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No brains
2011-04-08, 04:43 PM
I used to be big into 3.5. In particular, I loved fighters and feats, putting them together into builds for characters who fought in unique ways with interesting gimmicks. I had so much fun with my builds even if I never used them.

When I came to the forums, the magic of fighters died for me. Magic ruled the game flat out, and fighters weren't even good at fighting. Boy was I disappointed.

A little while after, I joined a 4e group. I had still wanted to play 3.5 because I had already spent so much time and currency on the rulebooks, but I still went along. I started to have fun with 4e (when I played the release I hated it violently because my daily couldn't kill a cheating, trip statue on a perfect hit) and I saw that the balance of power had shifted toward good old extraordinary powers.

What I wonder though: Is 4e really more balanced than 3.5? If I play a fighter am I damned to obscurity behind win-button casters? Do I really have the staying power I thought I had in my 3.5 fighters? Is there some magic BS that will break the game in unfun overanalyzed tiers? Tell me now so i can avoid heartbreak at seeing my precious build fail again.

Surrealistik
2011-04-08, 04:50 PM
I used to be big into 3.5. In particular, I loved fighters and feats, putting them together into builds for characters who fought in unique ways with interesting gimmicks. I had so much fun with my builds even if I never used them.

When I came to the forums, the magic of fighters died for me. Magic ruled the game flat out, and fighters weren't even good at fighting. Boy was I disappointed.

A little while after, I joined a 4e group. I had still wanted to play 3.5 because I had already spent so much time and currency on the rulebooks, but I still went along. I started to have fun with 4e (when I played the release I hated it violently because my daily couldn't kill a cheating, trip statue on a perfect hit) and I saw that the balance of power had shifted toward good old extraordinary powers.

What I wonder though: Is 4e really more balanced than 3.5? If I play a fighter am I damned to obscurity behind win-button casters? Do I really have the staying power I thought I had in my 3.5 fighters? Is there some magic BS that will break the game in unfun overanalyzed tiers? Tell me now so i can avoid heartbreak at seeing my precious build fail again.

Some of the more powerful Controller types like the Wizard have still have 'win buttons' but these require specific sorts of builds to exploit, and are far more limited, and far less foolproof than they once were, and do not necessarily guarantee success (though they usually will at least come close). While each role has its top and bottom tier classes, it is hard to make a truly useless character, Hybrids excepted, and the power differences between these tiers are typically minimal as compared to 3.5. In general the interclass balance in 4e is excellent, and markedly superior to 3.5.

evirus
2011-04-08, 04:59 PM
If you measure success by damage, yes. A well built warlock or sorcerer will out damage you hands down. However they would never be able to defend others nearly as well as you will be able to. In 4e you need to be successful at your role and your role isn't completely based on damage.

MeeposFire
2011-04-08, 05:22 PM
This may excite you.

Fighters are one of the most supported and often voted best (or near best) classes in the game.

Fighters are one of the best defender classes out there with lots of build options

guardian- great defensive control or larger weapon two weapon fighting
great weapon-great damage
Tempest-light two weapon fighting
berserker (not the actual name)-great durability
brawler-great control by grabbing people
arena fighter-lets you always have a weapon even if it is a chair. Also makes the best fist fighters that are not about grabbing.
Knight-most specialized in defending with more punishment but less versatility
slayer-all about the damage and is the only fighter that is officially a striker not a defender

In most polls the fighter is considered one of the most powerful classes in the game at its job. They are very effective and a party will almost always want you.

If you are willing to open up warriors outside of fighter the warlord gets the commanding warrior theme and is one of the best leader classes out there.

Martial is an awesome power source in 4e.

Sir_Mopalot
2011-04-08, 05:26 PM
Moreover, in real games, where the optimization level tends a little lower than forums, there won't be a huge difference between the classes, but more the roles. Fighters are defenders, they tend not to be as high-damage, but they are for defenders. Moreover, if you had a lot of fun figuring out cool tactics and combinations, Fighter's a really good one, it's very versatile.

MeeposFire
2011-04-08, 05:29 PM
And if you go slayer (a sub build of fighter) you can be a striker instead and pile up damage especially on a charge.

Warrior type characters have it really good in 4e no doubt.

No brains
2011-04-08, 05:46 PM
Moreover, in real games, where the optimization level tends a little lower than forums, there won't be a huge difference between the classes, but more the roles. Fighters are defenders, they tend not to be as high-damage, but they are for defenders. Moreover, if you had a lot of fun figuring out cool tactics and combinations, Fighter's a really good one, it's very versatile.

The part about defending in 3.5 is that I hear about is that 1 Ac isn't too helpful unless optimized to hell and 2 casters can defend better than fighters. I also read that fighter is surprisingly NOT versatile, and that even when specialized, it falls far behind the bs in tome of battle.

kyoryu
2011-04-08, 05:53 PM
What I wonder though: Is 4e really more balanced than 3.5? If I play a fighter am I damned to obscurity behind win-button casters? Do I really have the staying power I thought I had in my 3.5 fighters? Is there some magic BS that will break the game in unfun overanalyzed tiers? Tell me now so i can avoid heartbreak at seeing my precious build fail again.

Yeah. Fighters are *awesome* at their job. Their job is not damage, though, nor is it controlling. Their job is defending, and they excel at it.

They also, for a defender, put up impressive damage numbers, especially if you go with the more striker-like sub-builds (Slayer, tempest fighter).

Casters also have many fewer "I win" buttons, and no real ways to outshine other classes in their own roles. You can build a Striker-y wizard, true, at the cost of their power as a Controller, but you can't build a Defender-y one very well. And you certainly can't build one that performs all three roles as well as the classes that nominally should be in those roles.

MeeposFire
2011-04-08, 06:10 PM
The part about defending in 3.5 is that I hear about is that 1 Ac isn't too helpful unless optimized to hell and 2 casters can defend better than fighters. I also read that fighter is surprisingly NOT versatile, and that even when specialized, it falls far behind the bs in tome of battle.

In 3.5 1 AC is not much but it is very nice in 4e. 4e stays very true to its core math overall and so a +1 to AC (or to hit) is just as good at level 1 as it is at level 30. This is very different from 3e where there is no real basic math assumptions that hold true.

In 3.5 casters could "defend" better than fighters since fighters had few to no mechanics to defend anybody while casters had spells that would allow them to control the battlefield (which can be a form of defending) and had spells that let them do everything that fighters could do (a warrior class might put up more damage on an individual hit but the caster could do it almost as well and they would have additional stuff that the warriors could not do so casters were still ahead). 4e characters can not do that. Casters do not possess any abilities that allow them to do other jobs that a warrior type class could not take to make them like casters (ie you can multiclass but unlike in 3.5 the opportunity is equal for both you can make a caster about as warrior like as a warrior can become caster like). Further nearly every class is the best at some aspect and really good in others so you do not need to worry about being overshot just because of your class (optimization can still make a difference but the classes themselves are very close in power).

There are no tiers in 4e. Most classes are fairly close in power with different things they are better at doing within their roles. A warlord (leader class) is better at granting attacks to allies but a cleric (leader) is better at healing. Comparing a fighter(defender or striker) to a warlord does not really work since they have very different jobs (unless you are comparing how they work within a party due to what a role you might need. A fighter is better in a party lacking a defender while warlord will be better in a party lacking a leader). The closest to being a bad class in 4e right now is the assassin class (the original one) which is the weakest striker but even then it still isn't that bad it would be like playing a tier 4 class in a group of tier 3s (weaker but still easy to run with).

Savannah
2011-04-08, 06:33 PM
I can't help with the Fighter in 4e stuff. But I want to point out that just because a lot of people on the internet say something, doesn't mean it'll be true in your home game. If you're playing a 3.5 Fighter in a fairly low-optimization game (which, in my experience, a lot of games are), you can be quite effective. On here, so many people are so into optimization that they assume that every game is going to be played with high-optimization characters, and they forget that tiers are really measures of potential power and not everyone will use them to their fullest extent (which is a perfectly valid playstyle). So, if you're playing in a group where you've never had a problem with your fighters contributing, that won't change just because in some groups fighters can't contribute. Yes, 4e is undoubtedly more uniform, if that's what you want. But you don't necessarily have to give up on 3.5, if you don't want to.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled 4e discussion....

Hiro Protagonest
2011-04-08, 06:45 PM
In 3.5 1 AC is not much but it is very nice in 4e. 4e stays very true to its core math overall and so a +1 to AC (or to hit) is just as good at level 1 as it is at level 30. This is very different from 3e where there is no real basic math assumptions that hold true.

Wait, what? Are you talking about 3.5 damage reduction and stuff? Or is there something I'm missing?

MeeposFire
2011-04-08, 07:04 PM
Wait, what? Are you talking about 3.5 damage reduction and stuff? Or is there something I'm missing?

I think you are misinterpreting what I was trying to say.

In 4e 1 point of AC or 1 point of attack bonus stays relatively equal in value. At each level a monster gains one point of each and characters essentially match that by a combo of ability score bonuses, magic item enhancement bonuses, math patch feats (imp defenses and the expertise line), and the 1/2 level bonus. Since these come out essentially equal this means you stay at a roughly equal chance to hit and be hit at any given level. This means that any bonus is just as good at low levels as at high levels since they have the same impact on the d20 roll. So a +1 is just as good at 1st level as at 3oth level.

3e does not operate this way. To be frank there is no hard guiding mathematical principle to the way defenses versus attack rolls line up. What we can figure out by experience is that a +1 to hit or AC is significant at low levels but a level 20 fighter will likely barely notice that small bonus. In 3.5 bonuses need to get larger to stay as relevant at higher levels as the lower bonuses did at lower levels.

Damage reduction and resists (4e) are very similar in effect and in nature between the editions though 4e does not need the numbers to be as high to remain relevant (the nature stays the same so in both editions the numbers need to get higher to remain as relevant but at high levels resist all 5 is significant in 4e whereas that would be about DR15/- in 3.5 terms).

Hiro Protagonest
2011-04-08, 07:08 PM
I'm not misinterpreting, I always thought that a +1 to hit always equaled an extra 5% chance of hit, no matter what your level.

And I still don't get what you're talking about. Is it that the bonuses are uneven between PCs and monsters?

gurban
2011-04-08, 07:24 PM
One of the great things about 4e is party balance, synergy and cooperation. Wizard needs the fighter to keep the dragon from swallowing him. Fighter is good at keeping the dragon away. Wizard is good at blasting the Dragon. Many more examples of this are possible.
If 5 wizards walk into a Dragon's Lair and lose initiative, that might be all she wrote for the Traveling Wizards.
A balanced group of five, should have a little more luck with that Dragon.

erikun
2011-04-08, 07:46 PM
I'm not misinterpreting, I always thought that a +1 to hit always equaled an extra 5% chance of hit, no matter what your level.

And I still don't get what you're talking about. Is it that the bonuses are uneven between PCs and monsters?
At higher levels in 3.5e, your AC typically didn't matter. Everything's attack bonus was so high that, even if you devoted most of your wealth to AC-boosting, they could still hit easily. The main use of AC was to prevent opponents from using Power Attack or hitting with iteratives. This doesn't even account for attacks that ignored most of your AC (touch attacks), attacks that completely ignored AC (saves), and that spending most of your money on AC meant you didn't have any for a decent weapon to do something in the fight.

In 4e, the system is designed so that nearly all level-appropriate rolls hit on roughtly a 8-13 roll. This means that +1 AC is always relevant, at any level, against nearly any opponent.

MeeposFire
2011-04-08, 07:48 PM
The amount of improvement from a +1 changes depending on what you need to hit. If you hit only on a twenty and you get another +1 to hit you get a huge +100% chance to hit over what you had before as you now hit on two numbers rather than just one. If you hit on a three and you get a plus one your improvement to your hit percentage is less than 1% from where it was before. If you hit with a 10 and get a plus one it improves by 10%. As this shows even a 5% change on a die can have different amounts of improvement based the value it is against.

In 4e the math stays fairly constant which means that your standard character will have around a 55% chance to hit a target at all times. This means that the +1 is always about the same in value.

In 3e values change all over. At the start everybody is near equal so a +1 is just as good for all. At 20th level that +1 will be insignificant since in some cases (high BAB) it makes no difference, in other cases it will have a small affect (med BAB), and in others it makes no affect but for the opposite reason (low BAB since you now can't hit at all). In 3.5 in order to make large improvements you need to increase the bonus. At low levels a +1 is huge at level 20 that bonus means nearly nothing for most characters unless you can convert it to something else (such as power attack).

Sine
2011-04-08, 10:29 PM
The part about defending in 3.5 is that I hear about is that 1) Ac isn't too helpful unless optimized to hell and 2) casters can defend better than fighters. I also read that fighter is surprisingly NOT versatile, and that even when specialized, it falls far behind the bs in tome of battle.
4e is undoubtedly more balanced than 3e is, but Savannah's right that stuff you read on forums don't necessarily apply to real games. There are much fewer newbie 'traps' in 4e and much fewer 'win' buttons, but any game with a jillion powers and feats can be broken. I hear that some CharOp guy figured out how to deal thousands of damage per hit. Also, Intimidate is 4e's Diplomacy; it manages to be underpowered and overpowered at the same time. And every 4e character should eventually take two specific feats just to remain competitive, even though all feats are 'optional.'

That said, 3e has Pun-Pun the 1st level super-god for crissake. At least in 4e, your fighter can literally stop an enemy in its tracks if it tries to run away to attack your squishy wizard friend. And you don't need some crazy race/class combo or super-specific build to do it, because it's baked right into the class.

MeeposFire
2011-04-08, 10:41 PM
It was probably by round not hit. Likely it is because of the spark slippers more than anything that is causing that damage.

No brains
2011-04-09, 07:48 PM
One of the other things I liked about 4e was the idea of a minor action. It never came up for me in 3.5, but I always was worried about the possibility of wanting to use a swift or immediate action in place of my mover or standard in case it was just the better option. Minor actions fix this a little.

Surrealistik
2011-04-09, 07:51 PM
4e is undoubtedly more balanced than 3e is, but Savannah's right that stuff you read on forums don't necessarily apply to real games. There are much fewer newbie 'traps' in 4e and much fewer 'win' buttons, but any game with a jillion powers and feats can be broken. I hear that some CharOp guy figured out how to deal thousands of damage per hit. Also, Intimidate is 4e's Diplomacy; it manages to be underpowered and overpowered at the same time. And every 4e character should eventually take two specific feats just to remain competitive, even though all feats are 'optional.'

That said, 3e has Pun-Pun the 1st level super-god for crissake. At least in 4e, your fighter can literally stop an enemy in its tracks if it tries to run away to attack your squishy wizard friend. And you don't need some crazy race/class combo or super-specific build to do it, because it's baked right into the class.

In addition to what Meepo said, it's also worth noting that this is an example of _extreme_ optimization. You don't need extreme optimization in 3.5e for casters to totally outshine everyone else.

Sipex
2011-04-09, 08:37 PM
One of the other things I liked about 4e was the idea of a minor action. It never came up for me in 3.5, but I always was worried about the possibility of wanting to use a swift or immediate action in place of my mover or standard in case it was just the better option. Minor actions fix this a little.

Essentially, Minor is your swift action now.

Also, when people say defending it doesn't necessarily mean your AC or Defenses are unhittable. They'll usually be on the higher end, but the core idea is your character is good at getting aggro from the monsters and keeping monsters from bypassing them for the squishier party members without consequences.

For example, I have a fighter in my current campaign who is an absolute ace at locking down enemies. Once he gets in melee he trips them, pushes them, moves them, and stops them. If I have an enemy which engages in melee with him it's not getting away.

ninja_penguin
2011-04-12, 08:15 PM
For example, I have a fighter in my current campaign who is an absolute ace at locking down enemies. Once he gets in melee he trips them, pushes them, moves them, and stops them. If I have an enemy which engages in melee with him it's not getting away.

Not sure if this is 3.5 or 4e he's talking about here, but I thought that I'd mention that Fighters in 4e are very very good at doing this, until things start teleporting consistently. Once a fighters marks a guy, he's a very very sticky defender.

MeeposFire
2011-04-12, 08:17 PM
And if they teleport they still take a -2 to hit. Better than nothing for sure.

DeltaEmil
2011-04-13, 09:04 AM
Essentially, a defender in 4th edition has some kind of special Attack of Opportunity (or Opportunity Attack).
For example, fighters (or weapon masters, as they seem to be called now) make the target that you marked stay in place instead of going to the squishier targets. It's not pulling aggro, it's more like some kind of special snare.

Paladins on the other hand have a laserbeam they shoot at people who don't attack them.

Swordmages can interrupt-teleport to an enemy and hit him in the face (or they deal damage that reduces the damage that the enemy inflicts).

And so on. Your enemies don't attack you because they've been mind-controlled like the Knight could do in 3rd edition, they attack you because else, they get whacked in their face.

The marking effect of giving a -2 penalty to attack if not attacking you is just a nice extra.

Dalek-K
2011-04-22, 11:40 AM
Another great thing is that my Halfing knight that I'm making for a game is going to be insanely effective ;)

Try making a heavy armor rapier and heavy shield wielding halfing in 3e and see what you get :P

Darth Stabber
2011-04-25, 05:43 AM
Another great thing is that my Halfing knight that I'm making for a game is going to be insanely effective ;)

Try making a heavy armor rapier and heavy shield wielding halfing in 3e and see what you get :P

It would be a little less effective than a human doing the same thing. And you doing is as a halfling in 4e is slightly less effective than a human doing it. The only thing that you have demonstrated is that 4e doesn't hammer you hard for stupid choices, but you still have some costs (though mostly just opportunity costs).


One of the other things I liked about 4e was the idea of a minor action. It never came up for me in 3.5, but I always was worried about the possibility of wanting to use a swift or immediate action in place of my mover or standard in case it was just the better option. Minor actions fix this a little.

You never used a swift or immediate action in place of a standard or move. All that changed there was a simplification of wording.


I can't help with the Fighter in 4e stuff. But I want to point out that just because a lot of people on the internet say something, doesn't mean it'll be true in your home game. If you're playing a 3.5 Fighter in a fairly low-optimization game (which, in my experience, a lot of games are), you can be quite effective. On here, so many people are so into optimization that they assume that every game is going to be played with high-optimization characters, and they forget that tiers are really measures of potential power and not everyone will use them to their fullest extent (which is a perfectly valid playstyle). So, if you're playing in a group where you've never had a problem with your fighters contributing, that won't change just because in some groups fighters can't contribute. Yes, 4e is undoubtedly more uniform, if that's what you want. But you don't necessarily have to give up on 3.5, if you don't want to.

Okay, you do not have to be playing at a high op level to see that casters are just plain better than everyone else. Heck druid is better than any tier 3 or lower class with no optimization at all. Infact it is usually better than cleric and wizard at low op.

And 4e does have tiers, deny it all you like, they are still there. Now the entire variance of 4e classes could fit within the variance of 1 3.5 tier.

I also love how this has become a bash 3.5 thread. 4e is for people who care about balance, 3.5 is for people who don't like everything they knew about the d&d worlds washed away an rewritten, and want to play non-blasto wizards.

MeeposFire
2011-04-25, 05:56 AM
I guess that you could try to make tiers in 4e but it would not make much sense. The point of making tiers in 3.5 was to help players and DMs decide how to deal with the sheer power variances between classes. In 4e most of the classes are close enough that I don't see much of a point in making a set of tiers especially since while a class may not be as good as another class of the same role in one area it often helps in other ways (warlocks will not be able to out damage the ranger at equivalent skill but it brings a lot more control to the table which can have real value).

EDIT: One tier that might work is an "ease of playing or building" tiers which could be helpful I guess but that is a totally different type of tiering.

Sipex
2011-04-25, 10:28 AM
4e tiers are different, they're split up amongst the roles because a tier 1 Leader isn't going to be a tier 1 striker as well but they're both strong classes in different ways.

edit: In addition, tiers aren't as varied, as said before. The lowest tier character is still very useful in a group.

Yakk
2011-04-25, 01:14 PM
You can break 4e with a Fighter or other melee type about as well as you can with a Wizard. And it is possible to break 4e.

At epic tier, in my experience there is more of a problem with under-optimization (leading to slow fights) than over-optimization, but both can be problems.

I love fighters in 4e. They have lots of mechanical depth, and a base framework that is solid. There is even lots of internal variation.

Tengu_temp
2011-04-26, 01:05 PM
Paladins on the other hand have a laserbeam they shoot at people who don't attack them.

Now I want to play a warforged paladin with eyebeams.

kyoryu
2011-04-26, 02:48 PM
Now I want to play a warforged paladin with eyebeams.

I AM IRON-AND-WOOD-AND-STONE MAN!

No brains
2011-04-26, 08:51 PM
I also love how this has become a bash 3.5 thread. 4e is for people who care about balance, 3.5 is for people who don't like everything they knew about the d&d worlds washed away an rewritten, and want to play non-blasto wizards.

Whoa, whoa! Cool off Dr. Doom!I really can't believe I got to say that particular phrase literally for once in my lifetime...
Having things screwed up lore-wise was a hit to me too. I really liked the nine (not five) alignments and was miffed when I heard there would be no more great wheel. Then again, DM fiat can just Ctrl+Z away all the new BS and put it back to normal. Plus why not use some space in the new books for a few new ideas on how the universe might work?

Also, are you saying that 3.5 is solely beneficial to wizards (and tier 1)?

technoextreme
2011-04-27, 03:14 PM
And every 4e character should eventually take two specific feats just to remain competitive, even though all feats are 'optional.'

Uhhh... Nope. Not every class needs those feats.

Having things screwed up lore-wise was a hit to me too. I really liked the nine (not five) alignments and was miffed when I heard there would be no more great wheel.
The alignment system is a grossly exaggerated and simplistic view of morality. I'm glad that they just sort of excluded it from the game.