And now you may know fear, like the rest of us... a rant by a big dumb fighter...


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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I am unimpressed by how the game, and seemingly all those who choose to manage the game, deliberately nerf any attempt to stay relevant as a melee fighter.

I have an example and it ends up being extremely situational to be effective, and has extreme race and class limitations to pull off, but in theory could keep up with some not optimized at all 9th level casters as far as damage. Still can't fly or turn invisible or heal or buff the party, but can do some damage sometimes.

But, even that particular build has nay sayers who claim it isn't allowed, for whatever petty reason.

Tiefling, big arms, Titan Fighter archetype. I think it should be able to wield a size giant greatsword. Tiefling big arms gives size large weapons without penalties and titan fighter gives one size larger. Don't argue yet, although I know I already have drawn a line some uptight narrow minded people have arguments with.

Give this giant greatsword the impact enchantment. Give this titan fighter every vital strike feat there is. Give him Greatsword Battler and the Advanced thereof, allowing vital strike with an impact giant greatsword on a charge. Scary right?

Not really.

Just a melee fighter...

Still can't fly. Can't help it's team with healing or buffs. Relies on the charge for maximum effect. Can't turn invisible or see those who have. BUT can do comparable damage to a NON optimized spellcaster.

And punk whiny GM's apparently STILL argue that the above combination isn't allowed. Why?

A fighter has to be restricted to a specific race, with a specific alternative racial ability, in a specific class, with a specific archetype to even begin to compare to a generic spellcaster.

What? Someone learning to use a mundane object two sizes too big is less believable than the use of f***ing magic?!

Why is it impossible to be a relevant melee fighter?

Throw a dog a bone...


SOME melee builds have SOME ability to instill fear. Yet it only makes you run away or capable of being target to a coup de Grace, AT BEST. It DOESN'T make you kill your friends.

Some melee fighters have sneak attack capable of multiplying damage to fabulous levels... BUT IT DOESN'T MAKE YOU KILL YOUR FRIENDS!!!

Melee fighter have to take a feat to negate a spellcasters combat casting feat. Sure it's their feat, but archers have to take feats to shoot whilst threatened without AoO and melee fighters need feats for maneuvers without AoO, but you have to be a 6th level fighter just to get Disruptive. And it doesn't allow an AoO without another feat at level 10.

Spellcasters have free reign to do whatever they want to and anything for melee is scrutinized beyond usefulness.

You can literally cut the damage in HALF for EVERY 9th level caster, and the current melee system is still barely useful in comparison to the spellcasters action economy.

ANY spellcaster either Wisdom-OR-Intelligence based can take ONE level of monk and have their main spellcasting stat count towards their AC, and given that Mage Armor is a million minutes per caster level, have as good as armor as most melee combatants.

No melee ANYTHING other than very specific builds, like a tetori grapple monk or an invulnerable rager superstitious barbarian can even survive the first rounds of combat against a divination wizard, or the like.


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Drunk, martial, and online is no wwy to go through life.


blahpers wrote:
Drunk, martial, and online is no wwy to go through life.

That's completely fair. And accurate.

But there's how many tiers of power?

And how many spellcasters can get to the top, half a dozen?

And what tier does the most optimized martial class get access to without spells?

Your most optimized martial class becomes more and more situational as they advance, your most optimized spellcasters become more diverse as they advance... it's an inversely exponential scaling system that literally stifles the creativity only in the potential for the martial classes. What if you want to bull rush (power attack prerequisite) AND trip (combat expertise prerequisite)?! You know, for Squash Flat.

No single feat allows a martial class to forget about the physical components of his class. Spellcasters can take ONE feat to not need material components for spells. Whilst weapon focus is specific to a specific weapon as an example of every feat being specific to material components for martial classes.

Fair?

We are talking about fantasy games, things can be make believe, but can't they still be fair?

You could GIVE the fighter class BOTH combat expertise AND combat reflexes FOR FREE just for being combat oriented, so they could spend their bonus feats on combat and EVERY OTHER FEAT ON MOVEMENT, just so maybe, MAYBE, a fighter could take a step, one step not fly or anything, on the battlefield. Six feats for spring attack plus step up and strike... You know, what fighters do.

Throw a dog a bone...


Why is dexterity a prerequisite for TWF?

Why is TWF a prerequisite for Shield Slam/Master?

Absord the rogue into the fighter. You have sneak attack dice and rogue talents-OR-bonus combat feats and armor/weapon training. Both get Combat Reflexes and Combat Expertise FOR FREE, just for being a Fighter. If a fighter takes Agile Maneuvers, they get Wepaon Finesse with ANY/ALL weapons capable of weapon finesse.

Bards casting spells as part of a performance and other spellcasters casting without material components, nevermind flying or invisibility or making people kill their friends ...

To be an effective martial character, you have to take into account that you will NEVER BE EFFECTIVE!

Come on.


Why all the belly aching? While melee focused fighters don't get the spotlight like some really monstrous abortions that get cooked up on the forums they are the bread and butter of most parties.

First and foremost, they are damage dealers. Can they burst damage like a spell caster? No. By design the answer is no. That said, over the course of 6 encounters fighters will generally do more damage collectively than any other party member. Why? Very good chance to hit, decent damage per hit, generally acts on every round of every encounter.

Second even if they aren't doing the most damage most parties depend on melee classes to defend the rest of the party from melee attackers. The combination of high AC, high HP and the ability to choose feats to help with that role puts them between the party and danger.

Third: for all of the things a fighter isn't, the party is there to cover it. Fighters don't fly? Fighters get fly cast on them all the time in my group. Fighters don't see invis? Glitter dust, True Seeing or that new 3rd level see invis solve that. This is a game built around a group, and fighters have plenty to contribute.

Fourth: If you hate it so much, do something else. If nobody else wants to play a melee class see how that goes. I've had an all ranged party and its interesting. Last 3 games I've been in I've seen 3 completely different fighter builds and they all play differently and they were all effective. They weren't equal, but what is?


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VoodistMonk wrote:
No melee ANYTHING other than very specific builds, like a tetori grapple monk or an invulnerable rager superstitious barbarian can even survive the first rounds of combat against a divination wizard, or the like.

From my experience, we play completely different games.

At my tables, it is the martial classes that rule during combat and the skill monkeys and caster's that rule out-of-combat.

Skill monkeys at my table run the gamut from pure martial to full caster.


I have always been both useful and a major contributor of damage for the party as a melee character. It takes a lot of digging for feats and gets kind of silly finding ways to trigger new or extra attacks, and you end up having 'discussions' with the GM about whether or not Squash Flat works with Spiked Destroyer. Do you get the free trip before the free armor spike attack? If you trip them first, can you still fulfill the free armor spike attack? I just kept saying that I'm bashing with my shield, stepping on their foot, and throwing my shoulder spikes into them all in one move, but my GM was constantly trying to nerf my ability to do this. Why?

We had a new member join us, and his introduction was a terrified person running from a Hydra. Being the big dumb fighter, I met it head on, went to town on the filthy lizard. The party was using creative tricks, like flasks of oil and throwing torches to deal fire damage. Turns out that the guy running from the hydra cast one spell and kills it right out from under the rest of us, despite our creative methods.

Why were you running at all if you could just do that?

One spell killed so much more than the hydra, it killed the creativity and mood and fun for everyone.

And that's a party teamwork thing. Maybe some spellcasters will let their melee characters have some fun, but you are letting them. Spellcasters have the power to sit back and watch melee characters toil and fight, they have the power to allow others to do what they can finish with one spell.

I love playing melee characters. My biggest gripe is movement, or the lack thereof, not spellcasters. I'm just tired of anyone nerfing melee combatants.

2+Int skills isn't enough of an insult? Telling the half Orc barbarian he needs a 17 Dex to wield two axes isn't nerfing enough? Making Pounce a level 10 ability to very specific classes, and not just a BAB+5 feat available to all martial fighters isn't bad enough? Making it take six feats to get Dex to damage and CMB/CMD isn't enough of a tax?

Meanwhile, one feat let's spellcasters ignore most material components necessary for their spells. Another feat to remove hand gestures. And another to remove vocal aspects. No feats remove the necessity of having a sword for a sword fighter. But a spellcaster can literally remove the need to actually cast their spells...


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Here's the way I've always looked at the fighter, since 3.0 came out, compared to the other martials. If you want to be a DPR master, play a barbarian; if you want to have a bit more out-of-combat versatility, play a ranger. As PF, archetypes and other Martial classes have arrived, each has it's niche. What does the fighter do? They are the "golf bag" of the Martial classes.

Its ironic to me that most of the fighter archetypes end up focusing on one kind of fighting, since that detracts from the only versatility the fighter really has. As a fighter levels they get to pick whole weapon groups to be good at; they get the most feats in the game; they have access to every weapon, armor and shield in the game before archetypes.

I think, if we toned down our expectations of DPR or maxing out AC, and just focused on using any weapon to the best of its ability, fighters can be just as "cool" as a lot of PCs.

Consider: a CR 10 monster averages a 24 AC and 130 HP. In order to be effective against them then, a fighter needs to beat those benchmarks. Bear in mind that the average party supposedly contains 4 PCs, so in order for an APL 10 party to defeat this monster each PC needs to contribute 32.5 damage.

So, our 10th level fighter has to hit a 24 AC. They have a +10 BAB; to that we should add Str which, based on WBL and a 20 pt buy to start is likely hovering around a 26 so that puts us at +18 right there. But look; our hero ALSO has a Dex stat. It might only be pumped up to, say, 20 meaning that you're a measly +15 to hit from range.

Tack on Point Blank Shot and a +2 ranged weapon; suddenly for the investment of one of your 10 feats and 8k of your WBL you're as good as you are with melee.

So we've established you can hit your foe, but can you damage? Pump more WBL into your ranged weapon, so that it takes advantage of your Str. Now with it or your melee attack you've got +8 damage on all of your attacks. Now consider how many attacks you're making at this point: 2. If both of your attacks hit in a Full Attack round, even with 1d6 damage ammo you'd still be dealing an average of 31 if your ranged attack was your second weapon group.

All of that from a weapon you're NOT hyper-specialized in. And you've got 9 more feats left to throw around.

Can you see invisible or fly? No, that's what the spellcasters or the remainder of your WBL is for. Can you heal or talk to animals? Again, spellcasters/WBL.

Now will wizards and other arcane casters be dealing more damage or having better effect in combat than you? Certainly, but this doesn't make you irrelevant. It simply means that they have other tools that you don't. A wizard for example might be able to own a fight at 10th level under the right conditions, but a CR 10 foe with a Sneak Attack that gets the wizard in the ribs can nearly end the frog-kisser while your fighter shrugs, drops their Reach weapon and smashes them with their cestus.

Finally, if we didn't fret so much about how MUCH damage we were dealing per round, do you know all the different WAYS to deliver that damage you can put together with TEN feats? The spring-attack/whirlwind chain with a Reach weapon; a bow with Point Blank, Precise and Rapid Shot; a couple feats for enhancing your Acrobatics for jumping or increasing your base speed.

Fighters can do a lot of different things in a lot of different ways. Let us strive to use them for that purpose.


That is just it, though. Most feats the fighter has access to ARE specific to one weapon, not even the whole group he has chosen for weapon training. If you try to be a golf bag of fighting goodness, you end up being great at nothing, and since we DO focus on damage per round, as levels progress, martial fighters constantly fall further and further behind.

Maybe he wanted to trip and now wasted a bunch of feats to get good at something that is irrelevant later on because of flying enemies. What if he wanted to max that damage with vital strike, but only ends up killing his friends because he can't pass a will save?

I've found that, as a big dumb fighter, it's best to take Power Attack and Furious Focus, level one. Always hit, and hit hard. Then, movement, all of it. Pay whatever asinine feat tax you have to, pick up every available way to move and attack the game offers for your character. Because apparently, you EITHER know how to fight OR move in this game, never both.

But spellcasters don't need to move, and when they do, they fly or teleport or plane shift or something else equally effortless and completely unobtainable for fighters.

I haven't ever played a spellcaster, but I bet it's really boring with everything in the game being so easy. Oh, I have a spell for that. What, you still just have a hammer?


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Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Consider: a CR 10 monster averages a 24 AC and 130 HP. In order to be effective against them then, a fighter needs to beat those benchmarks. Bear in mind that the average party supposedly contains 4 PCs, so in order for an APL 10 party to defeat this monster each PC needs to contribute 32.5 damage.

So, our 10th level fighter has to hit a 24 AC. They have a +10 BAB; to that we should add Str which, based on WBL and a 20 pt buy to start is likely hovering around a 26 so that puts us at +18 right there. But look; our hero ALSO has a Dex stat. It might only be pumped up to, say, 20 meaning that you're a measly +15 to hit from range.

In the campaign I just finished up, by 10th level the fighter's to-hit bonuses were +27/+27/+22/+22 with average DPR of ~150 on a full attack.

Additional attacks came online at 11'th level.

Given a choice between a full attack from the fighter of a SoS spell from the full caster, the fighter was usually the better choice.

Opponents were far more likely to make their save vs the caster than to survive a round sparing with the fighter.

The party monk and barbarian dealt similar damage. The main differences being that the monk had the highest AC/saves and the barbarian had far more HP.

VoodistMonk wrote:


But spellcasters don't need to move, and when they do, they fly or teleport or plane shift or something else equally effortless and completely unobtainable for fighters.

I could go on ad nauseam, the ways and means for a fighter, or anyone else, to get fly at mid - high level are limited only by the character's priorities and personal preference.

Some of those options even allow pounce, or better.


No offense OP, but you've tried to build something that you think is really good, but is actually pretty bad in terms of dpr.

Martial characters own the realm of damage outside of some very specialized blaster builds that can do some crazy things with metamagic and sorcerer bloodlines. Of course it doesn't really stop them from just being generic 9th level progression spell casters which is really good on its own.

Basically any build revolving around Vital Strike is going to fail in a DPR comparison because you're limiting yourself to one attack. And despite everything you've done to maximize weapon damage, it will still fall behind the damage bonuses you get from making successful iterative attacks.

Now, that doesn't change the fact that the spellcasters can end combat by doing things other than dealing damage, but I think you've got the wrong impression about what does and doesn't work within the system.

Fighters are good at dealing damage. They're just not very good at other things. And many times dealing damage is less effective than other options.


I played a fighter in a friends campaign, and damn if I wasn't the character the party feared most for over all combat capabilities. This was a party containing a reg Summoner, two other full casters (Cleric and Sorcerer), and a crazy optimized Magus.

My fighter could deal as much damage one handed with his falcata in a full-attack (Haste and Fleet Charge from mythic) as the Summoner and his 8 attacks with haste, and could spike damage harder than our blaster Sorc. In addition to damage, he also handed out debuffs like a madman if the enemy wasn't mindless, or immune to fear. Shaken and sickened, and then possibly panicked/frightened if the enemy somehow was still alive.

Want access to movement shenanigans? UMD, or all the magic items that give you an extra movement speed. Past 7th level as a fighter with Armor training 2, your heavy armor doesn't impede movement. At all.


I have personally never put vital strike on any of my characters. Squash Flat and Spiked Destroyer were on a just for fun, short and silly side campaign, but nothing that I have played for any extended amount of time.

All my characters rely on power attack with furious focus. Then movement and survivability, like iron will so I don't kill my friends.

All of my martial builds, all the way back to my 3.5e TWF ranger, have been great with dealing damage. I have played enough to expect to kill anything I am swinging at with a full attack, but as previously stated damage isn't everything and a big dumb fighter can't make you kill your friends even if he can scare you.


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Well, in a social situation, Intimidate can be used to have people doe what you want for an amount of time based on success. And I know of at least one build that lets a fighter use you to beat your friends to death... That counts, right?

Jokes aside, with the Advanced weapon options, and armor options, there is so much more you can do with a fighter. More skills? There's a thing for that.
Fighter is like a martial swiss army knife. Limited only by your imagination on what it can or can't do.


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My big dumb fighter was pretty effective. My Sanguine Angel fighter has done pretty well for herself, too.

There's this weird perception that wizards and clerics automatically solve every problem. I've found that to be true in fewer circumstances than one might expect.


BaneWorldSlayer wrote:
Fighter is like a martial swiss army knife. Limited only by your imagination on what it can or can't do.

Yeah, it's sometimes frustrating. The options are there, but people often overlook them, or dismiss them because they are not 'free' while other classes get them for 'free'. Free in quotation marks because there are always costs, even if 'just' opportunity costs.

If you want to fly as a fighter, pick up Flight Mastery at level 11. If you want skills, be a human, get Int 13 (rewarded by the game anyway), add Cunning and Fast Learner - or be human with Improvisation (and maybe Improved Improvisation). If you want magic, buy magic items - you are probably not great at UMD but you can be good enough.

It's not as effective as playing a magical skill monkey (wizard etc.) directly, but it's not supposed to be. And you are not supposed to cover everything on your own - you are part of a group. The fact that wizard, druid etc. potentially can cover everything, is a flaw in the system. The fact that many other classes can't is a feature.

Silver Crusade

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I think that you should ask Paizo nicely and maybe, just maybe, they'll come up with a new version of the game where the martial/caster diversity is addressed and so martials aren't overshadowed by casters any longer.

If you ask really, really nicely I'd guess that the good folks at Paizo might be able to get a beta version up in only 6 months or so and the final version maybe a year after that


pauljathome wrote:

I think that you should ask Paizo nicely and maybe, just maybe, they'll come up with a new version of the game where the martial/caster diversity is addressed and so martials aren't overshadowed by casters any longer.

If you ask really, really nicely I'd guess that the good folks at Paizo might be able to get a beta version up in only 6 months or so and the final version maybe a year after that

Oh, I'm probably the one who needs to change more than the game. The people at Paizo are well aware of the ever growing chasm betwix martial classes and spellcasters, I'm sure.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

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I just wrapped up the Shattered Star AP, and my players' tactics at levels 16-17 were basically, "make sure the brawler has a clear charge line to the big foe." Spellcasting was used mostly for exploration stuff, but it was the martial that was doing 250+ DPR and even downed the end of AP "boss" before he got a second turn.


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So just a caveat to my post above: the fighter numbers I was throwing out were with class abilities added but minimal feat investment.

If you WANT to focus your fighter on DPR, you can, and pull down huge damage as evidenced by many builds/examples on these boards. If on the other hand you want to be a tank, or a ranged attacker, or a mounted polearm specialist or whatever... you can always specialize.

I guess all I was getting at was if you look purely at the benchmarks you're trying to hit: the average AC and 1/4 of the average HP of a monster whose CR is equal to your APL, fighters can hit those numbers with a couple generic Core feats and good use of their weapon training.

A vanilla wizard with no school specialization requires only a couple of feats to hit their expected benchmarks, but then they only HAVE a couple of feats. Rangers do so with their chosen weapon feats and either spells or an animal companion added in. The Magus relies on their spells; the warpriest also needs spells to boost them; cavaliers their mount and order, and so on.

Fighters can CHOOSE to do one or two things really well, or they can CHOOSE to do a lot just ok, but still hit their benchmarks for contribution. Then you add in the extra combat feats they get and they have a level of flexibility that few besides perhaps the brawler or some other niche archetypes have.


I don't have a problem with hitting the benchmarks associated with the fighter, I even have proven to be quite good at the role. Go to red base, kill everyone, get the flag back. Charge that beast. Stand at the top of the stairs, cut that guys head off, flick the severed head to his friend at the bottom of the stairs, sort of thing.

But I didn't feel at all useful out of combat. I carry heavy stuff. Sometimes I drool. I have a charisma of 7, an intelligence score of 10, and enough strength to bash two guards heads together hard enough that it took a blacksmith to remove their helmets, but other than catching the occasional falling cleric, or hulk smashing something I felt pretty useless.

I would try to do everyday stuff and fail because I had to be an idiot in order to have enough dex for TWF. Why TWF when I was relying on power attack and furious focus? Because it's a prerequisite for shield slam/master, for some asinine unholy reason.

I could have made smarter arsenal choices, but I wanted to bash on things with a shield. We didn't have multiclassing or archetypes available, so he had to do it the hard way. Could have been a ranger, but I didn't want to. I shouldn't have to play an entirely different class than I want just to skip prerequisites that shouldn't exist.

Why is a ranger naturally better with every fighting style than a soldier? Why does a soldier only get two skill points? Ever met a soldier? I promise that we have been trained in more than two things. Most of them, soldiers that is, are actually quite resourceful. Nope, the freaking mountain man over there has better access to his sword and shield feats than the fighter. Why?

Feats and feats and more feats are fun, but necessary because after perception, you have one skill point, yay. Going to give up movement feats for extra skills? Don't count on it. Not when you can't take a step in this game without spending a feat on it, and two feats just to get access to it.


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VoodistMonk wrote:

I am unimpressed by how the game, and seemingly all those who choose to manage the game, deliberately nerf any attempt to stay relevant as a melee fighter.

Still can't fly or turn invisible or heal or buff the party, but can do some damage sometimes.

Still can't fly. Can't help it's team with healing or buffs. Relies on the charge for maximum effect. Can't turn invisible or see those who have.

Why is it impossible to be a relevant melee fighter?

My fighter has, by means of feats, the ability to fly, dimension door, and has Scent, Blindsense and Blindsight (so yeah, he can see Invisible- and more). And, he is just a Human. Try the Weapon Master's Handbook, Armor masters, and etc.

He also is the parties primary method of killing foes. Despite the other two members being optimized casters,nd us being 13th level.

And of course fighters can fly, turn invisible, etc with the use of magic items, too. Or a willing spellcaster.


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VoodistMonk wrote:
But I didn't feel at all useful out of combat. I carry heavy stuff. Sometimes I drool. I have a charisma of 7, an intelligence score of 10,

That is the result of choices you made in stat allocation, not a failing of the class.

If you want to participate more, don't dump CHA and invest a little in INT. If you really want to be diverse as a fighter, play a human and take Fast Learner and/or Cunning.

You may loose 1-2 points of damage/attack, but you will be a much more rounded character.


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Y'know VM it's funny; I used to feel the same way about my fighter, Murdyk. Granted I only got to play him until level 4, but I had plans. Y'see in combat Murdyk was Power Attack/Furious Focus, Cleave, Weapon Focus and so on. He took one trait that let him use dwarven weapons (taught to him by his "dwarven uncle") and for the other trait I didn't really know what to take...

So I took Trustworthy

This gave him Diplomacy as a Class skill. I got to roll stats and by virtue of that and Human I was getting 4 ranks/level, so I put one in Climb, one in Perception, then I put one in Diplomacy every level for 4 levels.

Now I wasn't a diplomancer by any stretch, but by level 4 I was routinely managing to either Aid Another on other's rolls or occasionally get folks to like me better. I made a point to roleplay it as honesty, nearly to a fault.

I also put 2 ranks in Profession: Woodcutter and 2 ranks in Survival. I was working to start a business milling wood for our small town and helped the wizard craft her scrolls by supplying her with paper in the one Downtime session we had.

Again... benchmarks.

No, Murdyk was never going to be a famous diplomat or merchant but +9 Diplomacy by level 4 gave me options.

I guess my point is that a human fighter need not be JUST a golf bag. Especially starting with a 20 pt buy, 2 traits and (because Human and Fighter) 3 feats, if you just keep your DPR expectations modest and measured you could be more than 2 skill ranks that carries heavy objects outside of combat.


VoodistMonk wrote:

I am unimpressed by how the game, and seemingly all those who choose to manage the game, deliberately nerf any attempt to stay relevant as a melee fighter.

I have an example and it ends up being extremely situational to be effective, and has extreme race and class limitations to pull off, but in theory could keep up with some not optimized at all 9th level casters as far as damage. Still can't fly or turn invisible or heal or buff the party, but can do some damage sometimes.

But, even that particular build has nay sayers who claim it isn't allowed, for whatever petty reason.

Tiefling, big arms, Titan Fighter archetype. I think it should be able to wield a size giant greatsword. Tiefling big arms gives size large weapons without penalties and titan fighter gives one size larger. Don't argue yet, although I know I already have drawn a line some uptight narrow minded people have arguments with.

Give this giant greatsword the impact enchantment. Give this titan fighter every vital strike feat there is. Give him Greatsword Battler and the Advanced thereof, allowing vital strike with an impact giant greatsword on a charge. Scary right?

Not really.

Just a melee fighter...

Still can't fly. Can't help it's team with healing or buffs. Relies on the charge for maximum effect. Can't turn invisible or see those who have. BUT can do comparable damage to a NON optimized spellcaster.

And punk whiny GM's apparently STILL argue that the above combination isn't allowed. Why?

A fighter has to be restricted to a specific race, with a specific alternative racial ability, in a specific class, with a specific archetype to even begin to compare to a generic spellcaster.

What? Someone learning to use a mundane object two sizes too big is less believable than the use of f***ing magic?!

Why is it impossible to be a relevant melee fighter?

Throw a dog a bone...

You're built wrong if you want to be the most fearsome character in the game. Your first mistake is you played a martial, and not an Arcane Full Spellcaster, in a game that's designed with magic being the meta, and not mundanes. So expecting to go against the meta and complain about your bad experiences is just exacerbating the problem.

But ignoring that, the real first mistake is taking an archetype that's generally bad anyway. Weapon damage is largely irrelevant in the higher levels of gameplay, where you will be struggling the most, and it won't shore up your absolute weaknesses.

The second mistake is optimizing a silly weapon. Melee in this game are really bad and really clunky unless they have stupid amounts of reach and battlefield control to go with them. A basic beatstick is largely ineffective by 6th level, where iteratives and flight become commonplace. Archery has even more "battlefield control" by being able to slay enemies before they can close any distance with proper optimization.

Trust me, You're just not using the proper build. Yes, I know "cookie cutters" are a problem, but it doesn't stop people from making the Flagbearer/Ancient Kings Bards, the Sacred Tattoo/Fate's Favored Warpriests, or the Dervish Dance/Shocking Grasp Magi character's that are by-and-large the same exact thing. (Atleast, Mr. Shakespeare would say so.)


It's probably more a problem with my outlook or expectations, rather than the game itself.

My human fighter traded Skilled for History of Terrors, so I wouldn't kill my friends. Once again, choices I made, not a fault of the game.

I do love playing martial classes. And I'm sure I will play another fighter someday. I've been liking how well the Airborne Ambusher and Dervish of Dawn fighter archetypes mesh together, and it's for the Strix so I will be able to fly. Thus fixing a lot of my movement complaints.

But I think I need to branch out a bit, play something completely new to me, see how I view the big dumb fighter when it isn't me. After I play as my Arcane Duelist Bard, I probably will feel a whole lot more useful and appreciated by the party.

Maybe this particular rant is rooted with my last party, I don't know. I have just always played the big dumb fighter and I think the consistency of always landing attacks and things getting chopped to bits just gets taken for granted by the party. Or at least my last party. Having such low charisma meant I never spoke in public, role playing was lame. I just stood there like The Mountain in GoT. Probably less pretty, though. And I knew it then that I had to contribute more with my next character.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:


You're built wrong if you want to be the most fearsome character in the game. Your first mistake is you played a martial, and not an Arcane Full Spellcaster, in a game that's designed with magic being the meta, and not mundanes. So expecting to go against the meta and complain about your bad experiences is just exacerbating the problem.
.... Weapon damage is largely irrelevant in the higher levels of gameplay, where you will be struggling the most, and it won't shore up your absolute weaknesses.

The second mistake is optimizing a silly weapon. Melee in this game are really bad and really clunky unless they have stupid amounts of reach and battlefield control to go with them. A basic beatstick is largely ineffective by 6th level, where iteratives and flight become commonplace. .....
...

This is just your opinion, trust me, in my current game and in RotRL, the Fighter was far and away the most dangerous character. Of course, we played D&D as a Team.

It is true that with Armor & Weapon mastery handbooks, any archetype that trades away weapon and armor class abilities will be sub-optimal.

And weapon damage is anything but irrelevant. My Fighter is downing demons the spellcasters can barely touch.

Melee works really well, in fact. With no reach at all. And, again, my fighter is 13th level.


VoodistMonk wrote:

It's probably more a problem with my outlook or expectations, rather than the game itself.

My human fighter traded Skilled for History of Terrors, so I wouldn't kill my friends. Once again, choices I made, not a fault of the game.

"History of Terrors"???


DrDeth wrote:
And weapon damage is anything but irrelevant. My Fighter is downing demons the spellcasters can barely touch.

So I think this is an issue of talking past each other.

I'm fairly sure that Darksol the Painbringer meant was that if your weapon of choice does 1d6 or 2d6 that the choice between the two is quickly irrelevant. Doing 1d6+30 or 2d6+30 per hit just isn't a big enough difference to really need to care about.

Now I could be wrong and he did mean that HP damage was irrelevant, just that's not what I see when I see "weapon damage"


My 11th level fighter is pretty fearsome, and the only non-core feat he has is furious focus, although he did dip a level into bloodrager and another into Ranger (Guide archetype). With the plethora of magic items out there to be had, he doesn't lag behind the casters in the ability to get in the bad guys face.


Chess Pwn wrote:
DrDeth wrote:
And weapon damage is anything but irrelevant. My Fighter is downing demons the spellcasters can barely touch.

So I think this is an issue of talking past each other.

I'm fairly sure that Darksol the Painbringer meant was that if your weapon of choice does 1d6 or 2d6 that the choice between the two is quickly irrelevant. Doing 1d6+30 or 2d6+30 per hit just isn't a big enough difference to really need to care about.

Now I could be wrong and he did mean that HP damage was irrelevant, just that's not what I see when I see "weapon damage"

True, the difference between a d6 and a d10 is not as great as the adds.


DrDeth wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:


You're built wrong if you want to be the most fearsome character in the game. Your first mistake is you played a martial, and not an Arcane Full Spellcaster, in a game that's designed with magic being the meta, and not mundanes. So expecting to go against the meta and complain about your bad experiences is just exacerbating the problem.
.... Weapon damage is largely irrelevant in the higher levels of gameplay, where you will be struggling the most, and it won't shore up your absolute weaknesses.

The second mistake is optimizing a silly weapon. Melee in this game are really bad and really clunky unless they have stupid amounts of reach and battlefield control to go with them. A basic beatstick is largely ineffective by 6th level, where iteratives and flight become commonplace. .....
...

This is just your opinion, trust me, in my current game and in RotRL, the Fighter was far and away the most dangerous character. Of course, we played D&D as a Team.

It is true that with Armor & Weapon mastery handbooks, any archetype that trades away weapon and armor class abilities will be sub-optimal.

And weapon damage is anything but irrelevant. My Fighter is downing demons the spellcasters can barely touch.

Melee works really well, in fact. With no reach at all. And, again, my fighter is 13th level.

Difference between a Fighter getting buffed by his party members and contending with his party members is precisely the reason why the OP is in the situation he's in. The factor that your Fighter had to be buffed to be considered the "most dangerous" really only proves what I will now dub as "Mistake Zero," as well as proves Caster/Martial disparity, especially when said buffers would have and could have just as easily ended encounters as they began.

And unfortunately, telling the OP "Ask your teammates to give you buffs" isn't really a fair answer/response to "Why does the Fighter not get any bones?" Since the entire point of the post is to question why responses like that one are so important for a Fighter. This is additionally concerning for abnormal parties that don't always possess full spellcasters (or even any spellcasters at all), where the solutions can't (and don't) lie with other party members supplementing your schtick.

And if your Fighter is defeating demons that Wizards/Clerics can't, then it's really an optimization issue amongst your full spellcasters, or they are being purposefully played to supplement the Fighter at the cost of their own contention to other, potentially unseen, foes, in which case it's still otherwise a lop-sided comparison.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
DrDeth wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:


You're built wrong if you want to be the most fearsome character in the game. Your first mistake is you played a martial, and not an Arcane Full Spellcaster, in a game that's designed with magic being the meta, and not mundanes. So expecting to go against the meta and complain about your bad experiences is just exacerbating the problem.
.... Weapon damage is largely irrelevant in the higher levels of gameplay, where you will be struggling the most, and it won't shore up your absolute weaknesses.

The second mistake is optimizing a silly weapon. Melee in this game are really bad and really clunky unless they have stupid amounts of reach and battlefield control to go with them. A basic beatstick is largely ineffective by 6th level, where iteratives and flight become commonplace. .....
...

This is just your opinion, trust me, in my current game and in RotRL, the Fighter was far and away the most dangerous character. Of course, we played D&D as a Team.

It is true that with Armor & Weapon mastery handbooks, any archetype that trades away weapon and armor class abilities will be sub-optimal.

And weapon damage is anything but irrelevant. My Fighter is downing demons the spellcasters can barely touch.

Melee works really well, in fact. With no reach at all. And, again, my fighter is 13th level.

Difference between a Fighter getting buffed by his party members and contending with his party members is precisely the reason why the OP is in the situation he's in. The factor that your Fighter had to be buffed to be considered the "most dangerous" really only proves what I will now dub as "Mistake Zero," as well as proves Caster/Martial disparity, especially when said buffers would have and could have just as easily ended encounters as they began.

And unfortunately, telling the OP "Ask your teammates to give you buffs" isn't really a fair answer/response to "Why does the Fighter not get any bones?" Since the entire point...

He’s NOT talking about getting buffs from others. He’s talking about the bones that fighters were thrown in the Armor Master’s and Weapon Master’s Handbooks. I know this because he refers to those books and the abilities from them but doesn’t refer to asking anyone for buffs. Why did you quote a post that you did not reply to in any way, shape or form?


I felt clunky, even with the armor and weapon training. I felt like all the feats should have made me free to build what I wanted to play, simple expectation, or so I thought.

I wanted to shield bash with a base fighter. All the TWF feats and meeting their dexterity requirements later, all the actual shield feats, a couple maneuver feats and spiked destroyer, I was locked every levels feat was spent for me to simply just do what I wanted to play. I didn't have the strength I needed to really get the damage I wanted, because I had to carry dex so high. I was an ugly idiot with no skills other than smash that or carry this. All because I simply wanted to play with Shield bashing things and I didn't think I was asking too much until I realized I really wanted to be able to move. I wanted other feats besides simply meeting prerequisites to just hit something with a shield held in both hands.


VoodistMonk wrote:

I felt clunky, even with the armor and weapon training. I felt like all the feats should have made me free to build what I wanted to play, simple expectation, or so I thought.

I wanted to shield bash with a base fighter. All the TWF feats and meeting their dexterity requirements later, all the actual shield feats, a couple maneuver feats and spiked destroyer, I was locked every levels feat was spent for me to simply just do what I wanted to play. I didn't have the strength I needed to really get the damage I wanted, because I had to carry dex so high. I was an ugly idiot with no skills other than smash that or carry this. All because I simply wanted to play with Shield bashing things and I didn't think I was asking too much until I realized I really wanted to be able to move. I wanted other feats besides simply meeting prerequisites to just hit something with a shield held in both hands.

Shield Champion Brawler might have been a better choice for what you are looking for. The scaling damage is nice, 4+ int skills, good number of bonus feats and martial flexibility for situational needs. Given your build you would net more feats than with a fighter.


Most of the sixth-level and above casters, you can run them straight, with feats and spells from the core rulebook and the book whichever class you're playing came from, and you have an effective character from level one to twenty pretty easy. Extra stuff is just gravy.

When it comes time to talk about Fighters, it's very much specific combinations of feats, archetypes, items, pulled from multiple books, put together in a way that relies on extensive specific system knowledge rather than general understanding. A degree of effort and optimization that, if put into one of the casters, just outright breaks the game.


Omnius wrote:

Most of the sixth-level and above casters, you can run them straight, with feats and spells from the core rulebook and the book whichever class you're playing came from, and you have an effective character from level one to twenty pretty easy. Extra stuff is just gravy.

When it comes time to talk about Fighters, it's very much specific combinations of feats, archetypes, items, pulled from multiple books, put together in a way that relies on extensive specific system knowledge rather than general understanding. A degree of effort and optimization that, if put into one of the casters, just outright breaks the game.

This.


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Go play something other than a fighter. Watch someone else do it. Maybe even try a different GM. I think you'll mellow once you get some perspective.

And as a GM, I make role playing opportunities for all of the characters. I let players decide if they want to pick it up or let it drop, but I don't let other players just step all over someone else's moment. That is the kind of thing a GM is suppose to do. Otherwise the "big dumb fighter" is just going to remain a wallflower. Honestly not fun for the wallflower.


Omnius wrote:

Most of the sixth-level and above casters, you can run them straight, with feats and spells from the core rulebook and the book whichever class you're playing came from, and you have an effective character from level one to twenty pretty easy. Extra stuff is just gravy.

When it comes time to talk about Fighters, it's very much specific combinations of feats, archetypes, items, pulled from multiple books, put together in a way that relies on extensive specific system knowledge rather than general understanding. A degree of effort and optimization that, if put into one of the casters, just outright breaks the game.

It turns out that the simple class ideal for introducing people to the game... is only really going to be 'good' for people with lots of experience. And if that newbie decides they want to model their first character on someone from the fiction they recently encountered, so they've a model for what they want their character to do instead of that long list of choices, so they can concentrate on learning the rules rather than learning the Build choices, a great many of those models lead to characters that aren't good at the things they expect them to be. D&D/PF have become this peculiar offshoot from fantasy that doesn't really match up to the experience anyone expects, when coming at the game from other directions with their own conceptions, and the generally disappointing nature of non-casters is a major part of that (the other big one being 'Vancian' magic).


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VoodistMonk wrote:

I felt clunky, even with the armor and weapon training. I felt like all the feats should have made me free to build what I wanted to play, simple expectation, or so I thought.

I wanted to shield bash with a base fighter. All the TWF feats and meeting their dexterity requirements later, all the actual shield feats, a couple maneuver feats and spiked destroyer, I was locked every levels feat was spent for me to simply just do what I wanted to play. I didn't have the strength I needed to really get the damage I wanted, because I had to carry dex so high. I was an ugly idiot with no skills other than smash that or carry this. All because I simply wanted to play with Shield bashing things and I didn't think I was asking too much until I realized I really wanted to be able to move. I wanted other feats besides simply meeting prerequisites to just hit something with a shield held in both hands.

Anybody can hit things with a shield at 1st level.

Granted, it helps if you have martial weapon proficiency (which fighter's have) and you won't benefit from your shield bonus to AC if you attack with your shield (unless you take improved shield bash as one of your 1st level feats.)

As a fighter with a high DEX using STR for damage, you should really look into Trained Grace. It adds 2x your weapon training bonus to damage. Needless to say, Gloves of Dueling are a priority.

As for being an ugly idiot: that is a choice you made, not one imposed on you by the game system. You want to lay blame for that, go look in the mirror.


Volkard Abendroth wrote:

Anybody can hit things with a shield at 1st level.

Granted, it helps if you have martial weapon proficiency (which fighter's have) and you won't benefit from your shield bonus to AC if you attack with your shield (unless you take improved shield bash as one of your 1st level feats.)

As a fighter with a high DEX using STR for damage, you should really look into Trained Grace. It adds 2x your weapon training bonus to damage. Needless to say, Gloves of Dueling are a priority.

As for being an ugly idiot: that is a choice you made, not one imposed on you by the game system. You want to lay blame for that, go look in the mirror.

Given all the other disadvantages the martial classes are at, being forced into a corner and having to make sacrifices on the mechanically obvious dump stats can, in fact, be placed at the feet of the system. If you want to play the Fighter who is actually charming, the game actively punishes you for roleplaying.

This is not necessary. 4th edition had numerous mundane options for making mental stats a sound investment. The Warlord was utterly mundane, yet largely driven off of charisma. Rogues could use their intelligence to help them kill things. This was out of the core book. 13th Age has all manner of mental stats actually being useful and mechanically rewarded with muggles. Spheres of Might at least makes a mental stat useful to most of their classes.

In Pathfinder, you're stuck with exactly what you're doing right now. Drawing obscure things from obscure books that they added later to try (and fail) to patch up the fundamental problem that muggles aren't empowered to do things. What's more, you're drawing from the Weapon Master Handbook, which was practically a confession that muggles suck, and has a bunch of content that is explicitly and deliberately much more powerful than what came before. A book that came six years into the game's run.


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Omnius wrote:
Volkard Abendroth wrote:

Anybody can hit things with a shield at 1st level.

Granted, it helps if you have martial weapon proficiency (which fighter's have) and you won't benefit from your shield bonus to AC if you attack with your shield (unless you take improved shield bash as one of your 1st level feats.)

As a fighter with a high DEX using STR for damage, you should really look into Trained Grace. It adds 2x your weapon training bonus to damage. Needless to say, Gloves of Dueling are a priority.

As for being an ugly idiot: that is a choice you made, not one imposed on you by the game system. You want to lay blame for that, go look in the mirror.

Given all the other disadvantages the martial classes are at, being forced into a corner and having to make sacrifices on the mechanically obvious dump stats can, in fact, be placed at the feet of the system. If you want to play the Fighter who is actually charming, the game actively punishes you for roleplaying.

It is not forced, Min/max is a player choice.

I, and plenty of others, manage to build fighters capable of operating effectively both in and out od combat not stat dumping, and actually investing in stats like INT.

Quote:
This is not necessary. 4th edition had numerous mundane options for making mental stats a sound investment. The Warlord was utterly mundane, yet largely driven off of charisma. Rogues could use their intelligence to help them kill things. This was out of the core book. 13th Age has all manner of mental stats actually being useful and mechanically rewarded with muggles. Spheres of Might at least makes a mental stat useful to most of their classes.

You quote examples from 4E, forgetting that the entire reason Pathfinder exists is because the community rejected 4E.

Quote:
In Pathfinder, you're stuck with exactly what you're doing right now. Drawing obscure things from obscure books that they added later to try (and fail) to patch up the fundamental problem that muggles aren't empowered to do things. What's more, you're drawing from the Weapon Master Handbook, which was practically a confession that muggles suck, and has a bunch of content that is explicitly and deliberately much more powerful than what came before. A book that came six years into the game's run.

System mastery is a thing in Pathfinder; a good thing.

But you don't need much in the way of system mastery to know that having a 14 INT instead of an 8 INT nets you enough skill points to be the party's go-to guy on 3 additional skills or to be reasonably effective at an additional 6 skills.

Add a (very) minor investment in magic items and even a 7 CHA fighter with ranks in Diplomacy + Bluff can be highly effective in social scenarios. Spend a feat, or two, on skills via Weapon Training and Armor training and that same fighter is starting to look like a skill monkey. Add Barroom Brawler and Advanced Armor Training / Advanced Weapon Training can be taken when/where needed to give max ranks in whichever skill is required at any particular point in time.


What you describe a Fighter doing comes close to Paragon Surge shuffling.

On a caster, this is a godly overpowered trick that is nigh universally banned.

System mastery should be a tool of refinement. NOT a tool of achieving base functionality. What's more, by the time a Fighter can even get all the toys you're talking about, the casters have third and fourth and fifth level magic and a lot of disposable income for wands and scrolls since they're not on the same magic weapon/armor treadmill and don't need those "minor" magic items on top to achieve base functionality.

You describe this combination of abilities to get a Fighter decent at skill monkeying? Take any psychic caster except the Occultist. Burst of Insight. Burst of Adrenaline. They can now get a +8 bonus to literally any skill check at the cost of a first-level spell slot, and those spells are in Occult Adventures, the same book those classes came in. I don't have to hunt through a decade's worth of books to find it. I'm not combining my core class with the advanced class guide, the weapon master's handbook, and the armor master's handbook, which is what you referenced in one go in just your last post, not counting the vague allusions to content in even more books.

And by this point, the casters are high enough level to freely use some wands and scrolls and low-level spell slots for utility purposes that obviate a lot of those skills you just bent over backwards to give your Fighter. Spider Climb, Invisibility, Fly, and so on. You don't need skill ranks when you can get a +20 bonus.

As to your 4e comment? A good idea is a good idea no matter where it comes from. Rejecting a notion because it comes from 4e is dishonest. The Warlord was an excellent addition to the game and every other edition is lesser for not supporting it in a meaningful and effective way. And muggles actually being able to use mental attributes effectively in combat at the baseline rather than being rewarded solely for being big dumb beat sticks is also a good idea.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
DrDeth wrote:


This is just your opinion, trust me, in my current game and in RotRL, the Fighter was far and away the most dangerous character. Of course, we played D&D as a Team.

It is true that with Armor & Weapon mastery handbooks, any archetype that trades away weapon and armor class abilities will be sub-optimal.

And weapon damage is anything but irrelevant. My Fighter is downing demons the spellcasters can barely touch.

Melee works really well, in fact. With no reach at all. And, again, my fighter is 13th level.

Difference between a Fighter getting buffed by his party members and contending with his party members is precisely the reason why the OP is in the situation he's in. The factor that your Fighter had to be buffed to be considered the "most dangerous" really only proves what I will now dub as "Mistake Zero," as well as proves Caster/Martial disparity, especially when said buffers would have and could have just as easily ended encounters as they began.

And unfortunately, telling the OP "Ask your teammates to give you buffs" isn't really a fair answer/response to "Why does the Fighter not get any bones?" Since the entire point is to question why responses like that one are so important for a Fighter.

And if your Fighter is defeating demons that Wizards/Clerics can't, then it's really an optimization issue amongst your full spellcasters, or they are being purposefully played to supplement the Fighter at the cost of their own contention to other, potentially unseen, foes, in which case it's still otherwise a lop-sided comparison.

Nope, the fighter does't have to be buffed, but agaign, D&D is a team game. Does the wizard need condition removal and healing from the divine caster? My Fighter rarely needs buffs to be the most dangerous member of the party.

Just making up a name for something like "mistake zero" doesnt give it any credance. D&D is now, and always has been- a Team game. Each memember of the team contributes. Mitsake Zero is theorycrafting that the team will not play as a team.

Nor did I say ""Ask your teammates to give you buffs" in my post. The OP build a sub-optimal build, and obviously doesnt know about much better, more optimized fighter build- fighters who can- with feats- fly, dimension door, and see invisible.

Yes, of course- my players dont know how to optimize. Trust me, they do.


Omnius wrote:
System mastery should be a tool of refinement. NOT a tool of achieving base functionality. What's more, by the time a Fighter can even get all the toys you're talking about, the casters have third and fourth and fifth level magic and a lot of disposable income for wands and scrolls since they're not on the same magic weapon/armor treadmill and don't need those "minor" magic items on top to achieve base functionality.

Taking a 14 Int and spending one of three available feats on Cunning/Fast learner as a human fighter gets you 6 SP/level, starting at first level.

The rest of it just makes you a full-blown skill monkey. (Yes, Abundant Tactics + Barroom Brawler does result in Schrodinger's fighter. Unlike Paragon Surge, it's not restricted to one race.)

And if you think casters have that much disposable income, you need to try playing a full caster. Bumping up those save DCs and expanding spells/day cost just as much as a marital pays improving AC/DPR. Assuming the caster is not paying out just as much as the martial on armor. Other items, like a cloak of resistance or a CON belt, everyone pays for.


DrDeth wrote:
Nor did I say ""Ask your teammates to give you buffs" in my post. The OP build a sub-optimal build, and obviously doesnt know about much better, more optimized fighter build- fighters who can- with feats- fly, dimension door, and see invisible.

At the same time, the ideas used in the OP's build are sensible decisions that should work, but fall into a lot of the design shortcomings of the game.

The build makes sense. It should work. At the same time, it has things like Vital Strike. Vital Strike, as written, isn't very good to begin with. At the same time, if you want this not-very-good feat to scale as you get to higher levels, you need to spend a feat. If you want to be able to charge and use this not-very-good feat, one of the few situations where a non-pouncer is likely to make a single attack, then you need to spend another feat. The various improved and greater combat maneuver feats? In 3.5, they were a single feat available from level one with the negating AoOs, +4 bonus, and extra benefit. Now, it's one feat for +2 and no AoOs, and another not available until level 6 for the other +2 and added benefit.

Greater Combat Maneuver is the low bar for being considered "good" at a combat maneuver and having a viable option other than stabbing something, and takes a minimum of three feats, one of which isn't available until level 6, plus an additional two feats for each one you want to add.

And those are still generally not good options unless you go through multiple different books to add onto it with various bits and bobs, while the casters get a working frame out of the box, so long as they understand how to use their spells and manage resources. There are fewer traps. The main ideas to avoid are typecasting yourself as the blaster mage or bandaid box cleric.

Traps are bad design. Requiring multiple books and extensive system mastery just to function is bad design. And a mage with the same amount of system mastery put into them as the beaters that have the abilities you describe? That mage breaks the game.


DrDeth wrote:
Just making up a name for something like "mistake zero" doesnt give it any credence. D&D is now, and always has been- a Team game. Each member of the team contributes. Mitsake Zero is theorycrafting that the team will not play as a team.

Well let's look at many team games, the players have their own job to do to help win rather than trying to support a less stellar member. In football my lineman doesn't take on two opponents while a friend supports him, each person takes an opponent.

So in a total win situation which is more likely to have an overall higher score? A spell that takes out one enemy with a high likelihood of success or a spell that makes the fighter a little more accurate?

the amount of resources saved from needing to fix ANY bad thing the enemy would have done while the fighter killed it AND anything bad that other do that the fighter could have been killing instead of this guy is not needed if the wizard just takes out that guy with their spell. Also factoring in that the buff might not even change how quickly the fighter dispatches the guy thus making it effectively useless.

A team game is having 4 enemies and 4 allies and each killing one quickly. That's how normal team games are usually played and won. A strategy of having 4 enemies and 4 allies with only 1-2 killing the enemies and the others buffing takes longer and costs more.


Omnius wrote:
DrDeth wrote:
Nor did I say ""Ask your teammates to give you buffs" in my post. The OP build a sub-optimal build, and obviously doesnt know about much better, more optimized fighter build- fighters who can- with feats- fly, dimension door, and see invisible.

At the same time, the ideas used in the OP's build are sensible decisions that should work, but fall into a lot of the design shortcomings of the game.

The build makes sense. It should work.

And it does, for doing damage, which is what he wanted. What the build failed to do is "Still can't fly. Can't help it's team with healing or buffs. Relies on the charge for maximum effect. Can't turn invisible or see those who have."

And, like I pointed out, if you want a fighter that can fly or see invisible, you can have one, and one that still does a lot of damage.

But that build isnt the way to get Fly or See invisible.

It's a fun build anyway.


Chess Pwn wrote:
DrDeth wrote:
Just making up a name for something like "mistake zero" doesnt give it any credence. D&D is now, and always has been- a Team game. Each member of the team contributes. Mitsake Zero is theorycrafting that the team will not play as a team.

Well let's look at many team games, the players have their own job to do to help win rather than trying to support a less stellar member. In football my lineman doesn't take on two opponents while a friend supports him, each person takes an opponent.

So in a total win situation which is more likely to have an overall higher score? A spell that takes out one enemy with a high likelihood of success or a spell that makes the fighter a little more accurate?

A team game is having 4 enemies and 4 allies and each killing one quickly. That's how normal team games are usually played and won. A strategy of having 4 enemies and 4 allies with only 1-2 killing the enemies and the others buffing takes longer and costs more.

This idea that the Fighter is somehow "less than stellar" doesnt mmatch how I have see the fighter player, or how the Developers own games are played. Perhaps the Fighter being less that steller in your games is the outlier then?

Few spells are insta kills. Most likely you have a "save or suck" in which case, it is the fighters job to kill the now sucky monster.

Umm, no, that's usually bad tactics. What is good tactics is for one member to delay or hold off three foes, while three party members quickly finish one foe at a time.

The classic wizard is the Treatmonk "God wizard" who most specifically does not "win the combat" he instead "provides the
tools for the rest of the party to win, by "controlling reality""

And of course, buffing can and often should go on before the combat and/or will include the entire party. Haste for example.

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