Why does the Fighter class have no skills?

[Kioran]

Now, 3.5 is pretty old by now, and has since been replaced or amended innumerable times, be it as D&D 4th and 5th or as Pathfinder. And while the Fighter, one of the weakest PC classes in the entire book (except when taken as a 2-4 level dip or starting ramp for PrCs), has received some manner of buff in all of these, the buffs have usually taken the form of fighter-specific increases to damage, AC or attack rolls, or just Tome-of-Battle-ifying the class.

In neither buff though have the fighter's base HD been addressed. To clarify the term as I use it, base HD describe the per-level stat growth as if it were monster HD for advancement, meaning the actual hit die (d4 through d12), Saves (0(commoner)-3 (monk) good saves), BAB and skills per level.
Those base HD, in case of the Fighter, are pretty bad. The Fighter has slightly above-average HP per level and a good BAB, and everything else about him is at the bottom for PC classes (one could argue that the Fortitude Save is slightly better than Reflex, but that's about it). Skill monkey classes (such as Rogue, Scout etc.) are usually on par since they often have high skills per level which sets of the loss of HP and BAB to some extent, and divine casters (Druid, Cleric, favored soul) are similar(trading some HP and BAB for better saves and/or skills), whereas almost all of the other fighter classes beat him (Barb - more skills, more HP, Ranger - more skills, better saves, Swashbuckler - better skills, Duskblade - even, better saves in return for less HP)

This has always struck me as odd, especially given how the Fighter is supposed to be generic and Versatile, and also a "tank" of sorts. I remember that in AD&D 2nd, Fighters actually had impressive saves at high levels, for example. Now, the 3.5 Fighter is actually only moderately tanky, because while he does have decent HP and can use heavy armor to shore up his AC, any AoE spell or most disabling spells will find him an easy target. Without a Cleric or other buff-bot to remove disabling conditions and shore up his defenses, a Fighter is not all that tough.

In Core, a Fighter also deals mediocre damage in fights, but with the Feats in CW and the PHB 2, it is actually possible to play a Fighter 20 that still scales into the late game and can use the fighter bonus feats. So the class Features, while not good, are not bad to the point of making the class non-viable.

What I always found depressing about the Fighter though was that this mediocre performance in Fights was coupled with a near-total lack of other utility. Simply put, unless they are swinging Swords, Fighters do nothing.

Given how Spellcasters (Sorcerers less so than others) automatically gain out-of-combat utilities due to spells, and how Skillmonkeys are basically specialists at this, the Fighters are literally one of the few classes who have to sit out completely outside fights, not only by choice (such as when a spell caster picks no spells with out of combat uses).

This, as much as anything else, has always depressed me about the class, even more so given the fact that it also keeps them away from Prestige classes. Personally, giving the Fighter 4 skill points and an expanded Class skill list would be a really good idea and not break the class in the least. In fact, it would be a part of the fix the class actually needs, more so than any damage or Combat buff (while the Fighter is mostly about fighting, he can actually do it - even if it needs buffs).

I am really amazed that none of the major publishers seem to share my opinion, especially given that the flavour/background of Soldiers, mercenaries or other Fighter backgrounds (Viking Sailors?) could actually use some rounding out with skill points...

Am I being crazy here?

[Vhaidara]

That is actually one of the more common minimum effort fixes for Fighter: Bigger skill list and either 4 or 6 skill points/level.

[fishyfishyfishy]

No, you're not being crazy. Most homebrew fixes on these forums give fighters more skill points and an expanded class skill list. Not to mention the variety of other class features people come up with.

[Deophaun]

This is a holdover from the reign of critical fumble rules, when it was assumed fighters suffered so many concussions due to training sword slips while fighting practice dummies that they just couldn't learn anything more complicated than how to tie their shoes.

No wait, scratch that, tying shoes is way too complicated.

[Kioran]

This is a holdover from the reign of critical fumble rules, when it was assumed fighters suffered so many concussions due to training sword slips while fighting practice dummies that they just couldn't learn anything more complicated than how to tie their shoes.

No wait, scratch that, tying shoes is way too complicated.

I laughed :smallbiggrin:


That is actually one of the more common minimum effort fixes for Fighter: Bigger skill list and either 4 or 6 skill points/level.

Good, I mean it's hardly a revolutionary idea. I find it reassuring that others share my sentiment on this.

In my current game they get 4 skill points, an expanded list and a good Will Save. It's a lazy fix, not a big one, but I don't think it puts the fighter over the top (even when I restrict material to Core, Unearthed Arcana, PHB 2 and CW, CAdv, CArc and Cdiv).

[Coidzor]

IIRC, it's grandfathered in outdated/faulty ideas about niche preservation that led to Fighters having such abysmal skills and that kept it at that way in Pathfinder.

[Chronos]

The idea was supposed to be that fighting was the fighter's niche (hence the name). Most other classes would be more useful outside of a fight, but a fighter was supposed to be the most useful class in a fight. Which might have been a decent idea, were it not for the fact that they aren't actually the best at fighting, either, and anyway different groups have far different weighting of combat vs. noncombat encounters.

[Flickerdart]

The designers were basically of the opinion that everyone should be good at one thing exactly, otherwise their precious niches would collapse. Of course, we all know what happened next anyway.

Given that the fighter is supposed to be able to model knights, samurai, and similar noble warrior classes, it's absolutely no stretch to give them a skill list and skill points appropriate for such a role. Your common rude and crude mercs and guardsmen should have NPC class levels and not get in the way of the real moves and shakers.

[Kurald Galain]

In Pathfinder, fighters can take an alternative class feature ("archetype") that gives them 4 skill points per level and all int-based skills as class skills. This by itself is considered one of the best things a fighter can get, and enough to raise it to the next tier.

[(Un)Inspired]

Well, the warblade gets a better skill list, the ability to rock every save, 4+ int skills per level, and class features that reward you for putting points into int...

I know a lot of people hate ToB because of all the karate but if I ever wanted to play a mundane it's probably what I'd roll with.

[Ssalarn]

IIRC, it's grandfathered in outdated/faulty ideas about niche preservation that led to Fighters having such abysmal skills and that kept it at that way in Pathfinder.

Largely this. When the game was transitioning from 2E to 3E, someone thought, based on past versions of the game and in no way related to the actual new system they'd produced, that being a "master of combat" was equivalent to being a "master of magic". Seriously. A Fighter bonus feat was weighted to be roughly on par with a level of spellcasting.
During the switch to 3.5, they focused on a bunch of other issues but never really touched this one. Paizo picked up the ball and decided that OGL compliance meant that the skills should stay relatively unchanged, so they added one new class skill and called it good.

So now you've got Fighters who don't learn how to do things. Which is silly of course; modern soldiers tend to pick up a huge array of skills including climbing, swimming, stealth, survival, and typically a profession or specialization. Medieval warriors probably would have had an equal number of things to keep track of, including linguistics (speaking 3 or 4 languages was pretty much a given), leatherworking, horsemanship (encompassing both handle animal and ride), some form of social skill, etc.

Houseruling Fighters up to 4+Int (and usually adding a couple class skills, like Perception) is not just common, it's almost mandatory unless your game is composed entirely of DPR challenge dungeon crawls with hand-waved social interactions. That or you use a Fighter alteration (things like the Genius Guide to Talented Fighters or The Genius Guide to Bravery Feats for Pathfinder) to allow the Fighter access to the tools the core chassis fails to provide.

[Kioran]

Well, the warblade gets a better skill list, the ability to rock every save, 4+ int skills per level, and class features that reward you for putting points into int...

I know a lot of people hate ToB because of all the karate but if I ever wanted to play a mundane it's probably what I'd roll with.

ToB was the blueprint for 4E. It basically turned everyone, including Fighters, into casters. I personally think that's legit, but it doesn't really meet the archetype in my opinion. Too....flashy. Honestly, I think it was a huge design copout, and the only ToB class that actually makes sense thematically is the Swordsage.

Much like there has to be an auto-attacking melee character in a MOBA, there has to be a class in D&D that fights mostly by using the basic combat system. They fight like the others, only that they are better at it.
That's the fighter. The Warblade was never a worthy replacement, just another Archetype.


In Pathfinder, fighters can take an alternative class feature ("archetype") that gives them 4 skill points per level and all int-based skills as class skills. This by itself is considered one of the best things a fighter can get, and enough to raise it to the next tier.

I personally think that Pathfinder as an attempt to fix 3.5 was far too timid, they almost entirely avoided big changes that would actually change the balance of power. The Fighter got a small buff, but so did everyone else. And the buff that the Fighters got wasn't really the buff they needed unless they picked said alternate class feature.
Given the people who worked on Pathfinder this doesn't surprise me. Pathfinder's biggest value is not in being an upgrade of 3.5, but rather in being a slightly different "backup" of it that is still in print.


Largely this. When the game was transitioning from 2E to 3E, someone thought, based on past versions of the game and in no way related to the actual new system they'd produced, that being a "master of combat" was equivalent to being a "master of magic". Seriously. A Fighter bonus feat was weighted to be roughly on par with a level of spellcasting.
During the switch to 3.5, they focused on a bunch of other issues but never really touched this one. Paizo picked up the ball and decided that OGL compliance meant that the skills should stay relatively unchanged, so they added one new class skill and called it good.

Bolded for emphasis.

I can even see how people might have envisioned things during the laying of theoretical foundations, seriously. And still, given how fighter-like monsters (like, for example, Ogres) advance, this is kinda surprising - seeing as they do not only gain BAB and some damage, but also Reach, Strength, special attacks etc.
One of the best 3.0 Fighter tricks, the Cleave Train (Supreme cleaving through a dozen minions in one turn) can be beat by a single Fireball. One Giant or Huge Animal/Vermin of the same CR as an NPC Fighter has the same damage output, more HP, similar saves and Reach, poison, special attacks or similar things.

It should have been pretty obvious at least in Hindsight, after the publishing of 3.0. So I am kinda amazed that, instead of buffing the Fighter by making him more like a monster (with ability boosts, special class features etc.) or at least buffing his base stats they actually nerfed some of the few PrCs and combos that actually made Fighters good. I mean I can see a "master of combat" - but that guy would have to be able to become something like a nearly immovable object or a nearly unstoppable force, basically.

All pretty academic, though. I personally even think excessive niche protection is bad, or rather that blurring niches and being able to customize characters heavily is one of the best things about 3E. Hmmm.

[Auron3991]

If you look at the original 3.5 core, they state that a raging barbarian is about equal in combat to a fighter (I'm guessing they playtested somewhere), which is why they gave the barbarian more skill points. They probably assumed blaster style gameplay for arcane casters (which is why they assumed the fact they are about as sturdy as wet tissue paper to be a balancing factor) and they probably assumed mostly healbot for divine castors. For a specific style of gameplay, they probably did balance it. The problem they have with balancing is that players are bound to get creative. You can see more of a focus on balance in 4e but, even then, tiers ended up happening.

[Deophaun]

If you look at the original 3.5 core, they state that a raging barbarian is about equal in combat to a fighter (I'm guessing they playtested somewhere), which is why they gave the barbarian more skill points. They probably assumed blaster style gameplay for arcane casters (which is why they assumed the fact they are about as sturdy as wet tissue paper to be a balancing factor) and they probably assumed mostly healbot for divine castors. For a specific style of gameplay, they probably did balance it. The problem they have with balancing is that players are bound to get creative. You can see more of a focus on balance in 4e but, even then, tiers ended up happening.
I believe there's a record of the 3.x playtest where they admit the druid playtester never used wild shape.

And 4e tiers tended to happen because of variations in level of support, not design. The Seeker hasn't gotten any powers for four years? Better add some new Wizard Dailies in the next Dragon issue, then.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Given that the fighter is supposed to be able to model knights, samurai, and similar noble warrior classes, it's absolutely no stretch to give them a skill list and skill points appropriate for such a role.

The funny part for me is that OA Samurai, which is similar to Fighter, has 4+Int and a better skill list (although their bonus feat list is worse).

[Ssalarn]

And 4e tiers tended to happen because of variations in level of support, not design. The Seeker hasn't gotten any powers for four years? Better add some new Wizard Dailies in the next Dragon issue, then.

For real. A few dozen classes and only like 6 of them get regular updates and expansion? I smell Hasbro's blatant commercialism....



I believe there's a record of the 3.x playtest where they admit the druid playtester never used wild shape.


I believe it. Tied in to that idea is one of the reasons I was actually really glad to see Mark Seifter join the Paizo team; he was a PFS player and pretty talented power-gamer, so he was more familiar with some of the playstyles that have become more common as the game has aged. It's somewhat telling when the design team still thinks that the monk's unarmed strike needs to be tightly controlled because it can't be disarmed or taken from him, or the Rogue gets 1/day talents because there's a worry about making him too OP....

On the flipside, Paizo did run a pretty extensive playtest (or at least as extensive as they had time for) before releasing the CRB, and some stuff was missed in the open playtest, other stuff was caught but no one had a suggestion for how to fix it before the book had to be on shelves, and other things were a victim of philosophical differences. The Paizo staff now knows the Rogue and Monk need fixing and they're putting out a book to address it; I don't think that the senior members of the design team, or at least Jason Buhlman and James Jacobs, really believe still that there is an issue with the Fighter. I could be wrong, but that's kind of the impression I've gotten over the years of hearing/seeing them talk and post about the game. There's this kind of weird disconnect that's grown with all of the freelancers and splatbooks and such that have been added to the system, and the innate imbalance that it inherited from previous editions, where classes are more and more balanced against other classes than against the system itself, to the point that classes that would have seemed completely busted stacked against a new system are just kind of given a pass. It's like World of Warcraft before they homogenized all the classes, where PvE balance was almost universally a secondary consideration to PvP balance. It's weird, but it is what it is at this point.

[Brookshw]

The funny part for me is that OA Samurai, which is similar to Fighter, has 4+Int and a better skill list (although their bonus feat list is worse).

Well yeah, need those extra skill points for the obligatory ranks in calligraphy and tea ceremony :smalltongue:

[Kioran]

If you look at the original 3.5 core, they state that a raging barbarian is about equal in combat to a fighter (I'm guessing they playtested somewhere), which is why they gave the barbarian more skill points. They probably assumed blaster style gameplay for arcane casters (which is why they assumed the fact they are about as sturdy as wet tissue paper to be a balancing factor) and they probably assumed mostly healbot for divine castors. For a specific style of gameplay, they probably did balance it. The problem they have with balancing is that players are bound to get creative. You can see more of a focus on balance in 4e but, even then, tiers ended up happening.

That is kinda funny and sad at the same time, especially the thing with the Druid tester never once wild shaping. Of course people will test the intent first and might not even come up with creative ways to break the system. And yeah. I even found that eschewing some of the most egregious abuses (No Tippy Wizards, no full-blown CoDzilla etc.) via gentleman's agreement significantly improved my group's enjoyment of the game.

Still, I think that was some serious confirmation bias - and besides, if experience with 3E showed something, then that it is far better to have a class with enough potential power that it can be slightly OP than to have a class that literally CANNOT be built into something really good. Ideally they'd all be Tier 3-4, but a Tier 2 class (which can be built as a Tier 3) is better than a Tier 5 that cannot be lifted from its quagmire.

As for the raging barbarian - him doing the same damage as the fighter is somewhat true in Core (with Weapon specialization and Focus almost mirroring the extra damage from the +4 Strength - although +1 attack and +2 damage are not quite a match for +2/+3), but given ways to attack more often at max BAB and getting a better damage multiplier, the Barbarian in my experience actually does more damage.
It would be a different story if fighting styles aside from 2-handed weapons were competitive. The fighter is actually better at those. AFAIK they originally thought most Fighters would go sword&board, too.

[Auron3991]

I think they also thought fighters and the like would better benefit from the magic item system (wizards can't do much with a +2 medium fortification plate mail).

[Ssalarn]

I think they also thought fighters and the like would better benefit from the magic item system (wizards can't do much with a +2 medium fortification plate mail).

The problem, of course, is that Fighters are reliant on magic items to stay competitive, whereas wizards have the freedom to shop around and customize their inventory of items to complement their spells and powers. So Fighters have to pour their wealth into swords and armor and shields just to maintain their ability to do what they do, while casters are basically free to spend that money on whatever they want. Gold for a Fighter is a pair of water wings, keeping him afloat. Gold for a Wizard is a key to a world of infinite possibilities.

[ZamielVanWeber]

And to make matters worse just in core there are options for a wizard to bypass the downsides of armor if they want (A&EG added more and even more came out with alternate materials, feycraft/githcraft). Magic items have just been more generous to wizards.

[Honest Tiefling]

This is probably why is is very difficult to find a character in very well-known fiction or myths that could be modeled as a fighter without a crazy template.

[Flickerdart]

Magic items have just been more generous to wizards.
What? A wizard without magic items is a wizard. A fighter without magic items is a dragon snack.

[eggynack]

What? A wizard without magic items is a wizard. A fighter without magic items is a dragon snack.
Both statements are kinda true, I think. Items tend to help fighters more than wizards, by sheer dint of the fact that those items are probably worth more than the fighter itself across a reasonable level range, and because fighters just can't do certain things without items, but on the other side, fighters don't really have much in the way of abilities that can be improved by items. They mostly just get a set of generic items that anyone can use, while wizards get all of that cool magic boosting stuff, like metamagic rods and whatnot. Thus, the objective value of wizard items is probably higher than the objective value of fighter items, while the value of those items relative to base power is significantly higher for fighters.

[Eldariel]

Much like there has to be an auto-attacking melee character in a MOBA...

Why would this be a requirement? There are many more interesting ways to build melee characters than auto-attacking and the whole concept of auto-attack is a somewhat senseless, poorly aged mechanic. Take LoL for example: Lee Sin, Zed and Yasuo are the most popular melee champions by quite a wide margin and while they utilize auto attacks, their gameplay is anything but and they could be designed without the whole mechanic in the game. I posit there's absolutely no need for a character whose only function is just to auto attack; the same role can be filled by a simple ability user too. Fundamentally nothing about auto attack as a concept is necessary or even necessarily well-designed. Garen is an extremely basic champion and he'd function perfectly fine if he didn't even have an auto attack; just the Q strike and spin. Adjust the cooldowns so that he can keep hitting people or give him a secondary hit ability and you've just made a superbasic melee character with no auto attack and no need for it.

Same could be said for D&D and "normal attack". It simply doesn't need to exist: it is a poor portrayal of melee combat (and ranged combat for that matter) since melee combat just isn't as simple as that, and the only function it really fills is modelling things that could be modeled with a number of other systems or styles too. Generic "just attack"-action is fine for a game that doesn't get nitty gritty in combat but D&D's ruleset is all about combat so it could afford to get more specific there. Especially what comes to PC classes who are supposed to be the top of the line at what they do, building a class that only has a single basic action that's available to everyone and is merely slightly better at it than others is almost an insult. And yes, some people like simplicity but y'know, "standard attack class" isn't the only way to make a simple combatant class.

Also, I think Barbarian is much better suited for the role of "a simple martial beginner class" than Fighter: Fighter is supposed to be the skilled master warrior while Barbarian is the primal instinctual, animalistic warrior. It makes no sense for Fighter's melee combat to be simple since it's supposed to be all about being better at it than any beast or man you might face, while a Barbarian simply overpowers her enemies. It's simple enough to enable some gameplay while still keeping it simple there but again, that does not require a basic attack action of any kind. And even if it does exist, that does not require focusing the class around said action; it can get a small complement of different specialized attacks and an example build for new players who want plug'n'play and you have the role covered without any of the warrior-degrading classes like Fighter do.

[Blackhawk748]

The funny part for me is that OA Samurai, which is similar to Fighter, has 4+Int and a better skill list (although their bonus feat list is worse).

The list is different, i wouldnt call it worse, though some of the Clan ones are definitely worse, but you get a Mstwrk Katana at lvl 1 and the ability to enchant it as you increase in level. In short you just got Ancestral Relic for free, which is quite nifty.

[georgie_leech]

Both statements are kinda true, I think. Items tend to help fighters more than wizards, by sheer dint of the fact that those items are probably worth more than the fighter itself across a reasonable level range, and because fighters just can't do certain things without items, but on the other side, fighters don't really have much in the way of abilities that can be improved by items. They mostly just get a set of generic items that anyone can use, while wizards get all of that cool magic boosting stuff, like metamagic rods and whatnot. Thus, the objective value of wizard items is probably higher than the objective value of fighter items, while the value of those items relative to base power is significantly higher for fighters.

In an extreme example, 1+2 is a bigger percent increase than 100+100.

[Zarrgon]

I am really amazed that none of the major publishers seem to share my opinion, especially given that the flavour/background of Soldiers, mercenaries or other Fighter backgrounds (Viking Sailors?) could actually use some rounding out with skill points...

Am I being crazy here?

It is amazing. I'll I can figure is everyone at all the publishers are around 30+, and when they think of ''fighter'' they are thinking of the 1E/2E fighter. It was a very different game back then. A 1E fighter was powerful compared to the other classes. Even the wizard. Though the fighter had less, no skills and no feats. ( No other classes had them either) But wizards had way less spells, and the spells were simple and direct.

[Deophaun]

What? A wizard without magic items is a wizard. A fighter without magic items is a dragon snack.
System still benefits wizards.

If a fighter wants a useful defending weapon, he has to spend 8,000 gp for the base ability, then exponentially more for every additional plus.

If a wizard wants a useful defending weapon, he has to spend 8,000 gp for the base ability, then cast greater magic weapon when he wakes up in the morning, saving him over sixty thousand gp versus the fighter that he goes and spends on metamagic rods.

Similar deal with armor, only the wizard never has to worry about a maximum dex bonus.

[Kioran]

Why would this be a requirement? There are many more interesting ways to build melee characters than auto-attacking and the whole concept of auto-attack is a somewhat senseless, poorly aged mechanic. Take LoL for example: Lee Sin, Zed and Yasuo are the most popular melee champions by quite a wide margin and while they utilize auto attacks, their gameplay is anything but and they could be designed without the whole mechanic in the game. I posit there's absolutely no need for a character whose only function is just to auto attack; the same role can be filled by a simple ability user too. Fundamentally nothing about auto attack as a concept is necessary or even necessarily well-designed. Garen is an extremely basic champion and he'd function perfectly fine if he didn't even have an auto attack; just the Q strike and spin. Adjust the cooldowns so that he can keep hitting people or give him a secondary hit ability and you've just made a superbasic melee character with no auto attack and no need for it.

Same could be said for D&D and "normal attack". It simply doesn't need to exist: it is a poor portrayal of melee combat (and ranged combat for that matter) since melee combat just isn't as simple as that, and the only function it really fills is modelling things that could be modeled with a number of other systems or styles too. Generic "just attack"-action is fine for a game that doesn't get nitty gritty in combat but D&D's ruleset is all about combat so it could afford to get more specific there. Especially what comes to PC classes who are supposed to be the top of the line at what they do, building a class that only has a single basic action that's available to everyone and is merely slightly better at it than others is almost an insult. And yes, some people like simplicity but y'know, "standard attack class" isn't the only way to make a simple combatant class.

Also, I think Barbarian is much better suited for the role of "a simple martial beginner class" than Fighter: Fighter is supposed to be the skilled master warrior while Barbarian is the primal instinctual, animalistic warrior. It makes no sense for Fighter's melee combat to be simple since it's supposed to be all about being better at it than any beast or man you might face, while a Barbarian simply overpowers her enemies. It's simple enough to enable some gameplay while still keeping it simple there but again, that does not require a basic attack action of any kind. And even if it does exist, that does not require focusing the class around said action; it can get a small complement of different specialized attacks and an example build for new players who want plug'n'play and you have the role covered without any of the warrior-degrading classes like Fighter do.

I actually disagree to some extent. Aside from the fact that Yasuo and Zed are not really melee (much like, say, Rumble), they are ressourceless with low CD abilities that allow them to farm or harass like a ranged champion - the game needs a Garen or something like the old AD Sion simply for diversity. I find the crude, inelegant way of fighting interesting, and the game needs it because its a counter-strategy to wave clear. A champion that can take a lot of damage and deal out a lot of damage against slow or immobile target, like towers, mages etc.
Besides - playing Garen or something at a high level is actually harder than Lee Sin or Nidalee or what have you, since you do not have crazy mobility to save you from your own mistakes.

That said, and back to D&D - having a basic attack system with some maneuvers that everyone can use is a good thing. Because the alternative is 4th edition, where every character constantly uses pre-defined special attacks (even using at-will abilities instead of normal attacks). While that is certainly more interesting in the beginning, it doesn't really do much for the characters in the long term, since it also makes every character pretty much locked in by his build.
Having specific support for every conceivable role means, on the flip-side, that any role without specific support cannot be played. If, say, a furious attack that drives the opponent back is a Class XY at-will power it also means that another character or NPC without the class power cannot do this. I know many people love a D&D full of Yasuos and Mr. YIKUUs. That's 4E - and it makes a really nice tactical boardgame or tactical RPG. I like 3rd Edition mostly because its a very non setting and theme-specific Fantasy RPG - it uses the grid, but it's only 80% fighting and allows a bit more latitude in terms of genre and theme.

And if the RPG is supposed to be more generalist, not as specific, it's vital to keep as much as possible of the "cool stuff" outside the class-specific envelope. And also to keep a few archetypical classes (the original 4: Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard) that can be picked as basic: When you want to play role X, and don't know what exactly to pick, when in doubt, play the archetype class.

The Fighter is not a good archetype class because just about everyone else got more options. The Casters get more spells, and the Rogue gets sneak attack, which is both stronger and more versatile than AD&D'S backstab, seeing as it does more damage at higher levels and can be triggered not only from flanking(if the enemy is actually attacking the other guy and thus turning his back)/sneaking but also by Feints, invisibility etc.
Theoretically, the fighter can use maneuvers like Bull rush, disarm, Sunder etc. - but aside from trip cheese (filthy, filthy cheese that also makes combat devolve into something very goofy and undignified with half the combatants flopping around on the ground like fish), none of these options really work. Sundering costs the loot the character is dependant on (or is a waste of time otherwise), bull-rush and Grapple usually don't work because many monsters are large or have massive strength which the Fighter does not etc.

Basically, a buff to the fighter class should enable the class to fight using mostly basic attacks and the generic combat maneuvers also because those need to no flavor text to accompany them - and you can make up your own. A generic "master of combat" could be a classical fantasy Knight, a hard-bitten mercenary, a Viking, a mongol rider (including recurved bow) etc.

A class that uses special attacks could not reach that level of generalization you would need for the catch-all class - which the fighter should be.

[Chronos]

To add to what Kioran is saying, there are also some folks who genuinely enjoy the playstyle of "I hit it. Then I hit it again.". OK, maybe not many, but I've met a few. The game should be able to accommodate them. Not everyone needs to choose that option, of course, but it should be there. The ideal, I think, would be a game with both Tome of Battle-style classes, and a basic fighter class that nonetheless keeps up with them just by being enough better at the basic stuff.

[Necroticplague]

To add to what Kioran is saying, there are also some folks who genuinely enjoy the playstyle of "I hit it. Then I hit it again.". OK, maybe not many, but I've met a few. The game should be able to accommodate them. Not everyone needs to choose that option, of course, but it should be there. The ideal, I think, would be a game with both Tome of Battle-style classes, and a basic fighter class that nonetheless keeps up with them just by being enough better at the basic stuff.
Just to ply devil's advocate:

Why should those two options be equivalent? One of those is more complex, and requires more actual thought put into the character. It seems backwards to reward a lack of thought with power. If you take the effort to actually think about how your character works,it should be more powerful.

And this is without even bringing up another problem: how do you compare these two different systems in terms of power? To use a 4e analogy: is a wizard (ToB like mechanics in all but there dailies), more powerful than the theif (almost entirely at-will, focuses on augmenting its MBA)? You can't even compare, because they do entirely different things.

[Komatik]

ToB was the blueprint for 4E. It basically turned everyone, including Fighters, into casters. I personally think that's legit, but it doesn't really meet the archetype in my opinion. Too....flashy. Honestly, I think it was a huge design copout, and the only ToB class that actually makes sense thematically is the Swordsage.

Much like there has to be an auto-attacking melee character in a MOBA, there has to be a class in D&D that fights mostly by using the basic combat system. They fight like the others, only that they are better at it.
That's the fighter. The Warblade was never a worthy replacement, just another Archetype.

ToB emulates actual fighting much better than the basic combat system. Also, of course it's elaborate and flashy. Actual sword technique is elaborate and flashy. It will sound all the more so especially if you don't name your techniques the way Germans did.

Moreover, especially at high levels, it should be flashy. Level 1 characters can already be superhuman in many ways, and there's not a snowball's chance in hell of some "basic attack" dude fending off some normal monster, let alone a Balor.


Also, why should there be a class that fights only with the basic combat system? Why is that a necessity? Why can't every class have flavour and character to it and have the basic system just be a framework for things?


EDIT: Höh, Eldariel'd.

[Ssalarn]

That said, and back to D&D - having a basic attack system with some maneuvers that everyone can use is a good thing. Because the alternative is 4th edition, where every character constantly uses pre-defined special attacks (even using at-will abilities instead of normal attacks). While that is certainly more interesting in the beginning, it doesn't really do much for the characters in the long term, since it also makes every character pretty much locked in by his build.
Having specific support for every conceivable role means, on the flip-side, that any role without specific support cannot be played. If, say, a furious attack that drives the opponent back is a Class XY at-will power it also means that another character or NPC without the class power cannot do this. I know many people love a D&D full of Yasuos and Mr. YIKUUs. That's 4E - and it makes a really nice tactical boardgame or tactical RPG. I like 3rd Edition mostly because its a very non setting and theme-specific Fantasy RPG - it uses the grid, but it's only 80% fighting and allows a bit more latitude in terms of genre and theme.


Really, the bigger issue with the 4E "powers" was a severe overuse of keywords. Once an ability locked you in to a particular weapon/implement/etc. you suddenly had all of your other options narrowed. And there was no way to both be effective and use an unusual weapon or implement; my favorite gripe back in the day was that I could make an elven druid who used a bow, but I'd just suck, since the system didn't reward using the basic combat mechanics and all of the at-wills and such were locked away behind keywords. Definitely a case of forgetting to K.I.S.S., despite the system trying to be more accessible.

The 5e Fighter was one of the best I've seen in a while, with kind of a mashed together and then polished out mix of the older Fighters, ToB, and the 4e Warlord.

[ericgrau]

Because fighters can't have nice things and Wizards of the Coast hates them.

Actually it's because of diversification of classes and not everyone should have buko skills or it hurts the already poor rogue's niche. The classic three are magicky guy, sword guy and tricky guy.

The real problem is DMs requiring a skill check for everything. Most between combat roleplaying and structure-based challenges can and should be handled without dice rolling. And without requiring above average mental stats. Regular people can think and hold a conversation too. Actually I think cheap utility magic items are far better for special situations than skills. Even for full casters. They can't prepare all the niche utility spells and should buy scrolls. Many a classic 2e fighter is a mule for a million random magical trinkets, besides swinging his pointy stick.

Even if your DM does make you roll for everything, it's boring until someone says "Let's just fight something".

If anything I think rogues are the ones who need more love. Once your DM starts making everyone roll for everything, he wants a chance of failure where there wasn't one before or he puts normal DCs on trivial tasks like seeing anyone standing right in front of you with a gajillion spot checks. That nerf makes skills suck, so that people only want to abandon them or work around them. Or only get the 1 or 2 skills the DM can remember. Then with a skill nerf and the only major skills obtainable by all, rogues start sucking.

Or in other words every time a DM thinks the skill system is "You need a spot check to see 2 feet in front of your face", a rogue cries himself to sleep at how useless he's become. If skills are a basic need and not a boon, you're doing it wrong.

[Ssalarn]

Because fighters can't have nice things and Wizards of the Coast hates them.

Actually it's because of diversification of classes and not everyone should have buko skills or it hurts the already poor rogue's niche. The classic three are magicky guy, sword guy and tricky guy.


There's a difference between "enough skills to reasonably function" and "buko skills" (isn't it buku? I may have been saying that wrong...).

Pathfinder, for example, clearly recognized after the CRB that 4+Int is basically a minimum for classes with no spellcasting, and you've got the Cavalier, Gunslinger, Slayer, Brawler, etc. who all got a minimum of 4+. In the CRB itself (or the Player's Handbook for 3.5) the two regular Fighter "substitutes", the Ranger and the Barbarian, have close, equal, or arguably even better combat facility but 2-3 times the out of combat facility. As it stands for the Fighter, if he wants to ride a horse all of his class-granted skill points for the first few levels just got locked into Handle Animal and Ride.
The Rogue's lack of niche protection is an entirely separate issue that has more to do with the nature of traps in the 3.x system and the ridiculous lengths one often has to go to in order to sneak attack, when sneak attack is basically only equivalent to the damage a full BAB THF character does with their STR bonus and Power Attack (but with less consistency and reliability).

[lsfreak]

If you look at the original 3.5 core, they state that a raging barbarian is about equal in combat to a fighter (I'm guessing they playtested somewhere), which is why they gave the barbarian more skill points. They probably assumed blaster style gameplay for arcane casters (which is why they assumed the fact they are about as sturdy as wet tissue paper to be a balancing factor) and they probably assumed mostly healbot for divine castors. For a specific style of gameplay, they probably did balance it. The problem they have with balancing is that players are bound to get creative. You can see more of a focus on balance in 4e but, even then, tiers ended up happening.

I remember hearing that they just kept adding better and better spells to the healbot until someone actually wanted to play a healbot. Without realizing to anyone that they made them so good healing was a waste of actions.


ToB emulates actual fighting much better than the basic combat system. Also, of course it's elaborate and flashy. Actual sword technique is elaborate and flashy. It will sound all the more so especially if you don't name your techniques the way Germans did.
Even some of the German sounds rather flashy. Squinting strike, the fool, wrath strike, crooked strike, from the day, unicorn...

[Chronos]

I think the word you're looking for is "beaucoup".

[Ssalarn]

I think the word you're looking for is "beaucoup".

Yay, word of the day!

[Urpriest]

To add to what Kioran is saying, there are also some folks who genuinely enjoy the playstyle of "I hit it. Then I hit it again.". OK, maybe not many, but I've met a few. The game should be able to accommodate them. Not everyone needs to choose that option, of course, but it should be there. The ideal, I think, would be a game with both Tome of Battle-style classes, and a basic fighter class that nonetheless keeps up with them just by being enough better at the basic stuff.

I'm not convinced this is actually true. I think what really exist are players who don't find the game's other combat systems sufficiently intuitive. They want an obvious choice every round, that doesn't require much adjudication or planning. That's not mutually exclusive with having a lot of options, though, it just needs to be possible to choose which option is best in any given situation without a lot of thought. I think a system like that, even a very broad one, would still appeal to "I hit it again" types.

[Flickerdart]

The problem with saying "fighter is for 'full attack every round' players" is that there are things in the game other than combat. Whether or not you have one thing to do in battle or one hundred, it doesn't matter when you're out of combat and none of the "I hit it in a slightly different way" powers help you. A fighter with a meaningful contribution outside of combat would be miles and miles above any fighter fix that just makes them hit in different ways.

[Kioran]

Just to ply devil's advocate:

Why should those two options be equivalent? One of those is more complex, and requires more actual thought put into the character. It seems backwards to reward a lack of thought with power. If you take the effort to actually think about how your character works,it should be more powerful.

And this is without even bringing up another problem: how do you compare these two different systems in terms of power? To use a 4e analogy: is a wizard (ToB like mechanics in all but there dailies), more powerful than the theif (almost entirely at-will, focuses on augmenting its MBA)? You can't even compare, because they do entirely different things.

Bear in mind that a lack of clearly defined, high-powered special attacks means that one has to use the limited options and "weaker" attacks and choose well among them - positioning well when flanking, AoOs and full attacks is all you have can be more interesting than just choosing how to max DPS with best application of powers.

As for how to make the Fighter competitive with a ToB-like class: Give him skills, a good will save, Stat boosts(!), non-specific bonuses to damage (not necessarily attack bonus, mostly damage), a bonus that sets off size bonuses for monsters (for Grapple, bull rush etc.) and MAYBE some slight defensive edges. The end result would be a class that, while definitely not able to 1v1 a ToB class, could match its utility for the party simply by being the tougher roadblock for monsters. He cannot do as much as a Warblade under good conditions, but he can keep doing it under pressure or when surprised and somewhat outmatched.


ToB emulates actual fighting much better than the basic combat system. Also, of course it's elaborate and flashy. Actual sword technique is elaborate and flashy. It will sound all the more so especially if you don't name your techniques the way Germans did.

Moreover, especially at high levels, it should be flashy. Level 1 characters can already be superhuman in many ways, and there's not a snowball's chance in hell of some "basic attack" dude fending off some normal monster, let alone a Balor.


Also, why should there be a class that fights only with the basic combat system? Why is that a necessity? Why can't every class have flavour and character to it and have the basic system just be a framework for things?

Now, caveat, I do not sword fight, but unless that differs DRASTICALLY from unarmed martial arts, I would personally say your claim is wrong. I mean aside from the fact that D&D combat was never all that realistic in the first place, nothing about random abilities that can only be performed once every five minutes and allow someone to, say, destroy a steel gate with a hairpin (Diamond nightmare strike) is anywhere near based on actual martial arts (with the caveat that high-level powers basically should be massively superhuman).

That said, it's the per-encounter thing that bothers me most. Whenever I fight someone unarmed, it's basically people circling each other, waiting for an opening and then trying to just hit the other guy (usually with punches to the face). Even tournament Karate is hardly different, sometimes people hit each other with combinations or counters, but for the most part it's a pretty chaotic process.
Technique names and Kata are mostly mnemonic devices, the actual fighting is not done with special signature moves for the most part, but with very basic techniques. The kind of thing that can very well be described by "player A hits monster B and does 12 damage" - you could easily describe it as a glancing blow to the head with a warhammer etc.

The point of a basic system and actually using it is that it presumes or pre-sets very little about the setting or the fights - it resolves them mechanically, but gives GMs and players latitude to flavor it to their liking. Much more than highly-specfic powers and maneuvers in my opinion.


Because fighters can't have nice things and Wizards of the Coast hates them.

Actually it's because of diversification of classes and not everyone should have buko skills or it hurts the already poor rogue's niche. The classic three are magicky guy, sword guy and tricky guy.

The real problem is DMs requiring a skill check for everything. Most between combat roleplaying and structure-based challenges can and should be handled without dice rolling. And without requiring above average mental stats. Regular people can think and hold a conversation too. Actually I think cheap utility magic items are far better for special situations than skills. Even for full casters. They can't prepare all the niche utility spells and should buy scrolls. Many a classic 2e fighter is a mule for a million random magical trinkets, besides swinging his pointy stick.

Even if your DM does make you roll for everything, it's boring until someone says "Let's just fight something".

If anything I think rogues are the ones who need more love. Once your DM starts making everyone roll for everything, he wants a chance of failure where there wasn't one before or he puts normal DCs on trivial tasks like seeing anyone standing right in front of you with a gajillion spot checks. That nerf makes skills suck, so that people only want to abandon them or work around them. Or only get the 1 or 2 skills the DM can remember. Then with a skill nerf and the only major skills obtainable by all, rogues start sucking.

Or in other words every time a DM thinks the skill system is "You need a spot check to see 2 feet in front of your face", a rogue cries himself to sleep at how useless he's become. If skills are a basic need and not a boon, you're doing it wrong.

Still, some basics like Ride, handle Animal, Climb etc. should be available. I'm all for making most of the skills beyond, say, 5 ranks something that is actually a benefit and makes it easier for the group instead of being a necessary hurdle, but if they matter, and they should matter, they will be rolled. And if they are rolled for at all, it will matter which, if any, character has them, too.
In my experience with 3E, one can NEVER have enough skill points, even as a rogue. Usually, it's choose 2 out of 4 fields, or specialize in one and pick up parts of others: Trapmonkey skills, Stealth, Social skills, Mobility skills.

The fighter is hard-pressed to do anything out of combat, even as a human with a positive intelligence modifier, because his skill list is utter garbage, and even then, the Wizard can more or less do anything he does and do it better because he scales with INT. And has utility spells.

I like creative use of magic trinkets. In a recent game I GMed, I had planned to have the players cross a sewer by having one guy swim across and make a rope bridge. One of the characters had an animated rope though, making both the swim and use rope check unnecessary - and I was perfectly fine with it.
Still, I like the idea of characters, particularly those who cannot work with magic, picking up useful knowledge and tricks. Skills are cool, they should take the spotlight now and then, and it's always bad when such a broad area of the game is limited to such a small number of classes.

In 3.5, Niche protection is done anyway in between CoDzilla, utility spells and some OP prestige classes. I'd much rather have the Fighter gain some of the rogue's utility, and have the rogue gain some more combat benefits (like some sort of combat scaling with Intelligence or Charisma...for all those non-SADD rogues) (SADD = sneak attack delivery device, with high con and Dex > 9000, optimized to be able to deal massive damage with two-weapon fighting, tumbling into position so one always flanks etc.).
Parcelling out spotlight in every scene according to character class can get boring pretty soon, especially when the spell casters can always crash the party.

[Ssalarn]

The problem with saying "fighter is for 'full attack every round' players" is that there are things in the game other than combat. Whether or not you have one thing to do in battle or one hundred, it doesn't matter when you're out of combat and none of the "I hit it in a slightly different way" powers help you. A fighter with a meaningful contribution outside of combat would be miles and miles above any fighter fix that just makes them hit in different ways.

Word. I tend to be referring to Pathfinder when I say this to people, but I'll tell people all the time "Dealing damage is not the Fighter's issue, and more damage is not the fix. It's literally everything else that needs to be looked at". I did a 3pp supplement for Rogue Genius Games whose whole purpose was to shore up the Fighter with superior feat options, and none of the feats were about increasing damage; instead they focused on shoring up the Fighter's skills, adding more functionality to iconic skills, and helping him maximize the benefit and utility of feats and combat maneuvers to make them more useable and improve scaling with level.

Sidenote - If you really want to fix CMB/CMD, just remove size modifiers from the equation. They are responsible for basically everything wrong with that subsystem's ability to stay balanced and relevant, and they're basically double-dipping. Since STR increases for larger size categories scale up much faster than DEX penalties ( a medium creature scaled to colossal gets +16 STR but only -4 DEX, for example), larger creatures already have a natural edge in CMB/CMD. Add to that the fact that creatures more than a certain number of size categories larger than the player are flat out unable to be targeted by some maneuvers, and it really doesn't make any sense for size modifiers to be part of the equation.

[Arbane]

That said, it's the per-encounter thing that bothers me most. Whenever I fight someone unarmed, it's basically people circling each other, waiting for an opening and then trying to just hit the other guy (usually with punches to the face).

Back in the AD&D days, a round was ONE MINUTE. This is what it was supposed to be like.



Still, some basics like Ride, handle Animal, Climb etc. should be available. I'm all for making most of the skills beyond, say, 5 ranks something that is actually a benefit and makes it easier for the group instead of being a necessary hurdle, but if they matter, and they should matter, they will be rolled. And if they are rolled for at all, it will matter which, if any, character has them, too.
In my experience with 3E, one can NEVER have enough skill points, even as a rogue. Usually, it's choose 2 out of 4 fields, or specialize in one and pick up parts of others: Trapmonkey skills, Stealth, Social skills, Mobility skills.


One of the devs on Exalted once said something that's stuck with me: "The longer the skill list, the more incompetent the characters get." Back in AD&D's days, every PC was assumed to be able to climb a tree, swim (if they weren't in armor), tie a knot, etc. Nowadays? Better have a LOT of extra skill-points for those Use Rope checks! 3.5 subdivided 'noticing stuff' into three different point sinks. :smallyuk:

Another problem (I think) is 3.5's general attitude of 'feats or GTFO' if you want to do anything more interesting in combat than sword the enemy in the hitpoints. Making it easier to do interesting stuff in a battle (disarm, trip, etc) without forcing it to be the centerpiece of the character's design would be a good idea.

[Flickerdart]

Back in the AD&D days, a round was ONE MINUTE. This is what it was supposed to be like.
Wasn't it 1 minute outdoors, and 6 seconds indoors?

[SiuiS]

Wasn't it 1 minute outdoors, and 6 seconds indoors?

I think it went the other way, with the smaller unit being a minute. I know size altered; 1" was ten feet indoors, ten yards(?) outdoors.

[Chronos]

I'm certain I remember the AD&D timing rules being self-contradictory in places, but I don't remember the exact details of how.

[Blackhawk748]

Im gonna say that, for the record, i enjoy playing Auto Attack Champs and i also enjoy doing the equivalent in DnD. Now with that said....FOR GOD SAKES GIVE MY FIGHTER SKILL POINTS!!! *ahem* Sorry.

Ill give an example. I once played a Fighter named Armon Fellhammer, he was an Axe and Board Fighter who eventually took 2 levels of barbarian (and not for pounce) who i had great fun playing. Now i traded away Heavy Armor Prof and Tower Shield Prof and got 4 Skills per level and 2 skills of my choice added to my list, i took Hide and Move Silently, this combined with the fact that i traded Ride and Handle Animal for Tumble and Gather Info turned me into an actual Thug and our party rogue was very happy to have a Beatstick along when he went scouting.

Now did i destroy the Rogues niche? No, he was actually very happy having backup on his scouting missions, on top of this he was the only one with perception based skills. (We were playing with a houserule where you automatically see anything with a Spot DC = to 10+your Spot mod, worked quite well, even though my "passive spot" was 11.)

So yes give the Fighter more feats, shore up that Reflex save (which i will take over the high Will save, mainly because there is an ACF that helps with this) let them be useful outside combat.

[nedz]

Wasn't it 1 minute outdoors, and 6 seconds indoors?


I think it went the other way, with the smaller unit being a minute. I know size altered; 1" was ten feet indoors, ten yards(?) outdoors.

It's been a while, but IIRC
1 round = 1 minute
1 turn = 10 minutes
1" = 1 foot indoors, 1 yard outdoors
1' = 10 feet indoors, 10 yards outdoors
Also
12 cp = 1 sp, 20 sp = 1 gp (Good old LSD :smallsmile:)
10 sp = 1 ep and 10 gp = 1 pp also.

[Ssalarn]

Now did i destroy the Rogues niche? No, he was actually very happy having backup on his scouting missions, on top of this he was the only one with perception based skills. (We were playing with a houserule where you automatically see anything with a Spot DC = to 10+your Spot mod, worked quite well, even though my "passive spot" was 11.)


Yeah, it's a little rough that the Rogue's choices are generally either "Sneak solo and risk near certain death if discovered" or "Try to sneak with an escort, watch them inevitably fail their stealth checks, and get in the fight we hoped to avoid anyway".

[Flickerdart]

It's been a while, but IIRC
1 round = 1 minute
1 turn = 10 minutes
1" = 1 foot indoors, 1 yard outdoors
1' = 10 feet indoors, 10 yards outdoors
Also
12 cp = 1 sp, 20 sp = 1 gp (Good old LSD :smallsmile:)
10 sp = 1 ep and 10 gp = 1 pp also.
None of that makes any sense! How can one inch equal a foot, but 1 foot equal ten feet? What happened to the other 2 inches of that foot?

Also the whole turn/round thing is really weird because in 3.5 a turn is a subset of a round.

[(Un)Inspired]

None of that makes any sense! How can one inch equal a foot, but 1 foot equal ten feet? What happened to the other 2 inches of that foot?

A 2e Thief stole them. Questing to get them back was the plot of one of the first printed adventures.

[Arbane]

Wasn't it 1 minute outdoors, and 6 seconds indoors?

Just checked my old DMG, and it just says 1 minute rounds. It specifically compares combat rounds to rounds in a boxing match. There's also 6-second segments, which I think are supposed to be used to figure out who goes first/in the surprise round/whether you can cast a spell before the orc spears you.

[Blackhawk748]

Yeah, it's a little rough that the Rogue's choices are generally either "Sneak solo and risk near certain death if discovered" or "Try to sneak with an escort, watch them inevitably fail their stealth checks, and get in the fight we hoped to avoid anyway".

Ya it does suck, the only real "beatstick" that has built on stealth capabilities is the Ranger, this isnt so bad in PF but the Rogue suffers even more there, if for different reasons.

[nedz]

None of that makes any sense! How can one inch equal a foot, but 1 foot equal ten feet? What happened to the other 2 inches of that foot?

Also the whole turn/round thing is really weird because in 3.5 a turn is a subset of a round.

Where did I say it made sense ? :smallsmile:

It was kind of weird if you tried out the psionics system, because that worked in segments: 10 segments = 1 round. So the psionic combat would be over before, well it was never really explained how these two time frames could be made to work together especially since it was possible to have more than 10 segments in a round sometimes.

[Necroticplague]

Bear in mind that a lack of clearly defined, high-powered special attacks means that one has to use the limited options and "weaker" attacks and choose well among them - positioning well when flanking, AoOs and full attacks is all you have can be more interesting than just choosing how to max DPS with best application of powers.

As for how to make the Fighter competitive with a ToB-like class: Give him skills, a good will save, Stat boosts(!), non-specific bonuses to damage (not necessarily attack bonus, mostly damage), a bonus that sets off size bonuses for monsters (for Grapple, bull rush etc.) and MAYBE some slight defensive edges. The end result would be a class that, while definitely not able to 1v1 a ToB class, could match its utility for the party simply by being the tougher roadblock for monsters. He cannot do as much as a Warblade under good conditions, but he can keep doing it under pressure or when surprised and somewhat outmatched.

Neither of these really relate to what I said. A character with more options also has to think about those things, in addition to other things. To use a 3.x analogy, the fighter has to worry about setting up the flank, trying to setting up attacks of oppurtunity, and keeping in range for full-attack. The Warblade has to do all of those (with full-round maneuvers taking the place of full-attacks, but otherwise identical in set-up requirement), as well as deciding whether he should make his attack as a touch attack, ignore there DR, attack them flat-footed, prevent there regeneration, do stat damage, or prevent his enemy from moving. And that's just his standard and move, while for his swift, he has to decide whether he should recover his maneuvers, jump around the battlefield, give himself the scent ability, give himself damage resistance, or make himself hard to move. There's no aspect of being a fighter you have to think about that the warblade doesn't also think about, and the extra thought required to play it should be reflected in it being stronger.

Thats...not really relevant. I'm asking: how do you even compare the usefulness of having more options vs. what few options you have being stronger? How do you determine whether the ability detect when enemies within 30 feet is worth, say a +1 to-hit? How much is having a different attack that lets you stun an enemy going to compare to an improvement to your old ability that lets you slide on a hit (assuming equal costs)? Not even about making it competetive, how do you even compare them?

Also, your fix doesn't do what you say it does. It doesn't add any utility.It just makes them better at doing some things. Utility is able to do more things. or handle a wider variety of situations. All that fix does is fight better. Also, you have an odd definition of 'pressure' or 'suprise'. After all, in an ambush scenario, the ToB can use a full-round action to ready a different set of maneuvers, almost completely changing what he can do. Your fighter takes a bunch of charging feats, only to be trekking through mountains with difficult terrain more common that not? Sucks to be him. Your warblade preps a bunch of charging maneuvers, then finds himself in those mountains? A full-round action later, he now has abilities that let him jump around as he attacks enemies, turning useless wastes into assets. In essence, the fighter requires you to prepare for all possible scenarios at character creation, while a TOB can let the difference between readied and prepared leave him room to deal with situations he hadn't planned for. And this isn't even getting into the fact that combat isn't everything. No amount of fighting good will even let it compare to the ToB's improvised lockpick abilities, movement out of combat (whether teleport, fly, climb, jump).

[TexAvery]

I think it went the other way, with the smaller unit being a minute. I know size altered; 1" was ten feet indoors, ten yards(?) outdoors.

Range changed, yes; I think you're right, feet indoors, yards outdoors.

Time-wise, the issue is that a round was six seconds. Ten rounds made a turn, which was eliminated in 3.0 in favor of "minutes per level" duration (or whatever).

At least, that's my memory, but I see lots of people thinking a round was a minute back in 2e, and it's been a while, so I might be wrong.

[atemu1234]

I'm going to try giving them Any 10 for class skills and 6+ int points. It's ok to be strictly better than expert, n'cest pas?

[Madhava]

Time-wise, the issue is that a round was six seconds. Ten rounds made a turn, which was eliminated in 3.0 in favor of "minutes per level" duration (or whatever).

At least, that's my memory, but I see lots of people thinking a round was a minute back in 2e, and it's been a while, so I might be wrong.

You're correct. At least, this is how it'd been in 2E AD&D. I didn't play much pre-'89 AD&D... so maybe this is what other people are citing?

[Madhava]

Also, Fighters were absolute beasts in AD&D (although a dual-wield Ranger was probably better).

Being able to use a d10 weapon, over a d6 weapon, was significant. Attacking more than once per round was huge. The whole exceptional strength subsystem was reduculous.

Spell effectiveness was iffy at higher levels, when saving throws became something akin to: roll 6 or better on d20, for nearly anything. The best a Mage could hope for was carpet bombing everything for 50% damage, and hope that sometime, something might take the full amount. It was either that, or summon a randomly-determined monster.

Fighters & fireballs were ported over from 2E nearly exact, while most everything else improved.

[eggynack]

I'm going to try giving them Any 10 for class skills and 6+ int points. It's ok to be strictly better than expert, n'cest pas?
It works fine from a balance perspective, but skill selection doesn't feel all that fightery to me. Maybe just toss them a pile of skills that make sense on a fighter. They could use stuff like spot, listen, hide, move silently, tumble, maybe iajatsu focus, perhaps diplomacy, and so forth. Any ten risks just making fighters into mostly a skill platform. What could work, however, is giving them skills over time as a class feature. For example, maybe on levels 5, 9, 13, and 17 they can pick skill that's either on or off list, and have that skill automatically max itself out as you level. That'd give it this whole eclectic training from a different school of fighting feel.

[Troacctid]

What could work, however, is giving them skills over time as a class feature. For example, maybe on levels 5, 9, 13, and 17 they can pick skill that's either on or off list, and have that skill automatically max itself out as you level. That'd give it this whole eclectic training from a different school of fighting feel.

That could be good as a feat option, kind of like how Clerics can get class skills from Initiate feats.

[eggynack]

That could be good as a feat option, kind of like how Clerics can get class skills from Initiate feats.
I was figuring it as a way to fill dead levels, because fighters could use that. Maybe start it at 3, actually, which would go 3, 7, 11, 15, and 19. Didn't really want to go to every odd level after two, but keeping it to odd levels in general seems good for the aforementioned reason.

[SiuiS]

None of that makes any sense! How can one inch equal a foot, but 1 foot equal ten feet? What happened to the other 2 inches of that foot?

Also the whole turn/round thing is really weird because in 3.5 a turn is a subset of a round.

Assuming not sarcasm, map>game. A one inch square on the map was a ten foot wide square on indoors maps, a ten yard square on outdoors maps, and it was intentional that ranges were written in #" so fireballs were actually bigger outside.

I don't recall one foot being an Inch ever though.

A turn was a unit of basic time; torches, wandering monsters, travel times were all /turn. You took one turn to search a room, you're torch burnt low, a monster might show up and durations ran out. Rounds were only ever important in combat, and even then only if you micromanaged a lot. A segment... Well.


Just checked my old DMG, and it just says 1 minute rounds. It specifically compares combat rounds to rounds in a boxing match. There's also 6-second segments, which I think are supposed to be used to figure out who goes first/in the surprise round/whether you can cast a spell before the orc spears you.

A segment was your pip on the d10 for initiative I. One of the three systems laid out in the DMG (it was an interesting book...), and you modified it. If you rolled initiative 7, you went on the seventh segment of combat. If you were a wizard casting a spell and some wad with better initiative hit you you lost the spell – or if your ally closed you toasted your ally.

[Knaight]

On the matter of skills, it's worth noting that the Fighter being screwed over is against a general backdrop of skills in generally being pretty scarce. Even the rogue doesn't get all that many, 3.0 didn't even have a 6+int class (Bard took that niche when bumped up in 3.5), and they decided that even numbers were in use. That left 8, 4, and 2 as the skill totals. Anyone with 2 skills in a class that wasn't all over intelligence got hosed. Had the rogue started with more, and 6+int been used more initially, the fighter would probably have been fine, even though they'd still be assigned to the low end. It wouldn't be unreasonable to switch the system over to a 12+int, 9+int, 6+int standard. That does leave a few odd classes that don't have 8, 4, or 2, but they can be fit in easily enough.

[Coidzor]

On the matter of skills, it's worth noting that the Fighter being screwed over is against a general backdrop of skills in generally being pretty scarce. Even the rogue doesn't get all that many, 3.0 didn't even have a 6+int class (Bard took that niche when bumped up in 3.5), and they decided that even numbers were in use. That left 8, 4, and 2 as the skill totals. Anyone with 2 skills in a class that wasn't all over intelligence got hosed. Had the rogue started with more, and 6+int been used more initially, the fighter would probably have been fine, even though they'd still be assigned to the low end. It wouldn't be unreasonable to switch the system over to a 12+int, 9+int, 6+int standard. That does leave a few odd classes that don't have 8, 4, or 2, but they can be fit in easily enough.

Oh? Can you think of any examples of that offhand? I suppose there's got to be a few PrCs that have 6+Int Skillpoints?

[Kioran]

Neither of these really relate to what I said. A character with more options also has to think about those things, in addition to other things. To use a 3.x analogy, the fighter has to worry about setting up the flank, trying to setting up attacks of oppurtunity, and keeping in range for full-attack. The Warblade has to do all of those (with full-round maneuvers taking the place of full-attacks, but otherwise identical in set-up requirement), as well as deciding whether he should make his attack as a touch attack, ignore there DR, attack them flat-footed, prevent there regeneration, do stat damage, or prevent his enemy from moving. And that's just his standard and move, while for his swift, he has to decide whether he should recover his maneuvers, jump around the battlefield, give himself the scent ability, give himself damage resistance, or make himself hard to move. There's no aspect of being a fighter you have to think about that the warblade doesn't also think about, and the extra thought required to play it should be reflected in it being stronger.

Thats...not really relevant. I'm asking: how do you even compare the usefulness of having more options vs. what few options you have being stronger? How do you determine whether the ability detect when enemies within 30 feet is worth, say a +1 to-hit? How much is having a different attack that lets you stun an enemy going to compare to an improvement to your old ability that lets you slide on a hit (assuming equal costs)? Not even about making it competetive, how do you even compare them?

Also, your fix doesn't do what you say it does. It doesn't add any utility.It just makes them better at doing some things. Utility is able to do more things. or handle a wider variety of situations. All that fix does is fight better. Also, you have an odd definition of 'pressure' or 'suprise'. After all, in an ambush scenario, the ToB can use a full-round action to ready a different set of maneuvers, almost completely changing what he can do. Your fighter takes a bunch of charging feats, only to be trekking through mountains with difficult terrain more common that not? Sucks to be him. Your warblade preps a bunch of charging maneuvers, then finds himself in those mountains? A full-round action later, he now has abilities that let him jump around as he attacks enemies, turning useless wastes into assets. In essence, the fighter requires you to prepare for all possible scenarios at character creation, while a TOB can let the difference between readied and prepared leave him room to deal with situations he hadn't planned for. And this isn't even getting into the fact that combat isn't everything. No amount of fighting good will even let it compare to the ToB's improvised lockpick abilities, movement out of combat (whether teleport, fly, climb, jump).

Utility and options are not only based on what a character can do, but on what he or she can do well enough to actually matter. A character with a single cross-class rank in Search (and no Int bonus) could theoretically search for clues or traps - realistically, his chances of actually doing it successfully are so small as to be negligible. So, in order for the character to be good at skills, he needs to have skill ranks, in order to do certain other things, he needs feats, ability scores, whatever.
A Fighter who gets additional skills/level, an expanded skill list and increases to his ability scores (something to the tune of +4 Str, +2 Con and +2 Dex over 20 levels, that's what I am thinking off right now) as well as some other small benefits (+1 untyped AC/7 levels, +1 untyped to damage/5 levels, +4 to Grapple checks, bull rush checks etc.), fast healing to 50% of his HP as well as good will save will be a little better at a lot of things, and maybe even free up some of his normal 7 feats to pursue non-combat options, especially skill based options. That's utility, even if it's not that big.

How can this be compared to spell-like powers? That problem existed before ToB already, with Wizard spells, and the answer is basically the same: Are there situations in which you would rather have a very tough paper weight that has less active power but never runs out? If the answer is yes in at least a few situations, you are doing okay. Second question: Is the character somewhat useful at least most of the time during a session? They can never be balanced in straight 1v1 encounters, in such encounters, the special attack guy will nearly always win (because he can pick advantageous conditions for himself).
Let's say that both a Warblade and an improved Fighter are running up a mountain pass while a Troll bursts from a cave and rushes them. While Fighter, thanks to his additional strength and "size" bonus can barely hang on, the Warblade gets punted off the cliff side. Both are caught in a web spell, one of them has additional dexterity and Strength, one doesn't. They are swarmed by a horde of small opponents and the fights isn't over in 5 rounds. They have to sneak past a guard, and there are no maneuvers for this, but additional dexterity and skill points can do wonders.
Granted, these are all pretty fringe cases, but things like that can happen. In general, the Warblade will, on his terms or in common situations, have more power. But a Fighter can, and should, be pretty powerful simply as the base-system user. Especially if not all the power is in build-dependent stuff such as Feat chains. Even in the aforementioned rocky terrain that absolutely trashes his charge-based feat chain, he still has good stats, additional damage etc.

The basics keep working.

As for the tactical difficulties: It's much like playing a low-cc tank (Garen, Mundo or Shyvana, if we take LoL as example) in a MOBA as opposed to a bruiser(Warblade) or Assassin (Swordsage). Once you go in, you are in, and working with your team is much essential.
Theoretically, the ToB guy has more variable to keep track off, in reality, however, he will do decently even if he plays entirely selfish and maxes out the effectiveness of his own, considerable damage, whereas the Fighter will do a lot less if he doesn't position correctly and doesn't flank/block space for AoOs or does not get to full attack in the 3rd round since he can't 5ft. step in the right direction etc.
Theoretically, a ToB character has a higher skill cap, yes, the amount of skill required to play him at peak, but the skill floor (the amount of skill needed to play the role decently) is MUCH lower, since his powers are far less conditional and he nearly always has good options regardless of how he mis-positioned etc.

Few of us play Hex-grid fighting at levels and intensities where the maximum matters (since regular fights of this level would result in frequent character death for the inevitable missteps, too), but "normal" fights with equal CR or CR +1 can be misplayed by many, many people. Warblades are much more forgiving that Rogues or Fighters.

[Knaight]

Oh? Can you think of any examples of that offhand? I suppose there's got to be a few PrCs that have 6+Int Skillpoints?

Bard is 6+ int, which is off the standard 8,4,2 system. Factotum is 6+int. There are probably a few PrCs as well. It's rare enough that a straight conversion upwards should be pretty easy though, maybe with 6+int going to 9+int, which puts them on the same par as formerly 4+int classes.

[Auron3991]

Personally, I think that pushing the skill ranks up to 4+int, including a 1 point stat boost every three levels (like normal feat progression), and around lv 7 and 13 allowing the fighter to have a 5ft increase to reach, count as a size category larger for typical combat maneuvers, or have a 1/day extra standard action would bump it up to around mid tier 4.

[Andion Isurand]

As far as simple fighter fixes go, I support them getting a d12 Hit Die, 4 + int skills per level, and a fighter bonus feat at every level... perhaps so they can use their character level feats for other things. A while ago, I also started an idea for making the scaling of fighter feats less linear (http://magerune.blogspot.com/2014/04/fighter-feat-scaling.html).

As far as rogues go, I think they should gain a few more skill points than they already do, perhaps so they can afford to purchase more skill tricks... and if that were the case, I would then suggest adding an option to the rogue's "Special Ability" feature, that enables them to use skill tricks more often.

[Necroticplague]

Utility and options are not only based on what a character can do, but on what he or she can do well enough to actually matter. A character with a single cross-class rank in Search (and no Int bonus) could theoretically search for clues or traps - realistically, his chances of actually doing it successfully are so small as to be negligible. So, in order for the character to be good at skills, he needs to have skill ranks, in order to do certain other things, he needs feats, ability scores, whatever. Of which your fix little of. The only thing that really increases utility is the increased skills, the rest is just more combat stuff. Actually, outside of the skills, your fix still compares unfavorably to just taking 2-LA worth of templates.

A Fighter who gets additional skills/level, an expanded skill list and increases to his ability scores (something to the tune of +4 Str, +2 Con and +2 Dex over 20 levels, that's what I am thinking off right now) as well as some other small benefits (+1 untyped AC/7 levels, +1 untyped to damage/5 levels, +4 to Grapple checks, bull rush checks etc.), fast healing to 50% of his HP as well as good will save will be a little better at a lot of things, and maybe even free up some of his normal 7 feats to pursue non-combat options, especially skill based options. That's utility, even if it's not that big. How is just "making mah numbers bigger" utility? Over 20 levels, these boni are fairly insignificant. (+4 damage in a system where HP ends up in the hundreds isn't that horrifically a big deal, the stat boosts could be beaten by just going one of half-minotaur, feral, or mineralized warrior, fast healing isn't that significant unless you consistently get knocked down to zero, +4 to resist checks in the mid-60s is a small boost, even the monk gets a better AC bonus (still compares unfavorably to templates)).


How can this be compared to spell-like powers? That problem existed before ToB already, with Wizard spells, and the answer is basically the same: Are there situations in which you would rather have a very tough paper weight that has less active power but never runs out? If the answer is yes in at least a few situations, you are doing okay. Second question: Is the character somewhat useful at least most of the time during a session? They can never be balanced in straight 1v1 encounters, in such encounters, the special attack guy will nearly always win (because he can pick advantageous conditions for himself).. A ToB doesn't run out of power. They have this great thing called Adaptive Style, which means that long fightes are actually in there favor, because it means the ToB can re-do his build choice to a degree in order to better prepare for the current situation. Meanwhile, even your improved fighter has to prepare for all possible scenarios he might face while he is being created. I never expect them to be balanced fighting each other, I expect them to be balanced fighting alongside each other, under a broad variety of circumstances. And you can't even compare them to see if they are, because they do such different things.


Let's say that both a Warblade and an improved Fighter are running up a mountain pass while a Troll bursts from a cave and rushes them. While Fighter, thanks to his additional strength and "size" bonus can barely hang on, the Warblade gets punted off the cliff side. Both are caught in a web spell, one of them has additional dexterity and Strength, one doesn't. They are swarmed by a horde of small opponents and the fights isn't over in 5 rounds. They have to sneak past a guard, and there are no maneuvers for this, but additional dexterity and skill points can do wonders. Inf that Troll scenario: how does that make the improved fightr any different from simply being a half minotaur, who would be similarly hard to move, but also do more damage, hit more often (due to large STR more than overcoming the size bonus to attack). Same for the web, where the half-minotaur would be even more titanically able to break out of the web. If something you put 20 levels in still compares unfavorably to something you only sunk one level into, that's a pretty good indicator its bad. In the "swarm" scenario, that's only true if the fighter used his feats to improve his ability to fight hordes of small opponents. If his feat choices don't support that, he again still comes out below a non-fixed fighter with a few templates. Also, the warblade could simply refresh his maneuvers if the battle is drawing on, or re-ready them into suitable horde-killing maneuvers (mithril tornado, wolf pack tactics. various Tiger Claw multiattacks or iron heart area attacks.)to help him. Heck, a crusader doesn't even need to stop slow down his fighting in any way to refresh. Actually, there are maneuvers that can help with sneaking around. Scent or Blindsense (given from stances) can tell you when someone is there, improved movement abilities open up routes away from those you're trying to sneak by, ability to ignore hardness allows you to smash down alternate routes that might not be gaurded


Granted, these are all pretty fringe cases, but things like that can happen. In general, the Warblade will, on his terms or in common situations, have more power. But a Fighter can, and should, be pretty powerful simply as the base-system user. Especially if not all the power is in build-dependent stuff such as Feat chains. Even in the aforementioned rocky terrain that absolutely trashes his charge-based feat chain, he still has good stats, additional damage etc.The warblade, in any situation but the most contrived, is still better, and even the ones where he isn't, the fixed fighter still is inferior to simply slapping a few templates on a non-fixed fighter.

[Arbane]

Personally, I think that pushing the skill ranks up to 4+int, including a 1 point stat boost every three levels (like normal feat progression), and around lv 7 and 13 allowing the fighter to have a 5ft increase to reach, count as a size category larger for typical combat maneuvers, or have a 1/day extra standard action would bump it up to around mid tier 4.

How about just giving skill points as 3/5/7/9 per rank, without the Int mod? Being der schmott guy already gives you a bonus on all the Knowledge skills, no reason you should get to double-dip.

[Svata]

Bard is 6+ int, which is off the standard 8,4,2 system. Factotum is 6+int. There are probably a few PrCs as well. It's rare enough that a straight conversion upwards should be pretty easy though, maybe with 6+int going to 9+int, which puts them on the same par as formerly 4+int classes.

Ranger has 6+int as well. He's right there in the PHB, between Paladin and Rogue.

[aleucard]

How about just giving skill points as 3/5/7/9 per rank, without the Int mod? Being der schmott guy already gives you a bonus on all the Knowledge skills, no reason you should get to double-dip.

Divvying them up into separate pools would also work, with a few (spot/listen, for instance) being universal.For an example of the spread, Rogues get the most in the sneaky division and are comparable to bards in the talky division, Fighters are the best in the Soldier-y division, and Wizards are the best in the Bookworm division. All classes get at least 1 skill point/level in all categories, but additional skill points in each are determined by the most prominent stat. I'm thinking Strength for the Soldier one, Dex for the sneaky one, Cha for the talky one, and Int for the Bookworm one. Maybe have Con and Wis count for 1/3 in both of their respectively relevant fields (Dex and Str for Con, Cha and Int for Wis). Expanding the uses of some skills while nerfing/debugging others would be a good idea, too. First obvious step is to make magic support the skills but not supplant it, though.

[Knaight]

Ranger has 6+int as well. He's right there in the PHB, between Paladin and Rogue.

I knew I forgot something. I actually have the 3.0 PHB, so I always think of rangers as d10, 4+int. Then I remember they aren't.

[Kioran]

Cutting the quote to avoid quote tunnels of doom

How do bigger numbers or buffs to combat maneuvers equate to utility? Simply put mainly BECAUSE they come from the class, and not a template. Taking Goliath, mineral warrior or half minotaur has the distinct disadvantage of, you know, actually having to play a half-Minotaur with Crystals sticking out of his skin. The fighter as I envision it mainly transforms any character, even a human, into a superhuman combatant, who can also do different things out of combat. Of course, if you compare it to the most OP templates from all kinds of (sometimes Paizo or setting-specific) sources, it will not hold water.
That's not the point though: This transforms a normal human into Hercules, or rather, a force that can meet giants, monsters etc. not on equal terms, but well, isn't hopelessly outmatched. Kinda like their opposite numbers in the MM, they are hard to displace and can walk threateningly at people. The "bigger" numbers facilitate better skill roles, and tactics that previously simply weren't available - take, for example, a Shambling mound walking up, grabbing and destroying people. Having someone who actually has a semi-decent chance of resisting the grabs or winning the Grapple check offers additional tactics that weren't there before. It's a niche, of sorts.


We can argue about the numbers all day, and indeed, ToB is pretty high-powered, about on par with the often-mentioned Transmuter wizard, so to match it just about all non full-casters in the PHB would need buffs, massive ones in some cases. More buffs than I feel comfortable with (Mike Mearls of ToB Infamy is like CertainlyT in LoL, who designed Zed, Thresh and Yasuo...which were also initially OP as hell with massively overloaded kits doing too many things at the same time. An intelligent and creative designer...whose basic design goals are insane and game-breaking). It's also insanely forgiving in that you can pick your maneuvers at random with a dart board and remain high powered, and in that few if any maneuvers have prerequisites aside from level or are "gated" with anything.

Still, there is a point in having a blunt object - and I reiterate - the main being that it can get many different "paint jobs" or themes, unlike, say, templated monstrosities. Transformational classes already exist, things that turn humans into half dragons, half-fiends etc. - why not have a Class that turns a human into a superhuman?

Anyway, and that's exactly the thing, ToB-ifying the entire game gave us 4E. The point of fixing the Fighter would be to have a 3.5 solution to the problem, not a 4E one.

[Svata]

We can argue about the numbers all day, and indeed, ToB is pretty high-powered, about on par with the often-mentioned Transmuter wizard,

Lolno. ToB is high floor, (relatively) low ceiling. Transmuter/Conjurer wizard is (extremely)low floor, (ridiculously) high ceiling.


so to match it just about all non full-casters in the PHB would need buffs, massive ones in some cases. More buffs than I feel comfortable with.

Why? They need the buff, even without ToB, because of CoDzilla, PsyWars, and, hell, even bards (yaay snowflake wardance and DFI!)


It's also insanely forgiving in that you can pick your maneuvers at random with a dart board and remain high powered, and in that few if any maneuvers have prerequisites aside from level or are "gated" with anything.


Again, why is this a problem? It makes even characters designed by those with little system mastery, or to fit a certain theme/goal viable, and not utter trash, unlike Fighters built with little system mastery (or dips. Dips are nice.)


Still, there is a point in having a blunt object - and I reiterate - the main being that it can get many different "paint jobs" or themes, unlike, say, templated monstrosities.

But they don't do it very well. And said "templated monstrosities" are such just to (futilely) attempt to keep up with stronger classes.


Transformational classes already exist, things that turn humans into half dragons, half-fiends etc. - why not have a Class that turns a human into a superhuman?

Cleric. Warblade. Crusader.


Anyway, and that's exactly the thing, ToB-ifying the entire game gave us 4E. The point of fixing the Fighter would be to have a 3.5 solution to the problem, not a 4E one.

No, it didn't. ToB brought us martial characters that could do more than just attack for HP damage and maybe one other thing. 4e was an attempt to appeal to the masses, to homogenize the level of power and versatility across classes (which they did well), that lost appeal in the eyes many of dedicated fans for feeling too homogenized, and for losing all of the quirky, broken fun that was 3.5.

[atemu1234]

I think we need a new forum law, derived from a logical fallacy:

"If 4e does something similar, it does not necessarily make it bad."

What made 4e suck wasn't the class mechanics, it was turning the entire game into a borderline battle sim, removing roleplaying and non-fighting mechanics, closing loopholes people didn't care about, and leaving open the worst ones.

We need to stop with this entire "whenever ToB is used, 3.5 dies a little". 4e wasn't all bad, just as 3.5 wasn't all good. Stop trying to use the similarities as a justification whenever you want to rant about it being horrible. Guilt by association proves nothing.

[Kioran]

I think we need a new forum law, derived from a logical fallacy:

"If 4e does something similar, it does not necessarily make it bad."

What made 4e suck wasn't the class mechanics, it was turning the entire game into a borderline battle sim, removing roleplaying and non-fighting mechanics, closing loopholes people didn't care about, and leaving open the worst ones.

We need to stop with this entire "whenever ToB is used, 3.5 dies a little". 4e wasn't all bad, just as 3.5 wasn't all good. Stop trying to use the similarities as a justification whenever you want to rant about it being horrible. Guilt by association proves nothing.

Well, the central deficiencies of 4E were, In that order:

- repetitive combat due to always using the same 3-4 powers (even if their use individually takes more tactics and decision making)
- Lack of distinction between characters, more so with characters of the same class
- Lastly, neglect of non-combat parts of characters.

4E had a few very good ideas that should have been in 3E or any 3.75 such as Pathfinder, albeit in their fixed form, such as

- Skill challenges (basically, entirely skill-based encounters in a more codified form)
- Ritual magic

ToB heralded the way to some of these and shares some of the most significant downsides of 4E. Why? Why do I not like Tome of battle? Because it always feels like stopgap measure. I do not even WANT the game to be balanced to the higher power levels at which the game breaks down - If all characters could have the power level bards have with a short selection of splatbooks (CAdv, CW, CArc, Cdiv, PHB 2 and UA) I would be really happy.

There were several experimental systems in 3E, publications that were barely-veiled mechanical experiments: Psionics (for a non-vancian, mana-pool using magic, with Psions, Wilders and Psy-wars as different possible expressions), Incarnum (how to replace the Christmas tree...and fail), ToM (self-explanatory - this one doesn't even pretend to be non-experimental, which is refreshing) and finally Tome of Battle.
I always consider these extensive sub-systems to be something of a 3.75 in off themselves, and to an extent, even the new base classes in the PHB2 are guilty of that (PHB 2 Knight and the Dragon shaman in particular).

D&D 3.5 could be made into D20 and used for several other settings and derivative games precisely because it used this very generalized approach, with almost everything based on HD/level, the same ability scores, skills etc. They tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to be generalist, and yet, I would much rather restrict the additional content, prune the tree and shore it up than to make it more like the variants of D&D that showed up later.
Not because 4E is necessarily bad, but because making 3.5 or 3.75 like 4E makes it less distinct and remove the charm of 3.5. In ToB-Edition (4th) you couldn't just build an Ogre as a PC. With most power being in class-specific progression, multi-classing, Monster HD etc. don't really mesh. If everything is based about inherent progression and HD (Despite all the problems this eventually poses for any monster that is too small or too big - it basically breaks down for anything smaller than Diminutive and larger than Huge)

ToB character are not super humans. They are shiny sparkly normal humans who can create quasi-magical powers with their swords. With the exception of pretty few powers like "Iron Heart Surge" (Which is OP as hell, btw.) there is little to nothing in there that makes them harder, smarter etc. - they just hit harder and in different ways.


Transformational classes are the single most under-appreciated possibility in 3E. People often like templates, other races etc. and hate the very idea of LA (me too, it's bad and doesn't work for the most part). Why not put everything that doesn't use magic on a Transformational track? Make LA Races into classes with mediocre or bad base HD and no class features aside from those inherent in the Race (so you, for example, take 2 levels of Hobgoblin which grant 2 HD and, as their only class features, have the racial characteristics). Make all fighters and to some extent the skill-classes into transformationals. Think of it this way: all non-magical classes basically pay the LA for Templates by having classes without magic or special attacks.

ToB Swordmages can swordmage away. To me, though, they signify the decision to step away from running humans and monsters on the same rails and basic ruleset.

[NNescio]

I think we need a new forum law, derived from a logical fallacy:

"If 4e does something similar, it does not necessarily make it bad."

What made 4e suck wasn't the class mechanics, it was turning the entire game into a borderline battle sim, removing roleplaying and non-fighting mechanics, closing loopholes people didn't care about, and leaving open the worst ones.

We need to stop with this entire "whenever ToB is used, 3.5 dies a little". 4e wasn't all bad, just as 3.5 wasn't all good. Stop trying to use the similarities as a justification whenever you want to rant about it being horrible. Guilt by association proves nothing.

"Hitler Ate Sugar".

AKA the association fallacy, or, depending on how it is worded, ad hominem as well.

Or, to quote Strauss, Reductio ad Hitlerum.

[Chronos]

6 skillpoints per level is actually pretty common. Just off the top of my head, that's bard, ranger, NPC expert, cloistered cleric, spellthief, ninja, psychic rogue, factotum, beguiler, and swordsage. And that's just base classes-- Most PrCs designed for skillmonkeys also have 6.

And not everyone is starving for skill points: Druids, rangers, and cloistered clerics usually have enough. Maybe not enough to get everything you'd want, but that's OK: If you got that, then everyone would look the same, skill-wise. But enough to get everything you need, and to choose some other things you want.

Fighters and barbarians also usually don't have use for any more skill points, but that's mostly because they run out of useful things on their class skill list. Both could be improved. There's no reason at all for a fighter not to have Knowledge: History or Knowledge: Architecture and Engineering (in fact, they should be the specialists for those two skills), and they should at least have some easy way of getting access to Listen and/or Spot.

[Ssalarn]

"Hitler Ate Sugar".

AKA the association fallacy, or, depending on how it is worded, ad hominem as well.

Or, to quote Strauss, Reductio ad Hitlerum.

On that note... (http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/12/05/tradition)

Agreed with others that 4e's issues generally weren't connected to the commonalities it shared with ToB. I actually appreciate having Tier 3-4 martials with tactical options who can be effective regardless of the player' skill mastery. Sometimes the ease with which a class makes a player feel like a badass has a direct correlation on whether that player shows up for another game or even continues in the hobby. I've seen players who left a table because they were tired of being ineffective, or doing the same thing over and over, etc. I've never had someone stand up and say "Damn it all, I'm tired of my Warblade being so good with so many choices in a fight and being decent out of combat! I'm leaving!"

[Chronos]

I've never had someone stand up and say "Damn it all, I'm tired of my Warblade being so good with so many choices in a fight and being decent out of combat! I'm leaving!"
Not with that wording, I'm sure. But I've definitely seen players say something along the lines of "Damn it, this game is too complicated. I give up.".

[Coidzor]

Bard is 6+ int, which is off the standard 8,4,2 system. Factotum is 6+int. There are probably a few PrCs as well. It's rare enough that a straight conversion upwards should be pretty easy though, maybe with 6+int going to 9+int, which puts them on the same par as formerly 4+int classes.

Ah, ok, thank you. I think I misinterpreted you as saying there was something more exotic than the handful of 6+int classes like Rangers, Bards, and Factotums, sorry.

Hmm. This idea does rather appeal to me, I must admit. :smallsmile:

[ILM]

For what it's worth, our quick and dirty fix:
- 4 + int skill points (the only reason we haven't added class skills is that we have a house rule in play that makes all skills class skills for everyone - ain't nobody got time for cross-class skills)
- From level 5 onwards, Fighter levels count as (fighter levels -2) for the purposes of determining the character's initiator level.
- At level 3 and ever odd-numbered level afterwards: choice of Martial Study or Martial Stance as bonus feat.

So essentially, a variant Warblade with:
- slightly less HP
- more ACFs
- slower maneuver progression and less maneuvers known
- more maneuvers readied and access to all disciplines

So far it seems to be working fairly well, though in all honesty you could probably just play a Warblade without altering the character's flavour at that point.

[Auron3991]

- repetitive combat due to always using the same 3-4 powers (even if their use individually takes more tactics and decision making)

Did you ever get past the early levels? I'm genuinely curious here because powers accumulate quite quickly in 4e for martial classes compared to 3.5 (admittedly much slower than 3.5 casters) and a lot of the people I played with in 3.5 tended to throw the same strategy at all enemies.



- Lack of distinction between characters, more so with characters of the same class

Well that is a problem with some classes (leaders being big offenders), it's not universal. Warlocks being a big example. It would be very hard for someone who didn't have access to character sheets to tell fey pact and demon pact are actually the same class.



- Lastly, neglect of non-combat parts of characters.

Perhaps I just had a good DM, but I never noticed. The combat section was larger, but I didn't feel the non-combat parts were neglected.



4E had a few very good ideas that should have been in 3E or any 3.75 such as Pathfinder, albeit in their fixed form, such as

- Skill challenges (basically, entirely skill-based encounters in a more codified form)
- Ritual magic

I would add two things to that list: minions (mass enemies that weren't worthless) and a better non-class dependent progression model (and not requiring constitution to be an ability point tax)


I'll admit that it was horrible for adapting to other systems, but it did seriously improve the relative power of martial classes. I think 4e was simply went too far in the quest for balance. I think there's a happy medium somewhere between the two. Just throwing out an idea, but what would you think of giving 3.5 martial classes the marking system (allowing them to get bonuses against specific enemies or punish those enemies for not doing certain things)?

[LentilNinja]

A nice fix to this problem is the Thug variant from UA or the other alternative fighter classes from Dragon Magazines. Some of the DragMag ones even offer a couple of unique class features in exchange for feats. These also have their own "Fighter Bonus Feat" list but since it only really takes the PHB into consideration I'd allow them to just have the same ones the Fighter has.