the story. And that's for a reason. It's because they are less interesting to see in action, due to their lack of interesting abilities granted by class features (in game terms).
While Robin Hood or Legolas are pulling off trick shots with arrows, flipping off enemies and performing great Feats of daring, Little John is thwapping people on the head with a quarterstaff, and Boromir is getting pumped full of arrows and dying.
The narrative hasn't shifted. The plain old Fighter, the guy who fights, has always been relegated to the side character position, while the more interesting martial classes, and the magical fellows take center stage. This is for a reason.
The guy who fights does not make an interesting protagonist. The guy who fights and does interesting things makes an interesting protagonist.
The problem is, the Fighter does not have interesting things.
The Ranger has an Animal Companion, and an almost supernatural level of skills when fighting certain foes, and minor magic, woodcraft, herbaism, etc. He makes for a fun protagonist to watch for the variety of abilities in and out of combat.
The Barbarian channels the rage of a beast and harnesses it to his will, using it to perform feats impossible to mortal men (like wrestling an unholy monster and ripping its arms off with his bare hands). He's fun to watch for the sheer brutality and testosterone fueled rampages.
The Paladin acts as a vessel for the wrath of the gods in the mortal plane, calling down their power to Smite the forces of evil and destroy them, no matter the cost. He's immune to fear and corruption, unnaturally good against evil demons, dragons, and undead, can call an angelic spirit to infuse his weapon with light and wield holy power in the name of the Lord(s). He's interesting to watch for the variety of abilities and sheer unwavering nature of his dedication to stopping evil.
The Fighter swings a sword. He swings a sword well, but that's about all he does. He doesn't have any super-human prowess at swinging a sword, he's just skilled. And the problem with that, is that this is not interesting to watch. ALL of the interesting things about the Fighter are the personality the player gives him. Which isn't a factor in this discussion because he can give that same personality to any other class and have it be interesting.
Of course, none of that REALLY matters, since giving an interesting personality to something make sthat a moot point. You don't NEED a built-in flavor.
However, the important part here is the GAME BALANCE. Fighters are uninteresting narratively because they are uninteresting mechanically because they are uninteresting narratively (they weren't given much because in literature they don't ever have much).
All the goodies went to other classes. That's an issue. The class is crippled outside of combat, and besides the sheer amount of damage they can put out, they are pitiful in combat too. Poor saves, few options, "helpful" Feat chains, you name it.
That's what this thread was about, by the by.
Fighters are uninteresting narratively because they are uninteresting mechanically because they are uninteresting narratively (they weren't given much because in literature they don't ever have much).
Minor quibble, insofar as the fighter class was arguibaly specifically modeled after John Carter. Pursuing that:
Note that this isn't the case in fiction and literature. By end of the first book of the Barsoom novels, John Carter commands the most powerful navy in the world. By the end of book 3, he controls the entire military apparatus of essentially every nation on the planet. This enables him to exert his will beyond merely the length of his sword or the range of his gun. He has narrative power, which fighters in the game are no longer given. (In 1st edition, when your fighter hit 9th level, you got an entire army as a class feature!)
In other words, fighters used to be able to do other stuff; they used to be the guys who got infinite troops and noble titles as a class feature, so the fighter's player was controlling disproportionately large portions of the game world. (As a wizard, you could at best pull an apprentice or two closeted in a tower somewhere, and you had to be higher level to do it.) Sadly, 3.0 revisited fighters as "guys who do nothing special." And almost every iteration of 3.X, barring the Tomes and some other homebrew rules, have reinforced that.
there are story goals and such, like "stop the evil witch-queen from taking over the world," which can be solved far more easily and more efficiently using other tools.
Why must the problem be solved easily or efficiently? The most interesting stories are precicely when things are not efficient or quick.
Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Heracles, Arthur...great fantasy stories with fighters at their core are replete with winning the day in extremely inefficient (and entertaining) fashion.
Note that this isn't the case in fiction and literature. By end of the first book of the Barsoom novels, John Carter commands the most powerful navy in the world. By the end of book 3, he controls the entrire military apparatus of essentially every nation on the planet. This enables him to exert his will beyond merely the length of his sword or the range of his gun.
And it is completely within the power of the DM and player to do the same thing with a fighter character. In fact it is completely within idiom for the fighter to do this.
Why must the problem be solved easily or efficiently? The most interesting stories are precicely when things are not efficient or quick.
That's fine, but "solve everything by mindlessly slogging through fight after fight after fight" is, to my mind, even less interesting. YMMV.
And it is completely within the power of the DM and player to do the same thing with a fighter character. In fact it is completely within idiom for the fighter to do this.
The thing to understand is that DM fiat =/= RAW. The DM can just as easily (and logically) make the wizard the king of the world and have everyone think of the fighter as a stableboy. The 3.X game rules themselves offer no particular support to the fighter over anyone else, in that regard -- and in fact offer better support to the casters, who can get human followers with Leadership AND get undead and/or outsider followers with spells.
Zhuge Liang is a fighter?
Zhuge Liang (181–234), style name Kongming, was a chancellor of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period. Zhuge Liang was not only an important military strategist and statesman; he was also an accomplished scholar and inventor. His reputation as an intelligent and learned scholar grew even while he was living in relative seclusion
Not sure fighters get the skill points for all that...
Gilgamesh, Heracles...
Wait, "You are a demigod, with divine ranks" is a class feature for fighters? Cool!
Why must the problem be solved easily or efficiently? The most interesting stories are precicely when things are not efficient or quick.That's fine, but "solve everything by mindlessly slogging through fight after fight after fight" is, to my mind, even less interesting. YMMV.
I never said anything about 'fight after fight'. Look at Odysseus. He used guile, leadership, imagination, and courage as much or more than fighting to accomplish his adventure.
The thing to understand is that DM fiat =/= RAW. The DM can just as easily (and logically) make the wizard the king of the world and have everyone think of the fighter as a stableboy. The 3.X game rules themselves offer no particular support to the fighter over anyone else, in that regard -- and in fact offer better support to the casters, who can get human followers with Leadership AND get undead and/or outsider followers with spells.
I think it is fair to assume that you are playing the game with other humans who all want the adventure to be fun for everyone. If not...find another group. If so, then the DM is working to make things fun for everyone.
The entire campaign is DM fiat, unless it is (as you already disparaged) just a string of CR equivalent "fight after fight". There will be NPCs who react according to DM fiat, story elements that happen because DM fiat, and threats that arise in the world due to DM fiat.
If you have a DM then the fiat is on the table, like it or no.
So unless your DM fiats that every character must be optimized to be as cosmically powerful as every other player - then the fighter will have a solid place at the table at all levels.
John Carter is the epitome of a swashbuckler ranger. Conan the Barbarian is a feat ranger with FE: Humans and Animals, maybe one level of Barb.
Beowulf was a Barbarian, yeah, I'll give you that.
Gilgamesh and Hercules were demigods. The problem with them in literature is their supernatural strength and occasional rages are now taken for a berserker state, when that was a phenomenon basically associated with northern Europeans. As members of civilized societies, they were classic fighters with incredible power.
Guts is a fighter who happens to be incredibly strong. He's not a berserker. Being able to get pissed does not mean you're a barbarian unless you really, really want to reskin stuff. I just call getting pissed 'power attack'.
Arthur and his knights were 1E fighters and paladins. No smiting back then! They were even statted up, don't argue it!
Robin Hood is more fighter then ranger, it could be argued all the Merry Men have a level or two of ranger, but he's obviously the apex of a weapon expert. He's just got a swashbuckling lifestyle attached to him.
Most of your modern anime heroes would be fighters, having few skills outside combat, but night invincible within it. They just have access to powers our historical fighters don't have.
Cuchulain was probably your very best example of a Barbarian translated into today's game. His berserker state was clearly magical and powerful.
==Aelryinth
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The fighter again *scratches Head* well there has been multiple attempts at fixing them, so just pick one. Anyway, I think Paizos gets it by now, but the problem is what direction to take the class. Also, should they wait until Pathfinder 2e or just release a alternative fighter in a upcoming source book. Hey come to think of it, the UCG would have been the perfect place to release an alternative fighter class, shame it wasn't mentioned, it must not be in the works yet. Best of luck, you crazy fighter people.
Oh, maybe I should release my own fighter fix, so everyone can tell me how terrible it is. LOL, I'm kidding.
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So unless your DM fiats that every character must be optimized to be as cosmically powerful as every other player - then the fighter will have a solid place at the table at all levels.
OK, if the rules don't matter -- "the DM's job is to fix everything!" -- then why do we have dice, classes, set class features, and so on? That's a serious question. I grew up with what you're describing, but found recently that if the rules are more or less well-balanced, the DM can take more of a referee role and less of a storyteller one, and really let the players' creativity come out: they know what they can do, and know they're not relying on a game of "mother-may-I" for a lot of it, so they're free to come up with any kind of outrageous uses for it. That sort of a game is more fun for me, and for my players, because it frees me up to focus my efforts on making fun scenarios, rather than worrying about making sure the fighter doesn't get bored all the time.
Put more simply, I (and many others) would rather not have to work in direct opposition to the rules, in order to make the rules work. If that's the case, it's easier to abandon the rules altogether and play Magical Tea Party. But if we're going to play in a game with rules, we prefer for the DM to be able to work with the rules, not against them. Again, YMMV, but this is sort of important:
If the rules are well-balanced, you can still play Magical Tea Party. If they're not, you can't have a DM-as-referee. It's not a zero-sum thing.
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Changing skills to modifier amount per level: There are no Con skills. There are only a few Dex skills. There is a grand total of two Str skills. 4+int is a far more elegant solution to the problem.
* Giving him his level or 1/2 level as bonus to certain skills: This might be a solution, but I dislike it as being "archetype limiting". The selection of skills is also very small. Might work for others.
* Fixing the feats will fix the fighter: No, it will not. I know this because, right now, I am in the middle of a feat rework. As long as combat feats stay "you get to do more damage" and not go into "you get to penetrate magic barriers and mentally dominate denizens of the lower planes", they will not fix the martial in relation to the caster. And all martials suffer from the feats being what they are. However, feats really do need some help.
* All feats should be twice as good for a fighter: I really, really dislike the idea of "this option is available to all classes, but this one class is supergood with it, so you're something of a dunce if you take it and you're not that class". Unless it's something minor and generic, like +1 HP and skill point per each feat, in which case I wonder what the point is...
* Giving the fighter a resource for extra goodness will help: Maybe. However, I, personally, like the idea of a "with an IV line of CLW, I can go all night long" fighter. But I don't see it as an entirely unworkable idea.
* The fighter needs world-defining narrative power: HOLY CAN OF WORMS, BATMAN! This, in and of itself, is enough to open up an entire 20+ page thread. Right now, I'll just point out that casters have the *option*, but not the *default class feature* of world-defining narrative power, and this thing really is campaign-specific.
Skill Changing: I personally believe changing the skills is more a Rogue fix, but the Bard is now the game's skill monkey.
Bonus to Skills: I see Skill Awesomeness as a Rogue thing. A Fighter, if he wants to be awesome at a skill, should do it with feats.
Fixing Feats: It won't fix the fighter, but it would go a long way towards it.
Unfortunately, the sheer amount of work to be done is daunting. Look at D&D NExt, and what they did with feats...feats are awesome, and having more of them is even more awesome.
In PF and 3E, Feats are half a class ability. Having more half strength class abilities as class features = The Suck.
Feats are Better for the Fighter: Arguing against this is like arguing that spells should NOT be better for Clerics then Paladins (they are...they get them sooner and have a higher caster level), for Druids then Rangers, and for Wizards then Bards.
I hereby propose that in your world all characters get full caster level with any spell they know, and can take spells as feats at the appropriate levels! That would be exactly equitable then.
Extra Resources: That resource should be more Feats, targeted to increase his possibilities. Oh, and class abilities that mean something.
Narrative Power: Yeah, this has Feat chain: Command written all over it. Without some narrative power, the fighter is always the supporting character.
YOu left out one more possibility: Non-Magical can be ANTI-magical. Right now, the idea is that no magic = The SUck. Without both defenses and offenses specifically made to address and take down magic, fighters will always suck. There's a reason why fighters in anime can cut through magic, deflect magical attacks, and resist magical assaults, and it's so they don't suck against magic.
Instead, we have casters getting progressively better and better against non-casters, with no recourse for the non-casters. The closest you get is a Barb with Superstition and the ability to rage cleave spells...something every fighter should be scraping to get.
==Aelryinth
Guts has an artifact that gives him the rage class feature.
I still have problems with kirth´s "army" for fighters.
To be honest, I've got problems with it, too -- but in the 40+/- years of the game's history, no one has come up with anything better yet.
Guts is a fighter with outstanding physical stats and higher than average mental stats. I'd love to make the character sheet of Guts, Regarding Feats I'd say that he has Iron Will, Improved Iron Will, Power Attack, Monkey Grip, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Humongous Sword) and the anti-magic tree (i.e. Disruptive and the others).
About Conan, I'd say he's a multiclassed Barbarian/Rogue. Most people forget about the Rogue part only because he's not the sterotypical thief.
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I still have problems with kirth´s "army" for fighters.To be honest, I've got problems with it, too -- but in the 40+/- years of the game's history, no one has come up with anything better yet.
Something as simple as an ability called "Renown" that gives a fighter a bonus to Diplomacy, Intimidate, and his leadership score for the Leadership feat is enough to give him 10x more narrative power than he had before.
I'm not sure if giving a fighter an army mechanically is the best fix, but giving them an army narratively is the direction that we need to be heading. If a mechanic helps accomplish that, then I am all for it. Being a fighter should mean something to the world. It should demand a certain level of respect or disdain, in the same way that a powerful wizard is to be feared and respected.
The main problem with fighters is that they have no narrative power. Nothing mechanically gives them narrative power. Even the name "Fighter" carries little-to-no narrative heritage or weight. Barbarians are primal fighters, Cavaliers are tactical and charismatic fighters, Rangers are skilled and natural/innate fighters, Paladins/Anti-Paladins are zealous and devout fighters, Clerics (battle) are pious and devout fighters, Rogues are cunning or shifty fighters, Magi are arcane spell-blade fighters, Samurai are honorable and stalwart fighters, Gunslingers are daring fighters. Are we seeing a pattern? All of these classes have a preconceived image just by their name alone, and they all have the ability to "fight".
If I weren't currently in a meeting, I'd probably expand on this more, but hopefully I've said enough to get my point across.
That would be a race, how about you think before you get sarcastic kay?
That was exactly my point. Say I have a balor fighter 1, and then I say "My fighter has a vorpal sword and can wreath himself in flames and cast implosion! Fighters are AWESOME!" I'm either dishonest or confused, because all the awesome things I'm listing are exactly because he's a balor, and not at all because he's a fighter.
Likewise, Gilgamesh is described as "2/3 divine, 1/3 mortal," and in several parts of his quest he's able to cope solely because of his divine heritage. Herakles is able to phenomenal things like holding up the sky -- not because he's a fighter, but because he's a demigod with a Str score that's off the charts. Using them as evidence that fighters are awesome is off even if we don't consider the game rules. When we look at the rules, too, and see how little fighters are actually able to do by virtue of being fighters -- i.e., as class features -- the disparity is even bigger.
Why can't people just take one or two of the dozens of feats that a fighter gets and give them "narrative"? that is what they are for in fact?
None of them give him the kind of game-changing control over the ongoing story as the casters' spells. "Narrative power" isn't about role-playing; it's about being able to influence the story in a DM-like manner. Casters can remove the whole party to another plane mid-dungeon, heal everyone, and then transport you across the world to attack the bad guy there while he thinks you're still stuck in the dungeon. From mid-level, and especially at upper levels, they can wrench the whole storyline off the railroad and write their own script. That's their primary class feature!
There is no feat, other than Leadership (which is open to everyone) that gives the fighter that kind of ability to influence events outside of his immediate surroundings. Use Magic Device means you're spending your weapon and armor money on devices in a desperate attempt to at least get one or two of the tricks the casters get for free, and you're still not very good at it.
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most of the tasks that Hercules were won through use of his brain and not his "class" abilitys.
Fighters, essentially, have no class abilities except "hit it with a stick." That's the rub. Oh, and they get extra feats, which allows them to grab some minor bonuses to dice rolls. None of them (with the exceptions listed above, which are open to everyone) gives them any influence past the length of their reach or weapon range.
That would be a race, how about you think before you get sarcastic kay?That was exactly my point. Say I have a balor fighter 1, and then I say "My fighter has a vorpal sword and can wreath himself in flames and cast implosion! Fighters are AWESOME!" I'm either dishonest or confused, because all the awesome things I'm listing are exactly because he's a balor, and not at all because he's a fighter.
Likewise, Gilgamesh is described as "2/3 divine, 1/3 mortal," and in several parts of his quest he's able to cope solely because of his divine heritage. Herakles is able to phenomenal things like holding up the sky -- not because he's a fighter, but because he's a demigod with a Str score that's off the charts. Using them as evidence that fighters are awesome is off even if we don't consider the game rules. When we look at the rules, too, and see how little fighters are actually able to do by virtue of being fighters -- i.e., as class features -- the disparity is even bigger.
This is a classic case of internet argumentation where one ignores the forest because they don't like the look of one tree.
Odysseus was an example that seems to have been forgotten - because it makes my point well. He was not divine in any way. He was just a man. He was a fighter. Beowulf as well. The particulars are not the point.
The point I was making is that the best stories through history have been those where the hero did not follow the most efficient path to victory, but ended up with a terrific story and adventure. Had the story been "wizard sees the problem, casts spell, fixes problem" the story would not be as compelling and would not have the same impact.
Thus stating that a fighter can solve a problem, but not as efficiently as another class, isn't a strong argument against the fighter class.
All the nitpicking about divine heritage is irrelevant to this.
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By your argument, Commoners are just as powerful as wizards and clerics. Because I can point to stories where a clever commoner gets to play in an amazing adventure. None of that has any bearing on the adequacy of class design in the game rules.
PF has plenty of roleplaying, but it also has all kinds of rules for tactical gaming, including guidelines on encounter construction and so on. If you ignore all the stuff other than the roleplaying, you're talking about Story Hour and not discussing the rules of the game.
By your argument, Commoners are just as powerful as wizards and clerics. Because I can point to stories where a clever commoner gets to play in an amazing adventure. None of that has any bearing on the adequacy of class design in the game rules.
I wasn't making a point about which class is more powerful than any other. I stated my point clearly several times and still it seems to be missed.
My point was:
Completing a task efficiently and/or quickly is not a measure of the best way to have an adventure.
Thus claiming that a fighter is a lesser class because it can solve the same problems, only less efficiently is not an argument against using that class in a campaign.
That's it.
There may be many other valid and compelling arguments in favor of altering the power level of the fighter. I'm simply saying that efficiency isn't one of them.
It is really hard to make an odysseus kind of fighter in PF. For some reason fighter have incredibl low kill points couple with a "meh" skill list, and beyodn that they do not have any class abilities for out of combat thing, not they haveany synergy with the mental stats.
Odysseus was an example that seems to have been forgotten - because it makes my point well. He was not divine in any way. He was just a man. He was a fighter
You don't need skills to have a clever idea. There is no "out of the box" skill in the RAW. That's all on the player, not the character sheet.
I've had players come up with amazing schemes that resulted in a victory when it seemed defeat was all but inevitable.
When you look at the adventures of Odysseus it is quick wits and imagination that see him through to victory as often as not.
It is really hard to make an odysseus kind of fighter in PF. For some reason fighter have incredibl low kill points couple with a "meh" skill list, and beyodn that they do not have any class abilities for out of combat thing, not they haveany synergy with the mental stats.
Odysseus was an example that seems to have been forgotten - because it makes my point well. He was not divine in any way. He was just a man. He was a fighterYou don't need skills to have a clever idea. There is no "out of the box" skill in the RAW. That's all on the player, not the character sheet.
I've had players come up with amazing schemes that resulted in a victory when it seemed defeat was all but inevitable.
When you look at the adventures of Odysseus it is quick wits and imagination that see him through to victory as often as not.
And you can do that with every class. But when you need to know something about history you need to make a skill check, you need to know something about a dungeon delving mosnter then a skill check, ou need to convince someone to do something then diplomacy check. You want to intimidate someone, another skill check, you want to climb, swim to be goot at hiding? then you need skills.
When the DM say roll "x", then there is no clever idea that make the check for you.
I have no problem with fighter combat prowess, (well, maybe with his saves) but in the end of the day (almost) all calsses fight and the fighter is not particulary impresive. I mean, they are good what they do, the same as a barbarian, a ranger or a paladin, except that those other classes have mroe out of combat impact that the fighter, why?
Does, the fighter is overall better at fighting that babaria,paladins or rangers? no. Then why he have to be inferion in the other aspect of the game?.
This is all subjective. Barbarians might be the only class that you can universally consider better than the fighter, and that class is the main reason why everyone wants changes for the fighter.
d12 hit die, 4+INT skills, Speed Boost, RageIf the barbarian had these two statistics match the fighter, this thread may never have happened.
Weapon Training mitigates the extra damage from rage, and is always on, The ability to move at full speed in heavy armor, have higher DEX, and lower the ACP is often overlooked not because the ability doesn't matter, but because other classes have ways of getting around this by throwing money at the problem with it. I think it's a big deal that the fighter can rock heavy armor as if it was some crazy lighter than mithral material, flip around in it, and still gat all the AC he needs from it without having to spend more money than a lvl 3 guy did on his first set of fullplate. My fighter can rock Adamantine full plate, and still move around like it's no one's business.
What skills do you want from the fighter? Figure out who he is before you start demanding more skills for him.
"WE WANT THE FIGHTER TO DO MORE STUFF!!!"
"what do you want?"
"WE DON'T KNOW!!! BUT WE WANT IT!!!!"
To reiterate, because the thread has gone places that I feel is besides the point; My main problems with fighters is as follows...
1) Fighters have very limited ability beyond combat, and their ability to affect combat diminishes greatly at double digit levels when enemies get more complex and powerful. 2 more skill points would go a long way in giving some out of combat utility as would a class feature that gave the fighter something representing some level of physical cleverness, ingenuity or some face skills.
2) Feats have so many problems that the ton of bonus feats are bad class features or require three to make one class feature.
3) Weapon and Armor training are great abilities... That are the most boring abilities that I could ever imagine.
4) Bravery might as well be a joke. It seems like a bandaid when the real solution was to give the fighter a good will save. The fact that feats can't fully bandage this up makes point 2 and 4 even sadder.
That said;
a) Through 3rd party material I have no real problems at this point. Fighters in my games are fine.
b) I'm not going to compare the fighter to other melee classes because most of them have their own problems.
c) I do agree that DM behavior influences the usefulness or the fighter. I run games where blowing spells too quickly is deadly and lacking melee beatsticks means the game is ten times harder.
d) But that doesn't make being only a melee beatstick less boring in my games leaving tanks twiddling their thumbs for entire sessions while the skill monkeys and casters have a lot to do and thus dictate the pace and plot. I've had at least three instances where this has caused out of character frustration and aggression between players. Plot influence is a big deal.
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The problem people find is that the Vanilla fighter isn't the Vanilla fighter, which is what we want it to be. We can customize his combat style, yes, but his skill selection= big dumb fighter. His has be shoe-horned into this soldier theme with no way of really being a hero. Want to be a terror on the field plowing through enemies? Barbarian has the theme better. Rugged loner tends towards ranger. Holy warrior is paladin or inquisitor. With such a limited selection the fighter becomes very one-dimensional, and not all that versatile.
My barbarian can swing a stick AND blow up walls of force. My fighter can swing a stick. In a game where the PCs are mighty and unique heroes, the fighter... doesn't have any heroic class features. They can't do anything mighty that makes the story cool. Heck a lot of the time a fighter can't jump over a fence, since acrobatics isn't a class skill, and it's dex based to boot.
The problem people find is that the Vanilla fighter isn't the Vanilla fighter, which is what we want it to be. We can customize his combat style, yes, but his skill selection= big dumb fighter. His has be shoe-horned into this soldier theme with no way of really being a hero. Want to be a terror on the field plowing through enemies? Barbarian has the theme better. Rugged loner tends towards ranger. Holy warrior is paladin or inquisitor. With such a limited selection the fighter becomes very one-dimensional, and not all that versatile.
My barbarian can swing a stick AND blow up walls of force. My fighter can swing a stick. In a game where the PCs are mighty and unique heroes, the fighter... doesn't have any heroic class features. They can't do anything mighty that makes the story cool.
I can agree with that. When building a fighter and planning out my feat selection I found that being good at combat ate up more than my combat feats with barely any room left for interesting over powerful feats. Fighter is pretty narrow despite being the biggest list of selectable abilities (combat feats)
For example, say I wanted to be the archetypical blacksmith's son who gets in way over his head and drafted into a hero's quest. What class do I use? Instinctively I'd choose fighter but even while being sub-optimal I don't even have enough school points to reflect this character. At best his knowledge of arms and armor would be reflected in Weapon and Armor Training but do I have enough ranks to throw into craft or profession? Even then the fact that I won't be crafting anything worthwhile because I have no caster levels makes wasting those ranks unappealing. Not to mention the uselessness of having ranks in profession blacksmith. I could blow a bunch of feats to make an okay crafter and be stuck as a fighter that cant fight just to cover a job that a caster can do with less effort.
Most times I start writing up a fighter I wind up doing another class that is pretty much the same thing only it does more things and about as good at fighting.