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Eldariel
2010-05-04, 01:01 AM
It is, by and large, known that Fighters are a subpar class, and specifically that they receive very little beyond the first levels, and that they basically get diminishing returns as they level up; one picks best feats first and then worse and worse until one gets to feats that aren't really useful.

I figured it might be a worthwhile pursuit to open up the curtain a bit on what exactly are the issues with Fighter and some wonderful ideas on how to correct them. With that said, let us get started:

Fighters as a class gain two feats on the first level, and a feat every level thereafter. This in and of itself is useful, but here-in lies an issue. As a rule, a class's powers grow by level; Fighter's remain the same.
Fighters' only class feature outside the bonus feats is access to few Fighter-specific feats. This would be quite excellent, indeed, actually stellar. The only problem is that the feats Fighters have exclusive access to are not actually very good; static +2 to damage and +1 to hit with no scaling even in the higher-up feats is nothing compared to e.g. AD&D 2e Grand Mastery-line. Indeed, they are feats you'll take when you have nothing better available...which happens when you have lots of Fighter-levels granting you a bunch of bonus feats.
Fighter is a mundane class and as such, would need some tools to enable detecting enemies, mobile movement and so on. The principal tool for this in 3.X are skills. Of course, Fighter has wondrous 2+Int skills with one of the worst skill lists in the game. Further, Fighter has trouble affording high Intelligence, Wisdom and Dexterity leading to low skill point total and poor base values in skills. Oh, and then there's the matter of Armor Check Penalty which causes more problems on this front.
The Fighter is supposed to be stopping people from getting to the party, force them to face the Fighter and beat them to bloody pulp. Principal method of doing this is reach weapon and tripping or Stand Still, which Fighter can indeed excel at; the issue arises when the Fighter wants to use anything but a two-handed reach weapon. Suddenly half the reason to have a Fighter in party pretty much vanishes in the wind.
Fighter has good Fortitude-save, but for whatever reason, poor Will-save. This means that Fighter is not only having trouble scaling his power to match the level, he's also among the more likely party members to be attacking the party...which is quite an issue if he's supposed to be the guy keeping other attackers away.
Fighter is generally, in addition to protector, is supposed to be a damage dealer. And indeed, there are ways for a Fighter to deal a lot of damage. Issues arise, though, when the Fighter can't Charge. Indeed, most of the means to deal large amounts of damage (sufficient to seriously damage large Dragons, Big T and company) require the Fighter to be Charging the opponent, or to gain lots of magical buffs to increase his combat prowess. The principal issue here comes when the Fighter doesn't have magic gear; that tends to cut most of his damage away. Being denied a Charge takes the rest.
Fighter should be able to position himself where he can best protect his party. He should also be able to follow up on elusive foes and in general, be where he needs to be. Unfortunately, the Full Attack Mechanic and Fighter's heavy armor tend to ensure this is not the case.
A supposed master of all weapons, a Fighter easily becomes a one-tool-wonder since he wants to focus all his feats on that one tool that gets him enough bang for his buck to keep up.



So...yeah. That's a rather big list of issues in Fighter doing both, Fighter's functionality in his most common party roles, and Fighter's class design. Now, why did I mention Warmarked in the topic? First, in case someone is not familiar with what I'm talking about, see:
The Warmarked (https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AQy814N0Rw6OZGdzNHBid3dfM2NjbXo5Mmcy&hl=en) (and theMarks (https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Aclf_LtvhqMlZGhwbTc4OTlfNTYyNnh2dmM1&hl=en))

I singled it out as a tested fix that addresses all these problems, and may be a great alternative for those planning on playing Fighter in near future. "Why not just play Warblade?" Well, I figured Warmarked deserves a bit more attention than it's getting, and it's not only fully compatible with ToB (indeed, it adds to ToB), it's also fully functional without it; so something to consider for those wanting a better Fighter without access to Tome of Battle.


Just to see how the Warmarked stacks up with the problems the Fighter faces:


Fighters as a class gain two feats on the first level, and a feat every level thereafter. This in and of itself is useful, but here-in lies an issue. As a rule, a class's powers grow by level; Fighter's remain the same.

Warmarked's Marks grow by level. Not only that, but the Warmarked gain access to more powerful marks as they level, and their characters levels aren't actually dead. Design-wise, the class works a hundred times better for this.

As things are linked to Initiator Level, they have a natural growth even when multiclassing.



Fighters' only class feature outside the bonus feats is access to few Fighter-specific feats. This would be quite excellent, indeed, actually stellar. The only problem is that the feats Fighters have exclusive access to are not actually very good; static +2 to damage and +1 to hit with no scaling even in the higher-up feats is nothing compared to e.g. AD&D 2e Grand Mastery-line. Indeed, they are feats you'll take when you have nothing better available...which happens when you have lots of Fighter-levels granting you a bunch of bonus feats.

Well, this...yeah, this isn't so much of a problem for any other class. Having class features solves this.



Fighter is a mundane class and as such, would need some tools to enable detecting enemies, mobile movement and so on. The principal tool for this in 3.X are skills. Of course, Fighter has wondrous 2+Int skills with one of the worst skill lists in the game. Further, Fighter has trouble affording high Intelligence, Wisdom and Dexterity leading to low skill point total and poor base values in skills. Oh, and then there's the matter of Armor Check Penalty which causes more problems on this front.

This is naturally solved by a bigger skill list (most importantly, giving the man eyes) and 4+Int points per level, instead of 2+.


The Fighter is supposed to be stopping people from getting to the party, force them to face the Fighter and beat them to bloody pulp. Principal method of doing this is reach weapon and tripping or Stand Still, which Fighter can indeed excel at; the issue arises when the Fighter wants to use anything but a two-handed reach weapon. Suddenly half the reason to have a Fighter in party pretty much vanishes in the wind.

Even ranged Warmarked have means to threaten squares, and there are attacks which not only make it hard, but also a very bad idea to walk past the Warmarked. The various Save-or-X effects double as means to control adversaries just as much as the improved AoO tools.

There are also ways to redirect attacks to the Warmarked rather than allies, ways of boosting the allies as necessary and so on. In other words, the Warmarked actually has many means to accomplish this.


Fighter has good Fortitude-save, but for whatever reason, poor Will-save. This means that Fighter is not only having trouble scaling his power to match the level, he's also among the more likely party members to be attacking the party...which is quite an issue if he's supposed to be the guy keeping other attackers away.

Warmarked, on the other hand, gains Marks which not only boost his saves, but actively hurt people who try to attack their Will-save. Particularly Mark of the Elder Brain has a plain beautiful effect on any mental intruder. There's also something unmentioned in the Fighter's problems, but unlike Fighter, Warmarked can interact with Walls of Force [Mark of the Anvil], dimensional movement and the like. In other words, the class has built-in mundane - magic interaction the game so sorely needs.


Fighter is generally, in addition to protector, is supposed to be a damage dealer. And indeed, there are ways for a Fighter to deal a lot of damage. Issues arise, though, when the Fighter can't Charge. Indeed, most of the means to deal large amounts of damage (sufficient to seriously damage large Dragons, Big T and company) require the Fighter to be Charging the opponent, or to gain lots of magical buffs to increase his combat prowess. The principal issue here comes when the Fighter doesn't have magic gear; that tends to cut most of his damage away. Being denied a Charge takes the rest.

This is almost a wash: While not that many of the marks add strict damage, that's available especially where needed, and Warmarked's non-damage offensive effects mean being hit by one is dangerous even if not lethal. Makes longer combats more feasible - a nice tool for rocket launcher tag games.


Fighter should be able to position himself where he can best protect his party. He should also be able to follow up on elusive foes and in general, be where he needs to be. Unfortunately, the Full Attack Mechanic and Fighter's heavy armor tend to ensure this is not the case.

Various speed increases, viable defenses outside heavy armor, other movement modes, and lesser reliance on full attacks all ensure this is much less of a problem for a Warmarked.


A supposed master of all weapons, a Fighter easily becomes a one-tool-wonder since he wants to focus all his feats on that one tool that gets him enough bang for his buck to keep up.

And here we get to the heart: Warmarked is not only competent with the weapon symbolized by his Mark, he can make any weapon combination in the game competent (including one-handing and the like) while also having the means to gain great skill in another weapon archetype through a single feat to pick up a second Weapon Mark.

Compared to Fighter, he takes the "Weapon Mastery" and "Master of Many Weapons"-shticks to an entirely different level, thus being much more of a Fighter than the Fighter-class could ever hope to be.


And that concludes our tour to the Fighter Factory. Until next time, may all your Fighters be marked for war.

Keld Denar
2010-05-04, 01:18 AM
And that concludes our tour to the Fighter Factory. Until next time, may all your Fighters be marked for war.

A wonderful conclusion. Many thanks to Doc Roc and all the Penny Dreadfuls for their brilliant work on bringing balance to 3.5!

Huzzah!

GoodbyeSoberDay
2010-05-04, 01:29 AM
Nitpick: Well-built fighters get increasing returns to their feats due to the synergy of various feat chains + the prerequisites of more powerful feats... at least until they finish a chain.

Eldariel
2010-05-04, 02:40 PM
Nitpick: Well-built fighters get increasing returns to their feats due to the synergy of various feat chains + the prerequisites of more powerful feats... at least until they finish a chain.

That's the principal issue; there aren't long enough chains nor exclusive ones. Weapon Supremacy-chain is exclusive, but it includes 4 bad feats and 2 decent ones that don't really make up for the bad ones. And it only comes onto its own on level 18. Most chains are 3 feats long and thus the Fighter is mostly better off used as a dip class to get them easily.

Few exceptions exist in Robilar's and such, but those are in no ways Fighter-exclusive and yeah...

Morty
2010-05-04, 02:48 PM
The Warmarked class sure looks interesting if a bit too over-the-top and power creepish... but I guess it's just me with my wish power level of D&D 3.5 was like the designers seem to have intended it to be before giving some classes abilities vastly beyond it. Anyway, it seems it goes only to 15th level.

Prodan
2010-05-04, 02:50 PM
The Warmarked class sure looks interesting if a bit too over-the-top and power creepish... but I guess it's just me with my wish power level of D&D 3.5 was like the designers seem to have intended it to be before giving some classes abilities vastly beyond it. Anyway, it seems it goes only to 15th level.

You mean stuff like Druids with Natural Spell, Clerics with Holy Word, Sorcerers with Planar Binding, and Wizards with Shapechange?

Morty
2010-05-04, 02:52 PM
You mean stuff like Druids with Natural Spell, Clerics with Holy Word, Sorcerers with Planar Binding, and Wizards with Shapechange?

Look at the rest of the sentence:


before giving some classes abilities vastly beyond it.

Prodan
2010-05-04, 02:53 PM
Hold on. How do you know that the power level was around Monk before the designers gave other classes powers beyond it, rather than the power level being around Druid before giving other classes powers beneath it?

Morty
2010-05-04, 02:58 PM
I don't know it and I never claimed I did. That's what it seems to me - that the designers simply didn't think the results of high-level spells and the like on the game through well enough. It may be true or it might not, but let's not derail this thread, okay?

Greenish
2010-05-04, 03:11 PM
The Warmarked class sure looks interesting if a bit too over-the-top and power creepish... but I guess it's just me with my wish power level of D&D 3.5 was like the designers seem to have intended it to be before giving some classes abilities vastly beyond it. Anyway, it seems it goes only to 15th level.If you want to see the power level designers intended, you ought to look into the newer books: PHBII, ToB and so forth.

PHB is just so all over the place it's impossible to say what power level the designers were hoping to reach.

9mm
2010-05-04, 03:16 PM
As much as I want to tease our projects currently in development, I'd just like to say thank you for the high praise.

Eldariel
2010-05-04, 03:21 PM
I don't know it and I never claimed I did. That's what it seems to me - that the designers simply didn't think the results of high-level spells and the like on the game through well enough. It may be true or it might not, but let's not derail this thread, okay?

Far as I understand, power level wasn't a concern in designing 3.X; it was assumed that AD&D paradigms would apply and things were simply streamlined...breaking everything in the process. I've written the comparison between editions before; things appear the same superficially, but there's a thousand less notable changes that all, invariably, favor spellcasters or screw martials (scaling Save DCs, bonus spells, no drawbacks on casting, less costly spells, shorter casting times, full HP from Con to all, Concentration-skill, improved spells [Gate comes with control, Planar Binding has easy Charisma-check, Shapechange is 10 min/level over 1 round/level, etc.], equivalent XP tables without adjusting level-up speed for longer classes; and on the other side, need of full attacks, increased HP across the block, inability to just physically intercept opponents, etc etc etc).

So the breaking of things and power level spiraling into nonsense is really a consequence of a hundred different factors conspiring together to take basically everything that made warriors good away while simultaneously removing everything that gave drawbacks to spellcasters, particularly arcane ones. The results should be rather obvious when looking at the entire change as a whole. Indeed, Warmarked is balanced for Tier 2-3, about. It's supposed to keep up with spellcasters with similar level of optimization potential while also functioning in a lower optimization game.


But yeah, thanks for your consideration; the discussion really belongs somewhere else.

Morty
2010-05-04, 03:46 PM
Back on topic, then - the Warmarked as it is now is well-designed but I don't think it's an ideal replacement for a Fighter because of its blatantly supernatural abilities. The way I see it, a high-level Fighter is someone who survives in a world full of mages, dragons, demons and the like by the virtue of being badass and extremely good at what he does, but still fundamentally mundane - he may strain belivability by headbutting a balor to death but not break it like a wizard does by teleporting across 1000 miles. Stuff like some high level ToB manuevers are fine, sprouting wings or breathing fire... not so much. Of course, some Mark abilities labeled as (Su) don't really have to be Supernatural, it seems.

PhoenixRivers
2010-05-04, 03:52 PM
Back on topic, then - the Warmarked as it is now is well-designed but I don't think it's an ideal replacement for a Fighter because of its blatantly supernatural abilities. The way I see it, a high-level Fighter is someone who survives in a world full of mages, dragons, demons and the like by the virtue of being badass and extremely good at what he does, but still fundamentally mundane - he may strain belivability by headbutting a balor to death but not break it like a wizard does by teleporting across 1000 miles. Stuff like some high level ToB manuevers are fine, sprouting wings or breathing fire... not so much. Of course, some Mark abilities labeled as (Su) don't really have to be Supernatural, it seems.

And the fighter, how does he headbutt the balor that's 30 feet above him, tossing SLA's like they're candy?

He needs to fly.

With magic.

Greenish
2010-05-04, 03:54 PM
I really like the "Mark of the Hoplite", but I've a few questions of the others:
What does the "damage cannot be obviated" part mean in Mark of the Einhander:
Mark of the Einhander:

Essence: (Ex) While wielding a weapon affected by the Shape ability, you can spend a standard action to ready a full-round action (instead of a standard action) IL/8 times per encounter. This damage cannot be obviated but can be healed after the fact.
Is there some balance reason Mark of the Forge doesn't work on simple weapons?

Does the shape ability of Mark of the Lash have unlimited uses:
Mark of the Lash:
Name: (Ex) In response to an attack roll, the casting of a spell, or usage of a spell-like ability and as an immediate action, you can make an Interrupt Attempt.
Make a ranged touch attack with range equal to your melee reach + 30 feet. If your attack succeeds, the action to which you responded is foiled and wasted with no other effect"Action wasted" might be read as resource waste. Checking if it's intentional. . If the target is entitled to any other attacks or actions, those are not affected. This ability has a one-round cooldown.

Is there a mounted combat mark in the works? :smalltongue:


Oh, and the marks that add class skills come at rather late, having (for example) a sneaky option before level 12 would be cool.

9mm
2010-05-04, 04:04 PM
Does the shape ability of Mark of the Lash have unlimited uses:

if you have the immediate action to activate then yes you can lash to interrupt. While extremely dangerous in one on one situations, the simple fact is multiple enemies or even a single full attack can power through the ability.


Is there a mounted combat mark in the works? :smalltongue:

While our focus is mostly on some new projects, we are still thinking of marks now and then, so... maybe.

DragoonWraith
2010-05-04, 04:09 PM
Back on topic, then - the Warmarked as it is now is well-designed but I don't think it's an ideal replacement for a Fighter because of its blatantly supernatural abilities. The way I see it, a high-level Fighter is someone who survives in a world full of mages, dragons, demons and the like by the virtue of being badass and extremely good at what he does, but still fundamentally mundane - he may strain belivability by headbutting a balor to death but not break it like a wizard does by teleporting across 1000 miles. Stuff like some high level ToB manuevers are fine, sprouting wings or breathing fire... not so much. Of course, some Mark abilities labeled as (Su) don't really have to be Supernatural, it seems.
So... just... don't use them? You're complaining that the Warmarked gives you an option you don't want to use? That seems... odd.

Greenish
2010-05-04, 04:09 PM
if you have the immediate action to activate then yes you can lash to interrupt. While extremely dangerous in one on one situations, the simple fact is multiple enemies or even a single full attack can power through the ability.Hmm, it seemed overpowered at first, but then I remembered that Bestow Curse is a 3rd level spell for clerics. :smallamused:

Morty
2010-05-04, 04:28 PM
So... just... don't use them? You're complaining that the Warmarked gives you an option you don't want to use? That seems... odd.

First off: I'm not complaining about anything. I'm commenting on the class and the idea to use it as a replacement for Fighter. Second off, a good deal of the higher-level Mark abilities are (Su), which limits the options if one wants to build a mundane-yet-badass fighter using this class.

imperialspectre
2010-05-04, 04:30 PM
Yeah, so I can't think of much higher praise than having Eldariel start a thread about the Penny Dreadfuls' signature 3.5 homebrew. Thanks, man. :smallsmile:

If you don't like the blatantly (Su) abilities, pick other ones. There are marks in every single section (except Magical Beast, which was explicitly written to morph you into something like a super-focused Totemist, and which can be passed over in favor of less-obvious Aberration marks without gimping your character) that can be fluffed as you just being badass. The Elder Brain mark, for example, makes you unbelievably good at sensing enemies and deducing what they might be from around corners, as well as making wizards recoil in pain when they fail to penetrate your mental defenses. I honestly can't think of a way that those abilities don't fit what a high-level fighter should look like.

The reason we ended up making Warmarked 15 levels long was because we don't know of a way to make non-casters function in the same game as casters from level 16 on. There's a massive gap in capability and function there that can be largely avoided in the levels up to that point. Additionally, we've been focusing a large part of our attention on projects that aren't based on 3.5 (aside from one of them falling under the 3rd Edition OGL), which can be marketed and "owned".

Edited to add: (Su) is a tag for balance and game design, not fluff. When level-appropriate challenges include demons that can locally reverse gravitational fields, dragons whose favored combat techniques look more like modern close air support aircraft than like a natural creature, and wizards who routinely break the laws of physics, your solutions must include either magic or very high levels of technology - and D&D has no high-tech worlds. If you want games based on mundane heroes that are just really badass, don't play 3.5 past 9th level.

Doc Roc
2010-05-04, 05:55 PM
Edited to add: (Su) is a tag for balance and game design, not fluff. When level-appropriate challenges include demons that can locally reverse gravitational fields, dragons whose favored combat techniques look more like modern close air support aircraft than like a natural creature, and wizards who routinely break the laws of physics, your solutions must include either magic or very high levels of technology - and D&D has no high-tech worlds. If you want games based on mundane heroes that are just really badass, don't play 3.5 past 9th level.

Worse, it has no high-tech WORDS. There's no way to discuss something mechanically as a product of technology or advanced martial tradition. It's either Ex or Su, nothing in between. Worse, due to AMF, a lot of the things that are tagged Ex are that way to insure that you can function in side an AMF or other suppression effect. We considered adding a new category for the sake of fluff, but time and effort are really at a premium for us, and worse it would have added another mechanical burden to an already heavily weighted class.
I think one concern of mine, basically, has been insuring that the immense amount of work that went into War-marked isn't wasted.

JeminiZero
2010-05-04, 08:24 PM
If you want games based on mundane heroes that are just really badass, don't play 3.5 past 9th level.

Actually, Warblades come pretty close to being badass without "obvious"* magic, so long as you use non-magical ways to compensate for the lack of flight (Dragonborn, Raptoran, Dragonwing series of feats).

*By Obvious Magic, I mean stuff like throwing balls of fire. Merely having weapon/armor/shield with a higher enchantment bonus isn't obvious.

TheMadLinguist
2010-05-05, 02:48 AM
And the fighter, how does he headbutt the balor that's 30 feet above him, tossing SLA's like they're candy?

He needs to fly.

With magic.

Or just jump good.

Samurai jack has no need of flying.

Aharon
2010-05-05, 02:54 AM
I'm curious what penny dreadful is going to market, and how? Have you actually founded a company and intend to release a game? That would be cool...

Doc Roc
2010-05-05, 03:11 AM
I'm curious what penny dreadful is going to market, and how? Have you actually founded a company and intend to release a game? That would be cool...

Well, we're planning to launch an Alpha of Legend by the end of may, in a really playable form, but that might have to be pushed back by a few days. Be as that may, we're not going to end up as a large or serious company. We all have day jobs, because trying to make it in the RPG industry is a ridiculous proposition. The other factor is that everyone and their brother has this system in their head that they love and are married to, and add to this the fact that the RPG market is small as a drop in a very large bucket, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Rake
2010-05-06, 07:57 AM
Sigh.

If a wizard is completely superior to a fighter, then a party of wizards is completely superior to a party of fighters.

A party of wizards TPKs or suffers a heavy character death toll the first time a group of high-damage-output monsters gets a surprise round on them. A party of fighters shrugs the surprise round off and keeps fighting.

A party of wizards TPKs the first time someone casts wail of the banshee.

A party of wizards TPKs the first time someone casts antimagic sphere.

Therefore: a wizard is not entirely superior to a fighter.

There are any number of situations that can arise in-game. A wizard can prepare for the majority of them, but not for all of them. The best party is a mix of fighting ability, spellcasting ability, skills, and class features.

Tinydwarfman
2010-05-06, 08:12 AM
Sigh.

If a wizard is completely superior to a fighter, then a party of wizards is completely superior to a party of fighters.

A party of wizards TPKs or suffers a heavy character death toll the first time a group of high-damage-output monsters gets a surprise round on them. A party of fighters shrugs the surprise round off and keeps fighting.

A party of wizards TPKs the first time someone casts wail of the banshee.

A party of wizards TPKs the first time someone casts antimagic sphere.

Therefore: a wizard is not entirely superior to a fighter.

There are any number of situations that can arise in-game. A wizard can prepare for the majority of them, but not for all of them. The best party is a mix of fighting ability, spellcasting ability, skills, and class features.

No, what is superior is balance of roles and versatility. A party of wizards IS strictly better, because each wizard will specialize in a different role. A party of only battlefield controllers will suffer, but a party with a gish, a BFC, a blaster, and a specialized defensive caster IS strictly superior. Now of course, this doesn't work at low levels, but by level 7, the wizard party will outshine the one with fighters in every way. Of course in most games, rounding out the party with a CoDzilla and an artificer or something will be better than straight wizards, but a team of 4 wizards is still superior in pretty much every way to the traditional "balanced" party.

The Glyphstone
2010-05-06, 08:15 AM
Sigh.

If a wizard is completely superior to a fighter, then a party of wizards is completely superior to a party of fighters.

Correct.



A party of wizards TPKs or suffers a heavy character death toll the first time a group of high-damage-output monsters gets a surprise round on them. A party of fighters shrugs the surprise round off and keeps fighting.

Any wizards traveling without at least a modicum of defensive measures deserve to die. Unless the high-damage output monsters are spellcasters, they'll almost certainly be limited to mundane ranged attacks, which are both highly ineffective against typical wizard defenses and unlikely to oneshot any wizard who didn't dump CON. The party of fighters will have to counter-engage at range, likely with lower damage output.



A party of wizards TPKs the first time someone casts wail of the banshee.
You have a party of all wizards. One of them is going to be a dedicated counterspeller. Also, Wail of the Banshee = 9th level. Welcome to an entire party of Wizards shapechanged into Solars with Cleric casting, and the resultant Death Ward. The party of fighters can't protect themselves, only hope to save - and if the enemy casts a Mass Charm Monster instead, the fighters are far worse off.



A party of wizards TPKs the first time someone casts antimagic sphere.

Antimagic Field is a 10ft. emanation centered on the caster. There's no way you can catch them all in the same spread, and they can just scatter to obliterate you. If the enemy casts a Chained Dispel Magic followed up by a Chained Quickened Shatter, the fighters are doomed.



Therefore: a wizard is not entirely superior to a fighter.

All of your examples feature...a spellcaster defeating these wizards. That same spellcaster would decimate a group of fighters in their place.



There are any number of situations that can arise in-game. A wizard can prepare for the majority of them, but not for all of them. The best party is a mix of fighting ability, spellcasting ability, skills, and class features.

And a properly dedicated wizard can supply all of these. A focused summoner can provide all the fighting ability the party needs, it's trivially easy to substitute magic for skills, and spellcasting is the best class feature in existence.




However, this is off-topic. On topic, Warmarked are cool.

Doc Roc
2010-05-06, 09:30 AM
Sigh.

If a wizard is completely superior to a fighter, then a party of wizards is completely superior to a party of fighters.

A party of wizards TPKs or suffers a heavy character death toll the first time a group of high-damage-output monsters gets a surprise round on them. A party of fighters shrugs the surprise round off and keeps fighting.

A party of wizards TPKs the first time someone casts wail of the banshee.

A party of wizards TPKs the first time someone casts antimagic sphere.

Therefore: a wizard is not entirely superior to a fighter.

There are any number of situations that can arise in-game. A wizard can prepare for the majority of them, but not for all of them. The best party is a mix of fighting ability, spellcasting ability, skills, and class features.

Our experience has been:
A party of war-marked kills a party of fighters every single time.
A party of wizards gets about a 60-40 win rate against a party of war-marked.
A party of wizards gets a 90-10 win rate against a party of fighters.


We've actually tested these things. Empirical evidence suggests that you're wrong, on top of the excellent counter-argument presented by glyphstone.

Fighters DO have generally superior single-target damage output, when compared to wizards, but without a "combined-arms" approach, will almost never reliably deliver except in the extremely high end of optimization. I don't actually enjoy writing homebrew, particularly not something as complex as the nearly 20-page war-marked. I didn't do this because I thought there was a small problem, and I didn't do this without extensive testing and research first.

Gnaeus
2010-05-06, 09:31 AM
I want to second some of Greenish and Morty's points.

I like the class. It seems to be well balanced. I would like to play one, or at least see one in play.

"Cannot be obviated" means what exactly? Ignores DR? Concealment? Incorporealness? This is used more than once and needs to be clarified.

The capstone ability "Ascent of the Remade" is missing.

It really should go to 20. I understand and agree with the justification of the difficulty of maintaining balance with high level casters, but if the campaign passes 15th level a player isn't going to want to remake his character or start taking fighter levels because his class expired.

As Morty said, it seems pretty supernatural in nature for a fighter replacement. I think warblade does a better job of describing a supremely skilled mundane.

The real barrier to its use, however, is its format. When it comes out in a book that we can access at the table, my group (and I think many others) more likely to use it.

Doc Roc
2010-05-06, 09:33 AM
We are hoping to eventually pull it together into a bookish thing.

I've been thinking about those last 5 levels for almost six months. At this point, I'm really open to suggestions.

Cannot be obviated probably should be clarified. What we meant is that you can't prevent or redirect it in any way whatsoever, because it is a cost.

Regarding warblade:
War-marked uses a slightly peculiar IL stacking mechanic explicitly so you can mix between them as much as you want. Likewise, the mark feats are there to help allow you to build a character who is as supernatural as you want him to be, and no further.

The problem we ran into was that by about 10th level, warblade is starting to fall seriously behind an equivalent full-caster. Not as badly as a fighter, but I still wouldn't want to 1v1 a druid with a warblade. Some of this is fixed with the underlying ToS banlist. Some of it is not.

The fundamental problem, though, was that a LOT of very smart people had already tried to improve the warblade, and I wasn't really overwhelmed with the results from a tier-two balance-point's perspective. This implied to us that there was a basic disconnect in the way that the warblade interacted with the world, compared to the way that the wizard did, one which hinges on the acquisition of certain crucial but supernatural abilities.

Eldariel
2010-05-06, 09:43 AM
Sigh.

If a wizard is completely superior to a fighter, then a party of wizards is completely superior to a party of fighters.

A party of wizards TPKs or suffers a heavy character death toll the first time a group of high-damage-output monsters gets a surprise round on them. A party of fighters shrugs the surprise round off and keeps fighting.

A party of wizards TPKs the first time someone casts wail of the banshee.

A party of wizards TPKs the first time someone casts antimagic sphere.

Therefore: a wizard is not entirely superior to a fighter.

There are any number of situations that can arise in-game. A wizard can prepare for the majority of them, but not for all of them. The best party is a mix of fighting ability, spellcasting ability, skills, and class features.

It is cordially suggested that you either do some personal research on, or read around a bit on a Wizard's capabilities before making sweeping statements to this effect.

I do have to point out that Antimagic Field does nothing against a relatively large subset of "Spell Resistance: No" and "Conjuration (Calling)"-spells, and it is centered on the caster so Wizards probably just fly up and blow up the dolt using said spell. Then there are more esoteric tricks for countering it like the classic huge Tinfoil Hat with Shrink Item cast on it (when it comes contact with the AMF, it will return to its normal size, blocking the line of effect from the AMF to the Wizard; AMF is an emanation so solid object blocks it).

And I do have to point out that Wizards have all, means to pump up their saves, means to escape the effective radius of the spell before Wail affects them, means to prevent Wail cast by most creatures from resolving and means to be outright immune to Wail.


It is also worth noting that you are basically saying "You can kill Wizards with spells." Now, while you're listing the wrong spells, the premise still has a grain of truth in it; by far the best means to try and slay Wizards are spells, arcane spells in particular. Disjunction, Greater Dispels, Dimensional Locks, Celerities, Shapechange, Planar Bindings, Simulacrums, Scryings, Contact Other Plane and company are all extremely powerful tools against fellow casters, and even Antimagic Field has its uses in the whole (yes, even if you are a spellcaster yourself). So to defeat a Wizard, you'll want a Wizard. Can you see where this is going? Hint: It is not really helping your case here.

But discussion on what a Wizard is, or is not, capable of is only extremely tangentially related to this. There are other threads on the subject and it may prove enlightening to read some of the Test of Spite (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150821) fights or such if you feel like educating yourself on the matter. Thread on why each class is in each tier may also help. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5256.0) And that begs a link to the Tier System itself (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.0). Either way, I pray you let this thread be about Fighters and Warmarked, not Wizards and Tier 1.

Togo
2010-05-06, 03:22 PM
It is cordially suggested that you either do some personal research on, or read around a bit on a Wizard's capabilities before making sweeping statements to this effect.

Done. A wizard is not completely superior to a fighter.

With a sympathetic DM however, there's not much a wizard can't do.

Prodan
2010-05-06, 03:23 PM
With a neutral DM however, there's not much a wizard can't do.
I believe the above statement is now a more accurate reflection of reality.

Greenish
2010-05-06, 03:52 PM
Done. A wizard is not completely superior to a fighter.Is there something a fighter can do better than a wizard? (Say, past level 6.)

Cannot be obviated probably should be clarified. What we meant is that you can't prevent or redirect it in any way whatsoever, because it is a cost.A cost? I figured it was just another way to get move and full attack. (As in: ready a full attack against the target when you come at range, then move to the target. Or if that doesn't work [which I suspect it won't, on second reading], move to the target, then ready a full attack for when anyone does anything. You're still at the same relative place in initiative order with the latter.)

Prodan
2010-05-06, 03:57 PM
Is there something a fighter can do better than a wizard? (Say, past level 6.)


Hit things with a stick.

Greenish
2010-05-06, 04:01 PM
Hit things with a stick.Polymorph into something with hands?

[Edit]: Shapechange into Solar, use Solar's cleric spells to buff yourself like a Clericzilla. Okay, needs a bit higher level than 6.

Kylarra
2010-05-06, 04:03 PM
Hit things with a stick.
Greater Mighty Wallop and Tenser's Trapformation? Ignoring polycheese.

Eldariel
2010-05-06, 04:05 PM
...could you all stop that? I think we've had enough Wizard-vs.-Fighter threads and that fundamentally isn't the question here, but the design of Fighter itself for its role. I mean, we've went through all this a hundred times before; I'm not seeing what one more will change.

Greenish
2010-05-06, 04:08 PM
...could you all stop that? I think we've had enough Wizard-vs.-Fighter threads and that fundamentally isn't the question here, but the design of Fighter itself for its role. I mean, we've went through all this a hundred times before; I'm not seeing what one more will change.Sorry. :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, would either of my interpretations of the delayed actions work? I honestly figured that was one of the purposes of the ability, but Doc Roc made it sound like you're sacrificing something to use it.

Amphetryon
2010-05-06, 04:09 PM
Eldariel, thanks for your kind appraisal of the work we did.

Oslecamo
2010-05-06, 04:38 PM
Our experience has been:
A party of war-marked kills a party of fighters every single time.
A party of wizards gets about a 60-40 win rate against a party of war-marked.
A party of wizards gets a 90-10 win rate against a party of fighters.


We've actually tested these things. Empirical evidence suggests that you're wrong, on top of the excellent counter-argument presented by glyphstone.


Wait, so your "evidence" says that war marked are more effecient at killing fighters than wizards, but then the wizards stomp the warmarked? Excuse me good sir but something is very fishy there.



...could you all stop that? I think we've had enough Wizard-vs.-Fighter threads and that fundamentally isn't the question here, but the design of Fighter itself for its role. I mean, we've went through all this a hundred times before; I'm not seeing what one more will change.

It never ends. This thread could actualy be considered just another of those, but with a mutant fighter (aka the war-marked).

Wich leads me to why I dislike the war-marked.

Like already pointed out, ToB is pretty cool because it gives you cool things to do with pointy sticks.

War-marked is however based on supernatural abilities that have little if nothing to do with war or pointy sticks. You're not playing a warrior. You're playing some kind of eldritch abomination that twists reality around you in semi-random ways.

Not to mention the suposed counters to wizards are just "lol no!" buttons. ToB gave us generic stuff like Iron Heart Surge, sudden leap, mind over matter that can be used to bypass magic obstacles but work for other stuff too. War-Marked just says "and for a random reason this can't be stoped by magic. Evar. But mundane defenses stop it flat". It just hurts my brain. It just invites a power escalation where the wizard just searches for new tricks that say "lol no to your lol no!" to the war-marked abilities.

Claudius Maximus
2010-05-06, 04:43 PM
Wait, so your "evidence" says that war marked are more effecient at killing fighters than wizards, but then the wizards stomp the warmarked? Excuse me good sir but something is very fishy there.

Ideally, a party of wizards vs. a party of war-marked should be an even fight, with about 50-50 odds. 90-10 is very bad, and shows the flaws of the fighter class. That the war-marked can do as well as 60-40 is a pretty good achievement.

I'm pretty sure the goal here is that the war-marked be one of the best classes for beating stuff up, but they lack quite the array of options wizards and clerics get. They're supposed to be able to exist in the same game as optimized wizards, and should perform about as well as an optimized sorcerer.

I do agree somewhat with the criticism that the class can get too supernatural to serve as the replacement for a mundane class. There are, however, marks that are pretty reasonably nonmagical, and nobody's forcing you to take the blatantly supernatural ones. It's also designed to multiclass elegantly with ToB classes, so you could play a War-Marked/Warblade, take some good features from both, and still not have anything excessively supernatural.

Oslecamo
2010-05-06, 04:53 PM
Ideally, a party of wizards vs. a party of war-marked should be an even fight, with about 50-50 odds. 90-10 is very bad, and shows the flaws of the fighter class. That the war-marked can do as well as 60-40 is a pretty good achievement.

Let me put this point by point.
1-The fighters on that test were so weak they were always slaughtered by the war-marked.
2-However the wizards lost 10% of the matches against the fighters.

This means that either:
1-The war-marked can insta-gib fighters better than wizards
2-The war-marked can make themselves 100% immune to fighter attacks.

Both are kinda impossible. The wizard has both better attack options and defenses against the fighter. The wizards should have killed more fighters than the war-marked. The tests were clearly biased.



I'm pretty sure the goal here is that the war-marked be one of the best classes for beating stuff up, but they lack quite the array of options wizards and clerics get. They're supposed to be able to exist in the same game as optimized wizards, and should perform about as well as an optimized sorcerer.

Problem is, they're so supernatural that you may as well be playing a cleric or wizard instead of learning a whole new class. Pick druid. Call it nature-marked. Profit.

Not to mention with the whole psionict stuff in the background you can never make a true mundane warrior out of it.

In particular because one of the main complains about the fighter(and wich seems to don't have been adressed), it's that classes should have out-of combat stuff.

Casters get out of combat stuff. ToB gets out of combat stuff. War marked does not.

Also, war-marked doesn't multiclass elegantly with ToB. It multiclasses "Do it or get gimped power wise", wich is anything but elegant. Since it offers full manifester bonus you've got no reason whatsoever to don't dip it, in particular if you don't plan to reach lv20.

Prodan
2010-05-06, 05:04 PM
Let me put this point by point.
1-The fighters on that test were so weak they were always slaughtered by the war-marked.
2-However the wizards lost 10% of the matches against the fighters.

This means that either:
1-The war-marked can insta-gib fighters better than wizards
2-The war-marked can make themselves 100% immune to fighter attacks.

Both are kinda impossible. The wizard has both better attack options and defenses against the fighter. The wizards should have killed more fighters than the war-marked. The tests were clearly biased.
Perhaps you are not taking other variables into account and/or misunderstanding the data?

For example, if there were 10 wizard vs fighter tests, and the wizards lost one of them due to sheer bad luck or whatnot, then that would create a 90% victory record.

Meanwhile, if the warmarked vs fighter test went off without either side experiencing blindingly bad luck, the warmarked would win ever single time. This would create a 100% victory record for the Warmarked.

Now, statistical analysis is best done with large numbers of tests, say, N = 30 or more runs, but I doubt they ran 30 wizard vs fighter matches.

Doc Roc
2010-05-06, 05:09 PM
Perhaps you are not taking other variables into account and/or misunderstanding the data?

For example, if there were 10 wizard vs fighter tests, and the wizards lost one of them due to sheer bad luck or whatnot, then that would create a 90% victory record.

Meanwhile, if the warmarked vs fighter test went off without either side experiencing blindingly bad luck, the warmarked would win ever single time. This would create a 100% victory record for the Warmarked.

Now, statistical analysis is best done with large numbers of tests, say, N = 30 or more runs, but I doubt they ran 30 wizard vs fighter matches.

Well, we ran about 30 SGTs, but we did have to do way fewer character-versus-character tests. The wizards lost a couple of matches to chance and good saves. Oslo, I'm not sure I follow the point about how supernatural they are. There's no fluff, just some mechanical concessions to insure that certain things can't be done in certain ways, and that certain effects interact certain ways. Just write about where you trained and why you can do these things. For example, maybe your character trained by yelling at the darkness for hours on end, in a vague hope that his pleas for dominance in an uncaring world would be heard, and as a result he was favored by displacer beasts. I don't know, make something up.

And actually, we found that effectively, yes, war-marked are virtually indestructible from the standpoint of traditional high-damage fighter builds, thanks to superior reach, more viable damage tactics, and better all around defenses. You don't have to trust me though. That's the wonderful thing about this, wot with all the source open. You can just run your own tests.

Gametime
2010-05-06, 07:54 PM
This means that either:
1-The war-marked can insta-gib fighters better than wizards
2-The war-marked can make themselves 100% immune to fighter attacks.


Or 3-The war-marked test never had a string of poor rolls in the same way the wizards might have.
Or 4-War-marked have better defenses against anything the fighters pulled than the wizards did.
Or 5-Tests are not uniform and it came down to some variable that could not be isolated without more tests than could accurately be run.

Really, though, I'm not sure what your point is in questioning the data. It was offered as evidence that wizards are better than fighters. Since you agree with that, does it matter exactly how much better than fighters the war-marked are, or how much better than the war-marked the wizards are?

Mushroom Ninja
2010-05-06, 09:19 PM
I'd like to add my support of the warmarked to the general discussion. I managed to have a lot of fun and win almost as many Tier 2-3 matches as I lost with a moderately optimized warmarked in ToS. It's a flexible class that lets you have fun with a martial character. I see it as an extention of the spirit behind Warblade and the other ToB classes.

Olo Demonsbane
2010-05-06, 11:16 PM
Thank you Eldariel.

As one rather committed to the warmarked without being part of Penny Dreadful, it's great to hear a complimentary opinion. In the Test of Spite, I have made over 50 characters. I have made 5 or so warmarked and love them. Warmarked are fun to build, fun to play, easy to optimize, not overpowered, and surprisingly difficult to break. Well, partially because the couple times I did find something breakable, Penny Dreadful was able to fix it. Gotta love quick responses :smallsmile:

@Oslecamo: Warmarked are very hard to kill with fighters. This has several reasons:
A) Warmarked have a good deal of action negation that fighters can't deal with.
B) Warmarked can use all of the fighter's tricks and do them better.

Additionally, melee characters are better equipped to kill fighters than wizards are. Dodge+Mobility+Elusive Target gives immunity to power attack and lets a Warmarked annul a Power Attacking fighter rather effectively.

Furthermore, ToS wizards are not exceptional at killing things. Most ToS characters are amazingly defended (I consider any character a defensive failure if his Touch AC is under 35 and his saves are not ~+25 each) and the wizard has lost his ability to intensely metamagic spells to amazingly high damage. They will still beat fighters almost all of the time, but a few good rolls by the fighter can leave the wizard in a precarious position.

Doc Roc
2010-05-07, 10:36 AM
So I spoke with Imp and X, and I think we may actually opt to make War-marked a 20 level class.

Also, regarding people wanting printed copies of war-marked. Talk to me about how you'd like this, and why?

Cieyrin
2010-05-08, 11:59 AM
Also, regarding people wanting printed copies of war-marked. Talk to me about how you'd like this, and why?

Me personally, I don't see how buying a product or having it in a published fashion necessarily makes it legit, as the only thing I've seen with people wanting a print copy is that they don't want to have their computer on to refer to things. They can print it like any file, so I'm not seeing the issue.

Perhaps making a more print friendly version would be appeasing but that's a silly bit of natter to me. :smalltongue:

9mm
2010-05-08, 02:52 PM
Me personally, I don't see how buying a product or having it in a published fashion necessarily makes it legit, as the only thing I've seen with people wanting a print copy is that they don't want to have their computer on to refer to things. They can print it like any file, so I'm not seeing the issue.

Perhaps making a more print friendly version would be appeasing but that's a silly bit of natter to me. :smalltongue:

Done; just after I finish recovering from the move from hell.