Talek & Luna, you need to seriously read this link, because your arguments basically hit almost every single bloody trope that Jiggy linked to.
I'm amazed someone didn't just roll their eyes and link to it a hundred posts ago. I know you hit at least 1, 3, 4, and 7. Eesh.
Oh, and this one:
And Kirth's Addendums:
==Aelryinth
Hope that helps!
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I've never really figured out how to do click links easily. :P
==Aelryinth
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I've never really figured out how to do click links easily. :P
==Aelryinth
It's not that bad. You just toss a pair of tags around some text, like this: (url=https://www.google.com/)link to google(/url), except the (round) brackets are replaced by [square] ones.
Like so: link to google
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But we should note that the "main campaign" of each FF game is all about combat after combat, and each character's stats have no say in the narrative, caster or not. Obviously, it meant that those warriors who pull off flashy attacks without spending any limited resource at all would shine all the time.
Fair enough, but part of the problem with the Fighter is that it will fail to live up to its namesake. I think that's a fundamental issue that needs addressing. Even if it (It being superhuman feats of Weapon Mastery) only makes the fighter frightfully efficient in combat, that helps level the playing field a bit. In most FF games, combat utility is left to the magic users, since "martials" will be overwhelmingly efficient at killing things. I think if having a Fighter meant that, "Whatever we run into, (Insert Fighter here) is here and can wipe it out with extreme prejudice if need be," that would make the class more attractive.
At this point in the game, with Wish, demon binding, plane hopping and Simulacrum, it's almost impossible to have a martial match a casters utility and narrative options, but if given more fantastic abilities, superhuman martial abilities could impact the narrative on some scale with more creative use. The main problem is magic bring nigh unlimited in far too many contexts.
See this is an interesting thing. On the one hand, all player classes should have narrative power because they need a way to influence the world around them, to be significant. On the other hand, how much is that solved through worldbuilding and the like? How much out of combat things to fighters need to be able to do, and how significant do they need to be? What things can we say "yea you're going to need a caster to solve this in the best way possible?"
Following that, I think that ends up being part of the fighter's problem. There's no thing where one would say "yea you're going to need a fighter to solve this in the best way possible." EVERYONE can fight, and a lot of classes can fight well. The fighter is as good as they are (I don't think they're better, but lack play experience, so...there), but sacrifices everything else to be so. But if they were indisputably the best in combat, the most versatile, they'd have a niche. You could build encounters that contain potentially really tough fights, and the party with a fighter could just smash their way through, while the party without one would have to either fight more carefully or find a way around it. Then, of course, throw more skillpoints at the fighter so they can actually have some abilities outside of combat rather than none...They don't need a lot, just something. Versatile training helps with this, but I think part of that is weapon training after your first group isn't very effective because of weapon focus / weapon specialization.
Basically, the fighter's "fighting" bonus right now is feats. If you want to improve your damage with a single weapon you take power attack and weapon focus / specialization. But doing so 1) forces the fighter into using a single weapon and 2) makes later levels of weapon training superfluous (because of 1). Which is actually part of why versatile training is so attractive. You trade something relatively worthless for something incredibly valuable (WT for a group you don't use for skillpoints you're desperately in need of).
Give the fighter more ability to fight
- Shorten combat maneuver feat chains (remove the first of each, and let them naturally not provoke) so a fighter can take a variety of them if they want.
- Let weapon focus / specialization apply to all weapons you have WT with so a fighter can be a master of all weapons (or trade for advanced training if they still want to specialize)
- Start weapon training at level 1 so the fighter can be a fighter before reaching the middle of the game (perhaps giving stamina instead of a bonus feat at 1 too to make it less tempting of a dip)
- Improve armor training (may happen with armor master's handbook) & shields (I'd make lights 2ac, heavy 4 and tower 6 so there's a better gain from the damage lost) to improve survivability in a fight.
And give them a little more strength outside of combat naturally with more base skills per level. This gives fighters a niche of fighting really really well, and makes them a little more present when not swinging a sword without requiring versatile training. I think having WT at 1 (and allowing the player to take an advanced training feat at 1 if they want) would be smoother for progression as well. Wanting to, say, fight with a polearm using fighter's finesse (without using speardancing style) currently requires you to wait until level 5. I find this uncomfortable because it means for the first 4 levels you're not playing the character that you envisioned, and then at 5 you suddenly switch styles. Letting such a trick start at 1 has a much more natural progression (this is also one reason I don't like dex to damage, because it radically changes how a character fights in the middle of development, which feels weird....I also dislike it because it means dex focused characters aren't making a real trade off for just stacking one attribute, but that's a different issue).
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Ok this may seem a bit weird but personally one of the things I tend to referance when thinking about powerful non-Wuxia/anime fighters is ironically enough a Manga/Anime called Berserk.
Yes it's an anime but it's European setting and humans are pretty mundane in it.
Main character is a Big guy with a slab of metal he calls a sword and a pile of other weapons. There is nothing fancy about him, no special techniques beyond brute strength and endurance. It's brutal and bloody but this guy can and will take down undead hordes and unstopable demons, even if he comes out looking like a half-dead mess afterwards.
and it's not just him, other skilled fighters in the series have their own styles but again they are nothing fancy just a high level of skill. Someone with a thin blade like a rapier being able to slip it right between joints of enemy armor. a skilled Knife thrower, shrewed tactician. At one point there is a middle eastern assassin with some exotic weapons like Chakrams and Urumi. He is probably as close as the series comes to an "wuxai" fighter.
But ultimately it's the main character that is the best example of a powerful Fighter. A guy who can power his way through hell on sheer muscle and willpower. Who doesn't stay down no matter how many times you hit him and who can kill you with a sharp stick if he has too, and if he doesn't have that he'll use his teeth.
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I'm not really a fan of the "gear as class feature" solution, honestly, since it conflicts with one of the oldest and most beloved aspects of the game: Adventuring as a hunt for useful treasure (including magic swords and armor). That's why I'd rather resort to "wuxia", frankly.
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The Dragonslayer was never magical to begin with, just an oversized Two handed sword, probably considered Size Large and Masterwork but that's it. The implications are that it started to become magical because of how many demon's he's killed with it, but there is nothing specific on that point.
He killed a ton of stuff with it long before meeting the Witch.
The Pig demon, The Slug Count, the Queen of the Elves, The Inquisitor Angels. All killed with nothing more than Flesh and Iron.
The Berserker armor isn't introduced until almost 30 volumes in and it's cursed. He's only really had it for 3 major battles. The Demon Knights who killed the witch, the Kushan Demon army and their God-Emperor's Avatar and the God of the Sea.
He's been without magic far longer than he has been with it.
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> dragonslayer
> empowered by killing demons
I don't understand naming schemes.
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> dragonslayer
> empowered by killing demons
I don't understand naming schemes.
It had the name before it was used to kill anything.
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Well that's just cocky naming. It'd be like if I named my baby "Spiderkiller"—it doesn't mean the baby is going to eat spiders for me. I know from personal experience it doesn't work. :(
The moral of the story is Kobold Cleaver shouldn't be allowed to have babies. For this and other reasons.
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Well that's just cocky naming. It'd be like if I named my baby "Spiderkiller"—it doesn't mean the baby is going to eat spiders for me. I know from personal experience it doesn't work. :(
The moral of the story is Kobold Cleaver shouldn't be allowed to have babies. For this and other reasons.
Thank god that kobold are raised culturally rather than parenterally @_@
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Dragonslayer was a comissioned sword. The client asked for a sword that could 'slay dragons', which the blacksmith thought was ludicrous, so he forged a weaon that he assumed could punch through dragon hide. As a result, the weapon was so massive and uweildy that no one could use it. So it sat in the back of the blacksmiths shop until Guts found it.
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Well that's just cocky naming. It'd be like if I named my baby "Spiderkiller"—it doesn't mean the baby is going to eat spiders for me. I know from personal experience it doesn't work. :(
The moral of the story is Kobold Cleaver shouldn't be allowed to have babies. For this and other reasons.
The Dragonslayer was created by a master blacksmith as a request from a king.
He wanted "a sword fit to slay a dragon" and the smith was tired of wasting his ability on pansy jewel encrusted play swords. So what he created was "too big,too thick, too heavy, and too rough" to be a sword wielded by man. After all, it needed to slay a Dragon.
Also this sword seems to randomly get longer due to art inconsistency.