So, what does the fighter, ranger, etc represent?

[HowlingWolf]

Hiya all,

Well, I'm curious, what can I say? What is the real difference, and by that I don't mean bonus feats/higher hd lol. Can the figher be someone like a MMA Pro, an Elite soldier (such as a Marine Infantry or Seal?), or maybe a very well-trained cop (maybe SWAT)? What about the Ranger? Could that represent a well-trained hunting or exploration guide, a big-game hunter, maybe a military or elite military scout (between military scout/elite, I'd say the difference there would be exp lvl and abilities), maybe a highly-trained survivalist or hunter?

It seems that with different point buys and specialties, you can make all sorts of characters.

I think, all in all, the biggest and most defining difference is in ability scores. Take a fighter of level four (let's say this is E6), boost him up in strength, con, dex, and focus him on unarmed skills, and you essentially have some of our own real life MMA Pros. To me, it seems, that the biggest difference is in the abilities.

*Happy upcoming Father's Day to all current and past Military, Police, Fire, and EMTS! Thank you for all you have, or will do. Bless you all!

[KillianHawkeye]

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

They can be any of those things, depending on what feats or skills you choose.

[Psyren]

A fighter is a largely blank slate, intended to be customized through feats. Most of the feats available to it unfortunately suck or require lengthy chains to reach true differentiation, but that was the intent. So you could build a gladiator fighter, who is adept at fighting to the death in one-on-one situations and being highly mobile due to lacking armor, or a soldier fighter, who is adept at fighting in a unit in heavy armor, or a bodyguard fighter, who is geared towards protecting another person and absorbing/surviving blows meant for them.

The unfortuntate truth is that there are other martial classes capable of this level of customization who do it far better.

[ericgrau]

Nearly all classes are generic enough that you can describe them the way you want. Multiclassed characters and the more generic classes even more so.

[Gavinfoxx]

Fighter has many, many, many, many too few skills to be a Soldier type class, let alone an elite one. A Fighter is a dedicated martial artist who focuses on a few specific maneuvers, like an Olympic type sort of person.

If you want to be a Soldier, you need Ranger -- probably with ACF's.

Though a fighter with the Thug ACF could be a soldier, perhaps. If you show a competent modern infantryman the D20 Modern classes that are supposed to be soldier, or the Fighter and say he is supposed to be a professional soldier, he will be like, "Uh, I am going to need more class skills and more skill points".

A solider "Soldier" class would be:

Ranger, with:
Skilled City Dweller - Ride for Tumble
Spiritual Connection or Voice of the City
Trap Expert
Strong-Arm Style
Solitary Hunting
Favored Enemy: Human
Champion of the Wild
Distracting Attack


and an elite soldier would simply be higher-level.

[Rhynn]

You kids and your classes!

The Fighting-Man was anyone who used a sword. The Magic-User was anyone who used magic. You couldn't use both! (Unless you were an elf, in which case figure out your own rules for it!) The Cleric was an ill-fitting bastard of a class based on Van Helsing because one of Gary's players wanted to play him, basically. And Thieves didn't exist until the supplements. (Splatbook power creep!)

Seriously, though, in D&D 3.X, the classes are really just collections of abilities. Pretty much any concept can be realized as multiple different class combations.

[Asgardian]

Hiya all,

Well, I'm curious, what can I say? What is the real difference, and by that I don't mean bonus feats/higher hd lol. Can the figher be someone like a MMA Pro, an Elite soldier (such as a Marine Infantry or Seal?), or maybe a very well-trained cop (maybe SWAT)? !

At my table, we see the difference in the amount of training that Class is supposed to encompass

for instance: the NPC Warrior Class is used for guards and police as they have more training than the average guy on the street, but arent trained in all weapons and fighting techniques

The Fighter however has MUCH more training and has knowledge of most weapons and hand to to hand combat making them solid soldiers.

[Devils_Advocate]

What is the real difference
No edition of Dungeons & Dragons has ever accurately simulated real life. Various parts of the rules correspond to ways in which actual stuff in the real world works, but also deliberately eschew realism in various ways for various reasons. The whole class/level thing is just one example of this.

No real person has any character class, because real people are not Dungeons & Dragons characters. So if that's what you mean by "real", there's no real difference.

Furthermore, none of the 11 base classes from the Player's Handbook represent modernized humans. They're not intended to. They're designed to be used in an entirely difference sort of setting than present-day Earth. That's why they give characters magical abilities, grant proficiency with weapons like swords and crossbows rather than firearms, and so on.

This is why d20 Modern exists! It's a different game designed for a setting like present-day Earth. There's also d20 Past for a setting like Earth in the past, which naturally is also different from rules designed to cover the exploits of a group of adventurers in a magical fantasy world.

On the other hand, if you're asking for a non-rule description of what each of the classes is like, then... the book that includes a given class provides such a description along with the game rule information. In Chapter 3 of the PHB, for example, the section for each class gives several paragraphs of descriptive text before the "Game Rule Information" part.

Perhaps you've been learning about the game just from reading discussion about it and the SRD? That's not a bad start, but it's best to get the Player's Handbook in order to understand the setting-related information yourself.

Otherwise, could you explain what motivated this question? I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to ask.

[ericgrau]

You kids and your classes!

The Fighting-Man was anyone who used a sword. The Magic-User was anyone who used magic. You couldn't use both! (Unless you were an elf, in which case figure out your own rules for it!) The Cleric was an ill-fitting bastard of a class based on Van Helsing because one of Gary's players wanted to play him, basically. And Thieves didn't exist until the supplements. (Splatbook power creep!)

Seriously, though, in D&D 3.X, the classes are really just collections of abilities. Pretty much any concept can be realized as multiple different class combations.

I know, right, a cleric's like a friggin' prestige class look at all he can do. But at least he's not the monstrosity which is a bard. Getting into that class was a challenge unto itself. <shakes cane>

[Psyren]

You kids and your classes!

The Fighting-Man was anyone who used a sword. The Magic-User was anyone who used magic. You couldn't use both! (Unless you were an elf, in which case figure out your own rules for it!) The Cleric was an ill-fitting bastard of a class based on Van Helsing because one of Gary's players wanted to play him, basically. And Thieves didn't exist until the supplements. (Splatbook power creep!)

This made me smile :smallbiggrin:

[HowlingWolf]

What I am trying to ask is simply what each class can be used for, what it represents in a societies terms. :-) I have to agree, the Ranger does make a better soldier than the Fighter (whom of course would make a much better MMA fighter.)

Nah, I've messed around with the game for years, usually modifying things for other folks. Sometimes I just like to tinker with the classes. :-)

I grew tired of the challenge of emulating the PC classes with the NPC classes, and found myself curious as to what they could represent. Overall,
after reading all the replies (and thank you all for the replies, I enjoyed reading them), I came up with a bunch of new ideas. Hehehe...especially for E6.

[Urpriest]

In 3.5, Fighter doesn't have an in-setting meaning. Rather, Fighter levels are a toolkit, bland progression to make someone better at various parts of combat, intended to be filled in with other classes or dedicated feat chains to fix the flavor.

Rangers tend to be archers, two-weapon fighters, beastmasters, trackers, trappers, detectives, travelers, scouts, bounty hunters, woodsmen, druidic knights, mounted combatants, specialists in a particular foe, and well, rangers. Any common ranger archetypes I'm missing?

[HowlingWolf]

You forgot Survivalist! Lol!

[Urpriest]

You forgot Survivalist! Lol!

Eh, probably covered under Woodsman. I suppose it could be an urban survivalist though. Oh yeah, or an expert homeless person. Or a tribal hunter. Or a bandit. Or anyone from a tribal society whose focus is more on hit and run tactics than brute force. Or...

Come to think of it, wasn't there a post once about how all classes are secretly rangers?

[Devils_Advocate]

What I am trying to ask is simply what each class can be used for, what it represents in a societies terms. :-)
Oh, so you wanted to know what roles other than "adventurer" characters of each class are likely to fill, and/or which PC classes non-adventurers of various vocations are likely to have?

Well, why didn't you say so?! :P

See "Class Roles in Society" on page 131 of the Dungeon Master's Guide v.3.5.


I grew tired of the challenge of emulating the PC classes with the NPC classes
Why would you do that? If you want a character to have the abilities granted by a PC class, then the obvious choice is to give that character that class. The NPC classes are for characters who you don't want to have PC class abilities.

The Fighter class also lets you give an NPC more feats than normal for a character of its hit dice without giving it any special abilities.

[Gavinfoxx]

If you want to use 'npc classes', just have 'anything tier 4 and under is an npc class' and 'anything tier 3 and better is a pc class'.

Gives you MUCH more leeway, if you remove multiclassing penalties, and weaken the alignment requirements.

Aristocrat, Commoner, Divine Mind, Warrior, CW Samurai, Battledancer, Eidolon, Expert, OA Samurai, Fighter, Healer, Knight, Lurk, Magewright, Mariner, Mlar, Monk, Ninja, Noble, Paladin, Soulborn, Soulknife, Swashbuckler, Adept, Barbarian, Dragonfire Adept, Dragon Shaman, Jester, Hexblade, Marshal, Master, Montebank, Nightstalker, Ranger, Rogue, Savant, Scout, Spellthief, Sohei, Totemist, Warlock, Warmage

However, this implies that you don't use TOO MANY ACF's to get the ones at the end of the list to be extra powerful (like Ranger, you don't want to use the very powerful wild shape acf, for example). And what you do is simply use the abilities of the classes to build for the role in society the person is going to be doing, rather than the flavor of the classes.

Like an Elite Commando might have some mix of:

-Ranger with acfs
-Savant
-Scout
-Fighter with acfs

And a elite heavy infantry might have some mix of:
-Fighter with ACFs
-Barbarian with ACFs
-Knight with ACFs
-OA Samurai with ACFs
-Paladin with ACFs

depending on the particular training he has.

And a Sailor / Elite Marine type would be some mix of:

Savant
Swashbuckler

And his lackeys would be

Mariner

[HowlingWolf]

:-) Um...I had a habit of playing around with the NPC classes to give the PC classes a rest, it proved interesting for a short while and proved a challenge.
But, all in all, it really reminded me of 1st ed, when a warrior was just that--a warrior...lol. :-) Simpler times.