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What a morphing magic weapon that just so happens to be the one you need for your feats/weapon training. Must have missed it.You're assuming Schrodinger's weapon.@Rynjin - And for 15000 the fighter can get a +4 against every enemy over a Ranger with one weapon and a +3 against them with another weapon.
Not just for 3 of some 21 possible enemies.
And that isn't counting +2 damage from weapon specialization or +1 from greater weapon focus...
Aside from maybe the TWF builds thanks to the Ranger not needing the Dex, it really isn't close. And even then I suspect it isn't all that close.
You mean the thing that exists in literally every published adventure, ever...
But keep it up, this line of argument is sure convincing...
Actually, for 10,000gp I could get that done. But since I can re-train I might not bother.
My biggest complaint is that everyone has a problem that the Fighter is true to his name. Now if the class was called the Guy-Can-Fight-Pretty-Well-But-Also-Has-A-Charming-Personality I would be annoyed that he doesn't have enough skills to support diplomacy. The fighter is a great Class for the rough kick in the door style of combat focused game play(which is mentioned in the CRB). The fighter is about DPR.
Wait, you want him to be horrible? Why? Why can't he fight really well and do other things on the side? I mean, I get the name is fighter, but wouldn't it be useful in a game with more than just fighting to be useful at other things?
Edit: I should add its useful in combat to do other things like acrobatics, climbing, swimming, and bluffing to feint, sense motive to defend against feint/bluffing, possibly diplomacy for commanding armies, knowledge to know your enemies/locals, etc.
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My biggest complaint is that everyone has a problem that the Fighter is true to his name. Now if the class was called the Guy-Can-Fight-Pretty-Well-But-Also-Has-A-Charming-Personality I would be annoyed that he doesn't have enough skills to support diplomacy. The fighter is a great Class for the rough kick in the door style of combat focused game play(which is mentioned in the CRB). The fighter is about DPR.Wait, you want him to be horrible? Why? Why can't he fight really well and do other things on the side? I mean, I get the name is fighter, but wouldn't it be useful in a game with more than just fighting to be useful at other things?
Edit: I should add its useful in combat to do other things like acrobatics, climbing, swimming, and bluffing to feint, sense motive to defend against feint/bluffing, possibly diplomacy for commanding armies, knowledge to know your enemies/locals, etc.
Which is where an interesting question comes in. Setting a baseline ranger, how many feats/ability scores/gold etc can I have left over for other things while still matching the rangers DPR.
Lay down a Ranger and I'll see what I can do.
Dig around the Build Thread and find one of my or Nicos' builds if you want. Nicos' are probably better than mine though.
I'd do it but it took me 5 minutes to load this page for some reason, so...
Which is where an interesting question comes in. Setting a baseline ranger, how many feats/ability scores/gold etc can I have left over for other things while still matching the rangers DPR.
Lay down a Ranger and I'll see what I can do.
Except that shows system master and an attempt to do something very specific, it doesn't say something about the class itself except that its possibly capable. It doesn't say much for what your average player will do with it. It also doesn't cover every scenario, or even many general scenarios. There's also a crazy difference between fighting FE or not, and also between combat styles. Alternatively, look at the class features. Who has more support for out of combat and who has more for incombat?
Also consider if you should need system mastery to make something useful out of combat. I'd rather things be intuitive. Its a little insane that to make a fighter competent outside of combat, you need to purposefully go out of your way to do it.
Dig around the Build Thread and find one of my or Nicos' builds if you want. Nicos' are probably better than mine though.
I'd do it but it took me 5 minutes to load this page for some reason, so...
I've been having the same problem all day with this site.
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That's why I raided another thread for information. There are literally hundreds of builds already posted that prove my point ie swinging swords. instead of creating your fighter against my ranger its a better test to find your ranger against your fighter or someone else's. Plus the comparison should be based on concept not DPR. Everyone already admits that the fighter wins DPR(as long as he has the right weapons). I'd go do it myself but like rinjin the website is moving extremely slowly.
And if you want to use Buzz, that is fine.
Let me know which one you want, I will match the DPR and then see what else I have left for other things.
If I can match DPR with 3 or 4 feats left for other things...
An opt fighter can do the same damage as meteor swarm at lvl 10. A more vanilla build managed like 71 DPR on a full-attack. Heavy opt druid can pull 79 unbuffed all day with wild shape. Opt blast sorcerer can pull 90 per round provided they still have slots.
10 lvl fighter
assume +4 str and +2 weapon for magic
Hit 10BAB + 2 feat + 2 weapon training + 7str - 3 power attack + 2 magic weapon = +20
Damage = 7 greatsword + 2 weapon training + 2 feat + 2 magic + 10 str + 9 power attack = 32
That's without gloves of dueling with boost that to +22/34
Inb4 people then say the fighter is bad at combat because he doesn't have spells.
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The fighter on the other hand can... hope his 2 skill points can do something or he can find something to do RP wise, which can easily land in the GM fiat territory.NO! NOOOO! NOT GM FIAT TERRITORY! NOT SOME PLACE WHERE I CAN'T BADGER MY GM WITH RULES MECHANICS ARGUMENTS AND CORNER CASES.
/sarcasm mode off.... temporarily.
It's simply amazing that given that 99 percent of the arguments on this board center around combat that people are going to knock the fighter based on his relative lack of non combat utility. In a thread like this... I smell envious compensation.
Really? Envious Compensation? You think I'm jealous of the fighter or can't role play? Why don't you go into detail.
Anyways... GM fiat isn't a bad thing. However its not a fighter class feature. It doesn't' defend a bad design. I love doing cool or thematic things myself, don't think I don't like it. It just really doesn't have anything to do with the mechanics of a class. It also isn't just limited to a particular class. The ranger can take advantage of the same play style and possibly do better if the GM wants a skill check out of it.
Edit: I should add GM fiat is impossible to measure or rely on. Mechanics are static and measureable.
Want to be defined almost entirely by your obsessive hatred for goblins or living in a forest? Simple, shallow characters with cookie cutter builds. That rangers are good for.
I get your point, but did you have to pretend all rangers are racist, shallow, simple characters with cookie cutter builds who live in a forest? Ranger is useful for a lot more than that.
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It's funny that while playing all through 3.5 and PRPG with my groups on a weekly+ basis for all that time I have never seen the totally-useless-except-for-doing-damage fighter. They are always the really good debuffers, controllers, mountain-climbers, swimmers, intimidators, etc.
High ACs, High to-hits, great at physical skills, combat maneuver specialists, good hit points,.....
Oh well, guess my groups have be playing wrong all these years. They are gonna be heartbroken to know that they should have been a ranger instead.
And here I was sure I wasn't having bad-wrong-fun....silly me.
It's funny that while playing all through 3.5 and PRPG with my groups on a weekly+ basis for all that time I have never seen the totally-useless-except-for-doing-damage fighter.
I've seen them plenty of times. They aren't that hard to make. I've seen players who are deluded into thinking they're doing great when they don't know their own DPR or keep track of failed checks too. Anecdotal evidence is far from the best in the world. Its highly subjective.
And here I was sure I wasn't having bad-wrong-fun....silly me.
No one said you were. You don't have to play victim to something that didn't happen.
The largest argument I have for Fighters over Rangers comes to this: new players. Just this year a new player came into my game and really liked the idea of a Ranger. It seemed fun, filled a niche nobody else has really covered, she got to have a pet cat, shoot her bow; that kind of thing.
And she hated it before even 5 games. For new players, the amount of things a Ranger gets can easily be overwhelming especially when they are just learning the system. For someone who is new the game, or even RPG's in general, the Ranger is one of the biggest nightmares. You can hold their hand as much as you like, but a person won't learn anything if you do that.
For her, leveling became a task, keeping track of what numbers applied when, what her pet could and could not do, what spells to prepare, which ones not to prepare, what's the terrain, is that an illusion over something and means her numbers no longer apply, is this the right skill? And she got frustrated because of it, switched to something else, and just had a rough first impression of the rules system. It's too much.
With a fighter, it's base raw numbers that always apply. Sure, the Ranger is better in a vacuum, but this is a party game. Often times, more feats means more ease in tailoring to your party makeup. Each class has a role they fill. Said players Ranger was unable to keep up with just the raw damage and AC the fighter was able to manage on a constant basis and both players were happy because they both got to fill their roles.
And, as is often stated in other games, restriction breeds creativity.
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The largest argument I have for Fighters over Rangers comes to this: new players.
I can actually agree here, as to me Fighter is the baseline for how to learn the game. There's not too much to mess up, it's easy to contribute in combat (at least at lower levels, where someone should be learning), and it's no muss or fuss. But that's where it's best, a beginner class. It's the kind of thing you should grow out of eventually to more complex classes.
And, as is often stated in other games, restriction breeds creativity.
Now this I take issue with, as you don't really have anything to work with that someone else doesn't already. I don't care for such a limited package myself, because I feel more options help to combine them in creative ways, rather than having to reinvent the same toys over and over again.
I feel like the issue with the Fighter is that it's such a basic chassis that it's not expected to do anything more, which is a shame. It lacks the ability to grow, since anything it can do is basically what it could do when you started the game.
The Fighter doesn't really evolve beyond feats, and the problem with feats is that anyone can take them (excluding a few fighter only ones, and few of those are class defining.) A Fighter gains its last unique ability at level 5 (Weapon Training), and then until level 19, it just gets the same thing over and over again, which doesn't expand upon its out of combat utility. Even the new skills it got in PF don't do nearly enough to give it out of combat utility (Knowledge Dungeoneering and Engineering were nice though.)
Compare that to a Ranger, who continues to get new and different abilities as it levels up, which include spells (and access to spell trigger items) which allow it to more adeptly alter the world around it.
I hear arguments of "the reason the Fighter can't fly/teleport/buff themselves/etc is because it's a party game, and they should have someone else do that", and that's fine if you're of that opinion. But being able to add more resources to your party instead of requiring them is often a good thing, as well as giving you more options in and out of combat.
For a simple, smash mouth kind of character, a Fighter is what you want. But if you're looking for something more advanced, the Ranger/Barbarian/etc is a better place to search.
actually. the Ranger and Bard, are better for Newbies because they explore so many areas and give players a chance to decide which functions they prefer based on their common aspects.
Yeah pally is more newbie friendly or Barbar.
Every time someone points out that a fighter's ability only works when he has a particular weapon. I laugh.
Seriously? When would a fighter pick up anything else. His preferred weapon nets him a +6/8 or a +8/10 with gloves of dueling. There is not magic weapon in existence worth that kind of trade off. A fighter with a mundane greatsword is better off than that same fighter weilding a +5 great axe.
Unless your GM is going out of his way to deny you a greatsword, no fighter is limited by his weapon choice. Even if your GM goes out of his way to make sure 0 magical greatswords exist, you still are better off with a mundane greatsword than any magic weapon of appropriate power.
Every time someone points out that a fighter's ability only works when he has a particular weapon. I laugh.
Seriously? When would a fighter pick up anything else. His preferred weapon nets him a +6/8 or a +8/10 with gloves of dueling. There is not magic weapon in existence worth that kind of trade off. A fighter with a mundane greatsword is better off than that same fighter weilding a +5 great axe.
Unless your GM is going out of his way to deny you a greatsword, no fighter is limited by his weapon choice. Even if your GM goes out of his way to make sure 0 magical greatswords exist, you still are better off with a mundane greatsword than any magic weapon of appropriate power.
except against creatures with DR/Magic, DR/Material, Dr/Epic or Dr/Alignment
Incorporeal Creatures
monsters focused on sunder
monsters weak to bludgeoning or piercing damage
or monsters weak to specific magical properties, such as monsters that are staggered when hit by a shocking weapon for example.
Every time someone points out that a fighter's ability only works when he has a particular weapon. I laugh.
Seriously? When would a fighter pick up anything else. His preferred weapon nets him a +6/8 or a +8/10 with gloves of dueling. There is not magic weapon in existence worth that kind of trade off. A fighter with a mundane greatsword is better off than that same fighter weilding a +5 great axe.
Unless your GM is going out of his way to deny you a greatsword, no fighter is limited by his weapon choice. Even if your GM goes out of his way to make sure 0 magical greatswords exist, you still are better off with a mundane greatsword than any magic weapon of appropriate power.
Disarm, Sunder and DR can make any weapon quite useless... But yeah, overall, Fighters can use their main weapons pretty much all the time.
But that doesn't make them any less limited... Especially out of combat.
EDIT: Ninja'ed by Lumiere... Thanks for not Sneak Attacking me, Lumi.
Every time someone points out that a fighter's ability only works when he has a particular weapon. I laugh.
Seriously? When would a fighter pick up anything else. His preferred weapon nets him a +6/8 or a +8/10 with gloves of dueling. There is not magic weapon in existence worth that kind of trade off. A fighter with a mundane greatsword is better off than that same fighter weilding a +5 great axe.
Unless your GM is going out of his way to deny you a greatsword, no fighter is limited by his weapon choice. Even if your GM goes out of his way to make sure 0 magical greatswords exist, you still are better off with a mundane greatsword than any magic weapon of appropriate power.
except against creatures with DR/Magic, DR/Material, Dr/Epic or Dr/Alignment
Incorporeal Creatures
monsters focused on sunder
monsters weak to bludgeoning or piercing damage
or monsters weak to specific magical properties, such as monsters that are staggered when hit by a shocking weapon for example.
Fighter ignores 10 points of DR with selected weapon. Only Incorporeal creatures are a problem. But if you can't buy a +1 greatsword then your GM is out to get you anyways, so you might as well just die and go find a new group.
Every time someone points out that a fighter's ability only works when he has a particular weapon. I laugh.
Seriously? When would a fighter pick up anything else. His preferred weapon nets him a +6/8 or a +8/10 with gloves of dueling. There is not magic weapon in existence worth that kind of trade off. A fighter with a mundane greatsword is better off than that same fighter weilding a +5 great axe.
Unless your GM is going out of his way to deny you a greatsword, no fighter is limited by his weapon choice. Even if your GM goes out of his way to make sure 0 magical greatswords exist, you still are better off with a mundane greatsword than any magic weapon of appropriate power.
except against creatures with DR/Magic, DR/Material, Dr/Epic or Dr/Alignment
Incorporeal Creatures
monsters focused on sunder
monsters weak to bludgeoning or piercing damage
or monsters weak to specific magical properties, such as monsters that are staggered when hit by a shocking weapon for example.
Fighter ignores 10 points of DR with selected weapon. Only Incorporeal creatures are a problem. But if you can't buy a +1 greatsword then your GM is out to get you anyways, so you might as well just die and go find a new group.
there happen to be Archaic DMs who won't let you buy +1 anything, and include totally random magic loot. in those games, you are better off not specializing until you find a random magic weapon worth committing to. which may not be that greatsword, falchion, or nodachi you wanted.
Fighter ignores 10 points of DR with selected weapon. Only Incorporeal creatures are a problem. But if you can't buy a +1 greatsword then your GM is out to get you anyways, so you might as well just die and go find a new group.
That costs 2 feats. And it only comes into play at high levels.
The greatest problem with being weapon-dependent is that lots of loot goes to waste. Unless your GM makes sure every enemy ever uses the same weapon as you, even if it's a trident, falcata or other exotic weapon.
Fighter ignores 10 points of DR with selected weapon. Only Incorporeal creatures are a problem. But if you can't buy a +1 greatsword then your GM is out to get you anyways, so you might as well just die and go find a new group.That costs 2 feats. And it only comes into play at high levels.
The greatest problem with being weapon-dependent is that lots of loot goes to waste. Unless your GM makes sure every enemy ever uses the same weapon as you, even if it's a trident, falcata or other exotic weapon.
true enough. even longswords, shortswords, daggers and greatswords aren't guaranteed.
how are you going to get that Falcata, Falchion, Nodachi, Scimitar, Wakazashi, Katana, or Kukri your crit build depends upon?
a lot of the high crit weapons, tend to be on the uncommon weapons charts. and a lot of them. might be fiated away for not being european enough.
Pfff crit builds.
Greatsword is where it is at. If your GM is handing out +10 great axes, but you have never found a +2 greatsword, at that point you know your GM hates you.
That's like Frodo being getting a great axe instead of a short sword and being told to "deal with it"
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Really? I'm in Book 4 of RotRL currently and have +2 Greatswords falling out of my ass currently.
Quite uncomfortable, really.
Every time someone points out that a fighter's ability only works when he has a particular weapon. I laugh.
Seriously? When would a fighter pick up anything else. His preferred weapon nets him a +6/8 or a +8/10 with gloves of dueling. There is not magic weapon in existence worth that kind of trade off. A fighter with a mundane greatsword is better off than that same fighter weilding a +5 great axe.
Unless your GM is going out of his way to deny you a greatsword, no fighter is limited by his weapon choice. Even if your GM goes out of his way to make sure 0 magical greatswords exist, you still are better off with a mundane greatsword than any magic weapon of appropriate power.
except against creatures with DR/Magic, DR/Material, Dr/Epic or Dr/Alignment
Incorporeal Creatures
monsters focused on sunder
monsters weak to bludgeoning or piercing damage
or monsters weak to specific magical properties, such as monsters that are staggered when hit by a shocking weapon for example.
Not to mention the age-old problem of enemies who due to terrain, flight, or any other factor just can't be engaged with melee weapons. Sometimes you need to hit a bad guy who's more the five feet away.
Then there are things like intrigue scenarios where the party can't run around carrying obvious weapons like huge greatswords, or the dreaded "You're all thrown in prison and your gear is taken away" setup.
Edit
There was no retraing feats rules when we started and wont be allowed until a new campaign.
That's other than the one built into the Fighter, right?
That's other than the one built into the Fighter, right?Edit
There was no retraing feats rules when we started and wont be allowed until a new campaign.
To be fair, Fighters' ability to retrain feats doesn't really work. And th reason for that is the same reason for half of the problems with Fighter and other martial characters: Feat chains.
This is how I make Fighters more in line with Barbarians, Rangers and Paladins:
- +2 skill points per level
- Heal, Perception and any 2 other skills of the player's choice as class skills
- Good Reflex saves (Fighters are physical paragons, after all)
- Bravery scales a bit faster and applies to all Charm and Compulsion effects as well.
- Weapon Training is the same for all weapon groups (all of them end at +5, instead of one at +5, +4, +3, +2, +1)
- At 1st level they can take IUS, TWF or EWP instead of getting proficiency with Tower Shields.
- Weapon Mastery and Armor Mastery come 1 level earlier.
- Full attack as a standard action at 20th level.
- Martial Versatility/Mastery at 10th level. (Someone suggested it in one of the dozen past Fighter threads, I liked it and added to my games)
They also benefit more from a few other rules, such as scaling feats(like TWF and Improved Trip) and removed/reduced prerequisites for a bunch of them (like maneuver feats not requiring Combat Expertise or Int 13)
That's other than the one built into the Fighter, right?Edit
There was no retraing feats rules when we started and wont be allowed until a new campaign.To be fair, Fighters' ability to retrain feats doesn't really work. And th reason for that is the same reason for half of the problems with Fighter and other martial characters: Feat chains.
This is how I make Fighters more in line with Barbarians, Rangers and Paladins:
- +2 skill points per level
- Heal, Perception and any 2 other skills of the player's choice as class skills
- Good Reflex saves (Fighters are physical paragons, after all)
- Bravery scales a bit faster and applies to all Charm and Compulsion effects as well.
- Weapon Training is the same for all weapon groups (all of them end at +5, instead of one at +5, +4, +3, +2, +1)
- At 1st level they can take IUS, TWF or EWP instead of getting proficiency with Tower Shields.
- Weapon Mastery and Armor Mastery come 1 level earlier.
- Full attack as a standard action at 20th level.
- Martial Versatility/Mastery at 10th level. (Someone suggested it in one of the dozen past Fighter threads, I liked it and added to my games)They also benefit more from a few other rules, such as scaling feats(like TWF and Improved Trip) and removed/reduced prerequisites for a bunch of them (like maneuver feats not requiring Combat Expertise or Int 13)
I will admit I die a little inside every time I have to take combat expertise as a prerequisite...
In my mind, the DPR difference is really only meaningful if it allows the fighter to kill things faster than the ranger, like if the fighter kills a CR-equivalent monster in 2 rounds then the ranger takes 3. If the DPR difference is low enough, this is probably unlikely to occur often. But if the difference is pretty substantial, then yeah, it's hard to claim that rangers can "do combat" as well as fighters, and so can't really replace them.
There definitely needs to be some build comparisons like the Rogue thread eventually became. I remember seeing a great post comparing the standard DPRs of the 4 main martial classes (Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian, Ranger) in some Barbarian thread a while back but for the life of me I cannot find it. I know that the fighter had the highest DPR (except in cases where the Paladin can use Smite Evil) but I can't remember how big the gap was.