Level 9 Fighter Feedback

[Bill Dinger]

Good Morning,

Just got done playing a platest session of the feedback at level 9 as a dwarf fighter, sword/board. Couple notes

* As before, "raising your shield" is a joke among the group. It feels pretty ridiculous to continue to have to spend an action to do this. Wizards and clerics dont need to "spend an action" to raise their staff, or an archer to raise his bow. Feels like an unnecessary action penalty that doesn't magic logical sense within the context of the gaming system.

* On the other hand, the additional class features around shields - such as when raising them being able to move at half speed - are actually really cool. More of that please. Or a gentle suggestion - leave raising a shield as just part of your class but let the warrior "heighten" it like a spell to give you more ac, move half speed, etc.

* The biggest problem remains that tanks aren't sticky. While they do have an AoO it's of limited effectiveness (1 reaction at this level) and the plethora of monsters at this level can/will just ignore it. If your primary purpose is to be a tank, as a sword/board fighter, and enemies can freely ignore you without penalty then .. why.. be .. a tank. I do think 4e got this the most right of any RPG game with its style of flat penalties to enemies ttack rolls, strikes, etc. More of that please

* I also think it's super weird that Armor doesn't scale that good for a fighter. My Monk has nearly as good AC at this level (I believe 28 to my fighter's 30). That's dumb.

* I cannot figure out equipment. On any character. It remains a baffling confusion of runes, materials, items, etc. I loathe how complex it is, how difficult it is for even advanced veterans of a system to understand, and why its this way. Nobody really complained about equipment before, it feels like we are trying to fix something that wasn't broken. This needs more simplification, or an alternate rules (flat progression of bonuses at this point honestly).

* We ended up facing a group of 10 cyclops because nobody among us has decent charisma and well, apparently in this part of the adventure we'll be left with "kill them all" strategy. Anyway, the cyclops took me out in 1 round. With their ability to autohit + do about 20 damage per hit they burned through all 147 of my HP in a single round. Uhhhh maybe we tone that down guys?

[Gortle]

Bill Dinger wrote:

Good Morning,

* As before, "raising your shield" is a joke among the group. It feels pretty ridiculous to continue to have to spend an action to do this. Wizards and clerics dont need to "spend an action" to raise their staff, or an archer to raise his bow. Feels like an unnecessary action penalty that doesn't magic logical sense within the context of the gaming system.

Yeah I do agree it feels a bit strange. I assume it is just a trade off between offense and defense. My Paladin was certainly glad for it once when he took the full attacks of 6 monsters. Compares favourable to a shield spell.

I prefer it to 5th ed.

Bill Dinger wrote:

* The biggest problem remains that tanks aren't sticky. While they do have an AoO it's of limited effectiveness (1 reaction at this level) and the plethora of monsters at this level can/will just ignore it. If your primary purpose is to be a tank, as a sword/board fighter, and enemies can freely ignore you without penalty then .. why.. be .. a tank. I do think 4e got this the most right of any RPG game with its style of flat penalties to enemies ttack rolls, strikes, etc. More of that please

Its very hard to keep a party member out of combat in this system.

Though I'd note that there have been no battles in corridors in all these modules so far.

The Paladin and Fighter seem to have not many options to protect an ally.

Bill Dinger wrote:

* I also think it's super weird that Armor doesn't scale that good for a fighter. My Monk has nearly as good AC at this level (I believe 28 to my fighter's 30). That's dumb.

Ugh, totally disagree.

The monk is a melee combatant he should have the same AC as the Fighter.
2 points of AC means he will take about 20% more damage - from increased number of hits and from increased number of criticals.

Bill Dinger wrote:

* I cannot figure out equipment. On any character. It remains a baffling confusion of runes, materials, items, etc. I loathe how complex it is, how difficult it is for even advanced veterans of a system to understand, and why its this way. Nobody really complained about equipment before, it feels like we are trying to fix something that wasn't broken. This needs more simplification, or an alternate rules (flat progression of bonuses at this point honestly).

Insanely complex - but that was always pathfinder.