A fighting game tier list tells you who can beat who most often, given roughly equal player skill. JaronK's list isn't that.Hey! Even in fighting games, damage output is not the end all be all.
My point is that even in a fighting game (a game exclusively about combat), how much hp damage your attacks deal is not what makes a character stronger than the rest of the cast.
More often than not, mobility, speed, versatility, adaptability, etc count a lot more.
So in a game where literally anything imagined by the GM can help, having options is even more important. It's far, far more important than dealing +X damage per swing of your sword.
And that's why Fighters suck.
My point is that even in a fighting game (a game exclusively about combat), how much hp damage your attacks deal is not what makes a character stronger than the rest of the cast.More often than not, mobility, speed, versatility, adaptability, etc count a lot more.
Exactly. I don't have a whole lot of fighting game experience (I think I've made it clear with repeated analogies that the only series I have even a slight competence in is Soul Calibur), but in most games I see it's speed (and attack priority) over power every time.
Look at Astaroth (big, slow, can kill you in a single combo of grabs if you let him) vs Taki (individual attacks deal laughably pitiful amounts of damage).
Taki is top tier.
Astaroth is bottom-ish tier.
Why? Because Taki can attack you 12 times before you get in one, and unless you are ALSO Taki, she will have priority over you. Always.
You power attacks don't matter when they keep being interrupted by her light little taps.
Wizards are Taki. Fighters are not Astaroth.
Fighters are Rock. Astaroth's slower, weaker, less diversified move list having cousin.
I really don't think things were playtested enough.
Ever. Not at any step of the way by WoTC, Hasbro, Paizo. You name it, they don't playtest it.
I'll give a couple of examples.
In 3.5 I got the Serpent Kingdoms book pretty close to when it came out. Reading it, I got to the Sarrukh entry. Uh oh. I really didn't have anything in mind, and I don't immediately start to wonder what I could do with this. But I knew trouble, the kind that should never have been printed when I saw it.
You could point to many, many examples with Pathfinder. A recent example is the Mythic book they just released. I've thumbed through it, and there is no way all that was playtested. That is a bigger jump, a much bigger one, than Pathfinder was from 3.5. I guess the fact that it isn't really used by a lot of groups is what keeps it from totally blowing things up.
What I don't get is the fact that the problems with this system have been in plain sight since 3.0, say 2000 or 2001. And here we are over a decade later, and somehow 10 points of Bab, 3 hp's per level, and 11 feats and a few weapon and armor proficiencies are supposed to make up for 9 levels of spells. Everybody knows that's not the case.
So what's up with the whole thing? The whole thing is a kludged system. And every splatbook makes it worse.
I haven't done a survey of all the books available, but I'm pretty sure Paizo has as much Pathfinder stuff in print as WoTC/Hasbro had 3.5 stuff now.
Wow, posts like this make me shocked they have never taken your criticisms seriously...:\
I like how he completely misunderstands the point of Mythic as so many people do.
"Mythic is OP! Pls nerf!"
MYTHIC IS SUPPOSED TO BE OVERPOWERED gosh dangit that was the entire point of the book, ludicrous powers for ludicrously powerful campaigns, and a way to advance after 20th.
I like how he completely misunderstands the point of Mythic as so many people do.
"Mythic is OP! Pls nerf!"
MYTHIC IS SUPPOSED TO BE OVERPOWERED gosh dangit that was the entire point of the book, ludicrous powers for ludicrously powerful campaigns, and a way to advance after 20th.
What's disappointing though is that many of the nonmagical "mythic" abilities are not overpowered, even given for free in a nonmythic game. I was hoping Champions would be able to crack open mountains the way Heracles forced his way into the underworld.
Instead we get...automatically confirm critical hits whenever you threaten:|
Which, to further compare martial and casters, is pretty much equivalent to 1st level spell
Color me unimpressed.
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Worse, that first level spell is also the FIGHTER'S CAPSTONE.
But as we all know, "Caster/martial disparity is a myth propagated by people with agendas."
The continued push for anime/video game martials. I wonder if the game designers will ever cater to this segment of the customer base.
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The continued push for anime/video game martials. I wonder if the game designers will ever cater to this segment of the customer base.
To paraphrase Kirth Girsen (I believe), we don't want martials to reflect the capabilities of video game/anime protagonists.
We want them to replicate the feats of Celtic Myth.
Worse, that first level spell is also the FIGHTER'S CAPSTONE.
But as we all know, "Caster/martial disparity is a myth propagated by people with agendas."
Martials do what martials are supposed to do.
They are classes people have fun playing.
There is most definitely an agenda by those seeking to turn martials into nothing more than wizards with different named abilities that would be nothing more than spell-like abilities having nothing to do with martial capabilities.
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Worse, that first level spell is also the FIGHTER'S CAPSTONE.
But as we all know, "Caster/martial disparity is a myth propagated by people with agendas."
Martials do what martials are supposed to do.
They are classes people have fun playing.
There is most definitely an agenda by those seeking to turn martials into nothing more than wizards with different named abilities that would be nothing more than spell-like abilities having nothing to do with martial capabilities.
A: I don't see what's wrong with "anime" moves, we have robots and guns and everything else in Golarion. So why can't we have a Fighter who does more at level 20 than he could at level 1?
B: Having a Fighter being able to do more than attack would be pretty nice, ala Tome of Battle. That was a book that didn't just make them "martial wizards", it made them actually scale in level by something other than swing or shoot.
I don't really see an 'agenda', just people who see characters from myth and would like to recreate them. Hercules changed the flow of rivers, but a 20th level Fighter...auto confirms crits.
If martials where like the most powerful video game martials theyd still have way less power than casters. Video game martials are usually pretty weak compared to the heroes of myth.
On the other hand, video game casters cant hold a candle to the power of pathfinder casters.
Well, depends.
I mean, Dante (Devil May Cry), Kratos (God of War), Asura (Asura's Wrath), Bayonetta, etc. all come pretty darn close or hit the mark of being mythical figures (though to be fair, two of the four examples ARE mythical figures, one being Ares' "replacement" and the other being a god).
Worse, that first level spell is also the FIGHTER'S CAPSTONE.
But as we all know, "Caster/martial disparity is a myth propagated by people with agendas."
I never really thought about this before. Ouch.
Well, depends.
I mean, Dante (Devil May Cry), Kratos (God of War), Asura (Asura's Wrath), Bayonetta, etc. all come pretty darn close or hit the mark of being mythical figures (though to be fair, two of the four examples ARE mythical figures, one being Ares' "replacement" and the other being a god).
havent played asuras wrath, but as for the others, most of their power is basically "jump high and hit hard; in the case of Dante, in addition most of his powers come from magical gear (at least in DMC3) and being a half-demon.
You dont see Kratos redrawing a river by hand or cracking open a mountain etc (at least not in GoW1, dont know about the later games). And they still cant do anything remotely like create major demiplane, simulacrum or similar.
And those are pretty much the edge of powerful martials in video games - most games have far weaker martials, but also weaker casters.
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Well, depends.
I mean, Dante (Devil May Cry), Kratos (God of War), Asura (Asura's Wrath), Bayonetta, etc. all come pretty darn close or hit the mark of being mythical figures (though to be fair, two of the four examples ARE mythical figures, one being Ares' "replacement" and the other being a god).
havent played asuras wrath, but as for the others, most of their power is basically "jump high and hit hard; in the case of Dante, in addition most of his powers come from magical gear (at least in DMC3) and being a half-demon.
You dont see Kratos redrawing a river by hand or cracking open a mountain etc (at least not in GoW1, dont know about the later games). And they still cant do anything remotely like create major demiplane, simulacrum or similar.
And those are pretty much the edge of powerful martials in video games - most games have far weaker martials, but also weaker casters.
We're talking about DMC 3 Dante here?
Dante could:
Stop/Slow Down time at will (although it took from a limited supply of power, much like Rage)
Create a copy of himself to fight for him at will (same deal with the time stop/slow down, based off a limited pool)
Create new uses for normal weapons like Shotgun Stinger, throwing his weapon into people, creating a shield of ice, and a ton more that I'm not even going to mention.
Teleport/Speed Burst which made the battlefield his playground, the level of mobility isn't even close to being replicated by anything in PF that isn't caster based.
Most of his weapons just gave alternative fighting techniques, his Styles were what made the gear do different things. This isn't even going into his Yamato style from DMC 4, and the thing that made him so great in that one was the ease in which he could change from them at the drop of a hat.
The PF Fighter gets one to two tricks. Both of them can be done by ANY other melee character, simply at a slightly accelerated rate. Barbarians are the closest to a Video Game warrior, since they have a limited "pool of awesome" and get incredible strengths from it. Barbarian is the standard of which all non casters should be held, instead of a Fighter who literally has nothing that makes them any more special than the NPC Warrior other than a few bonus feats and attack/speed buffs.
We're talking about DMC 3 Dante here?Dante could:
Stop/Slow Down time at will (although it took from a limited supply of power, much like Rage)
Fueled by the Devil Trigger, thus it's safe to assume they where powers from being a half-devil, not for being awesome martially.
It was kind of nice but pretty much the equivalent of casting a short-duration Slow. And that was about the only thing that style allowed him to do. So yeah, at his most powerful and focused on that specific style he could do about the same things as a 5th level caster can in PF due to being a half-devil.
Create a copy of himself to fight for him at will (same deal with the time stop/slow down, based off a limited pool)
Again fueled by being a devil rather than being awesome martially.
Create new uses for normal weapons like Shotgun Stinger, throwing his weapon into people, creating a shield of ice, and a ton more that I'm not even going to mention.
Magic gear is magic gear. And honestly, if "charge with a shotgun" is even worth mentioning that says a lot about how low the bar is.
Teleport/Speed Burst which made the battlefield his playground, the level of mobility isn't even close to being replicated by anything in PF that isn't caster based.
First, the teleport and speed burst is _incredibly_ limited. It's basically a swift action to get 15 ft away. Secondly, in terms of speed it's still slower than even a PF monk. Third, "can move quickly" is very very limited in terms of power, compared to the heroes of myth. Again, you don't see characters like Dante redirecting a major river by themselves to clean out a stable.
Also, again, this is looking at one of the most powerful martial character in ANY video game. Saying "this is what a video game martial is like" is like saying "people who can jump in video games are plumbers" just because two are. Most martials in video games are incredibly weak, even compared to pathfinder martials.
Which is justified because not all games take place at high levels. Dante fights the kinds of enemies that fill in the 10+ Challenge Rating section of the monster manual and thus he is suitably high enough level to do so.
Mario fights mostly level 1-3 enemies and his ultimate opponent is a giant love struck turtle. Not exactly the deep end of the CR pool.
You can have low level mundane fighters when you are fighting low level monsters. But you need high level folklore epic fighters when you are fighting beings that can pose as gods. And those are 10+ CR.
Now I know the second "high level fighter" comes up people are quick to attribute his competence to "magic, demon heritage, blessed by gods, etc." but so what? There's lots of reasons for a Fighter to have a become awesome enough to accomplish the stuff out of legends. Maybe they trained extremely hard, punching rocks until the could destroy them with the impact, maybe they mastered the 72 Hidden Stratagems of Sky and Earth, maybe they possess the ability to accomplish epic feats simply by being incredibly hotblooded, or maybe they were dipped in a fountain as a kid. Whatever works.
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Fueled by the Devil Trigger, thus it's safe to assume they where powers from being a half-devil, not for being awesome martially.
It was kind of nice but pretty much the equivalent of casting a short-duration Slow. And that was about the only thing that style allowed him to do. So yeah, at his most powerful and focused on that specific style he could do about the same things as a 5th level caster can in PF due to being a half-devil.
Yeah, it's because of demon blood. But he's still a martial character. Elves hear better, and depending on the setting (like LOTR), sometimes it's stupidly better than humans. Race depending on the setting helps out immensely, but they could have told the same story with a non demon powered character doing the same things and called it 'ki' or 'stamina' or 'fighting spirits'. As per quicksilver, I'm not saying it was amazing, I'm saying it was an option, and a nice one. If Fighters could do that, it'd be incredible for them. Just think of how nice it'd be to get a slow effect on all enemies for one round, and then next already be in their face switching to another style and tearing into them in an entirely different fashion.
Again fueled by being a devil rather than being awesome martially.
See my last point. Barbarians have Rage, and regardless of race, they could possibly grow dragon wings. That's what I'm asking for with martials, some race independent bad assery.
Magic gear is magic gear. And honestly, if "charge with a shotgun" is even worth mentioning that says a lot about how low the bar is.
I'll half give you this, since it's still nice gear, but there's a huge difference between "A +5 sword helps you hit five better" and "This sword can be spun like a pinwheel to juggle enemies, impale your opponent, and be charged with energy for even more power." If Fighter's got things like "You can juggle 4 weapons in the air and make a swing with each one" while every other martial got "you may attack with your weapon", Fighters would be special. Barbarians come the closest to this, and it really shows.
First, the teleport and speed burst is _incredibly_ limited. It's basically a swift action to get 15 ft away. Secondly, in terms of speed it's still slower than even a PF monk. Third, "can move quickly" is very very limited in terms of power, compared to the heroes of myth. Again, you don't see characters like Dante redirecting a major river by themselves to clean out a stable.
Do you know how many martials would KILL for that level of maneuverability? It's not moving fast, it's about having good action economy, and a swift action move for most Fighting types (especially without provoking) would make them the blur of the battlefield that most people imagine when they think of martial types.
As Anzyr said above, Dante is taking on CR 10+ creatures, and when you're taking on higher stuff, you need more tricks and such. Or at least you should. So while "swing the sword at the opponent" is fine for taking down a goblin chieftain, when you're going up against a Pit Fiend with the same trick of hoping that it's stupid enough to engage you in melee instead of blowing you to pieces with any of its SLAs, you're in a bad spot. Make high level martial characters FEEL higher level, like any magic class does.
At third level a wizard can turn into a lizard folk (Alter Self), at 5th they can turn into a Gargoyle (Monstrous Physique I), and at 11th they can turn into a Dragon (Form of the Dragon I). At 11th level, a Fighter swings his sword or shoots his bow. At least a Barbarian by this point can shatter magic.
I think Paizo was really onto something with Grit and Grit points. I am very pleased to see them bringing the mechanic back with the Swashbuckler. If done well enough, the mechanic could replace the maneuver system from Tome of Battle and give martials some cool things to do.
Another thing I've noticed with martials and their abilities is that more often than not you just see them adding to their numbers. Rage? Higher STR and CON. Weapon Training? Higher damage on weapons. Favored Enemy? More to hit and damage. Smite? Level to damage.
All of these abilities do roughly the same thing, just coming from different sources. I would like to see some feats incorporated that let you do other things. Barbarians Sundering Spells is a really good start to that. Gunslingers grit shenanigans is also good. Paladins and Rangers get their own spells so that's alright.
The main problem with the tier system in PF is that it's pretty much the same game as 3.5 and any notions of changing that up will end up creating an edition war. If I were to suggest something like giving paladins and rangers 5 levels of spells instead of 4 I'm pretty sure y'all would tell me to GTFO this thread.
I find it ever so amusing, with this talk about how weak martials are, that it's crane wing, that Paizo concluded was the most game breaking thing introduced in the game, and after that antognize.
any times a martial does anything not relating to hitting something, the pazio universe falls into disorder.
Full BAB = Nice to Have
Tiers = Groupthink
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I really don't think things were playtested enough.
Ever. Not at any step of the way by WoTC, Hasbro, Paizo. You name it, they don't playtest it.
From all reports, the Paizo staff in their various office and home games have playtested everything a hundred times over. The problem we perceive is in the methodology, not the presence/absence.
My impression is that when they play, the PCs dutifully line up and follow any railroad presented, regardless of how stupid it might be, in-character, for them to do so. Casters do not use divinations except maybe in direct response to a head-scratcher puzzle in a dungeon. Indeed, by gentleman's agreement, casters very carefully do not use the narrative power granted by their spells; they follow the plot line and use only the most obvious possible functions, and even then do so only reactively.
In general, the people defending the status quo seem to be people for whom the rules cover maybe 5% of their home games, and DM fiat covers the remaining 95%. Fighters have great narrative power in their games because the DM hand-waves that they do. Wizards have more limited narrative power because the DM curb-stomps their abilities if they do something that affects "his" plotline.
Neither the majority of the development staff nor the fans see the supposed "problem" that you and I see because, for them, it doesn't exist. The Paizo staff avoids it by gentleman's agreement; the fans by ignoring "game rules" in favor of storytime. The problem is that the storytime crowd won't admit that fixing the rules would not impact their games at all, but would be a huge boon for the groups who play proactive casters, and who use the DM as a referee instead of a novelist.
The problem is that the storytime crowd won't admit that fixing the rules would not impact their games at all, but would be a huge boon for the groups who play proactive casters, and who use the DM as a referee instead of a novelist.
I'm curious. What boon? As in, how would it change those games? Is it an agreed upon direction of change for the... um... non-storytime crowd?
Is it towards 'novelist DM', away, or on a different axis?
Is it towards homegeny of capability?
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I'm curious.
1. What boon? As in, how would it change those games? Is it an agreed upon direction of change for the... um... non-storytime crowd?
2. Is it towards 'novelist DM', away, or on a different axis?
3. Is it towards homegeny of capability?
1. If the rules evened out the narrative capabilities of the various classes (either by nerfing casters into the ground -- which I do not support -- or, preferrably, making martials superheroic at high level; or possibly a judicious mix), then the DM's primary role is to play the NPCs according to their temperaments and abilities, and have them react appropriately to what the party does. As a secondary role, he or she mediates non-agreement on rules readings. He or she does not have to tell the PCs what they're "supposed" to do, and does not need to spend a lot of time and effort making people feel special, because they'll all have the capability to be special without his or her intervention in that regard.
2. It would therefore facilitate a move away from the DM-as-novelist, for those groups who prefer the DM to be more of a referee. Groups who prefer an all-powerful storyteller DM who ignores the rules could still have that, by invoking Rule 0, but there would be solid guidelines in place for people who don't want that, so everyone wins.
3. Ideally, it would be a move AWAY from homogeneity. Every class would have different capabilities, but they'd all have things that were just as impressive, in and out of combat. Just for the sake of argument, what if the rogue got so tricky that he or she could bypass or de-activate spells and magic items as if they were devices or traps? And we then removed dispel magic from all the casters' lists, requiring them to use Spellcraft and counterspell instead? We've shifted an obvious "awesome!" ability from the casters to the skill monkeys. What if rangers got so good at tracking that they could find the path or discern location, and we then eliminated those as spells? We reinforce the ranger's core competency and vastly expand his narrative power, and we've hardly affected the casters. What if spellcasting in combat was really, really hard, and defensive spells were less good, but fighters and paladins got really awesome bodyguard abilities? We meaningfully reinforce team play and move the focus away from individual comparisons.
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The only one there I don't agree with is making combat casting really hard. Playing blasters and stuff is still really fun, and not overly powerful, no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater on that one.
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So, this thread actually came into being (I think) because of a conversation about this class, currently being developed by DSP (you can find the thread over in the Compatible Products forum), and some issues that arose between two other sites forum-goers opinions on the class. The class is still in development, but regardless of power level, the real argument came down to "This class has too much versatility to be able to fill the same role as a Fighter/Ranger/Paladin/other-class with full BAB".
Is that really a thing? Is being able to resolve a problem via means other than direct combat really a sign that you shouldn't get to have full BAB?
I really wish the people who keep pushing for this kind of suped up martial would just WRITE THE CLASS THEY WANT.
They complain all the time about how Wizard is too good and Martials can't get anything nice, but then offer no actual solution, denigrate any possible solution you offer and are generally unconstructive.
You want the martial based on Celtic Myth? Then write it.
You want it to be published? Publish it.
Otherwise there's no need to complain that no one has done it exactly the way you want it over and over again.
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The Tier system is heavily biased in favor of the ability to prepare.
Prepared casters who don't have time to prepare are often incredibly vulnerable. They also tend to lack staying power. They don't respond well to surprises, or to someone equally prepared on the other end of the board.
If you give them unlimited time and gold, yes, casters will dominate utterly. There's nothing for martials that can leverage either of those things enough to matter at this point in the game.
The bias against magic items vs spells is endemic to the wizard argument, but actually covers many of the supposed advantages of the wizard.
The argument against narrative power is absolute, however. Give them time, and the casters will dominate the game with magic. Until martials can invest time and effort outside of combat for real rewards, and prepare in long-term ways, its just going to be unbalanced.
==Aelryinth
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Umm... The conversation came up because someone tried to do that and people basically said it can't fight like a Fighter and be good at other stuff. Thus the conversation about "Does having a full BAB mean you shouldn't have ready access to other forms of narrative power?"
Sorry, that was meant as a response to N. Love's statement.
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I really wish the people who keep pushing for this kind of suped up martial would just WRITE THE CLASS THEY WANT.
They complain all the time about how Wizard is too good and Martials can't get anything nice, but then offer no actual solution, denigrate any possible solution you offer and are generally unconstructive.
You want the martial based on Celtic Myth? Then write it.
You want it to be published? Publish it.
Otherwise there's no need to complain that no one has done it exactly the way you want it over and over again.
Yeah, can't wait to use this in PFS. Or in a home game with a GM who doesn't allow 3pp or Homebrew. (In before "just play with a different GM then!")
The argument here is for the company we support to make something that works.
I use Tome of Battle in my home games, and it replaces the Fighter/Monk/Rogue. To be fair, Barbarian is replacing Fighter, Alchemist/Bard is replacing Rogue, and...well, nothing can suck quite like the Monk.
I really wish the people who keep pushing for this kind of suped up martial would just WRITE THE CLASS THEY WANT.
They complain all the time about how Wizard is too good and Martials can't get anything nice, but then offer no actual solution, denigrate any possible solution you offer and are generally unconstructive.
You want the martial based on Celtic Myth? Then write it.
You want it to be published? Publish it.
Otherwise there's no need to complain that no one has done it exactly the way you want it over and over again.
Yeah, can't wait to use this in PFS. Or in a home game with a GM who doesn't allow 3pp or Homebrew. (In before "just play with a different GM then!")
The argument here is for the company we support to make something that works.
I use Tome of Battle in my home games, and it replaces the Fighter/Monk/Rogue. To be fair, Barbarian is replacing Fighter, Alchemist/Bard is replacing Rogue, and...well, nothing can suck quite like the Monk.
Well, the company you support is putting out 10 more classes, none of which I take give these people what they are looking for. I'd say that pressuring Paizo into either ruining Wizards or making this mythical Martial everyone will be satisfied with by repeatedly posting here has failed.
I'm glad to hear that someone at least has an option they like in their game.
Also, from what I can gather PFS play is really easy regardless and optimized characters will have no problem navigating the scenarios regardless of supposed "tier".
the "narrative power" argument also falls apart in society play compared to sandbox games.
Hm, well, some of the Advanced classes are interesting.
Investigator makes an AMAZING Rogue replacement, both thematically and mechanically.
Warpriest (assuming they don't nerf the hell out of it) is like Fighter+ almost.
Unfortunately the problem these two have is that while they're cool, they need spells to accomplish amazing Feats, whereas most of us want something like the cooler/more versatile Barbarian Rage Powers (stuff like Spell Sunder and Eater of Magic) or the more utility based Mythic powers (Seven League Leap, that one that lets you Charge through obstacles and like tackle people on the other side of brick walls, etc.).
Which is the depressing part about Mythic, really, because it means we're NEVER going to see anything of the sort in a non-Mythic class or supplement.
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Also, from what I can gather PFS play is really easy regardless and optimized characters will have no problem navigating the scenarios regardless of supposed "tier".the "narrative power" argument also falls apart in society play compared to sandbox games.
Translate as: "When you play in this controlled setting with lots of house rules where the GM is not allowed to deviate from the written materials and the entire adventure is on railroad tracks, narrative power is not an issue".
Dear lord man, really? Are you trying to start flame wars? First you leap in with a ridiculous statement about people b@$@!ing about not having the class they want (which was not what the thread was about), then you start making "I hear it's not a problem in PFS" arguments?
The real core of the OP's question was "Is there some reason I don't understand that a class with a full BAB can't also have strong narrative options?". That was really what he was getting at, and what the whole Tier system is about. How many options for participating in the game and contributing to the story do I have? The Fighter has one, the Ranger has a couple, the Wizard has... pretty much any option he can think of.
Is there a mechanical reason that you couldn't have a class with the versatility of a wizard or even just a Bard or Inquisitor, (that is, a class that could resolve an option through either combat, social resolution, or some other option) who also has a full BAB? Does being able to talk your way through a situation, or use a unique movement mod to bypass it, automatically preclude you from having an attack bonus progression that gains a point at every level? Why?
Also, from what I can gather PFS play is really easy regardless and optimized characters will have no problem navigating the scenarios regardless of supposed "tier".the "narrative power" argument also falls apart in society play compared to sandbox games.
Translate as: "When you play in this controlled setting with lots of house rules where the GM is not allowed to deviate from the written materials and the entire adventure is on railroad tracks, narrative power is not an issue".
Dear lord man, really? Are you trying to start flame wars? First you leap in with a ridiculous statement about people b~!+&ing about not having the class they want (which was not what the thread was about), then you start making "I hear it's not a problem in PFS" arguments?
The real core of the OP's question was "Is there some reason I don't understand that a class with a full BAB can't also have strong narrative options?". That was really what he was getting at, and what the whole Tier system is about. How many options for participating in the game and contributing to the story do I have? The Fighter has one, the Ranger has a couple, the Wizard has... pretty much any option he can think of.
Is there a mechanical reason that you couldn't have a class with the versatility of a wizard or even just a Bard or Inquisitor, (that is, a class that could resolve an option through either combat, social resolution, or some other option) who also has a full BAB? Does being able to talk your way through a situation, or use a unique movement mod to bypass it, automatically preclude you from having an attack bonus progression that gains a point at every level? Why?
The PFS comment was in response to the suggestion that any 3rd party option that was created is insufficient because ti wouldn't be legal in PFS. I didn't bring it up.
And exactly what you say this thread isn't about is exactly what its about-- Wizards are op and fighters suck.
You want a class with full BaB and this "narrative power" you desire? Why not show everyone how that would work.
The mechanical answer is that when classes are built they get different things-- and classes with the spellcasting power of wizards get less armor, less hit points, and less BaB than other classes.
After all, if Wizard got full BaB wouldn't he have everything?
So if you give a martial some non-spell "narrative power" equivalent to a Wizard what does he give up? Or does this new martial just get everything?
Edit: btw, looks like DnD Next/5th ed has gone this route, Wizard and Fighter both get the same BaB. . .I stopped reading once I saw that on the charts, but it might interest you since "more BaB" is no longer what fighters get.
