Ok, so to bring something I posted from another thread here's essentially what people think is wrong with the fighter.
Nobody is arguing that "The players in your game are unable to contribute or have agency"We are saying that "The class Fighter does not have any class features that give your players additional agency above what is in the base rules for the game such as skills or roleplaying"
For example:
Fighter man is a devout disciple to Goddess A and prays to her for guidance daily before heading out to adventure. He makes connections with the NPCs of the church and wears glistening armor dedicated to his goddess as he adventures. He's capable of calling upon his allies in the church when needed to do things he cannot, such as arrange meetings with important people. Also he can hit people really hard and is tough to kill. He has potions of various buffs and healing.Warrior Man is a devout disciple to Goddess A and prays to her for guidance daily before heading out to adventure. He makes connections with the NPCs of the church and wears glistening armor dedicated to his goddess as he adventures. He's capable of calling upon his allies in the church when needed to do things he cannot, such as arrange meetings with important people. Also he can hit people almost as hard as fighter man and is almost as tough to kill. He has potions of various buffs and healing.
Cleric man is a devout disciple to Goddess A and prays to her for guidance daily before heading out to adventure. He makes connections with the NPCs of the church and wears glistening armor dedicated to his goddess as he adventures. He's capable of calling upon his allies in the church when needed to do things he cannot, such as arrange meetings with important people. Also he can hit people really hard and is tough to kill. He has potions of various buffs and healing. In addition, when in doubt Cleric man can cast commune to actually receive yes/no answers when he asks his goddess for advice. He can blast the invisibility away from unknown assailants with but a word. If need be he could supply food for the starving children of the orphanage of a war torn town or prevent his enemies from teleporting or plane shifting away from his advances.
See how Cleric Man has all the agency of fighter man+everything in italics? That's what we mean by the fighter adds no agency.
If you're in a campaign where all that extra stuff other classes can do doesn't matter then of course you wont see the failings of the Fighter class.
Back on topic.
The Slayer is just as simple as the fighter for a new player, but assuming level 1 the Slayer will be harder to kill and provide significantly more opportunity to interact with the game world. The Slayer will allow the new player to experience more skills when interacting with the world, learn about conditional bonuses in a simple format, and offers the same advantage as Rangers when it comes to bonus feats due to Ranger Combat Styles.
...Are you suggesting that someone who intends to be charismatic should not be expected to put points in charisma?
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Why do you argue about nothing and waste time typing out stuff like that? It would make more sense to debate with people who you percieve as contributing to the thread.
Tempest Knight... How about you stop throwing cool fallacy names around and actually contributed to the discussion?
No one cares what each fallacy is called... Just make your point... Or at least stop interrupting the conversation with pointless nit-picking.
I am bowing out of this thread. This thread was directly relevant to my group's current campaign but now I can't be bothered wading through the nonsense.
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Jesh all this powergaming forums with munchkin stormwind fallacy roleplaying not rollplaying! Random stats of devil point buy master race.
I think we can do better addressing the caster v martial disparity as sorcerer pales to wizard without min maxing borning cleric class features as the summoner nerf was deserved barbarians are unbalanced people still playing rogues.
And that doesn't even address how some unchained classes are side grades and how the WMH doesn't fix the fighter but a martial master mutagen warrior eldtrich guardian with mauler archetype is the best not-fighter but still a nightmare for new players.
But if we take this into consideration #TRUMP2016
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Here is the assumption; We are ONLY concerned with building optimized PCs.
This is not the assumption, however. Characters should be functional at a variety of adventuring tasks because the game includes a wide variety of obstacles and things to interact with. Some classes are simply not suited for the types of things that actually pop up in the game.
Further, the Fighter is woefully ill equipped for filling out concepts. There is essentially no concept that the Fighter fills out that other martials do not, unless the concept is to actively be worse and fail more than other martials (which designing a character to fail is a can of worms and makes you kind of a jerk to your party).
Further still, optimization is an important part of roleplaying in this game, because it ensures that your character has the game mechanics to back up their fluff. If a character is supposed to be able to speak several languages, no amount of roleplaying is going to give you more languages - only ranks in Linguistics or a high Int + bonus languages. If a character is supposed to be an accurate shot, no amount of roleplaying is going to replace a higher +hit modifier. If a character is supposed to be a graduate of a magic school, then no amount of roleplaying is going to replace actual magical abilities. If a character is supposed to be a seasoned warrior akin to the description of the Fighter class, no amount of roleplaying is going to replace mechanics that actually fit that description.
If the optimized 'Face' starts with Diplo/Bluff/<insert Cha based skill> as a class skill and an 18 Cha, they will have a +8 on the check(higher for racial modifiers/feats).
The non-dump Cha 10 Fighter will have a +1(or +4 Intimidate).
If we remove the assumption of Optimization, most New players won't be good at optimizing anyways, we have the basic mechanics... +1 non-class/+4 class for the skills. a difference of 3, or 15% on a D20.
The issue is not about having the highest initial modifier of the group, it's about having the real option at all. Fighters have so few skill points that if your Fighter has average Int/Cha, then you've invested 1/2 your skill points just to put a rank into Intimidate. This leaves precious little room for fleshing out the character otherwise. Secondly, Intelligence and Charisma offer very little to the Fighter (having a 10 Cha rather than a 7 Cha costs the Fighter in other scores that help with his primary job for little gained aside for a +2 on some skills that are more dependent on ranks).
This is the starting point, but it is not big enough to, as you put it, force them out mechanically.
It forces them out of other things if their intention was for their warrior to be anything other than a bully. Again, it cost them 50% of their starting skill points just to be a bully.
Meanwhile, a Ranger with 7 Int has 4 skill points, so they could be the same bully, while also being skilled at first aid, horsemanship, and spotting ambushes. Things you might expect the so called "lords of the battlefield" and "soldiers, knights, hunters, and artists of war" which the Fighter's fluff description describes them as being.
This is why optimization is important. It's how you achieve your goals. Intentionally going into something with the intention of sucking at it is a terrible way to achieve your goals. If your goal is to make a character that sounds like the Fighter, the Fighter is a terrible class to do it with and you're better in pretty much every case with a Ranger (Rangers can master a variety of combat styles and even if they tank Int can have a robust enough skill selection to dabble in a variety of on-theme skills, and they can also pursue methods of combat like mounted combat that Fighters are forever ill-equipped to do, which in turn makes them better candidates for knights and warlords).
Since we all agree, I assume, that a Specialist will always be better then a Generalist at the given specialization. The argument that the Fighter is worthless/bad/whatever because it isn't a Specialist in what <insert other Class> does, is bad, but understandable.
Quite the opposite. I'm an advocate for optimization but likewise an opponent of overspecialization. My issue with the Fighter is they are poor at everything. They're not even good at fighting (their namesake) and they are terrible generalists. A good generalist class is something like the Ranger.
If I wanted to make a character that was a soldier in an army that turned to adventuring after either retiring, getting canned, deserting, or surviving a failed campaign:
With the Fighter I'd be looking at maybe Heal and Intimidate as a skillset, figuring that Heal best represented learning to field-bandage wounds and such, and intimidate was good for staring down foes.
With the Ranger I'd be looking at Heal and Intimidate. I'd also end up picking up Perception (representing his always being on the lookout after learning to live as a warrior), Linguistics (he picked up another language while he was abroad on campaign), Ride (because he learned to ride a horse in the army), and Survival (because he learned some basic survival things such as how to discern north in case he got separated from his unit).
So not only is the Ranger a better candidate for exploring the game as a new player (giving them more things to try out at a comfortable pace), the Ranger is a better candidate for filling out character concepts that the Fighter cannot do particularly well. This is mostly ability-score irrelevant as well, aside from the fact the Ranger possesses more ability-score friendly options (such as actually rewarding a higher Wisdom, having class features that offset their dump stats, allowing them to pick feats independent of their requisite ability scores, etc).
Since the assumption is we are all Optimizers or Min/Max'ers and would never, ever, ever, ever choose the suboptimal choice.
If you're smart, yeah. You won't. See, sometimes a less effective game mechanic may better represent something you want to represent, such as investing a rank into Knowledge (Nobility). In most games, K:(Nobility) isn't going to see much use and you can't really use it while adventuring except in some weird niche cases (you certainly aren't going to use it to come up with a good answer to what the thing eating your monk for breakfast is) but it might be the best representation for your character's background in a courtly arena or something.
But actively choosing to take worse options when better options exist that do the same thing isn't about sometimes choosing the suboptimal choice because it better reflects, it's about knowledge and reasoning ability (or lack thereof). Mind you, if there's some sort of special mechanic that you enjoy involved (such as preferring psionics over spellcasting even if spellcasting is more powerful) then that's one thing, but in this conversation we are literally talking about two classes who have all but identical mechanics but one just has more going for it outside of what they share.
This is also why the Rogue should never take Knowledge skills unless they have an 18+ Int, The Wizard is running around with a +8(or higher) knowledge check, the Rogue's check of +4(give or take) is suboptimal.
Actually it's a pretty good deal for a rogue to take at least 1 point in every knowledge skill that they can because it gives them the chance to make a check they couldn't have made before, and most skills have diminishing returns anyway (as in they don't reward you for having super-high modifiers because their DCs are pretty reasonable and it doesn't matter if you succeed by an inch or by a mile if you're always going to succeed), so scattering points around into various trained-only or class skills (to unlock the skill or get a free +3 to the skill) is quite reasonable.
I do this all the time with lots of classes (especially Rangers). In fact, my last really major character (a psion w/ a 7 Charisma) ended up being the party's face because in the long run she had great social skills and was very self-sufficient, spoke a ton of languages, was good at discerning lies, was decent at intimidating people, had at least 1 rank in every Knowledge skill, etc, etc, etc.
The skill Fighter I referenced early was a generalist, he ALWAYS had the right skills, not all Wizards take Spellcraft <insert any other Class/Iconic Class Skill combo>. That Fighter could always make the check, not always do great, but always attempt.
Given that Spellcraft is literally required to scribe spells into their spellbook (no seriously, read the magic chapter), you'll be hard pressed to find a successful wizard that didn't take Spellcraft. Unless you only intend to ever have 2 spells / level, no spare spellbooks, and no way to replace your spellbook if it's lost, stolen, or destroyed, you take Spellcraft. It's that simple.
If the dice help, the Fighter could outshine the specialist. Given this is a dice based game, not a factor to be ignored.
It's a factor that can work in your advantage by doing things like dropping a rank into something so you can try to make checks you couldn't before, but there's also nothing special about it in the least and the Ranger can do it better than the Fighter ever could. Which is the point.
For a new player, setting them up with a Fighter is setting them up to fail. It's a class that requires a high degree of system mastery to be functional in any robust game (by robust, I mean where the GM is experienced at using varied encounters, the environment rules, has adventures that span both mundane and exotic locations, etc). It's a class that doesn't teach anything about the game that literally every other class also teaches ([herpdederp] attack rolls, feats [/herpdederp]) and is actively worse at things that classes that perform identical roles and teach more things.
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Jesh all this powergaming forums with munchkin stormwind fallacy roleplaying not rollplaying! Random stats of devil point buy master race.
I think we can do better addressing the caster v martial disparity as sorcerer pales to wizard without min maxing borning cleric class features as the summoner nerf was deserved barbarians are unbalanced people still playing rogues.
And that doesn't even address how some unchained classes are side grades and how the WMH doesn't fix the fighter but a martial master mutagen warrior eldtrich guardian with mauler archetype is the best not-fighter but still a nightmare for new players.
But if we take this into consideration #TRUMP2016
This made me laugh. Thanks. :P
I fail to see how badmouthing fighters will win the argument, rather than talk up the other classes.
Honestly, half these discussions end where they do because everyone looks at the negative side to sell their side, rather than the positive aspects.
Instead of saying "fighters suck because.." try saying "rangers rule, and here's why.."
I guarantee the tone of the boards will improve immediately.
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I fail to see how badmouthing fighters will win the argument, rather than talk up the other classes.
Honestly, half these discussions end where they do because everyone looks at the negative side to sell their side, rather than the positive aspects.
Instead of saying "fighters suck because.." try saying "rangers rule, and here's why.."
I guarantee the tone of the boards will improve immediately.
Because it's a public service to decry just how terrible fighters are every opportunity that you get. If you can take a shot at fighters, do it. You are, by doing so, potentially warning those who don't know any better. The sort who will read the Fighter's fluff description and not immediately notice that they're horrible at doing all of those things.
The sort of people who read the class' name and think "These guys must be the best, or at least good at fighting" when they're not good at fighting at all. They're actually one of the worst classes at combat in the entire game and yet combat is also all they do.
To not decry the fighter for the utter and repulsive failure that it is would be to allow its disease to more easily infect others. All it takes for evil to win is for good people to do nothing.
Fighters SUUUUUUUUUUUCK. Especially at fighting, but also at anything remotely not-combat oriented. They are bad conceptually, they are bad mechanically. They are bad at filling out concepts. They are bad for roleplay. They are bad at adventuring. They are bad at problem solving.
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Of course, to simply badmouth the Fighter without pointing out that there are excellent alternatives that fill all those roles the Fighter does and then some would be less helpful.
Which is why we have the Ranger, Barbarian, and Paladin, also the Slayer, and probably a few other new classes that I've not even bothered with.
Well then you're the problem, the boards won't improve unless you dial back the vitriol, which is completely unnecessary.
Too bad, if anyone could help improve things, it's you. The toxicity and anger has to be dialed back, if we want the hobby to survive.
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I fail to see how badmouthing fighters will win the argument, rather than talk up the other classes.
Honestly, half these discussions end where they do because everyone looks at the negative side to sell their side, rather than the positive aspects.
Instead of saying "fighters suck because.." try saying "rangers rule, and here's why.."
I guarantee the tone of the boards will improve immediately.
I am sorry but the "fighter" is not a person, we are not talking about someone behind their back so this isn't bad mouthing. If what you mean is that we should not criticize the fighter class than I must humbly disagree. Criticism is a valid and important process of improving things we create. People must be able to see the problem to fix it, ignoring it will not help.
If you do not see a problem that is your prerogative, but a lot of people here do and it is their right to criticize and point out any problems they take note of in the fighter class.
Well then you're the problem, the boards won't improve unless you dial back the vitriol, which is completely unnecessary.
Too bad, if anyone could help improve things, it's you. The toxicity and anger has to be dialed back, if we want the hobby to survive.
Toxicity? Vitriol? Please tell me you aren't serious. Ashiel is talking about a class in an rpg game. If I had shown your post to anyone they'd think the people here were insulting someone dear to you.
The toxicity needs to stop, calling people stupid or that they hate you or whatever because they picked a class you don't like is not constructive criticism, it's just petty.
By all means, discuss how to make the fighter better, but don't attack someone that likes it, and thinks differently.
Too much anger and too many people telling them they're wrong, on all sides. Frankly I'm tired of everyone attacking each other, and it does Nothing but chase people away.
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Well then you're the problem, the boards won't improve unless you dial back the vitriol, which is completely unnecessary.
It's completely necessary. Those most at risk of that horrid abomination are those who are young and naive. Those who are just getting into the game. Those who come to the forums to get ideas and read more about the game they are interested in.
Slaying that dragon will bring a new era of prosperity to the kingdom.
Too bad, if anyone could help improve things, it's you. The toxicity and anger has to be dialed back, if we want the hobby to survive.
What makes me so special? (?_?)
Also, for the record, it's not anger it's honest. I'm not angry in the least. I'm just honest. I might be brutally honest, but I'm talking about a game mechanic, not a person. Not someone's friend. A game mechanic. A bad game mechanic. A failure of a game mechanic. One that's not even entirely Paizo's fault and I don't envy them for having inherited it.
Every time I say "Fighter sucks, here is why" and then turn around and go "But you can do all of that with X class, here's how", it's not because I'm nursing some sort of dark grudge or quest for vengeance against the fighter, anymore so than a guide nurses a quest for vengeance against the quicksand he leads people away from.
The toxicity needs to stop, calling people stupid or that they hate you or whatever because they picked a class you don't like is not constructive criticism, it's just petty.
By all means, discuss how to make the fighter better, but don't attack someone that likes it, and thinks differently.
Too much anger and too many people telling them they're wrong, on all sides. Frankly I'm tired of everyone attacking each other, and it does Nothing but chase people away.
Wow, talk about blowing this out of proportion. The people in this thread are having a discussion, they don't see eye to eye, they don't agree and so they talk it out, with each side trying to convince the other of their view points. Do things get heated? Sure. Are there some unneeded snide remarks? Yes, but that doesn't mean that they hate each other.
Seriously don't talk like the sky is falling because people got into a heated discussion. Human history and culture has went through several such discussions more of often then not they've turned out to be important. Sure we are just a bunch of nerds getting heated over class mechanics and what not but you don't know which of these nerds might start a game of their own that the lot of us might end up playing.
@Ashiel Can I join your quest of vengeance? I love those types of quests so very much!
Ashiel,
You seem to be influential around the boards.
I'm trying to make this a better place.
I do have respect for your opinion, I just feel lately, you've let your frustration (and trolls) get the better of you, I'd prefer to have less of the frustration. :-)
And yes I'm terrible with words, my brain jumbles Shit up, stupid dyslexia!
I'm sorry Liz.
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The toxicity needs to stop, calling people stupid or that they hate you or whatever because they picked a class you don't like is not constructive criticism, it's just petty.
Lol, whut?
By all means, discuss how to make the fighter better, but don't attack someone that likes it, and thinks differently.
There's not really any way to make the fighter better without just scrapping it. It's something I've been pondering for a long time and the Fighter just fails on a lot of fundamental levels. There's a lot (and I mean a LOT of hack fixes) and I just realized eventually that there was no point in trying to salvage the Fighter because there are better alternatives already (like Ranger) and the Fighter has little to nothing worthwhile about it in terms of game mechanics worth holding onto.
Too much anger and too many people telling them they're wrong, on all sides.
You can be objectively wrong about certain things, like rules and mechanics. These are demonstrable, provable things, when you're talking about things like skill ranks and attack modifiers. These are things that I will never shy away from arguing because they are objective facts.
That's how truth is obtained. Through reasoning. If I make an argument, I'm going to show how and why it is so. And if history is any indication, it's a very effective tactic at cutting through the kudzu of false information because it's really hard to resist reality and still appear to be informed.
Frankly I'm tired of everyone attacking each other, and it does Nothing but chase people away.
I agree. Though I've not attacked anyone. I have expressed that it's a pet peeve of mine when people attack other people on the grounds of "dirty optimizers" and "rollplayers" and nonsense like that, but that's because such people are trying to instill a sense of wrongness in the person and their choices to have a fully functional character, because they can't actually produce a legitimate ground to defend the Fighter on.
Yet here we are, with my defending objective arguments against claims of hateful vitriol and anger, while there are those who actually are insulting people by trying to discredit us on the grounds of not being true Scotsmen (or roleplayers as the case may be).
So...y'know.
The toxicity needs to stop, calling people stupid or that they hate you or whatever because they picked a class you don't like is not constructive criticism, it's just petty.
By all means, discuss how to make the fighter better, but don't attack someone that likes it, and thinks differently.
Too much anger and too many people telling them they're wrong, on all sides. Frankly I'm tired of everyone attacking each other, and it does Nothing but chase people away.
I'm curious who called anyone stupid. You seem the only one using that word.
Are you mind reading us?!
I guess i was wrong then, my apologies. :-)
the herpaderp post above just kind of rubbed me wrong, and when reading things on your phone with the morning coffee, long posts sometimes lose context, i'm sorry for my strong language as well, there were better words then vitriol and blah, blah i could've used, if only i gave my brain time.
I just want this to be a more welcoming place, and would like to see a more positive spin put on arguments, to make them more constructive.
I don't think "giving" a player a class is probably the best direction. If I have a new player I usually give them a book and say "Pick a class out of this, but understand some classes are more difficult than others." and many times the Fighter is chosen because in MOST games the Fighter is the easiest to play.
With that said I believe a DM should be very tolerant of the choices a new player picks. If they're playing a Fighter and at 1st level they choose feats that you know won't be that great, allow them their choice and let them play them out for a few sessions. If at that point the player doesn't like his choices or doesn't think they work well, let them choose different ones. Let them know that this is mainly because the heavy level of system master for the system but as they become more familiar with the game, they won't be allowed to arbitrarily change feats in the future (unless you allow retraining or just swapping at each level of course).
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For the record, I agree with the content of all the last few posts that Ashiel's made (with one exception, see below) but I think I get what captain yesterday is getting at: It's an issue of tone.
I don't like the Fighter. It's a bad class, and doesn't work well for its intended role. But I don't think I come across as even half as angry about it as Ashiel, and I imagine people who like the Fighter (as objectively wrong as they may be about its quality) might well feel attacked by Ashiel's posts in a way they might not by something a bit calmer sounding. I'm not sure that's entirely true, but it probably is at least a little bit so.
Now, I'm not at all sure what can be done about that, since Ashiel isn't actually angry, merely coming off that way, but it might be something to address, or at least consider addressing.
There's not really any way to make the fighter better without just scrapping it. It's something I've been pondering for a long time and the Fighter just fails on a lot of fundamental levels. There's a lot (and I mean a LOT of hack fixes) and I just realized eventually that there was no point in trying to salvage the Fighter because there are better alternatives already (like Ranger) and the Fighter has little to nothing worthwhile about it in terms of game mechanics worth holding onto.
I disagree. Nobody else does heavy armor fighting well without an animal companion or magic. Nobody else does specializing in a particular weapon to such an extent. No other Class is quite so simple to play (not create, they're complicated there). Now, beyond the simple bit, the Fighter doesn't do either of those first things very well either, but it's intended to, and maybe could with a little help.
None of that makes Fighters good, or less of a terrible Class for new players (indeed, their simplicity is a downside as much as anything in teaching new players how the game works), what with them being objectively terrible and thus likely to vastly reduce their player's fun, but a proper Class Fix might well make a character Class fitting a niche nobody else really does.
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I don't think "giving" a player a class is probably the best direction. If I have a new player I usually give them a book and say "Pick a class out of this, but understand some classes are more difficult than others." and many times the Fighter is chosen because in MOST games the Fighter is the easiest to play.
This seems a bad strategy. Some Classes really are super tricky for a new person to play, or don't play the particular concept thy want well at all (while saying they do). Really, describing the world, having them describe a character back, and then figuring what class best reflects that character mechanically seems the way to go.
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Ashiel,
You seem to be influential around the boards.
Well thanks. :D
I'm trying to make this a better place.
Seems a nobler goal than most. :)
I do have respect for your opinion, I just feel lately, you've let your frustration (and trolls) get the better of you, I'd prefer to have less of the frustration. :-)
That's fair.
Perhaps I should just take to copy/pasting posts from bygone threads. It's not like I don't have like five years of these things under my belt.
And yes I'm terrible with words, my brain jumbles S+#$ up, stupid dyslexia!
No worries. :)
I disagree. Nobody else does heavy armor fighting well without an animal companion or magic. Nobody else does specializing in a particular weapon to such an extent. No other Class is quite so simple.
Armored Hulk Barbarian but sure. >_>
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Armored Hulk Barbarian but sure. >_>I disagree. Nobody else does heavy armor fighting well without an animal companion or magic. Nobody else does specializing in a particular weapon to such an extent. No other Class is quite so simple.
Yeah, but Rage doesn't make everyone happy either. I'm not saying you should use corebook Fighter for, well, anything. I'm saying having a functional Fighter class would be handy.
Archetypes and Advanced Weapon Training really help in this direction (though they don't go far enough...okay Lore Warden plus Advanced Weapon Training is actually pretty viable), and Advanced Armor Training in combination with those might well actually make it workable. At least as compared to Brawler or the like.
There's not really any way to make the fighter better without just scrapping it. It's something I've been pondering for a long time and the Fighter just fails on a lot of fundamental levels. There's a lot (and I mean a LOT of hack fixes) and I just realized eventually that there was no point in trying to salvage the Fighter because there are better alternatives already (like Ranger) and the Fighter has little to nothing worthwhile about it in terms of game mechanics worth holding onto.I disagree. Nobody else does heavy armor fighting well without an animal companion or magic. Nobody else does specializing in a particular weapon to such an extent. No other Class is quite so simple to play (not create, they're complicated there). Now, beyond the simple bit, the Fighter doesn't do either of those first things very well either, but it's intended to, and maybe could with a little help.
None of that makes Fighters good, or less of a terrible Class for new players (indeed, their simplicity is a downside as much as anything in teaching new players how the game works), what with them being objectively terrible and thus likely to vastly reduce their player's fun, but...
But Heavy armor fighting without magic isn't hard.
a Steelblood Untouchable Primalist Bloodrager is a Fighter with rage, SR, 2 rage powers or a bloodline power every 4 levels, etc.
The new Weapon Master Handbook lets everyone specialize.
Yes, a new player wouldn't know that they can combine archetypes, but that is why you'd help them.
Don't forget the Tempered Champion Paladin. It's mostly a downgrade from the vanilla Paladin but it's still a lot better at being a full plate wearer with no spells than the Fighter.
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But Heavy armor fighting without magic isn't hard.
a Steelblood Untouchable Primalist Bloodrager is a Fighter with rage, SR, 2 rage powers or a bloodline power every 4 levels, etc.
The new Weapon Master Handbook lets everyone specialize.
Yes, a new player wouldn't know that they can combine archetypes, but that is why you'd help them.
True to some extent. I still think having a Base Class good at things like this by default would be good. If we had one.
Don't forget the Tempered Champion Paladin. It's mostly a downgrade from the vanilla Paladin but it's still a lot better at being a full plate wearer with no spells than the Fighter.
Oh, totally. But that still has magic, even lacking spells.
Fair enough, I generally don't count Su abilities when considering a class to be magic or not though (otherwise the Barbarian is incredibly magical).
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Fair enough, I generally don't count Su abilities when considering a class to be magic or not though (otherwise the Barbarian is incredibly magical).
It sorta depends on how overt they are. Barbarians can be very effective without anything more overt than growing claws and smashing magic. The first of which can be flavored as more or less invisible, and the second as just being so awesome they can do that (there's a Feat that provide something similar to the latter, after all).
Most Paladin abilities fall under the same sort of thing, but healing injuries and diseases with a touch is a bit harder to justify as anything but 'I have magic powers'. Ditto summoning your mount out of thin air or causing your sword to burst into flame.
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I disagree. Nobody else does heavy armor fighting well without an animal companion or magic. Nobody else does specializing in a particular weapon to such an extent. No other Class is quite so simple. Now, beyond the simple bit, the Fighter doesn't do either of those first things very well either, but it's intended to, and maybe could with a little help.
The issue is, the fighter doesn't do it well either.
Plus, as is, everyone ends up wearing heavy armor later in the game. Paladin, Barbarian, Ranger, Fighter, whatever. It's just usually mithral, or magical light armor (like celestial) or mithral celestial, and unless you're pushing really high Dex scores, you're not really getting anything out of it at the levels where it matters.
Likewise, the weapon specialization bit is pretty trappy. You have to specialize in a weapon to even try to keep up with what other martials just do as a matter of fact, and even full specced with tons of your feats invested, you still can't actually match your peers. Weapon Focus + Greater Weapon Focus + Weapon Specialization + Greater Weapon Specialization + Weapon Training devoted all 4 times = +6 to hit and +10 to damage and that's 4/10ths of your class options devoted to a single weapon, not even a group.
So you're a slave to a particular weapon to even be competitive with your peers. And the moment you have to switch weapons, bam, suck city, population 3. >_>
None of that makes Fighters good, or less of a terrible Class for new players (indeed, their simplicity is a downside as much as anything in teaching new players how the game works), what with them being objectively terrible and thus likely to vastly reduce their player's fun, but a proper Class Fix might well make a character Class fitting a niche nobody else really does.
The thing is, "I wield a weapon" and "I wear heavy armor" are just things that characters kind of do matter o' factly. I'm not sure that building an entire core character class around "I wield a weapon" and "I wear armor" is a particularly worthy goal (it sounds like some sort of hyper specialized prestige class) when the core classes are all set up to be able to fill a variety of roles and concepts.
Whereas "Do you want to wield a weapon and wear armor better?" isn't exactly a great pitch. And does there even need to be a character that's whole shtick is "I wear armor gud"? If you're going to be a master of weaponry and warfare, shouldn't you be good at a lot of weapons and in an noticeably different way than everyone else?
I mean, barbarians start out the gate showing up Fighters. It takes a Fighter 5 levels to get +2/+3 with single melee weapon. The barbarian's been sitting a that since 1st level, has more HP, damage reduction, can move a 40 ft. in light armor, 30 ft. in medium armor (sorry fighter), will eventually wear mithral full plate (probably) and have a higher AC than the Fighter while he's raging (thanks rage powers), and he gets his benefits with all his melee weapons and with the right ranged weapons (especially adaptive bows).
The fighter doesn't really fill a niche that couldn't be filled with the other classes by just making some feats or talents or something. "I gud with weapon and I can wear armor" isn't exactly worth an entire 20 level base class.
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And before I get accused of being a dirty powergamer, I'm going to cut 'em off at the pass.
Exactly what about the fighter makes it better for roleplaying? What about promoting its existence supports roleplay against the evil optimization?
Because if someone's going to bring anti-optimization and roleplaying>rollplaying into this, I want everyone to think about what we're really arguing about.
We're talking about a class that does nothing and has no conceptual justification to its existence besides getting bigger bonuses on melee attacks and armor class. It is a class that's entire premise is based around "I (theoretically) have bigger numbers in combat than that other guy", with no skill support, little to nothing to use to support any sort of character development or roleplaying (I drew attention to this in the ex-soldier Fighter vs Ranger comparison).
Think about if a player came up to you and wanted to play a class and it's ONLY feature and purpose was just having higher base stats than something else (whether real or implied) was a thing and he suggested he wanted to play it for "the roleplaying".
Let that sink in...
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And before I get accused of being a dirty powergamer, I'm going to cut 'em off at the pass.
Dirty Power gamer :P (kidding)
Think about if a player came up to you and wanted to play a class and it's ONLY feature and purpose was just having higher base stats than something else (whether real or implied) was a thing and he suggested he wanted to play it for "the roleplaying".Let that sink in...
Technically, Summoner Synthegist can do that if you dump Cha (since then it only class feature will be eidolon since can't cast without Cha).
Interestingly, it would have full BAB, better saves than a Fighter, better Stats likely, possible act similar to heavy armor (since you choose armor or NA bonuses), though can't specialize.|
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@Ashiel:
I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. Per the corebook, you're absolutely right that Fighter doesn't do any of those things well. I'm arguing that a fixed and effective version of Fighter that did do such things well would be a good thing to have. And thus fixing the Fighter is theoretically worthwhile. Heck, I've done it via extensive house rules.
That's pretty much my whole argument.
I also think you're overstating the RAW Fighter's badness a little bit in its current form. Advanced Weapon Training and Archetypes help a lot. As I mentioned, a Lore Warden using Advanced Weapon Training is actually a valid martial character (if one that could still use some serious improvement). And with Advanced Armor Training in the works, Fighters in general might become much closer to being viable quite soon (and I might well be toning down my fix's additions to compensate...we'll see).
Now this doesn't remotely make RAW Fighter good at all for new players, mind you, since it requires several books and relatively obscure stuff to work, and is still behind Paladin or Ranger in several ways but it does seem workable.
I think my version would be fine for new players, but then, that's rather part of the point.
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And before I get accused of being a dirty powergamer, I'm going to cut 'em off at the pass.
Dirty Power gamer :P (kidding)
Think about if a player came up to you and wanted to play a class and it's ONLY feature and purpose was just having higher base stats than something else (whether real or implied) was a thing and he suggested he wanted to play it for "the roleplaying".Let that sink in...
Technically, Summoner Synthegist can do that if you dump Cha (since then it only class feature will be eidolon since can't cast without Cha).
Interestingly, it would have full BAB, better saves than a Fighter, better Stats likely, possible act similar to heavy armor (since you choose armor or NA bonuses), though can't specialize.
Nice. :P
This is why I said "weather real or implied". The idea is that they're supposed to be mechanically better at this thing that everyone else (it's not true in practice but that's the theory). That is the extent of their contribution to the game. They have no other redeeming qualities. There is nothing about the fighter that lends itself to roleplaying or filling out character concepts. There's nothing about the fighter that fills any conceptual niches (because the fluff that describes them is not only inaccurate at describing the class but actually describes other classes better).
Look at the fighter's arsenal. Literally all of their class features exist purely as numerical bonuses to things that you do matter o' factly. "We all wear armor", "Well I wear armor better". "We all wield weapons", "Well I wield weapons better" (except when they don't).
It amazing that we "optimizers" get so much flak from people professing roleplaying when they're promoting a class that can only claim to be able to "roleplay swinging a weapon better" in comparison to any other class in terms of conception and mechanics.
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@Ashiel:
I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. Per the corebook, you're absolutely right that Fighter doesn't do any of those things well. I'm arguing that a fixed and effective version of Fighter that did do such things well would be a good thing to have. And thus fixing the Fighter is theoretically worthwhile. Heck, I've done it via extensive house rules.
That's pretty much my whole argument.
I'm still not convinced it's worth saving. I mean no offense towards the fighter remix you've posted - not even a teeny tiny bit. But it hits all the problems I mentioned before. It doesn't really do anything except try to have some better numbers. It's better than the normal fighter but it still doesn't justify the Fighter's existence.
I also think you're overstating the RAW Fighter's badness a little bit in its current form. Advanced Weapon Training and Archetypes help a lot. As I mentioned, a Lore Warden using Advanced Weapon Training is actually a valid martial character (if one that could still use some serious improvement).
I've never found the lore warden to be particularly compelling, aside from trading armor proficiencies for more skill points and such. While you can burn feats or cross-class to regain armor proficiencies, I just don't see the appeal of the lore warden. I just don't think it's that good.
Aside from the fact it doesn't really even resemble a fighter anymore (light armor, no weapon training, no armor training, no bravery; not that any of those are any good) all it replaces on the fighter is it gives them up to a +8 on CMB checks (every other martial can mimic this or dwarf it while being more well rounded) and allows them to attempt skill checks to get some modest bonuses to hit and damage (and if they fail they have NO bonuses to hit and damage).
And with Advanced Armor Training in the works, Fighters in general might become much closer to being viable quite soon (and I might well be toning down my fix's additions to compensate...we'll see).
Now this doesn't remotely make RAW Fighter good at all for new players, mind you, since it requires several books and relatively obscure stuff to work, and is still behind Paladin or Ranger in several ways but it does seem workable.
I think my version would be fine for new players, but then, that's rather part of the point.
And again we're back to a class who's only conceptual niche is "have bigger numbers" for the sake of...what?
I don't think "giving" a player a class is probably the best direction. If I have a new player I usually give them a book and say "Pick a class out of this, but understand some classes are more difficult than others." and many times the Fighter is chosen because in MOST games the Fighter is the easiest to play.This seems a bad strategy. Some Classes really are super tricky for a new person to play, or don't play the particular concept thy want well at all (while saying they do). Really, describing the world, having them describe a character back, and then figuring what class best reflects that character mechanically seems the way to go.
Bad strategy? Not really, it's different and does have the chance of the player choosing a difficult class but how's that different than you're method and them saying "I want to play a guy who throws around fireballs and flys and cast spells" OR is more generic like "I wanna play a guy like Gandalf"?
If someone wants to play a tricky concept (Wizard, Cleric, Druid) based on the rules and spell selection then that's what they're going to pick regardless of me saying "stick within this book" or them describing it to me.
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And before I get accused of being a dirty powergamer, I'm going to cut 'em off at the pass.Dirty Power gamer :P (kidding)
Well... He still did it before you called him a dirty powergamer.
This is why I said "weather real or implied".
You mean... Like when the forecast is wrong?
:P
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And before I get accused of being a dirty powergamer, I'm going to cut 'em off at the pass.Dirty Power gamer :P (kidding)Well... He still did it before you called him a dirty powergamer.
This is why I said "weather real or implied".You mean... Like when the forecast is wrong?
:P
Oops, I meant to write whether, not weather. XD
Though it's surprisingly similar to forecasts being wrong. You read the fighter's fluff and you're expecting sunshine and rainbows and then you're up to your elbows in ice, snow, and acid rain, in your swim trunks.