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Stealthdozer
2009-02-12, 01:39 AM
Fighter Theory
Feat Plan:
1st: One (1) Fighter Feat & One (1) General Feat.
2nd: Power Attack.
3rd: Weapon Focus.
4th: Weapon Specialization.
5th: None.
6th: One (1) Fighter Feat & One (1) General Feat.
7th: None.
8th: Greater Weapon Focus.
9th: Improved Critical.
10th: One (1) Fighter Feat.
11th: None.
12th: Greater Weapon Specialization & Melee Weapon Specialist (PHB2).

This provides a total of +4 to hit, +6 damage, and Improved Critical threat range to one’s primary weapon, in addition to base attack, strength and magic bonuses. Assign the five additional feats (three Fighter and two General) as best fits your campaign.

I’ve read questions about Fighters recently.

Every first level Fighter (indeed every character) ought to purchase a club and a dagger as secondary weapons. For the cost of two gold pieces these cover bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. This pairing equips your Fighter with a simple and a light weapon both useful at melee and missile ranges.

Not every Fighter is the same. My present Fighter uses a longsword and heavy shield, and employs the Combat Expertise, Goad, and Improved Combat Expertise feats. This (usually) attracts melee attacks from our opponent. I generally strike one hit every other round, usually a Critical. I’m only hit one out of every twenty blows normally; and seldom critically hit.

This build is strong for working as a valuable member of the party. It allows other party members to strike effectively without facing (as many) attacks.

MammonAzrael
2009-02-12, 02:06 AM
If you're a big fan of Fighters, I suggest you take a look at this thread on the WotC boards. The Fighter's Handbook. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=863508) It covers pretty much anything you could want to know about building strong Fighters. :smallsmile:

Stealthdozer
2009-02-12, 02:16 AM
Thanks.
I should mention the Goad feat, that keeps my flankers safe, is improved by Charisma, which the above link lists as a "dump stat."

MammonAzrael
2009-02-12, 02:54 AM
And for the most part, it is. If you didn't have the Goad feat, then what use would you have for Charisma? Certain feats or builds of classes can change whether or not a stat should be dumped.

Deepblue706
2009-02-12, 03:10 AM
And for the most part, it is. If you didn't have the Goad feat, then what use would you have for Charisma? Certain feats or builds of classes can change whether or not a stat should be dumped.

Well, really, I think a Fighter will get better use out of CHA than WIS. For the Fighter, WIS mostly just applies to Will saves, and awareness skills (which are cross-class and therefore likely poor anyways). CHA at least applies to Intimidate - a social skill - and Handle Animal, which allows for the training of exotic mounts and the limited use of pets. Most Fighters are probably going to fail their Will saves anyhow; dumping won't penalize them much. And, they can easily circumvent the need for a good Will save anyhow, what with spellcasters at their side (Protection from Evil automatically prevents mind-control from the said alignment, for instance).

Besides, if you're concerned about Will saves as a Fighter, you may as well go for Steadfast Determination, and reroute CON as the depedent stat so you get better use of an attribute you want fairly high, anyway.

Stealthdozer
2009-02-12, 03:18 AM
MammonAzrael
I’m talking about a sword & board tank that works well within a party. There are other types of Fighters of course.

The link you’ve posted is informative and appreciated, but it’s also an overwhelming & flawed opinion piece.

Deepblue706
2009-02-12, 03:22 AM
@OP: Although cheap weapons that provide a variety of damage-types are nice, a Fighter should also consider what options his weaponry gives him, I think. To ensure versatility, I think a Fighter ought to carry an assortment more akin to one of these sets:

Flail
Ranseur
Throwing Axe/Dagger

Guisarme
Armor Spikes
Light Hammer

Both have a reach weapon, a weapon that can be effectively thrown, a light weapon that can be used in a grapple, a weapon that can be used to trip, a weapon that can be used with one hand, a weapon that can be improved by use of two. I chose the Light Hammer for the second group, simply because the range increment is superior to that of a club. Your STR will probably be enough to render the difference between the two acceptable, anyhow. Additionally, it's a light weapon.

Most Fighters can afford these assortments, as well; and I think most would agree they get more style points than a Club and a Dagger.

By the way, I also happen to be a fan of the Morningstar, as simultaneously using Piercing and Bludgeoning is kinda neat. A plain Fighter who goes up the Weapon Focus tree with one has access to both Melee Weapon Mastery feats, and can get more use of weapons of both damage types. Also, Crushing Strike and Driving Attack both have their uses; benefitting from either without swapping weapons, I think, is also fairly neat.

herrhauptmann
2009-02-12, 03:32 AM
While I'm not denigrating your above build, I'd like to suggest a different route as well.
Occassionally the party already has a few good bashers that are going the leap attack/combat brute/pounce route. Sometimes (especially if your wizard sucks at spell selection), a fighter who aides others is more useful.

Whereby I mean, vexing and adaptable flanker. Vexing gives you a bonus to your AOO's, and adaptable lets you treat any square you threaten, as one that is occupied by you for the purpose of giving an ally flanking. (It does not mean you can flank any enemy all by yourself with a glaive and spiked gauntlet)

Sidestep lets you make a 5ft step with each AOO you make.

Obviously the above work great with a chain fighter. Making combat reflexes a must to complement your 10 foot reach.

As a chain fighter, most will recommend 'hold the line' and standstill, as a way to further lock down enemy combatants.
Included in this are improved trip and knockdown. My reading of knockdown is that you deal 10 pts of damage, get a trip attempt for dealing damage, now enemy is on the ground for your secondary attacks. As opposed to the normal trip attempt, which gets a free attack if successful. (Knockdown also reduces chances of fumbling). Others argue that knockdown lets you deal damage, get a free trip attempt, and if successful get a free attack. As nice as all that is, I think it's a little too much reward for the win.

While flanking, you might want to look at Vae school, from drow of underdark. Once per round, if you have flanking, you get a free trip attempt against an enemy. If you fail, he can't trip you in return. (only works with whip or chain)
Finally for a tripper, I recommend some of the skill tricks. Especially the ones that let you stand from prone for free, without taking an AOO.
I second the use of steadfast determination. It gets especially good with certain builds. Combine it with decent base fort and will saves, and Mettle: Did the DM just hit you with 7 negative levels? Well now that it's the next day, you've got them back, because you can't fail on a natural one anymore. (Yes, that happened to a character of mine, 3 consecutive times. Mummy rot with no cleric and all your scrolls and wands destroyed blows)
Also if your will save starts to suck because of multiclassing, it can provide a nice boost.

Stealthdozer
2009-02-12, 03:33 AM
That's true, DeepBlue, but the two gold piece load out is good for almost all characters & much cheaper.

I'm new to the board, but not new to the game. Very many new players either forget or don't know to purchase more than just one weapon in my experience.

Stealthdozer
2009-02-12, 03:44 AM
Hello, herrhauptmann.

There are more complicated, more "optimized" builds out there. I've also learned there is no "best" build, but that’s a philosophical discussion, isn’t it?

The build I presented seems so much simpler and easier to play, especially for those asking honest beginner questions.

In practice I’ve found moving unpredictably is detrimental to my flanking friends.

MammonAzrael
2009-02-12, 04:20 AM
Oh, it is certainly opinionated, but I wouldn't say terribly flawed, for it's purpose. It aims at optimization, not anything else. While it's not perfect, it's fairly comprehensive.

If you're talking about builds specifically for beginners, then I agree that your build is just fine, without complication, and should contribute just fine to a normal party that isn't heavily optimized.

Re-reading the OP, was there anything in particular you were looking for? Questions, comments, advice, etc?

Stealthdozer
2009-02-12, 04:28 AM
MammonAzrael
I was looking for contact. I wanted to get a feel for this community.
I also wanted to contribute something. I’ve seen questions about fighters, some with answers that made my eyes glaze over. Why complicate simple things? I rolled up my first Fighter in 1981, and thought I might help.

Of course, the rules were different back then...

Temp.
2009-02-12, 04:37 AM
Sorry, but I have some disagreements with your advice for Tanks, seeing how it only really works if all of the following are true:

1. There is only one enemy to control.
B. That enemy is not immune to mind effects.
III. That enemy has a moderately low Will save.
d. That enemy has 3+ Int.
v. That enemy is not played as if it had 3+ Int.
ζ. That enemy has no ranged attacks, spells or alternative offensive options.

Drop or Animate the shield, pick up a reach Trip weapon and I'll buy it. Pick up that Share Expertise feat from Shining South and I'll see how you're helping. Hell, even grab Iron Guard's Glare and I'll acknowledge that it isn't the worst plan.

As it is, any time a baddie who actually threatens the party wastes its time attacking you, you owe your DM a big "thank you."

Stealthdozer
2009-02-12, 04:46 AM
Temp
You’d be surprised at the amount of enemies that fall past your “what if” objections/exceptions apparently.

So we occasionally fight enemies whom are not Goaded? Sometimes they’re immune; sometimes they make excellent Will saves...

Goad works most times, especially at low-to-mid levels (right where a beginner will be).

With a little practice it’s not so hard to take down several foes in short order by working together, even when Goad fails.

Efstrofos
2009-02-12, 05:32 AM
One large problem is that the goal you are accomplishing can be done much better by other classes. In your case, you are controlling a single enemy, who must also fall under specific rules (not immune to mind effects, intelligent, etc). A wizard/beguiler/bard can simply cast a single spell of a large variety control more enemies, more effectively, and without nearly as many limitations to who they can control. They can then spend the next round doing something else, while you still have to goad your single enemy. Druids and Clerics can also do the same to a lesser extent.

I'm saying your build doesn't work, but its limited. Most of the builds listed in the Fighter's Handbook are way more versatile, and just as effective at what they try to do. As far as being complicated, it doesn't get much simpler than 'I charge and power attack' or 'I trip him.' Its hard to make a fighter complicated. Still, if you enjoy your fighter, then by all means keep playing it. Thats far more important than being 'optimized.'

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-12, 06:08 AM
Sorry, but I have some disagreements with your advice for Tanks, seeing how it only really works if all of the following are true:

Pick up that Share Expertise feat from Shining South and I'll see how you're helping.

The feat name is Allied Defense. Great Feat anyway, expecially with Improved CE.

Stealthdozer
2009-02-12, 06:08 AM
Efstrofos
This reminds me of the time I tried to explain to a Nuclear Engineer why his pen wouldn’t write on plastic…but that’s another story.

Of course other classes can do crowd control better. This post was addressed – in part – to beginning Fighters. Goad wasn’t even a part of the Feat tree I posted; it was only mentioned in the “Not every fighter is the same” notes.

The Fighter’s Handbook is no doubt a wonderful tool for experienced players who should have engineering degrees. My build is simpler, easier to play, and doesn’t require any levels in Power Geek to comprehend. I get that you don’t agree with it, but has anyone to read it so far not understood it?

When Goad works – and it frequently does – our two Rogues get to flank without getting hit, our Bard gets to do what he does best (e.g., everything else), and my contribution to “crowd” control allows the other members of the party to shine too.

If I charge in and Power Attack (and sometimes I have to - note Power Attack is listed in the feat tree, Goad is not), that fight becomes “All About Me” – e.g., I become a “Peacock” problem player.

Efstrofos
2009-02-12, 06:18 AM
You're hardly 'peacocking.' Damage is a role someone has to play in the group, or else things never die. Thats like saying the rogue is 'peacocking' when uses skills that no one else has, as it it becomes all about him.

Also, you don't need a degree in power geek,. If you start at level 1, which most beginners should, you both will learn how the game works and learn how your work feats gradually as you level. I do understand your build, and maybe it fits in better with how your group plays. In my group, we expect someone to each pick up a role, and it generally works better if they're good at it. Our wizard would do crowd control and our fighter would do damage. No one complains about show boating.

Anyways, I didn't mean to come off as if I'm trying to bash your build (which after rereading my post, it does appear that way). I'm more trying to point out that the Fighter's Handbook is not flawed for optimization. If you don't want do to lots of damage, then yes it is flawed. However, its perfect for the role that most fighters are expected to do, kill things.

edit; Point remains, you're right in that your build does work for beginners. I just think most builds for fighters are just as easy to understand.

Stealthdozer
2009-02-12, 06:38 AM
Efstrofos
It wasn’t until I started reading all the comments in the Fighter Handbook that I noticed someone else spotted the flaw regarding the author’s negative opinion of Improved Critical. My post isn’t really about the Fighter Handbook. It’s quite simply too complicated for my tastes, and I suppose others too. But that’s a tangent really.

Believe me we do lots of damage together. Either I’m hitting with a Critical, or at least one – usually both – of the Rogues are getting sneak attacks through. Damage gets done rather nicely actually, and we all share a role.

I thought I’d cover campaign specifics when I left so many feats unassigned?

PinkysBrain
2009-02-12, 06:41 AM
but not new to the game
To me it seems you are playing a wholly different game ...

Stealthdozer
2009-02-12, 06:41 AM
I just think most builds for fighters are just as easy to understand.

Perhaps not everyone is as experienced and intelligent as you?

Stealthdozer
2009-02-12, 06:44 AM
To me it seems you are playing a wholly different game ... a game favoured by those living under bridges.

Not so much. You're spectacularly wrong.

Stealthdozer
2009-02-12, 06:51 AM
For what it's worth, I'm done here for now. I'll be back in a few days.

Temp.
2009-02-12, 06:57 AM
Of course other classes can do crowd control better. This post was addressed – in part – to beginning Fighters. Goad wasn’t even a part of the Feat tree I posted; it was only mentioned in the “Not every fighter is the same” notes.

The feats you mention are the ones I often want to discourage. Yes, they're easy. Yes, a new player should understand them very easily. But they're also terrible feats: they hurt both a Fighter's versatility an his ability to specialize.

The Weapon Focus line tends to wedge a fighter into a very specific fighting style--using one weapon with far fewer feats to spare for versatility than other feat lines. It also doesn't really do much to improve the Fighter in practice... 2 extra damage is next to nothing*, feats are essentially invaluable.

Most of the power of the Fighter class comes from combining feats. Mixing Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Leap Attack, Shock Trooper, Combat Reflexes and Robilar's Gambit is pretty standard. Same with mixing Combat Reflexes, Combat Expertise an Improved Trip. Same with crossing Knockback, Dungeoncrasher, Improve Bull Rush, Combat Brute and Shock Trooper. Or, with multiclassing, the TWF line, Combat Reflexes, Robilar's Gambit, Stormguard Warrior and Double Hit. In any of the basic combinations, removing a single feat cripples the design. This is specializing with a weapon; spending feats on Weapon Focus prevents it from happening. Those feats tend to build one-trick ponies, but impede the development of that trick.

Telling newbies to take the Weapon Focus line isn't particularly useful advice, anyway. Most people look at the book for the first time and say, "Hey! These feats are restricted to my class alone! They must be the best and the most appropriate feats for a Fighter in the game!" And without looking at the MM first, there's really no reason for them to realize how little +1 to hit or +2 to damage is.


*If you're cranking out a ton of attacks through archery, some sort of Natural attack abuse or TWF, it might add up. With a single weapon's worth of attacks per round, I would very rarely give it a second glance.

Talic
2009-02-12, 06:58 AM
WHEREAS, Sword and Board fighting provides lower damage output, both in damage type and strength bonuses, and

WHEREAS, the Power Attack feat you mention at <level 2> provides additional significant bonuses when using a Two handed Weapon, and

WHEREAS, as levels progress, the standard Monster Manual creatures have attack bonuses that outstrip AC increases farther and farther, until the point of near-obsolesence at levels above 12-13, and

WHEREAS, the greatest AC boost a large shield can provide, at its most powerful non-epic level is +7 (with a +5 enhancement bonus), and

WHEREAS, that AC boost doesn't apply to touch AC, nor can it be applied to touch AC through feats (inside core, at least), and

WHEREAS, One handed weapons have less options available (no setting for charge, and only 1 option for reach weaponry in core - and that's an optional weapon in the DMG),

THEREFORE, it is fairly easy to see that any build guide emphasising Sword and Board as "standard practice" is suboptimal.

Efstrofos
2009-02-12, 07:04 AM
So really your problem here is you think builds are too complicated. Fair enough. I'd agree when people start taking 1 level dips and waiting til 10th level to take Tome of Battle abilities because of the higher level abilities, yeah that complicated. Taking Power Attack, Improved Bullrush, and Shock Trooper, however, is not complicated (and doesn't require more than 3 sessions of experience and little intelligence to understand).

Also, the primary issue with Weapon Focus/Weapon Spec/Imp Crit is that they only apply to one weapon. Now you're using a long sword, but you just found a super cool scimitar. You either use the scimitar and waste the feats you chose, or ignore the scimitar because you took feats that give minimal benefit. +4 to Hit and + 6 damage isn't much at 12th+ level (which is when you get those bonuses). Also, improved crit can be replaced by a single spell slot from your friendly wizard/cleric, which is far less valuable than a feat slot. In my group the caster wouldn't care, because frankly thats good team play.

I think another issue you have is your idea of peacocking. In a world where an unoptimized druid can get hit harder than you AND cast spells while doing it, the last thing you should worry about is being a peacock. In my group if you accomplish your party role well, then thats all that matters. A fighter rarely has to worry about D&D becoming all about him.

Finally this all comes down to your group's play style. I think the community here plays a very different style than you do, which is why you disagree so much with it. Thats all.

FinalJustice
2009-02-12, 07:15 AM
Well, I guess if no one said it, I'll say it: That's not even a build.

That's just picking the Weapon Focus line, which is only marginally good with the PHB II additions, and is the first thing every beginner fighter considers, after seeing the neat 'Fighter only' pre-requisites; Power Attack, an obvious choice for every fighter; and Improved Critical, which is replaceable with a Keen weapon, saving a precious feat for something more useful. This build, in my opinion, is literally the vanilla fighter, not something one can claim to oneself.

Now I'm not one to say that this fighter is unable to contribute or work with a party. But he definetely lacks a schitck to claim his, like damage dealing, battlefield control or tanking. It also lacks essential defenses and options, the higher the the foe's resourcefulness or the unpredictability of the battlefield, the higher the probability of such fighter range from nigh useless to a liability to his friends spellcasters. (In case of: A flying invisible enemy. A mental dominating enemy, etc... etc...)

And how is 'your build' easier to play than an Ubercharger?

- I charge, Power Attack for full
- Enemy dies
- I charge the next, Power Attack for full
- Enemy survives and smacks you in the face
- I retreat and rage
- Enemy throws a ranged attack
- I charge, Power Attack for full
- Enemy dies
- And so goes on

No picking one enemy to lure, no considering likelyhood of failing a fairly low will save or being immune to mind affecting, no deciding how much you should put on your AC with Expertise. Hell, it doesn't even need to decide the ammount of PA, it's almost always for full (granted, you probably also Expertise for full almost always, so this can be a non-issue).

Eldariel
2009-02-12, 10:14 AM
The real build here is the Goad -> Improved Combat Expertise plan. That's a much bigger deal than picking the bunch of weapon focus-feats in the wrong order (seriously, is there any reason not to take Melee Weapon Mastery on 8? 'cause I can't figure any. Also, Weapon Focus should be taken on level 1 if you intend on it).

Anyways, if you wanna do a charismatic Fighter, you should pick the Zhentarim Fighter Sub Levels (Champions of Valor Web Enhancement (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a)), Imperious Command [Drow of the Underdark] and enjoy the one-two punch of focusing peoples' attacks on you and making 'em piss their pants (you could toss in Frightful Presence too). Of course, Goad is only sitiuationally useful (as it only focuses melee attacks on you), but the fear-effects help a lot to shore up that.


That said, that doesn't vindicate taking more Fighter-levels; generally it's just not worth taking all those dead levels for those feats. In this case, you'd probably want to end at level 10 to take all the Fighter ACFs.

Overall, the Fighter-class is poorly written and it shows. But alternative class features help a lot. Too bad not everyone just plays Warblade instead :(

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-12, 10:26 AM
Too bad not everyone just plays Warblade instead :(

Maybe someone does not have access to Tome of Battle. Someone else is fine with the fighter as it is (myself, with enough splatbooks :smalltongue:). Someone else again feel warblade and ToB as a whole too silly.

Eldariel
2009-02-12, 11:16 AM
Maybe someone does not have access to Tome of Battle. Someone else is fine with the fighter as it is (myself, with enough splatbooks :smalltongue:). Someone else again feel warblade and ToB as a whole too silly.

Indeed. Imagine how much nonsense, stupidity and pointless arguing we could've avoided if they had printed Warblade in the place of Core Fighter...

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-12, 11:21 AM
Indeed. Imagine how much nonsense, stupidity and pointless arguing we could've avoided if they had printed Warblade in the place of Core Fighter...

Not to be offending but again, you assume that class perception and game perception as a whole is the same for all the players.

Eldariel
2009-02-12, 11:28 AM
Not to be offensive but again, you assume that class perception and game perception as a whole is the same for all the players.

You missed my point. I'm saying that those factors are generally influenced by what people are accustomed to, and by perception. The people who now don't use Warblade for whatever reason would probably be using it had it been called "Fighter" and been printed over the present Fighter in PHB, and I'm fairly certain nobody would be asking for a class that gets a feat every other level.

Morty
2009-02-12, 11:33 AM
You missed my point. I'm saying that those factors are generally influenced by what people are accustomed to, and by perception. The people who now don't use Warblade for whatever reason would probably be using it had it been called "Fighter" and been printed over the present Fighter in PHB, and I'm fairly certain nobody would be asking for a class that gets a feat every other level.

I'm not so sure. Many people would likely want a class that doesn't use any spells or manuevers and is instead simple.

Random NPC
2009-02-12, 11:44 AM
Also, the primary issue with Weapon Focus/Weapon Spec/Imp Crit is that they only apply to one weapon. Now you're using a long sword, but you just found a super cool scimitar. You either use the scimitar and waste the feats you chose, or ignore the scimitar because you took feats that give minimal benefit.

Reason #27 why warblades are cooler than fighters :smallfrown: And fighters are right up there on my fav class list.

Now a fighter//warblade gestalt character :smallamused:

Eldariel
2009-02-12, 11:48 AM
I dunno. I've heard a lot of complaints about 4e, but the lack of a class without any associated mechanics isn't one of them.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-12, 11:53 AM
You missed my point. I'm saying that those factors are generally influenced by what people are accustomed to, and by perception. The people who now don't use Warblade for whatever reason would probably be using it had it been called "Fighter" and been printed over the present Fighter in PHB, and I'm fairly certain nobody would be asking for a class that gets a feat every other level.

Well, this is a good point, and is worthy of a careful thouhgt (or even a new topic :smallsmile:)

Anyway, consider that for some people the big amount of feats is very appetible... I'm not sure even if the fighter as wee see it now could be improved a lot withous balance issues (like, as an example, weapon supremacy tier ADDED to class features an few other bonus feats).

We could say that the 3.x idea is behind the fighter. You say, I could use warblade if were called fighter.. I'm not sure. It's a matter of immersion. It's hard to explain but I will try.

If you propose me a warblade as a martial artist, with special moves, I can accept it. But some of his moves does not fit with my concept of trained warrior. Have something of supernatural. Maybe it's a pre-builded idea in my mind, but some of warblade's moves are too much... (Su), we can say.

Some maneuver has its own functioning not correlated to the way other beings in the game do melee damage. As an example, In the game, melee damage is augmented by PA. Giants, Elementals, Xixecal, Barbarians... everybodi use it.

PA is linked to BAB, and there are trained warriors (fighters, generally speaking), able to improve their techniques to maximize it (leap attack and so on) or avoid if (elusive target and the like). You can see the direct link between techniques, and their effect in game.

ToB characters are "silly" in my mindset becasue their maneuvers too often go around all of this. I feel it like a... cheat. If monsters and non-ToB meleers fight, you can see that they are doing things between the same system. They are speaking the same language, we could say.

I don't feel the same with ToB. I don't say that ToB is a total crap, and if a lot of people consider it a balance solution, hooray for ToB. BTW, tha good things of an edition made of sub-systems, are even things like this. You can open a new world with a splatbook, and you have hooks for interesting points of discussion :smallsmile:

*bows*

Morty
2009-02-12, 11:54 AM
I dunno. I've heard a lot of complaints about 4e, but the lack of a class without any associated mechanics isn't one of them.

However, there are AD&D supporters here who claim that ToBesque manuevers aren't to their liking and that they prefer their martial characters to be simple.

ericgrau
2009-02-12, 12:25 PM
This is pretty basic and really shouldn't get a new thread. But it's interesting how easily people come up with something very close to what Wizards of the Coast intended without popular notions leading them astray. He even figured out the quantity of bonuses which most standard "of course this is the only way to do this" builds fail to do. I will also quantify my assessments, and since I have taken time to do this I will disregard responses that do not give similar effort and evidence even if they have 1 or 2 minor accurate assessments. Note that this also means that I won't spend 4 hours producing a 10 page proof on demand unless I see a similar argument first.

Sword and board provides 1d8 vs. 2d6, a loss of 1.5 damage plus 1/2 strength bonus. In average rolled stats (elite array), that's 1 damage for 2.5 lost total. In a game where you "must" have an 18, that's 2 damage for 3.5 total. That's something but not major, maybe +15% at early levels and +10% or less at higher levels; as little as 5% with a good array of weapon damage enchantments. For a dwarf with a waraxe the differences are 1.5 and 2.5.

Power Attack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=87339) does not provide much of a boost against opponents of reasonable CR and AC. It is a situational feat best used against unusually low CR or AC opponents.

Specifically I have a table of average monster stats by CR and their AC scales with level 1 for 1 or greater, as I have also easily acheived on the player end in my own (balanced, not defense-focused) builds.

In my builds I've found a shield gives 4 more points of AC on average for the same gold cost. That provides at minimum 20% miss chance, on average (roll of 10 hits) +40% and on a heavy armor character usually more than a 40% miss chance. Note that this comes from actual builds and examining actual CR appropriate monsters. Compare this to the 5-15% damage boost above. Even in a situation where defense has no use whatsoever the player has the easy option to fight two-handed instead. i.e., if there is no chance at all for the player - who is still the main damage dealer after losing 1 or 2 damage (per above) - to fear dying (specifically, he himself dying). Which I find odd in real d&d games.

My computer simulations have found that a good AC is useful until about half of all attacks bypass it. This is not the norm in most games. And my simulations also found that under these same circumstances a monk with a good touch AC, good saves and (most of all) spell resistance is much better than any other martial class. So if you believe this, go play a monk.

FinalJustice
2009-02-12, 01:45 PM
I can't tell whether this is sarcasm or not. Schröedinger's Sarcasm or is my sarcasm'o'meter broken?

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-02-12, 02:34 PM
I can't tell whether this is sarcasm or not. Schröedinger's Sarcasm or is my sarcasm'o'meter broken?EG is always serious. The issue with his numbers comes from the fact that AB is much easier to buff than AC. Various AB boosters are a much better investment than AC boosters, due to stacking issues and price, to the point where it's usually much cheaper to buy an item of Greater Blink or Displacement than it is too get your AC up to the point where enemies miss 50% of the time.

Fiery Diamond
2009-02-12, 02:44 PM
Well.

First off, I've had about 4 years experience with D&D and about 2 years experience DMing. I'm not new to the game.

Second, I deal mostly (not entirely) with core and homebrew.

Thirdly, I deal with new players on a regular basis; I find they are usually more fun to DM for than players with more experience than me, and about the same amount of fun to DM for as players with the same experience as me.

Lastly.....

Optimization is NOT the most important thing in D&D! GET OVER IT!
Seriously. "Sword and Board is suboptimal and weaken than..." Guess what? Some people don't really care about that. Some people are more interested in other things. That said, I didn't think that the OP's build was particularly interesting, but that is just a personal opinion and has no more or less weight than the OP's opinion. Your idea of what is good advice is no better than anyone else's, people.

Simplicity is an issue for some new players, and isn't for others. Personally, I think that if you're worried about simplicity for new players, you shouldn't be advising them on a build, but letting them pick things as they level up without regard to planning ahead. Then the DM should accommodate the player. Being a DM is a service position in some ways, and any DM who doesn't realize that is a *expletive not included because I have standards of decency*. If simplicity isn't an issue, then walking the new player through complicated builds is fine. Different players will find different things simple versus complicated. Also, not everyone uses non-core.

Oh, and as a side note - I allowed a player to use a Swordsage in my campaign once. BIG mistake. At levels 3-7 (when we were playing) she was proving to be stronger than our sorcerer. Yes, our sorcerer was mainly (not entirely) combat focused. No, I don't care that people think that it is under powered to focus on combat with a caster. As a result, I do not like TOB.

-Fiery Diamond

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-02-12, 03:18 PM
Oh, and as a side note - I allowed a player to use a Swordsage in my campaign once. BIG mistake. At levels 3-7 (when we were playing) she was proving to be stronger than our sorcerer. Yes, our sorcerer was mainly (not entirely) combat focused. No, I don't care that people think that it is under powered to focus on combat with a caster. As a result, I do not like TOB.

-Fiery DiamondToB is balanced against a mid-power Sorcerer. You can't build a weak ToB character, but you'll never be on the same level as a strong caster. If your party is used to casters being balanced against S&B Fighters and Monks, yes, it will be stronger. If the party has a Druid, Beguiler, Artificer, and Wizard, a ToB character will be underpowered but able to contribute. Well-built ToB is balanced based on a Non-Schrodinger Wizard, non-DMM Cleric, and a non-FoI Factotum. Poor ToB is balanced against almost the exact same things. It's designed to allow non-optimizers to work in optimized parties, or for optimizers to play melee without being bored out of their heads, and I've seen it work well for both of those.

Darth Stabber
2009-02-12, 03:33 PM
If I am playing straight fighter, I would almost never take my specialization to the degree of the ubercharger or anything of that nature. I actually tend to be a jack of all nonskill, nonmagical trades.

Example most recent fighter
Human Fighter
str14 con14 dex14 int12 wis 10 cha8
lvl1 - power attack, point blank shot, precise shot
lvl2 - Dodge
lvl3 - mobility
lvl4 - Quickdraw

And I had a +1great sword and mighty composite longbow(+2str), and a +1 breastplate. I could switch back and forth @ a whim between ranged and melee and not have to worry about Friendly fire or AoOs. Did i max out the DPS charts, no, but i made dang sure that the rogue had flanking. Actually I later took 3 lvls in rogue so i could trade 1 bab and a few hp for 2d6 sneak attack an a few skills. magnified my damage output fairly well

SurlySeraph
2009-02-12, 03:45 PM
Oh, and as a side note - I allowed a player to use a Swordsage in my campaign once. BIG mistake. At levels 3-7 (when we were playing) she was proving to be stronger than our sorcerer. Yes, our sorcerer was mainly (not entirely) combat focused. No, I don't care that people think that it is under powered to focus on combat with a caster. As a result, I do not like TOB.

Oh, I can totally see where you're coming from. It would be just awful if an entirely combat-focused melee character was slightly more effective in combat than a caster who wasn't entirely focused on combat.

herrhauptmann
2009-02-12, 05:20 PM
Hello, herrhauptmann.
There are more complicated, more "optimized" builds out there. I've also learned there is no "best" build, but that’s a philosophical discussion, isn’t it?
The build I presented seems so much simpler and easier to play, especially for those asking honest beginner questions.
In practice I’ve found moving unpredictably is detrimental to my flanking friends.
Hi to you too,

Without a doubt, there are more complicated builds. My most recent character was a level 16 dwarf with a total of 6 classes and PrCs. And no multiclass penalties.

With the feats I mentioned above, my character was not optimized as a damage dealer. Couldn't even pick up cleave until level 9 or 10, but I was fairly well built to boost my allies.

And it was hardly random movement in the middle of combat. It was a large and mostly new group, so talking tactics was difficult at times: but it was possible to get their opinions on where to put my character, so that I could boost whatever they were about to do next. And I feel that in that group, my character would've continued to contribute even past the level where tripping becomes ineffectual because the monsters are too big with too high of a strength.

Deepblue706
2009-02-12, 10:10 PM
That's true, DeepBlue, but the two gold piece load out is good for almost all characters & much cheaper.

I'm new to the board, but not new to the game. Very many new players either forget or don't know to purchase more than just one weapon in my experience.

Yes, I know of many new players who are guilty of forgetting to bring anything aside from their longsword to battle; I think it might have something to do with them only knowing how cool the sword is from movies and stories, meanwhile ignoring the less-popularized as even backup weapons because their favorite fantasy characters had nothing to do with them. I know of more than a few who make their characters based upon a high-medieval knight, yet never consider the need for the Lance, Mace, Pick or other knightly weapons, because their image is nothing more than an armored man with a sword.

Since you've caused a bit of an uproar with your assertions on what is acceptable for a Fighter, I'll actually comment on that; I think it's fine. I would not take too-close to heart any comments that completely denounce what you've put fourth, as the convention here is that the Fighter is so underpowered that the only way to compensate is to rack-up your damage potential as high as possible, or else you will be too seldom able to participate in a meaningful manner.

Although I believe some arguments for imbalance among classes have plenty of merit, there are others that appear to merely be accepted by the authority of others, and they sometimes become exaggerated from the original points made; for instance, I'm not sure of your opinions on the Wizard class, but the attitude towards them here once being "These guys can very often display significantly more power than other classes if the DM does not act in a responsible manner and keep them in check" has grown, for some, to become "These guys render the rest of the party obsolete". As a DM, my opinion is of the former camp, as I've observed that a Wizard's spells are "Per Day", and allowing infinite days to perform a task without any risk of harm or other hindrance through pausing to rest is one of the few ways their power gets out of hand. Granted, there are one-or-two examples of pure brokenness found within the bounds of the class (ie Shapechanging to a Choker goes bad quickly), but I firmly believe that it is generally fairly manageable.

In other words, the unchecked caster has many non-caster players afraid of their own ability to contribute, leading them to find ways to go above-and-beyond the caster's abilities. For example, two common feats people here like to grab for Fighters are Shock Trooper and Leap Attack, which allow for potentially grand amounts of damage. Ignoring a few instances - such as a certain hypothetical caster named "Cindy" - casters generally can't deal as much damage directly as a Fighter who well-exploits the above feats. Instead of considering the potential of a Fighter performing as yours does, they look to out-muscle the caster, because its the one thing they feel they can have over them. That, and, well...abusing the hell out of a spiked chain and AoOs.

I would hazard a guess this has something to do with a lack of the RAW (Rules as Written) mentioning much about how to maintain balance via fair and reasonable means. With some mechanics are highly specific and automatically maintained through rules the players (including DMs) can understand (for example, feats like Power Attack), the lack of guidance in other areas may leave them all rather lost. There may be a few with an unconscious dependency, I think.

Which may be why some people prefer AD&D; it's rather open to interpretation, and less binding. Things like the Fighter declaring "I stop him from running by me" and "I do some super-cool attacko-thinger" were just decided by the DM. You didn't have to wait for a specific level for abilities, aside from additional attacks and whatnot. Or at least, I believe; I've never actually played AD&D. Pretty much all of my gaming experience is GURPS, D&D 3E, and a snippet of 4E (I stopped taking it seriously after reading the PHB page on Dragonborn).

Huh.

Where's Matthew? Doesn't he play AD&D? Magically appear and tell me if I'm right, dammit!

...

Wow. That took a long time to type.

My head hurts.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-13, 06:40 AM
My computer simulations have found that a good AC is useful until about half of all attacks bypass it. This is not the norm in most games. And my simulations also found that under these same circumstances a monk with a good touch AC, good saves and (most of all) spell resistance is much better than any other martial class. So if you believe this, go play a monk.

What can I say... I'll continue to play monks, enjoying it, and keeping my ignorance. I have really a big fun with 3rd edition, and I use a wide array of options, monters and situations.

I will never made simulations, because I'll continue to believe that this game is not only numbers (even they are important) but infinite possibilities.

I hope that your mindset can make you have fun :smallamused:


to the point where it's usually much cheaper to buy an item of Greater Blink or Displacement than it is too get your AC up to the point where enemies miss 50% of the time.

If such items are available. Not all items/spells/classes/whatelse are available in every campaing.
More, the item granting such bonuses could have e lesser endurance to attacks than a shield. I don’t think your statement is not valid, but factors in play are a lot.


Oh, I can totally see where you're coming from. It would be just awful if an entirely combat-focused melee character was slightly more effective in combat than a caster who wasn't entirely focused on combat.
As I said above, people play casters not in the same way, so in that campaign and in that group, so maybe the swordsage was broken. I think you can live peacefully with this thing.

See, this mindset remember me a guy in the wotc forum saying that only the BatmanWizard players enjoyed 3rd edition and are 4th edition haters. That topic and the signature of the avenger was enough for me to delete the account.

*Drinks another cup of Grog*

Anyway, SStoopidtallkid explained very well the meaning of ToB.



Although I believe some arguments for imbalance among classes have plenty of merit, there are others that appear to merely be accepted by the authority of others, and they sometimes become exaggerated from the original points made; for instance, I'm not sure of your opinions on the Wizard class, but the attitude towards them here once being "These guys can very often display significantly more power than other classes if the DM does not act in a responsible manner and keep them in check" has grown, for some, to become "These guys render the rest of the party obsolete". As a DM, my opinion is of the former camp, as I've observed that a Wizard's spells are "Per Day", and allowing infinite days to perform a task without any risk of harm or other hindrance through pausing to rest is one of the few ways their power gets out of hand. Granted, there are one-or-two examples of pure brokenness found within the bounds of the class (ie Shapechanging to a Choker goes bad quickly), but I firmly believe that it is generally fairly manageable.


These are my feeling about many issues.

ericgrau
2009-02-13, 02:47 PM
Yes I do have lots of fun with d&d too. My main point is to let people play what they want without 10 people saying that if you don't do exactly X (which isn't the best way anyway) then it's suboptimal. There are in fact lots of good under-used strategies that are both effective and interesting.

I've compared AB of builds other people posted versus the average AC of monsters of reasonable CR before. You do not auto hit in core; you need splatbook stuff like wraithstrike to pull it off. I think people in real-life low-munchkin games can confirm that not all their attacks always hit unless they roll a 1. On the power attack tables I showed that if you can't auto hit for free damage then you only net a couple damage over all (bonus damage minus misses). Dunno what else to say except don't diss it unless you go to similar trouble to provide evidence. Otherwise your opinion is your opinion and stop entering every forum where someone does something different to say, "Don't do that, of course it's suboptimal." It's not "of course". Try instead "IMO", "I've heard" or even "Rumor has it." B/c rarely do I see much backup with such things. Not only is it false it makes the game boring to say there's only 1 way to do things.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-15, 10:26 AM
Otherwise your opinion is your opinion and stop entering every forum where someone does something different to say, "Don't do that, of course it's suboptimal." It's not "of course". Try instead "IMO", "I've heard" or even "Rumor has it." B/c rarely do I see much backup with such things. Not only is it false it makes the game boring to say there's only 1 way to do things.

:smalleek:

Sorry but.. read me above, or in other threads. You will see that I genereally say that the suboptimal choices are subjective matter, or campaing related matter.

I don't think that there is an only way to play this game at all. and I generally answer to those that say "roll a swordsage monk sucks" and similar things. So one can say that I'm a tedious conservative 3.0 poster, ToB hater, grognard, or other things, but I DON'T THINK THAT THIS GAME CAN BE PLAYED IN A WAY ONLY. PLEASE, reread what i wrote.

Stealthdozer
2009-02-16, 01:14 AM
I tried reading all these responses. I really did. My eyes kept glazing over.

I’m not trying to be cruel.

Many of you seem to be saying I shouldn’t enjoy a suboptimal fighter because you play in a dysfunctional group? Your Druid and Beguiler can pack sand, frankly.

Let me be blunt: Optimizing your character will not fix your dysfunctional party.

Optimizing your character in order to fix your dysfunctional group fundamentally fails to identify and engage the challenge you’re presented.

Look, we’ve all played with dysfunctional parties some time or another. Role-Playing Games are a beacon to asocial-type personalities. We can’t fix these people (generally speaking), and they sure as bricks won’t take a hint. Therein lays a tangent, or perhaps another thread…

The reason I recommend holding off on Weapon Focus is, as a beginner, one never knows what weapon will strike one’s fancy. One of the girls whom know plays a Rogue started with a Fighter as described in the original post. She wants to play each core character class. As a beginning Fighter she was presented with several weapons, she adored her heavy mace – a sub-optimal heavy mace. She loved smashing things, and was delighted to be encouraged to hit things. She had fun…the horror.

The reasons I prefer Improved Critical are as follows:
1. I prefer a Sacred Scabbard to a Scabbard of Keen Edges.
2. I craft my own weapons. I don’t generally scavenge weapons for my own use. For example my present Fighter, Reyn, has crafted three longswords, and has started a fourth. His primary weapon is a blued adamantine longsword with mithral inlays and filigree fitted to a rosewood handle. The runic inlays read (in Elven) “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier.” He crafted his other swords too, and they’re just as detailed, even if in game terms it really is just another Masterwork Adamantine Longsword. Why would I get Keen cast on each longsword when Improved Critical: Longsword works just as well, even in an anti-magic field?

Nohwl
2009-02-16, 01:32 AM
feats are rare. you only get a few of them. normally you have 7 or 8. youre playing a fighter, so feats are more common, but still very valuable. gold is a lot more common. if you can replace a feat by spending some gold, its almost always a good idea to do so. instead of taking improved critical, you can take something else and still get improved criticals effect.

what does crafting your own weapon have to do with not making it keen? just pay a someone to enchant it. you only need one or two longswords, and its not that much to have them enchanted.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-02-16, 01:39 AM
[COLOR="Navy"]Many of you seem to be saying I shouldn’t enjoy a suboptimal fighter because you play in a dysfunctional group? Your Druid and Beguiler can pack sand, frankly.

Let me be blunt: Optimizing your character will not fix your dysfunctional party.My group isn't dysfunctional. We simply prefer to play with a DM who uses realistic tactics and enemies that respond intelligently and are at or above our CR. Most Fighters, especially sub-optimal ones, are worse than an empty slot in a party like that. Optimizing makes that playstyle work, and is hardly dysfunctional.

Draz74
2009-02-16, 01:39 AM
youre playing a fighter, so feats are more common, but still valuable.

This is key. On a feat-starved character (which is many characters), Improved Critical is a bad idea. Keen is better. But on a Fighter, who intends to rely largely on critical hits, Improved Critical is great.

Also note one giant disadvantage of Keen: it disqualifies the weapon for use in conjunction with a Bless Weapon effect (e.g. the one granted by a Sacred Scabbard). If you want to threaten and automatically confirm the threat on a 15-20 attack roll range, you have to use Improved Critical and a Sacred Scabbard. Keen (or a Keen Edges spell) and Sacred Scabbard won't fly.

Nohwl
2009-02-16, 01:48 AM
ive seen a few people play fighters and complain about the lack of feats. they can be feat starved too.

Stealthdozer
2009-02-16, 02:17 AM
My group isn't dysfunctional (whining noise continues)

If your party's Druid (for example) is outshining your Fighter (for example) your party is dysfunctional.

Stealthdozer
2009-02-16, 02:23 AM
what does crafting your own weapon have to do with not making it keen?

Some poster (no, I'm not going to go back & check who) was wondering why I won't use a +5 Scimitar I find in some Orc's privy. I think - if I understand his point correctly - that he thought I was wasting too many feats tied to my Longsword, specifically Improved Critical: Longsword. What if I find that +5 Scimitar? If the Druid doesn't want it, we sell or trade it.

SparkMandriller
2009-02-16, 02:36 AM
Role-Playing Games are a beacon to asocial-type personalities. We can’t fix these people (generally speaking), and they sure as bricks won’t take a hint.

Learn from this man's words, guys.

Suedars
2009-02-16, 03:03 AM
If your party's Druid (for example) is outshining your Fighter (for example) your party is dysfunctional.

For a druid to avoid outshining a poorly built fighter, he'd have to take nothing but skill focus feats, and do nothing but buff the party in combat. Even then, he might outdo the fighter just from the contribution of his animal companion. I don't see how you can make the claim that a player who builds a druid decently and plays it as it should be played is dysfunctional, but a poorly built fighter who demands that his teammates greatly weaken their characters so as not to outdo him, is perfectly fine.

horseboy
2009-02-16, 03:24 AM
Even then, he might outdo the fighter just from the contribution of his animal companion.
Oh yeah, I felt so bad that my constrictor out did the fighter I offered to let him play my AC.

AgentPaper
2009-02-16, 03:31 AM
If your party's Druid (for example) is outshining your Fighter (for example) your party is dysfunctional.

I'm gunna have to jump in and disagree with you here. In your party, nobody plays optimally. That's fine. You're having fun, I would probably have fun in a similar situation, keep doing what you're doing. However, don't mistake having fun with having an effective character. In a group that likes to push their characters to be the best they can be, fighters tend to fall short. Some of the strategies and builds and such listed here are designed with that in mind, to make the fighter worth taking in a party that is trying to be the best they can be.

In a party that isn't optimizing, like yours, you don't need to be the best you can be, you just need to be decent, and have fun. That doesn't make your build a good one though. Why are you trying to get advice on how to build a fighter if you don't want to make it the best it can be? If you're not playing in a group of optimizers, (which is different from yours, but still legitimate) then builds tend to not matter at all. Just pick what looks cool or fun to play for you, and have fun with it. You won't be optimal, but that's not the point, is it?

Just because someone else's playstyle is different from yours, doesn't make it dysfunctional. To have a "good" build, a fighter has to optimize. In a party that doesn't optimize, there are no builds, because you're just picking what will help you have the most fun, which is unique for every person. You have fun without optimizing, but that doesn't mean people who do optimize are wrong.

Off-topic nitpick:

Not that it really matters, but why are you coloring your text? I'm sure it's not your intention, but it gives me a little "I'm special/better" vibe. I'm not going to try and force you to not use it, but it's kinda silly, isn't it? :smalltongue:

Stealthdozer
2009-02-16, 03:40 AM
For a druid to avoid outshining a poorly built fighter (whining continues).

It’s dysfunctional because not everyone enjoys an optimization race. I don’t compete with my friends – there’s nothing to win any way.

It’s dysfunctional because players and DMs are responsible for game balance, and focusing only on what you think is optimal is completely unbalanced.

It’s dysfunctional because most of you are not combat veterans trained in small unit tactics and close quarters combat, so don’t tell me you’re playing a “gritty & realistic” campaign when you’ve nothing but ignorance, naivety, and conceit to bring to the table. If you don’t know what you’re talking about get over yourself. D&D is a fantasy game – not real, supposedly fun.

It’s dysfunctional because it is the DM’s job in particular to ensure players are getting not necessarily what they want but rather what the need.

In order for a Druid not to outshine a Fighter it’s up to everyone in the party to not be a jerk, or more realistically, to nullify the jerk or remove him from the group. What you think is poorly-built or well-built doesn’t matter, rather it’s how the character is played.

Stealthdozer
2009-02-16, 03:48 AM
Why are you trying to get advice on how to build a fighter if you don't want to make it the best it can be?

I didn’t ask for advice. What I saw were several threads from apparent beginners asking about Fighters, and Optimizers failing to let other opinions find a voice.

Rather like so many of you here actually.

BTW: Colours are fun. Try them.

Tengu_temp
2009-02-16, 03:48 AM
I'd like to point out that there's something deliciously ironic in making a "how to build/play a X" thread and at the same time arguing that optimizing is not the way to go, complete with insults towards people who argue with you.

AgentPaper
2009-02-16, 03:55 AM
It’s dysfunctional because not everyone enjoys an optimization race. I don’t compete with my friends – there’s nothing to win any way.

It’s dysfunctional because players and DMs are responsible for game balance, and focusing only on what you think is optimal is completely unbalanced.

It’s dysfunctional because most of you are not combat veterans trained in small unit tactics and close quarters combat, so don’t tell me you’re playing a “gritty & realistic” campaign when you’ve nothing but ignorance, naivety, and conceit to bring to the table. If you don’t know what you’re talking about get over yourself. D&D is a fantasy game – not real, supposedly fun.

It’s dysfunctional because it is the DM’s job in particular to ensure players are getting not necessarily what they want but rather what the need.

In order for a Druid not to outshine a Fighter it’s up to everyone in the party to not be a jerk, or more realistically, to nullify the jerk or remove him from the group. What you think is poorly-built or well-built doesn’t matter, rather it’s how the character is played.

Please don't insult people for playing the game in the way they do. You have fun with your playstyle. That's fine. Other people have fun optimizing. Are you saying that they're wrong to have fun doing what they like to do?

And you seem to have ignored the majority of my post. If it was simply too long, (oh, the horrors of reading what you respond to!) then here's the short: A "build", by necessity, has to be effective, if not the most effective, or it's just some random feats/stats. In your game, builds are useless because you're not trying to be the best. (which is still fine) In games where builds are used, because people want to optimize (which is also fine) your "build" falls short. There is nothing wrong with your character, but just because you have fun with it doesn't mean it's effective as a build.

Stealthdozer
2009-02-16, 03:57 AM
I'd like to point out that there's something deliciously ironic in making a "how to build/play a X" thread and at the same time arguing that optimizing is not the way to go, complete with insults towards people who argue with you.

Where did I insult you?

Who did I insult that didn't insult me first?

What's so wrong about a non-optimized fighter? Someone might try it? Have some fun even? The horror...

AgentPaper
2009-02-16, 04:12 AM
Where did I insult you?

Who did I insult that didn't insult me first?

What's so wrong about a non-optimized fighter? Someone might try it? Have some fun even? The horror...

You don't seem to have read what I typed. You've repeatedy said that any group that optimizes is dysfunctional. AKA, they're playing the game wrong. That's a pretty big damn insult around here. I have not seen anyone insult you, all I have seen is people say that your build is not effective in combat. Which is true, in a game with optimization, which is the only game it matters in. In your game, you don't optimize, so your build doesn't matter. You pick what's most fun to you. There is nothing wrong with this, and if anything I would prefer this playstyle, as I have repeatedly stated.

There is nothing wrong with a non-optimized fighter, if your group doesn't optimize, or try to be as effective as they can. You can have fun with it, nobody has said you can't. (That I've seen. Feel free to point out any that you think have) However, posting a non-optimized fighter (or any class, class doesn't matter) as a "good build" is misleading, at best. If someone really doesn't care about whether they're the best they can be, they shouldn't be looking around for advice on what their build should be. If they do, expect to get recommendations of optimal feats and such.

What do you want us to do? Recommend you take feats we don't think are any good? You want feats that let you have fun, and those are different for everyone. Would you tell your friend with the mace to drop it for a longsword, and then follow you build instead? No, because she has more fun with her mace, smashing things up. Sure, some people might like to play a fighter the way you do, but that's true for almost any selection of feats/items/stats/etc.

The only builds that can really be relevant to discuss are those that try to optimize, because there are only a few builds that really are "optimal". You can't discuss "fun" builds, because there are literally as many of those as there are people who play them.

Edit: Sorry if I seem to be throwing a wall of text at you. I tried to be as brief as I could, and seem to have failed. :smallredface: Tengu seems to have said most of what I did here much more coherently below.

Tengu_temp
2009-02-16, 04:12 AM
Where did I insult you?

Who did I insult that didn't insult me first?

What's so wrong about a non-optimized fighter? Someone might try it? Have some fun even? The horror...

You're dismissing valid arguments as "whining" and saying that people who optimize somehow "bring ignorance, naivety, and conceit" to the table - that's very insulting if you ask me. "I insult them back" is both not a valid reason, as it's against the rules of the forum, and wrong, as both of those were responses to a post that was informative, not an attack on you.

There is nothing wrong in optimizing just like there's nothing wrong in non-optimizing, as long as the whole group has fun - while you seem to think that fun is possible only in a non-optimized group. Furthermore, bringing a non-optimized character to a group where everyone else is optimized, and the DM plans challenges for such a group, is just as wrong as vice versa.

Of course, I got ninja-ed. Stupid forum backup.

horseboy
2009-02-16, 04:18 AM
What's so wrong about a non-optimized fighter? Someone might try it? Have some fun even? The horror...Because the only thing he successfully hit that night was an iron wall? Which almost got us killed several times.

Suedars
2009-02-16, 04:43 AM
It’s dysfunctional because not everyone enjoys an optimization race. I don’t compete with my friends – there’s nothing to win any way.

It’s dysfunctional because players and DMs are responsible for game balance, and focusing only on what you think is optimal is completely unbalanced.

It’s dysfunctional because most of you are not combat veterans trained in small unit tactics and close quarters combat, so don’t tell me you’re playing a “gritty & realistic” campaign when you’ve nothing but ignorance, naivety, and conceit to bring to the table. If you don’t know what you’re talking about get over yourself. D&D is a fantasy game – not real, supposedly fun.

It’s dysfunctional because it is the DM’s job in particular to ensure players are getting not necessarily what they want but rather what the need.

In order for a Druid not to outshine a Fighter it’s up to everyone in the party to not be a jerk, or more realistically, to nullify the jerk or remove him from the group. What you think is poorly-built or well-built doesn’t matter, rather it’s how the character is played.

Playing a druid decently is not an optimization race. A druid will always outshine an unoptimized fighter, unless the druid is terrible, or goes out of their way to be terrible. An animal companion alone is nearly as good as an equal leveled fighter. All the druid's other abilities will just further outdo the fighter. The druid doesn't have to optimize at all to outshine a fighter. He can take a basic wolf as an animal companion and wildshape into a brown bear and do better. Hell, he probably doesn't even need natural spell to outdo the fighter.

Upon seeing this as a fighter you can do one of three things. Either optimize yourself and make a good build, so that you are as capable as the druid, you can content yourself with the fact that druids just are more powerful and there's no getting around it and have fun anyways, or you can whine that the druid's "optimization" is outshining you and demand that he gimp himself so that you can have fun. Which of these three sounds dysfunctional to you?

Stealthdozer
2009-02-16, 05:26 AM
Well, here we go again?

I’ve spent the best part of this last week getting flamed here. One of you even called me a troll. Now Team Optimize is all sensitive? That too is dysfunctional.

Play as you wish, but don’t tell me how to play, and don’t tell me what subjects I can and cannot write about - including fun, simple Fighters.

Am I clear? Are you getting this?

Ciao

P.S.: Colour makes it easier for me to find my own posts.

kamikasei
2009-02-16, 05:44 AM
Stealthdozer, you're seriously overreacting. I haven't seen anyone tell you how to play, or try to dictate what you can say here. (If you can point to specific examples of this, please do. If you feel you have been flamed, you might contact a moderator.)

If you voice an opinion, some will disagree with it. If you present an argument, others will counter it. It's a waste of your time and energy to take every example of such as flaming, especially since you could be learning from it instead.

I'm unclear on your purpose in creating this thread - if it's specifically to present one build for use by starting players, or general guidelines for beginners looking to try a fighter, I would suggest adding more explanation of that to the original post. The title is "Fighter Theory", but I see little theory - was your intent to expand on the opening post, or to generate discussion to build up additional information?

P.S. - on the subject of color, it's not against the rules to use one colour for all your posts - the rules prohibit excessive formatting. However, if it's to make it easier to find your posts, I would suggest getting a custom avatar instead.

AgentPaper
2009-02-16, 05:44 AM
Well, here we go again?

I’ve spent the best part of this last week getting flamed here. One of you even called me a troll. Now Team Optimize is all sensitive? That too is dysfunctional.

Play as you wish, but don’t tell me how to play, and don’t tell me what subjects I can and cannot write about - including fun, simple Fighters.

Am I clear? Are you getting this?

Ciao

P.S.: Colour makes it easier for me to find my own posts.

A search reveals that the only use of the world "troll" in this thread is by you. Which of us do you think implied that, then? Team Optimize, as you generalize, is a legitimate play style that you obviously don't care for. That does not make it dysfunctional. We haven't told you how to play, and we haven't said you can't write about fun, simple fighters, if that's what you enjoy. There are topics that you can't bring up here, but yours it not one of them. Your build is not optimal, so players who optimize won't find any use for it. Your build works fine in an un-optimized campaign, but so do thousands of others, and you can't recommend it to people as a "fun" build, because everyone has to find out what is fun for themselves on their own.

You are very clear, we understand what you're saying. Thus, we respond as we do.

Leon
2009-02-16, 07:55 AM
What's so wrong about a non-optimized fighter? Someone might try it? Have some fun even? The horror...

Nothing is wrong, just a lot of people cant see that for Optimization (Theoretic or Not) blinds them to anything that's not "built" the best possible way.

I like you Fighter idea, Ive personally wanted to play a a Sword and Board Fighter for a while (technically i do its just not in D&D) but in the current game we have one and i don't want to step on his toes.

One of the first (and Still fav) PCs in D&D i played was a Fighter (although he had a Greatsword)

Tengu_temp
2009-02-16, 08:12 AM
dysfunctional

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Nohwl
2009-02-16, 08:34 AM
i have played a druid before in a party, it was "broken" because i took natural spell. i could (and would) do whatever i wanted, and i would still be the strongest member of the party. according to you, i should actively gimp myself so i wouldnt outshine the rest of the group. so what if im playing a wizard with 10 or 11 int? it doesnt sound like you would show me how to play better, do you actively work to make sure that wizard is contributing in your group?

what makes your definition of fun the right one? how do you know that the person might not have more fun playing an optimized fighter? they might have more fun if they played anything else.

Cainen
2009-02-16, 09:31 AM
Sigh. I'll play your game, but just this once.

Warblade 12
1 - Combat Expertise, Heavy Armor Proficiency
2 - -
3 - Goad
4 - -
5 - Power Attack
6 - Improved Combat Expertise
7 - -
8 - -
9 - Shield Specialization, Combat Reflexes
10 - -
11 - -
12 - Martial Study

Maneuvers/Stances
1 - Stance of Clarity, Steely Strike, Leading the Attack, Stone Bones
2 - Sapphire Nightmare Blade
3 - Wall of Blades
4 - Stonefoot Stance, retrain SNB into Stone Vise.
5 - White Raven Tactics
6 - -
7 - Mithril Tornado
8 - -
9 - Elder Mountain Hammer
10 - Tactics of the Wolf
11 - Crushing Vise
12 - Retrain Stone Bones into Iron Bones, Irresistible Mountain Strike

This character does -everything- yours does. The difference is that you need to set up flanking with Tactics of the Wolf for the damage bonus(+6 from level, +2 from Intelligence) and that this character is based on denying actions to enemies while having high AC and durability.

It's also not optimized to any real extent.

mikej
2009-02-16, 09:42 AM
Either optimize yourself and make a good build, so that you are as capable as the druid, you can content yourself with the fact that druids just are more powerful and there's no getting around it and have fun anyways, or you can whine that the druid's "optimization" is outshining you and demand that he gimp himself so that you can have fun. Which of these three sounds dysfunctional to you?

Gimp you say ?

Worse off ( and this happens to me in real life ) is when they want to see you gimped, but just use the " I'm not having fun " or " he is too broken " routine to also get a free handout.

I'm not sure of the big issue is here ?. Long as the Fighter has his/her shiny sword and gets to attack monsters etc etc there shouldn't be a problem. I highly doubt the DM is going to allow another player ( Druid is this case ) overshadow the Fighter in fighting on a regular basis.

The DM will probally send a few stuff that the Fighter can handle. Its not a matter of who can do what and how, its the DM that spreads the entertainment out.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-02-16, 11:16 AM
If your party's Druid (for example) is outshining your Fighter (for example) your party is dysfunctional.A Fighter (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheets/view.php?id=109098), at level one, built with the Elite Array and your first 2 listed feats.
A standard Druid's pet Riding Dog (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dogRiding.htm). Compare the stats. The Fighter has a 5% better chance of hitting or avoiding a hit, and better crit range. The AC has the ability to trip opponents, twice the speed, more HP, and more out-of-combat abilities. I think the 2 are end up about even. Meaning that one of the Druid's class features is the equivalent of the party Fighter at the Fighter's job. How can the Druid not outshine him?

Also, my party doesn't often outshine one another. We're all about equally skilled, so we have fun at a much hgher power level than you. Does that mean we're not dysfunctional?

Myrmex
2009-02-16, 04:14 PM
I'd like to point out that there's something deliciously ironic in making a "how to build/play a X" thread and at the same time arguing that optimizing is not the way to go, complete with insults towards people who argue with you.

Like raaaaaaaaaain on your wedding day.... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v9yUVgrmPY)


here's the short: A "build", by necessity, has to be effective, if not the most effective, or it's just some random feats/stats.

So if it's not a venerable anthropomorphic bat druid, it's just a random assortment of stats? A half-orc sorcerer doesn't count as a build because the gray elf wizard is more effective?

snoopy13a
2009-02-16, 04:52 PM
A Fighter (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheets/view.php?id=109098), at level one, built with the Elite Array and your first 2 listed feats.
A standard Druid's pet Riding Dog (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dogRiding.htm). Compare the stats. The Fighter has a 5% better chance of hitting or avoiding a hit, and better crit range. The AC has the ability to trip opponents, twice the speed, more HP, and more out-of-combat abilities. I think the 2 are end up about even. Meaning that one of the Druid's class features is the equivalent of the party Fighter at the Fighter's job. How can the Druid not outshine him?

Also, my party doesn't often outshine one another. We're all about equally skilled, so we have fun at a much hgher power level than you. Does that mean we're not dysfunctional?

The best part is that a riding dog has a challenge rating of 1. So the Druid's animal companion is a standard encounter for a level 1 party :smalltongue:

The fault doesn't involve the fighter, it involves the druid essentially getting a level 2 NPC companion at level 1.

ocato
2009-02-16, 05:12 PM
I admit that I skipped a page or two in the middle here since it seems to be the same sort of back and forth.

I would like to simply say that I think the OP would really enjoy 4E, which is more friendly towards melee shield-bearer style control. 3.5 looks poorly upon shield users from an optimization standpoint (which is moot if your group doesn't play by the distorted internet version of D&D).

MammonAzrael
2009-02-16, 05:14 PM
So if it's not a venerable anthropomorphic bat druid, it's just a random assortment of stats? A half-orc sorcerer doesn't count as a build because the gray elf wizard is more effective?

No, they could still be builds, as long as their construction had a mechanical goal it was aiming for. It might not be the optimal build (either from a function or power perspective), but as long as the collection of feats/stats/etc is aiming to do something specific mechanically, I'd call it a build. The term build applies only to the mechanical aspect of the character, because that is all it can apply to.

AgentPaper
2009-02-16, 05:38 PM
@Myrmex

I was using "build" to mean something that many people should use if they want to be X class. Suppose that's more of a confusing definition than anything, but my basic point was that while a build that isn't optimal isn't wrong to play, you can't really then go and recommend it to someone else, because either A) They optimize, so it's not useful because it's too weak, or B) They don't optimize, so it's not useful because most likely they wouldn't have the most fun with that build.

Of course, it's not always that black and white, and both of those categories include a large range of players and play styles, (just because you optimize doesn't mean you have to be "THE BEST", but only that you have to be good enough to keep up) but I think it's generally true. His build, as listed, doesn't really do anything in a game where anyone optimizes at all, as shown spectacularly by the druid's animal companion above. In a game without optimization, listing and using a build doesn't really help anyone, since everyone's definition of fun varies.


There, I think I said it a bit better this time around. :smallredface:

RavKal
2009-02-16, 08:04 PM
Well, here we go again?

I’ve spent the best part of this last week getting flamed here. One of you even called me a troll. Now Team Optimize is all sensitive? That too is dysfunctional.

Play as you wish, but don’t tell me how to play, and don’t tell me what subjects I can and cannot write about - including fun, simple Fighters.

Am I clear? Are you getting this?

Ciao

P.S.: Colour makes it easier for me to find my own posts.

Ok, Stealthdozer, Ok. That's enough.

Now let's all just take two levels of fighter for the feats, HD, and BaB like normal people and get on with our bloody lives.

As for fighters in general, I'm playing a sword and board and I quit using my sword.

Deepblue706
2009-02-16, 08:30 PM
A Fighter (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheets/view.php?id=109098), at level one, built with the Elite Array and your first 2 listed feats.
A standard Druid's pet Riding Dog (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dogRiding.htm). Compare the stats. The Fighter has a 5% better chance of hitting or avoiding a hit, and better crit range. The AC has the ability to trip opponents, twice the speed, more HP, and more out-of-combat abilities. I think the 2 are end up about even. Meaning that one of the Druid's class features is the equivalent of the party Fighter at the Fighter's job. How can the Druid not outshine him?

Also, my party doesn't often outshine one another. We're all about equally skilled, so we have fun at a much hgher power level than you. Does that mean we're not dysfunctional?

To be fair, I think we should note the Fighter can trip things without provoking AoOs by merely holding a Flail. Okay, no free attack, but the tactical option is still available; and generally, in a party, that's all that matters. Also, while a Fighter may not be able to afford it immediately at first level, a warhorse alleviates much of the movement problems for the Fighter in open environments. A Fighter also has the benefit of using a variety of weapons, whereas a Riding Dog is limited to its natural attack. No reach, and no ranged weaponry. Also, with only a Bite attack, it has little way of harming enemies with damage reduction only overcome by Slashing or Bludgeoning (Zombies, Skeletons).

A Fighter does rely far more upon his equipment than other characters, but it does not mean the Druid's Riding Dog Companion renders him obsolete.

I also think it wrong to use the Elite Array for the hypothetical Fighter PC; I believe that's reserved for important NPCs. The normally-used 4d6-drop-lowest method averages out to about a 27 point-buy, I believe; by which the Fighter in question could afford higher STR, and thus superior combative ability.

I agree the Fighter is weak, but I thought it necessary to bring forth these points so that people don't forget they aren't useless, either.

aje8
2009-02-16, 08:40 PM
I'm just pointing this out, but, A SPIKED CHAIN FIGHTER IS REALLY EASY TO PLAY.

Plan: When they move, AOO using standstill, then move away and attack on your turn. This is not remotley complex. It's one tactic over and over.

AN UBERCHARGER IS REALLY EASY TO PLAY.

Plan: Charge(Shock Trooper for full), Retreat, Charge(Shock Trooper for full), Retreat till it's dead!!!

S&B fighters are not simpler to play than any other class. Now building a S&B fighter is simpler, but if you're just handing noobs a build anyways then why not give them a more effecitve build that's simple to play?! I see the argument that when a noob builds it it will be S&B fine, however when you're giving them a build I don't see it at all. This way, the noob feels useful and enjoys their character more while having a simple intro to D&D.

Nohwl
2009-02-16, 08:46 PM
I'm just pointing this out, but, A SPIKED CHAIN FIGHTER IS REALLY EASY TO PLAY.

Plan: When they move, AOO using standstill, then move away and attack on your turn. This is not remotley complex. It's one tactic over and over.

AN UBERCHARGER IS REALLY EASY TO PLAY.

Plan: Charge(Shock Trooper for full), Retreat, Charge(Shock Trooper for full), Retreat till it's dead!!!

i guess simple and easy are pretty subjective. i think spellcasters are pretty simple to play, others might(and probably do) disagree with me.

Deepblue706
2009-02-16, 08:56 PM
I'm just pointing this out, but, A SPIKED CHAIN FIGHTER IS REALLY EASY TO PLAY.

Plan: When they move, AOO using standstill, then move away and attack on your turn. This is not remotley complex. It's one tactic over and over.

AN UBERCHARGER IS REALLY EASY TO PLAY.

Plan: Charge(Shock Trooper for full), Retreat, Charge(Shock Trooper for full), Retreat till it's dead!!!

S&B fighters are not simpler to play than any other class. Now building a S&B fighter is simpler, but if you're just handing noobs a build anyways then why not give them a more effecitve build that's simple to play?! I see the argument that when a noob builds it it will be S&B fine, however when you're giving them a build I don't see it at all. This way, the noob feels useful and enjoys their character more while having a simple intro to D&D.

To be honest, I think giving a pre-made character only effectively capable of performing the same maneuver over-and-over in a game that supports mechanics for various tactical abilities will bore them quickly.

If I were a DM and going to be giving a "build" to a beginner who chose to play a Fighter, I'd give them as many "Improved (Tactic)" feats as their attributes qualify them for. Except for Improved Feint. I hate Improved Feint.

And then, I'd proceed to provide challenges where at least one of each tactic was, in some way, appropriate. I think the noob would appreciate the game much more, because they would have plenty of options available, and not fear AoOs every time they wanted to cut the rope that holds the chandelier above the bandits, or shove a troll off the side of a mountain. They could also wrestle bears.

Personally, I think doing all of that (while perhaps relying on an Enlarge Person here or there, it's a group-based game, anyhow) is far more interesting than a Chain-Fighter who relies on "I trip him again!" or "I stop him in his tracks like last turn, and do that same attack I did before!", which is more-likely to fail when fighting a Kraken (who has tentacles you can sunder), a Formian (which you can grapple the hell out of), or an Ogre (which you can bull rush if you've got a running start).

A S&B Fighter is just a Fighter who uses a Sword and Shield. He can still take a variety of feats. Locking all of your feats into Trip or Charge is worse, in my opinion, than taking less-than-optimal gear.

Fighters are supposed to use a variety of weaponry and tactics anyhow. If you're a charger, a chain-fighter will own you. If you're a chain-fighter, an archer will own you. If you're an archer, the charger will get a horse and own you with a shield and a lance. If you've a lance, the spear-fighter kill your damn horse before you get him. And if you've a spear, then it'll be sundered by the guy with a zweihander. And so on.

Fortinbras
2009-02-16, 09:28 PM
What do people think of this build for a reasonably well rounded combatent. I was my first so there were admitidily a few mistakes but I've found it to be reasonably effective. Any advice for future enhancement is welcome.

Dwarf fighter 7/Samurai 3/ Dwarven Defender 2

Feets/special abilities
lvl.1 samurai, bastard sword proficiancy, weapon focus bastard sword
lvl.2 samurai, two weapon fighting
lvl.3 samurai, kiai smite, power attack
lvl.1 fighter, quick draw
lvl.2 fighter, zen archery
lvl.3 fighter, leadership,toughness
lvl.4 fighter, endurance
lvl.5 fighter,
lvl.6 fighter, combat expertise, diehard
lvl.1 Dwarven Defender, defensive stance
lvl.2 Dwarven Defender, unncany dode
lvl.7 fighter

The point was a tough, capable swordsmen, who could stand in for the ranged combatent in a pinch and wouldn't fall easy prey to rouges. The cohort, a paladin/cleric, made for good armor support and was a capable healer.

Berserk Monk
2009-02-16, 09:40 PM
Get your hands on some complete warrior now! The feats in there are awesome.

Eldariel
2009-02-16, 09:50 PM
What do people think of this build for a reasonably well rounded combatent. I was my first so there were admitidily a few mistakes but I've found it to be reasonably effective. Any advice for future enhancement is welcome.

Dwarf fighter 7/Samurai 3/ Dwarven Defender 2

Feets/special abilities
lvl.1 samurai, bastard sword proficiancy, weapon focus bastard sword
lvl.2 samurai, two weapon fighting
lvl.3 samurai, kiai smite, power attack
lvl.1 fighter, quick draw
lvl.2 fighter, zen archery
lvl.3 fighter, leadership,toughness
lvl.4 fighter, endurance
lvl.5 fighter,
lvl.6 fighter, combat expertise, diehard
lvl.1 Dwarven Defender, defensive stance
lvl.2 Dwarven Defender, unncany dode
lvl.7 fighter

The point was a tough, capable swordsmen, who could stand in for the ranged combatent in a pinch and wouldn't fall easy prey to rouges. The cohort, a paladin/cleric, made for good armor support and was a capable healer.


Well, it seems quite problem-laden to be honest:
-You have Samurai-levels. They're like your Fighter-levels except grant you with worse, predetermined feats (and worse, you can't gain the improved Two-Weapon feats at all ever unless you take 7 more levels of Samurai, meaning your Two-Weapon Fighting will be completely useless compared to just two-handing something or even Sword & Boarding come midlevels).
-You have an uneven number of Fighter-levels. 7th level of Fighter gave you nothing.
-You entered Dwarven Defender without anything but a bonusless bow to impact opponents with. This means that most opponents are free to ignore you if you ever use Defensive Stance. Hopefully your DM makes 'em attack you for whatever reason; otherwise the ability will be wasted. That said, I suppose Uncanny Dodge is useful. Still, the prerequisite feats are a bit much.
-Your cohort is multiclassed for some reason. Just plain Cleric would have the exact same flavour but be much more effective thanks to the access to higher level spells (including spells that can make up for his potentially lacking BAB).
-You can use a bow, yes, but you need to enchant it separately and spend a lot of money for it to truly be effective. Also, since you presumably pump Str as your primary stat, your To Hit will be suffering; you'll have a hard time doing anything against Dragons, for example. I personally would've opted for thrown weapons instead as you can use Str for both, To Hit and damage.

The good parts:
-You have Leadership. That feat kicks unbelievable amounts of arse.
-You have lots of prerequisite feats. You could expand the concept to any direction you like. That said, you're level 12 and haven't yet; you're still a beginner in offensive two-handed style, two-weapon style, defensive style and archery alike.
-You seem to have insane stats, and probably way lots of money. If so, you can make up for most of the problems through simple numbers.


That's about it; if you were allowed to rebuild it with only Fighter-levels and Barbarian (you needn't learn Rage if you don't want to, although you could pick up Whirling Rage and flavour it as a defensive spin of some sort, sorta like Defensive Stance), you'd be much better off.

Fortinbras
2009-02-16, 09:50 PM
I looked through it and didn't see anything that great, what did I miss?

Eldariel
2009-02-16, 09:54 PM
I looked through it and didn't see anything that great, what did I miss?

The Tactical Feats are the biggest boon of the book. Shock Trooper, Combat Brute & Elusive Target are three great feats that give you a bunch of powerful abilities in one feat, greatly increasing your versatility and efficiency.

Also, the prerequisites give you stuff you'd normally miss; thanks to Combat Brute, you end up picking up Improved Sunder so if you ever face a Hydra you'll be set, and Shock Trooper gives you an excuse to pick up Improved Bull Rush, a feat you'd normally never take as it's mostly a waste of time (but sometimes golden, like when you can push opponent into Given Terrain Hazard).

Efstrofos
2009-02-17, 06:24 AM
In order for a Druid not to outshine a Fighter it’s up to everyone in the party to not be a jerk, or more realistically, to nullify the jerk or remove him from the group. What you think is poorly-built or well-built doesn’t matter, rather it’s how the character is played.

This is the part where I completely disagree with you. I've seen it happen in my group when we started playing. One guy had a fighter, and another guy had a druid. The druid thought "Wow, it would be neat to be a bear. I'll shape shift into that!" That simple action, mind you he was not trying to be a jerk, made him vastly more powerful than the fighter in combat. Note that he could also cast spells as a bear, and his pet wolf helped him fight. The fighter was outshined big time. The druid was not being a jerk. He was just playing to have fun.

Whats your solution to this? Have the DM constantly smudge die rolls so the fighter could keep up? Have the druid never turn into a bear? Make the druid pick really weak animals, such as squirrels, so that fighter can at least beat him combat.

note: The druid also had better saves, more skills, and SPELLS!

Fortinbras
2009-02-17, 07:55 AM
I didn't choose my chohort, the DM did, I just said I was trying to attract a lawful good dwarf. I kind of like the flavor of a cleric/paladin but I see your point.

Money is average but stats are pretty good except for dex, it's only a 12.

My bow is a plus one composite longbow with a plus four str rating.

I tend to engage the enemy in melee first and then use defensive stance, once they're nice and mad but again I see your point.

Anyway I'm not done using this character yet, so any specific feet advice would be welcome. I might even be able to get my DM to let me switch a samurai level for a fighter level. Anyway thanks a lot.

Efstrofos
2009-02-17, 09:43 AM
I didn't choose my chohort, the DM did, I just said I was trying to attract a lawful good dwarf. I kind of like the flavor of a cleric/paladin but I see your point.

Money is average but stats are pretty good except for dex, it's only a 12.

My bow is a plus one composite longbow with a plus four str rating.

I tend to engage the enemy in melee first and then use defensive stance, once they're nice and mad but again I see your point.

Anyway I'm not done using this character yet, so any specific feet advice would be welcome. I might even be able to get my DM to let me switch a samurai level for a fighter level. Anyway thanks a lot.

Is it safe to assume you're the group tank? With your current feats I'd say take Elusive Target from Complete Warrior (if you get access to it). It lets you do cool things like make guys who are trying to flank you hit each other, negate power attack bonus damage from attackers, and trip people sometimes. All of this from one feat.

Also, if you can retrain those samurai levels into fighter levels I would take combat reflexes and either stand still (from Expanded Psionics, but it can be found in the SRD. Also, its not actually a psionic feat if your DM hates psionics) or improved trip. Either one of those 2 will allow you to keep enemies from running around you and hitting your allies, especially if you have a reach weapon. If you do go with combat reflexes, you should try to boost your dex a little.

Since you have quick draw you should make use of reach weapons. If the enemy gets inside of your 10ft reach just quickdraw your bastard swords.

Last thing I can think of is Improved Initiative. Its just good for everyone.

Zen Master
2009-02-17, 10:50 AM
It saddens me that Stealthdozer apparently had enough and quit.

It saddens me more that all discussions of the 'optimizing vs. non-optimizing' always come to the same, bitter end. Rosie's Bitter End - not that anyone is likely to understand what I mean by that.

Stealthdozer has got it exactly right. Also, partially wrong. There are two different games here. For simplicity's sake, I'll narrow down the options somewhat, thusly:

Consider it a given fact, that you have only five hours a week to devote to roleplaying.

Further, four of those hours are actual gameplay.

Further, the last hour can only be devoted to one of two things: Optimizing or background, character depth and such.

Given these options, clearly you have to chose - either you play to optimize, or you play to roleplay.

These two paths will give you two completely different games. One based on telling stories, one based on tactics and combat.

If, naturally, you accept the limitations. If you have more hours to work with, maybe you can do both.

The point I'm trying to reach is that it is two different games - not the same game played differently.

For the roleplaying, splatbooks simply serve no purpose. And honestly? For the optimizing, roleplaying serves no purpose.

That's not to say they cannot be combined - but each can be entirely succesful without the other.

Matthew
2009-02-17, 11:08 AM
Right, but what underlies the "optimisation" argument is the idea of "outshining", which basically says "all fighters (or characters fulfilling that "role") must be equally powerful in order for fun to be had.

What happened in this thread is that things got off to a bad start and spiralled out of control from there. Stealthdozer started with a "build" and implied that it was "good", but never defined the parameters of "good".

Then we are heading into "game theory" territory, which is to say "How do you have fun playing the game?" (instead of "here is how we enjoy playing D&D"). Argument was stacked on argument without the underlying themes being addressed and people (may) have been left with bad feelings as a result.

Clarity of communication is the first casualty of a thread like this.

SparkMandriller
2009-02-17, 11:13 AM
These two paths will give you two completely different games. One based on telling stories, one based on tactics and combat.

Because it's impossible to have a game with combat and a story, right?

Matthew
2009-02-17, 11:16 AM
Because it's impossible to have a game with combat and a story, right?

I don't think that's what he said. If I understand him correctly, his idea is that some games emphasise roleplaying and others emphasise combat. Whether there are games that emphasise both equally doesn't actually change his point (that games may be played differently depending external factors).

SparkMandriller
2009-02-17, 11:23 AM
Yeah, maybe. The idea that if you spend your time thinking about feats instead of thinking about backstory you can't do anything but hit things seems kinda wierd to me though.


Yeah I'm basically just here to complain about things.

Fortinbras
2009-02-19, 12:56 AM
I got into an arms race when I first started playing D&D. I was using the character I've been asking for help with, and the other guy was using an elf ranger. What anyoyed me was that the ranger was really greedy and selfish. This is a very strange way for a ranger to behave but if anyone asked the player about it he just said, "well he is a weird ranger." Anyway this sort of thing continued until our characters came to blows. The rangers lost. After that the other player was very upset. He made a new character (the other one survived and even "made up" with mine) and then stopped playing. These characters were not really optimized, just munchikinized.

My curent party has a lot of roleplyaing involved. We also try to make the most powerful builds posible (although I'm clearly still learning the tricks involved.) I guess what I'm saying is that optimization dosen't kill roleplaying even if it sometimes seems that way. After all people in real life generaly want to be as good at what they do as they can. What kills roleplaying is powergaming. I think that that is an important distinktion.

On a slightly different note I still would like some help with this build. I'm looking mainly for offensive power as well as tactical opertunities. Thanks.

Keld Denar
2009-02-19, 03:03 AM
See, there is something I consider "responsible optimization". Mature players know the difference between something good (say...the Deepwarden PrC) and something stupid/broken (say...the Frenzied Berzerker PrC). Its possible to build a strong character without abusing the rules. And a mature and experienced DM builds encounters that are challenging, without being too difficult that the players feel they have to "munchkin" or do something outrageous.

Of course, this is a lot of talk about the "straw DM" or whatever, but I have seen it work in real life. I played with a DM in Boston who followed a "gentleman's agreement" on optimization. We wouldn't use crazy CL Holy Words, and he wouldn't use crazy CL Blasphemy's. We wouldn't use Celerity, he wouldn't use it against us. Its pretty easy for anyone with a good bit of experience to identify that which is truely broken, and avoid it in a good faith situation.

PS, Fortinbras, check this out.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=15422232&postcount=1
Its a little build I put together. Very Dwarfy, and pretty strong as far as melee goes. Nothing too absurd, although I'd probably switch pouncing Barbarian back to normal Barb in the name of balance. Something like this would be a great melee D&D character.

Zen Master
2009-02-19, 03:31 AM
Because it's impossible to have a game with combat and a story, right?

Oh come on, it's right there. Look:

That's not to say they cannot be combined - but each can be entirely succesful without the other.

Of course they can be combined - what did you think was the point of specifically stating that there was only a limited amount of time available?

But odds are, like it or not, that if your main focus is optimizing, then roleplaying isn't. Main focus. As in main. As in there could be a secondary as well.

Zergrusheddie
2009-02-19, 03:36 AM
Keld, I actually read that build before I started posting on this site. Very clever, but I've always wondered why use an Urgosh? Why not use another Exotic Weapon like a Guisarme?

Optimator
2009-02-19, 04:41 AM
Stealthdozer was highly entertaining. I'm gonna miss him.

SparkMandriller
2009-02-19, 06:03 AM
But odds are, like it or not, that if your main focus is optimizing, then roleplaying isn't. Main focus. As in main. As in there could be a secondary as well.

What makes you say that?

olentu
2009-02-19, 06:20 AM
Keld, I actually read that build before I started posting on this site. Very clever, but I've always wondered why use an Urgosh? Why not use another Exotic Weapon like a Guisarme?

I would think that it is taking advantage of the Weapon Familiarity racial ability that lets them treat it as a martial weapon thus saving a feat and still allowing the use of the Exotic Weapon Master class.

Aquillion
2009-02-19, 06:34 AM
I'm not so sure. Many people would likely want a class that doesn't use any spells or manuevers and is instead simple.
But... in 4e they did print the Warblade instead of the fighter. They all but said outright that that was the whole point of the ToB, to test the new combat mechanics that they intended to use to replace the fighter in 4e. (Nobody realized, at the time, that they intended to use those combat mechanics for everyone else, too.)

I've never heard anyone complain about the change to a 4e fighter, though... the fact is, power attack all the time is dull. Using the one or two tricks your feats give you is dull. It limits roleplaying a bit, too, since you are restrained in terms of the types of different fighter-archtypes your fighter can represent.

Keld Denar
2009-02-19, 03:27 PM
I would think that it is taking advantage of the Weapon Familiarity racial ability that lets them treat it as a martial weapon thus saving a feat and still allowing the use of the Exotic Weapon Master class.

That and the fact that the Urgrosh is one of the the only weapons that qualifies for both the Uncanny Blow trick (by virtue of being wieldable in 1 hand, thus a 1 handed exotic weapon in 2 hands) and the Flurry of Strikes trick (because its a double weapon). The only other weapon is the Gnome Hook Hammer, IIRC, but Dwarf > Gnome in this case because the penalty to str and the fact that Dwarves can take the Deepwarden PrC which completely removes Dex from the equation. The trick is not to use the Urgrosh as a double weapon for TWFing, but rather as a 2handed weapon like a Great Axe for Uncanny Blow and PA synergy. Its all explained in the link.

Plus, who freakin uses an Urgrosh? Style points all over the place.

Deepblue706
2009-02-19, 05:13 PM
That and the fact that the Urgrosh is one of the the only weapons that qualifies for both the Uncanny Blow trick (by virtue of being wieldable in 1 hand, thus a 1 handed exotic weapon in 2 hands) and the Flurry of Strikes trick (because its a double weapon). The only other weapon is the Gnome Hook Hammer, IIRC, but Dwarf > Gnome in this case because the penalty to str and the fact that Dwarves can take the Deepwarden PrC which completely removes Dex from the equation. The trick is not to use the Urgrosh as a double weapon for TWFing, but rather as a 2handed weapon like a Great Axe for Uncanny Blow and PA synergy. Its all explained in the link.

Plus, who freakin uses an Urgrosh? Style points all over the place.

Wait, I was pretty sure the Urgosh is not wieldable in one hand; but rather you treat one edge as one-handed when using TWF. Under other circumstances, it's two-handed.

Keld Denar
2009-02-19, 06:23 PM
Wait, I was pretty sure the Urgosh is not wieldable in one hand; but rather you treat one edge as one-handed when using TWF. Under other circumstances, it's two-handed.

Follow the link, which has a direct quote from the PHB, or check it out on the d20srd. I can't link either because both sites are blocked at work, but there is a specific clause in there about the fact then you can only wield an urgrosh as a double weapon when you are using it with both hands. This seems to indicate that you could use it as a 1handed weapon, and while doing so, not be able to use it as a double weapon. I'm sure this was intended to keep people from trying to duel wield Urgroshes to effectively have 4 weapons in their hands (which was later made possible with weapons like bootblades in Complete Scoundel anyway).

As far as I can tell, its legal.

Matthew
2009-02-19, 06:43 PM
As far as I can tell, its legal.

The Urgosh is listed in the table as a two handed weapon, and since nothing in the text contradicts that, then it is a two handed weapon. The bit about "one handed/twohanded" is left over from the 3.0 PHB, where large creatures could use the Urgosh in one hand. This came up a couple of months ago in the Q&A thread. Here you go, direct from the 3.5 PHB (p. 113):



Double Weapons: Dire flails, dwarven urgroshes, gnome hooked hammers, orc double axes, quarterstaffs, and two-bladed swords are double weapons. A character can fight with both ends of a double weapon as if fighting with two weapons, but he or she incurs all the normal attack penalties associated with two-weapon combat, just as though the character were wielding a one-handed weapon and a light weapon (see Two-Weapon Fighting, page 160). The character can also choose to use a double weapon two handed, attacking with only one end of it. A creature wielding a double weapon in one hand (such as a human wielding a Small two-bladed sword) can’t use it as a double weapon—only one end of the weapon can be used in any given round."

Basically it would have to be a small sized Urgosh to be used in one hand by a medium creature (such as a dwarf).

Back in 3.0 large creatures could use double weapons one handed without penalty, so in the 3.0 PHB where double weapons are left undefined as a category, each entry has a variation on the following (pp. 99-103):


A creature using a double weapon in one hand, such as an ogre using an orc double axe, can’t use it as a double weapon.

The misconception is an editing issue, rather than a RAW isssue.

Fortinbras
2009-02-19, 07:16 PM
I still need a little help on my build (posted at the top of this page) if no one minds. What do people think of improved trip vs. improved disarm?

Keld Denar
2009-02-19, 07:28 PM
I still need a little help on my build (posted at the top of this page) if no one minds.

I'd suggest you start a new thread. This one has already outlived its usefulness. Make sure you post your complete build, what you are able to change (if you can't change anything, we can't help...), what sources you have available (books, magazines, web enhancements, etc) and any houserules of note that might affect character creation. You'll get a lot more feedback that way then buried in a thread under a pile of flame bait and troll dung. Its super easy, just copy your post, click the new thread button at the top, and fill in any relavant info. Oh, and be sure to specify edition in the title. Most people can do the math, but some people get irked. Just tryin to make things easier on ya!

Fortinbras
2009-02-19, 08:02 PM
Thanks for the advice.

on a totally unrelaited note I just heard about this awsome new thread. Why don't you take a look at it?

Zen Master
2009-02-20, 03:18 AM
What makes you say that?

Um ... can I ask you if english is your native language without being insulting?

Ok - listen. You can only have one. Only one main focus. If optimizing is your main focus - nothing else can be. And if anything else is your main focus, optimizing cannot be.

You simply have absolutely no clue what I'm trying to say, do you? Consider it like this - maybe this is better.

Suppose it's a 32 point buy. You have 32 points, you need to divide them between roleplaying, optimizing, character background, and actual gameplay. With me so far?

If you put 16 points in optimizing, and you must put at least, say 4 points in all, then the most you can possibly put in roleplaying is 8.

Aquillion
2009-02-20, 03:52 AM
You are technically correct. The best kind of correct!

GoodbyeSoberDay
2009-02-20, 04:52 AM
Um ... can I ask you if english is your native language without being insulting?

Ok - listen. You can only have one. Only one main focus. If optimizing is your main focus - nothing else can be. And if anything else is your main focus, optimizing cannot be.

You simply have absolutely no clue what I'm trying to say, do you? Consider it like this - maybe this is better.

Suppose it's a 32 point buy. You have 32 points, you need to divide them between roleplaying, optimizing, character background, and actual gameplay. With me so far?

If you put 16 points in optimizing, and you must put at least, say 4 points in all, then the most you can possibly put in roleplaying is 8.Let's play with this point buy analogy. If I know what I'm doing (hypothetically), perhaps I only really need to put 8 'points' into optimization to do get what I want out of it, leaving an even 8 each for RP, background, and gameplay. At least in this instance, I don't have a main focus.

On another note, if 'focusing' on, for instance, my character background during creation aided my character's actual gameplay aspects, couldn't I afford to focus less on gameplay (put some points into roleplay, maybe) and get the same value from gameplay?

More to the point, I'm unsure about the proposition that focus on one aspect of the game must necessarily detract from focus on other aspects, as in the point buy analogy. It is possible to consider multiple aspects of the game simultaneously during character creation; it'll probably even help flesh the character out.

SparkMandriller
2009-02-20, 05:07 AM
Um ... can I ask you if english is your native language without being insulting?

Yeah, if you want. I think the problem here is more related to me focusing on what I think SD meant rather than what you posted, though. I'll go back to lurking now.

Bosh
2009-02-20, 06:00 AM
I still need a little help on my build (posted at the top of this page) if no one minds. What do people think of improved trip vs. improved disarm?

Trip is vastly better. Does more and is useful against more opponents.

Darth Stabber
2009-02-20, 10:29 AM
^agreed, that being said I've been known to take improved disarm before, I have a penchant to play Fencer type characters and ID is more flavorful than IT.

Deepblue706
2009-02-20, 11:58 AM
Trip is vastly better. Does more and is useful against more opponents.

That is solely dependent upon the campaign. There are many non-bipedal foes (which you probably cannot reliably trip) who can be disarmed, for example: Yuan-Ti, Salamanders, Driders, Formians, Scorpionfolk...

It should also be noted that you can use Disarm to snatch stuff off of a person amidst fighting. Or at the very least, knock it away and disallow its usage. For instance, a Mage might wear a "Crown of Power", making him immune to all kinds of damage, ever. You can make a disarm attempt to simply smack it off his head.

Keld Denar
2009-02-20, 01:57 PM
Its my experience that among experienced gamers (the type most likely to optimize well, since optimization requires rather extensive understanding of the rules and multiple sources) most chararcter building happens outside of game session time. The character is built, approved by the DM, and ready to play by the time the session starts. This leaves more time to actually play, since character creation is something that you don't really need others to participate in, but roleplaying IS something that you need others to do. Thus, character creation and optimization take very little away from RPing in most (not all, but most) cases. So now you sit down at a table with a relatively powerful (based on DM approval) character, along with 3-5 other people with similarly powerful pre-built characters.

You divide up the rest of the time between RPing with NPCs and party members, and killing things to take their stuff. This time is finite, so we'll look at it in terms of points. The big variable here is combat. Combat can be long or short, depending on the challenge the DM presents, the tactics used by the party, and the relative strength of the party. An optimized party is going to handle stronger encounters easier, and easy encounters (like random monster thumpings) even easier. This means that combat eats up less of your total time unless the encounter is designed to be a challenging "epic boss" type encounter. Thus, you have more time for RP, character developement, and all those other things that people often cite as things that get tossed to the wayside with optimization.

Oh, and the most important reason to optimize.

You can't RP when your character is dead.

I'm sick of people telling me I'm doing it wrong because I enjoy character building and optimization as much as I like RP and character developement. I can and do do both, and don't seem to run into the problems you presented in your arguement. Tempest Stormwind spelled it out perfectly in his essay. Character optimization and character developement are independant quantities, not opposite ends of a finite spectrum.

Advocate
2009-02-21, 09:55 AM
Note: I have only read the first page, so it is possible the following is redundant.

I'm going to present some perspective here.

In my campaign, I have rolled the entire WF line (Weapon Mastery excluded) into a single feat. This means that if you take WF, you get +1 attack. If you are at least level 4, you get +2 damage and are considered to have WS for all purposes. If you are at least level 8, you get another +1 to attack as GWF, and level 12 gives +2 more damage as GWS. All of this costs one feat, and is retroactive, thus if you did not take WF until level 12, you'd get all that. You can still take it more than once for a different weapon each time.

Further, it is no longer a Fighter only thing, as all that does is trick new players that don't know any better into thinking that Fighter exclusive means good for Fighters and worth taking by Fighters, and by extension also means reason to take Fighter. All this does is result in unsatisfied players who have fallen into A Trap.

Now, three characters within said campaign have actually taken WF. However, one of those only has it because Favored Soul gave it for free. The other two only have it because their respective PRCs required it. Even with those four feats rolled into one, no one actually took it on its own merits.

Therefore, we can conclude that if it is lackluster at best, even as a single feat, then having the same thing cost four times as much is just flat out wasting resources. Full stop.

It's also not hard to see why they didn't take it, as even as a single feat, Weapon Mastery is +2/+2 to a whole group of weapons at level 8. The WF line is +2/+4 total, but only with a single weapon. At level 8, the comparison is quite literally +2/+2 for multiple weapons and one feat vs +2/+2 for one weapon and one feat... which only gets worse in RAW, where the one weapon version costs three feats instead of one, and costs a fourth feat four levels later just to pull ahead slightly in its very narrow niche.

Now, Goad.

Several people on the first page covered the issues with this, but they forgot a few critical ones.

Goad is tied to a dump stat. As a Fighter, you are already rather MAD, needing Str and Con as high as possible so that you can one or two round enemies before they return the favor, Int 13 so that you can try to be relevant by tripping, a decent Dex for the same reason, and a decent Wis so that you are not necessarily auto negated with a single spell, or worse turned into an active liability. This means you already need every stat except for Charisma, which as the Monk and Paladin will attest to is not a good place to be when you want to build a relevant character. As such, the save DC will be trivial. If for some reason you boosted Cha (which would be a requirement to take it in the first place) then you suffer some critical lack in an important area. And the DC is still low. See, anything with the formula 10 + half level + stat is going to result in a very low DC unless the stat in question is your primary stat. Given that it is based on Charisma and not Strength, clearly it is not.

Goad requires a move action. This means no full attacking. Tome of Battle is clearly not in, or else you would be using control options that actually work somewhat. Therefore, you have no alternative but to full attack. Since you cannot do that, this means you can safely be completely ignored, as a single attack is not going to bother anything that is anywhere near level appropriate.

Goad requires the enemy to be threatening you, and it only works against melee attacks. Which means you have to be right next to them. If they are melee foes, they smash your turtle anyways because AC does not save you from actual threats. If they are not, then pass or fail that single enemy you devoted your meaningful actions to Goading does absolutely nothing different - that is to say, he continues using ranged attacks, spells, or whatever against the actual threats on the field while ignoring you entirely.

And why not ignore you? You certainly cannot do anything relevant with your single attack a round with a one handed weapon with a large attack penalty.

Compare to actually making yourself a threat, in which you do full attacks that actually hurt things. Then, enemies might decide not to ignore you, because you're actually bothering them. It also works on more than just melee attacks. Also, since you are actually hurting things, you are doing two things useful (doing enough damage to matter, and being a bag of HP defense) instead of only one thing (bag of HP defense) or no things at all (enemy ignores you, instead of smashing the turtle anyways). Since being a bag of HP defense is the best thing you can hope for as a non caster, and you should have a big enough bag that it takes two rounds to kill you instead of one, this somewhat works out. I say somewhat, because it means if you can't finish the fight within 2 rounds for whatever reason, it's time to start spamming Heal and the like, which means better characters are stuck wasting actions being heal bots instead of engaging in more meaningful action denial.

So you gotta ask yourself OPer, which do you want? Do you want your character to be relevant on their own merits, or be entirely dependent on the DM being very nice to you just so you can participate in the game at all?

Of course, as a Fighter you will be a one trick pony no matter what you do, and as such will be dependent on your DM being very nice to you, as otherwise that one trick will be shut off all the time by complete accident. My way however at least ensures that you have a one trick, and that that trick is meaningful, instead of having no tricks at all at which point you could replace your character with an animated, five foot square of difficult terrain to calmly saunter around, and it would make absolutely no difference to the ongoing game.

Edit: Page 2.


*stuff*

My computer simulations have found that a good AC is useful until about half of all attacks bypass it. This is not the norm in most games. And my simulations also found that under these same circumstances a monk with a good touch AC, good saves and (most of all) spell resistance is much better than any other martial class. So if you believe this, go play a monk.

You are committing the oversimplification fallacy. The difference between damage is much greater than what the auto attack numbers say it is due to attack bonus scaling faster than AC, combined with PA and other factors.

The point at which half of attacks bypass AC is level 1. The effectiveness of AC, against foes that actually attack AC goes down from there. The rest are using touch attacks, spells, or whatever that ignore your AC in favor of attacking something else. So, unless you are claiming that most games do not go to level 1, much less beyond that you are wholly incorrect.

You are also wholly overlooking bucklers and the Animated shield, neither of which require you to cripple your own character for no meaningful gain. The reason why you'd want a buckler or an Animated shield? Special properties. If you can get a Magic Vestment spell to go with it, great. If not, don't worry about it, you will get hit on a 2 regardless at any level in which a Magic Vestment is adding +2 or more, so as to present a gain over the standard +1 (lots of special properties) item.

While a Monk with good saves and good touch AC would be nice, the fact we are discussing a Monk makes these two things mutually exclusive. The Monk will, at best have +20 saves. This is not high, because it means the moment anything attacks their saves, they have a coin toss chance to live. Perhaps less than 50%. The reason for this is because while they get the so called good base progression, the saves are tied to secondary stats, and Monks beat out even Fighters for the most equipment dependent class in the entire game. Thus, the amount of cash they have to devote to save boosting equipment is even lower. Monks do not get access to most of the means to boost touch AC. Other classes do. After all, Monks cannot wear Magic Vestmented Ghost Warded armor and Magic Vestmented Ghost Warded shields. That's +10 touch AC right there. Instead, they get two secondary stats to it, maybe a deflection ring, and that's about it. They top out around 25 or so. Meanwhile, Ghost Ward guy has 25 + Dex + anything other than Dex or Deflection that boosts touch AC. Therefore, touch attacks might miss sometimes.

I am pretending you did not say SR was the best part, as that is clearly an unfunny joke on your part. SR does nothing at all against any remotely credible threat. It still acts as an active liability though, as it means blocking the Heals that keep the super fragile Monk alive, as well as in combat buffs. Out of combat, burning a round to lower your SR doesn't matter. Of course, the fact you have to devote time to turning off what is supposed to be a positive feature in order to benefit from positive features is in and of itself, telling.

Advocate
2009-02-21, 10:30 AM
My group isn't dysfunctional. We simply prefer to play with a DM who uses realistic tactics and enemies that respond intelligently and are at or above our CR. Most Fighters, especially sub-optimal ones, are worse than an empty slot in a party like that. Optimizing makes that playstyle work, and is hardly dysfunctional.

Indeed.

To the guy who tried to play the ROLEplaying card: You do not have to care about optimizing. However, if you do not, you should not play something that requires optimization just to be at par because you should not force yourself to do something that you do not want to do. Instead, you should play something that works right out of the box such as a Big Five caster, or at least doesn't require much effort to make relevant such as a Tome of Battle martial class, as both of the above are hard to mess up, thereby ensuring you are catering to your own playstyle.

Back to ST, I do exactly the same thing, both as a player and a DM. Having a Fighter in the party would be worse than having no character at all in that slot in most fights. The few fights this is not true are so trivially easy they're over before the Fighter's (and half the rest of the party's) turns. This is despite the fact that all players involved are mechanically savvy enough so that they could make a Fighter, that would not suck too bad via employing various methods to boost Will saves, etc. This is also despite the fact there are many house rules involved that make Fighters better than they would be by the default rules.

Currently, my players are fighting an intelligently designed BBEG, and his many minions. The best a Fighter, any Fighter could hope for in a fight like that is that someone actually spent a single action destroying him, so that that single action was not used to destroy a real character. The party gish is holding up respectably. The casters, holding up respectably. A hypothetical Fighter? Dead weight, XP sink, loot sink in this, or any other meaningful fight. This can be observed by the NPC Paladin, who has a leg up on any Fighter in that she has:

+4 saves over any Fighter, with all else equal.
Mettle, via a Paladin PRC Fighters can't take.
+5 attacks or AC, her choice via Law Devotion, which technically a Fighter could take but could only use once a day whereas turn attempts allow recharging it to use it in more than one fight.

And yet despite this, has spent most of the fight either just standing around due to being unable to get to the enemy, standing around because she's getting mauled by attacks and needs healing badly, or dying (and getting hit with a Revivify). Now imagine how a Fighter would fare, lacking the above advantages. Exactly.

Edit: As for maneuvers, trip is the only one that is worth it out of the box. Bull Rush only becomes worth it if you have Dungeoncrasher, that way you can hit the enemy and send them away at the same time. Also, if they hit a wall, or another enemy or whatever, more damage. Throw on Shock Trooper and you get to trip them both if you send an enemy flying into an enemy.

Disarm doesn't become worth it because it's size and attack roll based (thus, you will eventually find yourself completely unable to succeed) and also only works on weapons, meaning it doesn't work against the foes that just attack with claws or something... in other words, a large and growing percentage of the credible threats. Also, you can become completely immune to it via a core, 16 gold item. Which means it doesn't work 1-20, unless the DM is very nice to you and specifically allows it to work when it wouldn't. If you have to rely on DM cheating to succeed, it's a good sign you need a better tactic.

Sunder is A Trap in any, and every situation it comes up in. Want to break an item the opponent is using? One of three possibilities, none of which bode well for it. 1: It is valuable, which means 1-3 rounds later when you've killed it you've spent combat time ensuring that you get less loot when it comes time to take its stuff. 2: It is not valuable, but important. Spell component pouch, holy symbol, etc. They have plenty of them, precisely because it is not valuable but important, specifically to protect against those who would rather break their stuff than their face. 3: It is neither valuable nor important. You have completely wasted your time.

Then there's the niche monsters like Hydras, Ropers, etc that try to trick you into thinking it's a good idea. Now, with the Hydra you have to burn a feat just to do it without taking a bunch of AoOs, that will likely kill you. Then you have to succeed in removing the head, which costs at least 1 action, and then burn the head which requires at least more action. Or you can just attack it twice or more in the same time, which should easily overpower fast healing 10 + head count, even if your build is incredibly weak. This doesn't cost any feats, which only come up in the off chance you encounter a hydra or something.

Ropers? Even worse. You don't need the feat just to try it, because no AoOs. But here's the thing. They get to use their weakening ability when they grab you. You have to do the opposed attack roll game to break a strand. If you break a strand, it doesn't hurt the Roper. It regrows the strand as a free action. Then it grabs you again, which lets it try to Strength damage you again when normally it would only get one shot at reducing you to Strength 0. Given that the chance of doing any Strength damage at all is rather low, seeing as making a DC 18 save at level 11 is not hard, and it has nothing else going for it (doing 8-18 damage, average 13 with low accuracy once a round is not appropriate at level 11) you should have no trouble whatsoever just killing it unless you get reduced to Strength 0 and no one cures you, in which case you stand around helpless while it finger pokes you to death. By trying to break the strands, you only hurt yourself by making it easier for it to reduce you to that point.

Fortinbras
2009-02-21, 03:23 PM
In other words, fighters are useless, no one should play them. In that case, why in the world did you bother to post on a thread call "Fighter theory" i going to have to go with Stealthdozer on this one and say that I won't let cold, hard powergamming ruin my fun. The warrior is one of, if not the most iconic fantasy characters. I think Wotc goofed when they made them so weak.

Any way, on the subject of optimizing fighters, is shock trooper, leap attack, and combat brute redundent since they all involve charging. Do people know of good feats to take that will be usefull once a charger has been stopped?

Deepblue706
2009-02-21, 03:33 PM
Note: I have only read the first page, so it is possible the following is redundant.

I'm going to present some perspective here.

In my campaign, I have rolled the entire WF line (Weapon Mastery excluded) into a single feat. This means that if you take WF, you get +1 attack. If you are at least level 4, you get +2 damage and are considered to have WS for all purposes. If you are at least level 8, you get another +1 to attack as GWF, and level 12 gives +2 more damage as GWS. All of this costs one feat, and is retroactive, thus if you did not take WF until level 12, you'd get all that. You can still take it more than once for a different weapon each time.

Further, it is no longer a Fighter only thing, as all that does is trick new players that don't know any better into thinking that Fighter exclusive means good for Fighters and worth taking by Fighters, and by extension also means reason to take Fighter. All this does is result in unsatisfied players who have fallen into A Trap.



Actually, the Weapon Focus line is very good for low point-buy games (or if you just roll poorly). The PHB specifically lists 22 points as a "challenging" mode of play; a Fighter NOT taking advantage of the WF line under these conditions will not reliably hit much, unless he absolutely dumps everything for STR. Weapon Focus is compensation.



Now, three characters within said campaign have actually taken WF. However, one of those only has it because Favored Soul gave it for free. The other two only have it because their respective PRCs required it. Even with those four feats rolled into one, no one actually took it on its own merits.

Therefore, we can conclude that if it is lackluster at best, even as a single feat, then having the same thing cost four times as much is just flat out wasting resources. Full stop.


I don't think we can rightly come to the conclusion you have, merely because your players didn't really want it. Their perceptions and your game are not the final authority on what constitutes a "good" feat.



It's also not hard to see why they didn't take it, as even as a single feat, Weapon Mastery is +2/+2 to a whole group of weapons at level 8. The WF line is +2/+4 total, but only with a single weapon. At level 8, the comparison is quite literally +2/+2 for multiple weapons and one feat vs +2/+2 for one weapon and one feat... which only gets worse in RAW, where the one weapon version costs three feats instead of one, and costs a fourth feat four levels later just to pull ahead slightly in its very narrow niche.


I don't know what you're getting at here; you need Weapon Focus and Specialization to get Weapon Mastery, so you had to get them, anyhow. A Fighter is supposed to get all of them, plus the Greater Weapon Focus and Specialization if he intends to go all-out with a weapon. Perhaps the feats being exclusive to the Fighter might suggest it is something Fighters must do, but it is purely an option to pursue a weapon to Supremacy.



Now, Goad.

Several people on the first page covered the issues with this, but they forgot a few critical ones.

Goad is tied to a dump stat. As a Fighter, you are already rather MAD, needing Str and Con as high as possible so that you can one or two round enemies before they return the favor, Int 13 so that you can try to be relevant by tripping, a decent Dex for the same reason, and a decent Wis so that you are not necessarily auto negated with a single spell, or worse turned into an active liability. This means you already need every stat except for Charisma, which as the Monk and Paladin will attest to is not a good place to be when you want to build a relevant character. As such, the save DC will be trivial. If for some reason you boosted Cha (which would be a requirement to take it in the first place) then you suffer some critical lack in an important area. And the DC is still low. See, anything with the formula 10 + half level + stat is going to result in a very low DC unless the stat in question is your primary stat. Given that it is based on Charisma and not Strength, clearly it is not.

Fighters are not MAD; they need CON like anyone else needs CON. If anyone is skimping on CON they are not alleviating themselves of "an attribute they don't really need", but rather making it easier to get themselves killed. What defines the Fighter is his STR. They may benefit more from CON, but are no more dependent upon it than anyone else.

You don't need INT 13 to trip. A guisarme, flail, scythe, sickle, spiked-chain, and numerous other weapons grant you the option merely by holding them in battle. Improved Trip grants you a free attack on success; which is nice, but not as important as the tripping aspect.

Fighters don't need WIS. Spellcasting allies can easily negate the need for a high Will save. Protection from Alignment goes a long way, as do Heroism, Remove Paralysis, Break Enchantment, and other spells. What else does WIS apply to, for a Fighter? Cross-Class awareness skills. Yeah, a Fighter actually gets the least use from Wisdom than anything else.



Goad requires a move action. This means no full attacking. Tome of Battle is clearly not in, or else you would be using control options that actually work somewhat. Therefore, you have no alternative but to full attack. Since you cannot do that, this means you can safely be completely ignored, as a single attack is not going to bother anything that is anywhere near level appropriate.


Tripping is, if it were ever a tactic to depend on. Disarming is, if the threat has a weapon or other magic item at hand you want to keep away from him. Bull Rush is, if you want to move him into an area such that you eliminate the straight line between him and your caster buddies, taking away his ability to charge at them, and making you one of the fewer viable targets. You can always make use of magic items, as well.



Goad requires the enemy to be threatening you, and it only works against melee attacks. Which means you have to be right next to them. If they are melee foes, they smash your turtle anyways because AC does not save you from actual threats. If they are not, then pass or fail that single enemy you devoted your meaningful actions to Goading does absolutely nothing different - that is to say, he continues using ranged attacks, spells, or whatever against the actual threats on the field while ignoring you entirely.


Actually, a high-enough AC to deflect a considerable number of blows can be accomplished through making sure you have appropriate amounts of armor, natural armor and deflection bonuses, a tower shield, and combat expertise, at many levels.

Ranged Combat and spellcasting provoke AoOs.



And why not ignore you? You certainly cannot do anything relevant with your single attack a round with a one handed weapon with a large attack penalty.


Trip and Sunder work even with high attack penalties.



Compare to actually making yourself a threat, in which you do full attacks that actually hurt things. Then, enemies might decide not to ignore you, because you're actually bothering them. It also works on more than just melee attacks. Also, since you are actually hurting things, you are doing two things useful (doing enough damage to matter, and being a bag of HP defense) instead of only one thing (bag of HP defense) or no things at all (enemy ignores you, instead of smashing the turtle anyways). Since being a bag of HP defense is the best thing you can hope for as a non caster, and you should have a big enough bag that it takes two rounds to kill you instead of one, this somewhat works out. I say somewhat, because it means if you can't finish the fight within 2 rounds for whatever reason, it's time to start spamming Heal and the like, which means better characters are stuck wasting actions being heal bots instead of engaging in more meaningful action denial.

As a non-caster, you can have a huge impact on a game, so long as you don't let the appeals to any authority cloud your ability to consider in what ways you can hinder a foe, aside from full-attacks.



So you gotta ask yourself OPer, which do you want? Do you want your character to be relevant on their own merits, or be entirely dependent on the DM being very nice to you just so you can participate in the game at all?


Actually, it's really nice when a DM allows the abuse of Ubercharging and Hyper-Tipping nonsense. And it's nice when a DM doesn't require a PC to think about anything other "I do another Full Attack".



Of course, as a Fighter you will be a one trick pony no matter what you do, and as such will be dependent on your DM being very nice to you, as otherwise that one trick will be shut off all the time by complete accident. My way however at least ensures that you have a one trick, and that that trick is meaningful, instead of having no tricks at all at which point you could replace your character with an animated, five foot square of difficult terrain to calmly saunter around, and it would make absolutely no difference to the ongoing game.

Trip. Disarm. Bull Rush. Grapple. Sunder. Charging. Goading. If a fighter can't rely on at least one of these, the DM is either going out of their way to prohibit the Fighter from contributing, or doesn't know how to design an encounter.

Advocate
2009-02-21, 03:44 PM
In other words, fighters are useless, no one should play them. In that case, why in the world did you bother to post on a thread call "Fighter theory" i going to have to go with Stealthdozer on this one and say that I won't let cold, hard powergamming ruin my fun. The warrior is one of, if not the most iconic fantasy characters. I think Wotc goofed when they made them so weak.

Any way, on the subject of optimizing fighters, is shock trooper, leap attack, and combat brute redundent since they all involve charging. Do people know of good feats to take that will be usefull once a charger has been stopped?

Illustrating Fighter ineffectiveness is a part of 'Fighter theory'. Not that this thread was ever about that in the first place, just that you are committing the very common fallacy of thinking that just because the topic of conversation is not being reflected in a positive light that it should not be reflected on at all. Yes, Fighters are at best weak. In normal campaigns, where the DM does not go out of his way to be nice to the Fighter, the Fighter will fail. In 'hard' campaigns, where you typically encounter credible threats? Even worse. I specify 'credible threats' as 'hard mode' not because I actually think it is 'hard' instead of 'normal' to fight intelligent foes that actually are intelligent, but because default D&D is pretty easy, where monsters and players both do not utilize their intelligence and abilities, and yet despite that Fighters still don't hold up. Whereas if you actually play enemies intelligently, you are automatically going for harder than the default as for some reason WotC chose to assume all those who play and DM their games are somehow mentally deficient. If you think that's utterly absurd... that's the point. In actuality the reverse is true. D&D players tend to be rather intelligent. All the more reason why that's a joke.

Anyways.

Now, as I said before if you do not want to optimize, that's fine. Just don't play something that requires optimization to function. Be a caster. Problem solved. If you don't do that, then you brought the problem on yourself. I've dealt with those kinds of players before. They make some horribly weak character, play it poorly on top of that for 'roleplaying reasons' and then when that OOC and more importantly IC blatantly stupidity gets them and/or their buddies slaughtered they come whining to me, more or less stating outright that I should have coddled them by ensuring that they never die, ever, no matter how much of an idiot they are at the table. Nevermind that, if they were really getting into the mindset of their character, they would not behave in a suicidal fashion unless they are in fact suicidal as that character would have a healthy self preservation instinct that would not cause them to screw around when facing death. Also, if they really wanted to never die, they'd make a character strong enough to actually survive routine encounters. Instead these so called roleplayers actually amount to the worst sort of player at all. An optimizer will make strong characters that aim to be the best at what they do, even if what they do is not that great. A powergamer will make a character that is the best of the best. A munchkin will just cheat by writing random numbers on their sheet. These so called roleplayers? They just want to win, and aren't even willing to put forth the effort to cheat to do so. Not that cheating is a good thing, just that the 'roleplayers' are in fact lazy munchkins, unwilling to even fabricate numbers on their sheet as their means to 'never die'.

Note the use of quotations. Roleplayers (sans quotes) are perfectly acceptable. Encouraged, even. It's only the foul mockery of roleplayers that is such a horrible thing.

And to answer your question, no. You need Leap Attack to get your PA damage up. You need Shock Trooper to PA for full and still reliably hit. Combat Brute however is pointless, as it requires you to burn a feat on Improved Break Own Stuff. Further, two of the abilities can be best summarized as 'Let's trick players into breaking their own loot using their Improved Break Own Stuff feat!' The third use doesn't do anything unless you charge the same creature more than once. If it's still living after charge 1, you should be more concerned about dying before round 2, not that you could charge it anyways on round 2. The earliest you could charge again is round 3, and if the fight isn't completely over by then, you again have worse things to worry about. After taking things like Elusive Target so the enemy doesn't just PA for full back and one round you easily, the best you could do is try to trip things, because charges and trips are about all Fighters are good for. Or maybe do some Dungeoncrashing with Knockback.

Nohwl
2009-02-21, 04:07 PM
Fighters are not MAD; they need CON like anyone else needs CON. If anyone is skimping on CON they are not alleviating themselves of "an attribute they don't really need", but rather making it easier to get themselves killed. What defines the Fighter is his STR. They may benefit more from CON, but are no more dependent upon it than anyone else.

if youre going to die in one hit even with con boosted up, its a dump stat.

Eldariel
2009-02-21, 04:07 PM
And to answer your question, no. You need Leap Attack to get your PA damage up. You need Shock Trooper to PA for full and still reliably hit. Combat Brute however is pointless, as it requires you to burn a feat on Improved Break Own Stuff. Further, two of the abilities can be best summarized as 'Let's trick players into breaking their own loot using their Improved Break Own Stuff feat!' The third use doesn't do anything unless you charge the same creature more than once. If it's still living after charge 1, you should be more concerned about dying before round 2, not that you could charge it anyways on round 2. The earliest you could charge again is round 3, and if the fight isn't completely over by then, you again have worse things to worry about.

This isn't entirely true. Combat Brute doesn't require hitting the same target for Momentum Swing to take effect. So you Charge a guy, drop him, possibly Cleave another guy nearby to death. Then you charge a tougher guy fighting someone else with the extra boost from Combat Brute for Massive Damage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLsCkf6o5is&feature=related)™.

Of course, you could also use any number of items (Anklets of Translocation, Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker, Tiger Claw Bracers of Sudden Leap, etc.) or a ToB dip to be able to reposition yourself for a Charge as a swift action. Bottomline, as long as a combat has more opponents than you can kill round 1, you can make use of Combat Brute. It's not Super Special Awesome (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts0g0APcs00)™ or anything, but it's definitely better than your quarterly Weapon Focus-advertisement.

And you still get to wreck Hydras :P

Deepblue706
2009-02-21, 04:14 PM
if youre going to die in one hit even with con boosted up, its a dump stat.

And in what scenarios are you going to die in a single hit?

Also, I think fortitude saves are at least somewhat important.

Advocate
2009-02-21, 04:15 PM
Actually, the Weapon Focus line is very good for low point-buy games (or if you just roll poorly). The PHB specifically lists 22 points as a "challenging" mode of play; a Fighter NOT taking advantage of the WF line under these conditions will not reliably hit much, unless he absolutely dumps everything for STR. Weapon Focus is compensation.

If you are playing a Fighter under 22 PB, you either have no idea what you are doing, or possess strong masochistic tendencies. For that matter, the same is true of 25, or any other number lower than 32. Meanwhile casters don't care, as they still get a good casting stat.


I don't think we can rightly come to the conclusion you have, merely because your players didn't really want it. Their perceptions and your game are not the final authority on what constitutes a "good" feat.

Illustrating how a single, RAW feat is as good or better than four feats combined, one of which requires you to be higher level is objective proof. Illustrating how even it became a 1:1 comparison, the fact it does so little combined with the fact it's still inferior to Weapon Mastery which is only half decent is also objective proof. Demonstrating the subjective fact that these people realized the objective truth is the icing, not the cake itself.


I don't know what you're getting at here; you need Weapon Focus and Specialization to get Weapon Mastery, so you had to get them, anyhow. A Fighter is supposed to get all of them, plus the Greater Weapon Focus and Specialization if he intends to go all-out with a weapon. Perhaps the feats being exclusive to the Fighter might suggest it is something Fighters must do, but it is purely an option to pursue a weapon to Supremacy.

Another reason why Weapon Mastery is at best, half decent. Weapon Supremacy is another trap, as it carries the opportunity cost that is 'Fighter 5-18' instead of 'real class features'.


Fighters are not MAD; they need CON like anyone else needs CON. If anyone is skimping on CON they are not alleviating themselves of "an attribute they don't really need", but rather making it easier to get themselves killed. What defines the Fighter is his STR. They may benefit more from CON, but are no more dependent upon it than anyone else.

You don't need INT 13 to trip. A guisarme, flail, scythe, sickle, spiked-chain, and numerous other weapons grant you the option merely by holding them in battle. Improved Trip grants you a free attack on success; which is nice, but not as important as the tripping aspect.

Actually, they need it more. HP are their only defense. If you think AC actually matters, then clearly you haven't played enough. Therefore, they need a lot of HP. Even if they do just go to 14, like everyone else, we're looking at Strength 16+, Dexterity 13+, Constitution 14, Intelligence 13, Wisdom 14. Minimum of 32 points, without counting Charisma and without going above the minimum acceptable values for any stat. In a reasonable point buy system, this means you are now completely out of points and have to take an array of 16/13/14/13/14/8. Full stop. If you have a 'gimps fighters' PB, that is to say any number less than 32 something's gotta give. Maybe if you have some absurd PB like 40 or 50, you can do better.

Also, Action Economy. If your actions do not matter, you do not matter. Trying to trip without the feat, even if it doesn't mean you get AoOed, and automatically fail to trip if you get hit you still get counter tripped, or have to drop your weapon. Even if you succeed, you still lose an attack. You need the feat, in order to justify the action cost of tripping and to offset the risk of failing to trip. Of course, you still lose your action if you do not trip them, but then they don't get to turn around and make you waste more actions by dealing with being tripped yourself, or picking up your weapon.


Fighters don't need WIS. Spellcasting allies can easily negate the need for a high Will save. Protection from Alignment goes a long way, as do Heroism, Remove Paralysis, Break Enchantment, and other spells. What else does WIS apply to, for a Fighter? Cross-Class awareness skills. Yeah, a Fighter actually gets the least use from Wisdom than anything else.

So in other words, you should leech resources off allies, effectively becoming an active liability to your party to have around so that... you don't fail a will save, and become an active liability to your party to have around. Yup, stellar logic there. :smallsigh:

Also, they should be expected to burn rounds babysitting you instead of dealing with the enemies.


Tripping is, if it were ever a tactic to depend on. Disarming is, if the threat has a weapon or other magic item at hand you want to keep away from him. Bull Rush is, if you want to move him into an area such that you eliminate the straight line between him and your caster buddies, taking away his ability to charge at them, and making you one of the fewer viable targets. You can always make use of magic items, as well.

All of those things preclude the turtling that the OPer was partaking in. Of course, turtling is a terrible idea, but so are those. Trip once, or trip and then follow up attacks? Disarm is ignored because anyone who cares is easily immune to it, so there's no reason to bother. Bull Rush is ignored because you're spending your entire round to... push them a few feet. Wow. Good job. Then they five foot step and laugh. Also, your ability to 'protect the casters' is essentially nil. Which isn't a bad thing, because they probably have better defenses than you do.


Actually, a high-enough AC to deflect a considerable number of blows can be accomplished through making sure you have appropriate amounts of armor, natural armor and deflection bonuses, a tower shield, and combat expertise, at many levels.

Ranged Combat and spellcasting provoke AoOs.

Congrats. You're a turtle. Enemies walk briskly around you.

Ranged attacker 5' steps back. Not that he needs to, because your turtling sends your attack bonus through the floor.

Spellcaster 5' steps back. See above.

Did I mention that even if you do all that, you still aren't going to get an AC in the 70s, or 80s, which means you're still getting hit by any melee brutes that actually do pay attention to you? And since your real defenses are horrible, if a caster paid attention to you one spell would flat out eliminate you from the battlefield. At later levels, permanently.

You're only good at survival because you aren't important enough to be killed. The moment that ceases to be true, you die anyways. But since you're playing turtle, you're completely useless in the meantime. Remind me why the party would not take anyone other than you, or no one at all again?


Trip and Sunder work even with high attack penalties.

Trip might. The other one? Opposed attack roll. Now, remind me again why you want to break your own treasure? More to the point, remind me why breaking your own treasure as the second most equipment dependent class in the game is a good idea?


As a non-caster, you can have a huge impact on a game, so long as you don't let the appeals to any authority cloud your ability to consider in what ways you can hinder a foe, aside from full-attacks.

And on both counts, what would that be? There are no appeals to authority here, nor are there any valid options in there aside from tripping (with Improved Trip, Stand Still, and various other trip feats). Moving the enemy a few feet at the expense of your entire turn is a blatant violation of Action Economy. Trying to do something that anyone who actually cares can easily be 100% immune to is worse. Permanently depriving yourself of treasure? Still worse. Those other things are ignored because you're better off full attacking and at least hoping you can kill them than doing something that either won't work, or will work but won't do anything meaningful. And when you're better off doing nothing at all, then what you're doing now (Sunder, I'm looking at you) it's a good sign you're engaging in a horrible tactic.


Actually, it's really nice when a DM allows the abuse of Ubercharging and Hyper-Tipping nonsense. And it's nice when a DM doesn't require a PC to think about anything other "I do another Full Attack".

Are you arguing that allowing Fighters to be relevant at all is being overly nice on the part of the DM as well?


Trip. Disarm. Bull Rush. Grapple. Sunder. Charging. Goading. If a fighter can't rely on at least one of these, the DM is either going out of their way to prohibit the Fighter from contributing, or doesn't know how to design an encounter.

Trip is already covered.

Disarm is called I waste my action to do something he's immune to.

Bull Rush is called I waste my action so he can either just 5' step and full attack back, or more easily walk around me.

Grapple is called I ask the enemy to kill me.

Sunder is called I stab myself in the foot. And roll a critical.

Charging is already covered.

Goad is called I waste my action to most likely do nothing at all, even if it works, and I had to gimp myself heavily just to be able to do it.

Of the two that actually are useful as opposed to complete wastes of time and resources or worse, both are countered by the same thing. Basic big, strong monsters. In other words, standard enemies, no tricks, that are better at beatsticking than you because they win the stat contest. Since monsters get stronger over the levels, and on average grow bigger, this means your tricks will work progressively less often. The monster gets tripped less often, and gets to AoO + full attack the charger with lethal results more often. If the other things were useful, guess what? Every single one of them, except Goad is countered by the same thing. Goad itself is countered by the low save DC combined with enemy saves rising faster than it does, combined with the increasing importance of full attacks. So it's still naturally made obsolete without doing anything at all, just for a slightly different reason.

It's actually worse off, because Goad becomes progressively less useful against everything, not just many things.

So either you're arguing that because the DM is not coddling the Fighter he's not designing encounters right, you're arguing that basic monster progression represents an active effort on the DM's part to thwart the Fighter despite the fact that even if that was his goal, he can do it with no effort whatsoever so why waste time trying? Or you are just flat out wrong. Take your pick.

Advocate
2009-02-21, 04:21 PM
if youre going to die in one hit even with con boosted up, its a dump stat.

Where did this come from? 1 or 2 rounds yes. One attack?

As for charges, if you can't kill your target in one charge You're Doing It Wrong. Which means that even when you charge someone else on round 2, you were already capable of the OHKO, so you don't need the extra damage.

As for hydras, again just brute force the Fast Healing. It doesn't have much, and this is still far faster than falling into the Head Trap minigame. Especially if you are a charger, in which case your main issue is not dying to all the AoOs on the way in. You don't need Combat Brute for that either.

All Combat Brute is is a giant Trap with the opportunity cost of 'Must fall into another Trap'. And that's if you're smart enough to know they're traps. If you actually think breaking your own stuff is a good idea, you are quite literally paying for the privilege of making yourself suck.

Nohwl
2009-02-21, 04:31 PM
i meant for characters that werent supposed to get hit in the first place, like wizards. for fighters, yeah con is needed, but its not needed for every other class.

Eldariel
2009-02-21, 04:40 PM
As for charges, if you can't kill your target in one charge You're Doing It Wrong. Which means that even when you charge someone else on round 2, you were already capable of the OHKO, so you don't need the extra damage.

Depends on the target's defenses. If we assume a reasonable world where the superintelligent creatures you fight on higher levels aren't total tards (a reasonable assumption), they'll have miss chances, immediate action defenses and so on, and in such a case, you need to maximize every hit you land. Combat Brute helps with that.

Also, when the terrain prevents you from Charging, Combat Brute enables a bit heavier PA (because as you said, attack bonus is easy to boost).

Fortinbras
2009-02-21, 04:50 PM
Okay, lets just assume that fighters are fairly weak and move on. They are still a fun class even if they are sub optimal. I don't think that anybody said that casters weren't more powerful. I personaly am more than willing to optimize but not to the point that I restrict myself to casters. At the risk of seeming overly sesitive I take offense at your use of the word "normal campaigns." If unplayably weak fighters were the norm then why have they survived all the way to fourth addition? By saying that my DM is coddling me i feal that you are saying that I don't know how to play the game. I'm also getting the sense that you are implying that I'm mentally deficiant for playing a fighter because you said that games were fighters were playable were designed for mentally deficiant people. Fighters are weak, if that was your point then you made it. Now can we please move on?

This is starting to sound like something Stealthdozer would say, dammit.

Deepblue706
2009-02-21, 05:36 PM
If you are playing a Fighter under 22 PB, you either have no idea what you are doing, or possess strong masochistic tendencies. For that matter, the same is true of 25, or any other number lower than 32. Meanwhile casters don't care, as they still get a good casting stat.

Really? Because the game's PHB seems to suggest 32 is "high powered", and I truly wonder if the (admittedly poor) balance really holds itself together when you go far beyond that.



Illustrating how a single, RAW feat is as good or better than four feats combined, one of which requires you to be higher level is objective proof. Illustrating how even it became a 1:1 comparison, the fact it does so little combined with the fact it's still inferior to Weapon Mastery which is only half decent is also objective proof. Demonstrating the subjective fact that these people realized the objective truth is the icing, not the cake itself.


Wait, a single RAW feat? I think I may have misunderstood what you were getting at here. I'll have to re-read that bit and attempt to address it again.



Another reason why Weapon Mastery is at best, half decent. Weapon Supremacy is another trap, as it carries the opportunity cost that is 'Fighter 5-18' instead of 'real class features'.

I believe the prime philosophy behind the Fighter class was being a combat generalist. The feats grant you the improved use of a variety of tactics, which other classes will often lack, but compensate with a Rage, Pets and Spells.



Actually, they need it more. HP are their only defense. If you think AC actually matters, then clearly you haven't played enough. Therefore, they need a lot of HP. Even if they do just go to 14, like everyone else, we're looking at Strength 16+, Dexterity 13+, Constitution 14, Intelligence 13, Wisdom 14. Minimum of 32 points, without counting Charisma and without going above the minimum acceptable values for any stat. In a reasonable point buy system, this means you are now completely out of points and have to take an array of 16/13/14/13/14/8. Full stop. If you have a 'gimps fighters' PB, that is to say any number less than 32 something's gotta give. Maybe if you have some absurd PB like 40 or 50, you can do better.

HP is their only defense? It is certainly a highly important defense, but if your AC is being fully ignored, then *in my opinion*, you haven't played any fighter other than a 2H Greatsword-wielding ubercharger to really know. Check the SRD's monster section and consider how WBL can be used to make AC high enough to put significant limitations on how much damage is dealt to a Fighter. I didn't say you can make monsters miss you 80% of the time, but AC can be boosted up to considerable numbers to soften how much you need to soak.

You don't need a lot of points to make an effective Fighter. Your attribute allocation actually seems highly wasteful.

Considering your apparent desire to get INT 13 required for Improved Trip, I'll satisfy that. Although, I think it'd be better to either apply the points to DEX or CON, and just use a weapon that allows for trip attacks regardless.

STR 18 DEX 13 CON 14 INT 13 WIS 8 CHA 8 will have a far more meaningful impact than your set on a campaign. If a Wizard can afford to get INT 18, a Fighter can afford STR 18. And, if an 18 is available, reducing STR for Will saves alone will only make your Fighter weaker.



Also, Action Economy. If your actions do not matter, you do not matter. Trying to trip without the feat, even if it doesn't mean you get AoOed, and automatically fail to trip if you get hit you still get counter tripped, or have to drop your weapon. Even if you succeed, you still lose an attack. You need the feat, in order to justify the action cost of tripping and to offset the risk of failing to trip. Of course, you still lose your action if you do not trip them, but then they don't get to turn around and make you waste more actions by dealing with being tripped yourself, or picking up your weapon.


Wait, what? The point of tripping is to knock an enemy prone. So they can't do anything but try to climb to their feet, or attack while on their back. So what if you "lost an attack"? You've still given yourself all the advantage you should need to keep your allies alive or make the enemy vulnerable to your next attack.

And you never trip without a trip weapon; not that it's actually hard to come by one. So what if you have to drop it on a failure? A Fighter can't rely on a single weapon for his whole career; what was your plan for switching under other circumstances? Quick Draw isn't that terrible a feat, you know.



So in other words, you should leech resources off allies, effectively becoming an active liability to your party to have around so that... you don't fail a will save, and become an active liability to your party to have around. Yup, stellar logic there. :smallsigh:

Yes, because it's such a liability for them to cast spells they eventually have in great abundance and likely wouldn't have any other for, unless they decided to prepare 6 castings of Magic Missile, or something else useless.



Also, they should be expected to burn rounds babysitting you instead of dealing with the enemies.

Yes, because Protection from Evil, a spell that lasts min/level, is babysittying.



All of those things preclude the turtling that the OPer was partaking in. Of course, turtling is a terrible idea, but so are those. Trip once, or trip and then follow up attacks? Disarm is ignored because anyone who cares is easily immune to it, so there's no reason to bother. Bull Rush is ignored because you're spending your entire round to... push them a few feet. Wow. Good job. Then they five foot step and laugh. Also, your ability to 'protect the casters' is essentially nil. Which isn't a bad thing, because they probably have better defenses than you do.


Okay, how does one become immune to Disarm?

Why is moving enemies bad? Given the area you're fighting in isn't a featureless plain, you can exploit potential hazards, or limit enemy movement. If an Ogre happens to be within charging distance of your Wizard, and you can't kill him in a single round, you might want to do more to distract him than a mere attack while the Wizard tries to cast Sleep.



Congrats. You're a turtle. Enemies walk briskly around you.


Unless you got Leap Attack and are getting 2:1 Power Attack on a charge, and want to make sure you don't get clobbered in by your next turn, where you can easily throw down the shield and take your beloved full attack.



Ranged attacker 5' steps back. Not that he needs to, because your turtling sends your attack bonus through the floor.

Yes, because when a Fighter has +35 to attack, a -4 will forever ruin him.

Also, there are things called Reach Weapons, as well as the spell Enlarge Person.



Spellcaster 5' steps back. See above.


See above.



Did I mention that even if you do all that, you still aren't going to get an AC in the 70s, or 80s, which means you're still getting hit by any melee brutes that actually do pay attention to you? And since your real defenses are horrible, if a caster paid attention to you one spell would flat out eliminate you from the battlefield. At later levels, permanently.


Who cares if you happen to get hit? I never said a Fighter's goal was to "avoid all hits, ever". Rather, I was trying to make the point that AC can be depended upon to keep your HP from being the only consideration.



You're only good at survival because you aren't important enough to be killed. The moment that ceases to be true, you die anyways. But since you're playing turtle, you're completely useless in the meantime. Remind me why the party would not take anyone other than you, or no one at all again?


You keep on talking about "turtling"; which I'm not addressing, because I wasn't making it a point to rack up the AC; but rather, shed the misconception that you can't have a "nice" AC to keep yourself from dying in two seconds.



Trip might. The other one? Opposed attack roll. Now, remind me again why you want to break your own treasure? More to the point, remind me why breaking your own treasure as the second most equipment dependent class in the game is a good idea?


If you'd like, I can cite numerous monsters in the MM that are listed as only carrying mundane equipment. I hardly think an adventuring party needs to collect every last plain longsword they pass.



And on both counts, what would that be? There are no appeals to authority here, nor are there any valid options in there aside from tripping (with Improved Trip, Stand Still, and various other trip feats). Moving the enemy a few feet at the expense of your entire turn is a blatant violation of Action Economy. Trying to do something that anyone who actually cares can easily be 100% immune to is worse. Permanently depriving yourself of treasure? Still worse. Those other things are ignored because you're better off full attacking and at least hoping you can kill them than doing something that either won't work, or will work but won't do anything meaningful. And when you're better off doing nothing at all, then what you're doing now (Sunder, I'm looking at you) it's a good sign you're engaging in a horrible tactic.


You made no appeal to authority, but rather, many people will take to your side of the argument merely because this is what is established by figures thought most prominent in the community. I was not accusing you of that kind of persuasion, but rather commenting I thought it possible you didn't really know what you were talking about.

'Moving an enemy a few feet' is not something you do every turn. That's not the way to look at a Fighter. Each of his tactical options have a time and place; and yes, their lack of variety makes them less versatile than a Wizard. But a Fighter has no one 'universally applicable tactic'. 'Moving an enemy a few feet', however, is a highly useful feat if the DM is advanced enough to consider building encounters in terrain that has more to it than a picket fence and a rock.

I'm still unsure of the 100% immunity you're talking about. All I know about is Locked Gauntlets, which give a bonus to the check. Well, and Spiked Gauntlets, which can't be disarmed, themselves.

I still maintain Sunder is worth it, when your DM decides that your party will not gain WBL solely through selling the numerous magical swords your enemies mass-produce.



Are you arguing that allowing Fighters to be relevant at all is being overly nice on the part of the DM as well?


No, I was saying that you appear to be praising tactics that are only less thought-inspired than the options I listed. A Fighter doesn't need a nice DM, but rather needs to fully understand each of his options.



Disarm is called I waste my action to do something he's immune to.

Bull Rush is called I waste my action so he can either just 5' step and full attack back, or more easily walk around me.

Grapple is called I ask the enemy to kill me.

Sunder is called I stab myself in the foot. And roll a critical.

Charging is already covered.

Goad is called I waste my action to most likely do nothing at all, even if it works, and I had to gimp myself heavily just to be able to do it.


Again, you keep talking about immunity to disarm; I'd like context, since if I understood this already, I'd not have mentioned it.

What's your beef with grappling?

I've addressed Sunder.




Of the two that actually are useful as opposed to complete wastes of time and resources or worse, both are countered by the same thing. Basic big, strong monsters. In other words, standard enemies, no tricks, that are better at beatsticking than you because they win the stat contest. Since monsters get stronger over the levels, and on average grow bigger, this means your tricks will work progressively less often. The monster gets tripped less often, and gets to AoO + full attack the charger with lethal results more often. If the other things were useful, guess what? Every single one of them, except Goad is countered by the same thing. Goad itself is countered by the low save DC combined with enemy saves rising faster than it does, combined with the increasing importance of full attacks. So it's still naturally made obsolete without doing anything at all, just for a slightly different reason.

As you get to higher levels, a Wizard will find fewer uses for level 1 spells. However, a Fighter will reap great benefit from an Enlarge Person spell, for instance. Spells like these can give a significant boost, and are far more conservative of resources, as otherwise you'd like have to depend on a higher level spell to have as much as a Fighter who effectively applies his tactics.

The problem is that the Fighter is indeed weak on his own; however, I am arguing that with team-players, he can make his group overall highly effective.



It's actually worse off, because Goad becomes progressively less useful against everything, not just many things.

I think that depends on the enemies you encounter.



So either you're arguing that because the DM is not coddling the Fighter he's not designing encounters right, you're arguing that basic monster progression represents an active effort on the DM's part to thwart the Fighter despite the fact that even if that was his goal, he can do it with no effort whatsoever so why waste time trying? Or you are just flat out wrong. Take your pick.

No, when I was talking about encounters, I meant the DM didn't understand the concepts of CR, etc.

I'm arguing that the monster progression isn't that bad. The DM has to be fumbling around with numbers, or the Fighter has to have really neglected his STR, or the Fighter is working with a bunch of other PCs who are more concerned with individual glory than a team effort. Team effort always trumps a multi-layered solo approach. What I talked about above, with the Fighter relying on his spellcasters for a spell-or-two (and you described as 'babysitting') is integral to the game, as a whole. Each party member is supposed to lend each-other some benefits, which they all exploit. I agree the Fighter is weak. There are considerable balance issues that were neglected, when the class was originally built. BUT, I feel you are providing misinformation, and making them out to be far worse than they really are.

At level 3, a Wizard can cast Enlarge Person on a Fighter who Grapples a Formian Warrior and has the Rogue Sneak Attack the crap out of it before does anything. And if, with its -4 to attack (in grappling) manages to get through the Fighter's Full Plate to hit him, the Cleric can cast a light healing spell.

You've spent a level-1 spell to defeat a "challenging" encounter for a party of 4, with barely a scratch. Sure, a Wizard could have cast Sleep, as well; but the Formian does a +5 Will save; that's not necessarily a sure bet. With teamwork, a Fighter can be a far more reliable asset that you're making him out to be.

Advocate
2009-02-21, 05:40 PM
i meant for characters that werent supposed to get hit in the first place, like wizards. for fighters, yeah con is needed, but its not needed for every other class.

Fortitude saves. Also, the Wizard needs fewer stats. There is no reason why he would not have the same Con as the Fighter. He might actually have more.

Eldariel: Except we're talking chargers. Combat Brute doesn't make you land more hits. It makes the hits you do land harder. Nice and all, but seeing as you're adding at least 4 points a level of damage on top of everything else to every hit... Stuff that makes you ignore concealment, mirror image, and so forth is perfectly valid.

Fortin: That isn't what I said. It somewhat resembles what I said, but has been twisted into something else entirely. It has nothing to do with your abilities. It has to do with the failings of the class. Saying 'you cannot survive a three mile free fall, use a parachute' is not an insult to you or to people in general, it is simply an acknowledgment of the limitation of human abilities. Likewise, saying 'Fighters are one trick ponies, and since encounters require adaptability Fighters get shut down increasingly often by pure accident simply due to changing circumstances, encounter conditions, and so forth, play something that can handle the game' is not an insult to you or to Fighter players, it is simply an acknowledgment of the limitations of Fighter abilities.

You also got the second part flat out wrong. I said when WotC was designing 3.5, they didn't have a clue what they were doing, so they balanced around the assumption that players and enemies would be played stupidly even if they were intelligent. So you get stuff like missing CoDzilla because they thought Cleric = Healbot, missing the God Wizard because they thought Wizard = Fireball, and so on down the line. Meanwhile, enemies are supposed to just run up and attack at close range over and over, even if they have an Int of 26 and multiple SLAs. Of course, this makes no sense. A super genius caster would cast things, that's just a given. Yet, despite this, Fighters still don't work there, because their only option is to get into a stat contest with the few enemies that will actually fight them. The enemies have better stats, therefore they full attack the Fighter to death before he full attacks it to death, and if he tries to do anything else beside be a trip monkey, he's just wasting his time or worse, further increasing the odds of his own death.

The only time Fighters do work is when they are specifically coddled, by avoiding the very long list of things that shuts them down by complete accident. At which point, the only foes your PCs are actually encountering are NPC Fighters, and maybe NPC Monks. Which means... you can beat a weaker version of yourself. Congratulations. Except that if the encounters have been dumbed down this much, you are playing Easy Mode, no question about it. Also, the other players are either annihilating the encounter by themselves without meaning to because it's NPC Fighters and Monks, are breaking their own legs so as to be crippled right along with you, or are bored out of their skulls by all the super easy opponents (that still manage to bother you, but are beatable by you). Possibly all of the above at once.

Also, the DM probably gave you an artifact sword around level 10, that you'd have a hard time affording at level 20 normally. Because the artifact sword 'fix' is surprisingly common.

As for Fighters over the editions, they've actually only had problems in 3.0 and 3.5.

In 1st edition, you did 1d8+6... but demon lords, dragons, GODs still had double digit HP, so that was actually pretty good. You also had all good saves, and I don't mean the 'trick you into thinking it's good when it really isn't' saves like Monks get, but actually good saves so that you actually passed most saves thrown your way. Also, encounters were tactically simple, and you could move more than 5' and still full attack. So run up and hit it was actually a viable tactic. Mages could seriously OHKO encounters by themselves, but the high end foes had lots of resistances and high saves, so they were stuck blasting. Which was also pretty good then, but again, resistances.

In 2nd edition, enemies got around... a third, maybe half again as many HP. Fighters may have been buffed, or may not have. I dunno. They were still alright then, as they could still be mobile, didn't have to hyperspecialize to be relevant, and didn't have to deal with a lot of tricks.

In 4th edition, Fighters are actually one of the better classes due to the number of attacks a round they get combined with their half decent defenses. Of course, every class in 4th edition is basically a 3.5 Fighter, but the one actually named Fighter came out pretty well.

It is only in 3.0 and 3.5 where you encounter the lack of mobility and relevance at the same time issue, the massive amounts of HP you can't plow through fast enough without being a charger and even then it isn't assured, the enemies you could only hope to get to fight you by either charging hard enough to scare them, or tripping them over and over so they don't have a choice, and that isn't assured either...

Also, you have to hyperspecialize in one thing just to keep it up. Stuff you just got for free in 1st and 2nd edition you are now expected to pay for, but it hasn't actually improved any so you have no reason to do that.

So basically what happened is they dropped the Fighter ball hard in 3.0. They fixed it somewhat in 3.5, but not nearly enough. 4.0, they just said screw it, you're all Fighters, and you're fighting Fighters. Now go like it.

Keld Denar
2009-02-21, 05:46 PM
Fighters have 2 purposes. Those purposes are to do damage, and not die. Anything else you do above that is bonus, but you best not be neglecting either of those 2 purposes. A properly built fighter CAN do significant amounts of damage, as people have posted. A poorly built fighter can't though. Some extreme cases, like Lockdown builds, are decent, but IMO they have some critical faults or specialize too far to the point where they fail to be good at much else. This is bad.

Now, the most optimial way to complete a combat encounter is to kill/disable/etc the other guys as fast and efficiently as possible. Fast because the longer you are threatened, but more resources you have to spend to avoid damage or repair it after the encounter. Efficient because you never know what encounters may come later, thus expending too many of your resources in a fight could prove disasterous in later fights. Now, dispatching a foe can happen any number of ways. The most efficient is a straight up kill spell. 1 action, 1 kill, or maybe even more so than that. Unfortunately, kill spells tend to be higher level and tend to be all or nothing, which tends to make them iffy investments. Better to use disables and debuffs that affect multiple targets and/or have partial effects even after resisting. Sure, you could kill the giant outright, but it might make its save. Instead, you could Enfeeble it so that it can't use Power Attack and your melee friend can go toe-to-toe with it to do the only thing it can do, damage. Or Slow and its friends so they only get 1 attack per round, or similar. If your fighter is a charger, a Quickened Benign Transposition can get him back into charging position so he can do his thing every round, while you are still doing yours. Your opponent flies? Either make your fighter fly, or cast any number of a dozen spells to ground your foe. This is what TLN preached.

So, I guess in conclusion, a properly built "fighter" (not composed entirely of the fighter class) is still useful in an optimized party. Hes an infinite supply of damage, and when built properly, dishes out that damage in decent chunks. Sure, his caster friends could supply similar damage, but that consumes more resources on damage spells or summons. An unsupported, non-optimal fighter is bad, but a well built fighter supported properly by a group, especially at mid levels (low levels you are still rather fragile due to lack of class abilities, high levels you are playing rocket tag without a rocket launcher) is a useful part of D&D combat.

Note that "fighter" can be filled by any number of archtypes, from melee cleric to ToB meleer to TWF Rogue to any ol' guy who swings sharp bits of steel for fun and profit, so long as he remembers the 2 goals posted above. Do damage, and don't die.

Lycar
2009-02-21, 06:17 PM
*lots of stuff about 'babysitting' and 'resource leeching*

Soo... apparently some operate under the notion that all spellcaster are, as matter of course, at best selfish jerks or at worst sociopaths, who do believe that helping other, less powerfull party members is an abomiantion.

So what is so hard to understand about teamwork?

The fighter can do great things, if he gets a bit of support from the caster types.

Of course, then some [censored] comes along and realizes that he (caster) can do all that stuff himself. Even better.

That they then go ahead and just break the social contract of the game shows that they are indeed the stereotypical caster types: High INT, dump WIS.

I wonder why those spellcasters even suffer all the other lesser beings around them to live anyway? Certainly, the world would be better off with all those weaklings. Commoners, aristocrats, warriors, fighters...

But hey, I wonder if these people ever realize that their behavior is at best 'neutral' in D&D terms, but more like borderline Evil.

Either way, a supposedly 'good' character should be happy and proud to use the gift of magic he has been given to make the lives of others happier.

Like, casting a nice spell or two for those non-spellcaster types. Because, you know, the world is just a better place if people are actually *nice* to one another.

And besides: How does a spellcaster like that even *live* to see any meaningfull level of power?

Can any of you envision something like that:

Fighter: "Dammit wizard! Why didn't you cast that Enlarge spell?"
Wizard: "Hrmph, I am supposed to waste my invaluable arcane resources on someone who can't even handle a couple of orks on his own? Yeah, that's gonna happen..."
Fighter: "... you do realize that the only reason why you are in this party is because you are supposed to, like, help us with your magic?"
Wizard: "So? I did cast that Grease spell, so that those orks won't reach me and the others, after you failed to stop them."
Fighter: "I would have easily stopped them if you just had cast that ***** Enlarge spell, dammit!"
Wizard: "He, don't you dare to tell me how to use my magic you retarded weakling."
Fighter: *stares at the 13 HO wizard for a moment, then decapitates him with a power attack* "-sigh- Right, back to the town, trying to find a non-antisocial caster type for our party..."

Lycar

Eldariel
2009-02-21, 06:25 PM
Eldariel: Except we're talking chargers. Combat Brute doesn't make you land more hits. It makes the hits you do land harder. Nice and all, but seeing as you're adding at least 4 points a level of damage on top of everything else to every hit... Stuff that makes you ignore concealment, mirror image, and so forth is perfectly valid.

A charger should have pounce. Relevant opponents should have enough HP to take one hit from a Valorous Leap Attacking Shock Trooper charge (assuming level ~8, you'll have 32 PA damage+7 weapon damage+~15 Str-damage+3 Weapon Enhancement (Greater Magic Weapon from a Cleric with Beads of Karma)*2 = 110 damage or slightly less if applying Valorous on PA as an extra multiplier; 86).

Either way, a random Gray Render or Dire Tiger or even a high Con level 8 Barbarian can survive one hit (113 HP for +Con race with 18 Con Raging, up to 129 HP with +4 Con item). If there's an associated miss chance or negation of magic or some such (some other creature utilizing them), landing multiple hits/sufficient damage isn't guaranteed. Combat Brute pushes you over the threshold to one-hit such creatures (having a base 3x PA raises your total PA damage by 12*2), so drop a weaker adversary first and then a stronger one is easier that way.

Advocate
2009-02-21, 06:34 PM
Long post is long.


Really? Because the game's PHB seems to suggest 32 is "high powered", and I truly wonder if the (admittedly poor) balance really holds itself together when you go far beyond that.

The PHB also tells you Toughness is worthwhile.

But seriously. Raising to 32 actually fixes the balance issue. See, 25 PB? Wizard has 17 Int, 14 Dex, 14 Con. That's all he ever needs actually. Druid? His prime stat is Wis. He could put the 14 in something other than Dex if he wants, or lower it to boost more stats. Otherwise see above. Fighter is... screwed, since if he doesn't have Int 13 he can forget about tripping and charging doesn't work in core only. See Fighter stat comments. If you go up to 32, caster gets some fluff stats, non caster gets some essential stats. As casters are far superior to noncasters, anything that boosts the latter without significantly affecting the former closes a balance issue and does not create one.


Wait, a single RAW feat? I think I may have misunderstood what you were getting at here. I'll have to re-read that bit and attempt to address it again.

The comparison was on several grounds. One of them was a direct comparison of the entire Weapon Focus line combined, alone to Weapon Mastery by itself. Someone (maybe you) tried to say that just because my players didn't take it that didn't mean anything, when in actuality the point was 'Here are the cold hard facts, and sure enough the players wouldn't take it. I can't blame them'.


I believe the prime philosophy behind the Fighter class was being a combat generalist. The feats grant you the improved use of a variety of tactics, which other classes will often lack, but compensate with a Rage, Pets and Spells.

If that was the design goal, they failed miserably.


HP is their only defense? It is certainly a highly important defense, but if your AC is being fully ignored, then *in my opinion*, you haven't played any fighter other than a 2H Greatsword-wielding ubercharger to really know. Check the SRD's monster section and consider how WBL can be used to make AC high enough to put significant limitations on how much damage is dealt to a Fighter. I didn't say you can make monsters miss you 80% of the time, but AC can be boosted up to considerable numbers to soften how much you need to soak.

At level 1, AC makes stuff miss you. At level 5, AC might make stuff miss you. Beyond that, especially at 10+ the only question is how much can they PA for and still hit you on anything other than a natural 1. Considering that those higher levels are when you could possibly start investing in AC in any serious way, and the getting hit anyways assumes you do, all you're really doing is spending a lot of cash on something that does not actually help you. I've been over monsters extensively. At any level past 5, enemies are going to fall into one of three categories: Is a good beatstick (and thus, doesn't care about your AC, because its attack bonus makes it auto hit or close), is not a beatstick, and is therefore attacking something other than your AC, usually with more significant results, or is just irrelevant in all aspects and can easily be ignored, plowed through, whatever you want. So, do you really want to spend a large part of your cash on something that only helps when dealing with things too weak to actually care about? Because you can seriously spend half or more of your TOTAL cash on AC, and not get any real gain. And since that comes at the expense of your real defenses such as saves, miss chances, immunities... all you're really doing is turning yourself into a turtle. Except your shell is defective, so in addition to having a poor offense you have a poor defense as well since normal attacks still hit, spells ignore AC entirely, touch attacks ignore normal AC entirely...

I've played all sorts of characters by the way. Basic Greatsword beatstick, spiked chain tripper, Dungeoncrasher... ToB adept, gish, archer... all the viable beatsticks, in other words. Along with many different casters. So when I say x doesn't work because *insert detailed, logical reason* I know what I'm talking about and have most likely directly observed it in action in addition to connecting the dots.

By the way, the highest AC you can get without gimping yourself at all is 46. If you're willing to gimp yourself slightly, 49. It costs over 380,000 gold to do this, so it's not available until level 20 or close to it. And at that point the enemy line up is 'PAs for 10 and still auto hits', 'PAs for 10 and still auto hits or bypasses AC entirely via breath weapons, spells, whatever' * 6, and 'bypasses AC entirely via casting spells' * 2. That's Big T, six different True Dragons, and the Balor/Pit Fiend, respectively. Those are the only 9 core, CR 20 opponents. It gets worse if you look at non core monsters.

So even with max possible WBL sunk into it, it's still not really doing anything except eating up your cash. Over half your total cash in fact.

By the way, the breakdown for that is Mithril Breastplate +5/Animated Heavy Steel Shield +5/Amulet of Natural Armor +5/Ring of Deflection +5/Defending Armor or Shield Spikes +5/Dusty Rose Ioun Stone/Dexterity 16. That gets you AC 46, or 49 if you are willing to self gimp a bit via the slower movement imposed by mithril full plate. In core only, you actually have to gimp yourself very hard to do this as a natural armor amulet precludes the use of a Con boosting amulet (meaning you literally have the same HP as a Wizard, but worse defenses and are on the front lines) as well as the use of a Wis amulet (for sneaking in late game Will save boosts). Among other things. Outside that, you can use the MIC rules to make this not an exercise in masochism.

Anything more than that? Self gimping. Burning feats on it is self gimping due to the low returns you get and the fact it doesn't work anyways. Actually holding a shield is self gimping for reasons that should be painfully obvious. Doing things that trade offense for defense such as say... CE? Heavy self gimping. Turtling too.


You don't need a lot of points to make an effective Fighter. Your attribute allocation actually seems highly wasteful.

Considering your apparent desire to get INT 13 required for Improved Trip, I'll satisfy that. Although, I think it'd be better to either apply the points to DEX or CON, and just use a weapon that allows for trip attacks regardless.

STR 18 DEX 13 CON 14 INT 13 WIS 8 CHA 8 will have a far more meaningful impact than your set on a campaign. If a Wizard can afford to get INT 18, a Fighter can afford STR 18. And, if an 18 is available, reducing STR for Will saves alone will only make your Fighter weaker.

At which point we have a giant walking liability any, and every time we encounter a caster, beginning with the lowly Sleep taking him out of the combat and setting him up for a Scythe CdG to the later Hold doing the same thing, and the still later Dominate turning him against the party. I would sooner take no character than that character as a result.


Wait, what? The point of tripping is to knock an enemy prone. So they can't do anything but try to climb to their feet, or attack while on their back. So what if you "lost an attack"? You've still given yourself all the advantage you should need to keep your allies alive or make the enemy vulnerable to your next attack.

And you never trip without a trip weapon; not that it's actually hard to come by one. So what if you have to drop it on a failure? A Fighter can't rely on a single weapon for his whole career; what was your plan for switching under other circumstances? Quick Draw isn't that terrible a feat, you know.

Except that you are doing nothing except knock them down. They can get up and still do other stuff. Let's try this again. Without Improved Trip, your chance to succeed is low, thus your chance to fail is high, and several drawbacks happen just for trying. The best you can hope for is you burn your attack action knocking them down. But given the low success rate, and the chance to drop your weapon thereby setting YOU back in Action Economy instead of them or be tripped instead... You're better off taking your chances just hitting them.

Also, he's going to have to rely on a single weapon his entire career, because that's all he can really afford. So the tactic of multiple, interchangeable weapons only works at the very low levels... when you can just hit them in the face once, or perhaps twice and KILL THEM OUTRIGHT.


Yes, because it's such a liability for them to cast spells they eventually have in great abundance and likely wouldn't have any other for, unless they decided to prepare 6 castings of Magic Missile, or something else useless.

It is a liability when the spells, and more important combat actions would not have to be used if the Big Stupid Fighter did not leave himself wide open to a common and very dangerous form of attack in favor of pretending to be good against a much weaker form of attack.


Yes, because Protection from Evil, a spell that lasts min/level, is babysittying.

By the time that minute a level actually makes for a decent duration? Why doesn't he have a +2 resistance bonus against all things, including non evil ones? See liability.


Okay, how does one become immune to Disarm?

Why is moving enemies bad? Given the area you're fighting in isn't a featureless plain, you can exploit potential hazards, or limit enemy movement. If an Ogre happens to be within charging distance of your Wizard, and you can't kill him in a single round, you might want to do more to distract him than a mere attack while the Wizard tries to cast Sleep.

Locked Gauntlets. 8 gold per hand. I assumed you needed two, the worst case. You might not. Also the whole monsters getting bigger and better attack rolls + opposed roll thing. Or just not having anything TO disarm. Ogre has +9 to resist. What's your bonus again? I bet it's around +7, and that's if you actually took Improved Bull Rush. If you didn't, Ogre says yay, free hits and smacks you. Remember that that's just to move it back 5 feet.

If there are hazards in the room, remember it's their turf. So those hazards? Most likely of the sort that's dangerous to you, but not to them. Go ahead, push the Salamander into the lava. Even if this is not true... hazards have some Sunder like qualities, in that they break the treasure you're supposed to be looting. Need I say more?

But really. Ogre has an 85 foot charge + reach radius. The chance that it will do absolutely nothing except waste your turn is near 100%. But it only has... what was it? 29 HP? I bet the chance of just killing it is faster.


Unless you got Leap Attack and are getting 2:1 Power Attack on a charge, and want to make sure you don't get clobbered in by your next turn, where you can easily throw down the shield and take your beloved full attack.

2:1 = not a big deal. Shield = not a big deal. Holding shield = Doing It Wrong. That about covers it.


Yes, because when a Fighter has +35 to attack, a -4 will forever ruin him.

Also, there are things called Reach Weapons, as well as the spell Enlarge Person.

See above.

Irrelevant. The original post was some turtle holding a tower shield. So not only is the attack penalty higher, but the attacks themselves are weaker. And there are exactly two weapons, total that give reach while being one handed and thus usable while holding a shield. One is very obscure. The other is slightly less so, but often banned. You don't get reach while actually holding a shield, thus 5' step negates the turtle.

For the smarter ones that are using a reach weapon... do they threaten adjacent? If not you 5' step towards them, where they cannot hit you and do the same thing. If they do... not like casting defensively is hard. The archer will Tumble DC 15.

If you're going to use a spell to get some mobile difficult terrain, summon some creatures. Anything Large or better will do the job far better than Enlarge, or the turtle Fighter.


Who cares if you happen to get hit? I never said a Fighter's goal was to "avoid all hits, ever". Rather, I was trying to make the point that AC can be depended upon to keep your HP from being the only consideration.

Fine. Except that you're wrong. See above for exactly why you get torn apart by a rapid series of attacks anyways.


You keep on talking about "turtling"; which I'm not addressing, because I wasn't making it a point to rack up the AC; but rather, shed the misconception that you can't have a "nice" AC to keep yourself from dying in two seconds.

See above.


If you'd like, I can cite numerous monsters in the MM that are listed as only carrying mundane equipment. I hardly think an adventuring party needs to collect every last plain longsword they pass.

Falls under category 3: Neither valuable nor useful, waste of time to break it. Already covered.


You made no appeal to authority, but rather, many people will take to your side of the argument merely because this is what is established by figures thought most prominent in the community. I was not accusing you of that kind of persuasion, but rather commenting I thought it possible you didn't really know what you were talking about.

'Moving an enemy a few feet' is not something you do every turn. That's not the way to look at a Fighter. Each of his tactical options have a time and place; and yes, their lack of variety makes them less versatile than a Wizard. But a Fighter has no one 'universally applicable tactic'. 'Moving an enemy a few feet', however, is a highly useful feat if the DM is advanced enough to consider building encounters in terrain that has more to it than a picket fence and a rock.

If they arrived at this conclusion because they thought about it on its own merits and realized it was correct then good. I have enlightened people, and dispelled ignorance. But in any case, I am not responsible for the actions of others. The moving bit has already been covered, as has my own level of competence.


I'm still unsure of the 100% immunity you're talking about. All I know about is Locked Gauntlets, which give a bonus to the check. Well, and Spiked Gauntlets, which can't be disarmed, themselves.

I still maintain Sunder is worth it, when your DM decides that your party will not gain WBL solely through selling the numerous magical swords your enemies mass-produce.

And if you don't get cash for selling items that's even MORE reason to never break any, as it means you might just be stuck with some 'random drop' instead of being able to turn it into gold fodder to get what you actually want. Also, if you're playing a beatstick in a campaign where you can't buy the magic items you want you have worse problems.


No, I was saying that you appear to be praising tactics that are only less thought-inspired than the options I listed. A Fighter doesn't need a nice DM, but rather needs to fully understand each of his options.

Been over this.


Again, you keep talking about immunity to disarm; I'd like context, since if I understood this already, I'd not have mentioned it.

What's your beef with grappling?

I've addressed Sunder.

Grappling doesn't work because enemies are better at it, you leave yourself open by trying, and you don't get to do much while doing it. Grapple only works out to be a good idea when you have Improved Grab (attack, try to grapple for free) and not even that well then. Unless you're a monster.Also been over the rest.


As you get to higher levels, a Wizard will find fewer uses for level 1 spells. However, a Fighter will reap great benefit from an Enlarge Person spell, for instance. Spells like these can give a significant boost, and are far more conservative of resources, as otherwise you'd like have to depend on a higher level spell to have as much as a Fighter who effectively applies his tactics.

Action Economy. A round casting Enlarge is a round not casting say... Solid Fog. Just to name a mid level example. Also, 1 round action = easily disruptable. Maybe if you can do it right before kicking in the door, if you don't mind losing your surprise round over it. I'd rather take one Mage Armor and a bunch of Nerveskitters, covering the Enlarge with a wand personally.


The problem is that the Fighter is indeed weak on his own; however, I am arguing that with team-players, he can make his group overall highly effective.

Team players that go out of his way to help him, without getting anything back. A team is a group that mutually support each other. He's not a team player, he's the incompetent glory hog. Needs lots of help just to play at par.


I think that depends on the enemies you encounter.

Nope. Doesn't matter. Enemy will saves improve at a rate greater than 1 point per 2 levels. Your Charisma is for the most part static. Maybe you'll eventually get an item to help it a little. Therefore, your DC increases at the rate of 1 point per 2 levels. It tops out around low 20s... where everyone has at least a +20. Oops.

No, when I was talking about encounters, I meant the DM didn't understand the concepts of CR, etc.


I'm arguing that the monster progression isn't that bad. The DM has to be fumbling around with numbers, or the Fighter has to have really neglected his STR, or the Fighter is working with a bunch of other PCs who are more concerned with individual glory than a team effort. Team effort always trumps a multi-layered solo approach. What I talked about above, with the Fighter relying on his spellcasters for a spell-or-two (and you described as 'babysitting') is integral to the game, as a whole. Each party member is supposed to lend each-other some benefits, which they all exploit. I agree the Fighter is weak. There are considerable balance issues that were neglected, when the class was originally built. BUT, I feel you are providing misinformation, and making them out to be far worse than they really are.

At level 3, a Wizard can cast Enlarge Person on a Fighter who Grapples a Formian Warrior and has the Rogue Sneak Attack the crap out of it before does anything. And if, with its -4 to attack (in grappling) manages to get through the Fighter's Full Plate to hit him, the Cleric can cast a light healing spell.

You've spent a level-1 spell to defeat a "challenging" encounter for a party of 4, with barely a scratch. Sure, a Wizard could have cast Sleep, as well; but the Formian does a +5 Will save; that's not necessarily a sure bet. With teamwork, a Fighter can be a far more reliable asset that you're making him out to be.

Routine encounters can just be blown through by auto attacking. They may be called 'challenging' but it defines this term as 'uses 20% of resources, if you play stupidly' which means you can seriously screw up, and not be at any risk at all. Or you can play smart and win on round 1. So that doesn't prove anything at all, actually. Except that he doesn't give back.

Keld Denar
2009-02-21, 06:37 PM
The real party dynamics between Fighter and Wizard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw

FOR THE LULZ!

AgentPaper
2009-02-21, 06:51 PM
The real party dynamics between Fighter and Wizard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw

FOR THE LULZ!

That about sums it up perfectly, I thinks. =P

Gate-chain solars FTW.

Deepblue706
2009-02-22, 01:53 AM
Long post is long.


Wow, I was typing-up a reply and just lost my post. I'm gonna need some time before I attempt at address all of that. Although, from my perspective, you've been doing little more than browbeating, so incentive is actually dwindling.

I'll concede you have some points, but I still think you're selling some ideas short. I also may not have been entirely clear about the context of some spell-usage. For instance, when I talk about buffs, they're prior to combat. Of course a caster will make better use of his time amidst fighting taking a control approach.

When I talk about using Grapple and Bull Rush, I assume the Fighter in question also makes use of magical items or aid from spellcasters; For instance, a Fighter at level 3 can get a +15 to Bull Rush with help of a level-1 spell. Admittedly, a Sleep spell accomplishes as much as the Bull Rush in the example I would provide (shoving an ogre off of cliff into a river), but I find Enlarge Person still continues to be useful against enemies with more than 4HD.

I'll see if I can get around to a detailed response in the near future.

Myatar_Panwar
2009-02-22, 03:08 AM
The real party dynamics between Fighter and Wizard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw

FOR THE LULZ!

That was amazing.

And for what its worth, I share a similar mentality with the OP. You shouldn't have to be crazy in optimizing in order to be useful, and I don't think you need to. This of course depends on your party. If everyone is optimizing... well then yes, you will need to optimize just to hold your weight as a fighter (or if someone is playing a not-fireball-based wizard, no optimizing required :smallsigh:).

Really kinda sad. I hope you like running at people or using spiked chains!

Eldariel
2009-02-22, 03:51 AM
Really kinda sad. I hope you like running at people or using spiked chains!

Or playing with ToB.

Aquillion
2009-02-22, 04:51 AM
The real party dynamics between Fighter and Wizard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw

FOR THE LULZ!
I think it's more like Jimmy Olsen. A high-level fighter's most powerful class feature is that they're best friends with a high-level cleric and a high-level wizard. :smallbiggrin:

Leon
2009-02-22, 05:03 AM
They are still a fun class even if they are sub optimal.

They are only Sub Optimal if your a optimizer, which while the majority may be on here they are not all representing of the game

Lycar
2009-02-22, 05:04 AM
I think it's more like Jimmy Olsen. A high-level fighter's most powerful class feature is that they're best friends with a high-level cleric and a high-level wizard. :smallbiggrin:

Only if these people are actual friends and not sociopaths like a certain 'lawyer' seems to believe all caster types are. :smallannoyed:

But then, yeah, batman wizard making all his buddies awesome? Win for everyone. Just like the game was meant to be, eh? :smallamused:

Lycar

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-22, 05:37 AM
Only if these people are actual friends and not sociopaths like a certain 'lawyer' seems to believe all caster types are. :smallannoyed:

But then, yeah, batman wizard making all his buddies awesome? Win for everyone. Just like the game was meant to be, eh? :smallamused:

Lycar

Cannot...talk... cannot... move... overwhelmed by... your...COMMON SENSE.

horseboy
2009-02-22, 06:29 AM
But then, yeah, batman wizard making all his buddies awesome? Win for everyone. Just like the game was meant to be, eh? :smallamused:
Nah, he was "meant to be" a blaster. Then "someone" said, yeah, fireball is good and all, but I could do better getting a wagon, filling it full of quarterstaves, setting it on fire and then turn it into a patch. Then later on drop said flaming wagon (and quarterstaves) on my enemies.
Batman, why you should check your work.

Aquillion
2009-02-22, 06:36 AM
Nah, he was "meant to be" a blaster. Then "someone" said, yeah, fireball is good and all, but I could do better getting a wagon, filling it full of quarterstaves, setting it on fire and then turn it into a patch. Then later on drop said flaming wagon (and quarterstaves) on my enemies.
Batman, why you should check your work.Not... really. Haste, Slow, Fly, Grease, Glitterdust, Web, Invisibility, Teleport and so on are not exploits, they're basic abilities designed into the class, and core, iconic spells.

Zen Master
2009-02-22, 06:45 AM
More to the point, I'm unsure about the proposition that focus on one aspect of the game must necessarily detract from focus on other aspects, as in the point buy analogy. It is possible to consider multiple aspects of the game simultaneously during character creation; it'll probably even help flesh the character out.

It only works if you have limited ressources to devote to each aspect. I've already said that. Naturally, you can do all to your hearts content, if you have unlimited time to invest, or are effective enough to do all within the limits.

Advocate
2009-02-22, 07:19 AM
*lots of stuff about 'babysitting' and 'resource leeching*

Soo... apparently some operate under the notion that all spellcaster are, as matter of course, at best selfish jerks or at worst sociopaths, who do believe that helping other, less powerfull party members is an abomiantion.

Full stop. This is a game about killing things and taking their stuff. So if you want to bring sociopathy into it... the entire party is sociopaths. Further, you are rewarded for being a sociopath, and punished for being anything else. Of course, that isn't really an example of sociopathy, as the game is also about those who are constantly risking their lives, and therefore cannot afford to have slackers on their team. Had they taken a competent team member instead, the entire team would be better off. In the worse cases, had they taken no one at all and instead opted for one less team member they would still be better off. It's not a matter of being 'less powerful'. Kobe and Shaq can play on the same team, even though one is better than the other. Put Shaq and a random 16 year old kid on the same team... exactly. The issue is that the disparity is too wide to be surmountable.


So what is so hard to understand about teamwork?

The fighter can do great things, if he gets a bit of support from the caster types.

Of course, then some [censored] comes along and realizes that he (caster) can do all that stuff himself. Even better.

That they then go ahead and just break the social contract of the game shows that they are indeed the stereotypical caster types: High INT, dump WIS.

I wonder why those spellcasters even suffer all the other lesser beings around them to live anyway? Certainly, the world would be better off with all those weaklings. Commoners, aristocrats, warriors, fighters...

But hey, I wonder if these people ever realize that their behavior is at best 'neutral' in D&D terms, but more like borderline Evil.

D&D actively discourages good aligned characters. The rest of that quote is an ongoing straw man and ad homimem, so I'm ignoring it.


Either way, a supposedly 'good' character should be happy and proud to use the gift of magic he has been given to make the lives of others happier.

So he burns spare spells in down time for the backdrop commoners. Congrats. He's still not dragging those commoners off to fight dragons. Something that a supposedly 'good' character would not do.


Like, casting a nice spell or two for those non-spellcaster types. Because, you know, the world is just a better place if people are actually *nice* to one another.

And besides: How does a spellcaster like that even *live* to see any meaningfull level of power?

Can any of you envision something like that:

Fighter: "Dammit wizard! Why didn't you cast that Enlarge spell?"
Wizard: "Hrmph, I am supposed to waste my invaluable arcane resources on someone who can't even handle a couple of orks on his own? Yeah, that's gonna happen..."
Fighter: "... you do realize that the only reason why you are in this party is because you are supposed to, like, help us with your magic?"
Wizard: "So? I did cast that Grease spell, so that those orks won't reach me and the others, after you failed to stop them."
Fighter: "I would have easily stopped them if you just had cast that ***** Enlarge spell, dammit!"
Wizard: "He, don't you dare to tell me how to use my magic you retarded weakling."
Fighter: *stares at the 13 HO wizard for a moment, then decapitates him with a power attack* "-sigh- Right, back to the town, trying to find a non-antisocial caster type for our party..."

Oh, ok. You were just making a joke post to try to start something. That explains it.

Advocate
2009-02-22, 07:26 AM
Wow, I was typing-up a reply and just lost my post. I'm gonna need some time before I attempt at address all of that. Although, from my perspective, you've been doing little more than browbeating, so incentive is actually dwindling.

I'll concede you have some points, but I still think you're selling some ideas short. I also may not have been entirely clear about the context of some spell-usage. For instance, when I talk about buffs, they're prior to combat. Of course a caster will make better use of his time amidst fighting taking a control approach.

When I talk about using Grapple and Bull Rush, I assume the Fighter in question also makes use of magical items or aid from spellcasters; For instance, a Fighter at level 3 can get a +15 to Bull Rush with help of a level-1 spell. Admittedly, a Sleep spell accomplishes as much as the Bull Rush in the example I would provide (shoving an ogre off of cliff into a river), but I find Enlarge Person still continues to be useful against enemies with more than 4HD.

I'll see if I can get around to a detailed response in the near future.

+15 with a first level spell? Enlarge is +5. What are you talking about?

I'm well aware of the concept of pre combat buffs. After all, I play and DM high level games, where you're expected to have 10+ spells on at any given time you're fighting, just to stay on the RNG. However, prepping Enlarge conflicts with prepping Nerveskitter, which boosts initiative, allowing for more first strikes. Using a wand means low CL. And a 1 minute buff? Not so great. Something like Conviction or Barkskin would be a much better example of lots of mileage off a low level spell as those don't encounter those sort of conflicts.

As for this supposed 'browbeating'... I simply tell it how it is. You can decide how you want to react to this information, but it does not change that the information is there, has already been verified by me prior to my presenting it, has been independently verified by others, is presented in such a way so that the reader can independently verify it for themselves... In other words, I don't deal in opinions. I tell people how things work. They can try to change those things so that they work differently if they know how, they can accept the things as they are... but to ignore them is to ignore the facts, because I only deal in facts.


That was amazing.

And for what its worth, I share a similar mentality with the OP. You shouldn't have to be crazy in optimizing in order to be useful, and I don't think you need to. This of course depends on your party. If everyone is optimizing... well then yes, you will need to optimize just to hold your weight as a fighter (or if someone is playing a not-fireball-based wizard, no optimizing required :smallsigh:).

Really kinda sad. I hope you like running at people or using spiked chains!

You don't have to be crazy in optimizing to be useful... provided that you play something that works well without optimization. Such as the not fireball wizard, or CoDzilla. You will have to optimize as a Fighter regardless, however as they cannot measure up to basic MM stuff otherwise. Doesn't matter what the other guys are doing, Fighters need the boost to be at par to the challenges they face.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-22, 07:29 AM
D&D actively discourages good aligned characters. The rest of that quote is an ongoing straw man and ad homimem, so I'm ignoring it.



Sorry but I miss your point here. You can play a good or evil campaing with D&D, what do you mean?

Advocate
2009-02-22, 07:34 AM
Sorry but I miss your point here. You can play a good or evil campaing with D&D, what do you mean?

In order to remain level appropriate, you have to kill things and take their stuff, as your power is based on your level, and your wealth relative to that level. This is sociopathic behavior, thus adventurers are going to eventually turn neutral or evil just by doing their jobs. Alternately, they will retire because they don't want to do that but can't keep up otherwise... or be forced to retire by the Grim Reaper, if you get my meaning. Of course you can just play good and evil as a red team/blue team situation and avoid this, but if you want to get into actual morals about it that's how it is.

Also, for some reason Lycar seems intent upon baiting me constantly, so I will be ignoring his posts until such time as he stops doing that.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-22, 07:54 AM
In order to remain level appropriate, you have to kill things and take their stuff, as your power is based on your level, and your wealth relative to that level. This is sociopathic behavior, thus adventurers are going to eventually turn neutral or evil just by doing their jobs. Alternately, they will retire because they don't want to do that but can't keep up otherwise... or be forced to retire by the Grim Reaper, if you get my meaning. Of course you can just play good and evil as a red team/blue team situation and avoid this, but if you want to get into actual morals about it that's how it is.

Also, for some reason Lycar seems intent upon baiting me constantly, so I will be ignoring his posts until such time as he stops doing that.

1) Maybe It's an impression, but you should take things more easily. I made the same mistake in the past, so, think about it.

2) Sorry but your approach seems to me a little bit metagaming. PCs, IMHO, does not say "I gained a level", unless we are in a webcomic I know. The barbarian will feel he's getting stronger, like the strenght of his ancestor is growing inside him. The wizard will know more things, and putting ranks in Knowledge (arcana) means his studies and his interaction with the mysterious creatures of the worlds have come to a result.

Maybe they would prefer stay at home watching TV fireplace, but troubles will come to them. Or they started a crusade against Hell. Or to eradicate the living, if they are a party of evil undead death knight. Players wills say:

"hooray level up". Players are a different thing from characters. Maybe not everybody could like D&D alignment system, but say "good is unplayable", and for the motivation you said, seems to me a little bit pointless.

Aquillion
2009-02-22, 07:55 AM
But then, yeah, batman wizard making all his buddies awesome? Win for everyone. Just like the game was meant to be, eh? :smallamused:
Well... and I'll be perfectly fair here...

I do think that the best role for a wizard is generally making his buddies more awesome, yes, there's no doubt about that. This is sort of strange and backwards, since so many of a Cleric or Druid's best spells make themselves awesome -- it's the opposite of what you'd expect.

But the thing is (and there's always a but), fighters are still a weak class. You're talking about the decision between enlarging the fighter or wasting a spell. The thing is, that's not the decision I'm going to be making -- I'll be casting grease or improved invisibility so the rogue can hit the enemy flat-footed, or I'll be casting spells to help the druid and his bear and all the other bears he summoned, or (most likely) I'll be using things like Slow and Glitterdust on the enemy to help everyone hit them.

(Rogues even have a natural synergy with wizards, since they can scout ahead and collect information useful for filling spell slots... and since many spells help with sneak attacks, while magical strategies in general benefit from being able to finish off an incapacitated or weakened enemy quickly. Rogues also help prevent ambushes, which are one of a wizard's biggest weaknesses for most of their growth... fighters don't help with that at all.)

The problem is, there is a wide area of things that melee attacks can't handle at all, and then there's a wide area of things that anyone capable of competent melee can handle easily.

The space between those two wide areas -- the narrow strip that only the fighter-types can handle well -- is very small indeed (and vanishes completely when you get into CoDzillas, but even without them there's not much of a role there.) And when you cast a spell, you'll usually want to be moving things from the "can't handle at all" category to the "anyone can handle easily" category, because then your whole team can wail on it.

It isn't precisely that fighters are useless. But in a typical four-man-band, I'd rather have a Druid, or another Cleric, or even a Rogue taking the fighter's spot. When they're working with the wizard, they can easily handle just about anything the fighter could... and they have lots of other things to offer aside from that, both inside and outside combat.

The fighter... doesn't. As a class, it's a one-trick pony, and it's not even a particularly useful trick.

Advocate
2009-02-22, 08:17 AM
1) Maybe It's an impression, but you should take things more easily. I made the same mistake in the past, so, think about it.

2) Sorry but your approach seems to me a little bit metagaming. PCs, IMHO, does not say "I gained a level", unless we are in a webcomic I know. The barbarian will feel he's getting stronger, like the strenght of his ancestor is growing inside him. The wizard will know more things, and putting ranks in Knowledge (arcana) means his studies and his interaction with the mysterious creatures of the worlds have come to a result.

Maybe they would prefer stay at home watching TV fireplace, but troubles will come to them. Or they started a crusade against Hell. Or to eradicate the living, if they are a party of evil undead death knight. Players wills say:

"hooray level up". Players are a different thing from characters. Maybe not everybody could like D&D alignment system, but say "good is unplayable", and for the motivation you said, seems to me a little bit pointless.

I never said anything about the characters knowing they leveled up. They will however, clue in pretty quickly that the better gear they have the better they do, and those guys they just smacked around look pretty loaded. They will also notice pretty fast that as they fight stronger foes, those stronger foes also have better gear. So what happens is you get stronger, you are expected to deal with stronger stuff, but if you haven't been keeping up your looting then the Money as Power game rule is going to kick you in the face, because you do not have the power you are expected to have. Therefore you will eventually discover this, either the easy way by realizing that you can no longer effectively fight the foes you face, or the hard way by having said foes kill you.


Well... and I'll be perfectly fair here...

I do think that the best role for a wizard is generally making his buddies more awesome, yes, there's no doubt about that. This is sort of strange and backwards, since so many of a Cleric or Druid's best spells make themselves awesome -- it's the opposite of what you'd expect.

But the thing is (and there's always a but), fighters are still a weak class. You're talking about the decision between enlarging the fighter or wasting a spell. The thing is, that's not the decision I'm going to be making -- I'll be casting grease or improved invisibility so the rogue can hit the enemy flat-footed, or I'll be casting spells to help the druid and his bear and all the other bears he summoned, or (most likely) I'll be using things like Slow and Glitterdust on the enemy to help everyone hit them.

(Rogues even have a natural synergy with wizards, since they can scout ahead and collect information useful for filling spell slots... and since many spells help with sneak attacks, while magical strategies in general benefit from being able to finish off an incapacitated or weakened enemy quickly.)

The problem is, there is a wide area of things that melee attacks can't handle at all, and then there's a wide area of things that anyone capable of competent melee can handle easily.

The space between those two wide areas -- the narrow strip that only the fighter-types can handle well -- is very small indeed (and vanishes completely when you get into CoDzillas, but even without them there's not much of a role there.) And when you cast a spell, you'll usually want to be moving things from the "can't handle at all" category to the "anyone can handle easily" category, because then your whole team can wail on it.

It isn't precisely that fighters are useless. But in a typical four-man-band, I'd rather have a Druid, or another Cleric, or even a Rogue taking the fighter's spot. When they're working with the wizard, they can easily handle just about anything the fighter could... and they have lots of other things to offer aside from that, both inside and outside combat.

The fighter... doesn't. As a class, it's a one-trick pony, and it's not even a particularly useful trick.

Pretty much. Buffs are a force multiplier. The higher the 'base', the more the buff does. Which means buffing strong characters does more than buffing weak ones. So even just sticking to Enlarge, if the choice is casting it on the Fighter, or casting it on that gish/ToB guy/whatever... the latter gets it. Every time. Maybe if I'm bored, and have time the other guy gets it too. If it comes to taking one or the other, the latter comes with me. Every time. If only the former is available, I'd take nothing over him. And this is in a group where everyone gets +5 natural armor, +4 morale all saves, +4 deflection to AC, +3 armor and shields, and +5 weapons for free, at all times. That's on top of random energy immunities, random other bonuses, and so forth you get when you have a Cleric, a Favored Soul, and a Persist using Artificer in the same party. Which means it's actually a very good place to be if you're a Fighter... except you still can't hold up. Even with all the free help. Even with easy access to crafting, just by the Fighter (not the Artificer) burning a bit of XP, handing over some cash and waiting. DM allowed house rule there.

Now, the party gish? He's holding up pretty well actually, now that I and others have taught him a few things. He got himself AC 56 on the cheap... I believe it cost him around 10% of his WBL, total because he can just use spells (powers) to save a lot of money, saves comparable to the casters (which means he's doing very good there, as casters have the best saves in the game), and a few hundred damage a round split between two targets (Warmind > Sweeping Strike). A plain old Fighter just could not do that, so he'd be stuck in the slump of Cannot Catch Up.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-22, 08:28 AM
Well... and I'll be perfectly fair here...


It isn't precisely that fighters are useless. But in a typical four-man-band, I'd rather have a Druid, or another Cleric, or even a Rogue taking the fighter's spot. When they're working with the wizard, they can easily handle just about anything the fighter could... and they have lots of other things to offer aside from that, both inside and outside combat.

The fighter... doesn't. As a class, it's a one-trick pony, and it's not even a particularly useful trick.

Aquillon, I realize that :

- A revamp rework could be useful and not unbalancing for the Fighter.

- This is an issue because many people point out the same things you said here.

But

My experience with fighters, as a player and more as aDM, is different. They always have something to do. This is why:

- Not always spells are good in any situation. I doubt grease would work in a room with fooded groud, as a rough example.

- Even the best batman wizard could use some slot for detections, or to interact with objects and NPC in the adventure. Slots are not infinite. Sometimes spells are wasted for a DM trick, more in a claustrophobic dungeon.

-Spells can be dispelled and the like (well even buffs on the fighter :smalltongue:). And if enemies flee? buffs disappear, feats are there. Unless you allow Nightstick cheese or the like, in that case, well.

- Sometimes I have the feeling that the number of encounters per day is 4, assumed. DMG brings guidelines, but there's nothing mandatory. You can have 1 encounter/day, but even 10. And you have to manage spellslots.

-I am always concerned about the "one trick pony fighter". A friend of mine, bringed vanilla fighter to epic, was able to disarm a an enemy, stun another one, 5-feet step, chaintrip two enemies with a quickdrawn weapon, drop it, pin an enemy on the wall whit a ranged weapon, everything in the same full attack. And similar maneuver combination. Well, he hans't +3999786 to trip, as an example but worked very well.


Trust me, Aquillon, I don't think that what you said is pointless. 3.5 buffs and magic in general magic needed a lot of rework, IMHO. And yes, I think that a Druid can substitue a melee in a party.

But in actual play, at least in my experience, things are more smooth. An Fighter can be enjoyed even if you don't expend every feat slot to pimp the same trick, and you have an imaginative player, DM vaies situation and keep the mystery, IMHO.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-22, 08:36 AM
I never said anything about the characters knowing they leveled up. They will however, clue in pretty quickly that the better gear they have the better they do, and those guys they just smacked around look pretty loaded. They will also notice pretty fast that as they fight stronger foes, those stronger foes also have better gear. So what happens is you get stronger, you are expected to deal with stronger stuff, but if you haven't been keeping up your looting then the Money as Power game rule is going to kick you in the face, because you do not have the power you are expected to have. Therefore you will eventually discover this, either the easy way by realizing that you can no longer effectively fight the foes you face, or the hard way by having said foes kill you.


Advocate, I can take the sword from a Balor after killing it, but I can also take it as a reward from the Queen of Fey. So this loot-grinding could even not happen.

And well, D&D has levels of power. barring the fact that a team of skilled players working as a group can overcome dire challenges after 5 mordenkainen's disjuncions, I don't find the connection with the goodness.

Even if you are right, you go to the abyss and steal treasure to demon princes. Kill baddies and take stuff to kill other baddies. A good man cannot have common sense? :smallwink:

Advocate
2009-02-22, 09:43 AM
Advocate, I can take the sword from a Balor after killing it, but I can also take it as a reward from the Queen of Fey. So this loot-grinding could even not happen.

And well, D&D has levels of power. barring the fact that a team of skilled players working as a group can overcome dire challenges after 5 mordenkainen's disjuncions, I don't find the connection with the goodness.

Even if you are right, you go to the abyss and steal treasure to demon princes. Kill baddies and take stuff to kill other baddies. A good man cannot have common sense? :smallwink:

So what is your point?

You actually can't get the Balor's sword unless you take it prior to killing him. If however you did... what are you saying?

Because it's either a case that player actions don't matter because the result is the same regardless, something about Game Disjunction that is wholly false, or something about killing different stuff.

If player actions don't matter, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for those players to be there. They might as well go play Smash Brothers while you write your novel. Which means if they get a fairly high end gold fodder sword, even if they ignore the fairly high end gold fodder sword, then they are being railroaded into the fairly high end gold fodder sword. I say gold fodder, because vorpal is a horribly weak enchantment. It's also size Large, so even if the sword had some other purpose than trading for something you do want you probably can't use it. Oh and it's a longsword. That in and of itself makes it NPC bait material.

If you're using Game Disjunction at all, you are physically assaulting a crippled man. More to the point, all buffs are gone. All non casters are forced to permanently retire disgracefully due to the loss of all their essential items. They couldn't even go out with a bang, you forced them to quietly fade away into nothingness. The casters suffer a fate literally Worse Than Death as well, assuming they fail any saves at all which is quite likely, given that 1s auto fail and that's a lot of dice rolls. They might still be crippled but functional, but they are still crippled. If such a group does keep limping around, Gregory House style it is entirely due to the efforts of the casters, as there is flat out no way in the Nine Hells a non caster, who already faced immense difficulties just making himself matter at all is going to not fall off the cliff when you kick him completely off the RNG by destroying all his shiny magic items. Note that just losing all buffs can easily result in a TPK, as even that much can punt everyone off the RNG.

RNG = Random Number Generator by the way. Falling off of it means you suddenly have a minimal, or nonexistent success rate with the things you're supposed to be able to succeed at, and could do so as long as you had level appropriate power from gear and buffs. Now that you don't... Which means you don't hit often and don't matter when you do hit, one spell will instantly kill you with a near perfect success rate, beatstick enemies will happily PA for high numbers or the max value and still easily hit you, thereby one rounding you as well...

The killing demons either amounts to the same thing (killing for personal gain) even if it is taking from evil it still makes you evil. Also, most demon items are going to be evil themselves, which makes this even more fun.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-22, 09:52 AM
So what is your point?

The killing demons either amounts to the same thing (killing for personal gain) even if it is taking from evil it still makes you evil. Also, most demon items are going to be evil themselves, which makes this even more fun.

So, a good character in D&D should...?

Edited, not for the usual mispelling: For sure, a good character would try to hel people without the need of a reward, but good does not mean saint or so.

Why can't a good character take the evil dragon treasure? He took the risk, beaten the dragon, take the gold. And if that gold makes him stronger, well, the dragon's mother too will be defeated.

I can admit that this lead to a Dragonball Z power creep, but It's a game based on levels. And again, I don't think that a good person cannot have personal desires or purposes.

I used the disjunction as an exaggerated example, saying that resourceful players, skilled andoriented to play well a a team intead of whine who has the bigger stick, can defeat a large amunt of threats even under-equipped.

And more: I'm really sorry, but in my experience as a DM, I've seen Meleers and Meleers. And when one of them was useless, was not for the class, but becasue the player was a n00b. Nothing bad at it, human beings live and learn, but even if the systems has evident failuers, IMHO, your statements about useless meleers are exaggerated.

BTW no, even at epic levels I don't throw so many MD, but thanks for the advices. And yes, sometimes losing a buff can be TPK, but this shouldn't be the norm, even if sometimes can lead to interesting situations. At least for my DM style.

Advocate
2009-02-22, 11:18 AM
Stay at home, and not be a murdering sociopath, because that isn't very good unless you play alignment as red vs blue. The fact that the good character is still going around killing things and taking their stuff means if you want to drag actual morals into it, he's just as bad. Perhaps worse, because he thinks he still has the moral high ground. As long as you keep it as Red vs Blue he's fine though.

Losing a buff will most likely not result in TPK. But I also didn't say that. I said all buffs. Taking my own example, this means you immediately lose around 10 points of AC, perhaps more than that, to a max of 15. You immediately lose +10 to ALL saves. Perhaps more if the stat items go too. You immediately lose at least 15 damage per swing from your weapon, perhaps more if the weapon itself got Game Disjoined. You immediately lose to hit buffs. All of them.

So now, you're taking 10-20 extra damage from EVERY SINGLE HIT. You have at least double the normal chances to die instantly from one spell, and more likely a lot more than double. Especially if your saves were not that high even with the buffs. You immediately lose at least a quarter your total damage per hit, and likely much more than that. You're also losing attack accuracy, which further renders you pathetic.

So yes, you've just fallen completely off the Random Number Generator, and a TPK is extremely likely at this point. Even if you survive, your high level character you spent all that time and effort on is permanently crippled. At best, fate worse than death, assuming they're still usable at all.

Now, to further illustrate my point I will cover every death in my campaign.

There have been five thus far.

The first was when a melee character teleported right into a trap while attempting to teleport behind an illusion. Since it was an illusion, all of us but one had no idea what had happened. For some reason that one guy didn't speak up and tell everyone else that something had happened to the teleporter. We find him dead in the trap after the fact. He sits out a while, and eventually gets returned to life. He got better. Much better in fact.

The second was when a melee character attempted to tank an easy encounter for a single round. Despite the two enemies, collectively being one level lower than her and individually three levels lower each she went from full HP to very dead in one auto attack sequence from each. Yup, standing in front of a level - 1 encounter for a single round - instant death. Vrocks aren't even that good at being beatsticks. Still slaughtered her. Which means her only options were to kill both enemies in one round, sit the fight out, or die. She eventually got revived. She got better.

The third was when a melee character attempted to tank a fairly average creature for one round. It is not unreasonable to expect someone in a level 15 or 16 game to be able to stand in front of a level 17 beatstick, who isn't even a very good beatstick for a single round. That didn't stop all of her HP from being drained away in seconds, despite the full attack itself being rolled very poorly. Luck was on her side, and it still wasn't enough. She was revived, and got better.

The fourth was when a melee character was attacked once by a single beatstick enemy of the party's level. Not even a full attack, just one hit. It wasn't even a critical hit. Now, granted she was at half HP at the time, but the full attacker in question still had multiple attacks left. Half HP to dead in one shot. Two if she were healed. She ended up getting hit with a Revivify + Heal eventually, but doing that prevented the casters from keeping most of the foes locked down, so that backfired.

The fifth... remember that full attacker? Guess where the other attacks went? This one was at 2/3rds HP at the time. Another melee character dead.

Now, notice a pattern here? Of the five incidents of death, every single one of them was a beatstick. No casters. All of them except for the first one was just them trying to do their job in the most basic function (survive on the front lines for a single round without dying) and failing miserably at the task.

All of them except for the first one were also examples of low end beatsticks. The second death was a Paladin. The fourth death was the same Paladin. The third death was a Swift Hunter. The fifth death was the Paladin's mount. The first death was the only one that could really be considered legitimate, in that it wasn't a basic competence failing.

All of these are still better than Fighters, therefore a Fighter in any of the same situations would hold up worse.

Now, to be fair there have been some near death incidents with casters, but that's as far as it went.

1: Druid, who for some reason has a Con of 8 and a really bad Reflex save gets hit with multiple AoE effects. He casts Heal on himself.

2: Cleric, who for some reason has a Con of 14 is going into melee. She casts Heal on herself.

3: Wizard, who has his 'immunity to proverbial Goddamned Bats' dispelled, along with about 10 other spells. He then proceeds to Benny Hill it around while getting attacked by Dread Wraiths, who qualify for the trope listed above. He kept making the saves anyways, but in multiple cases failing a single save would have killed him. At one point, just getting hit normally would probably knock him unconscious at the least, despite their very low base damage. Eventually the bats get locked in Forcecages. As to why he didn't get healed sooner... he was flying, didn't come down to the ground, and the flying casters didn't help. I dunno either. Suffice it to say that when I talk about buffs being removed ruining your day I'm thinking of this incident. And he still had half his spells.

4: Several different people, after getting hit by a Maximized Horrid Wilting, and various actions from around a dozen or so mooks. Enter Mass Heal.

5: Many different incidents involving a beatstick at low HP and the Heal spell.

6: Multiple incidents involving several beatsticks at low HP and the Mass Heal spell.

All of this took place over the span of 2 levels. Just 2 levels, which is only 10% of the total game. So when I talk about useless meleers, it's from actual game experience, not just being able to connect the dots. Not all of them qualify as useless. Gishes are great, ToB sorts are great, and a few others are great. Still not as good as casters, but good enough to work and do their jobs. Even at high level, to some extent. But the Fighter class? Forget about it. I won't even use those to create the proverbial 'trash mob' encounter that you're supposed to blow through in half a round with no effort because they're that much weaker than you are, that's how bad they are. The best you can do with one is a dip for Dungeoncrasher, something that would make them a 6 level long class except that you could stop at 2 levels and not miss THAT much, while being able to take four more real class levels. Difference between the two is 4d6 + Strength bonus to your Knockback attacks... which caps around 25 average damage. Nice, but you can make that up with real class features, and get other stuff.

Everything, and I do mean everything else they do is better done by another class. Feats? Martial Rogue. Psychic Warrior. /end list

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-22, 11:41 AM
Er... another brick in the wall (of text).

Suggestion: in the future, episodes and examples are good in spoilers :smallwink:

A single buff removal can lead to TPK. Example: spell immunity: blasphemy and you are facing a Half-Fiendish Primal Elemental.

Anyway, about alignment, it's evident that we have different point of view. Luckily, we don't play at the same game table.

About the Fighters, and Paladins... well, when the class were designed, i doubt that the concept of "tank" was there. Of meatshield, of course was ("the FIGHTER will open the door, if the rogue says there are no traps"). But if you mean with tank a guy staying under the boss keeping the boss focusing attacks on him, yes, fighter and paladin are not so good, or at least, have to focus too much and other classes (ToB) do the job better.

A Fighter role, IMHO, should be "slay away" monsters from the party. For me, works fine, even if my group build fighters with a lot of splats an play fine (no so much cheese and shenanigans in spells or whatelse, I'm a strict DM). If for you don't work check, in order:

- If your DM keeps the game balanced
- If you are playing well the class
- Other classes/multiclass as the one you mentioned, and refluff.

Anyway, this example :

The third was when a melee character attempted to tank a fairly average creature for one round. It is not unreasonable to expect someone in a level 15 or 16 game to be able to stand in front of a level 17 beatstick, who isn't even a very good beatstick for a single round. That didn't stop all of her HP from being drained away in seconds, despite the full attack itself being rolled very poorly. Luck was on her side, and it still wasn't enough. She was revived, and got better

Makes me concerned: are you sure your DM didn't pimped the monster too much? I understood? Kill without crits of a 16 level melee?

Ovaltine Patrol
2009-02-22, 11:56 AM
I personally like fighters that use plenty of maneuvers: bull rush, disarm, trip, etc. Grappling is also swell in some instances.

Advocate
2009-02-22, 12:03 PM
Good point about the spoilers. However, with actual examples, this topic is serving its original purpose.

That is a good example of a single buff removal = TPK. Also why I house ruled Blasphemy, which you can find in the loophole thread if you're interested. It's not very likely though, as I said. After all, removing one buff could just as easily just mean knocking off the Persistent Bless. Losing 1 point of to hit won't kill you.

When I say 'tank' I simply mean be within melee range. I am well aware that Fighters, Paladins, and many others have no actual means to make enemies attack them, therefore if they cannot do enough damage to matter they will just be ignored and walked around. The point is that they should be able to survive in melee range at least most of the time, since they have to be in melee range to do anything and if they can go from full to dead in 1 round or less by an enemy who is merely level appropriate, or perhaps lower level than that well clearly they are completely useless.

What does 'slay away' mean? Is this a typo?

In that example, what happened is a series of low attack rolls. However, lots of hits landed anyways. One was a crit. The beatstick in question was weak... I don't even think it had a +30 to hit. Having a < +30 to hit at level 17 is simply pathetic if you care about that sort of thing. Of course, the target forgot to pack their Animated shield, so this weak melee brute was still scoring lots of hits.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-22, 12:28 PM
Good point about the spoilers. However, with actual examples, this topic is serving its original purpose.

When I say 'tank' I simply mean be within melee range. I am well aware that Fighters, Paladins, and many others have no actual means to make enemies attack them, therefore if they cannot do enough damage to matter they will just be ignored and walked around. The point is that they should be able to survive in melee range at least most of the time, since they have to be in melee range to do anything and if they can go from full to dead in 1 round or less by an enemy who is merely level appropriate, or perhaps lower level than that well clearly they are completely useless.

This was my point. Could you remember the kind of creature? There was some high multiplier weapon? And how much support had from the casters? And what maneuvers used, if fighter? If paladin, knows battle blessing? (*Kaiyanwang conjures cheese*).



What does 'slay away' mean? Is this a typo?


Take it like a joke. I meant, if you charge leap attack, full attack momentum swing, smiting charge, or even trip, bull rush from a cliff etc the enemy, you don't need tank abilities. Max damage on target, and if he's dead, no threat.

Are the meleers always well aware of their position on the battlefield? And the other members, how they move? Do party member support each other on maneuvers on battlefield?

I recognize that sometimes you are screwed,

but at worst you can take a ranged weapon, or similar. In this case, your effectiveness could be connected at your concept of acceptable damage per round (if 3d8 +18 are good for that fight, good, otherwise my counseil worths nothing).

Sure, you will not always be able to charge in a tavern, but maybe you'll be able to PA and cut the chain of the chandelier to wreak confusion.


About survive to blows..

well, it depends from encounter. You mentioned "trash mobs" before. Well, as a DM I noticed that when I challenge my players in difficult terrain, and the monsters are a big one and a group of smaller ones, the fighter has the ability to handle a group when others maim the big one, or to handle the big one when the casters AOE the small. Well sometimes happen a lucky disarm. Quickdraw.

Sometimes a frost giant crits 80 and she is down. Sometimes she crits LA and the frost giant is down. Today happens to you, tomorrow to me. She learned to use polearms with some enemy. Weapons are sometimes like spells for the mage - you need the right one. Or she learned to approach not always with the charge. Or to charge after the Beguiler stopped the giant (she charge, take advantage and not AOOs, and the party focuses on other threats).

Anyway, I noticed that a "trash" mob encounter can be very good, if the DM prepare the terrain and mobs have some trick like an alchemical item (one not twenty) and the right weapon (not necesssarily the ones in the manual).

Animefunkmaster
2009-02-22, 12:34 PM
They are only Sub Optimal if your a optimizer, which while the majority may be on here they are not all representing of the game

I think that optimizers won't just pick the single best build to play, that would be boring. Instead they optimize every class they want to play, whether fighter, monk, bard, commoner.... or Codzilla or Batman Wizard.

Advocate
2009-02-22, 01:05 PM
This was my point. Could you remember the kind of creature? There was some high multiplier weapon? And how much support had from the casters? And what maneuvers used, if fighter? If paladin, knows battle blessing? (*Kaiyanwang conjures cheese*).

Marilith, standard treasure, different feat selection. Just like the PCs, designed to actually use what they have. Of course she had a lot less, but the point is that the Marilith was not just randomly thrown together. She was just using a Flaming Burst longsword... which was obviously randomly rolled, because no DM that knew what they were doing would specifically pick that item. Mariliths get '1d4 magic weapons' so apparently a 1 came up, followed by a random magic longsword. Of course, the later identify revealed it to be +3 Flaming Burst... definitely randomly generated, as no DM who knew what they were doing would deliberately go and waste enhancement slots on plain +x. They'd make +1 (lots of special properties) weapons and use the Greater Magic Weapon spell. Mariliths do get UMD after all. Swift Hunter charges Marilith, does almost no damage. Marilith attacks Swift Hunter, dead creature. The Swift Hunter was buffed up beforehand with Barkskin, Conviction, and others. It didn't matter, and there was absolutely no time to do anything about it as she went from full to dead in one action.


Take it like a joke. I meant, if you charge leap attack, full attack momentum swing, smiting charge, or even trip, bull rush from a cliff etc the enemy, you don't need tank abilities. Max damage on target, and if he's dead, no threat.

Are the meleers always well aware of their position on the battlefield? And the other members, how they move? Do party member support each other on maneuvers on battlefield?

Funny thing is trying to do a move like that tends to just screw over the character trying it, because the creature actually cannot be charged, or survives the charge, or whatever and then gets in a free full attack. I don't think anyone died this way, but it certainly didn't work out as planned. You will have to define the other points better as I'm not sure what you are actually asking. Though it does sound like you're asking about melee mobility... pretty much an oxymoron, given the fact that moving more than 5' renders you irrelevant without Pounce or something.


I recognize that sometimes you are screwed,

but at worst you can take a ranged weapon, or similar. In this case, your effectiveness could be connected at your concept of acceptable damage per round (if 3d8 +18 are good for that fight, good, otherwise my counseil worths nothing).

Sure, you will not always be able to charge in a tavern, but maybe you'll be able to PA and cut the chain of the chandelier to wreak confusion.


3d8+18? You mean hitting three times with the trivial damage bow that can't bypass DR? That's just you looking busy, while the enemies ignore you and kill real threats. You get less than that most likely, as you probably won't hit all three times.

And if you are in a tavern, you shouldn't have any problem just stabbing it in the face, seeing as a single Medium or Small sized creature can cover a 15 * 15 area within a 25 * 25 area with no action cost, simply by 5' stepping in some direction and threatening adjacent. Or cover the full 25 * 25 area while standing still with a reach + adjacent weapon like a spiked chain, or polearm + spikes. Or whatever. So why would you need to screw around with random crap and hope the DM is very nice to you when you can just stand there trading auto attacks that might actually work?


About survive to blows..

well, it depends from encounter. You mentioned "trash mobs" before. Well, as a DM I noticed that when I challenge my players in difficult terrain, and the monsters are a big one and a group of smaller ones, the fighter has the ability to handle a group when others maim the big one, or to handle the big one when the casters AOE the small. Well sometimes happen a lucky disarm. Quickdraw.

Sometimes a frost giant crits 80 and she is down. Sometimes she crits LA and the frost giant is down. Today happens to you, tomorrow to me. She learned to use polearms with some enemy. Weapons are sometimes like spells for the mage - you need the right one. Or she learned to approach not always with the charge. Or to charge after the Beguiler stopped the giant (she charge, take advantage and not AOOs, and the party focuses on other threats).

Anyway, I noticed that a "trash" mob encounter can be very good, if the DM prepare the terrain and mobs have some trick like an alchemical item (one not twenty) and the right weapon (not necesssarily the ones in the manual).


I don't think you mean the same thing I do. When I say trash mob encounter, I mean encounters that are even lower level than you, so as to be effortless. The only reason they're even there is so PCs can just plow through enemies with no effort. And maybe get overconfident, right before the REAL fight. So that means that I won't even use Fighters to create a snoozefest fight, because they don't even serve that purpose. Or rather, they do it too well, such that I could throw some ECL 21 encounter of Fighters at the 15-17 party and they plow through it in much the same way.


I think that optimizers won't just pick the single best build to play, that would be boring. Instead they optimize every class they want to play, whether fighter, monk, bard, commoner.... or Codzilla or Batman Wizard.

Correct. An optimizer might try to make the best Fighter possible... which might actually result in a relevant character. But likely not. It's when people don't want to optimize, but insist on playing something that doesn't work any other way you have problems. Especially when many alternatives exist.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-22, 01:37 PM
Advocate, maybe it's me, but it seems to me that for you gamestyle, creatures have to go down in a round (sometimes happens, but is not mandatory IMHO). So, nevermind if the Marilith is a powerful Demon, charge without a ranged heal spell with an action prepared, or or some healing cheese. Meh.

I mean, ok, 3d8+18 in not da uber damage at level 11, but could help to finish off an enemy already damaged by the casters, as an example. And subtract damage to the group.

The same with mobility issues...
Monsters have always the ability to bypass you? And at what price? An AOO and a goliath greathammer crit in enough, sometimes.
And this thing that if you cannot pounce you are screwed.. maybe is enough move, hit and staggering critical the enemy. No full attack (no save).

This is linked to the position of other party members. "Could you please move in a way the cleric can heal you and the fighter slay who threats you?" This I meant.

If you charge and don't do enough damage (???) you could quickdraw (even with the augmentation crystal) an off hand and built your fighter in a way that first time you are hitten, 3-6 TWF AOOs trigger (assuming dex). Just an idea.

The tavern.. the crowd, the tables... are you assuming the enemy near you? Always evil monters in the battlefield? Never a princess to shield?

In one thing we almost agree: fighter cannot be built lighthearthly. I add: in a lot of games, not every game.

Advocate
2009-02-22, 02:41 PM
I'm having an increasingly difficult time making out what you're saying, but I'll try anyways.

A CR 17 is borderline routine in a party of 15-16s. It isn't supposed to take much effort, nor should it, because you literally fight over a dozen such enemies per level.

Ranged Heal spell? So that's an 8th level spell slot on a Reach Spell Heal, the best the party has at the moment. It still is only a 30' range, which means it's very easy to just attack the cleric instead.

Are you trying to argue that beatsticks need you to spend your round readying actions to heal them mid full attack just so they don't die? Because if anything, that's a good case for 'don't pack beatsticks, bring real characters instead'. Then you can use your highest level spells on more efficient forms of Action Negation.

Level 11... I guess this is supposed to be Paladin vs 2 Vrocks? Let's see... shoot them, have the damage negated by DR or at least reduced to something like... 4, max, then get attacked anyways. Yeah, that will go well. Paladin was level 12. It didn't matter. When you can't do your job against stuff even lower level than yourself for the minimum possible amount of time it's a good sign you did it wrong.

Hoping for a crit is not so different than hoping for a divine miracle. You can't rely on luck, because it is inherently unreliable. Particularly since the higher you go, the more often you run into crit immunes. At this level? They're about half of what you face. Maybe more than that. After all, the only high level enemies are almost all undead or constructs. There are also dragons and outsiders involved, that are not inherently immune but could easily acquire such with their listed wealth.

If you're using Robilar's, you need a two hander. Lots of piddly little hits isn't going to bother anything. A few big hits WILL. This also further enforces kill it NOW, before it kills you.

If you are fighting inside, you can stand there and trade auto attacks, maybe 5' stepping a bit. There's no reason, or ROOM to do anything else, because as I illustrated the size of indoor areas combined with not acknowledging spaces smaller than 5 feet means that there might as well be no space between you at all, for all the effect it has. And in fact you should, because the alternative is to hope the DM throws you a bone by being very nice to you and making random nonsensical actions better than doing your one trick that you actually put resources in... and that if you think about it is actually insulting to you, because you had to go through all that trouble to be relevant, just to start having the DM cheat for you.

If you need to 'shield a princess' well too bad, because you have no actual ability to protect her or anyone else. That's most likely the DM screwing you, slapping you in the face with your own ineptness. Feel free to counterattack.

Funniest thing about Fighters? The games they are claimed to work well in are these so called 'roleplaying' games. Except that if you're just sitting around the tavern a lot, you aren't fighting things. Which means Fighter boy doesn't even get to do the one thing he can do (half decently). Now you tell me. Which is worse? Getting in fights regularly, and getting smacked senseless at about the same rate due to being outclassed by standard enemies, or sitting around with nothing to do at all? Is it better to fail, or to never try in the first place? I'd say they're both pretty screwed up. At least the former has the Fighter involved. Involved as a punching bag, but involved nonetheless. The latter has him playing Smash Brothers, as he regrets his decision to play a half assed combat only class in a game that is largely devoid of combat.

Fortinbras
2009-02-22, 03:00 PM
Okay, we get it, figthers suck. Now, the fact that this thread even exists implys that people don't care. I doesn't take a whole class to express that fighters suck because that is something everyone can figure out for themselves.

Aquillion
2009-02-22, 03:02 PM
Advocate, maybe it's me, but it seems to me that for you gamestyle, creatures have to go down in a round (sometimes happens, but is not mandatory IMHO). So, nevermind if the Marilith is a powerful Demon, charge without a ranged heal spell with an action prepared, or or some healing cheese. Meh.Healing in combat is a bad strategy; it's not something you should ever plan to do. It's something to be done as an emergency measure when things go bad or you get unlucky, but every heal someone in your party has to throw during combat should set off red alarms that something is going wrong with the fight.

This is because negating the enemy's actions, setting up lasting advantage, or or killing them quickly is vastly more effective than wasting your actions healing. A single buff, debuff, or change to the battlefield will give you an advantage for the rest of the fight (or until the enemy spends an action negating it.) Actions spent healing, though, are basically wasted -- you haven't changed a losing fight into a winning one, you're just getting your ass kicked a bit more slowly.

It's the same problem as before. There are a very, very large number of situations where you are going to get slaughtered in a melee fight; throwing heals at you when you can't win is wasteful. (In that case, spells should instead be focused on making the fight winnable, not dragging it out.) There are also a lot of fights you should be able to handle easily. There are actually very few cases where you can almost-win a fight if you just have one more heal, and trying to play to that really, really narrow edge is massively more risky than focusing on eliminating the risk completely by slowing or otherwise negating the opposition.

Healing is important, but it's something for emergencies. It's not a "strategy".

And, by the same token, there is no healing cheese.


Funniest thing about Fighters? The games they are claimed to work well in are these so called 'roleplaying' games. Except that if you're just sitting around the tavern a lot, you aren't fighting things.I don't think too many people say that... but it comes down to something that was mentioned before (and is similar to the problems people have with monks.)

People see a class called "fighter" in the PHB, they think "All right, if I want to roleplay a swordsman, I have to take 20 levels in this class, level by level." And when someone else suggests otherwise, their natural reaction is to say that going away from the "fighter" class would be betraying their roleplaying ideals for optimization -- now they're not a fighter anymore, they're some weird-named class like a Warblade (or whatever). Only a munchkin would do that! Etc, etc.

Of course, as I pointed out earlier... when WotC published the "Warblade" under the name of "Fighter" in the core book of 4e, those same people happily played it. It's just that those labels written at the top of the classes have a huge amount of power in some people's minds, far more than anything else in the book... so even though fighters sort of, well, suck at fighting, they still feel that you're not a "real" professional fighter without levels in the class, and you're failing at roleplaying if you try to play a fighter-type without actual, mechanical fighter levels.

Advocate
2009-02-22, 03:31 PM
Healing in combat is a bad strategy; it's not something you should ever plan to do. It's something to be done as an emergency measure when things go bad or you get unlucky, but every heal someone in your party has to throw during combat should set off red alarms that something is going wrong with the fight.

This is because negating the enemy's actions, setting up lasting advantage, or or killing them quickly is vastly more effective than wasting your actions healing. A single buff, debuff, or change to the battlefield will give you an advantage for the rest of the fight (or until the enemy spends an action negating it.) Actions spent healing, though, are basically wasted -- you haven't changed a losing fight into a winning one, you're just getting your ass kicked a bit more slowly.

It's the same problem as before. There are a very, very large number of situations where you are going to get slaughtered in a melee fight; throwing heals at you when you can't win is wasteful. (In that case, spells should instead be focused on making the fight winnable, not dragging it out.) There are also a lot of fights you should be able to handle easily. There are actually very few cases where you can almost-win a fight if you just have one more heal, and trying to play to that really, really narrow edge is massively more risky than focusing on eliminating the risk completely by slowing or otherwise negating the opposition.

Healing is important, but it's something for emergencies. It's not a "strategy".

And, by the same token, there is no healing cheese.

Indeed. I have held for a while that the typical combat will take a maximum of 2-3 rounds to plow through, with 1-2 being more likely. You can get it back up to 2-3 if you specifically design the encounter to stall with a LOT of save optimization (this means use CASTERS, not mooks... I mean monks), real defenses such as Mirror Image and miss chances (casters again), and so forth.

If the encounter lasts more than 3 rounds for any reason, it's a good sign something is going very wrong.

Sure enough, the one time I did see a fight go over 3 rounds (as opposed to multiple fights in very rapid succession) it was because... *drumrolls* something was going very wrong.

BBEG fight. And minions. Lots of minions. Sure enough, casters managed to lock down many of the enemies, but had to keep stopping to cast Heal or even Mass Heal to keep people alive. At one point, Revivify + Heal was needed because someone actually did die. Lots of near death experiences too. And the enemies kept breaking out of locks.

Funny thing though? If they didn't have Necrosis Carnexes and Shadesteel Golems and Spontaneous Inflicters throwing out lots of negative energy it still would have been a 3 round fight despite the incredibly high CR (BBEG's save DCs are 38... you do the math) as everything on that field has been killed at least twice over, but keeps getting spam healed when at low HP.

So basically my point is even an extreme encounter like that would still get blown through in 3 rounds, if it weren't for the fact half the enemies are healing the other half, essentially screwing around. It's also a support point for you, as all those Heals and Mass Heals detracted from firing rockets back at them.


I don't think too many people say that... but it comes down to something that was mentioned before (and is similar to the problems people have with monks.)

People see a class called "fighter" in the PHB, they think "All right, if I want to roleplay a swordsman, I have to take 20 levels in this class, level by level." And when someone else suggests otherwise, their natural reaction is to say that going away from the "fighter" class would be betraying their roleplaying ideals for optimization -- now they're not a fighter anymore, they're some weird-named class like a Warblade (or whatever). Only a munchkin would do that! Etc, etc.

Of course, as I pointed out earlier... when WotC published the "Warblade" under the name of "Fighter" in the core book of 4e, those same people happily played it. It's just that those labels written at the top of the classes have a huge amount of power in some people's minds, far more than anything else in the book... so even though fighters sort of, well, suck at fighting, they still feel that you're not a "real" professional fighter without levels in the class, and you're failing at roleplaying if you try to play a fighter-type without actual, mechanical fighter levels.

While certainly true, I'm not sure how name recognition plays into what I'm saying. I said that in response to those that keep saying Fighters are fine in 'non optimization games'. While it isn't explicitly spelled out, reading between the lines leads to the implication there that roleplaying and optimizing are two dichotomous opposites. Of course they aren't, but that's what that person is claiming. Therefore, the statement is that 'Fighters do fine in games that are about roleplaying'. Which is wholly false, and arguably they're worse there than they would be in a normal game, or an 'optimized' game. Which is what my post sets out to correct.

Lycar
2009-02-22, 04:21 PM
Full stop. This is a game about killing things and taking their stuff.

Ugh no! Just no! The game is what you, or anyone else makes out of it.

If you game is basically a bunch of mercenaries banding together to quest for, I dunno, ultimate ascension to godhood, then yes, anything that can't reach to the lofty hight of power a spellcaster can reach has no place on that party's roster.


So if you want to bring sociopathy into it... the entire party is sociopaths. Further, you are rewarded for being a sociopath, and punished for being anything else.

No. This solely depends on your gaming style.

Consider a Lot5R inspired campaign: If your players are nobles, and nobles are forbidden from touching corpses or looting, then their WBL has to come from somewhere else. They may be rewarded by their Lord for example.

Also, in such a campaign, a larger percentage of foes will be humanoids or monstrous humanoids, and suddenly sundering their tainted weapons becomes a good idea.



Of course, that isn't really an example of sociopathy, as the game is also about those who are constantly risking their lives, and therefore cannot afford to have slackers on their team. Had they taken a competent team member instead, the entire team would be better off.


Again, this is only true for a game in which you absolutely have to maximise every possible modifier, simply to stay alive.

Which is a game the fighter (and melee classes in general.. heck, every non-caster class really) simply can not win.

So yes, in that style of game, no one should play anyting but caster types.

But other people do not enjoy their games as a competition against the GM, to see if you can reach the +5 inherent bonus and grab that +6 item before a bad roll catches up with you.


D&D actively discourages good aligned characters. The rest of that quote is an ongoing straw man and ad homimem, so I'm ignoring it.

No, D&D does not. Your gaming style does. Selfishnes is rewarded in your game while altruism gets you killed. It's your game, not D&D. Do not blame your own (mis)conceptions about 'how the game ought to be played' on the game. Other people like their game to actually remain a game, and not, I dunno, a competitive sport GV vs. players.

And about the ad hominem... you are the one who claims that all PCs must be sociopaths in order to survive. If it is impossible for you to imagine a playstyle where this is not true... well, if the shoe fits. :smallsigh:


So he burns spare spells in down time for the backdrop commoners. Congrats. He's still not dragging those commoners off to fight dragons. Something that a supposedly 'good' character would not do.

Uh what? Why would a good aligned character, who uses some of his abilities to help NPCs, want to drag them off to fight dragons?

For good aligned people, doing a good deed is it's own reward. It's called altruism. If the GM plays nice and sometimes lets a few minor good things happen to PCs who actually play out their good alignement, then I dare say, most people on this board would agree that that is a good thing.

Your mileage may vary, but that is only yours, not everybody elses.


Oh, ok. You were just making a joke post to try to start something. That explains it.

Wishful thinking really. In an entire party that agrees to play the game your way, there won't be any fighters to begin with. So the point is moot.

But if, say, a wizard player with your philosophy was to clash with a party of, say, a more 'our-PCs-are-heroes' outlook...

You know how many people suggest to make 'bad things' happen to the characters of problem players. And in this setting, you playing the party wizard as a sociopath would be a problem.

Again: If you and your friends enjoy the game the way you are playing, great, you are having fun, good for you.

But some people would find your style of gaming decidedly not fun. So they play a different style. And those players just might happen to find a well-built fighter a fun character to play.

And you are not to tell them that they are 'playing D&D wrong'.

Wrong for your tastes maybe, but that is about it.

###

Also: I wonder where that myth about 'Players are supposed to always ever have 4 encounters a day of their challenge level' comes from.

I blame poor rules knowledge. :smallannoyed:

Actually, the ONLY instance where these 4 encounters a day come up is in the DMG, where there is an explicit warning about designeing encounters:

Namely that a 'challenging encounter is supposed to drain a party of about 20% of their resources. So that, for example, a party already having been through 4 of those might find their resources reduced to 0%, i.e. facing a Total Party Kill.

Any ideas about that? Maybe I should make a thread about that. :smallconfused:

Lycar

Advocate
2009-02-22, 04:51 PM
Ugh no! Just no! The game is what you, or anyone else makes out of it.

If you game is basically a bunch of mercenaries banding together to quest for, I dunno, ultimate ascension to godhood, then yes, anything that can't reach to the lofty hight of power a spellcaster can reach has no place on that party's roster.

No, what the players 'make of it' simply changes the fluff. Bunch of mercs to become gods, stick up rear divine sorts, crazy arcanists... they're all killing things and taking their stuff. It is only what those things are, why they are killing them, and what stuff they are taking that changes. It still boils down to exactly the same end goal, and to claim otherwise is intellectually dishonest.


No. This solely depends on your gaming style.

Consider a Lot5R inspired campaign: If your players are nobles, and nobles are forbidden from touching corpses or looting, then their WBL has to come from somewhere else. They may be rewarded by their Lord for example.

Also, in such a campaign, a larger percentage of foes will be humanoids or monstrous humanoids, and suddenly sundering their tainted weapons becomes a good idea.

In other words, the PCs are choosing to cripple themselves, but you are rendering their actions irrelevant. Now if they didn't know they were crippling themselves I could see it. But that's why you calmly explain it to them, and let them make their own decision as to whether or not they want to suck.

Also, if they are primarily fighting humanoids, it's an easy mode campaign anyways as humanoids are the weakest opponents in general, and the most rewarding opponents to kill. Did you know every NPC has a dragon horde worth of wealth, already converted into combat items? And of course, it's far easier to gank Sergent Bob than that dragon over there. So that entire example is a great illustration of a coddling DM.


Again, this is only true for a game in which you absolutely have to maximise every possible modifier, simply to stay alive.

Which is a game the fighter (and melee classes in general.. heck, every non-caster class really) simply can not win.

So yes, in that style of game, no one should play anyting but caster types.

But other people do not enjoy their games as a competition against the GM, to see if you can reach the +5 inherent bonus and grab that +6 item before a bad roll catches up with you.

False. It does not require a max optimize or die game for a slacker to drag down the entire party. In a max optimize or die game, the definition of slacker will be more inclusive, however even in the normal games which I assumed when writing that the definition still covers a lot of turf, including the Fighter class as a non dip.


No, D&D does not. Your gaming style does. Selfishnes is rewarded in your game while altruism gets you killed. It's your game, not D&D. Do not blame your own (mis)conceptions about 'how the game ought to be played' on the game. Other people like their game to actually remain a game, and not, I dunno, a competitive sport GV vs. players.

And about the ad hominem... you are the one who claims that all PCs must be sociopaths in order to survive. If it is impossible for you to imagine a playstyle where this is not true... well, if the shoe fits. :smallsigh:

Again, false. D&D requires you to take the things of those you kill to stay level appropriate because if you are not level appropriate you cannot deal with level appropriate enemies and therefore must retire or die. Because going around robbing people is not a Good thing to do, and the fact these particular people have green skin does not change that, D&D actively discourages good aligned characters by ensuring you cannot remain level appropriate by behaving in a good manner. You completely missed the point by the way. You were supposed to pick up on how truly screwed up morality is in D&D, just call it red team/blue team, and call it a day as the Good and Evil within the system do a rather poor job of reflecting the actual concepts thereof.


Uh what? Why would a good aligned character, who uses some of his abilities to help NPCs, want to drag them off to fight dragons?

For good aligned people, doing a good deed is it's own reward. It's called altruism. If the GM plays nice and sometimes lets a few minor good things happen to PCs who actually play out their good alignement, then I dare say, most people on this board would agree that that is a good thing.

Your mileage may vary, but that is only yours, not everybody elses.

Completely misread.

Me: *paraphrased* Don't drag dead weight around.
You: *stuff about wanting to help people with magic*
Me: Ok, you cast spells on the Commoners while you're in town. Great, you're helping people. However this has nothing to do with propping up the crippled Fighter. You wouldn't go dragging those Commoners you're helping into the dungeon and yet you are still helping them. So you could do the same to the Fighter, by helping him when you go into the tavern between adventures. In fact that's the most helpful thing you can do for him, as dragging him off to fight dragons is irresponsible in much the same was as dragging Commoners off to do it is. Perhaps slightly less so in scope, but entirely identical in concept.

Since your original point was 'the good aligned caster should help the Fighter even though he's dead weight' it has just been fully addressed and more than sufficiently countered.


Wishful thinking really. In an entire party that agrees to play the game your way, there won't be any fighters to begin with. So the point is moot.

But if, say, a wizard player with your philosophy was to clash with a party of, say, a more 'our-PCs-are-heroes' outlook...

You know how many people suggest to make 'bad things' happen to the characters of problem players. And in this setting, you playing the party wizard as a sociopath would be a problem.

Again: If you and your friends enjoy the game the way you are playing, great, you are having fun, good for you.

But some people would find your style of gaming decidedly not fun. So they play a different style. And those players just might happen to find a well-built fighter a fun character to play.

And you are not to tell them that they are 'playing D&D wrong'.

Wrong for your tastes maybe, but that is about it.

This entire section has no relevance to any point presented. I'm quoting it anyways for posterity.


Also: I wonder where that myth about 'Players are supposed to always ever have 4 encounters a day of their challenge level' comes from.

I blame poor rules knowledge. :smallannoyed:

Actually, the ONLY instance where these 4 encounters a day come up is in the DMG, where there is an explicit warning about designeing encounters:

Namely that a 'challenging encounter is supposed to drain a party of about 20% of their resources. So that, for example, a party already having been through 4 of those might find their resources reduced to 0%, i.e. facing a Total Party Kill.

Any ideas about that? Maybe I should make a thread about that. :smallconfused:

Lycar

Because the 5th is supposed to kill you? It also gets spouted a lot more than that in the DMG. Of course it defines 'challenging' as 'just uses some resources' so what happens is the encounters are only actually dangerous via attrition, not because the enemies are actually threatening.

Why is this even coming up?

Keld Denar
2009-02-22, 05:15 PM
I dunno, IMO, Heal and Mass Heal are usually worth it. Depending on who has the action advantage these spells tend to produce good results for the investment.

I have played a fighter (type) from level 1 to 15 in Living Greyhawk (read as 3x EL=APL+3 encounters per day), and I knew my role, and played it well. I actually started as a spiked chain tripper, but quickly saw that that wasn't a viable strategy in 9/10 encounters due to how much faster enemies scaled than I did. I learned a lot of things over time playing that character, and I optimized the crap out of him, as far as melee goes. I negated my weaknesses, which were mostly my will save and mobility, ignored the weaknesses I couldn't feasably fix, my AC, and maxed out my 2hand PA damage within the limits of the campaign (no Leap Attack or Frenzied Berzerker or Pounce or Valorous Weapons, Disjunction, etc).

One thing I learned is that above about level 6, if you want to be sucessful, you need to rely heavily on your casters. I played with a pretty regular group of guys between 8 and 15, and the group was almost always a Shadowcraft Mage, another beater, a well made caster cleric, and a Bard/SC. Me and the other melee guy would get buffed to hell with daily buffs like GMW, MV, and Hero's Feast, maybe an Extended Heroics and some other misc buffs. These helped a LOT.

Being without Pounce, charging typically was a bad idea. You get 1 hit in, and then you eat a full attack or 2. I typically found it better to hang out near your casters until one of 2 things happened. A) the bad guys closed with you so that you could full attack them compared to their 1 attack vs you, or B) caster uses magic to put you into position to full attack. The Shadowcraft Mage was very fond of using Benign Transposition with his Circlet of Rapid Casting to move us in or out of battle depending on whether or not we needed to attack more or get away, while preserving his standard action for save or dies/disables/etc spells like Radiant Assault (AoE Will save 1d6 round stun +damage) or Entomb (mass fort save or die, material components negated by ScM), Solipsism (will save or die) or even a free Force Cage.

Now, my character brought his own immunity to [Mind Affecting] spells to the table, had Evasion and decent saves (+5 vest), Flight (Phoenix Cloak) and Death Ward, had a 32 str while raging, packed a 20% miss chance, but had Karmic Strike (Robilar's was banned) and Elusive Target along with a +1 Transmuting Wounding Adamantine Spiked Chain. Reach was handier for negating opponents reach advantage than claiming any reach advantage yourself. Fully combat buffed, I would typically PA for about 10 at level 15 and still hit most of the time for about 60-70 damage a swing, + a point of CON which, with just Flurry and Haste (from Boots) resulted in about 200 damage per round when I did engage stuff. Also had about 200 hp while raging. Not bad for a level 15.

It took a lot of work to build this character, and I invested a lot of time playing him (something like 400 hours over 8 years including the conversion from 3 to 3.5). Were there times when I felt upstaged by the casters? Yea. Especially the ScM who's typical answer to a threat was to Force Cage it and string multicolored Walls of Fire through the cage (and if it moves, Force Cage it again, becuase hey, its a free 6th level spell for him) or the Cleric (who could completely negate and undead or outsider encounter without breaking a sweat). But there were a lot of times when I was able to lay some righteous beatdown on the baddies in a way that earned my daily bread. Getting into levels much above 15 though (LG only goes to 15) would have been rough though, since I noticed that even with all my work, I was still falling behind the power curve in the 14-15 range.

Mind you, this was in Living Greyhawk, where the encounters are pre-planned, not tailored to the group, and while difficulty varied from author to author, at high levels things were typically pretty lethal. Many mods contained 2-3 encounters in a day that had ELs in the +3 to +4 range higher than the party and were often optimized (template stacking or adding non-associated class levels).

Anyway, just a little anecdotal experience from a "fighter" at high level play.

Advocate
2009-02-22, 05:40 PM
Heal and Mass Heal are the only healing spells actually worth casting in combat in non emergency situations. However, spending a round of your actions to negate a round of one enemy's actions (Heal) is at best, just stalling. Whereas if you spend that round to make two or more enemies lose a round, or one enemy lose two or more rounds you're already ahead. Mass Heal works out better, but rarely works out optimally since... what are the chances that many/all of the party will all drop to low HP, but not die? Exactly.

For 6th and 9th level spells, you can easily accomplish either goal, so casting that spell is still detracting. Not to mention that if you need them, it's a good sign you don't have the action advantage.

The rest of that post (Fighters working when heavily optimized, given lots of extra resources, but still being weak) is entirely consistent with my own findings and research.

For clarity, my own beatstick has 210 HP, AC 46 (touch 28, flat footed 42), saves of 29/18/28 (34/23/33 vs spells and SLAs), and does around 7d6+19 + 2 negative levels + various minor effects on every single hit. Higher, with PA. The reason why there's so many dice there? Vicious, Bane (via infusion obviously), elemental crystal (far cheaper than adding elemental enchantments normally, and better too).

He hasn't died yet, but has came very close on multiple occasions. He's also one of, if the the weakest in the party. Mostly, there for the negative levels, to set up Save or Dies. Note that the ability to apply those negative levels is a function of being a Warforged, and not due to class or anything.

Lycar
2009-02-22, 05:51 PM
No, what the players 'make of it' simply changes the fluff. Bunch of mercs to become gods, stick up rear divine sorts, crazy arcanists... they're all killing things and taking their stuff. It is only what those things are, why they are killing them, and what stuff they are taking that changes. It still boils down to exactly the same end goal, and to claim otherwise is intellectually dishonest.

That is a mistaken perception of the game. The aim of the game is to have fun, first and foremost. In a roleplaying game, this is supposedly achieved by trying to immerse yourself into another persona.

Whether this is the persona of a sociopathic mercenary of a holy knight in shining armour depends on the preferences of the player.

The mercenaries quest for power and remove any obstacles on their way. The knight might just want to maintain peace in his realm.

The objective in either sceanrio can be reached in a multitude of ways, but they will almost invariable involve combat.

The mercs kill things to take their stuff, but the knight kills things that threaten the peace. Getting better gear along the way is just something that happens as a matter of course.

Maybe the knight quests for a holy sword to increase his chances to defeat the invading army of evil outsiders. But he will not take the Unholy Avenger form a slain blackguard, except to destroy it.

Whereas the mercenary may not have such qualms. In the end, the only thing that matters is that the playes enjoy their game. YOu enjoy being the badass merc, others enjoy being a hero. Deal.



In other words, the PCs are choosing to cripple themselves, but you are rendering their actions irrelevant. Now if they didn't know they were crippling themselves I could see it. But that's why you calmly explain it to them, and let them make their own decision as to whether or not they want to suck.

They are NOT crippling themselves! Playing something other then the absolute pinnacle of what is technically possible to wrest from the mechanics is NOT 'crippling oneself'.

To make a character that is way beyond the power level of the rest of the party, now that is crippling.

But if the players enjoy a more relaxed playstyle, they are NOT crippling themselves, they just agree to play on a lower overall powerlevel.


Also, if they are primarily fighting humanoids, it's an easy mode campaign anyways as humanoids are the weakest opponents in general, and the most rewarding opponents to kill. Did you know every NPC has a dragon horde worth of wealth, already converted into combat items? And of course, it's far easier to gank Sergent Bob than that dragon over there. So that entire example is a great illustration of a coddling DM.

It so sad that I even have to explain to you why this is plain out wrong.

I do not know if you are familiar with the Legend of the 5 Rings setting. Which, incidentially, I used as an example where humanoid enemies appear more often then in a 'vanilla' D&D campaign.

But being of the noble samurai caste holds some strict codes of conduct for the characters. For example: No looting. You don't take stuff from corpses, because that is dishonourable. Undertakers are of the untouchable caste.

So, even if the enemy in question is wielding several Kgp worth of gear, it is in most cases not available as loot. And if they fight demonic enemies(oni), the gear may even be tainted and even touching it is a bad idea.

So in this setting, WBL will have to come from other sources then looting slain foes. Therefore, the relative ease of defeating humanoid opponents (and that, by the way, would only count for non-demonic foes anyway) is totally irrelevant.

SO: This is NOT coddling, it is playing Lot5R. Different campaing setting, different rules, your prejudices simply do not apply.



False. It does not require a max optimize or die game for a slacker to drag down the entire party. In a max optimize or die game, the definition of slacker will be more inclusive, however even in the normal games which I assumed when writing that the definition still covers a lot of turf, including the Fighter class as a non dip.

That entirely depends on the game the players are playing. Blaster wizards/sorcerors, healbot (or even just non-DMM) clerics and shapeshift variant druids can still have lots of fun with a fighter in the party.

Just because you obviously can not understand how this is humanly possible doesn't mean others can't either.

Again: YOU do NOT tell OTHERS how to play/enjoy the game!


Again, false. D&D requires you to take the things of those you kill to stay level appropriate because if you are not level appropriate you cannot deal with level appropriate enemies and therefore must retire or die.

That is at least half right. :smallsigh:

Yes, the rules kinda expect characters to have a certain amount of wealth per level invested into gear.

No, it DOES NOT MATTER if they meet that goal by taking stuff from dead foes or by having gear bestowed upon them by their superiors or if they find the Holy Avenger in the Crypt of the Dead Paladin as a quest reward.

Not. One. Bit.


Because going around robbing people is not a Good thing to do, and the fact these particular people have green skin does not change that, D&D actively discourages good aligned characters by ensuring you cannot remain level appropriate by behaving in a good manner. You completely missed the point by the way. You were supposed to pick up on how truly screwed up morality is in D&D, just call it red team/blue team, and call it a day as the Good and Evil within the system do a rather poor job of reflecting the actual concepts thereof.

Robbing people is evil, so good characters don't do it. Elementary my dear Watson.

Again, if they don't steal, cheat and lie, they will meet WBL by other means. it is the job of the GM to make that WBL available to the party, and also in a matter appropriate to the party.

A party of heroes may be given stuff as a reward for doing good things for example. The king graces them with a free pick from his treasure chamber maybe?

Again (how often do I have to mention this?): It does not matter HOW they get their stuff, as long as they DO get it.



So you could do the same to the Fighter, by helping him when you go into the tavern between adventures. In fact that's the most helpful thing you can do for him, as dragging him off to fight dragons is irresponsible in much the same was as dragging Commoners off to do it is. Perhaps slightly less so in scope, but entirely identical in concept.

Since your original point was 'the good aligned caster should help the Fighter even though he's dead weight' it has just been fully addressed and more than sufficiently countered.

In YOUR party, there won't be any 'dead weight' to begin with.

In another party, the fighter may not even be dead weight.

You are not the center of the universe, your play style is not the one and only true and right way. Get over it already. :smallyuk:


This entire section has no relevance to any point presented. I'm quoting it anyways for posterity.

Since it is you who insists that the only allowed way to play a D&D character is as a selfish jerk, pointing out how that may rub people with a different world view the wrong way is indeed very relevant.

Unless you do not allow any playstyle beside your own. Then it does indeed not matter what others then you think about it. :smallconfused:



Because the 5th is supposed to kill you? It also gets spouted a lot more than that in the DMG. Of course it defines 'challenging' as 'just uses some resources' so what happens is the encounters are only actually dangerous via attrition, not because the enemies are actually threatening.

Why is this even coming up?

Just a little tangent. You know, thats why I added those '####' to denote this being a subject divorced from the main body of the post.

The point is just that play dynamic changes a lot if GMs do not slavishly adher to that '4 challenging encounters per day and nothing else' mythconception.

A single difficult encounter might end up sending the PCs packing for the day.

A string of easy encounters may not even left them winded.

Under the wrong circumstances (read: almost anytime on lower levels), players may not have the luxury to 'end turn' so to speak. Wandering monsters are always a threat (again: low levels before extraplanar hidey-holes become available).

Lycar

Keld Denar
2009-02-22, 05:54 PM
My fighter was not given "lots of extra resources", but rather operating in a rather gear limited setting where, outside of a few basic items like stat and save boosters, you can't just buy anything you want, and gold is pretty standard with WBL (depending on how much you play up, risk vs reward with Living Greyhawk).

But yea, I can appreciate what you said about Heal and Mass Heal. In my experience, 1 Heal in a tough encounter shouldn't be out of line. If you have to cast it more than once, you are probably doing something wrong. Better would be to throw a Delay Death and pick your fighter up after the battle. Then you are trading an Immediate action for an opponents full round action, which is typically a better trade, assuming you actually win in the end.

Aquillion
2009-02-22, 06:20 PM
However, all this talk about four encounters misses the real issue...

Many people bring that up, thinking that they're making an argument for how much better fighters are than casters, since fighters can just keep on chugging for endless encounters a day even after the spellcasters run out and they no longer have any spellcaster support or healing, right?

Yeah. No. The fact that healing has already come up in this discussion shows why not. The HP inside a high-level fighter are worth, at most, a handful of spell slots. They represent the party's resources just as much as the wizard or cleric's spells, and the fighter is going to burn them very, very fast against any CR-appropriate encounter, at least as fast as a wizard would burn spells dealing with the same thing.

You can probably see where this is going already, but... Take a look at a typical fighter's HP, and guess how many HP he adds to the party. Now compare that to how many HP all a cleric's healing can provide, and remember that this is generally considered a non-optimal use of resources.

Fighters are not self-sufficient endless engines. Just the opposite. In an environment with lots and lots of encounters, fighters are the weakest link, the party member who provides the least resources. He doesn't help the party spend resources effectively, he doesn't spend his own resources effectively, and he doesn't provide nearly as many resources as any of the casters. When the party's resources run out, he dies just like everyone else, but he contributed noticeably less than everyone else along the way -- if he'd been another class, the party likely wouldn't have run out of resources yet and, therefore, wouldn't be dead.

I mean, sure, if you want to play a fighter because you like fighter feats, go ahead. But if you want to talk optimization, no. The fact that fighters don't cast any spells and don't have any spells doesn't mean they don't need any spells.

Deepblue706
2009-02-22, 06:25 PM
@Advocate:

Before I fully begin to address everything I previously failed to, I am going to note that, due to a mild health-related incident earlier today, my ability to concentrate is somewhat diminished. But, since I have free time and I think I should respond (also, I'm fairly bored), I'm going to attempt it anyhow.

First, I'll address your most recent reply, and then work back to the previous post.


+15 with a first level spell? Enlarge is +5. What are you talking about?

My mistake; I meant to phrase that as a total +15 modifier, after including the effects of a spell (as you suspected, the spell being Enlarge).

(Improved Feat +4, STR +4 (assuming 18), Charging +2, Enlarge +5)



I'm well aware of the concept of pre combat buffs. After all, I play and DM high level games, where you're expected to have 10+ spells on at any given time you're fighting, just to stay on the RNG. However, prepping Enlarge conflicts with prepping Nerveskitter, which boosts initiative, allowing for more first strikes. Using a wand means low CL. And a 1 minute buff? Not so great. Something like Conviction or Barkskin would be a much better example of lots of mileage off a low level spell as those don't encounter those sort of conflicts.

I meant to address this previously; I'm afraid I don't know what Nerveskitter is. Nor do I know Conviction.

Barkskin is a decent Druid spell, but that's higher level than Enlarge (which is just level 1). I made it a point to mention a lower-level buff getting potential usage because I know well that a caster will often find superior use of the higher-level spells he prepares in order to control a battlefield, rather than somewhat increase the efficacy of an ally; as most control-based spells lose their strength after greater versions become available.



As for this supposed 'browbeating'... I simply tell it how it is. You can decide how you want to react to this information, but it does not change that the information is there, has already been verified by me prior to my presenting it, has been independently verified by others, is presented in such a way so that the reader can independently verify it for themselves... In other words, I don't deal in opinions. I tell people how things work. They can try to change those things so that they work differently if they know how, they can accept the things as they are... but to ignore them is to ignore the facts, because I only deal in facts.


So, is pointing out that I use "stellar logic" in a sarcastic fashion merely "how it is"? I think if you were really only concerned about enlightening other people about what you perceive to be true, you'd use less language geared at mockery.

I find your information to still be lacking; much like that of which is presented by previous people to have made these assertions to me. They speak in an authoritative manner, provide little evidence, and dismiss most things contrary. I've never been provided with a straight answer, so please excuse me if I appear bull-headed.




The PHB also tells you Toughness is worthwhile.


To be honest, I don't take everything the PHB says to be true. But, one sentence suggesting a poor decision is worthwhile does not lead me to believe a large system of rules regarding challenge-ratings and experience must be inherently flawed beyond use. So far, I've found CR to be a useful guideline for fair encounters.



But seriously. Raising to 32 actually fixes the balance issue. See, 25 PB? Wizard has 17 Int, 14 Dex, 14 Con. That's all he ever needs actually. Druid? His prime stat is Wis. He could put the 14 in something other than Dex if he wants, or lower it to boost more stats. Otherwise see above. Fighter is... screwed, since if he doesn't have Int 13 he can forget about tripping and charging doesn't work in core only. See Fighter stat comments. If you go up to 32, caster gets some fluff stats, non caster gets some essential stats. As casters are far superior to noncasters, anything that boosts the latter without significantly affecting the former closes a balance issue and does not create one.

I agree that a Wizard has very little to depend on, as does a Druid. However, what I am saying is that Improved Trip is a very useful auxiliary feat, not a necessity. You do not provoke AoOs unless you are unarmed (recall that I've only advocated use of special trip-enabling weapons), and it only provides a single attack upon success; which you appear to believe is insignificant, anyhow. Improved Trip also gets you a +4 to the opposed roll, which I think is significant, but not as much as you appear to believe.

Hypothetically, if a Fighter were to sacrifice his INT so that he could further boost STR (say, from 16 to 18) he could be giving himself a +1 to all attacks and damage, as well as +1 to all Trip, Disarm, Grapple, Bull Rush, Sunder and Overrun (although I admit Overrun is not something I'm very fond of, myself). The difference in tripping ability becomes 3. Does that bonus of +3 really make something go from "really, really not worth it" to "completely reliable"? I would imagine that if I were truly dependent upon a bonus of 3 alone, that the tactic probably wasn't too reliable to begin with, and I should consider a different approach.

Now, with the boost from a 16 to an 18 being a 6 point difference, I'm not going to claim INT is the only thing to suffer. As you noticed, I also believe detracting from WIS is fair game, which I think you addressed below. I'll wait to reply to that below the proper quote for easier reference.



The comparison was on several grounds. One of them was a direct comparison of the entire Weapon Focus line combined, alone to Weapon Mastery by itself. Someone (maybe you) tried to say that just because my players didn't take it that didn't mean anything, when in actuality the point was 'Here are the cold hard facts, and sure enough the players wouldn't take it. I can't blame them'.

I do believe Weapon Mastery is a feat that requires both Weapon Focus and Specialization, and being further on in the "tree", I think it only right that it grants significantly greater benefits than predecessors. Of course, you and I both know that the Greater Focus and Specialization feats revert back to the same modifiers of the earlier feats - which I think a poor decision - but I think the idea behind that was that Supremacy was supposed to be "that good". I have yet to form a solid opinion if it's really 'worth it', although honestly I am doubtful.



If that was the design goal, they failed miserably.


Well, under circumstances of the suggested point-buy and CR, it might not be so bad. Although, since you give a response to a hypothetical encounter below, I think I should, again, reply down there for easier reference.



At level 1, AC makes stuff miss you. At level 5, AC might make stuff miss you. Beyond that, especially at 10+ the only question is how much can they PA for and still hit you on anything other than a natural 1. Considering that those higher levels are when you could possibly start investing in AC in any serious way, and the getting hit anyways assumes you do, all you're really doing is spending a lot of cash on something that does not actually help you. I've been over monsters extensively. At any level past 5, enemies are going to fall into one of three categories: Is a good beatstick (and thus, doesn't care about your AC, because its attack bonus makes it auto hit or close), is not a beatstick, and is therefore attacking something other than your AC, usually with more significant results, or is just irrelevant in all aspects and can easily be ignored, plowed through, whatever you want. So, do you really want to spend a large part of your cash on something that only helps when dealing with things too weak to actually care about? Because you can seriously spend half or more of your TOTAL cash on AC, and not get any real gain. And since that comes at the expense of your real defenses such as saves, miss chances, immunities... all you're really doing is turning yourself into a turtle. Except your shell is defective, so in addition to having a poor offense you have a poor defense as well since normal attacks still hit, spells ignore AC entirely, touch attacks ignore normal AC entirely...


I'm not talking about extensive investiture to AC. But, I suppose I should cite monsters.

First CR 5 monster I came across: Ettin Skeleton: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/skeleton.htm

So, we see he has a +10 to attack, and can make two identical attacks if he gets an opportunity to do Full.

I suppose we could say our Fighter can have wealth around 8,000-10,000gp. Meaning, Full-Plate probably isn't an issue. If his Druid buddy cast Barkskin, or Cleric used Protection from Evil, or he drank a potion of Shield of Faith +2, or anything else along those lines, the Fighter's AC will likely give the Ettin a 50/50 shot of hitting him, each time. That's a 25% chance of both hits striking in a single round. Yes, he definitely wants to have his HP high; but I think the AC is potentially reducing enough damage to have meaningful effect.

Let's look at level 10 vs. CR 10:

First monster I found: Fire Giant: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/giant.htm#fireGiant

A +20 attack is pretty mean. On a full attack, he has +20/+15/+10.

Our Fighter, having newly gotten to level 10, will have about 48,000-50,000gp of equipment at his disposal. Full Plate +1 is under 3k. Natural Armor, Deflective Enhancement and (other) boosts can all increase his AC by one point each, all totalling around 6,500. Right now, our AC is 23, if wearing Full Plate and have a +1 DEX mod. Which is, admittedly, not great.

A Cleric can cast Shield of Faith +3 on the Fighter, negating the need for his own deflective item, and instead giving us AC of 25. Magic Vestment can render the need for the Armor itself to be enchanted, and can do a superior job, bringing AC to 26. These need not be spells prepared by the caster, but also exist in oil/potion form. Additionally, scrolls do the job as well.

AC 26 is obviously going to be easy for a +20 attack to penetrate, but the other attacks? The chances of the giant hitting are 75%/50%/25%. The Fighter is certainly going to get hit. But, I think AC here helps the Fighter's survivability significantly enough that it shouldn't be entirely dismissed.

To be thorough, I'll check one more instance, at level 15 vs CR 15.

I've clicked around randomly, not coming across a monster of exact CR (Well, there was a Mummy Lord, but their attacks are pitiful and hardly make for a good example) but this one is close enough (CR 16): Nightwalker: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/nightshade.htm#nightwalker

His slam is at +24, and he gets another at the same bonus on a Full Attack.

A Fighter at level 15 will have ~200,000gp. So, if he can afford Full Plate +5 (not very expensive at 25k for the magical boost), has a DEX mod of +1, his AC is at 24. If he relies on potions of Barkskin (+5), he goes up to 29. Shield of Faith (+5) can bring him up to 34.

So, there's a 55% chance of each attack the Nightwalker gets of striking the Fighter. Again, I think that's considerable enough to say it factors into a Fighter's survivability.



I've played all sorts of characters by the way. Basic Greatsword beatstick, spiked chain tripper, Dungeoncrasher... ToB adept, gish, archer... all the viable beatsticks, in other words. Along with many different casters. So when I say x doesn't work because *insert detailed, logical reason* I know what I'm talking about and have most likely directly observed it in action in addition to connecting the dots.

"insert detailed, logical reason"? This far, your arguments appear to have mostly been "trust me, I know".



By the way, the highest AC you can get without gimping yourself at all is 46. If you're willing to gimp yourself slightly, 49. It costs over 380,000 gold to do this, so it's not available until level 20 or close to it. And at that point the enemy line up is 'PAs for 10 and still auto hits', 'PAs for 10 and still auto hits or bypasses AC entirely via breath weapons, spells, whatever' * 6, and 'bypasses AC entirely via casting spells' * 2. That's Big T, six different True Dragons, and the Balor/Pit Fiend, respectively. Those are the only 9 core, CR 20 opponents. It gets worse if you look at non core monsters.

So even with max possible WBL sunk into it, it's still not really doing anything except eating up your cash. Over half your total cash in fact.


With limited resources, I can't really comment on much non-core material. And if you read my examples above, you'll see my goal is not to completely rely upon AC, yet to boost it just enough so that it deflects some attacks.



By the way, the breakdown for that is Mithril Breastplate +5/Animated Heavy Steel Shield +5/Amulet of Natural Armor +5/Ring of Deflection +5/Defending Armor or Shield Spikes +5/Dusty Rose Ioun Stone/Dexterity 16. That gets you AC 46, or 49 if you are willing to self gimp a bit via the slower movement imposed by mithril full plate. In core only, you actually have to gimp yourself very hard to do this as a natural armor amulet precludes the use of a Con boosting amulet (meaning you literally have the same HP as a Wizard, but worse defenses and are on the front lines) as well as the use of a Wis amulet (for sneaking in late game Will save boosts). Among other things. Outside that, you can use the MIC rules to make this not an exercise in masochism.


I think you're relying too much on static effects.



Anything more than that? Self gimping. Burning feats on it is self gimping due to the low returns you get and the fact it doesn't work anyways. Actually holding a shield is self gimping for reasons that should be painfully obvious. Doing things that trade offense for defense such as say... CE? Heavy self gimping. Turtling too.


Of course more than that will be gimping. I hadn't realized you were talking about only buying permanent bonuses.

Holding a shield will definitely reduce your ability to deal damage. However, if you work with your team to take down an enemy, it might not really make much of a difference.

Let's say some poor-soul Dwarf Fighter decided to take the Weapon Focus tree with the Dwarven Waraxe (why not, free proficiency). Which means he has Focus, Specialization, and Mastery. He's now at level 10. With a starting STR of 18, a +2 item, and level-up bonuses, he gets a +6 modifier to attacks. If he decided to buy a +1 Vicious weapon, his one-handed attacks will be doing an average of 23.5 damage. The average Fire Giant will have 142 HP. It'll take, on average, 7 successful attacks to take down the giant, or four turns (with a +20/+15 attack, this is probably fairly reliable against AC 23). It takes him 6 rounds (or three full attacks) to deal 141 damage, on average; so even the slightest of boosts will make this go significantly quicker. A Cleric ally with Divine Favor and Divine Power running can give at least another 15 damage a turn (if he's not really trying), and a rogue's sneak attack will grant over another 20, if he's use a bow of some kind. The party shouldn't have any trouble killing this guy in two rounds, and there will likely not be many injuries if they make good use of positioning. Sure, the Fighter could be built better; but he's competent enough for CR-appropriate encounters, which is all that you really need.



At which point we have a giant walking liability any, and every time we encounter a caster, beginning with the lowly Sleep taking him out of the combat and setting him up for a Scythe CdG to the later Hold doing the same thing, and the still later Dominate turning him against the party. I would sooner take no character than that character as a result.


Sleep takes a full round to cast, so your allied spellcasters will likely be able to identify and possibly be able to disrupt it. Alternatively, they can say "Hey Fighter. Hit that guy." Sleep is also gone after level 4.

Hold Person is a round/level spell, allowing for a save every turn. And, it's just a single target; if your enemy casters are going to make the most of their actions, it'll involve doing more than attempting to negate a single enemy, when (generally) three other threats are only a few feet to the side.

Dominate is a spell that is completely negated by Protection from Alignment, which is first level. This also has a poor range (likely within a Fighter's charging range), and like Sleep, takes a full round to cast. Allied spellcasters can identify the problem and have a chance to either disrupt the spell, protect the suspected target, or kill the caster outright.



Except that you are doing nothing except knock them down. They can get up and still do other stuff. Let's try this again. Without Improved Trip, your chance to succeed is low, thus your chance to fail is high, and several drawbacks happen just for trying. The best you can hope for is you burn your attack action knocking them down. But given the low success rate, and the chance to drop your weapon thereby setting YOU back in Action Economy instead of them or be tripped instead... You're better off taking your chances just hitting them.

Also, he's going to have to rely on a single weapon his entire career, because that's all he can really afford. So the tactic of multiple, interchangeable weapons only works at the very low levels... when you can just hit them in the face once, or perhaps twice and KILL THEM OUTRIGHT.

With all you were saying about action economy, I find your response here peculiar. In knocking an enemy prone, you're forcing them to take a move action to get back up.

Chances of success were addressed above; as a Fighter who can choose between getting enough INT to get a feat which lets him get another feat that gives him an overall benefit of +3 over that of which he would get in instead improving his STR and a variety of other options.

There aren't drawbacks for trying, because there is no AoO for using a trip-weapon. The only drawback is a failure grants the enemy a chance to trip you; and if a +3 was really going to make this that risky an endeavor, I must say again it probably was not worth the effort to begin with. Dropping your weapon isn't that bad, as a Fighter most certainly should have more than one, considering how variable damage types and elements will play a factor in what is effective and what is not. Also, more magical enhancements on a single weapon increases costs dramatically; in my opinion, you should be more dependent upon the type of the damage your weapon grants, rather than an extra d6 here or there.



It is a liability when the spells, and more important combat actions would not have to be used if the Big Stupid Fighter did not leave himself wide open to a common and very dangerous form of attack in favor of pretending to be good against a much weaker form of attack.

Just how many enemies are going to make Will-based attacks? Vampires have Dominate; Okay, Protection from Evil (level 1) kinda screws that up. Mummy Lords have Despair. Okay, Remove Fear (level 1) grants a +4 morale bonus, and you're likely to have your own resistance bonuses to make that unimportant, as well.

You should generally know what you're fighting beforehand, since a Wizard has familiars and divinations, and stealth-based characters can scout. Also, if your quest revolves around "killing those vampire guys", you can probably have someone with a Knowledge skill determine what their favorite attacks are (ie, Dominate Person). You can anticipate, and not waste combat actions, instead preparing for this stuff beforehand.



By the time that minute a level actually makes for a decent duration? Why doesn't he have a +2 resistance bonus against all things, including non evil ones? See liability.

+2 resistance to all things, with everything else it grants? That'd be too powerful for a level one spell.

Also, if you're properly scouting, you can cast a spell at a proper point where a minute is all you need.



Locked Gauntlets. 8 gold per hand. I assumed you needed two, the worst case. You might not. Also the whole monsters getting bigger and better attack rolls + opposed roll thing. Or just not having anything TO disarm. Ogre has +9 to resist. What's your bonus again? I bet it's around +7, and that's if you actually took Improved Bull Rush. If you didn't, Ogre says yay, free hits and smacks you. Remember that that's just to move it back 5 feet.


Locked Gauntlets take a full-round action to operate (also provokes AoO). Your enemies will have to be ready for you, or else they're going to be in poor shape.

There's also no reason I can Sunder a locked gauntlet (and lose that 8 gp).



If there are hazards in the room, remember it's their turf. So those hazards? Most likely of the sort that's dangerous to you, but not to them. Go ahead, push the Salamander into the lava. Even if this is not true... hazards have some Sunder like qualities, in that they break the treasure you're supposed to be looting. Need I say more?

They needn't always be in a room, and it's not always their turf. And some hazards are dangerous to just about anyone (like, falling off of a cliff). Of course their are exceptions. It's not a standard practice. But, it's always something to consider.

And so what, if you sometimes lose gear? You really can't be bound to lose that much, as not every monster carries every last possession on their body at all times. If it is, in fact, their "turf", they probably put their things down somewhere near the place they sleep. Or maybe hide them elsewhere. There's no reason they'd burden themselves with the weight of all of their treasure at all times.



But really. Ogre has an 85 foot charge + reach radius. The chance that it will do absolutely nothing except waste your turn is near 100%. But it only has... what was it? 29 HP? I bet the chance of just killing it is faster.


Except, Ogres live in temperate hills; which means, sometimes you can push the ogre into difficult terrain while your Wizard tries to cast sleep on it (it only has a +1 will save).

Or, if he happens to be guarding a bridge, and the Wizard didn't prepare sleep (because at level 3, 4HD of monsters isn't that great) but instead has Enlarge Person because it's a good buff, the Fighter can push him off the ledge.



2:1 = not a big deal. Shield = not a big deal. Holding shield = Doing It Wrong. That about covers it.


Kay.



Irrelevant. The original post was some turtle holding a tower shield. So not only is the attack penalty higher, but the attacks themselves are weaker. And there are exactly two weapons, total that give reach while being one handed and thus usable while holding a shield. One is very obscure. The other is slightly less so, but often banned. You don't get reach while actually holding a shield, thus 5' step negates the turtle.

For the smarter ones that are using a reach weapon... do they threaten adjacent? If not you 5' step towards them, where they cannot hit you and do the same thing. If they do... not like casting defensively is hard. The archer will Tumble DC 15.


Due to the limited number of one-handed reach-weapons, I'll concede this. However, carrying around a shield doesn't necessitate you use it at all times. If your Wizard is flying, your Rogue is sneaking, and your Cleric is out of enemy's reach, you might want to consider the use of a shield, and keep the enemy busy while your allies move in.



If you're going to use a spell to get some mobile difficult terrain, summon some creatures. Anything Large or better will do the job far better than Enlarge, or the turtle Fighter.


Well, considering how Enlarge *ahem* makes your Fighter large, he's actually taking up just as much space as a large creature... It's only when you can summon things beyond Large that Enlarge isn't going to do the job as well (at the cost of a lower-level spell-slot).



Fine. Except that you're wrong. See above for exactly why you get torn apart by a rapid series of attacks anyways.


Kay.



Falls under category 3: Neither valuable nor useful, waste of time to break it. Already covered.


Let's look at that Fire Giant. He uses a Large Greatsword (mundane). If I've an adamantine weapon, I can shatter his sword and leave him with unarmed attacks (meaning his damage is almost halved). I think that's somewhat significant.



If they arrived at this conclusion because they thought about it on its own merits and realized it was correct then good. I have enlightened people, and dispelled ignorance. But in any case, I am not responsible for the actions of others. The moving bit has already been covered, as has my own level of competence.

Evidence is better at dispelling ignorance than pompous remarks and asserting yourself with confidence.



And if you don't get cash for selling items that's even MORE reason to never break any, as it means you might just be stuck with some 'random drop' instead of being able to turn it into gold fodder to get what you actually want. Also, if you're playing a beatstick in a campaign where you can't buy the magic items you want you have worse problems.


How does my remark about mass-produced magical swords become a comment on how you don't get cash for selling items? Maybe your characters don't just loot everything, but make contracts or serve a patron who hires them for jobs. So your PCs can play as not blood-thirsty raiders, but perhaps something not very different to a feudal vassal?



Grappling doesn't work because enemies are better at it, you leave yourself open by trying, and you don't get to do much while doing it. Grapple only works out to be a good idea when you have Improved Grab (attack, try to grapple for free) and not even that well then. Unless you're a monster.Also been over the rest.


Enemies are only better at it if you go into battle unprepared, and without aid from your allies. And a successful grapple and allow you to Pin an enemy (keep them from getting at your casters). Also, you can make a disarm attempt to snatch even well-secured items from someone you're grappling; which can include magical items your enemy is currently using. You can also keep enemies from casting spells, and they no longer threaten squares (meaning allies can run by without AoOs). Also, moving-while-grappling is an effective way of dragging people into harmful situations. You can drag a vampire into light. Or, you can drag an enemy cleric into a tornado (well, a Whirlwind "Cyclone"). You can get fairly creative with it.



Action Economy. A round casting Enlarge is a round not casting say... Solid Fog. Just to name a mid level example. Also, 1 round action = easily disruptable. Maybe if you can do it right before kicking in the door, if you don't mind losing your surprise round over it. I'd rather take one Mage Armor and a bunch of Nerveskitters, covering the Enlarge with a wand personally.


Of course Solid Fog would more likely be a better option, if you're already in combat, and really need to choose between one or the other.

You say 1 round = easily disruptable, but I guess you forgot about Dominate Person and Sleep being in the same boat. And Summoning.

Enlarge Person is 1min/level, so you don't quite have to lose any rounds casting it. You can still have a surprise round, run in, and do your business.



Team players that go out of his way to help him, without getting anything back. A team is a group that mutually support each other. He's not a team player, he's the incompetent glory hog. Needs lots of help just to play at par.


Really? A Cleric can be a really good fighter, as I'm sure you know; but a Fighter with Cleric buffs will be even better. The point is conserving resources. You can spend a few minor spells to improve a Fighter before a fight, and then not have to spend your really "big" spells during it, to compensate.



Nope. Doesn't matter. Enemy will saves improve at a rate greater than 1 point per 2 levels. Your Charisma is for the most part static. Maybe you'll eventually get an item to help it a little. Therefore, your DC increases at the rate of 1 point per 2 levels. It tops out around low 20s... where everyone has at least a +20. Oops.

From observing the SRD's monster section, it does appear that the use of Goad will quickly diminish when dealing with monsters CR 8+, without a natural CHA and some manner of boosting it.



Routine encounters can just be blown through by auto attacking. They may be called 'challenging' but it defines this term as 'uses 20% of resources, if you play stupidly' which means you can seriously screw up, and not be at any risk at all. Or you can play smart and win on round 1. So that doesn't prove anything at all, actually. Except that he doesn't give back.

This is a CR appropriate challenge. The Fighter's participation was highly important. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to raise CR of encounters far beyond the party level (assuming 4 members), so now your argument seems to lend itself to a unique style of play, rather than what the game seems to have been best designed for.

Advocate
2009-02-22, 06:26 PM
Most of that very long post is an ongoing strawman Lycar, so I will be ignoring it. Especially since it is very heavy on the baiting and nerd rage. Seriously, are you actually getting that angry over this? Stop taking basic statements of fact as personal insults, because they are neither personal nor insulting.

The merc kills things and takes their stuff. The knight kills things and takes their stuff. Only the fluff varies.

That entire campaign setting is extremely poorly designed. Or rather, the D20 port is. The original might be ok, but they snapped it right in half when they tried to D20 it. One more reason why Lot5R is a bad system overall.

If you have fewer than four encounters a day, it's trivially easy to just blow it away with a nova. Even if it's something like CR +6.

Now I'm going to move to a different post.


My fighter was not given "lots of extra resources", but rather operating in a rather gear limited setting where, outside of a few basic items like stat and save boosters, you can't just buy anything you want, and gold is pretty standard with WBL (depending on how much you play up, risk vs reward with Living Greyhawk).

By extra resources I meant the buffs and the like. Also, if we go by risk vs reward, go smash up some humanoids.


But yea, I can appreciate what you said about Heal and Mass Heal. In my experience, 1 Heal in a tough encounter shouldn't be out of line. If you have to cast it more than once, you are probably doing something wrong. Better would be to throw a Delay Death and pick your fighter up after the battle. Then you are trading an Immediate action for an opponents full round action, which is typically a better trade, assuming you actually win in the end.

Thing about damage is it is fairly binary. It's either not coming in (you negated the enemies on round 1, before they can act), coming in slowly (see above, but the negation wasn't 100% effective) or is coming in VERY FAST (negation didn't work). So while casting Heal exactly once wouldn't be bad, the chance you will need it one time, as opposed to zero times or many times is very low. If the damage is coming in slowly, you can just finish up and use some lower level resource to undo the damage after all when time isn't as big of an issue. No need to burn a Heal then. It is a very good thing that two party members can spontaneously cast it and a third has a staff of it.

Advocate
2009-02-22, 06:40 PM
*very good points*

Indeed. Even at level 1, you're comparing... what is it? 1d8+1 twice, and 1 point 3 times, to 12 points total. 2d8+5 = 7-21, average 14 points of healing. The non raging Barbarian has 14 exactly. Rage HP don't count, because rage wearing off at low HP tends to result in death by Prozac. This is just a generic Cleric, not optimized for healing at all, and not even taking the bad options that improve healing like the Healing domain, that would make that 1d8+2 * 3 + 1 * 3 = 3d8+9 = 12-33, average 22.5. One optimized for healing would have Augment Healing, at the least.

Provided that the forums will start working, I will follow by addressing the very long post presented.

Advocate
2009-02-22, 07:33 PM
My mistake; I meant to phrase that as a total +15 modifier, after including the effects of a spell (as you suspected, the spell being Enlarge).

(Improved Feat +4, STR +4 (assuming 18), Charging +2, Enlarge +5)

Ok.


I meant to address this previously; I'm afraid I don't know what Nerveskitter is. Nor do I know Conviction.

Nerveskitter is an Immediate action spell, you can cast when initiative is rolled (even though you cannot normally use Immediate actions at this time). It gives +5 to initiative. As it is a 1st level spell, and having a much higher chance to go first as a Wizard means winning the battle before it begins, or at least heavy neutralizing it this is incredibly good. Far better than Enlarge, which is a respectable 1st level spell, but does not compare to prepping Nerveskitter. Wanding Enlarge works if you can do it right before kicking in the door without blowing your surprise round though.

Conviction gives +2 morale to saves, +1 per 6 CLs, max +5. In other words, it uses the Shield of Faith and Barkskin formula. Except it gives an obscure bonus to saving throws, which makes it incredibly good. Especially since it lasts 10 minutes per level, just like Barkskin. And because Mass Conviction is only 3rd level and hits the whole party at once. It's 1st level Cleric, and not 1st level Wizard for normal and 3rd for Mass, but that's still very good. With a Lesser Extend rod and a few castings you can easily keep it up all day. Do you know any other spells of that low a level that do such a great job of keeping you alive? I don't.


Barkskin is a decent Druid spell, but that's higher level than Enlarge (which is just level 1). I made it a point to mention a lower-level buff getting potential usage because I know well that a caster will often find superior use of the higher-level spells he prepares in order to control a battlefield, rather than somewhat increase the efficacy of an ally; as most control-based spells lose their strength after greater versions become available.

Barkskin, as stated is 10 minutes a level. Enlarge is 1 minute a level. I mostly brought that one up because it too, makes a decent group buff.


So, is pointing out that I use "stellar logic" in a sarcastic fashion merely "how it is"? I think if you were really only concerned about enlightening other people about what you perceive to be true, you'd use less language geared at mockery.

I find your information to still be lacking; much like that of which is presented by previous people to have made these assertions to me. They speak in an authoritative manner, provide little evidence, and dismiss most things contrary. I've never been provided with a straight answer, so please excuse me if I appear bull-headed.

Huh?


To be honest, I don't take everything the PHB says to be true. But, one sentence suggesting a poor decision is worthwhile does not lead me to believe a large system of rules regarding challenge-ratings and experience must be inherently flawed beyond use. So far, I've found CR to be a useful guideline for fair encounters.

I mentioned a single example at random for the sake of brevity. I could go in depth, but there are quite enough wall of text posts in this thread as is from me. Suffice it to say that CR doesn't work because the underlying assumptions made when creating it were flawed - assuming that clerics are just heal bots, even though they have better things to cast, wizards just fling fireballs despite having much more appealing alternatives, and so forth. I've actually seen the playtest characters. They really were stuff like Elf Wizards with Toughness, focusing on Evocation while ignoring say... Conjuration, Transmutation, Illusions... The moment players start playing their characters intelligently, CR breaks. The moment the DM starts playing the enemies intelligently, CR breaks.

This is without getting into specific examples such as say... the Planetar being a lower CR than a human Cleric 17 but more dangerous than one, many Aberrations having a much higher CR than their abilities should actually allow, making them very easy for the level, and... monster advancement. Just. Monster advancement.


I agree that a Wizard has very little to depend on, as does a Druid. However, what I am saying is that Improved Trip is a very useful auxiliary feat, not a necessity. You do not provoke AoOs unless you are unarmed (recall that I've only advocated use of special trip-enabling weapons), and it only provides a single attack upon success; which you appear to believe is insignificant, anyhow. Improved Trip also gets you a +4 to the opposed roll, which I think is significant, but not as much as you appear to believe.

Hypothetically, if a Fighter were to sacrifice his INT so that he could further boost STR (say, from 16 to 18) he could be giving himself a +1 to all attacks and damage, as well as +1 to all Trip, Disarm, Grapple, Bull Rush, Sunder and Overrun (although I admit Overrun is not something I'm very fond of, myself). The difference in tripping ability becomes 3. Does that bonus of +3 really make something go from "really, really not worth it" to "completely reliable"? I would imagine that if I were truly dependent upon a bonus of 3 alone, that the tactic probably wasn't too reliable to begin with, and I should consider a different approach.

Now, with the boost from a 16 to an 18 being a 6 point difference, I'm not going to claim INT is the only thing to suffer. As you noticed, I also believe detracting from WIS is fair game, which I think you addressed below. I'll wait to reply to that below the proper quote for easier reference.

No. The reason why you need Improved Trip is because without it you lose an attack even if you succeed, and because if you fail it's you that loses actions and not the enemy. So the difference isn't just '+3' it is '+3, and not ending up losing an attack and a move action... aka the entire turn'.

Your Will save is one of two important saves. However, nearly every method of boosting saves boosts all three at once, so you'd have a hard time ignoring the third one even if you wanted to. So you should take the Reflex as an added bonus with that and Fortitude. Anyways. Because of this, if you neglect one of your two good saves via say... 8 Wis, combined with naturally low saves, you're just asking to be removed from the entire combat with one action... if not the entire game, and if not after turning against your party. Don't neglect your Will save.


I do believe Weapon Mastery is a feat that requires both Weapon Focus and Specialization, and being further on in the "tree", I think it only right that it grants significantly greater benefits than predecessors. Of course, you and I both know that the Greater Focus and Specialization feats revert back to the same modifiers of the earlier feats - which I think a poor decision - but I think the idea behind that was that Supremacy was supposed to be "that good". I have yet to form a solid opinion if it's really 'worth it', although honestly I am doubtful.

Supremacy would be a decent feat if it did not carry that massive opportunity cost. Since it does, it isn't. As for Weapon Mastery, it is in and of itself only decent at best. I only brought it up to compare apples to apples. As a beatstick, I would much rather take other feats if I am going to improve my auto attack numbers... example 1: Law Devotion for +3, +5, or +7 sacred or profane bonus to all attacks I make for 1 minute. Or my AC, I can choose attack or defense each round as a free action. The amount of the bonus depends on character level. It is only 1/day, but if I were to dip Cloistered Cleric (which I would definitely do on a beatstick build for multiple free feats off a single character level) I would get 3 + Cha turn attempts, and 3 turn attempts = 1 extra use of Law Devotion. So with a Cha of 10, I can use it 2 times a day. If I add on a single Nightstick (DMs have issues with stacking them, a single Nightstick isn't going to bother him) and a single one of those Holy Symbols that give more turn attempts from the MIC I should have 9 turns, at least... which means 4/day Law Devotion. Effectively, same as all day. This costs under 10k gold to do.

Or example 2: Knowledge Devotion. Gain one Knowledge skill as a permanent class skill. Gain insight bonuses to attack and damage based on the Knowledge roll. You can get +5/+5 this way simply by tossing some skill points in the right place. This is a passive ability.


*omitted*

I notice that you picked creatures that are at best half decent, and mostly just pathetic at melee to try to make your points.

The ettin has an attack 1 point lower than the CR 3 Dire wolf. Its average damage is 1.5 points lower. It does have 2 attacks, but at the same time two wolves equals a CR 5 and also means two attacks. The wolves get free trips, and subsequent AoOs. It's half decent though.

Fire giants are meh at melee. Nightwalkers are just horrible at it.


"insert detailed, logical reason"? This far, your arguments appear to have mostly been "trust me, I know".

Then you need to start reading my posts, as the reason why they are often so long is because I go on in great detail as to why this is so.


With limited resources, I can't really comment on much non-core material. And if you read my examples above, you'll see my goal is not to completely rely upon AC, yet to boost it just enough so that it deflects some attacks.

Except it does not do that. Even the maximized investment, if you somehow did it several levels earlier where 380k is an even bigger chunk of WBL just means 'enemy PAs for x, and still auto hits'.


I think you're relying too much on static effects.

In what context, and as opposed to what?


Of course more than that will be gimping. I hadn't realized you were talking about only buying permanent bonuses.

Holding a shield will definitely reduce your ability to deal damage. However, if you work with your team to take down an enemy, it might not really make much of a difference.

Let's say some poor-soul Dwarf Fighter decided to take the Weapon Focus tree with the Dwarven Waraxe (why not, free proficiency). Which means he has Focus, Specialization, and Mastery. He's now at level 10. With a starting STR of 18, a +2 item, and level-up bonuses, he gets a +6 modifier to attacks. If he decided to buy a +1 Vicious weapon, his one-handed attacks will be doing an average of 23.5 damage. The average Fire Giant will have 142 HP. It'll take, on average, 7 successful attacks to take down the giant, or four turns (with a +20/+15 attack, this is probably fairly reliable against AC 23). It takes him 6 rounds (or three full attacks) to deal 141 damage, on average; so even the slightest of boosts will make this go significantly quicker. A Cleric ally with Divine Favor and Divine Power running can give at least another 15 damage a turn (if he's not really trying), and a rogue's sneak attack will grant over another 20, if he's use a bow of some kind. The party shouldn't have any trouble killing this guy in two rounds, and there will likely not be many injuries if they make good use of positioning. Sure, the Fighter could be built better; but he's competent enough for CR-appropriate encounters, which is all that you really need.

Summarized as a gimp character might be able to take down a fairly weak enemy, if everyone props him up to do it. Um, what?


Sleep takes a full round to cast, so your allied spellcasters will likely be able to identify and possibly be able to disrupt it. Alternatively, they can say "Hey Fighter. Hit that guy." Sleep is also gone after level 4.

Hold Person is a round/level spell, allowing for a save every turn. And, it's just a single target; if your enemy casters are going to make the most of their actions, it'll involve doing more than attempting to negate a single enemy, when (generally) three other threats are only a few feet to the side.

Dominate is a spell that is completely negated by Protection from Alignment, which is first level. This also has a poor range (likely within a Fighter's charging range), and like Sleep, takes a full round to cast. Allied spellcasters can identify the problem and have a chance to either disrupt the spell, protect the suspected target, or kill the caster outright.

Been over this.


With all you were saying about action economy, I find your response here peculiar. In knocking an enemy prone, you're forcing them to take a move action to get back up.

At the cost of your Standard, regardless of whether it works or not. When you get other attacks... hmmm... Last I checked, a -5 is only partially countered by a +4. Meaning you still take lower accuracy on your following attacks.


Chances of success were addressed above; as a Fighter who can choose between getting enough INT to get a feat which lets him get another feat that gives him an overall benefit of +3 over that of which he would get in instead improving his STR and a variety of other options.

There aren't drawbacks for trying, because there is no AoO for using a trip-weapon. The only drawback is a failure grants the enemy a chance to trip you; and if a +3 was really going to make this that risky an endeavor, I must say again it probably was not worth the effort to begin with. Dropping your weapon isn't that bad, as a Fighter most certainly should have more than one, considering how variable damage types and elements will play a factor in what is effective and what is not. Also, more magical enhancements on a single weapon increases costs dramatically; in my opinion, you should be more dependent upon the type of the damage your weapon grants, rather than an extra d6 here or there.

Drop your weapon = you are down a move action and get AoOed yourself, and/or you have to burn a feat on crap. Later, when you simply cannot keep more than one weapon level appropriate? Forget about it.


Just how many enemies are going to make Will-based attacks? Vampires have Dominate; Okay, Protection from Evil (level 1) kinda screws that up. Mummy Lords have Despair. Okay, Remove Fear (level 1) grants a +4 morale bonus, and you're likely to have your own resistance bonuses to make that unimportant, as well.

I notice you are still only mentioning weak example. Tch.


You should generally know what you're fighting beforehand, since a Wizard has familiars and divinations, and stealth-based characters can scout. Also, if your quest revolves around "killing those vampire guys", you can probably have someone with a Knowledge skill determine what their favorite attacks are (ie, Dominate Person). You can anticipate, and not waste combat actions, instead preparing for this stuff beforehand.

1 minute a level. The longer lasting counters are much higher level.


+2 resistance to all things, with everything else it grants? That'd be too powerful for a level one spell.

Also, if you're properly scouting, you can cast a spell at a proper point where a minute is all you need.

Missed the point. By the time 1 minute per level amounts to a decent duration, you should have a +2 bonus anyways. As in, a cloak.


Locked Gauntlets take a full-round action to operate (also provokes AoO). Your enemies will have to be ready for you, or else they're going to be in poor shape.

There's also no reason I can Sunder a locked gauntlet (and lose that 8 gp).

Only one round? Not hard at all. Especially if you go blowing your ambush by casting Enlarge before kicking in the door. Breaking the gauntlet and then trying to disarm means you're down at least two actions. The enemy is still winning.


They needn't always be in a room, and it's not always their turf. And some hazards are dangerous to just about anyone (like, falling off of a cliff). Of course their are exceptions. It's not a standard practice. But, it's always something to consider.

"I know! I'm going to fight the PCs beside this cliff, despite not having any ability to fly, feather fall, or otherwise mitigate the hazard myself!"

Oh wait...

Also, it breaks your own stuff.


And so what, if you sometimes lose gear? You really can't be bound to lose that much, as not every monster carries every last possession on their body at all times. If it is, in fact, their "turf", they probably put their things down somewhere near the place they sleep. Or maybe hide them elsewhere. There's no reason they'd burden themselves with the weight of all of their treasure at all times.

They will however, be packing their combat gear. Aka, most of it. And what you break is gone... even if it's the +3 Ghost Touch Enfeebling Cursespewing Enervating Scimitar your dark elf, Drizzit has always wanted.


Except, Ogres live in temperate hills; which means, sometimes you can push the ogre into difficult terrain while your Wizard tries to cast sleep on it (it only has a +1 will save).

Or, if he happens to be guarding a bridge, and the Wizard didn't prepare sleep (because at level 3, 4HD of monsters isn't that great) but instead has Enlarge Person because it's a good buff, the Fighter can push him off the ledge.

And using up a few more feet of movement will help how? 85, remember? Exactly.


Kay.

Due to the limited number of one-handed reach-weapons, I'll concede this. However, carrying around a shield doesn't necessitate you use it at all times. If your Wizard is flying, your Rogue is sneaking, and your Cleric is out of enemy's reach, you might want to consider the use of a shield, and keep the enemy busy while your allies move in.

So you should spend mass amounts of cash on something you don't always use... or you can just Animate it, and always use it. Hmmm... Also, remind me how that actually keeps them busy? No obligation to attack you, especially since you aren't a threat.


Well, considering how Enlarge *ahem* makes your Fighter large, he's actually taking up just as much space as a large creature... It's only when you can summon things beyond Large that Enlarge isn't going to do the job as well (at the cost of a lower-level spell-slot).

If you summon a Large creature, you now have it and a Medium Fighter. 5 squares of mobile difficult terrain > 4 squares. If you are going the mobile squares of difficult terrain route, at least block enough squares so that it might actually work. Also, the monster is a disposable bag of HP. The Fighter will cry if he dies.


Let's look at that Fire Giant. He uses a Large Greatsword (mundane). If I've an adamantine weapon, I can shatter his sword and leave him with unarmed attacks (meaning his damage is almost halved). I think that's somewhat significant.

Still using weak enemies. Now, compare the amount of effort required to break the sword to that required to break his face.


Evidence is better at dispelling ignorance than pompous remarks and asserting yourself with confidence.

Still not reading I see.


How does my remark about mass-produced magical swords become a comment on how you don't get cash for selling items? Maybe your characters don't just loot everything, but make contracts or serve a patron who hires them for jobs. So your PCs can play as not blood-thirsty raiders, but perhaps something not very different to a feudal vassal?

Then they are permanently depriving themselves of loot. See earlier comments.


Enemies are only better at it if you go into battle unprepared, and without aid from your allies. And a successful grapple and allow you to Pin an enemy (keep them from getting at your casters). Also, you can make a disarm attempt to snatch even well-secured items from someone you're grappling; which can include magical items your enemy is currently using. You can also keep enemies from casting spells, and they no longer threaten squares (meaning allies can run by without AoOs). Also, moving-while-grappling is an effective way of dragging people into harmful situations. You can drag a vampire into light. Or, you can drag an enemy cleric into a tornado (well, a Whirlwind "Cyclone"). You can get fairly creative with it.

You haven't actually read the Monster Manual have you?


Of course Solid Fog would more likely be a better option, if you're already in combat, and really need to choose between one or the other.

You say 1 round = easily disruptable, but I guess you forgot about Dominate Person and Sleep being in the same boat. And Summoning.

Enlarge Person is 1min/level, so you don't quite have to lose any rounds casting it. You can still have a surprise round, run in, and do your business.

I didn't forget. I intentionally stuck to weak examples, just to show they're still boned. If I were to get mean... how about a Will save or be unable to do anything at all for 1d6 rounds? It's a Standard cast, and AoE. Summoning... anyone that is actually doing that is using one of the several means to make it a Standard action. Or maybe even a Swift action.


Really? A Cleric can be a really good fighter, as I'm sure you know; but a Fighter with Cleric buffs will be even better. The point is conserving resources. You can spend a few minor spells to improve a Fighter before a fight, and then not have to spend your really "big" spells during it, to compensate.

Except that the best buffs are self only. Divine Power? Righteous Might?


This is a CR appropriate challenge. The Fighter's participation was highly important. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to raise CR of encounters far beyond the party level (assuming 4 members), so now your argument seems to lend itself to a unique style of play, rather than what the game seems to have been best designed for.

No, my posts assume it is what it is. Equal level encounters are trivial. Just blast right through. Spend the time scratching yourself if you want, it barely matters. Things don't get serious until you start encountering things higher level than you. Which you are supposed to do somewhat often. So no, blasting through some mook is not important, because mooks are not hard to beat. Despite this, the Fighter often fails anyways.

Tehnar
2009-02-22, 07:35 PM
I think most of the reason "wizards pwn, fighters suck" come from these reasons:

- poor reading of spell descriptions

- when in doubt of a ruling, choosing the obviously overpowered one

- poor encounter design, mostly due to misinterpretation of the advise from the DMG given to DMs on how to plan their encounters

- examples that include level 20 Shcrodinger wizards, that adapt to each situation before they know its there

Advocate
2009-02-22, 07:46 PM
I think most of the reason "wizards pwn, fighters suck" come from these reasons:

- poor reading of spell descriptions

- when in doubt of a ruling, choosing the obviously overpowered one

- poor encounter design, mostly due to misinterpretation of the advise from the DMG given to DMs on how to plan their encounters

Except that I go with the conservative ruling and pay attention. Casters are still incredible. Fighters are still incredibly bad. So while those things certainly exasperate matters, they are by no means required for 'wizards pwn, fighters suck' to be true.

What is this misinterpretation though? Because using less than 4 encounters just makes casters even more awesome. Using more than 4 means the non casters start dying, as HP are extremely finite and are also a limited resource, recovered by spells.

Innis Cabal
2009-02-22, 07:54 PM
While that may be true in practice, it is almost never true in execution. I wasn't going to post here on this, because I am sick and tired of having to say the same thing over and over but....i'm more sick of seeing the same argument about why wizards are amazing and fighters suck.

Fighters are good. They are. They are what stand between you and defeat in straight combat against any smart DM who dosn't care if your character dies. Anything you can do, so can the enemy. So your just as screwed over. But if your DM dosn't follow that then...see below.

The only reason why the Wizard or other spellcaster gets away with half the "overpowered" stuff is because the DM is either to lax, forgot the word NO somewhere along the way, or because of what's been said above. \

Wizards, Clerics, and Druids are as overpowered as your DM is lazy or nice. Fighters suck only so long as you refuse to work outside of the party and go it alone.

Optimized things is not the point of D&D. If its what you want to do for fun, thats fine but its not in the spirit of D&D, it never has, and because of those who clamour for game balance, its now become that way in 4th ed.

/rant

Tehnar
2009-02-22, 08:03 PM
Most of the misinterpretation I find comes from:

- the CR system is not a strict formula. In my experience its a useful guideline, not a hard rigid rule you must follow

- addendum to that, not all monsters of a equal CR are equally difficult for a party to handle. A core only party will probably have trouble vs a creature from MM 3, then they will have with the same creature of a equal CR from the MM 1

- lately Ive seen a lot of: "4 encounters per day, 1 creature of a CR equal to the party level per encounter". I prefer a approach of 6 - 8 encounters, most usually at ECL -1,-2 with multiple monsters that can perform in a multiple varieties of roles. Though I tend to mix it up from time to time in order to keep players on their toes


Which leads me to the conclusion that making encounters is more of an art then a science. Its hard to get it "right" but when you do everyone is happy.


Oh and for multiple encounters wands of lesser vigor/clw are a good choice.

horseboy
2009-02-22, 09:20 PM
Not... really. Haste, Slow, Fly, Grease, Glitterdust, Web, Invisibility, Teleport and so on are not exploits, they're basic abilities designed into the class, and core, iconic spells.They're Iconic, but not what WotC playtested wizards doing.
Consider a Lot5R inspired campaign: If your players are nobles, and nobles are forbidden from touching corpses or looting, then their WBL has to come from somewhere else. They may be rewarded by their Lord for example.Which would work far better in a Lot5R system. All WBL is is a gear grind. That's all it can be used for. If D&D (3rd and post) were a "real" RPG, then players would be free to do with their treasures as their CHARACTERS would do with it. Things like, oh, patronizing the arts (It was good enough for Conan), establishing hospitals so nobody has to loose their whole family to the plague and sending a young character to become a cleric, establishing great repositories of knowledge that will live on forever and carry with it their legacy or even tithing! Nope. It's all got to go back to getting more/better gear so they can kill more things and take more stuff. I hate WBL so very, very much. But that's another thread.

But yeah, if you build a fighter to take a hit, all you're doing is signing your own death certificate. That's why the, what, three "viable" fighter builds (tripper/shock trooper/lancer) all involve not getting hit. Both of which take not only optimizing skill, but also considerable player skill to be "viable" for low to mid level play. Then, well, that's always been the problem all the way back to 1st edition. The caster goes off and conquers a couple levels in the Abyss or Hell, and the fighter gets to be the general of the caster's army. Yah, #1 lackey.

Keld Denar
2009-02-22, 10:50 PM
I think a lot of people misunderstand the purpose of WBL. WBL is not an entitlement, its a yardstick. WBL adjusts the effective party level. If the party is all level 15, but has the wealth of a level 11 party, then they would probably be about as effective as a level 13 party and thus should encounter similar encounters to that of a 13th level party, or maybe a little stronger. They certainly shouldn't be fighting challenges appropriate to a level 15 party.

That said, certain characters (read: casters) tend to fair better than other characters (read: non-casters) in low wealth settings. Thus, if your party is mostly casters, they need to be challenged more appropriately. Not saying that casters aren't gear dependant, but they do have an easier time in a low wealth setting than a non-caster.

Though from reading this thread, I think a lot of people misunderstand the CR, EL, and WBL systems. That makes me sad. Encounter building is an art. Walking the line between challenging and killer, flavorful and bland, etc.

Deepblue706
2009-02-23, 12:04 AM
Wow. Okay, Advocate. You really had me as being serious. Good job; I didn't see this coming.

Aquillion
2009-02-23, 12:41 AM
Fighters are good. They are. They are what stand between you and defeat in straight combat against any smart DM who dosn't care if your character dies. Anything you can do, so can the enemy. So your just as screwed over. But if your DM dosn't follow that then...see below.

The only reason why the Wizard or other spellcaster gets away with half the "overpowered" stuff is because the DM is either to lax, forgot the word NO somewhere along the way, or because of what's been said above. \

Wizards, Clerics, and Druids are as overpowered as your DM is lazy or nice. Fighters suck only so long as you refuse to work outside of the party and go it alone.You've got it exactly wrong. Fighters are the ones who depend on a nice DM to keep them relevant. It is incredibly easy, in fact, for a DM to accidently make a fighter pointless or irrelevant -- there's tons of monsters out there that are hard to cope with in melee combat, and many situations where melee combat is infeasible. Fighters are one-trick ponies, and constantly depend on a nice enough DM to feed them things that keep them relevant. Flying monster early on? Whoops, fighter can do nothing useful! Rust monster? Jelly? Creatures with damage resistance the fighter can't touch? Whoops, fighter can do nothing useful! Swarms? Creatures with a powerful full attack? Creatures that can dash-and-ping faster than the fighter can? Whoops! Should have played a class with more than one useful option in combat.

Uberchargers are ineffective on terrain unsuitable to charging. Trippers and grapplers are useless against anything they can't trip or grapple. Ranged attackers (while better than most options) can be easily negated with low-level effects. And these are considered the optimal fighter strategies.

The most telling point -- and the thing that tells me that you've had nothing but "nice" DMs who kindly kept your underpowered fighter relevant for you -- is that you think that fighters can "stand between you and defeat in straight combat." They... just can't. It doesn't work like that. Tanking is simply not an available role in D&D, and unless the DM is actively trying to make the fighter feel useful, monsters will cheerfully walk around them to beat up everyone else, then go back to kill the fighter once he has no support.

The "overpowered" stuff is not the fancy tricks you see on the Theoretical Optimization board. The overpowered stuff are things like Confusion, Fear, Slow, Grease, Glitterdust, Haste, Resilient Sphere, Web... what, do you think the DM should flat-out say "NO! You cannot slow my monsters!" every time the caster casts slow? Should every monster be magically immune to Enervate, and pass through walls of stone as if they don't exist?

Do you feel that every DM should houserule away Natural Spell, and prevent both Clerics and Druids from casting any of the spells that buff themselves?

You are suggesting that any competent DM will go out of their way to implement houserules reducing the power of all the caster classes, just to keep your fighter relevant. Obviously, a DM can houserule things into being balanced if they want -- but that isn't proof that everyone else is "playing it wrong", that's proof that fighters are weak and need to be improved.

Nobody is saying that there's anything wrong with playing a game with a nice DM who keeps everything easy for the fighter, and constantly has the monsters behave stupidly so the fighter can feel happy and useful. That's a perfectly fine way to play. But you're trying to make two contradictory arguments here -- you're arguing that the fighter isn't underpowered, and you're arguing that DMs have to constantly watch casters like a hawk, applying constant detailed houserules to keep from accidentally outshining anyone else.

This is something that a lot of people in these threads fall into, and those are not compatible. You can not simultaneously claim that you don't care about optimization, and that only munchkins worry about optimization, while arguing that the fighter is optimal and perfectly strong. Those two arguments are mutually exclusive. If you don't give a damn about the 'power level' of various classes, that's great! More power to you! Go have fun.

But if you feel that way, there's no need to come into threads about class-balance with a chip on your shoulder arguing that fighters are balanced and anyone who says otherwise is a munchkin. Fighters are not balanced. This is manifestly obvious, and you've admitted it yourself when you said how carefully DMs have to houserule things to keep things balanced.

Discussing it is not, as you seem to think, just a LOLZOMG FIGHTERS SUXXOR WIZARDS ROXXOR thing. Most of the people who talk about how wizards are overpowered tend to, overall, like the Tome of Battle, say, because they view it as fixing some of the problems that fighter-types have in 3.5. If you'd prefer to focus on nerfing casters instead of buffing fighter-types... well, it doesn't really make a difference in the long run, does it?

But that doesn't mean that things are balanced per RAW, because, well, they aren't.

TSED
2009-02-23, 04:17 AM
I find it greatly amusing that they keep comparing fighters to a singular CR X monster, instead of a large group of CR X-5 monsters. Or whatever.


There is more than one way to get CR20, and the overwhelming majority of them are 'no CR20 creatures.'

I read Saph's Red Hand of Doom campaign journal and it was basically the fighter saving the day time and time and time again. With up to three druids at once.

The worst part? It was a sword and board fighter. That was a tiefling. Druids were getting ripped into pieces three times a day and the fighter was saving their butts over and over and over again. The tiefling fighter. With a shield.


Want to know how that worked? Encounters that don't consist of a singular high challenge enemy. I know, I know, shocking. But possible.

Tehnar
2009-02-23, 05:43 AM
I agree totally with TSED. Don't take it from us, read Saph's campaign journal.

I would also like to add a observation. To me it seems to play a fighter effectivly, you need to be an experienced player. That is to know which monsters you can trip or grapple, against which to fight defensivly, or use combat expertise. Having multiple weapons, and balancing your ability scores so you can qualify for lot of good feats.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-23, 05:46 AM
Want to know how that worked? Encounters that don't consist of a singular high challenge enemy. I know, I know, shocking. But possible.

This.

The point is that everithing may happen, because this game has infinite possibilities and there is no one way to play it. If there is some issue, the system has sub-system able to fix it, (assuming you are not playing with jerk and/or with idiots, jerks and idiots are system-indipendent).

What shocks me, actually, is that someone assumes that everybody play the same way he plays, and his tone insinuates that you are an idiot if you don't do so.

Lycar
2009-02-23, 07:24 AM
The most telling point -- and the thing that tells me that you've had nothing but "nice" DMs who kindly kept your underpowered fighter relevant for you -- is that you think that fighters can "stand between you and defeat in straight combat." They... just can't. It doesn't work like that. Tanking is simply not an available role in D&D, and unless the DM is actively trying to make the fighter feel useful, monsters will cheerfully walk around them to beat up everyone else, then go back to kill the fighter once he has no support.


Please remember that the most iconic D&D adventure is the dungeon crawl, complete with 10 feet wide corridors. And 10 feet ceilings for that matter.

Outdoors, well, that is another matter entirely of course.



Do you feel that every DM should houserule away Natural Spell, and prevent both Clerics and Druids from casting any of the spells that buff themselves?

That solely depends on you style of play. If you play the game like Advocat, then the point is moot since there won't be any non-casters to begin with.

But if someone, say, like the OP, wants to play a game in which a fighter is viable... look, the point is that D&D is supposed to be a cooperative game.

No class is supposed to be able to solo the world.

That the caster classes (mostly) can is testament to their design flaws, not the fighters.

Yes, starting at a certain level of power, caster types make melee types obsolete, unless they are played as supporters, enabling the melee types.

It has been mentioned that the best of AC a fighter can hope for is 49 (or 46 if he fancies his 300' movement).

Is it entire possible that the designers of the game somehow had the idea that the cleric just might cast a pair of Magic Vestment spells? On the fighter? So that his AC of 59 (or56) remains viable?

Likewise, maybe, just maybe, the fighter, who used to have the best overall saves in 2nd Ed., has been reduced to only having a good fortitude save, so that he depends on the casters to shore up his weaknesses?

So that he still needs his party members for something?



You are suggesting that any competent DM will go out of their way to implement houserules reducing the power of all the caster classes, just to keep your fighter relevant. Obviously, a DM can houserule things into being balanced if they want -- but that isn't proof that everyone else is "playing it wrong", that's proof that fighters are weak and need to be improved.

Spells being overpowered may be a problem. But for the fighter, the problem is that all the tools that are requirted to keep him viable are already in the caster's toolbox.

The problem is that the casters refuse to help the fighter. Because they are not nice people who feel that nayone who can't reach their lofty heights of power by his own devices doesn't deserve to live.

And that is just sad in a game that is meant to be played by friends. :smallannoyed:



Nobody is saying that there's anything wrong with playing a game with a nice DM who keeps everything easy for the fighter, and constantly has the monsters behave stupidly so the fighter can feel happy and useful. That's a perfectly fine way to play.

Indeed, but try convincing Advocate of that. Good luck. :smallsigh:


Fighters are not balanced. This is manifestly obvious, and you've admitted it yourself when you said how carefully DMs have to houserule things to keep things balanced.

See, but that is the point isn't it? The fighter IS underpowered, period.

He CAN be viable, if either the caster players play nice and buff up their melee types, or if the GM makes sure that the more anti-social players don't totally trample on the fighter's role.

It has been noted before that damage output isn't the fighter's problem. He does that just fine.

His problem is that he is dependant on the help of his party members to stay relevant, and if they leave him out in the cold, he can't keep contributing.

But again: In a game that is supposedly about cooperation, not the class that requires help is at fault, but those classes that don't.


In conclusion: The problems of the fighter are many, but they all can be overcome by the goodwill of the players and GM.

If your fellow players follow the same philosophy as Advocat, don't bother with anything but a caster though.

Lycar

Advocate
2009-02-23, 08:16 AM
While that may be true in practice, it is almost never true in execution. I wasn't going to post here on this, because I am sick and tired of having to say the same thing over and over but....i'm more sick of seeing the same argument about why wizards are amazing and fighters suck.

Fighters are good. They are. They are what stand between you and defeat in straight combat against any smart DM who dosn't care if your character dies. Anything you can do, so can the enemy. So your just as screwed over. But if your DM dosn't follow that then...see below.

Cue record skipping sound. Either you are mistaken or... well let's just assume you are incorrect unintentionally and leave it at that. If we're assuming a smart DM, then the Fighter defaults to irrelevant, as enemies know he isn't a threat and go attack the casters. He's just kinda there, leeching XP and loot. It comes purely down to the casters and their real defenses to win the fight.

If the DM is stupid, then maybe monsters will eat the Fighter's face and not yours. But unless you're playing dumb as well, you don't need a stupid DM if you are a caster. You do need a stupid DM if you are the Fighter.


The only reason why the Wizard or other spellcaster gets away with half the "overpowered" stuff is because the DM is either to lax, forgot the word NO somewhere along the way, or because of what's been said above. \

Wizards, Clerics, and Druids are as overpowered as your DM is lazy or nice. Fighters suck only so long as you refuse to work outside of the party and go it alone.

Empty statements. Even if you ignore all the 'caster cheese' they still have mountains of practical power, good enough to drag the dead weight through encounters. Though they'd clearly be better off if they took the weights off. The second half of that statement makes no sense, so I'm not going to even attempt to address it.


Optimized things is not the point of D&D. If its what you want to do for fun, thats fine but its not in the spirit of D&D, it never has, and because of those who clamour for game balance, its now become that way in 4th ed.

/rant

Ok, so Fighters that work are not the point of D&D. Gotcha.

Advocate
2009-02-23, 09:01 AM
I think a lot of people misunderstand the purpose of WBL. WBL is not an entitlement, its a yardstick. WBL adjusts the effective party level. If the party is all level 15, but has the wealth of a level 11 party, then they would probably be about as effective as a level 13 party and thus should encounter similar encounters to that of a 13th level party, or maybe a little stronger. They certainly shouldn't be fighting challenges appropriate to a level 15 party.

That said, certain characters (read: casters) tend to fair better than other characters (read: non-casters) in low wealth settings. Thus, if your party is mostly casters, they need to be challenged more appropriately. Not saying that casters aren't gear dependant, but they do have an easier time in a low wealth setting than a non-caster.

Though from reading this thread, I think a lot of people misunderstand the CR, EL, and WBL systems. That makes me sad. Encounter building is an art. Walking the line between challenging and killer, flavorful and bland, etc.

Which simply adds 'fight weak little gimps, that can actually threaten you because you're gimped too' to the list, right after 'retire as you can't handle level appropriate enemies' and 'get Grim Reapered by level appropriate enemies'. Also, fighting lower level enemies means getting even lower treasure, which just makes you fall further behind.


Wow. Okay, Advocate. You really had me as being serious. Good job; I didn't see this coming.

*checks post* Nope, no abundance of smileys. So yes, I was serious. Yes, I am well aware of what you are implying, but not taking the bait.


*very good points, with one flaw*

Flying monster early on? Whoops, fighter can do nothing useful!

Actually, this part is incorrect for the same reason that it was incorrect in 1st and 2nd edition. Specialization hasn't kicked in too hard yet, so he's not losing much off his auto attacks to use the bow instead of the chain, or whatever. Therefore, he can just shoot the flier, and not be too irrelevant.

Now, flying monster at mid and high levels when the bow is vastly inferior to the sword, and they can still easily play keep away from a flying fighter without impeding their own Action Economy at all? Entirely correct, Fighter is just looking busy, while not actually accomplishing anything meaningful.

If his one trick is ranged combat, then substitute 'mid or high level flier' for 'anything with miss chances until he gets Seeking', 'anything with Wind Wall until he gets Force', 'anything high level, period until he gets Splitting' and so on down the line.


I find it greatly amusing that they keep comparing fighters to a singular CR X monster, instead of a large group of CR X-5 monsters. Or whatever.


There is more than one way to get CR20, and the overwhelming majority of them are 'no CR20 creatures.'

I read Saph's Red Hand of Doom campaign journal and it was basically the fighter saving the day time and time and time again. With up to three druids at once.

The worst part? It was a sword and board fighter. That was a tiefling. Druids were getting ripped into pieces three times a day and the fighter was saving their butts over and over and over again. The tiefling fighter. With a shield.


Want to know how that worked? Encounters that don't consist of a singular high challenge enemy. I know, I know, shocking. But possible.

I compared a single, level 12 Paladin to a pair of CR 9 Vrocks. Paladins are better than Fighters, particularly against evil outsiders. This did not stop the beatstick from going from full to dead in a single round. And that's just one example. So no, proving you can deal with a bunch of mooks doesn't prove anything. But when you clearly can't, it does prove something.

Also, I've been over RHoD extensively. The rank and file soldiers are Warrior 2s. A Commoner 5 could deal with those, so claiming that a Fighter 5 can means nothing. I'm sensing some heavy BS there though. See, most of RHoD is outdoors.

Say it with me folks. Druids. Outdoors.

In case you still don't get it...

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/entangle.htm

One, 1st level spell from 1 Druid > entire encounter.

Also, I have a death list from a RHoD campaign. It consists of a Swift Hunter, a Ranger, and a Barbarian. The reason they died? Attempting to melee beatsticks and getting slaughtered utterly for it. No caster deaths. Again. This is despite the fact the DM of that campaign (not me) has a reputation for power tripping, and making up random BS... a trait that favors beatsticks, because they really need someone to cheat for them to win, and disfavors casters as in most cases the calls aren't even logical.


Please remember that the most iconic D&D adventure is the dungeon crawl, complete with 10 feet wide corridors. And 10 feet ceilings for that matter.

Outdoors, well, that is another matter entirely of course.

10 feet? Ok. Fighter fills a 5' square. Monsters use the other 5' square to walk around. Next!

Most of the rest of this is a series of veiled attacks, but I'll work around the baiting.


That solely depends on you style of play. If you play the game like Advocat, then the point is moot since there won't be any non-casters to begin with.

But if someone, say, like the OP, wants to play a game in which a fighter is viable... look, the point is that D&D is supposed to be a cooperative game.

No class is supposed to be able to solo the world.

Most of this is a straw man. If you 'play the game like me' there will be non casters. They'll just be the usable kind, like ToB adepts, properly made Rogues, and so forth. Not Fighters. If someone wants to play a game in which a fighter is viable, they will learn the advanced optimization techniques to mitigate their own inherent Suck such that they can do so. Otherwise, they won't. No one said anything about one class soloing... I know I'm assuming a party where the beatsticks are relevant, and there are several different casters of different types. Not the Cleric soloing it up, or whatever.


It has been mentioned that the best of AC a fighter can hope for is 49 (or 46 if he fancies his 300' movement).

Is it entire possible that the designers of the game somehow had the idea that the cleric just might cast a pair of Magic Vestment spells? On the fighter? So that his AC of 59 (or56) remains viable?

You are aware that Magic Vestment adds an enhancement bonus to armor or shields, right? Maximum of +5? Which he already has? So while the Cleric could cast those spells on him, they would do absolutely NOTHING, as he is already maxed out in that aspect.

And to preempt you, the same is true for Barkskin (both the spell and the amulet cap at +5, and I assumed +5), Shield of Faith (same deal), and so forth. As such, 49 is the absolute maximum. He can't even be buffed to be higher. So he never does hit 56 or 59. He is still 46 or 49. The only way he can possibly go higher than that is if you found a spell that gave a bonus type that isn't armor, enhancement to armor, shield, enhancement to shield, enhancement to natural armor, deflection, or insight. Not Dexterity either, as 16 Dex maxes out a mithril fullplate. Though if you could get 20 Dex with a mithril breastplate you'd have 48. There actually are a few spells that do this... but they are self only, and thus irrelevant to the Fighter.


Likewise, maybe, just maybe, the fighter, who used to have the best overall saves in 2nd Ed., has been reduced to only having a good fortitude save, so that he depends on the casters to shore up his weaknesses?

So that he still needs his party members for something?

In 2nd edition, he still needed things like elemental resist, healing, etc. So unless your point is that he 'needed' to be turned into a whiny little codependent baby you are incorrect. Having most of his abilities stripped away was his downfall. Full stop.


Spells being overpowered may be a problem. But for the fighter, the problem is that all the tools that are requirted to keep him viable are already in the caster's toolbox.

The problem is that the casters refuse to help the fighter. Because they are not nice people who feel that nayone who can't reach their lofty heights of power by his own devices doesn't deserve to live.

And that is just sad in a game that is meant to be played by friends. :smallannoyed:

So you're supposed to drag a resource sink around who is a huge pain just to keep alive, offers no reward for doing so, and would really be better off shooting the breeze in the tavern than trying to handle real threats? Or he could ya know, be actually competent, so that it's a case of the team helping each other and not a case of allowing the mentally deficient kid who only made the team out of pity to score a touchdown so he can feel good about himself (and not catch on that if both sides had not let him win, he would have failed miserably).


See, but that is the point isn't it? The fighter IS underpowered, period.

He CAN be viable, if either the caster players play nice and buff up their melee types, or if the GM makes sure that the more anti-social players don't totally trample on the fighter's role.

It has been noted before that damage output isn't the fighter's problem. He does that just fine.

His problem is that he is dependant on the help of his party members to stay relevant, and if they leave him out in the cold, he can't keep contributing.

But again: In a game that is supposedly about cooperation, not the class that requires help is at fault, but those classes that don't.


In conclusion: The problems of the fighter are many, but they all can be overcome by the goodwill of the players and GM.

If your fellow players follow the same philosophy as Advocat, don't bother with anything but a caster though.

Lycar

See resource sinks. Also, straw man again. Remember how I said that the entire party is getting Barkskin +5, Shield of Faith +4, Greater Magic Weapon +5, Magic Vestment +3, Conviction +4, and various other things? Yeah. So it's not an issue of 'not wanting to prop up the gimp' as any hypothetical gimp in this situation would be propped up by pure accident as all of those spells are produced via a single application of Chain, and perhaps Reach so as to hit everyone at once. It's an issue of 'gimp can't give back'.

Let's see... we got one caster who regularly employs Greater Dispel Magic to deal with the highly buffed threats standard at these levels, Forcecages for the really problematic ones, Spiked Tentacles for general crowd control, Enervation to set up a one two punch with another caster, various scrolls as needed, Heal occasionally...

Another one who has a very long list of spells, depending on the situation. In the current one, where the primary foes are undead and constructs she has made heavy use of Sunbeams, Heal, Mass Heal, and so forth along with things like Blade Barrier to control the battlefield a bit.

Another one who has a lot of buff spells, which she typically throws up on everyone, and then keeps most of her actual spell power in reserve for things like casting Heal.

Still another one, who also makes use of Enervation for one two punches along with Maze, Disintegrate, and various control effects.

Then there's our gish, who with inertial armor + magic vestment manages to break the AC 49 cap pretty easily. Far more importantly, he provides his own Mind Blank, can enter fights with an extra 85 HP (on top of up to 218 HP), can do the Pouncing charge thing, the move and full attack thing, isn't forced to cry by enemy Forcecages and other terrain things as he can teleport, and he recently picked up Form of Doom which gives various bonuses that stack with all the other bonuses.

There are also two beatstick cohorts involved. One is mostly just there to set up save or dies by hitting things with a Life Drinking weapon. The other is mostly just there to provide a faster move speed to a caster. So you see, there's plenty of help going around... but everyone gives back to everyone else, thereby making it an actual team where the whole is greater than the sum of their parts, and not just a case of 'who let the 16 year old kid on the NBA team'?

Lastly, completely obsoleting the Fighter doesn't require any anti social behavior at all. It requires a completely new player, thinking how cool it would be to have a wolf/bear/cat follow you around while you turn into a wolf/bear/cat and summon more wolves/bears/cats. Actually it just requires a player to think it's cool to play an animal companion, who is better than an unoptimized Fighter and only slightly worse than an optimized one (while being far cheaper to keep around, and far more disposable). If you act now, it comes with a free Druid!

Aquillion
2009-02-23, 09:13 AM
That the caster classes (mostly) can is testament to their design flaws, not the fighters.I... don't know that I agree.

I mean, yes, there are some things that are obviously broken, because when you put that many diverse powers in one class, some are going to be completely broken. But I like thinking about weird ways to approach problems using magic. I mean, I do kind of agree with something that Innis Cabal said, about how (roughly) 4e is balanced and that's no fun.

Breaking the game to an extent is part of the fun. The hard part is breaking it just enough to keep it fun, and having a creative enough DM so you can't just boringly apply the same breaks over and over again, and so on. It requires a certain amount of understanding between the players and the DM as to exactly how much a specific game is going to be broken by the players, and how far the DM should break it back at them.

Fighters can't break the game. That's the real problem. It's like some classes are playing tag while the others are playing Calvinball.


It has been mentioned that the best of AC a fighter can hope for is 49 (or 46 if he fancies his 300' movement).

Is it entire possible that the designers of the game somehow had the idea that the cleric just might cast a pair of Magic Vestment spells? On the fighter? So that his AC of 59 (or56) remains viable?Eh... I don't know how that 49 AC is calculated, but I'm guessing that it already includes an Enhancement bonus. Magic Vestment won't stack with that.


Spells being overpowered may be a problem. But for the fighter, the problem is that all the tools that are requirted to keep him viable are already in the caster's toolbox.

The problem is that the casters refuse to help the fighter. Because they are not nice people who feel that nayone who can't reach their lofty heights of power by his own devices doesn't deserve to live.
Yeah, but... that doesn't fix the underlying problem. The wizard and the cleric and the druid are still playing Calvinball while the fighter is playing tag. The Wizard spends his turn completely reshaping the battlefield, the Druid has turned into a whole bunch of enchanted bears and charges all at once, the Cleric is twenty feet tall spewing divine radiance as she summons angels. And the fighter... charges the nearest enemy and power-attacks for full.

In most non-defunctional parties, high-level casters aren't seriously going to let the fighter die, but (as long as people are still deciding what their characters do individually to some degree, which is inherent in the game), he's still kinda in an awkward position -- like the stereotypical healbot, sort of. I mean, if he's having so much fun power attacking for full, sure, it's not like he's really getting in the way.

Tehnar
2009-02-23, 09:39 AM
Yeah, but... that doesn't fix the underlying problem. The wizard and the cleric and the druid are still playing Calvinball while the fighter is playing tag. The Wizard spends his turn completely reshaping the battlefield, the Druid has turned into a whole bunch of enchanted bears and charges all at once, the Cleric is twenty feet tall spewing divine radiance as she summons angels. And the fighter... charges the nearest enemy and power-attacks for full.

And while the monsters do everything they can to counter those casters, and they should be able to, or your DM is building poor encounters. Then while all the counterspelling, dispelling, buffing and debuffing goes on both sides the fighter (to who no one is paying attention, because you know he is "teh sux") moves up to the baddies and starts chopping away. Now they are distracted and the whole defence crumbles, and the party wins the day.


Granted, high level encounters are really difficult to build. The sweet spot between TPK and a walkthrough gets narrower and narrower. It helps if the DM knows what the PCs are capable of, that is has been playing with them for a while.

In my experience (playing and DMing up to level 16) is that there has not been a period, ever, where the casters dominated most of the time. Sure there has been encounters where they did, but roughly in the same proportion to the fighter group (by this i include rangers, barbarians, rogues, paladins, etc).

Of course the cleric will dominate a undead encounter, a druid will dominate while in any sort of natural area, and the wizard with perfect knowledge of the upcoming situation. That is what they are supposed to do. However a smart, cunning DM will not allow these kind of situations to occur most of the time, challenging players and their characters.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-23, 09:54 AM
And while the monsters do everything they can to counter those casters, and they should be able to, or your DM is building poor encounters. Then while all the counterspelling, dispelling, buffing and debuffing goes on both sides the fighter (to who no one is paying attention, because you know he is "teh sux") moves up to the baddies and starts chopping away. Now they are distracted and the whole defence crumbles, and the party wins the day.


Granted, high level encounters are really difficult to build. The sweet spot between TPK and a walkthrough gets narrower and narrower. It helps if the DM knows what the PCs are capable of, that is has been playing with them for a while.

In my experience (playing and DMing up to level 16) is that there has not been a period, ever, where the casters dominated most of the time. Sure there has been encounters where they did, but roughly in the same proportion to the fighter group (by this i include rangers, barbarians, rogues, paladins, etc).

Of course the cleric will dominate a undead encounter, a druid will dominate while in any sort of natural area, and the wizard with perfect knowledge of the upcoming situation. That is what they are supposed to do. However a smart, cunning DM will not allow these kind of situations to occur most of the time, challenging players and their characters.

This is my experience, too. And I DMed a campaing 1st-40th level, 11 players in the final part (Fighter 40, Barbarian 20/FrienzedBerserk 10/Berserk10, Ninja 20/Rogue 13/ Void Incarnate 7, Monk 20 /Shintao Monk 20, Samurai 15 Fighter10 Iaijutsu Master 10 Epic IM 5, Druid 35/Warshaper 5, Wizard 35/ Archmage 5, Sorcere 20/Incantatrix 20, Cleric 10/Sacred Exorcist 25/Ierophant5, OAdv Shaman20/refluffed Doomguide 15/Ierophant5, Psion (Telepath) 40.

Try to guess the more efficient melee character? Yes, the almost vanilla 40 levels fighter. Sometimes, when the caster were able to protect themselves, he took a look to the FB to make him save his Frenzies for other challenges.

Advocate
2009-02-23, 09:57 AM
Eh... I don't know how that 49 AC is calculated, but I'm guessing that it already includes an Enhancement bonus. Magic Vestment won't stack with that.

To repost, it assumes the following equipment:

+5 mithril breastplate or full plate.
+5 animated heavy shield.
+5 natural armor amulet.
+5 deflection AC ring.
+5 Defending armor or shield spikes.
16 Dexterity.
Dusty Rose Ioun Stone.

Which gives AC 46 or 49, depending on whether or not you are willing to gimp yourself with a one third movement reduction and other things. Barring spells that are self only and thus irrelevant to this example, that is as high as you can get, with or without help.

To Tehnar: Not quite. See, if the monsters are built well, they can absorb a few rockets. But the high explosive rounds keep coming, and will annihilate them. Note that I am speaking metaphorically - the casters should not actually be using blasting spells. It is a reference to Rocket Launcher Tag, which D&D is (and the Fighter is only backing a knife). This is done by high saves, not by wasting actions (counterspell). Dispelling does work, but it forces them to spend a round not shooting a rocket, so those buffs still work out, even if they get removed. Then when the ignored Fighter moves up and starts trying to scratch them they raise a brow, look at him like 'are you serious' and then watch him miss over and over, as it's trivially easy to get around oh... a 90% miss chance. Even if they do get hit, damage doesn't actually bother anyone until it kills them, so they can still keep ignoring him, and deal with the real threats. This assumes that the Fighter can actually get to them in the first place... fat chance. So no, you don't get to be meaningful, and you don't get to actually bother enemies, so no the defense does not actually crumble because of the Fighter. It does crumble when the enemy is divided between Maze spells, Forcecages, Spiked Tentacles...

As for the type of situation, it's going to favor at least one caster, and it is not going to favor the beatstick. Always. Even when you get enemies with +30 or more to all saves, Mettle, Evasion, and so forth, it's still not a 'favors beatsticks' enemy because it also takes half damage from any non bludgeoning weapon, and counterattacks every hit for around 130 points. Oops. At least when it completely shakes off a spell, it doesn't get a free shot on the caster.

Edit: Of course, they have plenty of frenzies at that level... and NEED to kill the enemy on round 1, before it annihilates everyone. At that point it's not even Rocket Tag anymore, it's *censored* Nuclear Warheads.

Kaiyanwang
2009-02-23, 10:15 AM
r. It does crumble when the enemy is divided between Maze spells,


Maybe a Maze on a Polymorfed Minotaur? No unforeseen event to prevent? And please, don't reply with some Schroedinger Spellbook divination, have mercy of me.

I repeat: you assume everybody play at the same powerlevel than you, or with the same gamestyle. After this, since Energy Immunity: Acid is going to expire, I teleport in another thread, for me is communication breakdown.

Advocate
2009-02-23, 11:00 AM
A minotaur? Ok, some obscure beatstick, who by virtue of being a beatstick isn't that big a deal. He's also automatically exempt from BBEG status by virtue of being a beatstick. He just so happens to be immune to Maze, but not every other trick. In fact, he's more vulnerable to a long list of tricks, because Minotaurs are even worse one trick ponies than Fighters.

No knowledge or need for a 'schrodinger's spellbook' is required, as spells paint in broad strokes, such that you would have to be trying fairly hard to NOT have something useful to the situation. It only takes a few spells, of which you pick the one appropriate one in order to do something very useful in any given situation.

Case in point. For some reason the Wizard forgot that the Emerald Claw is all about the necromancers and the undead, so he prepared a lot of spells that work great on living creatures but are useless against undead, and a lot of defensive spells that work great in general but do not work at all if you cannot Dimensional Travel. When it occurred to him that the known necromancers were in fact necromancers, and that the entire area, barring a few small sections was under the effect of Unhallow (Dimensional Anchor) he was screwed fairly hard... but still managed to negate the BBEG entirely for 90-95% of the fight with the few spells he had that did work. So you see, even though he screwed up very heavily due to player error, he was still the MVP of the fight, as said BBEG was quite capable of spamming spells with DCs near 40, and would have happily done so about six more times if he were not stopped. He also did this while pulling a Benny Hill, running around while getting chased by the Goddamned Bats known as Dread Wraiths until such time as another caster was able to save him, by Forcecaging the Wraiths. Now see, that's teamwork, because those two casters are actually helping each other. They are actually able to protect each other, and thus are better off together than alone.

Tehnar
2009-02-23, 11:11 AM
Getting back to the original post what I noticed fairly recently is that a fighter with:

Weapon focus, specialization, and the greater versions thereof combined with weapon mastery give a total of:

+4 to hit
+6 to damage

which is the equivalent of a Barbarians mighty rage damage wise. Of course Barbarians rage contributes much more then pure damage and hit.

Actually I feel the PHB 2 did a lot for fighters, with various high level feats that are pretty worth it. Combat focus, Robilar's gambit, the improved spring attack line are all very good.


@ Advocate: For the fighter to get past those hazards and battlefield control spells is trivial at such a high level. Sacred armor, rings of freedom of movement, anklets of translocation. As for maze's they are as deadly for the fighter as they are for anyone else.

Advocate
2009-02-23, 11:24 AM
The PHB2 does help them a lot. Most of it is just general beatstick stuff though, which is also needed.

As for items... let's see... I forget what Sacred does offhand. A FoM ring is 40k, at least 15% of his WBL by itself... on a cash strapped character. The anklet is cheap, but uses the same slot as the haste item and the flight item, as they are all feet slot items. And then what? He gets over beside the BBEG, who takes half damage - 8 from any non bludgeoning weapon, so unless he happens to be focusing on one despite the general suboptimal nature of such weapons he can barely even damage the BBEG, even when he hits him. This actually isn't assured, seeing as we're discussing a buffed up caster. For the hell of it, I just took a glance at his stats after he was finally destroyed. AC 44? Ok, primary attack will probably hit, but the others? In any case, once he's done scratching the BBEG's back he has to contend with the various hydra zombies, golems, and other such minions... including Ms. Hits for 130 damage a shot, some archer who does at least 25 a hit with 8 attacks a round, every round, some sort of hard hitting gish, and a caster spamming 8 save or sucks a round every round... without the save part. So after you are Fatigued, have taken around a -8 penalty to Strength and Dexterity, and can only take a Standard or Move action and not both with no saving throw, a minion or two takes out the trash. Good job. What have you accomplished?

Tehnar
2009-02-23, 12:47 PM
Pardon, I meant soulfire armor, giving you a constant death ward effect.

A ring of FoM might be a hefty investment, but it sure is worth it.

For added safety you could probably get a (eternal) wand of sheltered vitality and ask the cleric to cast that on you before combat.

So you are now immune to all death effects, negative energy, level drain, any slowing, grappling, or otherwise magical movement impairing and to all ability penalties, damage or drain. If you get energy immunity enchant to your armor, thats 2x1 min per day of total energy immunity, and you get to pick the types of energy. As a immediate action.

And you can place additional effects on a magic item, it will just cost you a little more. For the teleport ability of an anklet you will pay an aditional 1000g, which is frankly silly at that level.

And why not use a blunt weapon. A warhammer deals d8/20x3, which is no worse then the longsword, and you could spring a exotic weapon proficiency for a greathammer for 2d6/x4. Offhand I dont know if there is a two handed martial mace, if not you can use the warhammer two handed, the 2 points of damage wont make much difference if you are powerattacking. I dont see what is so suboptimal in blunt weapons.


And here is one great revelation for you, DnD is a team game. So one character, no matter how overpowered or optimised is not supposed to handle most situations by himself.

Lycar
2009-02-23, 03:12 PM
I... don't know that I agree.

...

Breaking the game to an extent is part of the fun. The hard part is breaking it just enough to keep it fun, and having a creative enough DM so you can't just boringly apply the same breaks over and over again, and so on. It requires a certain amount of understanding between the players and the DM as to exactly how much a specific game is going to be broken by the players, and how far the DM should break it back at them.

Fighters can't break the game. That's the real problem. It's like some classes are playing tag while the others are playing Calvinball.

Actually, any class being able to 'break' the game on a regular level is a problem. :smallannoyed:

I see where solving a puzzle or other difficult situation with just the right spell is fun and a rewarding experience. As is some player managing to concince the NPC king or what have you to aid you in your quest with just the right honeyed words. No disagreement here.



Eh... I don't know how that 49 AC is calculated, but I'm guessing that it already includes an Enhancement bonus. Magic Vestment won't stack with that.

:smalleek::smallsigh:

You are right of course. My bad. :smallyuk:

Oh well, better get some Diplacement in place and hope for enemies without True Seeing then. :smallannoyed:



Yeah, but... that doesn't fix the underlying problem. The wizard and the cleric and the druid are still playing Calvinball while the fighter is playing tag. The Wizard spends his turn completely reshaping the battlefield, the Druid has turned into a whole bunch of enchanted bears and charges all at once, the Cleric is twenty feet tall spewing divine radiance as she summons angels. And the fighter... charges the nearest enemy and power-attacks for full.

In most non-defunctional parties, high-level casters aren't seriously going to let the fighter die, but (as long as people are still deciding what their characters do individually to some degree, which is inherent in the game), he's still kinda in an awkward position -- like the stereotypical healbot, sort of. I mean, if he's having so much fun power attacking for full, sure, it's not like he's really getting in the way.

You see, that is just what is attracting people to the fighter class: The image of the mighty warrior who just engages an enemy in melee... and cleaves him in half with one brutal swing. They don't mind the casters being awesome in their own right, as long as he gets to kill stuff in a spectacular fashion.

If that doesn't happen anymore, the fighter cheases to be fun.

###

Right then. So how should a 'proper' beatstick be built then?

There have been a lot of arguments going back and forth but no-one has actually provided a built that is still a 'beatstick' (i.e.: His main interaction with the enemy is hitting them to death as opposed to casting them to death) and avoids all the pitfalls that the poor, disenfranchised fighter faces?

###

Also, for those not familiar with 2e rules, a little information about the initiative system.

Roll 1d10, add modifiers for DEX and weapon type (low or negative is good, high is bad) and then count up from the lowest number. Each number is a segment in the comabt round.

Spells had a casting time, measured in segments. For example, a wizard who takes his turn on segment 3 and casts a spell with a casting time of 5 segments, finishes his spell on segment 7. If he takes any damage whatsoever during this time, the spell fizzles, no saving throw, no nothing.

Add to that that the higher powered enemies had a flat-out magic resistance, say 50% or 80% or maybe even 90% and if they made their resistance roll, even the mightiest of spells would simply be wasted, and you had numerous scenarios that made casters irrelevant.

While the fighter could still chug on and hack bits off foes, his high saves (or low saves, as you had to roll your saving number or above to save) allowed him to go toe to toe with tough foes with nasty supernatural abilities and still prevail.

It was sometimes not much fun to be a caster. They rectified that problem in 3.X. They just overdid it IMHO.

Lycar

Advocate
2009-02-23, 03:41 PM
Pardon, I meant soulfire armor, giving you a constant death ward effect.

A ring of FoM might be a hefty investment, but it sure is worth it.

Ok, Soulfire. Anywhere from 24k to 64k, depending on other enchantments you're using. So that's 64k-104k out of 200k or 260k just to counter some pretty basic stuff. You haven't started boosting your stats or saves yet, haven't picked up essentials, and don't even have a weapon yet. Unless you have a friendly Artificer in the party (at which point, Soulfire becomes a 3rd level spell) that simply cannot happen.


For added safety you could probably get a (eternal) wand of sheltered vitality and ask the cleric to cast that on you before combat.

Eternal wands are arcane spells of 3rd level or lower. You could use a normal wand for this, at the cost of 420 gold a pop (the Artificer method costs 100 a pop, and can be made to hit the entire party at once).


So you are now immune to all death effects, negative energy, level drain, any slowing, grappling, or otherwise magical movement impairing and to all ability penalties, damage or drain. If you get energy immunity enchant to your armor, thats 2x1 min per day of total energy immunity, and you get to pick the types of energy. As a immediate action.

Energy Immunity on armor and shields. Good choice, but at anywhere from 8k to 36k each you're quickly eating up your cash. Great if you can make your own stuff on the cheap, not very good otherwise.


And you can place additional effects on a magic item, it will just cost you a little more. For the teleport ability of an anklet you will pay an aditional 1000g, which is frankly silly at that level.

Custom items, reliant on DM fiat. I personally would allow it, but the fact of the matter is your basic viability is at the mercy of the DM.


And why not use a blunt weapon. A warhammer deals d8/20x3, which is no worse then the longsword, and you could spring a exotic weapon proficiency for a greathammer for 2d6/x4. Offhand I dont know if there is a two handed martial mace, if not you can use the warhammer two handed, the 2 points of damage wont make much difference if you are powerattacking. I dont see what is so suboptimal in blunt weapons.

If you haven't been focusing on one weapon you do not have a level appropriate weapon. Therefore, you will focus on that which works best. Bludgeoning weapons are flat out inferior to comparable Slashing or Piercing Weapons. Spiked Chain? Piercing. I honestly thought that one was Bludgeoning until I looked it up. Polearms? Slashing. Spears? Piercing.

Even if for some reason you actually want a weapon that lacks reach, still inferior. Sure, it's 'just two damage'... but back 15 levels ago when you were starting your character that two damage meant a lot, and really, the only reason to go for bludgeoning is if you expected to fight nothing but skeletons and liches. Which is really odd, given the massive level difference between the two, and that the higher level 'skeletons' (Bone creature template) are in an obscure source (Book of Vile Darkness), and work very poorly as low level opponents so... why would you plan your whole character around them? Exactly.

To get a bludgeoning weapon that has reach, you have to do some serious dumpster diving through random Monster Manuals to get items of random obscure races like the Kuo-Toan Pincer Staff. Know how I know that? One of the players has a mutable weapon, and went dumpster diving to find a weapon that had reach and still did bludgeoning damage and came up with that.


And here is one great revelation for you, DnD is a team game. So one character, no matter how overpowered or optimised is not supposed to handle most situations by himself.

Straw man.

Starbuck_II
2009-02-23, 03:56 PM
Oh well, better get some Diplacement in place and hope for enemies without True Seeing then. :smallannoyed:



Why would anyone get Displacement when Dancing Shadows is available?
It acts like Displacement, but denies targeting with spells (acts more like G. Invisibility) and it is 3rd level.

Advocate
2009-02-23, 03:59 PM
Right then. So how should a 'proper' beatstick be built then?

There have been a lot of arguments going back and forth but no-one has actually provided a built that is still a 'beatstick' (i.e.: His main interaction with the enemy is hitting them to death as opposed to casting them to death) and avoids all the pitfalls that the poor, disenfranchised fighter faces?

Be a gish. You technically are a spellcaster, however your primary interaction with the enemy is hitting them to death as most, or all of your spells are designed to support yourself and perhaps others in melee. For example, an Inertial Armor at a Manifester Level of 9 is just as good as plate mail AC wise but has no dex cap, no ACP, doesn't slow you... and you can still throw Magic Vestment over it. If your ML is 11th or higher, your armor bonus is higher than you could possibly get via normal armor, bracers, whatever without gimping yourself massively, if it is possible at all.

At ML 17th this is taking you 4 points above the cap for free, all day.

This is just a basic straight classed Psychic Warrior, who is fairly average overall and fairly weak by gish standards. The same character also gets a temp HP buffer (Vigor), saves 40k by being able to manifest Freedom of Movement, gets Mind Blank for free, gets to Pounce or move + full attack (Hustle) whenever he wants, can teleport to avoid hazards like Forcecages that make most other beatsticks cry, can manifest Form of Doom for lots of bonuses that stack with all the other bonuses, the Precognition powers give stat boosts of rare bonus types, Expansion is flat out better than Enlarge Person in every way starting at ML 3rd...

Did I mention even if you have to buff in combat, it's not a problem due to Linked Power + Hustle? For that matter you can touch attack once a round as a Swift action by doing a Deep Impact + Psionic Mediation, then manifesting Hustle and using the move action to regain your focus, which among other things can allow that last attack a round to hit.

This is all tame stuff by a moderate, pure classed character that is just flat out better than anything, and everything the Fighter can do. Did I mention Psychic Warriors are only three feats behind the Fighter, which is far less than the Fighter loses by not doing all those things?

Duskblades map out similarly, except that their abilities are more offensive in nature than defensive and they use magic instead of psionics.

A Tome of Battle adept maps out differently, but it amounts to many of the same things as a Standard action strike allows them to move and still be relevant this round, among other things.

A proper gish build (involving some multiclassing and PRCing) is going to do even better, by getting all the real defenses like Greater Mirror Image and miss chances, immunities, and so forth... and be much better at hitting the thing with the other thing. Also, gishes are the only character type that actually benefit from an AMF, which has been cast on themselves but excludes themselves due to Extraordinary Spell Aim. Normally casting AMF is the same as casting a save or die on yourself and choosing to forego your save as you have just turned off all your own class features, items, and so forth, thereby making you ground bound, slow, and completely ignorable. Extraordinary Spell Aim makes it not a suicidal tactic, but you can't cast anything but Conjuration: Creation spells at your enemies through it. But a gish using it preserves all of their items and buffs, while making themselves only vulnerable to Orbs and the like. Except that they have Ray Deflection... *evil grin*

And that, is the only way you can beat a caster. Be a better caster.

Aquillion
2009-02-23, 04:00 PM
You see, that is just what is attracting people to the fighter class: The image of the mighty warrior who just engages an enemy in melee... and cleaves him in half with one brutal swing. They don't mind the casters being awesome in their own right, as long as he gets to kill stuff in a spectacular fashion.

If that doesn't happen anymore, the fighter cheases to be fun.
Well... that's another problem, sort of. The other classes generally have mechanical abilities to help them deal with the 'puzzle' of the reluctant king or the treacherous duke. The wizard can charm, read minds, turn invisible, craft illusions... the rogue can use diplomacy, notice lies, disguise themselves, find and palm incriminating letters, and so forth. The fighter can apply their sword and, if that fails, apply more sword. Sword isn't always going to be the answer.

Fighters should have more mechanical out-of-combat utility... although that won't really help people who just want to kill things, that's a bigger issue than class balance. There's no reason why fighters can't be good at at least a few skills, like Listen or Spot (although the Rogue is not so overpowering that they can afford to lose much of their role...) The one social skill you'd expect fighters to have some use for, Intimidate, suffers because they have no other reason to have good charisma... it could be Str, but would that mean a Lich would never be intimidating? Intimidate is a problematic skill in all sorts of ways.

In Exalted, there are charms and abilities that let melee-focused characters easily extend their personal melee capabilities to large-scale combat by leading groups of people in war. There was some of this in 2e (fighters got a keep at higher level), but it's hard to balance and work into the game in a generic fashion. I suppose fighters can always take Leadership, though. And, um, get a caster cohort, which sort of defeats the purpose of this exercise... :smallfrown:

Let's see... out-of-combat capabilities that you would expect a fighter to have. They'd be knowledgeable about weapons and fighting styles... they might be able to spot an assassin in a crowd by recognizing that they're moving like a trained warrior.

Only... 3.5's skill system sucks for this. It really does. The problem is that small bonuses can never really help you, because the gap between people who are pouring skill points into the skill and people who aren't just keeps increasing; 4e really did improve here (in 4e, say, a +2 situational bonus to spot checks will always mean something, while in D&D it'll get worthless very quickly if you're not maxing Spot.)


Right then. So how should a 'proper' beatstick be built then?

There have been a lot of arguments going back and forth but no-one has actually provided a built that is still a 'beatstick' (i.e.: His main interaction with the enemy is hitting them to death as opposed to casting them to death) and avoids all the pitfalls that the poor, disenfranchised fighter faces?Well... one of the big problems right out the gate is the full attack system. It sucks. It limits maneuverability and restricts the action of melee types for no good reason.

Fighter bonus feats mean that they are, basically, limited to learning only one or two tricks -- because even though they get a lot of feats, almost none of them scale, and they have to keep focusing all their feats on the same thing to be effective. And, in the long run, they'll be weaker if they invest half their feats in one thing, and half their feats in another, given that they can only do one at once... ironically, the nature of fighter bonus feats (weaker than spells, but active all the time), which you would expect at first glance to increase versatility, actually ends up decreasing versatility.

I'm not sure how to fix this, if we want to encourage fighters to get a variety of abilities (and reward them for it, and make it feasible.) But it's a major part of the problem.

Much more simply, though. Fighters need good debuffs. There's no reason why they shouldn't have them. You can blind, stun, frighten, confuse, immobilize, or incapacitate enemies just fine with a weapon... but for some reason the existing system like that is rarely used for melee combatants, and when it is they tend to get much more limited versions. Why shouldn't a fighter be able to get a full range of attacks that target every save? It would have to be expressed abstractly so it could apply to a wide variety of opponents, but it's not exactly magical Swordsage powers to say that a fighter could incapacitate someone or deal stat damage with a good attack. It's just that none of the options for this are any good.

Also -- touch attacks. Fighters should have some options for them. If you're using an attack where your sole goal is to strike the enemy with your weapon hard enough to throw them off balance, say, you don't need to get past their armor or anything -- that technique could be represented by a touch attack.

Of course, much of this is already in the ToB or 4e...

horseboy
2009-02-23, 07:10 PM
Fighters can't break the game. That's the real problem. It's like some classes are playing tag while the others are playing Calvinball.
I agree completely and would actually push that a little further. Fighters can't fight, especially at high levels. If any class got a SoD it should have been the Fighter. After spear through the heart will make something just as dead as being disintegrated. And it's not like they've got the resources to be able to do anything else. WotC really over valued +1 BAB, that you've got to completely refocus your character just to be able to play Hide & Seek. :smallannoyed:

TSED
2009-02-23, 08:57 PM
I compared a single, level 12 Paladin to a pair of CR 9 Vrocks. Paladins are better than Fighters, particularly against evil outsiders. This did not stop the beatstick from going from full to dead in a single round. And that's just one example. So no, proving you can deal with a bunch of mooks doesn't prove anything. But when you clearly can't, it does prove something.

Also, I've been over RHoD extensively. The rank and file soldiers are Warrior 2s. A Commoner 5 could deal with those, so claiming that a Fighter 5 can means nothing. I'm sensing some heavy BS there though. See, most of RHoD is outdoors.

Say it with me folks. Druids. Outdoors.

In case you still don't get it...

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/entangle.htm

One, 1st level spell from 1 Druid > entire encounter.

Also, I have a death list from a RHoD campaign. It consists of a Swift Hunter, a Ranger, and a Barbarian. The reason they died? Attempting to melee beatsticks and getting slaughtered utterly for it. No caster deaths. Again. This is despite the fact the DM of that campaign (not me) has a reputation for power tripping, and making up random BS... a trait that favors beatsticks, because they really need someone to cheat for them to win, and disfavors casters as in most cases the calls aren't even logical.



The warrior solo-ganked a Wyrmlord off of a dragon's back. The dragon then killed the rest of the party. The fighter got away with a high level kill to his belt, and some of their corpses (I think). This is just one example of this throughout the entire campaign.

The fighter just kept surviving things. It only died twice in the entire campaign journal (and got reincarnated both times), compared to people entirely losing their characters, people getting reincarnated so many times they've filled out the entire PHB of possible race / gender combos (ok slightly exaggerated, but still).

The first time the fighter died, it was because it had just got healed out of unconsciousness and full attacked a big scary red dragon instead of, oh, playing dead. (Player stupidity vs mechanical failure. Please don't give me 'oh but he was unconscious! He shouldn't've been!' because that happened to every one else, too.) I forget off-hand how it died the second time.



This was a SWORD AND BOARD fighter. A TIEFLING SWORD AND BOARD who was the star player of the campaign. It was taking down bosses, mini-bosses, and mooks. According to you, THAT'S UNPOSSIBLE! But unless Saph is lying about it, it really isn't. The fighter didn't win everything by himself, and the ultimate pinnacle of glory (to me) belonged to a cleric (tanking a dragon 15 rounds at level... 4 or 5 was it?), but the tiefling was awesome.

To be clear, this didn't get into high levels. There was no 15th fighter vs 15th druid, I think they capped out around 9 or 10, which is before the super broken stuff happens.

Also, I've built a theoretical 11th level fighter with 35 ac, 33 flatfooted, 22 touch, in WBL pre-CE. With 25' movement. It does suffer from turtling, to be fair. However, at level 11, having an AC of 33 to 46... That's good AC. Saves are good enough (lowest at +5) and it could really stand losing a few points of that AC in feats in exchange for offense, but it's definitely possible. It's even got some wondrous item style tricks for making opponents attack it instead of ignoring him, like a bag of endless caltrops (will not work at higher levels).

The fighter was built for a tight, claustrophobic dungeon crawl that never happened, so I was not worried about some typical fighter things that you claim 'cripple' the class. And there are some CR9, 10, 11 creatures that could hit him 50% of the time, but they are a lot rarer than you seem to think.

And frankly, he would be able to fight with CR6-8 creatures all day, with or without combat expertise. Except maybe traditional fighter-banes like wraiths or shadows or other incorporeal critters.

In conclusion: maybe you and your group are making encounters that mechanically favour casters? It is not hard to get ones that a fighter can shine in, not at all. I am not saying that fighters are fine, I agree that they're underpowered - just not to the extent that you are claiming. There's a difference between a close last place and a liability.

tyckspoon
2009-02-23, 09:31 PM
mini-bosses, and mooks. According to you, THAT'S UNPOSSIBLE! But unless Saph is lying about it, it really isn't. The fighter didn't win everything by himself, and the ultimate pinnacle of glory (to me) belonged to a cleric (tanking a dragon 15 rounds at level... 4 or 5 was it?), but the tiefling was awesome.


Not unpossible, just massively improbable. Especially as Advocate is talking about the logical end of the game's systems, where everybody does all they can do and a Fighter's all just isn't that impressive. I wasn't following the whole journal, but the incidents I have read of so far- like healing a guy just enough to let him get back into immediate danger, or having four casters somehow wind up with no dispelling ability between them (when planning to go into the stronghold of a Cleric Big Bad, even.. whose AI script involves lots of buffing while disposable minions try to occupy the party..)- suggests that Saph's group was playing in something closer to the playtest style of D&D, in which neither the group nor the monsters operate to the best of their abilities. In that environment a Fighter can manage to make himself look not too poor, and indeed may sometimes seem quite functional. (I also wouldn't be surprised to find out, if it were possible to log all the rolls made by/against that particular fighter, that he was abnormally lucky and/or his opponents rolled unusually poorly throughout the campaign.)

Fortinbras
2009-02-23, 10:54 PM
To get back to the "good beatstick build" if say, we just made it a fighter, this thread is called fighter theory, what would such a build look like?

I've heared that the shock trooper, leap attack, combat brute, combo is effective. People seem to have decided that THW is the best melee build. What do people think?

Mushroom Ninja
2009-02-23, 11:04 PM
To get back to the "good beatstick build" if say, we just made it a fighter, this thread is called fighter theory, what would such a build look like?

I've heared that the shock trooper, leap attack, combat brute, combo is effective. People seem to have decided that THW is the best melee build. What do people think?

Well, in addition to those feats, if you don't consider it cheating, you can take a 2-level dip into Wolf Totem Barbarian for Rage and Improved Trip. If you do this, you can pick up Frenzied Beserker for massive lulz.

horseboy
2009-02-23, 11:05 PM
First, I think we should define what is meant be "good beatstick". You should NEVER design a character around being attacked. That's the sure way to make sure you're attacked and therefore die. Are you asking about within the narrow confines of 3.X or do you want to look from workable systems and what they do right?

Arcane_Snowman
2009-02-24, 03:26 AM
First, I think we should define what is meant be "good beatstick". You should NEVER design a character around being attacked. The Masochist build (http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-144104) would say otherwise :p

Zen Master
2009-02-24, 03:29 AM
The "overpowered" stuff is not the fancy tricks you see on the Theoretical Optimization board. The overpowered stuff are things like Confusion, Fear, Slow, Grease, Glitterdust, Haste, Resilient Sphere, Web... what, do you think the DM should flat-out say "NO! You cannot slow my monsters!" every time the caster casts slow? Should every monster be magically immune to Enervate, and pass through walls of stone as if they don't exist?

Do you feel that every DM should houserule away Natural Spell, and prevent both Clerics and Druids from casting any of the spells that buff themselves?

It is true that fighters usually need a bit of help. I don't really think anyone denies that. However, helping out fighters usually means telling casters that no - there are no chain contingencies, no persistent spells, and you cannot enchant any random magic item you can dream up.

And then of course, you need to make the fighter a hard target to affect with save-or-suck spells.

That's pretty much it. Banning all the god damned expansions out there keeps casters sane, if powerful - but if you tweak the fighter to the point where slowing, holding or confusing him is a trickky proposition, then all is well.

Sidenote: Keeping casters from enchanting whatever strikes their fancy keeps me in control of what magic items the party has. This is good. Naturally I don't ban enchanting - I just keep it under GM rather than player control.

Temp.
2009-02-24, 03:29 AM
I love hearing about how a group would become upset if I play an ineffective character, even in highly tactical settings. This is not a D&D I've experienced, ever. A character that acts as a liability to the party is far more likely to turn into a punch line as a player problem.

Course, this was supposed to be an optimization thread of some sort, so the sort of mentality that would track characters on the battlefield just to make the Lego-men fight doesn't have much of a place here.

So anyway...

To get back to the "good beatstick build" if say, we just made it a fighter, this thread is called fighter theory, what would such a build look like?

If you want to make a competitive melee character with a Fighter 20, you're going to have to cover for some of the class's weaknesses first. This means Will saves, mobility, various immunities and resistances and secondary combat options.

An Eldritch Knight, for instance, is going to have well-rounded saves, is able to teleport as a swift action, is going to have the full Heart of ___ combination -- complete with on-demand Freedom of Movement and Stoneskin. It is going to be Draconic Polymorphed into something big and scary and is going to have spells to turn to when things go awry. That's what you have to match.

A start would be buying goodies for your caster buddies. Rods of Extend and Pearls of Power tend to be cheaper than magic items for common effects like Protection from ___, Shield of Faith, Greater Magic Weapon, Magic Vestment, Greater Mighty Wallop, Barkskin or other low-level long-duration effects. Once in a while you might get a spare spell like Polymorph, Haste or Enlarge, but don't count on it.

It's also a good idea to boost UMD and invest in [Eternal] Wands for self-only effects like Heart of Water, Rhino's Rush or Wraithstrike. A wand chamber (dungeonscape) in your weapon is a solid investment for most of the Swift-cast combat buffs.

If you want Fighter 20 to be worthwhile in a high powered campaign, you'll have to combine as many feats and ACFs as possible to the same end. If you only use two or three feats at a time, you may as well be playing a Warblade for those rounds. Expect to hyper-specialize in Lockdowns or Charges or whatever, aiming most of your feats toward a single end. If you don't, you may as well be playing something with class abilities.

Zen Master
2009-02-24, 03:57 AM
The Masochist build (http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-144104) would say otherwise :p

I have an intense loathing of powerbuilds - but that is awesome :)

Aquillion
2009-02-24, 05:46 AM
It is true that fighters usually need a bit of help. I don't really think anyone denies that. However, helping out fighters usually means telling casters that no - there are no chain contingencies, no persistent spells, and you cannot enchant any random magic item you can dream up.People keep saying this, and I don't see it. A well-chosen spell from the core bread-and-butter list -- all of them broad-applicability spells, most of them not particularly overpowered relative to other spells -- has a decent chance of either resolve or nerfing just about any encounter. A decent high-level wizard is going to have several dozen spells per day, including a large number from their top few levels. The versatility that that represents -- if the wizard chooses spells carefully -- is something that no Fighter 20 can ever match, not without drastic houserules that radically alter the nature of one class or the other.

High-level spellcasters have the ability to radically reshape encounters, to directly apply far more complicated and detailed strategies than the Fighter's limited set of class features could ever lend themselves to. Spellcasters get to redefine the game at high levels; fighters simply don't. They're not comparable.

And... enchanting items helps fighters more than casters, since fighters are far more reliant on gear than most classes. I have no idea where you're going with that restriction. Enchantment is a way that casters can give up some of their power to help fighters; restricting it is exactly the wrong thing to do.

Zen Master
2009-02-24, 06:33 AM
People keep saying this, and I don't see it. A well-chosen spell from the core bread-and-butter list -- all of them broad-applicability spells, most of them not particularly overpowered relative to other spells -- has a decent chance of either resolve or nerfing just about any encounter. A decent high-level wizard is going to have several dozen spells per day, including a large number from their top few levels. The versatility that that represents -- if the wizard chooses spells carefully -- is something that no Fighter 20 can ever match, not without drastic houserules that radically alter the nature of one class or the other.

High-level spellcasters have the ability to radically reshape encounters, to directly apply far more complicated and detailed strategies than the Fighter's limited set of class features could ever lend themselves to. Spellcasters get to redefine the game at high levels; fighters simply don't. They're not comparable.

And... enchanting items helps fighters more than casters, since fighters are far more reliant on gear than most classes. I have no idea where you're going with that restriction. Enchantment is a way that casters can give up some of their power to help fighters; restricting it is exactly the wrong thing to do.

If I were to guess, I'd say you think this way because you are used to setting your own standards. Your stats are higher than in my campaigns, you have far more magical gear of your own choice or design, and therefore, your save dc's are impossible for your targets to beat.

This is not the case in my games. Also, you exhibit the optimizer gutreaction assumption of level 20+. This too, is not the case. In my experience - no one plays level 20+.

You are entirely correct that a wizard has a wide array of choices and options open to him. Now - since fighters and wizards are far closer to each other in power in the games I play, the fighter actrually has more options than you might think, certain options usually viewed as suboptimal becoming valid with less overpowered wizards.

Enchanting does help fighters. But ... well, that's where the fact that I control items comes in. I said this already: I somewhat boost the fighter while somewhat limiting the caster.

And no - that's not the wrong thing to do. It's exactly the right thing to do. You cannot even argue against that, because I quite simply works. In my campaigns, casters do not outshine fighters. They have more options open to them - but have to choose their focus. While fighters have a more narrow scope, inside which they cannot be beat.

Advocate
2009-02-24, 09:18 AM
I'm just going to cover the highlights here.


The warrior solo-ganked a Wyrmlord off of a dragon's back. The dragon then killed the rest of the party. The fighter got away with a high level kill to his belt, and some of their corpses (I think). This is just one example of this throughout the entire campaign.

Define 'solo ganked'. Do you mean 'shot up some goblin beatstick, who by virtue of being a goblins fails hard at beatsticking'? Or perhaps some sort of made up cheating stuff to allow this? How about the 'getting away' part, because I know a black dragon is more than capable of hunting down and killing a silly little Fighter, especially if he's screwing around with enemy corpses. Either more typical 'being very nice', or blatant cheating. Take your pick.


This was a SWORD AND BOARD fighter. A TIEFLING SWORD AND BOARD who was the star player of the campaign. It was taking down bosses, mini-bosses, and mooks. According to you, THAT'S UNPOSSIBLE! But unless Saph is lying about it, it really isn't. The fighter didn't win everything by himself, and the ultimate pinnacle of glory (to me) belonged to a cleric (tanking a dragon 15 rounds at level... 4 or 5 was it?), but the tiefling was awesome.

See this? This is a sign that strongly supports the theorized either cheating or being very nice. The bosses in that campaign? Dragons. Casters. Just the fact the dragon sat there trying to auto attack someone it clearly could not hurt for 15 rounds is a very good sign the monsters are not being played to anything near their intelligence. Sure it was the Cleric doing it, but if the dragon is that stupid in dealing with him, it could not have been much smarter in dealing with the others.


To be clear, this didn't get into high levels. There was no 15th fighter vs 15th druid, I think they capped out around 9 or 10, which is before the super broken stuff happens.

RHoD finishes around level 12.


Also, I've built a theoretical 11th level fighter with 35 ac, 33 flatfooted, 22 touch, in WBL pre-CE. With 25' movement. It does suffer from turtling, to be fair. However, at level 11, having an AC of 33 to 46... That's good AC. Saves are good enough (lowest at +5) and it could really stand losing a few points of that AC in feats in exchange for offense, but it's definitely possible. It's even got some wondrous item style tricks for making opponents attack it instead of ignoring him, like a bag of endless caltrops (will not work at higher levels).

'Good enough' when you follow up with 'lowest is +5' is a very good sign that your standards cannot be trusted. After all, you get +3, minimum just from levels. Now count stats, cloak of resistance... congrats. You're a turtle with a shell defect. It also wasted a lot of cash on things you yourself admit do not work at those levels. You also admit it critically lacks offense... not a surprise, since it spent so much time screwing around with AC that it's even more vulnerable to being blown away by one rocket (save effect), has critically lacking wealth efficiency in general... and oh yeah. Still gets hit at least half the time by plain beatsticks. So all you've done is make a 5 foot square of difficult terrain, which enemies calmly walk around.


And frankly, he would be able to fight with CR6-8 creatures all day, with or without combat expertise. Except maybe traditional fighter-banes like wraiths or shadows or other incorporeal critters.

Ah, so he can beat creatures that are so trivial so as to be mook status at best. Unless of course, they're strong enough to slaughter him anyways. Even if they're something like CR 3 or 5. Now, why would anyone take this guy into their party again? Or by fight with you mean stand there and hope they don't just ignore you?


In conclusion: maybe you and your group are making encounters that mechanically favour casters? It is not hard to get ones that a fighter can shine in, not at all. I am not saying that fighters are fine, I agree that they're underpowered - just not to the extent that you are claiming. There's a difference between a close last place and a liability.

You are a very funny man. But seriously. The encounters are designed so that they just 'are'. They don't specifically set out to counter beatsticks. However, this is so easy to do by complete accident that many creatures already have the tools to do it, and would be stupid not to use them. Like say... wings. At which point all the Fighter can do is try to look busy shooting at it for trivial damage with a bow. Or trying to fly itself, hoping it can't dispel a CL 5 effect, and trying to catch the flying enemy, then hope it actually stands still to let him be relevant by full attacking.

This is without any active effort.

With minimal active effort you realize that monsters are VERY buffable, as most of their stats come from one or two categories instead of a number of small bonuses in many categories. As such, consider any creature with UMD (most of the intelligent ones) who has pre combat buffed using the following:

Mage Armor.
Shield.
Barkskin (CL 12th).
Shield of Faith (CL 18th).

Those bonus types stack just fine with nearly every monster... and give +18 AC. Getting them costs a maximum of 2,175 gold. Of course, since it has UMD it can just get the other 3 spells off scrolls as well instead of potions, making the cost 1,100 gold. Trivial at the level. One dispel is assured of removing at least most of it, but that's a round wasted. Now, not saying that every monster should do this, but look how cheap that was, to nullify nearly every beatstick on the field at once. That's also only one example.

In order to make an encounter that a Fighter could 'shine' in everyone involved would have to be very stupid. The DM, for overlooking the many obvious flaws. The enemies, for actually allowing the one, very easily countered trick to actually work. The other players, because if they were playing smart they'd be using their own abilities, that aren't so easily shut down instead of trying to set things up so that the mentally deficient character can score the proverbial touchdown.

By contrast, you would have to seriously, and I do mean seriously go out of your way to make an encounter in which casters do not shine, because they are proactive, and actually have the tools to do this.

Case in point. Party Wizard prepared a very poor spell loadout for dealing with undead. Despite being well aware that is exactly what he would have to deal with. Also, most of his defensive spells were shut down by Dimensional Anchor, which blanketed most of the area via Unhallow.

Despite this, and despite having already used many of his good spells, he still managed to be the MVP in the BBEG fight, by negating most of the BBEG's actions. This is a very good thing, as otherwise that BBEG would have happily kept bombing the party with DC 35-38 spells.

A Fighter in this fight? No chance. He'd get flat out slaughtered because his stats are too low, as evidenced by the fact that a beatstick with significantly better stats in the relevant areas still got smacked around all the time, and killed once.

Now, an actually competent beatstick could be relevant in this fight, as evidenced by the party gish who, after an early fight beatdown found that most of the foes could not hurt him anymore, in large part due to the fact the ones that could hurt him were locked down or destroyed. So he was pretty much left to his own devices, attacking 8 times a round for 50+ a hit. However, 'Fighter' and 'actually competent beatstick' are two different things.

So you see, it requires no deliberate effort from anyone to make an encounter that shuts down Fighters because it simply cannot be helped. It requires no deliberate effort from anyone to make an encounter in which casters shine because they are going to have something in their toolbox that will work, even if they have heavily screwed up.

Even if that Wizard didn't turn out to be the MVP for locking down the BBEG, the title would go the Artificer for Forcecaging critical threats or perhaps the Cleric for Sunbeam/Mass Heal/etc. So it may not be that particular caster, but it's still the casters collectively.

Advocate
2009-02-24, 09:46 AM
It is true that fighters usually need a bit of help. I don't really think anyone denies that. However, helping out fighters usually means telling casters that no - there are no chain contingencies, no persistent spells, and you cannot enchant any random magic item you can dream up.

And then of course, you need to make the fighter a hard target to affect with save-or-suck spells.

That's pretty much it. Banning all the god damned expansions out there keeps casters sane, if powerful - but if you tweak the fighter to the point where slowing, holding or confusing him is a trickky proposition, then all is well.

Sidenote: Keeping casters from enchanting whatever strikes their fancy keeps me in control of what magic items the party has. This is good. Naturally I don't ban enchanting - I just keep it under GM rather than player control.

No chain contingencies hinders everyone, beatsticks most of all. You are aware those are not self only, right?

Persistent Spells? Some are self only, some aren't... Recitation + Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, anyone?

Can't make magic items at will means casters shrug, get themselves a prime stat item, a Con item, cast Superior Resistance on themselves and don't care. Beatsticks assume the fetal position, rock, and whimper, as they have just been completely negated. Good job.

The first part of your post contradicts the second part. After all, items boosting saves are still items.

Banning all the 'goddamned expansions' out there... See two paragraphs up for what this does to beatsticks. Core only caster says whoop de *censored* do, and still has 8 or 9 of the 10 best spells in the game. It is also directly contradictory to the second half of that paragraph, where you suggest buffing him to the point of basic competence.

Limiting magic items is an anti beatstick measure. Full stop.

Now, someone said I was talking about 'the logical end of the gaming system'. This is wholly false. I'm simply talking basic, practical optimization here. As in 'use PA with a two handed weapon basic'. The 'logical end' of the gaming system would be the entire party's casters divination spamming like crazy to know exactly what they will face, then sending Simulacrums, Astral Projections, or whatever of themselves to deal with it. The clones are packing a Ring Gate, so that the real characters are sitting safe in their extradimensional home, and can support their proxies via casting spells through the Ring Gate with no risk to themselves. The worst case scenario here is that the clones die... not likely when you're super buffed to know exactly what you will face. Even if they do though... no big deal. Note that beatsticks have no ability to do this, and are an active liability as they would interfere in such play. Even the good ones.

Alternately, the party actually goes after them, but uses an altered time demi plane they created along with Gate to get a full spell load out in 1 round, whenever it's needed.

The characters I'm talking about don't do that. They easily could, but don't.

To Temp: Except that you've turned into a 'punch line' because the enemy drew an attack line to your face, and not because people are laughing at your incompetence. Though they're probably doing that too. Take for example, the Paladin I keep mentioning. No one takes her seriously at all, because she's died twice already (once to two Vrocks, which anyone else in the group could casually deal with and once to one hit, which granted was a very dangerous hit), and while she has improved drastically between death 1 and death 2 she is pretty much thought of as incompetent from an IC standpoint. Now I dunno about you, but if I were dying all the time, and being laughed at the rest I'd be considering leaving. Sure, the attitude is justified, but incompetence is incompetence nonetheless.

It is also worth mentioning Eldritch Knights are fairly low end gishes.

To Aquillion: Indeed. Even something basic, that was level appropriate 13 levels ago such as Spiked Tentacles represents a much bigger contribution than the entire Fighter class. There is no save to resist the effect, the grapple modifier is your CL + 8 and therefore caps around 30, it works on anything Huge or smaller (though, granted, it's mainly for use on Medium and smaller foes) and even if the enemy is not grabbed, it has to move at half speed to get out which delays it quite a bit.

Now imagine a Stinking Cloud laid over this. A level 3 spell. Save every round or be Nauseated. Well, that means no Standard actions, which means cannot even attempt to break out of the grapple. It also lasts a while, so one failed save means a lot. At this point you can pretty much ignore those enemies entirely, kill other stuff, and then come back to them.

This is a relatively weak combo, and very low level. If we get into things that are actually level appropriate, we get the 32 or higher Int casters casting spells with DCs of 30+. Now, this isn't assured of working, in fact it's a coin toss against level appropriate enemies. However a coin toss chance to instantly obliterate them is far superior than trying to scratch them for piddly *censored*. And 32+ int only requires one item they are quite capable of making themselves and a single spell cast multiple times they are quite capable of casting themselves. So aside from some illogical, video game style you can't do that, they can. Also, that success rate is before saves are debuffed via Ray of Sickness (no save), Enervation (no save) and so forth.

This is also a response to Acromos by the way, who mostly just presented an ongoing strawman, and still has the facts wrong.

Zen Master
2009-02-24, 10:13 AM
No chain contingencies hinders everyone, beatsticks most of all. You are aware those are not self only, right?

Persistent Spells? Some are self only, some aren't... Recitation + Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, anyone?

Can't make magic items at will means casters shrug, get themselves a prime stat item, a Con item, cast Superior Resistance on themselves and don't care. Beatsticks assume the fetal position, rock, and whimper, as they have just been completely negated. Good job.

The first part of your post contradicts the second part. After all, items boosting saves are still items.

Banning all the 'goddamned expansions' out there... See two paragraphs up for what this does to beatsticks. Core only caster says whoop de *censored* do, and still has 8 or 9 of the 10 best spells in the game. It is also directly contradictory to the second half of that paragraph, where you suggest buffing him to the point of basic competence.

Limiting magic items is an anti beatstick measure. Full stop.

This is also a response to Acromos by the way, who mostly just presented an ongoing strawman, and still has the facts wrong.

No no no .... see, you're not paying attention.

As GM, I decide if the caster gets the con item or prime stat item. And Superior Resistance? Really? No, I think not - there is no such spell in the game I play.

Meanwhile, the fighter does indeed have anything I deem necessary for his survival. Because - remember this part? - as GM, I decide.

So no ... I got my facts right. It works exactly the way I want it to - I'd even say, if you tried playing this way, you'd realise that ... you have it all wrong.

However, I'm not going into a shouting match with you. You have your point of view, I have mine. What say we just leave it at that?

Yukitsu
2009-02-24, 11:32 AM
No one here takes homerules seriously when discussing theory.

Lycar
2009-02-24, 11:47 AM
No one here takes homerules seriously when discussing theory.

By RAW the fighter isn't much fun to play at higher levels.

So, if we asume the OP would rather like to discuss some ideas how to rectify that situation, then nothing BUT houserules are significant.

So, if all you have to add to the topic is 'fighters suck by RAW', why bother posting in the first place? :smallconfused:

Lycar

Advocate
2009-02-24, 12:12 PM
Except that he's discussing how to rectify it by going out of his way to coddle the Fighter.

Put another way... Let's say your car's gas tank is faulty. Do you go out of your way to drive it without blowing yourself up, or do you get a working car either by fixing or replacing it?

Likewise, why go out of your way to coddle the Fighter, which amounts to exactly the same thing at letting that guy with DOWN syndrome on the football team score a touchdown when you can just ya know, get players that can win on their own merits? Which also means there's no chance they will eventually figure out they're only winning because they are allowed to win and not because they have any talent or ability because they are winning on their own merits?

This is especially true since the caster is the one making the items in the first place. Let's see... take an XP hit to boost themselves and Gravy Train it, or take an XP hit to try to make the XP sink not an XP sink. Gee, that's a tough one... I hope you at least have the sense to house rule allow the Fighter to pay his own XP costs, but somehow I doubt you do.

Tehnar
2009-02-24, 12:50 PM
In games I participated, typically 40-80% of permanent magic items are those the DM hands out. Depending on have the casters taken the craft magic items feats or not. So every second item the PCs own has been handed to you by the DM.

Trouble tends to spring up when players think they are entitled to X amount of treasure, or X amount of XP, or time to craft things.

Remember the DM is supposed to have fun too, and when he figures out that any character is blowing through his encounters like there were nothing, he will either institute some houserules, or optimize in kind.

Optimization, IMO, in kind leads to 2 round fights, the imperative to win initiative and any suboptimal (not wrong, just one not 100% effective) is punished by death. This, I find, to be very stressful, a bad sort of competition develops between the players in the DM, and in my case, of two people not playing with the regular group anymore.

And in any game I have been, there were at least some houserules. Even in 4e :smallwink:.

SparkMandriller
2009-02-24, 01:18 PM
I can't even tell what you guys are arguing anymore.

Advocate
2009-02-24, 02:20 PM
In games I participated, typically 40-80% of permanent magic items are those the DM hands out. Depending on have the casters taken the craft magic items feats or not. So every second item the PCs own has been handed to you by the DM.

Trouble tends to spring up when players think they are entitled to X amount of treasure, or X amount of XP, or time to craft things.

Remember the DM is supposed to have fun too, and when he figures out that any character is blowing through his encounters like there were nothing, he will either institute some houserules, or optimize in kind.

Optimization, IMO, in kind leads to 2 round fights, the imperative to win initiative and any suboptimal (not wrong, just one not 100% effective) is punished by death. This, I find, to be very stressful, a bad sort of competition develops between the players in the DM, and in my case, of two people not playing with the regular group anymore.

And in any game I have been, there were at least some houserules. Even in 4e :smallwink:.

If by 'DM gives out' you mean 'removed from the cold dead fingers of enemy x, who used it against you' you might be right. But it's not anywhere near that percentage, as most of what enemies are using you're just going to pick up to sell, and then turn around and buy something useful with it. Which, by the way... Beginning at level 9, you can buy absolutely anything you want. Plane Shift to Sigil. Done. Prior to this, any decently sized city should easily cover your needs. Don't even need a metropolis, though that does help. Anything else is just DM power tripping.

Characters are entitled to x amount of gold, because if they don't get enough they are no longer level appropriate. This amount is tied to their XP, which of course determines levels. So yes, they are in fact entitled to an admixture of the two. Having the time to craft with is easily circumvented via one of several means, such as the Workshop in Your Pocket, that only requires one hour of actual effort on your part to make any item. You still don't get the item until the time is up, but it is there. So unless you never have even a single hour to yourself, you can do it. And if you don't... oops, can't eat, can't sleep, TPK by power tripping DM. Good job.

2 round fights are 2 round fights BEFORE optimization kicks in. Once it does, 1 round or less. The DM can start pimping out monsters to get them back living 2 rounds, or maybe even 3. Beyond that though... if you ever get a combat lasting longer than 3 rounds, it's like getting an erection lasting longer than 4 hours. See your doctor right away, as something is VERY wrong, and there's a very good chance of TPK in such a fight as a result of the delaying screw ups.

As for encounters just being blown through... that's the whole purpose of equal level and lower encounters. They are literally speed bumps, just slow you down a little, drain a little resources, but not actually bother you in any way. If you don't like it, don't use equal level encounters so much. A good portion of total encounters are supposed to be higher level anyways after all.

Quietus
2009-02-24, 02:23 PM
I can't even tell what you guys are arguing anymore.

Nothing that matters. No one's willing to back down, for fear of their e-peens being considered limp and inferior.

All I have to say is this : If that party slot the Fighter fills was empty, as you say would be "better", what happens when you fight a beatstick monster, and you DON'T take it down in one round? Frankly, if I had a set of super-optimizing spellcasters who were making anyone who wanted to play a Fighter feel bad just because of poor game design.. I'd give them one warning. Play nice, or I optimize.

If you kept up the stupidity of "Haha, poor little fighter", I'd either separate the Fighter from the party somehow, or give an RP reason that my own NPC enemy Fighter, optimized for massive damage, doesn't kill him when he comes in and does 3.489347*10^7 damage to the people who are out to ruin everyone's fun.

And while that damage may be a little bit exaggerated, I have no doubt that I could very easily use Mage Slayer/Pierce Magical Protection, along with Boots of Haste and Leap Attack/Shock Trooper, to one-shot your pathetic little wizard. Normally, I avoid optimizing to that point, because.. ROCKET TAG IS NOT FUN. But hey, if you think it is, here's my own rockets. Now roll up a new character, and this time, play nice.

Advocate
2009-02-24, 02:57 PM
Nothing that matters. No one's willing to back down, for fear of their e-peens being considered limp and inferior.

All I have to say is this : If that party slot the Fighter fills was empty, as you say would be "better", what happens when you fight a beatstick monster, and you DON'T take it down in one round? Frankly, if I had a set of super-optimizing spellcasters who were making anyone who wanted to play a Fighter feel bad just because of poor game design.. I'd give them one warning. Play nice, or I optimize.

Same thing that happens if the Fighter was there. Chill out, out of attack range, and keep trying till it works. Of course, there are certainly ways to do this that do not allow a save... a simple Dimensional Anchor + Forcecage means he can sit in the corner for a while, for example. If he can't teleport, you don't even need the Anchor. Unless you're implying the fallacy that the Fighter, or just about any other beatstick can actually protect people? By the way, it's not the casters that are making the Fighter feel bad. Not the PC casters at least. Now, enemy casters? Now we're getting somewhere.


If you kept up the stupidity of "Haha, poor little fighter", I'd either separate the Fighter from the party somehow, or give an RP reason that my own NPC enemy Fighter, optimized for massive damage, doesn't kill him when he comes in and does 3.489347*10^7 damage to the people who are out to ruin everyone's fun.

Which, again, presents absolutely no difference in the outcome. Well, except for the fact that if the Fighter were there, he'd be the only one who is actually in attack range, which means the enemy beatstick tears him apart.


And while that damage may be a little bit exaggerated, I have no doubt that I could very easily use Mage Slayer/Pierce Magical Protection, along with Boots of Haste and Leap Attack/Shock Trooper, to one-shot your pathetic little wizard. Normally, I avoid optimizing to that point, because.. ROCKET TAG IS NOT FUN. But hey, if you think it is, here's my own rockets. Now roll up a new character, and this time, play nice.

{Scrubbed}

But seriously, that bit of OOC Rocket Tag and quote referencing aside... Not having a Fighter automatically means everyone has more loot, as whatever loot you did get is divided fewer ways. It also automatically means everyone has more XP, for the same reason. Assuming the typical four man set up, that gives everyone a third more cash. It doesn't mean a third more XP due to the way level up mechanics work, but everyone likely will be about a level higher or so. Maybe more than that. So even if missing him were actually a problem, it is more than compensated by the increased reward. However, since it's not a problem, there's absolutely no reason not to just take a real beatstick, if you're going to take one at all.

Quietus
2009-02-24, 03:18 PM
Same thing that happens if the Fighter was there. Chill out, out of attack range, and keep trying till it works. Of course, there are certainly ways to do this that do not allow a save... a simple Dimensional Anchor + Forcecage means he can sit in the corner for a while, for example. If he can't teleport, you don't even need the Anchor. Unless you're implying the fallacy that the Fighter, or just about any other beatstick can actually protect people? By the way, it's not the casters that are making the Fighter feel bad. Not the PC casters at least. Now, enemy casters? Now we're getting somewhere.

Because every opponent will sit still while you Anchor and Cage him?




Which, again, presents absolutely no difference in the outcome. Well, except for the fact that if the Fighter were there, he'd be the only one who is actually in attack range, which means the enemy beatstick tears him apart.

Except that "Every intelligent monster goes around the fighter".




{Scrubbed}

Not groundbound if, say, I do this with a Balor. Not a fighter, sure, but still a beatstick of sorts. Also, I'll be reporting you for flaming, because that's basically what this one quote is.


But seriously, that bit of OOC Rocket Tag and quote referencing aside... Not having a Fighter automatically means everyone has more loot, as whatever loot you did get is divided fewer ways. It also automatically means everyone has more XP, for the same reason. Assuming the typical four man set up, that gives everyone a third more cash. It doesn't mean a third more XP due to the way level up mechanics work, but everyone likely will be about a level higher or so. Maybe more than that. So even if missing him were actually a problem, it is more than compensated by the increased reward. However, since it's not a problem, there's absolutely no reason not to just take a real beatstick, if you're going to take one at all.

As a DM, one of my jobs is to maintain WBL. This means no matter how fast you level, you get wealth that's appropriate for what you're at. Whether you're a 3, 4, or 40 man party doesn't matter.


The fact I was getting at was that the DM's job is to make the game fun for EVERYONE. Me? I don't like playing rocket tag. Nothing is fun about saying "Make a DC 27 fort save or die. Oh, you passed? Okay, make a DC 30 will save or be imprisoned.", until the entire party is nullified. In fact, very few people I know like playing this way, because it's BORING. If you do, fantastic, but in my experience, very few people enjoy throwing saves back and forth until the party finally rolls low enough to fail and TPK. And that's what it would come down to. I used the big-damage Fighter example for irony's sake; Remember that anything you do as a caster, I can do better, because I'm the DM, have unlimited resources, and can photocopy your character sheet for use as the Big Bad if you're really running some hypothetical "perfect build".


The object of the game is to have fun. Rocket tag, for most, is not the definition of fun, because it ends up being an eventual TPK, or a party full of hyper-paranoid spellcasters who do nothing but sit in extraplanar spaces all day.

Yukitsu
2009-02-24, 03:26 PM
And while that damage may be a little bit exaggerated, I have no doubt that I could very easily use Mage Slayer/Pierce Magical Protection, along with Boots of Haste and Leap Attack/Shock Trooper, to one-shot your pathetic little wizard. Normally, I avoid optimizing to that point, because.. ROCKET TAG IS NOT FUN. But hey, if you think it is, here's my own rockets. Now roll up a new character, and this time, play nice.

You'd be wrong. Despite common misconceptions, those are not easy nor simple methods for killing casters, as it fails to bypass their defensive abilities. Notably A: not being on the field, (astral projection, project image, simulacrum, undead horde, planar bound horde, gate chains) B: not being in your range on the field (fly, polymorph for earthglide, shapechange to incorporeal, dimension hopping) C: miss chances (mirror image, displacement, invisibility, greater invisibility, blink, fog) D: Making it impossible for you to attack them as freely as you need to (blindness, glitterdust, solid fog, sleet storm, grease, web) F: winning initiative regardless of rolls (contingency, celerity, the fact that combat is meant to start at spotting distance, not melee range.) Once you get past all that, mage slayer is rendered rather moot by using the withdraw action out of the radius before casting a quickened spell to move to preferable distances.

I'd not mind then pulling out the rockets in this case, mostly because the ones being used against me are evidently the ones that are countered in abundance, as I'm bound to have at least a few of those spells up and running. Even more likely, a mook (which casters can create) will simply stand in the way, and prevent your charge.

horseboy
2009-02-24, 03:57 PM
All I have to say is this : If that party slot the Fighter fills was empty, as you say would be "better", what happens when you fight a beatstick monster, and you DON'T take it down in one round? Frankly, if I had a set of super-optimizing spellcasters who were making anyone who wanted to play a Fighter feel bad just because of poor game design.. I'd give them one warning. Play nice, or I optimize.

See, now I'd just run a system that doesn't suck. There's plenty out there that don't have this problem. Especially to the point 3.x does.

Advocate
2009-02-24, 04:33 PM
Because every opponent will sit still while you Anchor and Cage him?

They have no choice. You can do this in one round via Quicken. You can also do this in one round, by two different casters both going first. Neither of which are that unlikely, seeing as casters have far more means of boosting their initiative, even if they do not bypass initiative entirely as Yukitsu has been kind enough to elucidate on.


Except that "Every intelligent monster goes around the fighter".

If they can reach the casters then they go around, by leaving him stranded on the ground. If he actually has the ability to chase after (which he doesn't, as haste boots preclude the use of flight boots) then he's still stuck hoping enemies stand still right in front of him, while said enemies be relevant with Standard actions, and use evasion defense with their move action.

If they can't, like your flightless charger... who else is he going to attack? There's no one else at ground level.


Not groundbound if, say, I do this with a Balor. Not a fighter, sure, but still a beatstick of sorts. Also, I'll be reporting you for flaming, because that's basically what this one quote is.

A Balor is a caster. If you're actually using it as a beatstick, not only do you qualify as a Fighter coddler, but you are responsible for handing out lots of free XP by making your enemies very easy. Also, given the baiting, flaming, and trolling you have done here I find your response to return fire absolutely hilarious.

In any case, even if such a thing were to succeed in killing the caster, the success rate for whatever it did is EXACTLY THE SAME as if there was a Fighter on your side of the field, so it's still completely irrelevant as the Fighter is still completely irrelevant and incapable of influencing actions on either side of the field. Actually, the success rate for your power tripping living fallacy is even lower if the Fighter isn't there. Because see, that means everyone has a third more loot and thus power, and also is at least a level higher. Which means if you don't have a Fighter dragging you down, you're even better off, whereas having one there just means a resource sink with no gain.


As a DM, one of my jobs is to maintain WBL. This means no matter how fast you level, you get wealth that's appropriate for what you're at. Whether you're a 3, 4, or 40 man party doesn't matter.

A complete contradiction to your earlier statement, demonstrating a complete lack of mathematical forethought.


The fact I was getting at was that the DM's job is to make the game fun for EVERYONE. Me? I don't like playing rocket tag. Nothing is fun about saying "Make a DC 27 fort save or die. Oh, you passed? Okay, make a DC 30 will save or be imprisoned.", until the entire party is nullified. In fact, very few people I know like playing this way, because it's BORING. If you do, fantastic, but in my experience, very few people enjoy throwing saves back and forth until the party finally rolls low enough to fail and TPK. And that's what it would come down to. I used the big-damage Fighter example for irony's sake; Remember that anything you do as a caster, I can do better, because I'm the DM, have unlimited resources, and can photocopy your character sheet for use as the Big Bad if you're really running some hypothetical "perfect build".

If you don't like rocket tag, why are you playing D&D? That's like saying you don't like pain, and then hitting yourself with a hammer. It is no one's fault save your own you are in this situation, and you can easily cease to be at any time. Even if any given fight only had a 1% chance to kill you, the fact there are over 250 of the things means you are going to die at least once, and most likely several times. The chance of death is a bit higher than 1% on average if for no other reason than 12 or 13 of those fights are supposed to be 'Overwhelming' with a 50+% death rate due to enemies being 4+ levels higher. And that's going by the stated guidelines, which among other things assume enemies are playing stupid (and thus, if they became smarter and used Slow instead of Fireball for example, the death rate would become higher). D&D = Rocket Tag. Pick up your munitions or go home. You did pack a force field, right? *BOOM!*


The object of the game is to have fun. Rocket tag, for most, is not the definition of fun, because it ends up being an eventual TPK, or a party full of hyper-paranoid spellcasters who do nothing but sit in extraplanar spaces all day.

If you don't find D&D fun, why are you playing it? I'm sure you can find some other system with little to no chance to actually die.

Roland St. Jude
2009-02-24, 08:34 PM
Sheriff of Moddingham: Thread locked for general and growing incivility. Please let's have less baiting, snarking, and insulting other posters.