Now I'm not here to make a caster vs martial war or arguments as to how to have fun so I want to note that I'm starting this thread with the assumption that Fighter, Rogue, Monk and Cavalier come up short in one way or another when it comes to contributing to adventuring. What I want to ask is "Why?". I don't say this in a tone that's directly challenging or asking for solutions, my reasons for asking is that I have solutions and am trying to organize them so that I don't overdo it or apply them to the wrong problem, but as a question seeking to identify the problem.
The way I understand it is that the Fighter can deal damage more than anybody but cant do much else, especially if he has to move.
The Monk has no inherent way to increase his accuracy for a 3/4 BAB class making a lot of his abilities fall into mediocrity.
The Rogue also has no inherent way to increase accuracy and most of her talents don't do as much as even feats.
Cavalier is a bit too invested in mounted combat making his options limited.
Again. I'm looking to identify problems. If you have solutions feel free to share but I'm not seeking solutions. If you don't think that these have a problem feel free to share strategies and builds that prove that point.
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I Think a Quick forum search Can help you.
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Buckle up folks this going to get bumpy! I suggest a big bowl this time!
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What I want to ask is "Why?". I don't say this in a tone that's directly challenging or asking for solutions, my reasons for asking is that I have solutions and am trying to organize them so that I don't overdo it or apply them to the wrong problem, but as a question seeking to identify the problem.
A combination of narrowness and situationality.
The rogue is the clearest example. She has two major abilities: sneak attacks and lots of skill points. However, most of the skill-related tasks are more easily handled (using magic if necessary) by the bard or other caster (who needs climb when you have fly?), and it's too easy to make oneself immune to sneak attack, for example, by using a smoke stick. (Even if the foe is not immune, 3/4 BAB is an issue). So the chances of being in a situation where either of her strengths are actually useful is low.
The monk, similarly, is ostensibly a combat-focused character, but is not very good at combat. A vanilla fighter will hit more often for more damage, and the magic kung-fu abilities that a monk gets don't make up for that. It's difficult to find a situation where one would say "man, if only I were playing a monk."
Take a cavalier off his horse and away from single combat,.... same idea.
The fighter isn't quite as bad, because the fighter is, in fact, pretty good at an important and broad niche, to wit, hitting things.
But as a general way of looking at things, imagine you had an ability to summon an equal level NPC to help you. I can think of lots of reasons I'd summon a cleric for protective spells, or a bard for buffs, or a sorceror for blasting, or a barbarian for raw damage output. I find it difficult to imagine a situation where I would summon a monk because I needed someone to be able to fall 50' while next to a wall or the ability to high jump.
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1. Each class will needs its own thread.
2. Do a forum search. All of those threads are just copies of any other thread on the same class.
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Well nowadays there are more options to alleviate some of the classes problem...but well, it requires system mastery and a lot of effort. Meanwhile, you can just pick a class that is good out of the bag without looking through every source book out there. Like a core wizard, while all the options out there are nice, someone just playing a regular wizard would do fine in any game mostly because all the good spells are in core, some good ones have been added but they are optional at most. A core rogue, a core monk or core fighter on the other hand, would not be as viable.
Basically at the end the day, do you want to spend hours looking through books to make a "Okay" character or just pick a class that is mechanically superior?
The biggest issue with all of them, at the end of the day, is that damage is only one method of problem resolution - but their only other method of problem resolution is skill points, which are easily replaced with magic or handled by other classes who also have access to even more non-damage problem resolvers (ranger, bard, etc).
The problem is that each of those classes are good at things that other classes can do better. They're not bad per se, just sub-optimal.
The melee fighter hits things, but isn't as good at it as a barbarian and doesn't have the staying power of a paladin.
The rogue does lots of damage, but isn't as good at landing hits. The rogue also has lots of skill points, but a bard has almost as many and has magic to boot.
The monk makes a lot of attack rolls, but damage is low and won't hit as often. A fighter with an archer or two-weapon-fighting build will do better.
The cavalier I actually don't have a problem with-- if what you want is mounted combat. But in situations where this isn't feasible, like inside a dungeon, the cavalier is just a bad fighter.
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Rogues: Sucks because it only has skills. Basically an expert with sneak attack. Now compeltely outclassed by Slayers and Investigators.
Cavalier: Sucks beacause it depends on his mount. On a game where having a mount is usually a liability
Fighter: Sucks because he is only good at combat and nothing else. System mastery is required to get more versatilty.
Monk: Sucks because its a class that depends on unarmed strikes.On a game where unarmed strikes are unsopported. Note:Zen archers are the exception since they dont depend on unarmed strikes, system mastery required.
Rogues: Good at skills and nothing else when plenty of classes have tons of skills, more damage/saves/ac, and spells
Cavalier: Idk, they probably do just fine.
Fighter: Lord of the DPR and nothing else. Suffers from being a mere mortal as levels go up and up. Recent archetypes can help it immensely (ACG)
Monk: An eclectic mess of class features, BUT this class has received the best archetype love in the game. With Qinggong alone, trading out slowfall for barkskin, and something for the double edge sword SR, you can do pretty well with Dragon Style. Human Wanderers get a nice to-hit boost too. Monk is one of the few martials where power attack can actually hurt their DPR.
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Rogue : too diluted. They have the potential to be good at many things, but in the end, each role requires so many investments that they end up being good at something (though less than specialists) and suck at everything else, or just mediocre all around :-(
Cavalier : many GMs (especially PFS) hate Large mounts. Actually, I think they hate the charge with lance thing ;-)
Fighter : Most people stack combat feats in every possible slot the Fighter has and then they wonder why he is not good at anything else :-))
Monk : the Monk has the potential to survive most anything you throw at him. He has excellent speed and many attacks. But : no Pounce (which make his two combat abilities actually not compatible) and having the best defense is not worth that much in a game that is all about killing the other guys first.
Okay, good information everyone.
To address why I'm not searching the forums for the many times these topics come up; I did and honestly the threads I found were a mess. I wanted opinions outside of the context of outright bashing or fighting about whether or not Fighers are weak or overreaching ideas on how to fix things.
To address why the Cavalier is on the list; This is more of the context of games I run or played rather than games I hear about. Horses can be a pain when you want to make terrain more interesting or go into a dungeon without wide open spaces. Cavaliers somehow became the martial class for small races in games I'm there in person for.
To change gears here, the purpose of this thread was to get information so I can sort out some third party material for an upcoming game I'm running. To shore up some deficiencies I wanted to pull out a few products for those particular classes.
For Monk I wanted to introduce Way of Ki. I feel that the Kiai ability to raise attack or damage alone is enough to give Monk the Edge it needs, particularly with Pummeling Style on the table, but the other feats are nice allowing the Monk to do quite a lot with ki. I've played with it before but have not seen others use it. From my experience, Hadouken and Kiai are the best things to happen to a Monk.
For Fighter I wanted to introduce a number of things but primarily Martial Actions which give a lot of Bo9S-like maneuvers and sort of a stamina pool (point pool that refreshes with ten minute rests) to use them. I've used them and seen them used to great effect, particularly with a Fighter but Fighter still has 2+int skills per day so in the end I may have made it better at killing, moving and saves but not solving any other problems. My hope is that people will avoid the usual 'dump Cha and Int' builds that I see constantly in favor since their killing ability takes less feats now and make something that contribute a little bit.
For Rogue I had purchased Rogue Glory but I have yet to use it. If anyone has any play experience with this please let me know because I have little idea as to how this will actually effect the game.
For Cavalier I've got nothing. I rarely see Cavalier help. I guess they don't need it from what I'm getting in this thread. I guess anyone that has a problem can use the Huntsmaster archetype and have a dog instead.
The rogue isn't actually that great at skills to start with. Yes, they have a lot of ranks, but can't do anything with their skills that other people can't. They can't have more ranks than anyone else, they don't have a higher modifier etc. Skills have diminishing returns. If you only have 1 skill point, you get the best skill (perception). If you have 2 skill points, you get the two best skills (perception and diplomacy). If you have 3 skill points... well you get the idea. The things is that by the time you're picking up your 8th skill point it wasn't nearly as valuable as number 4,5 or 6. This means that the rogue is only better at skills that no one bothers to be good at.
A rogue and a fighter both get dex +ranks in stealth.
A rogue and druid both get dex + ranks to stealth. The druid though can turn into a tiny creature for a good +12.
The biggest problem with the rogue is that most rogue talents are way too weak. There are a couple of good ones, but for the most part they are just plain bad. Many of them are usable only once a day, or are very narrowly focused. Camouflage is a perfect example. Once a day you can gain a +4 bonus to stealth that is limited to a specific natural terrain, and can easily be destroyed. Why would I ever bother with this when I can take skill focus stealth and get a +3 in all terrains that work under all conditions and at 10th level the bonus goes up to +6.
A lot of the rogue talents focus on sneak attack. The problems with sneak attack have been discussed multiple times in multiple threads. When half the rogue talents are focused on something that may be difficult to get it does not help. Don’t get me wrong I think sneak attack is a decent ability, but too many people misunderstand it. It is not designed to make the rogue equal to a fighter or other combat focused characters. If that is what you want you are going to be disappointed. I also do not consider it to the rogue’s main ability. I look at it as something decent that sometimes work.
Rouge talents should be at least as good as a feat, and probably a little better. They should also allow the rogue to do what no one else can do. Giving mall bonus to skills and abilities just is not enough. Ninja talents are generally a lot better, but many of them require a ki pool to use.
I don’t see a problem with the fighter as long as you realize what he is. He is called a fighter because he fights things. With the number of feats he gets he can pull of feat chains better than anyone else. With the variety of archetype available you can create a lot of completely different fighters. The problem is that a lot of people want to do more than just fight. For someone who wants a fairly simple character to play and is not that interested in more than combat they work fine.
The biggest problem with monks is they require a great deal of system mastery to build properly. They also require a good concept of both tactics and the rules to use affectively. You really have to know your character and all its abilities to make them effective. There are also a lot of traps when building and playing a monk that many people fall for.
