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It's all the fault of ancient D&D, come to think of it. Back when we didn't have mechanics for much of anything outside of THAC0 and 1,001s that you randomly die because your friend tried to polymorph you or something.
Fighter was the guy, pretty much the only guy, who was a base class that just hit stuff better. He had more HP (usually), could get (maybe) good bonuses from his Strength score, and his attack bonuses went up by +1 / level. He didn't really DO anything else but then neither did anyone else. The game was essentially mother-may-I with some attack rolls thrown in and the occasional magic missile and cure light wounds spell thrown in.
They had other classes that were like Fighter but they were pretty much just obviously better except they took more XP points to level up, often had weird restrictions, and were blocked behind a luck tax where you had to roll at least this high in completely random ability scores to play them. So even if they had class features, Fighter was your main bro.
Fast forward to today when we have a robust ruleset where the entire game is more or less consistent. It's not all mother-may-I (thank God) and players have the actual ability to act upon the world itself without some sort of ephemeral intermediary deciding arbitrarily whether or not they can climb this rock or the other.
Yet the Fighter is this archaic remnant of a bygone age (good riddance) where having nothing other than an attack bonus and good static saves was A-OK. Where finding a magic sword off some random hobo because there was a % chance that the 1st level goblin fighter #46 had a +5 vorpal sword and your party's wizard nuked him to 0 HP in one magic missile volley so he didn't kill your fighter accidentally was the crowning piece of your character's legacy because it was way better than actually being a higher level.
Some of us want more than what is today represented by the Warrior NPC class. We want something that is equivalent to the other classes. We want something that is going to let us act out in the world. We want a class that's going to let us do cool things at climactic moments. We want to do what's on the label.
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In fact, the fighter is like the thief. He's the reason people can't have nice things. Thief was a waste of space in old D&D and his existence made other classes essentially unable to attempt ability checks and such to do things like sneak and find traps, and his horrid existence was only justified by the fact he was there to use a mechanic that was now disallowed from other classes.
Fighter is the same way. It sucks. It's the reason we have crap like Disruptive requiring Fighter 6 instead of BAB+6. Hell, the entirety of the "favored weapon" thing would be just fine making Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and Greater Weapon Specialization require BAB+0, BAB+4, BAB +8, and BAB +12 and leave it at that (if someone wants to hyper specialize in a single weapon, whatever).
They're the reason anything that's actually cool or interesting in terms of combat feats are buried behind a wall of crappy prerequisites, because the vast majority of designers seem to think that Fighters are just trippin' feats (hint, they aren't) and that it makes it more practical for fighters to do the cool thing or do the cool thing earlier but doesn't completely block it off from other martials. Where in practice it just makes those feats good for no one.
(3_3)
I recommended rangers for new players before it was cool!
Now that it's all popular, though, I don't know...
Honestly, one of the issues with Fighters is that they are really really generic. I could completely correctly describe every member of the Avengers as a "Fighter" after all... they are people who fight... Fighters you might say. Oh sure they are people who fight to avenge (I mean... supposedly? I guess?) so they call themselves Avengers, but "Fighters" would work equally well. More accurate even!
I have this issue with the Rogue as well. I was originally glad that they were getting away from "all rogue types must be thieves" but now I find Rogues lack direction. I mean a "rogue" could also be damn near anything. It's not really a job description so much as a character trait. Might as well make "Mild-mannered" a class to oppose it then.
Though... in fairness... I have this issue with Wizards to. A wizard is basically the majority of spellcaster archetypes rolled into one class. If Figther and Rogue need to be removed for being to bland, so does Wizard. No reason it can't be replaced by Enchanters, Necromancers and Conjurers and what not. Would be more opportunity to make them distinct as well. I mean PF does a better job of that then 3.5 (unless you count Beguilers/Dread Necromancers/Warmages) but there's room for further distinction.
More focused themes would probably help with class direction. And make each class feel more "special".
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Ashiel, I also like your other suggestion of just making the warrior into the fighter, with 2 levels of warrior = 1 level in other classes.
Since such a character would have to theoretically go to level 20, let's instead make the combination a level of warrior + Expert.
That would give us a character that:
Has a general feat every level.
2-14 HP/level, with x2 con bonus.
Superb Fort and Will saves (= 12 +6 at level 20), and a Good reflex save (+6+6 at level 20)
It would have 10 skill points per level and all skills as class skills.
And all weapon and armor profs, 1.75 BAB/level.
And that's it. That's all it would have. NO class features. Just numbers that go up dizzyingly faster then any other character, but with no bonuses on them.
I think that would be hilarious.
Of course, even more hilarious would be a Warrior/20 adventuring as a pretend ftr/10 cause that is what his CR is. It would be worth slipping one into a party just to see their reactions.
==Aelryinth
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It's really nice when you add in things like combat expertise, power attack, the TWF chain, the assault feats like Dazing Assault, etc. I use the warrior class to provide some passive oomph to a lot of NPCs who are supposed to be brutes but I can't be bothered to build them to be tanky/offensive and don't need them to have more than a few class features to keep up with.
IT's amusing because the fighter will actually have 1 more feat then the Warrior, but the warrior gets to use some higher level feats the f/10 can't.
And since the warrior has no th/dmg for his class, all his damage is from Power Attack, weapon and stats.
With -6/+12 for a one handed weapon, a Fighter/10 with Gloves of dueling actually has the same TH number, but gets two less iterative attacks and does 6 pts less dmg (his extra feat is spent on Weapon Spec).
The warrior will have 3 pts more of str, and of course his saves are better, being about equal to a barb of the same level. And naturally he'll have +10 better on his two skills then a fighter. He's using a d8 for HP, but since he has twice the HP and Con bonus, he'll wind up with about 80% more hp.
hah, very funny, indeed.
==Aelryinth
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Thing brings me back to my earlier point. The only thing that seems to make a fighter is "I get bonus feats", "I'm armor guy", and "weapon training", and according to people professing the holy grail called Lore Warden, only two of those actually are required.
Lore Warden's an Archetype, those are allowed to trade away semi-major stuff. Look at Invulnerable Rager. Or Eldritch Scoundrel.
For the base Class, you need all three for people familiar with Pathfinder to consider it a Fighter. And none are bad abilities taken in isolation...they're just not nearly enough to make a Class out of on their own. So why get rid of them? What purpose does that serve?
Said character gets to master a combat style and gets lots of bonus feats for free (they get 5 combat style feats + endurance) and they don't need to meet prerequisites. They're given the option between a superior minion/mount/whatever and the ability to rally and get their buddies to fight better. They're more tanky with generic bonuses in such a way that no matter what sort of armor they go with they're still naturally a bit better than the average guy. They've essentially got no magic that's any more magical than that of Spell Sunder (in this case, the ability to run faster than usual and tell magic to "STFU, you can't stop me", or barrel through a wall of fire with only soot stains on the other side). They don't have any mechanic that makes them have to have any variance between fighting goblin janitors or Satan himself.
It's not so much 'not Fighter enough' as it is 'too Ranger'. Same Saves, same levels at which you gain major abilities, identical Feat gain stuff, companion bonus at the same level, and so on. Slayer is supposed to be half Ranger and yet it feels far less similar to Ranger than this version of Fighter.
Not getting a bonus Feat every two levels is also an issue. That's as much identity as the Fighter has in a lot of ways, why ditch it?
But even to Deadmanwalking, it's not...fighter enough. It's too much Ranger. Which returns me to my point before. Fighter is in this void where everyone kind of feels like it should exist in some incarnation similar to what it is right now but you can't actually nail down something that's reasonable without it feeling too much like his other martial peers.
I think my fix does pretty well at that. :)
I know more or less what I want...and I'm not actually alone in that. Many people just want Advanced Armor Training to be good, for Advanced Weapon and Armor Training to come standard (which, technically, they already do sorta), 4 skill points per level, better class skills, and maybe a mobility or healing option baked in.
It's like this itch that won't go away.
- Bonus feats (check).
- Weapon training (check)
- Armor Training (check)
- Stuff that allows them to actually kinda fit the description of the class (check). Progress.
- Stuff that allows them to not be assuredly roflstomped by a normal adventure (check). Progress.
- Does it all with minimum magical ability and without an actual mechanic other than your static modifiers which exist only to just be the guy who has bigger numbers than that other guy and all the glorious roleplaying that somehow stimulates (check).
Most people are fine with mechanics that aren't just numerical bonuses. They just want them to be on all the time. A constant spell effect that never turns off would likely be fine as long as it was an Extraordinary ability and not overtly magical, for example.
Not a fighter though. Further suggesting to me that the Fighter is a class that just needs to be written off. It's not good for newbs, it's not good for experts, nobody actually knows what it's supposed to be, and we're stuck trying to somehow relate to the abomination that is the original fighter in some way.
Eh. With Advanced Weapon Training and published archetypes there are several things an expert can do with it, and probably enjoy quite a bit. With some changes, the same could easily be true of new players as well.
I still think that it needs some sort of central mechanic that actually does something other than just giving flat numbers. What that mechanic is doesn't really matter as long as it's simple and runs easy at the table. This incarnation still bugs me because it's not as versatile as generic fightguy / generic dude who fills generic fighty roles in more generic ways than barbarian / ranger / other classes, and it's still locked into being more or less the same all the time without a centralized theme, which means we'd end up back to the drawing board with lots of crappy archetypes in no time.
Ugghhh...
I feel like making it a 'fairly disciplined soldier of a civilized nation' conceptually fits really well with the existing flavor and what mechanics there are. That also suggests certain directions in which to take improvements (durability, strength of will, benefits of civilization over wilderness), and makes a nice counterpoint to the more wilderness oriented Barbarian and Ranger. This isn't as clear as I'd like it to be, but I feel like there are zero things contradicting it, and many supporting it.
So...that's the extra bit of flavor I'd bake into any added mechanics.
Of course, even more hilarious would be a Warrior/20 adventuring as a pretend ftr/10 cause that is what his CR is. It would be worth slipping one into a party just to see their reactions.
Just for the record, this is only debatably how the NPC Class CR rules work. I'm not gonna argue it because it's deeply off-topic, but I felt like someone should mention it.
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Just for the record, this is only debatably how the NPC Class CR rules work. I'm not gonna argue it because it's deeply off-topic, but I felt like someone should mention it.
Since this has been brought up twice.
Monster Advancement
The following rules allow you to adjust monsters, increasing (or even decreasing) their statistics and abilities while still creating a balanced and fun encounter.
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Once you have determined the creature's role, it's time to add class levels. The first step of this process is to modify the creature's ability scores. Creatures with class levels receive +4, +4, +2, +2, +0, and –2 adjustments to their ability scores, assigned in a manner that enhances their class abilities. Creatures with NPC class levels do not receive adjustments to their ability scores.Next, add the class levels to the monster, making all of the necessary additions to its HD, hit points, BAB, CMB, CMD, feats, skills, spells, and class features. If the creature possesses class features (such as spellcasting or sneak attack) for the class that is being added, these abilities stack. This functions just like adding class levels to a character without racial Hit Dice.
A monster with class levels always possesses treasure equal to an NPC of a level equal to the monster's final CR (as calculated in Step 3, below). To determine the value of this gear, use the value listed for a heroic NPC of that level, as listed in Table: NPC Gear. Once a total GP value is determined, follow the rules for outfitting an NPC as outlined in that section. Gear should help a monster with class levels remain challenging and retain statistics close to those presented on Table 1-1: Monster Statistics by CR.
Determining the final CR for a creature with class levels requires careful consideration. While adding a class level to a monster that stacks with its existing abilities and role generally adds 1 to its CR for each level taken, adding classes that do not stack is more complicated.Table: Monsters with Class Levels gives general guidelines regarding which core classes add directly to a monster's abilities based on its role. Classes that are marked "key" generally add 1 to a creature's CR for each level added. Classes marked with a "—" increase a creature's CR by 1 for every 2 class levels added until the number of levels added are equal to (or exceed) the creature's original CR, at which point they are treated as "key" levels (adding 1 to the creature's CR for each level added). Creatures that fall into multiple roles treat a class as key if either of its roles treat the class as key. Note that levels in NPC classes are never considered key.
Now the only reason you say this is debatable is because in the Gamemastering section, it discusses building encounters and has a note saying:
Adding NPCs: Creatures whose Hit Dice are solely a factor of their class levels and not a feature of their race, such as all of the PC races detailed in Races, are factored into combats a little differently than normal monsters or monsters with class levels. A creature that possesses class levels, but does not have any racial Hit Dice, is factored in as a creature with a CR equal to its class levels –1. A creature that only possesses non-player class levels (such as a warrior or adept) is factored in as a creature with a CR equal to its class levels –2. If this reduction would reduce a creature's CR to below 1, its CR drops one step on the following progression for each step below 1 this reduction would make: 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, 1/8.
However, it's demonstrably in error based on the following factors.
1. The bestiary has this to say about monsters without racial HD.
Race, Class, and Level: Some monsters do not possess racial Hit Dice and are instead defined by their class levels. For these monsters, their race, class, and level appear here. Unless otherwise noted, the first class listed is the class chosen by the monster as its favored class.
This proves that the bestiary makes no distinction between racial HD or nonracial HD when it comes to what is a "monster" (in essence everything from goblins to elves to aasimar are monsters by the bestiary definition).
The bestiary further makes no distinction between the two when it comes to adding additional levels to the creature's statblock. In fact, it's quite clear. Determine if the level is key or not, add levels, adjust CR, adjust NPC gear. This is true for all monsters.
2. The gamemastering section produces erroneous results, creating encounters that are out of sync with the CRs of creatures listed in the bestiary. It produces encounters that are too easy with too much treasure value and it breaks the moment that you have a multiclassed character that has both NPC and PC classes such as an expert/sorcerer, because the rules cannot parse what that means in terms of CR/treasure.
Further, the single paragraph is discussing factoring such characters into encounters as though they didn't have CR/treasure values in the first place, rather than actually determining what their CR is.
3. Since the bestiary is the authority on monsters, monster advancement, and determining CR, the actual rules for advancing and determining the CR of monsters would seem to take priority over the paragraph in the building encounters section of the Gamemastering chapter in the Core Rulebook (which seems to assume that classed NPCs don't have a CR).
Note to demonstrate how erroneous the Gamemastering section is, by its guide there would be no difference between a things like drow nobles and common drow, or gnomes and svirfneblin in terms of CR (since neither have racial HD), but the bestiary provides the correct statistics and produces results that are usable.
4. Test results prove that the bestiary produces usable results while the encounter building paragraph does not. For example, if we take an 10th level human NPC warrior (CR 8 according to the gamemastering section but with 10,500 gp worth of gear) and compare it to CR 8 creatures such as a stone giant, the 10th level human warrior is a pinata. It pales in comparison to its peer to such an enormous extent, and awards roughly three times as much treasure.
Further proof of error appears when you try to compare a character such as a human warrior 10 with a lizardfolk warrior 10. The lizardfolk has 2 racial HD and better base statistics, but by the argument that encounter building guide trumps the actual Bestiary, then our result is a lizardfolk character with 12 HD, who is CR 6 and of greater strength than the supposed CR 8 10 HD human warrior.
Long story short, it's pretty foolish to try to suggest that the guide for building encounters trumps the actual rules for setting and determining the CR/treasure/stats of monsters, and even more foolish to try to actually make that work in game. One produces results, the other produces nothing but errors.
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The sad thing is, thinking about it, I still don't think WARRIORx2 is a suitable replacement for fighter outside of just being "generic fightguy" the class. They still don't really have anything worthwhile for the most part in terms of options (though they do sort of get good skill returns due to the extra HD; and you can do some amazing things with feats like Dazing Assault).
They still can't "rally" their allies and stuff. Assuming we're using their fluff as a baseline. They still don't actually teach new players much about the system.
Even though I love using beefy warriors, I'll usually end up multiclassing them with something else unless I'm just looking for "faceless mook the meatshield".
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Just for the record, this is only debatably how the NPC Class CR rules work. I'm not gonna argue it because it's deeply off-topic, but I felt like someone should mention it.Since this has been brought up twice.
** spoiler omitted **
Long story short, it's pretty foolish to try to suggest that the guide for building encounters trumps the actual rules for setting and determining the CR/treasure/stats of monsters, and even more foolish to try to actually make that work in game. One produces results, the other produces nothing but errors.
I'm not engaging in this discussion again, mostly because it's really off-topic. Anyone who wants to see us argue about this can check it out in reruns here.
I don't think either of us have changed our positions in the last three years. :)
Summary: Ashiel's method works, and works well. I'm nevertheless convinced it's a House Rule, not the way things officially work, for a whole host of reasons (the NPC codex listing a level 10 Warrior as CR 8 leaps to mind).
The sad thing is, thinking about it, I still don't think WARRIORx2 is a suitable replacement for fighter outside of just being "generic fightguy" the class. They still don't really have anything worthwhile for the most part in terms of options (though they do sort of get good skill returns due to the extra HD; and you can do some amazing things with feats like Dazing Assault).
They still can't "rally" their allies and stuff. Assuming we're using their fluff as a baseline. They still don't actually teach new players much about the system.
Even though I love using beefy warriors, I'll usually end up multiclassing them with something else unless I'm just looking for "faceless mook the meatshield".
I don't disagree with any of this, for the record.
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I don't think either of us have changed our positions in the last three years. :)
Summary: Ashiel's method works, and works well. I'm nevertheless convinced it's a House Rule, not the way things officially work, for a whole host of reasons (the NPC codex listing a level 10 Warrior as CR 8 leaps to mind).
In this case we have two rules in two different books that conflict with one-another and neither are defined as optional subsystems. The only logical course of action is to attempt to find whichever has the higher priority on the subject matter (which I believe is the Bestiary in this case as the other is merely called out as a guideline for using NPCs without a challenge rating) and/or whichever rule actually functions.
In this case the Bestiary wins on both accounts. The paragraph in the encounter building guidelines is written with the assumption that the NPCs don't have a CR already, and is given a virtual CR. However, the Bestiary actually just determines what the creature's CR actually is and thus you don't need a virtual CR. The bestiary also produces usable results rather than clearly incorrect material (because anyone can look at an 8th level expert and see it's not CR 6 and is actually much closer in form and function to CR 3).
I don't disagree with any of this, for the record.The sad thing is, thinking about it, I still don't think WARRIORx2 is a suitable replacement for fighter outside of just being "generic fightguy" the class. They still don't really have anything worthwhile for the most part in terms of options (though they do sort of get good skill returns due to the extra HD; and you can do some amazing things with feats like Dazing Assault).
They still can't "rally" their allies and stuff. Assuming we're using their fluff as a baseline. They still don't actually teach new players much about the system.
Even though I love using beefy warriors, I'll usually end up multiclassing them with something else unless I'm just looking for "faceless mook the meatshield".
I should hope not. There's a reason that warrior levels are worth only 1/2 the levels of an actual PC class. They don't really add anything except big numbers. A 40th level warrior, which would be about CR 19, is still a pretty easy enemy to deal with by mid to high levels simply because they don't have much in the way of options (though they've got enough brute force that they're still dangerous).
Clearly better in every way than a Fighter, sure. Still failing to live up to the dream, however. Still lacking the flexibility to fill the sorts of roles that a core class should be able to fill. That said, it wins out in sheer simplicity and numbers.
You can bet your bottom copper that if I had the option of having a Fighter on my team or a warrior of roughly twice the Fighter's level but with the same WBL, I'd take the warrior each time. I can't say the same if compared to Rangers, Paladins, or Barbarians (it would be iffy), but Fighters wouldn't bring anything to the table the warrior didn't do better.