Fighter Discussion

[AnimeTheCat]

Hey Playground.

I was just posting in the Christmas Tree Effect (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?495816-Christmas-tree-effect#top) forum that was recently started and we started to get off the topic of the original OP and in to a fighter discussion. I wanted to start this thread as a place to discuss the Fighter and other classes that are commonly viewed as "Bad" but that I feel are still solid in practical play.

This thread is for:
Any class that anyone feels gets slammed too hard by the common views of the Tier system (Such as Fighter, Rogue, Etc.)
Personal views about whether these common stances on the above classes are warranted or not

This thread is NOT for:
Telling someone they are just wrong for their opinion, unless that opinion is specifically against rules that are not changed by house rules etc.
Getting upset that someone has a different opinion than you

I realize that when opinions come in to play people will get heated about their opinions being different and that's ok, but keep in mind that everyone is entitled to said opinion and that this is a place for a discussion. I will lead off with my generalistic opinion of theses classes.

I feel that the fighter is looked down upon, particularly in an optimization light. I would contest that, particularly in early levels, the fighter can stay relevant in practical play. What I mean by practical play is a group of people playing a story made by a DM or a pre-made campaign designed for levels X through X. Another example is an adventure that might have players from "new" status to "Expert" status playing in it, an adventure with challenges but doesn't break a gaming group. That's the best explanation of "Practical Play" I can give.

Some reasons for this are anecdotal as well as rules evidence. First, as I said in the other thread, a fighter can cast an unlimited number of the spell "sword". They can even cast it in an antimagic field or when dispel magic has been cast on his magic sword. Fact still remains that he can us that sword (or other weapon) regardless of the circumstances. The wizard becomes somewhat useless in these situations because wizards aren't exactly known for their combat prowess. I feel that a DM should be willing to use these resources to great effect when a party wizard is becoming "god-like". I also feel that, in a party environment, the wizard should be enabling the fighter to fight, not hoarding the fight for themselves.

This holds true with other classes too, such as the rogue and monk. Both of those classes get most, if not all, of their abilities in the absence of magic. That should be a huge deal in higher levels where dispel magic, anti-magic, etc are available to many enemies.

For arguments about Planar Binding and the like, from what I understand there is nothing to prevent an enemy magic user from banishing that bound summoned creature back to the plane from whence it came. Unless the Fighter or other martial class is an outsider they likely can't be banished. That is one small dig on the planar binding/planar ally spells that can grant a wizard or other magic user a "better" fighter and thereby making the party martial combatant irrelevant.

I realize that means "the fighter needs the wizard to be awesome but the wizard doesn't need the fighter to be awesome" is an argument, but that directly pulls away from the party and social aspects of the game. The fighter can be awesome and the wizard can be awesome if they're working together.

That's my take on the whole deal. I'm interested to hear counter points and ideas on the situation as a whole.

[Zaq]

True: The Fighter doesn't run out of sword swings.
False: The Fighter has no resources that they can run out of.

Part of the issue is that Fighters (and other martial types) run out of HP, and since nonmagical healing is nearly worthless in 3.5 (unless you use a bunch of tricks, many of which are magical, to turbocharge it, but even then you're going to be ending the adventuring day), you need magic to keep the Fighter's HP at a safe level. ("Safe" is relative, and they don't have to be at 100% capacity, but neither can HP be ignored entirely over the long term.) Maybe that's spells, maybe that's magic items (the most useful ones of which cannot be activated by pure Fighters—Healing Belts are stopgaps, but Wands of Lesser Vigor actually keep your HP good), but that's some kind of magic that the Fighter has a hard time doing alone.

At higher levels, of course, the Fighter also needs magic buffs (whether from items, allies, or both) to handle the challenges associated with high-CR encounters. They need enhanced vision modes (See Invis, True Seeing, maybe even just a way to see in magical darkness), they need enhanced mobility (usually, though not always, flight), they need some way of getting resistance or immunity to the nastiest effects on the field, and so on, none of which they can do without items and such.

I'm not sure what the main question is, really, but that should start things off?

[ComaVision]

Fighters don't really lack power so much as they lack versatility. Nobody is going to called ubercharging weak but it's likely the character isn't performing much else. Certainly, they can keep up as long as they can continue to perform their niche (colossal physical damage). Obviously, this gets difficult as things start flying, being incorporeal, or otherwise flashing the middle finger to the Fighter if he doesn't have the compensatory items.

Playing a Fighter is also very unforgiving. A Cleric can fix a bad spell list any time he prays and be a good character but a Fighter is stuck with his bonus feats regardless of how things go. This is the reason I've added a class feature to Fighters at level 3 in my games that allows them to change out their class bonus feats. I don't think this (and my other minor additions) are enough to keep the Fighter relevant above level 10 with full casters but it at least makes the Fighter a little more forgiving and versatile.

[Flickerdart]

The fighter holds up at the lower levels because the majority of enemies are "fighter," "small fighter," and "fighter with rubber forehead." As soon as enemies become "fighter with wings" or "fighter with frickin' laser beams for eyes" or "fighter with bees in his mouth so when he yells he shoots bees" the regular fighter's usefulness diminishes.

And then we come to challenges that aren't fighters - disarming traps, breaking curses, stealth, and so on. The rest of the party will frequently need to expend their own resources (for example, an extra casting of fly or invisibility) just to shepherd the fighter through a situation that his "infinite spell" doesn't apply to.

[Red Fel]

Hey Playground.

Hey AnimeTheCat.


I was just posting in the Christmas Tree Effect (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?495816-Christmas-tree-effect#top) forum that was recently started and we started to get off the topic of the original OP and in to a fighter discussion. I wanted to start this thread as a place to discuss the Fighter and other classes that are commonly viewed as "Bad" but that I feel are still solid in practical play.

That's fine. Let me get my baseball bat, let's beat this dead horse s'more.


This thread is for:
Any class that anyone feels gets slammed too hard by the common views of the Tier system (Such as Fighter, Rogue, Etc.)

... Too hard?


Personal views about whether these common stances on the above classes are warranted or not

Oh, this will end well.


This thread is NOT for:
Telling someone they are just wrong for their opinion, unless that opinion is specifically against rules that are not changed by house rules etc.
Getting upset that someone has a different opinion than you

I realize that when opinions come in to play people will get heated about their opinions being different and that's ok, but keep in mind that everyone is entitled to said opinion and that this is a place for a discussion. I will lead off with my generalistic opinion of theses classes.

Do you really feel the need to tell people to be civil? I mean, with the exception of a few outliers, posters here are pretty chill. And as a general observation, I find that when posts open with, "Hey, don't get upset or stop fighting," the upset/fighting goes from unlikely to almost inevitable.

So, let's see if we can dodge some bullets.


I feel that the fighter is looked down upon, particularly in an optimization light. I would contest that, particularly in early levels, the fighter can stay relevant in practical play. What I mean by practical play is a group of people playing a story made by a DM or a pre-made campaign designed for levels X through X.

So, either a homemade campaign or published module? Isn't that... Every game ever?


Another example is an adventure that might have players from "new" status to "Expert" status playing in it, an adventure with challenges but doesn't break a gaming group. That's the best explanation of "Practical Play" I can give.

How are we defining "Expert" here? Because, on the one hand, a high-op player playing a Fighter in a low-op party can outshine pretty much anybody (which says more about the player than the class), while on the other a mid-op Wizard in a mid-op party can outshine everybody.


Some reasons for this are anecdotal as well as rules evidence. First, as I said in the other thread, a fighter can cast an unlimited number of the spell "sword". They can even cast it in an antimagic field or when dispel magic has been cast on his magic sword. Fact still remains that he can us that sword (or other weapon) regardless of the circumstances.

This is one of the classic observations. It's not wrong, but it's incomplete. Your Fighter can cast "sword" infinitely. That's true. But when your opponent is flying, or invisible, or incorporeal, that "spell" is as useless as the Wizard in the antimagic field.

Now, perhaps your Fighter is smart, and casts "arrow" instead. Clever. But, like the Wizard, he has only finite castings of "arrow."

Further, the game doesn't take place exclusively in antimagic fields. For every scenario in which the Wizard is rendered ineffective - say, due to an antimagic field - there are any number of scenarios that can render the Fighter ineffective. Take away his equipment. Fight a Rust Monster. Flying, incorporeal, invisible enemy. Enemy with DR or fast healing or regeneration. Skill-based encounter. And so forth.

So let's not pretend that "sword," with its infinite number of uses, is superior by merit of that alone. Useful, yes, but false equivalency is false.


The wizard becomes somewhat useless in these situations because wizards aren't exactly known for their combat prowess.

Unless the Wizard has a contingency or feat in place to avoid those things. Also, a Wizard doesn't need to be known for his combat prowess if (1) he can summon something that is, (2) he can turn into something that is, or (3) he can take control of something that is.


I feel that a DM should be willing to use these resources to great effect when a party wizard is becoming "god-like". I also feel that, in a party environment, the wizard should be enabling the fighter to fight, not hoarding the fight for themselves.

So, if a Wizard is too strong, let's create situations that make the Wizard useless? What ever happened to talking to the player?

You're right on that last point, though. A great Wizard - or any class, really - should make the team as a whole more effective, not merely dominate everything himself.


This holds true with other classes too, such as the rogue and monk. Both of those classes get most, if not all, of their abilities in the absence of magic. That should be a huge deal in higher levels where dispel magic, anti-magic, etc are available to many enemies.

It should, but for the fact that many of those abilities are, again, less than powerful. Sneak Attack fails against creatures immune to precision damage. A Monk's unarmed strikes, absent the aid of buffs or items, are woefully underwhelming at levels where antimagic fields are a thing.

"Usable in any situation" does not equate with "effective in any situation."


For arguments about Planar Binding and the like, from what I understand there is nothing to prevent an enemy magic user from banishing that bound summoned creature back to the plane from whence it came. Unless the Fighter or other martial class is an outsider they likely can't be banished. That is one small dig on the planar binding/planar ally spells that can grant a wizard or other magic user a "better" fighter and thereby making the party martial combatant irrelevant.

Valid, but that's only one tool spellcasters have to bring a champion to bear.


I realize that means "the fighter needs the wizard to be awesome but the wizard doesn't need the fighter to be awesome" is an argument, but that directly pulls away from the party and social aspects of the game. The fighter can be awesome and the wizard can be awesome if they're working together.

Agreed completely.


That's my take on the whole deal. I'm interested to hear counter points and ideas on the situation as a whole.

Short version? Despite what I've said, I like the Fighter. As a general matter, I don't like a lot of bookkeeping. Let me keep it simple. Ideally, give me a big list of passive bonuses. Fighter does that.

That said, I prefer almost any other melee class to Fighter. Barbarian does the no-bookkeeping thing better. Warblade does the awesome swordsman thing better. PsiWar gives me a Fighter but with Psionics. Even Monk, provided I can mix it up with something else, gives me more flavor. The only role Fighter has in my builds is a source of feats.

That's not to say it's a bad class. Is it objectively inferior? In many ways, yes. Is it lacking in flavor? On its face, yes. Is it objectively bad? No. It's fun. It's just not very good for what I need, generally.

[Troacctid]

The class is boring, underpowered, and poorly designed. There's not a whole lot of good things to say about it in this edition. I think the floccinaucinihilipilification it receives is well-deserved.

Easily my favorite class in 4e, though! They really spruced it up. Lots of fun to play.

[Pugwampy]

I have played DND for about 8 years most of which i DM,d and well my experience has been the opposite . I always emphasize the absolute need of a good fighter and good cleric for any starting party I DM . Wizards and even rogues are second fiddle .

The big fat barbarian with 150 hp , 20 AC and the mother of all great axes as well as all other hack slashers are the "Over powered heroes. " Its because of these muscle types that I have to double or triple any monster Hp in the Bestiary .

Arcane damage spells start falling off the radar around spell level 4 and 5 yet a warrior keeps getting more Hp more AC more magic goodies and has more attacks easily dishing out 100 damage per smack .

Arcane summons of a pure AC HP and damage can never even be even half as strong as a fighter hero of the same level . A summon with a funny trick is what beats a fighter .

Now we are left with save or suck spells which I assume is where everyone likes to talk of core uber wizards . To be honest thats still kinda 50/50 chance.

Admittedly when a DM plays a wizard or sorcerer then you see these supposed fireworks of godlike nature that everyone here seems to talk about but thats few and far between .

Your average new player freaks out at spells or plays castor type yet only plays with weapons . I do not believe its a case of over powered class but more of an over powered veteran player who can take any class and own the table .

I also think it s a case of how generous or stingy a DM is with magic goodies . A wizard does not need much equipment to thrive in stingy land , but what is he compared to a fighter who can hold more magic goodies in generous land . Item for item a fighter can carry about twice as much artifacts on his person .

This free for all do as you please game where you can expect anything from DM . What is more mathematically logical then having as much AC , HP , ATT and DAM as possible ?

When and if i ever get a chance to play , I am choosing a humble universal wizard because I dont want to stand out or make noobs feel useless .

[Goodkill]

i remember in the final boss battle in neverwinter nights 2 my main character, a wizard, was knocked unconscious after exhausting all his spells. it was up to the party dwarven fighter (Khelgar) armed with many magical items to finish the battle, and he did so.

of course pen and paper is a little different but not that different. ...

[Flickerdart]

i remember in the final boss battle in neverwinter nights 2 my main character, a wizard, was knocked unconscious after exhausting all his spells. it was up to the party dwarven fighter (Khelgar) armed with many magical items to finish the battle, and he did so.

of course pen and paper is a little different but not that different. ...

Pen and paper is completely different. The wizard in NWN2 is reduced to a blasting machine, because key tools like flight, teleportation, and any kind of subtlety are taken away from him, and replaced with stacks and stacks of mooks. In addition, the initiative system and lack of tiles makes it much harder to use BFC spells, and the ridiculous sums of gold the game throws at PCs makes it trivial to obtain godlike fighting prowess. The enemies the game sends at you are mooks of the lowest order, which pose little threat.

[AnimeTheCat]

I'm just gonna roll with the punches and say that yes, my description of "practical play" was terrible, even though I tried to make it not. Oops :smallbiggrin: On the other end of the spectrum, thanks for the insight.

First, Zaq:
I didn't mean to imply that the fighter doesn't have limited resources and that the wizard only has limited resources, I was just trying to highlight that a fighter has more of his most potent resource (usually) than a wizard does. In my earlier example casting "sword" is limitless, even when debuffed. I realize that HP is a factor for the fighter but, objectively, it is more so for the wizard or cleric (less on the cleric end and more on the wizard end). While it is true that the wizard should not find himself on the front lines and if he does something has gone very very wrong and it is probably very very bad, but there are also the hazards of ranged combat, similarly teleporting enemies (if the wizard is jaunting around like a horse on a pogo stick), or possibly traps that have been set up in the area as well. Wizards typically have smaller pools of health to pull from and that makes health more of a concern for them in my opinion. A single arrow can potentially deal 2 levels worth of damage in a single go to a wizard (assuming 0 con, which if you do that you're asking for trouble). That same arrow can't do the same to the fighter under most circumstances. So while health is a primary concern for the fighter, as he will be getting much of the heat, that doesn't make it not a concern for the wizard, cleric, or druid. Also, there wasn't really a question at all, this is more of a place to share views, ideas, thoughts, opinions, etc about the general topic of classes that are viewed as "bad" by a lot of people or that are just mechanically not as good due to a lack of class features or weak/poorly written class features.

Next, ComaVision:
I would like to counter the versatility thing just a little bit. The fighter can be an incredibly versatile combatant in areas other than just damage. They have the opportunity to take lots of feats that can alter how they combat (if that makes any sense). For instance, you can have a fighter that is competent in tripping, grappling, AAOing, and attacking all in one person. That's a lot of options that aren't available to just any class, especially at low levels. True they don't have versatility outside of combat, but that is a known issue with the fighter and I'll accept that. They have one of the smallest (if not the smallest) list of class skills and they get the lowest number of skill points per level, especially since fighters aren't known for their monstrous intelligence scores. While it is also true that a barbarian can, and usually does, out damage the fighter, the barbarian can't tank like a fighter since they don't get heavy armor proficiency, tower shield proficiency, and loads of feats that can be used for whatever style (or styles) of combat you want. To make up for that, barbarians get (imo) good class features and better skills. Lastly, I could be wrong here simply because I'm not a rules lawyer, but I believe you can retrain feats as a fighter, including fighter bonus feats. Granted, the feat you replace a fighter bonus feat with has to be another fighter bonus feat, but they aren't necessarily locked in to a single train and if they mess it up they're done. re-roll.

Next, Flickerdart:
We're on the same page when it comes to early levels. For the later levels though, wizards get scribe scroll for free at starting level. They can make scrolls for the fighter to use or to be used on the fighter, in essence putting the fighter where they are effective without having to strain their resources too badly. Even if anti-magic or dispel magic are present, the wizard won't be flying either and fighters are proficient with bows so flight is a little less painful, but still is a roadblock that has to be overcome. As for "Lasers from your eyes" and all that jazz, it's pretty easy to bolster a fighter's touch ac with two feats and a tower shield. You can have a touch AC of 15 or higher at first level (if you can charm your way in to a tower shield from your DM). That helps against a large number of rays that could otherwise adversely effect the fighter. Even if you can't get a tower shield that early, you can still easily get a 13 touch AC at first level with a simple heavy wooden shield. You'll also get that shield bonus to resist a lot of combat maneuvers that common enemies like wolves and the like will use against you (trip, bull rush, disarm, etc.). That's pretty good for a character that's planning on being in the face of danger with relatively little effort put in and without gimping them either. That bonus will also be present through the entire game.

Lastly, Red Fel:
You always provide great insight. Everyone who's posted has so far. You did a great job of a capstone though. I slightly touched on the resources thing, but 50 arrows is a lot more than the 36 spells per day (not including bonus spells) a wizard gets naturally at level 20. Plus, arrows are cheap. While its not the best option, it is still an option. I didn't mean to imply that casting "" was superior to spells, but less limited by resources which puts it in a different category of spells and, in my opinion, is ripe for augmentation via spells. I do have general magic question though, can a contingent spell work in an anti-magic field? I just don't know the answer to that simply because that situation hasn't come up in my games and I've never had a reason (until now) to search for the answer. As far as dealing with a fighter effectively, I realize there are plenty of ways to do that. Some of those ways (like the rust monster, flying/incorporeal/invisible enemy, etc) are specific to an environment though and aren't always an option or threat. As for the comment I made about the wizard becoming "god-like", I didn't mean to make it sound like the wizard was getting unfairly singled out, but more so to highlight that I think a good DM plans things to make the whole party feel useful and make the rest of the party feel like they don't rely on any one member to be effective. That can be accomplished by having certain characters fall ill, get kidnapped, etc and [I]Shouldn't be done without talking to the player. This can be done to great effect if the person is planning on being out of town or is otherwise not available on the projected game night and keeps their character relevant to the game even without them being there. As for other classes features, I feel very similarly about them as I do about the fighter in general. They may be weaker, but their abilities have fewer resource limitations. I think that's similar to one of the arguments about why archery in D&D is, in general, weaker than melee because it is relatively safer. The list of creatures immune to sneak attack is much smaller than the list that are susceptible to it. Monk is just... well... difficult :smalltongue: but as you said, you like your monk augmented with something else and I can't disagree with you.

I think my overall idea of the fighter is that when it comes down to it, they can fight in pretty much any situation. They have options, you just have to be creative about how you do it. Same for the wizard. Also, the fighter is really a big team player. The team Can get along without the fighter (or fighter type), but everything goes a little bit better for everyone when you enable the team player and everyone helps.

[Flickerdart]

We're on the same page when it comes to early levels. For the later levels though, wizards get scribe scroll for free at starting level. They can make scrolls for the fighter to use or to be used on the fighter, in essence putting the fighter where they are effective without having to strain their resources too badly.
Two things. One - this is still the wizard carrying the fighter. Two, what? Fighters using UMD? Haven't we been here already (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?80704-Beating-Batman-Sir-Giacomo-s-Guide-to-Monks)?



Even if anti-magic or dispel magic are present, the wizard won't be flying either
Anti-magic is not exactly common, and in the rare cases that it appears, wizards have many, many ways around this. Dispels are even more easy to avoid.




and fighters are proficient with bows so flight is a little less painful

Archery doesn't even do real damage as a primary attack mode, never mind as a backup weapon.


As for "Lasers from your eyes" and all that jazz, it's pretty easy to bolster a fighter's touch ac with two feats and a tower shield. You can have a touch AC of 15 or higher at first level (if you can charm your way in to a tower shield from your DM). That helps against a large number of rays that could otherwise adversely effect the fighter. Even if you can't get a tower shield that early, you can still easily get a 13 touch AC at first level with a simple heavy wooden shield. You'll also get that shield bonus to resist a lot of combat maneuvers that common enemies like wolves and the like will use against you (trip, bull rush, disarm, etc.). That's pretty good for a character that's planning on being in the face of danger with relatively little effort put in and without gimping them either. That bonus will also be present through the entire game.

Tower shields literally never make your character better. (http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/48494/why-is-holding-a-tower-shield-a-bad-idea)




I think my overall idea of the fighter is that when it comes down to it, they can fight in pretty much any situation. They have options, you just have to be creative about how you do it. Same for the wizard. Also, the fighter is really a big team player. The team Can get along without the fighter (or fighter type), but everything goes a little bit better for everyone when you enable the team player and everyone helps.
The fighter is not a team player - he has no way of helping the team, and the team is forced to help him.

The fighter can't fight in most situations - he can only fight in situations when the enemy stands next to him and allows itself to be full attacked, without full attacking back.

[ComaVision]

Next, ComaVision:
I would like to counter the versatility thing just a little bit. The fighter can be an incredibly versatile combatant in areas other than just damage. They have the opportunity to take lots of feats that can alter how they combat (if that makes any sense). For instance, you can have a fighter that is competent in tripping, grappling, AAOing, and attacking all in one person. That's a lot of options that aren't available to just any class, especially at low levels. True they don't have versatility outside of combat, but that is a known issue with the fighter and I'll accept that. They have one of the smallest (if not the smallest) list of class skills and they get the lowest number of skill points per level, especially since fighters aren't known for their monstrous intelligence scores. While it is also true that a barbarian can, and usually does, out damage the fighter, the barbarian can't tank like a fighter since they don't get heavy armor proficiency, tower shield proficiency, and loads of feats that can be used for whatever style (or styles) of combat you want. To make up for that, barbarians get (imo) good class features and better skills. Lastly, I could be wrong here simply because I'm not a rules lawyer, but I believe you can retrain feats as a fighter, including fighter bonus feats. Granted, the feat you replace a fighter bonus feat with has to be another fighter bonus feat, but they aren't necessarily locked in to a single train and if they mess it up they're done. re-roll.

I think my overall idea of the fighter is that when it comes down to it, they can fight in pretty much any situation. They have options, you just have to be creative about how you do it. Same for the wizard. Also, the fighter is really a big team player. The team Can get along without the fighter (or fighter type), but everything goes a little bit better for everyone when you enable the team player and everyone helps.

Firstly, locking into one set of options rather than another doesn't fix versatility. The Fighter is also pretty bad for tripping, grappling, and AoOing because it has no inherent ability to increase in size - so no increase in reach or size mods. The Psychic Warrior is immensely better than the fighter in that respect.

I don't agree with your statement that Fighters are better tanks either. Tower shields are almost always a poor choice, and heavy armor has a very small 'sweet spot'. Probably from level 3 to say level 9 or so, the standard Fighter will have more AC than the standard Barbarian by a couple points. I'd rather have the Con bonus from Rage.

Retraining is an option but it can't be done very quickly and on demand, so it doesn't help with the Fighter's versatility very much. You're mostly stuck in whatever niche you're trying to do.

The Fighter as an archetype is easily replaced by a summoned creature or animal companion. A lot of the time, it's just completely unnecessary to have a meat shield. There are a lot of situations where the Fighter is unable to fight unless he has the prerequisite magic items or spell support. Also, the Fighter isn't a team player beyond the capability to flank or the (poor) ability to crowd control. The Wizard is capable of being a force multiplier by casting spells like Haste.

The problem is that Fighter isn't the best at anything, even if you exclude tier 1 and 2 classes.

[Gnaeus]

The big fat barbarian with 150 hp , 20 AC and the mother of all great axes as well as all other hack slashers are the "Over powered heroes. " Its because of these muscle types that I have to double or triple any monster Hp in the Bestiary .

Arcane damage spells start falling off the radar around spell level 4 and 5 yet a warrior keeps getting more Hp more AC more magic goodies and has more attacks easily dishing out 100 damage per smack .

Arcane summons of a pure AC HP and damage can never even be even half as strong as a fighter hero of the same level . A summon with a funny trick is what beats a fighter .

Hardly. Maybe for a reasonably optimized fighter type compared with a caster who is specced for something else completely.

Playing through a PF adventure path currently. 13th level. We have a moderately optimized barbarian. Good Str, Power attack, sufficient rage to be raging whenever it matters, solid charge feats and rage powers that all synergize reasonably well. He can quite plausibly do 100 damage in a round or 70 on a single good crit. He probably has 20 AC and a bit over 120 hp.

I play a summon specced sorcerer. On the day before we enter a dungeon, I lesser planar bind 4 hound archons. They have AC 19 (21 vs evil) 39 hp x4=156 hp and DR 10 evil. They provide me with a constant buff (protection from evil, doesn't suck), and a constant debuff to nearby enemies (aura of menace). Their at will Aid provides a steady source of temp HP and an attack buff to the entire party. They probably will only hit once per round, so likely about 16 points of damage each when power attacking, so they probably average 48-62 damage per round. They are immune to the lightning most of my other pets use. So, defensively, they are equal to or better than the barbarian, offensively they are at least 50%, maybe better because they are less dependent on full attacking.

So round 1 of a typical combat, I will cast a level 6 summon. Lets say an evolved, augmented Kirin. He has 103 HP, DR 5 evil, Diehard and another pile of immunities. He has fly 120, so way better at getting to and engaging hard to reach enemies. His damage is also pretty bad, likely only another 12 points per round, + bleed from his evolution, but he can reliably do about 20 points of fire or electricity if he chooses. He lasts for 14 rounds, so when the fight ends, he will start burning spells for cures on the Archons or other party members. He is my utility/meat shield.

Round 2 of combat I drop back to SM 5. Thats a Bralani Azata. Another 80 HP. DR 10, Diehard and another big chunk of immunities, including at will mirror image. The Azatas can also average a little more than 12 hp/ round + bleed with their weapons. But they can alternate their physical attacks with 21 point lightning bolts (hey, my other guys are immune!), 20 point cure serious wounds, or blurs on the front liners.

So, if I spend the first 2 rounds of every combat using one 6 and one 5th level spell, which I can easily do 6 fights per day, I can pretty much equal the barbarians damage output. (and the familiar also adds damage, see below). My summons have about 3 times his HP, DR, SR, and resistances, and come complete with their own heals, (HP, but also lesser restoration and break enchantment). They control the battlefield better than he does. I can swap the Kirin (meat shield/caster) for a lillend (essentially a bard), or a legion archon (better damage, align weapon, versatile weapon), or a Vulpinal (if I need Charm monster, remove disease, or dispel evil).

After round 2, I can pretty much do whatever I want. Cast haste on my minions to double their damage output. Blast for damage.Cloudkill. Slow. Pull out my comfy chair and sit in the instant fortress making tea.


I also think it s a case of how generous or stingy a DM is with magic goodies . A wizard does not need much equipment to thrive in stingy land , but what is he compared to a fighter who can hold more magic goodies in generous land . Item for item a fighter can carry about twice as much artifacts on his person .

Actually, it is very much the opposite. We can both carry the same, because bags of holding and haversacks are the same, but the caster type can make the goodies he needs, rather than relying on DM generosity, and the more generous the DM is, the more the gap widens. My sorcerer above has one crafting feat (craft wondrous). But with his familiar, he can use twice as many items. His most recent item creation was an instant fortress. Now in any fight that occurs with more than 30 feet headroom, my familiar does battlefield control and damage by dropping towers on the enemy. 10d6 Dc19 ref for half in a 15x15 square + blocking off a big chunk of the battlefield. Can a fighter do that? Yes. But can he make the item? no. Can he afford the item along with his WBL gear? no. Can he do that while he is fighting? no. Does he even have the UMD chops to use wands as well as my sorcs familiar? Pretty unlikely. I can use granted wealth and items at least twice as well as the beatstick. Oh, the familiar also has a wand of lightning bolts, so he can also just casually do another 20 damage or so, right through the Kirin and the Hound Archons.

And when all is said and done, while my minions are equalling his damage, locking down the battlefield, providing more consistent and varied healing than our party's druid, I still have all the utility of a caster. Dimension Door. Teleport. Contingency. Permanency. Greater Invisibility. Greater Dispel Magic. Item creation. 30 charisma so I can diplomance like a boss.

And this is an odd (read weak) level for me. Level 14, he gets +1 bab and a rage power. I get full planar binding and Summon Monster 7, for Shedus and Movanic Devas and gargantuan Celestial Rocs with +31 grapple.

[Liquor Box]

Most discussions of the fighter being low tier assumes that we are talking about high level play. At very low level play the fighter exceeds the wizard both in terms of versatility and fighting ability. Versatility because a fighter is more likely to be able to survive adverse events that are not a fight such as a fall (unless the wizard happens to have spent one of his very limited spell slots on featherfall) or a trap, simply by virtue of having more HP.

The other assumption that gets made when giving the wizard a higher tier is that the wizard will happen to have the appropriate spell available. Sometimes the wizard may be able to divine what challenges will be faced and prepare approrpriate spells, sometimes he will not. For example, one of JaronK's examples is an army approaching the city and about to arrive in a week - which gives the wizard plenty of time to memorise and utilise appropriate spells in preparation, such as creating city walls with wall of force type spells. However, if the army were to arrive that afternoon and the wizard had to rely on spells already memorised he would be far less effective. The fighter is similarly prepared for most scenarios at all times.


Flickerdart said:
The fighter holds up at the lower levels because the majority of enemies are "fighter," "small fighter," and "fighter with rubber forehead." As soon as enemies become "fighter with wings" or "fighter with frickin' laser beams for eyes" or "fighter with bees in his mouth so when he yells he shoots bees" the regular fighter's usefulness diminishes.

I don;t think that;s right. There are plenty of magical enemies at low levels, and the low levle fighter is more effectve against them than the low level wizard is. A lvl 3 fighter is more effecive than his lvl 3 wizard party member against the baddy lvl 5 wizard.

Flickerdart said:
And then we come to challenges that aren't fighters - disarming traps, breaking curses, stealth, and so on. The rest of the party will frequently need to expend their own resources (for example, an extra casting of fly or invisibility) just to shepherd the fighter through a situation that his "infinite spell" doesn't apply to.

Likewise the wizard generally needs a martial type character to prevent enemies from targeting them directly. So the fighter is expending its resources on behalf ot eh wizard. Of course wizards may be able to get around this (by summoning for example), but fitghjers can get around some of their limitations too (by a ring of invis for example).

[Darth Ultron]

The big thing to keep in mind is that it depends on the play style. And everyone of ''play style A'' will say the same things about fighters, as you can see in countless discussions. Of course, when you don't do ''play style A'' a person thinks differently, but most people stick to ''A''.

So step back and look at your play style. Especially single out and look at anything you say you ''must'' or ''must not'' have in a game for you to play it. Also pay attention to anything you think of automatic. Make a list. That is your play style.

I don't have any problems with fighters in my gaming style, for example. And I know my style does not agree with like 75% of the posters here(source: see any thread that I post in).

[Gnaeus]

Most discussions of the fighter being low tier assumes that we are talking about high level play. At very low level play the fighter exceeds the wizard both in terms of versatility and fighting ability.

Not really. At level 1 my sorcerer could already spam color spray, giving him a better than average chance against enemies of up to 4 HD. (A 4 HD enemy will own any level 1 fighter, do the math). 5 of those a day is way better than a fighter is likely to do. His intimidate and diplomacy were already sick. Daze gave a free way to trade rounds with characters up to 4 HD to lock them down and let the team beat on them unopposed. And his bloodline powers gave a nice, reliable source of touch damage.

Thats a sorcerer vs a wizard of course, and PF, because its mostly what I play. But the wizard gets other utility, like knowledges. And his own awesome tricks. And if you want to insist on 3.5, let me introduce you to the big bag of broken that is Abrupt Jaunt, which actually makes it pretty likely that a level 1 wizard can beat a level 1 fighter at point blank range.

[Pugwampy]

Probably from level 3 to say level 9 or so, the standard Fighter will have more AC than the standard Barbarian by a couple points. I'd rather have the Con bonus from Rage.

Thats about the only thing I agree with. Barbarians are better fighters.

Fighters are feat machines . There are thousands of feats out there and hundreds of those feats are overpowered and broken just waiting for a cunning player .

I like both Fighters and Wizards . Both are fun to play neither are useless . I cannot imagine a game where fighters are labled "not the best at anything" . I will not question the fighter but that game itself .

[ComaVision]

Thats about the only thing I agree with. Barbarians are better fighters.

Fighters are feat machines . There are thousands of feats out there and hundreds of those feats are overpowered and broken just waiting for a cunning player .

I like both Fighters and Wizards . Both are fun to play neither are useless . I cannot imagine a game where fighters are labled "not the best at anything" . I will not question the fighter but that game itself .

OK, I'll bite, what are Fighters the best at?

[Gnaeus]

I like both Fighters and Wizards . Both are fun to play neither are useless . I cannot imagine a game where fighters are labled "not the best at anything" . I will not question the fighter but that game itself .
Then feel free to question the game itself. There is pretty much no question but that by level 7, a polymorphed wizard with abrupt jaunt is going to be better in melee than a fighter, a DMM cleric with persisted buffs is going to be better in melee than a fighter, and a wildshaped druid with a bunch of all day buffs and his animal companion sharing all those buffs is going to be better in melee than a fighter. Now, the exact point at which that happens will vary by build. But there really isn't any question that the fighter isn't going to be supreme at fighting over Tier 1s who chose to melee spec after about level 6, and some of them can beat the fighter starting at level 1. Not that melee speccing is the best thing a tier 1 can do. It isn't. But if you told me my primary role in a party was going to be making melee attack rolls and tanking, I would still prefer a well built wizard, cleric, or druid to an equivalently optimized fighter for that role.

Now, PF likes niche protection more than 3.5, so that makes it a little bit better for the poor fighter. But by 10 or so, depending on class and build, most casters can trivially obtain minions who fight as well as or better than the fighter, while still bringing a lot more to the table in and out of combat themselves.

[Extra Anchovies]

The issue with the Fighter is that its theme is "fights well", full stop. The other martial classes all have something else to them - Brawler fights well with their fists, Barbarian fights well by getting angry, Slayer fights well by using their smarts, Medium (via Champion spirit) fights well by using the occult, and so on. Because they're somewhat specialized, those classes all ended up with other things to support their specialization - Brawlers get flurry and maneuver bonuses, Barbarians get damage reduction and rage powers, Slayers get sneak attack and better skills, Mediums get a bit of spellcasting and can switch to a different spirit if they won't be fighting that day, etc.

The Fighter, though, doesn't have any of that sort of thing. They're generically good at combat, and there isn't much that can support that open-ended theme beyond feats and +numbers. My personal recommendation for people who want a character whose central trait is that they're skilled at fighting in general is to play a Slayer or Brawler, because they're both fairly customizable via Slayer Talents and the Brawler's bonus feats, and they have more options and interesting abilities than the Fighter both in and out of combat.

[Troacctid]

Fighters definitely aren't the best at anything. There's nothing they can do that druids and clerics don't do better.

[Deadline]

Fighters definitely aren't the best at anything. There's nothing they can do that druids and clerics don't do better.

They can be pretty hard to screw up and make completely ineffective at low levels. They can deal damage pretty effectively. And they can do the job of "not die, hit other things and make them die" decently enough (again, at low levels). Beyond that, they need serious magical support (spells or items) to continue to do that decently.

They are not completely ineffective in most games, but I don't think anyone has said they were. Not even the Tier system.

That said, yeah, there are tons of ways to make a better fighter than actually using the Fighter class.

[Pugwampy]

Butt Kickers are very very satisfying to play .

Spell Chuckers will never know the awesome feeling of doing a once in a blue moon 3X critical damage or the cheap thrill of rolling the dreaded critical fail that could destroy your weapon .


I am sure its all well and good after 20 years of gaming that Wizard God King players have an answer to everything and anything a DM tosses their way . I kinda feel sorry for you , you sound very bored .
Have you considered the challenge of playing a weaker then a lamb useless Butt Kicker ?

[Troacctid]

Butt Kickers are very very satisfying to play .

Spell Chuckers will never know the awesome feeling of doing a once in a blue moon 3X critical damage or the cheap thrill of rolling the dreaded critical fail that could destroy your weapon .
I mean, you know, unless you're playing a cleric. Or a duskblade. Or honestly, even a warlock; Strength-locks hit harder than fighters.

[AnimeTheCat]

I know I keep bringing it up, but what about when anti-magic and dispelling and counterspelling come in to play for all of this? The fact still remains that even without the buffs a fighter gets his feats, BAB, and Fort save, the Barbarian still gets his rage, class abilities, and saves, the rogue still gets his sneak attack, class abilities, and saves, etc. For planar bound allies/minions you can banish them. For DMM buffs, you can dispel them or suppress them. You can't suppress BAB. You can drop the strength of the target, but to my knowledge you can't damage BAB (I'm sure there's a spell that can though).

What I'm trying to get at is that even in these situations where all of the magic is removed from one cause or another a fighter can still fight. I know my opinion is jaded and biased a bit, but I feel that combating the spells themselves can actually mess up a primary spell caster's day where as it can serve as just a speed bump for the non-magic based classes. I also feel that there needs to be a balance when playing with those non-magic based classes simply so that the fighter still gets to fight. In the games I have played in (and consequently have run) I find ways to challenge the primary magic users while simultaneously challenging the non-spell casters. The answer to every question doesn't have to be "The wizard casts X spell". When I've played wizards, I keep utility scrolls for just in case events, like the rogue just got teleported away by triggering a teleportation trap, we don't have a trap finder now. Good thing I've got this scroll of Detect Traps. Never once did I think "Hmph, I'm just gonna use this and make the rogue feel useless". That's what a lot of you are making it sound like. I realize that you (hopefully) don't mean to and that may not even be what you're implying, but it does come across that way.

Fighters aren't the best at any one thing, but they have the capacity to do A lot of things. True, once you've built in to something you are kind of locked. True it takes time and money to retrain, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. There is downtime in every game. If the fighter needs to respect to fill a vacant need that the wizard/druid/cleric doesn't want to/can't fill what's to stop the fighter from doing that? Better, why Should you stop the fighter from doing that? Does the wizard Need to use planar binding, or is the fighter doing just fine? I haven't played a single game where the fighter was the reason the party had to stop for the day. I've played many a game where the wizard was crying for the party to stop so he could fix his spells that day because they got a tip from a random inn keeper that there was X kind of creature in the forest and he wasn't set up for that, even though we had just gotten all of our gear on and we were about to set off. If the fighter can swing his sword or shoot his bow, he'll be fine.

[Deadline]

Have you considered the challenge of playing a weaker then a lamb useless Butt Kicker ?

Sure, I've played a Warmage or two in my time. :smallwink:

In all seriousness, Fighters have a hard time laying claim to that title after level 6 or so. I've still played and enjoyed them past that point, but my enjoyment of playing a sub-par option doesn't somehow alter the reality of it being a sub-par option. It also doesn't mean that the sub-par option can't be a contributing member of the party. But as others have mentioned, it requires party resources to really thrive in its role at mid-high levels.

If you want to know what a party resource hog the Fighter can be (just to make it effective at what it does), try playing the party cleric (as a healbot) sometime.

[Gnaeus]

Yes, a fighter can often contribute competently in a party at low-mid op play. It is better to have a fighter than an empty slot. They sometimes make good buff targets.

But that role can be filled better by dozens of other classes in 3.5 or PF. The fighter just brings less to the table than the warblade, for example. He needs more support to do his job and cover the many weaknesses intrinsic to the class.

As was said above, it isn't useless. In many games, you could fill the slots with any 4 characters and you could do fine. But fighter is absolutely worse at its niche than most other classes for much of the game.

The real problem for me is predictability. I don't really care that fighter is worse at fighting than druid. There is a place for everyone at the table. But it hurts my character image when my guy, who in my brain is bad ass super warrior, is outperformed by the druid's pet, and in 3.5 that is totally a thing that can happen. Or the cleric just casts a bunch of spells that last all day and turns into a 10 foot tall killing machine that also gets all these other awesome powers. A FIGHTER should be best at FIGHTING. Thats what it is billed as. It just....isn't. Thats a big part of why a lot of people like Tome of Battle/Path of War.

Dispelling is a thing, yes. But the people who can do dispelling are, almost entirely, casters. And casters are way better at killing casters than fighters are. It is really hard for a fighter to make a pre-buffed wizard stand still and die.

AMF's are a little bit more problematic, until you realize that there are a lot of spells that just bypass them. (The effects of instantaneous conjurations are not affected by an antimagic field because the conjuration itself is no longer in effect, only its result.)Odds are pretty good that the wizard can simply fall back on orb spells or other tricks to kill the AMF generator, while the fighter is at least as hampered as they are because all his buffs and magic gear deactivate the moment he steps up to the plate. The druid's pet can still eat face. The cleric's created undead are unaffected. My summoner sorcerer, for example, can simply cast a Wall of Stone (an instantaneous conjuration) around the AMF user, which blocks the emanation, allowing him to teleport away, or kill all the AMF user's allies then group assault Mr. AMF. It blocks summoned creatures, but not called ones, so my planar allies can walk right in and kick your ass. I can summon bralanis to fly around and shoot you with their bows. There are lots of ways around it.

[Deadline]

I know I keep bringing it up, but what about when anti-magic and dispelling and counterspelling come in to play for all of this? The fact still remains that even without the buffs a fighter gets his feats, BAB, and Fort save, the Barbarian still gets his rage, class abilities, and saves, the rogue still gets his sneak attack, class abilities, and saves, etc. For planar bound allies/minions you can banish them. For DMM buffs, you can dispel them or suppress them. You can't suppress BAB. You can drop the strength of the target, but to my knowledge you can't damage BAB (I'm sure there's a spell that can though).

Well, at higher levels most things are capable of flight, or are incorporeal, or have DR, or are invisible, or have any number of special defenses. How does your Fighter deal with that without his magic toys? At that point there's really not much the Fighter can do. Again, being able to swing a sword well is only valuable when it is applicable, otherwise it's as equally useful as a buff spell that gets dispelled.

And you keep talking about anti-magic fields as if they are monolithic things that encompass the entire party. Barring DM fiat, that isn't the case, unless I've missed something (likely). Most things capable of flight or spellcasting will just stay out of the AM zone, and fling damage in (most damaging conjuration spells work just fine when thrown into an AM).

At mid-high levels, you have two challenges to each fight. You have to defeat the enemy (usually by killing it), and you have to be able to get to the enemy. For the Fighter to do this, you either have the party stack him with buffs so he can participate, have the fighter drape himself in items that do it, or you have the GM force encounters to be applicable to the fighter. At low levels this is easy, because the fighter can get to the enemy. At higher levels, there are many foes he just can't without assistance. If the monsters don't go stand next to the fighter, his "infinite sword spell" is infinitely useless. The GM can help mitigate that by either not using the abilities of higher level monsters, or using high level "bruiser" monsters and having them engage the fighter in melee. Meanwhile, most other classes have options baked in that let them get to the monster.

The GM cooperation thing is even more prevalent when discussing a Fighter's ability to "tank". Unless the GM cooperates and has his monsters go up to the fighter and attack him, the Fighter can't "tank" at all. There are remarkably few ways to force or encourage enemies to attack you, and being a Fighter is not one of those ways. Also, all of the best ways to mitigate damage require magic.

[Darth Ultron]

I know I keep bringing it up, but what about when anti-magic and dispelling and counterspelling come in to play for all of this?

This is a good example of something from ''Play Style A'' : They don't use much anti-magic, dispelling and counterspelling. The use of such things ''makes a magic using characters useless'', and a big part of Style A is for a player to never be made to have any bad feelings, and ''making their character useless'' defiantly applies.

Just picture the player that spent a lot of time making a hard core mechanical roll playing magic using character. They expect to use their character all the time during the game. And, when the DM agrees with that playstlye, you get things like all most no anti magic.

[Troacctid]

I know I keep bringing it up, but what about when anti-magic and dispelling and counterspelling come in to play for all of this? The fact still remains that even without the buffs a fighter gets his feats, BAB, and Fort save, the Barbarian still gets his rage, class abilities, and saves, the rogue still gets his sneak attack, class abilities, and saves, etc.
You know what other class is unaffected by dead magic zones? Commoner. Doesn't mean it's not underpowered.

[eggynack]

I know I keep bringing it up, but what about when anti-magic and dispelling and counterspelling come in to play for all of this? The fact still remains that even without the buffs a fighter gets his feats, BAB, and Fort save, the Barbarian still gets his rage, class abilities, and saves, the rogue still gets his sneak attack, class abilities, and saves, etc. For planar bound allies/minions you can banish them. For DMM buffs, you can dispel them or suppress them. You can't suppress BAB. You can drop the strength of the target, but to my knowledge you can't damage BAB (I'm sure there's a spell that can though).
I don't know why you keep bringing it up. When anti-magic and dispelling and counterspelling come out, wizards do just fine, to say nothing of other tier ones. AMF is a small radius spell, and thus unlikely to completely trap the wizard, and a wizard has tons of spells that can hit an enemy inside an AMF just fine. Chances are good that a wizard's AMF truncated prepared spell list is still better than these low tier classes. Dispelling is narrow in scope, not really capable of stopping a bunch of stuff, and can be stopped by something as simple as a ring of counterspells or spell-battle. Counterspelling, unless they have the exact right spell, means that they're trading one for one at best, and means doing absolutely nothing if they fail their roll. Taking up the enemy caster's time is a pretty solid use of resources, and doing that while also successfully casting a spell is insanely good. And an opposing caster can only counterspell for so long.


Fighters aren't the best at any one thing, but they have the capacity to do A lot of things.
Not really, no. They can do, like, four or five things things. Maybe. At moderate levels. They have that whole tripping thing, the AoO thing that ties into that, intimidation if you take zhentarim soldier levels, dungeoncrasher, and I guess you could count basic damage, or maybe archery. And all those things are kinda similar. A caster can plausibly access more diversity in a single spell than this fighter is accessing in their entire career (and it doesn't even have to be a 9th, as my general example is SNA IV). You can technically spread yourself thin and pick up a bunch of crappy feats, and you can technically call that doing a lot of things, but those things are really bad, to the extent that I wouldn't even consider them things you can do.

True, once you've built in to something you are kind of locked. True it takes time and money to retrain, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. There is downtime in every game. If the fighter needs to respect to fill a vacant need that the wizard/druid/cleric doesn't want to/can't fill what's to stop the fighter from doing that?
That's not how retraining works. You can only retrain when you level up, and then only one feat at a time. It's doesn't represent all that much flexibility. And also, what exactly is a fighter retraining into? Their feat options aren't exactly diverse. Yeah, you might get a marginal edge by picking up disarming before facing a swordsman, but it's, again, marginal.

[Gnaeus]

This is a good example of something from ''Play Style A'' : They don't use much anti-magic, dispelling and counterspelling. The use of such things ''makes a magic using characters useless'', and a big part of Style A is for a player to never be made to have any bad feelings, and ''making their character useless'' defiantly applies.

Just picture the player that spent a lot of time making a hard core mechanical roll playing magic using character. They expect to use their character all the time during the game. And, when the DM agrees with that playstlye, you get things like all most no anti magic.

Well, even if the entire dungeon is covered by anti magic (which, I might add, is as much of a **** move as filling the dungeon entirely with creatures who the fighter is unable to harm because they are all incorporeal or flying or whatever), I could still use all my spell slots to planar bind critters, or create undead. We can all walk in together, my planar army is still at least as good as a fighter. Yes, you could use dismissal or banishment, but those are single target will save or loses that allow SR. You know who else can be taken out by a single target will save or lose, WAY before 5th level spells come on line? Fighters. And their will saves are worse than outsiders and they don't usually have SR.

And again, dispel magic is a fantastic thing, but it is a thing used by casters on other casters. Your fighter doesn't get it. And as a caster, I would usually rather an enemy cast Dispel Magic on me than a save or lose. Because I for sure am going to follow up the enemy's dispel with a spell to take him out of combat the next round.

[Giddonihah]

This so far seems to be Edition Vague discussion (probably primaraly 3.5), but I'd like to note that Pathfinder Fighters are in really good shape right now.

With the recent additions that they have, I think they are easily Tier4, with a few archetype combinations having tier 3 potential.
Doing the Iron Caster thing is surprisingly low build investment, and suddenly a fighter has flight,DDoor, See Invis, Dispel Magic, etc, available to them.
Pathfinder fighters can get acceptable versatility, and still be pretty competitive damagewise with other martial classes, often with better physical defenses.
Definitely in better shape than 3.5 fighter.


For 3.5... I never stuck in the class long enough to find out.

[Tanuki Tales]

This is a good example of something from ''Play Style A'' : They don't use much anti-magic, dispelling and counterspelling. The use of such things ''makes a magic using characters useless'', and a big part of Style A is for a player to never be made to have any bad feelings, and ''making their character useless'' defiantly applies.

Just picture the player that spent a lot of time making a hard core mechanical roll playing magic using character. They expect to use their character all the time during the game. And, when the DM agrees with that playstlye, you get things like all most no anti magic.

I get the vibe that you don't know how little a quibble anti-magic, dispelling and counter spelling actually is to an intelligently played caster.

[Darth Ultron]

Well, even if the entire dungeon is covered by anti magic, I could still use all my spell slots to planar bind critters. We can all walk in together, my planar army is still at least as good as a fighter. Yes, you could use dismissal or banishment, but those are single target will save or loses that allow SR. You know who else can be taken out by a single target will save or lose, WAY before 5th level spells come on line? Fighters. And their will saves are worse than outsiders and they don't usually have SR.



Well, if you play this ''one up'' game....

I guess if you knew about the anti magic dungeon ahead of time you could get your planar army....but how about if you just walk in the dungeon like normal, have the entrance be closed behind you..and then find out it's an anti magic area?

And unless your bending the rules or interpenetrating them in your favor, such an army would not be ''safe'' for the caster. I'm sure you'd interpret the spell as ''I can summon super powerful monsters and offer then a copper piece to be in my army for two weeks and obey me like mindless drones'', but not everyone sees it that way.



I get the vibe that you don't know how little a quibble anti-magic, dispelling and counter spelling actually is to an intelligently played caster.

More accurate to say, my play style is not the same as yours.

[Troacctid]

Well, if you play this ''one up'' game....

I guess if you knew about the anti magic dungeon ahead of time you could get your planar army....but how about if you just walk in the dungeon like normal, have the entrance be closed behind you..and then find out it's an anti magic area?
Then I'd be a glorified warrior on that day. Meanwhile, the actual fighter is a glorified warrior every day. I'll still take the cleric.

[Gnaeus]

With the recent additions that they have, I think they are easily Tier4, with a few archetype combinations having tier 3 potential.
Doing the Iron Caster thing is surprisingly low build investment, and suddenly a fighter has flight,DDoor, See Invis, Dispel Magic, etc, available to them.
Pathfinder fighters can get acceptable versatility, and still be pretty competitive damagewise with other martial classes, often with better physical defenses.
Definitely in better shape than 3.5 fighter.


For 3.5... I never stuck in the class long enough to find out.

Definitely better. Still tier 5 tho. The difference between T4 and T5 is usually the difference between (possibly good at nothing, or maybe at combat) and (good at combat). Fighter is still filled with trap options that are completely ineffective to play. Of course, good character op can often raise a class a tier, as can the best archetypes. And, as I suggested earlier, PF does like to protect niches, so it is a little harder for a Cleric/wizard/druid to just out melee you, although they can still summon things that do.

I will also add that PF giveth and it taketh away. Fighters have better numbers, but all classes get more feats, many casters also get better numbers, many feats are split in half, etc. The biggest hurt for me is the loss of Polymorph as an effective buff. It used to be my most commonly used L4 spell on my wizard, since it would vault our fighter's damage into solid ranges, give reach, multiple attacks, movement forms and needed immunities. In PF, most of the polymorph school is Personal and it is nerfed massively as a combat buff.

I can't find Iron Caster on Pfsrd or google search. Care to give a hint?

Still, I do think there may be some T3 third party archetypes. I have heard that Dreamscarred's fighter archetype in path of war is T3, but I haven't analyzed it.

[LTwerewolf]

There are a few things I don't like about fighter. First of all the name. A fighter fights. You know who else fights? Literally every other player class in the game. Had to get that out of the way.

One problem is that the game is trying to have high fantasy and low fantasy not only in the same game system, but in the same game at the same time. It doesn't really work. The fighter wasn't designed to keep pace with the higher casters. The fighter wasn't really designed. It's more of an npc class.

It's also a game that rewards hyper-specialization. Fighters, when they hyper-specialize, lose any versatility that they might have had. Casters when they hyper specialize, really don't lose very much versatility. Wizard hyper specializes in conjuration? Conjuration spells themselves encompass nearly anything a wizard would really need to do anyhow, but they still very likely have other schools as well. This is all before any discussion as to how powerful the fighter is at that thing they hyper-specialized in and whether or not anyone else could do it better.

And there's the problem, not only do they lose the versatility, they're also still not the best at the job they're trying to be the best at. If they don't hyper-specialize, they can't do any one thing well enough to make a difference past level 7 or so. They don't bring anything to the table that someone else couldn't (while also bringing it better or bringing many many other things).

[Necroticplague]

I'd argue that fighters are actually effected worse by AMFs than wizards. A wizard, when confronted with an AMF, can walk out of it and cast spells into it. The fighter, on the other hand, doesn't have that same choice most of the time. And losing all of his magic items in the AMF can render him without sufficient abilities to be of any use. Like suddenly losing +8 worth of attack bonuses, and the ability to hit incorporeal targets, justt off the top of my head. Of course, this all *at higher levels*, but that's where most of the problems are. The game is fine enough at low levels, but things veer off at high levels. I've found that some of a martial's problems can be at least delayed through liberal usage of monstrous PCs, leaning on their monster abilities to make up for what Fighter doesn't provide.

[Tanuki Tales]

More accurate to say, my play style is not the same as yours.

Well, if by "play style" you mean "in my games, casters quail before anti-magic, dispelling and counter spelling and have no clue how to deal with it, so it's an effective counter, even though they have a whole toolbox of options still available to them", then I agree with you.

[Liquor Box]

Not really. At level 1 my sorcerer could already spam color spray, giving him a better than average chance against enemies of up to 4 HD. (A 4 HD enemy will own any level 1 fighter, do the math). 5 of those a day is way better than a fighter is likely to do. His intimidate and diplomacy were already sick. Daze gave a free way to trade rounds with characters up to 4 HD to lock them down and let the team beat on them unopposed. And his bloodline powers gave a nice, reliable source of touch damage.

Thats a sorcerer vs a wizard of course, and PF, because its mostly what I play. But the wizard gets other utility, like knowledges. And his own awesome tricks. And if you want to insist on 3.5, let me introduce you to the big bag of broken that is Abrupt Jaunt, which actually makes it pretty likely that a level 1 wizard can beat a level 1 fighter at point blank range.

Really?

Lets use ogre as an example. I am sure you will accept that lots of other enemies would be less favourable to you (for example zombies)

An ogre has an extremely high chance of killing you in a single round - He really only needs to roll a 3 on his attack to hit an sorcerer with AC 11. So lets assume that if he gets an attack he wins.

Essentially this means if the ogre wins initiative, he wins. Ogres are -1 initiative, so you may have 55 - 60 % chance of winning that.

Then you colour spray him - he has (say) a 30% chance of saving, in which case you lose.

If you are successful, you have D4+1 rds of the ogre being blind and stunned (average 3.5 rds). He has 12 AC while blind and stunned, so you will presumably be able to hit him 45% of the time. Lets say you average 3 damage a hit (1.35 damage a round) - that is an average of 4.725 damage over the 3.5 rounds he is stunned. That means you would have to succesfully color spray (with a 30% chance of him resisting) him 9 times to kill him.

I suggest that that the odds of that occurring are not much different from a lv1 fighter being able to kill him. The fighter would need to rely on the ogre missing him (about 50/50 each attack depending on AC) about 5 or 6 rounds in a row. In both cases the ogre would be heavily favoured.

Of course you are talking about your contribution to a team effort - you stun and the striker strikes. This carries a much higher probability of success against the ogre - but that point that should be taken from that is that a debilitator and a striker working as a team are more capable than each working individually. It does not mean that the debilatator was more valuable to the exercise than the striker.

[weckar]

I think the Fighter has a certain amount of value. About two levels worth. As a dipping class. Sometimes.

The Fighter's two main problems as a full class are the single-solution-mindset and frankly its lack of an identity. It's too much of a blank slate that makes itself tedious to fill out in any reasonable amount of time.

[Gnaeus]

Well, if you play this ''one up'' game....

I guess if you knew about the anti magic dungeon ahead of time you could get your planar army....but how about if you just walk in the dungeon like normal, have the entrance be closed behind you..and then find out it's an anti magic area?


Well, if you play this one up game, when the fighter enters the dungeon he is kidnapped, stripped naked and made to wrestle the tarrasque.

Yes, you can DM fiat kill any character. Congratulations. That isn't "DM play style A". That is I am going to intentionally kill you and you can't stop me because I can read your character sheet and specifically block every useful power you have and send outsiders back in time to kill you as a baby. Uber god pun pun trumps all.

In any set of encounters not specifically designed to invalidate all magic and circumvent all the ways that the caster could use divinations to know that, the tier 1s beat the muggles. They just have more tools. Any adventure path, any sandbox, any prepared adventure not specifically targeted to kill your party casters, the casters hold all the cards.

[weckar]

All the above assuming the caster prepared the right spells. I've been caught useless as a caster too often by not preparing enough of the right spells.

[Soranar]

There are a few things that a fighter can do that other classes cannot do.

For example make a feat intensive combo function.

Case in point, the AoO freak

Race: human
template: none
Alignment : any evil

note: character worships an elder evil for bonus feats
2 flaws : because you need even more feats

Level 1 : Aberration blood, inhuman reach bonus elder worship feat: willing deformity, bonus fighter feat: spiked chain proficiency, combat reflexes, extended reach
Level 2 : bonus fighter feat: blind fight
Level 3 : Mage slayer
Level 4 : Pierce magical concealment
Level 6 : Willing deformity: tall

by level 1 you have 15 ft natural reach (due to inhuman reach+ extended reach) but you're wielding a spiked chain so your reach is doubled for 30

by level 3 you threaten mages even if they're casting defensively
by level 6 you have 40 reach , you threaten mages and you ignore most if not all of their defenses

the problem with a build like this is that it's awesome in theory but in practice you're a crazy looking tentacle monster with all of your class features geared towards combat

you can probably add in the zhentarim ACF to this and make it an intimidation machine but that is about it

I think that's generally the problem I have with theoretical optimization, actually playing this in a game is rather insane. And if you add in the drow fighter ACF, your precision damage technically stops working at 40 feat even though you're in ''melee'' since you're beyond the 30 ft limit

[Liquor Box]

Fighters definitely aren't the best at anything. There's nothing they can do that druids and clerics don't do better.

Sure there is.

While staying in an inn in the city a random CR1 monster is summoned into the room. You did not have foreknowledge that the monster would be arriving or certainly not of what it was. The fighter would stand the best chance.

Or, say at level 3 - you are going through a dungeon and have to fight a series of low CR monsters each of a different nature. There will be time between battles, but not sufficient to rest for the night. The fighter is more likely to survive.

Or, at level 4 - you go into a room which has a trap. The fighter is more likely to survive.

[Tanuki Tales]

While staying in an inn in the city a random CR1 monster is summoned into the room. You did not have foreknowledge that the monster would be arriving or certainly not of what it was. The fighter would stand the best chance.

Or, say at level 3 - you are going through a dungeon and have to fight a series of low CR monsters each of a different nature. There will be time between battles, but not sufficient to rest for the night. The fighter is more likely to survive.

Druid Animal Companion.



Or, at level 4 - you go into a room which has a trap. The fighter is more likely to survive.

Summon Monster I.

Celestial Monkey runs into the room before the group and sets it off.

[Troacctid]

Sure there is.

While staying in an inn in the city a random CR1 monster is summoned into the room. You did not have foreknowledge that the monster would be arriving or certainly not of what it was. The fighter would stand the best chance.
Are you serious? Not even close to the best chance. Just out of core, the barbarian, cleric, druid, monk, ranger, and rogue would all do just as well or better in this scenario.


Or, say at level 3 - you are going through a dungeon and have to fight a series of low CR monsters each of a different nature. There will be time between battles, but not sufficient to rest for the night. The fighter is more likely to survive.
The barbarian, cleric, and druid are all more likely to survive than the fighter.


Or, at level 4 - you go into a room which has a trap. The fighter is more likely to survive.
Really? More likely than the rogue, who can disarm the trap; the barbarian, who has trap sense and more HP; or the cleric or druid, who can heal the damage and walk away without a scratch?

[Liquor Box]

Druid Animal Companion.

What animal companion would you choose, that would be allowed to stay in an inn with you? I don't think many inner city inns would allow wolves or dogs to stay in a person's room (or perhaps even in city limits).


Summon Monster I.
A cleric gets this spell 3 times (incl bonus for high wisdom). That's even assuming that the cleric used all his spell slots on Summon mOnster 1 - I suspect most wouldn't entering a solo dnugeon.

Also, I suggest a lvl 3 fighter would usually be a stronger melee combatant than a level 3 cleric accompanied by an animal companion. I actually think the best cleric strategy in this scenario would be heal between each fight.


Celestial Monkey runs into the room before the group and sets it off.

How did you know the trap was there? Or do you have a celestial monkey run into every dungeon room before you enter? If so, that would weaken you in the earlier scenario when you are fighting a monster in every room.

[eggynack]

Druid Animal Companion.

Indeed, and that's on top of normal spell loadouts, which are usually going to do well against enemies, especially when you consider the fact that you can spontaneously summon a wolf for a round with those spells. The animal companion also does pretty well against the trap scenarios, incidentally, just because they're way more replaceable than a fighter and about as tough.

Edit: The animal companion is almost certainly a riding dog, probably with leather barding. There are comparable options, but I can't think of much in the way of better options.

[Eldariel]

Fighters more versatile than literally anyone else? They have the lowest skill points in the game with no Int synergies, they have no class features, all their built-in options do one of two things (make it harder for enemy to move or deal damage) and every other class has those same options. I think it's reasonable to argue that Fighter is the least versatile class in the game and because of how the feat chains are structured, they reward hyperspecialization (you can become reasonably competent with one weapon and one combat style by taking all your Fighter-feats). Even on low levels, Fighters options are basically "which weapon should I use right now", which sadly doesn't amount to much compared to the versatility skills or spells bring.

Fighters can't sneak, Fighters can't fly, Fighters can't hide, Fighters can't talk, Fighters can't know, Fighters can't use Save-or-Loses, Fighters can't buff selves, Fighters can't buff teammates, Fighters can't heal, Fighters can't disarm traps, Fighters are reliant on other classes for all of those functions. A party with a Druid instead of a Fighter will basically always be better off; animal companions are essentially expendable Fighters, the Druid can do all sorts of useful stuff for the party (spells, skills, class features) and they can fight at least as well. Same with a Cleric; fighting prowess plus buffs/debuffs/save-or-dies/heals/whatever. Instead of Wizard/Rogue/Cleric/Fighter, one can simply go Wizard/Rogue/Cleric/Cleric or Wizard/Rogue/Cleric/Druid or Wizard/Cleric/Cleric/Druid and be able to go much longer each day as their spells last longer.


Of course you are talking about your contribution to a team effort - you stun and the striker strikes. This carries a much higher probability of success against the ogre - but that point that should be taken from that is that a debilitator and a striker working as a team are more capable than each working individually. It does not mean that the debilatator was more valuable to the exercise than the striker.

The thing is, the controller is less replaceable. No other class can disable the Ogre as efficiently as Wizard/Sorcerer can (except perhaps Druid's Entangle or Cleric's Ice Slick). Literally every class (except the poor Monk) has at least Single Weapon Proficiencies and can deal some damage; you don't need Fighters for that. A Druid and her animal companion are like to do more than fine instead of a Fighter for instance.

Also, the caster could just Sleep the stunned Ogre after Color Spray (or just straight-up Sleep the Ogre) and Coup de Grace with a Scythe (you don't need proficiency for CDG) - 4d8-4 damage averages 14 damage and a DC 24 Fort-save vs. death giving the Ogre 15% chance of survival if he's solo. Yes, this means expending 2+ spells for a single enemy but it's easily worth it (even a Wizard can have 4-5 spells on this level - 1 + 1-2 Int + 1-2 specialization/generalization+domain wizard). Also, if they're a Conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt [PHBII], they can actually teleport Int times to dodge attacks buying them ~5 turns.

Like, imagine a Gray Elf (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/elf.htm#grayElf) Conjurer banning Evocation/Necromancy (suboptimal but for level 1, Sleep is really good). Feat, doesn't really matter. Int 20, Dex 16, rest doesn't really matter (for real game you'd of course want more than 10 Con). Prepare the usual Sleep/Sleep/Color Spray/Grease (b). Trade familiar for Abrupt Jaunt to dodge any Javelins or other silly nonsense for up to 5 rounds. Depending on encounter range you either immediately cast Sleep or first Color Spray or Grease. In either case your save DC of 16 gives the Ogre 30% to succeed on the Will-save or 25% to succeed on the Reflex-save - though Grease will impair its movement even on a successful save (DC10 Balance-check to move at ½ speed, Ogre's Balance is -1) but Color Spray will stun it properly. If either of the Sleeps succeeds, it's immediate Scythe Coup de Grace which has a great likelihood of winning the encounter. If not, the Wizard most likely still has some 1st level scroll. I'd say the Wizard has over 50% chance of being able to solo this CR3 encounter on level 1. And note that the spell selection is also fine for teamplay (though if specifically fighting against Elves, it'd be subpar to have two Sleeps).


There are a few things that a fighter can do that other classes cannot do.

For example make a feat intensive combo function.

Fighter loses to class combinations there though. Fighter 2/Martial Rogue 2/Monk 2 has 3 more feats than a Fighter 6. Cloistered Cleric 1 can get up to 3 feats (Domains grant many feats). Now, Fighter can pick up Zhentarim Fighter or Dungeoncrasher for his continued support of the class at the cost of reaching higher levels where he gets one feat every other level. Which just sucks. And he can't cast Heroics to gain more feats nor can he transform into creatures that grant bonus feats.

[LTwerewolf]

Sure there is.

While staying in an inn in the city a random CR1 monster is summoned into the room. You did not have foreknowledge that the monster would be arriving or certainly not of what it was. The fighter would stand the best chance.

Cleric: Summon monster 1->now you're fighting with an ally giving flanking bonuses and still have the ability to heal yourself if you get injured. The flanking bonus more than offsets the 1 BAB difference between the two.

Fighter: 50/50 slugfest. No ability to heal. Anything the fighter can do, the CR1 monster can also do.

Wizard: Can cast a minor battlefield control with relative success (30% chance of failure on average, possibly less depending on specific monster). They are now in relatively little danger and are still entirely capable of fighting, again with only 1 BAB difference.

Druid: Without casting any spells has their animal companion (such as a riding dog, which is also CR1) and themselves to contend against the beast. Spells such as Shillelagh mean the druid is also likely to be dealing more damage than the fighter as well (again with flanking buddy)

Barbarian: Has more hp than the fighter, plus better damage and chance to hit from rage. Much more likely to win.



Or, say at level 3 - you are going through a dungeon and have to fight a series of low CR monsters each of a different nature. There will be time between battles, but not sufficient to rest for the night. The fighter is more likely to survive.

Cleric: Still maintains healing while still only 1 BAB behind the fighter. Fighter is rocking 2 more feats than the cleric, however the cleric has 1st and second level spells. Impossible to say exactly how the cleric will fair since the length of said dungeon is not specified, but still has a higher chance of surviving than the fighter.

Fighter: Fights each fight without the ability to recover any hit points between fights without things such as potions (which every other class would also have access to). Not likely to last past the 2nd or 3rd fight.

Wizard: Again impossible to tell exactly how they'll fair since the length of the dungeon is not available, but has enough spells to last them at least 3 fights at this point, maybe 4 depending upon luck. With poor luck, the wizard could die on the first fight.

Druid: Still has animal companion. Let's once again assume riding dog, since it's very basic and easy to come by. This riding dog has 4d8+8 hp and 18 ac, which would rival most fighters at this level. It also has 3 BAB, same as the fighter. It has 2 fewer feats than the fighter, but has the druid there as well. There's not any scenario that the fighter is doing better than the druid here.

Barbarian: Might do worse here depending on luck and whether or not rage is needed earlier or later. Once rage is used, the fights afterwards will be harder.


Or, at level 4 - you go into a room which has a trap. The fighter is more likely to survive.

This argument is pretty fallacious. Let's call it a poison trap. Fighter doesn't have heal as a class skill, nor any way to reliable ignore the effects of poison. Cleric and druid not only have heal, but also have delay poison. They now have plenty of time to solve the problem. The wizard would be in a similar boat as the fighter if the wizard was not intelligent enough to do what a wizard should (at any op level) and send a summoned creature in before them. Worst case scenario the wizard has a marginally worse chance (15%) to save vs the fighter. Best case scenario the fighter got hit and the wizard didn't. If you're trying to say "if the person in question stands there and gets hit and does nothing to prevent it or heal it" the fighter still loses because the barbarian has more hp and has trap sense.

[Liquor Box]

Are you serious? Not even close to the best chance. Just out of core, the barbarian, cleric, druid, monk, ranger, and rogue would all do just as well or better in this scenario.


The barbarian, cleric, and druid are all more likely to survive than the fighter.


Really? More likely than the rogue, who can disarm the trap; the barbarian, who has trap sense and more HP; or the cleric or druid, who can heal the damage and walk away without a scratch?

You said cleric or druid better in all cases. So lets put rogues, barbarians etc aside. It may well be that there is no scenario that the fighter is BEST in, simply because warblade is better than fighter at 90% of scenarios (perhaps all scenarios not involving ranged weapons). I suppose there might be a low level ranged scenario where the fighter is best suited, but I am not oging to try and contrive it.

Scenario 1 enter the room:
the fighter will usually have better att and damage and HP than a druid or cleric.
There was no foreknowledge that this battle would occur, so neither caster would prepare spells for the encounter, or cast such spells in advance if they had.

I acknowledge Druid may be slightly better than fighter if ii had a strong combat animal companion and the DM decided the inner city inn let the animal stay in the room with the character (whichI think inlikely, but some DMs may allow it)

Scenario 2:
Again the fighter has better attack, dmg, hp and AC. Often a lvl 3 fighter would be able to kill the low CR (I should have specified low CR relative to the character, so CR1 or less) without taking any damage. Less often the cleric or druid will be able to.
A fighter may be able to get through 20 or 30 such monsters. A cleric's spells would only assist it with the first 6 or 7 or so. There may be an argument for a druid - but it still has entry level companions at this level and I suggest that the fighter would be a better melee combatant than a druid and entry level companion combined.

Scenario 3:
None of a cleric druid or figther would be likely to detect the trap ahead of time so would not be able to plan for it. The fighter would be more likely to survive (ie not be killed outright) than the other two classes because it has more hit points. I suppose a druid may get lucky and have animal companion trigger the trap.

[Tanuki Tales]

What animal companion would you choose. I would expect a wold may object to be lowered into a well. A monkey isn;t going to be a very strong comabatant.

The scenario was a sudden CR 1 dropping into the room. The animal companion can deal with this.

The second scenario was several, protracted fights with varying, low CR monsters. As the animal companion is just as good as the fighter, if not better, at most levels, the druid can deal with this scenario and still have spells.






A cleric gets this spell 3 times (incl bonus for high wisdom). That's even assuming that the cleric used all his spell slots on Summon mOnster 1 - I suspect most wouldn't entering a solo dnugeon.

Also, I suggest a lvl 3 fighter would usually be a stronger melee combatant than a level 3 cleric accompanied by an animal companion. I actually think the best cleric strategy in this scenario would be heal between each fight.


Why would you ever use actual spell slots when a Wand of Summon Monster I is 750 gold?


How did you know the trap was there? Or do you have a celestial monkey run into every dungeon room before you enter? If so, that would weaken you in the earlier scenario when you are fighting a monster in every room.

Wand of Summon Monster I.

[Extra Anchovies]

Doing the Iron Caster thing is surprisingly low build investment, and suddenly a fighter has flight,DDoor, See Invis, Dispel Magic, etc, available to them.

Oh man, that is some good stuff. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.


Definitely better. Still tier 5 tho. The difference between T4 and T5 is usually the difference between (possibly good at nothing, or maybe at combat) and (good at combat). Fighter is still filled with trap options that are completely ineffective to play. Of course, good character op can often raise a class a tier, as can the best archetypes.

The Sorcerer spell list has a lot of nigh-useless spells. Does that make it a bad class? The tier system assumes that characters are built with at least some competency, so the bottom-of-the-barrel options can be discarded entirely.


I will also add that PF giveth and it taketh away. Fighters have better numbers, but all classes get more feats, many casters also get better numbers, many feats are split in half, etc.

The fighter's abundance of feats didn't save it from being awful in 3.5, and having a slightly smaller feat surplus over other classes doesn't hurt it much in Pathfinder. The PF fighter with Advanced Weapon and Armor Training is a solid combatant and has at least a couple things to do outside of a fight. I'd say they're about on par with the Barbarian.


The biggest hurt for me is the loss of Polymorph as an effective buff. It used to be my most commonly used L4 spell on my wizard, since it would vault our fighter's damage into solid ranges, give reach, multiple attacks, movement forms and needed immunities. In PF, most of the polymorph school is Personal and it is nerfed massively as a combat buff.

Polymorph was broken as all heck in 3.X even after they patched on the various fixes (polymorph subschool, single-form polymorphs, etc). I'm glad to see it gone.

Also, losing polymorph as an effective buff doesn't affect how good the fighter is - it affects how much time and resources it takes for a wizard to make a fighter competent, but the idea of the tier system is to look at classes on their own, without assuming the presence of allies with any particular abilities.


I can't find Iron Caster on Pfsrd or google search. Care to give a hint?

Linky linky. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/4q1yi0/turn_your_fighter_into_a_caster_by_using_advanced/)


Still, I do think there may be some T3 third party archetypes. I have heard that Dreamscarred's fighter archetype in path of war is T3, but I haven't analyzed it.

Eh. I'd say it doesn't, or if it does it just barely gets its foot in the door. The difference between T4 and T3 is, essentially, not how well a character can perform their main job, but how likely it is that the class will have something to contribute to an encounter where their main job doesn't help. DSP's Myrmidon archetype makes the Fighter better at fighting, but it only adds more noncombat options if you spend build resources to swap in one of the supernatural disciplines to pick up flight or teleportation.

[Red Fel]

Lastly, Red Fel:
You always provide great insight. Everyone who's posted has so far. You did a great job of a capstone though.

I do what I do, chief.


I slightly touched on the resources thing, but 50 arrows is a lot more than the 36 spells per day (not including bonus spells) a wizard gets naturally at level 20. Plus, arrows are cheap. While its not the best option, it is still an option.

That's certainly a fair point. You're not wrong; projectiles, although more limited in uses than a melee weapon's infinite uses, aren't expensive, and do the job. That said, ranged combat in 3.5 gets a bad rap, for good reason; it stinks on ice. Even Rangers, who ostensibly have a combat style designed around shooting things with arrows, are hard-pressed to make a significant contribution in the late game.

And that's the equivalency we have to go with, here. If you want to use Antimagic Field as a basis of comparison, that's fine, but let's look at what you're dealing with at that level. AMF (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/antimagicField.htm) is a Cleric 8 (Magic 6)/ Sor/Wiz 6 spell. That means it's coming out, at the earliest, at 11th level, solidly into the mid-to-late game. And at that stage of the game, what exactly does the Fighter have? Or the Ranger?

Fighter's got six bonus feats, +11/+6/+1 BAB, and one good save. If he's smart, he's probably also got Power Attack, and can do some respectable damage. But his bonus feats are all about giving him bigger numbers at what he's already doing. He's not bad, but when he's not hitting things with that sword, he's not great, either.

Our archer Ranger, by merit of the archery combat path, has Manyshot and Improved Precise Shot, both very helpful. With his +11 BAB, that means he can make three attacks with his arrows per round, at +5 to hit (-4 for using Manyshot, another -2 for using a third arrow), and can ignore any concealment other than total. Useful! But he can't Power Attack with his bow; he has no way, other than upgrading the bow itself or taking additional feats, to boost his attack power.

The Wizard? He has a lot of tools at his disposal. Even assuming he hasn't PrC'd out of Wizard, in which case "cast a freaking spell" is his only class feature, he can do a lot. Invisibility is a second-level spell. Fly is a third-level spell. Wind Wall, which renders arrows useless, is a third-level spell. And our Wizard, assuming he's of-level for someone casting Antimagic Field, is casting sixth-level spells - he has all of this already.


I didn't mean to imply that casting "" was superior to spells, but less limited by resources which puts it in a different category of spells and, in my opinion, is ripe for augmentation via spells.

And stop. We can't praise the independent skill and ability of weapon-users, as compared to spellcasters, and talk about "augmentation via spells." Doing so is effectively conceding that a non-caster's effectiveness is dependent on the presence of a spellcaster.

If a salad is only good if you put bacon on it, that doesn't mean the salad is good; it means the bacon is good.


I do have general magic question though, can a contingent spell work in an anti-magic field? I just don't know the answer to that simply because that situation hasn't come up in my games and I've never had a reason (until now) to search for the answer.

Please understand that when I say "contingency" I don't mean Craft Contingent Spell. I mean the dictionary definition of contingency - a plan for when that happens. And there are several.

First, you have to understand what an AMF is. An AMF is an emanation, centered on the caster. It prevents the functioning of magic cast within, suppresses magic items used within, and causes summoned creatures and incorporeal undead who enter to wink out. But there are limits to what it can do. Here are a few examples.

1. It's an emanation. You know the funny thing about emanations? They rely on line of effect. If a thing, within an emanation, is completely enclosed, it is immune to the emanation. Build a human-sized hollow cone or cylinder out of lead, then use a Permanency'd Shrink Item on it. Keep it in your hat. When you enter an AMF, remove the hat. The Shrink Item effect is immediately dispelled, enclosing you in a shield of lead, from which you may then Teleport or otherwise flee.

2. An AMF bars spells cast within it, but not into it, necessarily. Any instantaneous conjuration effect remains effective and may enter. Any of the Orb of line of spells are instantaneous conjurations, operate on a ranged touch attack, and permit neither SR nor save. They're golden.

3. An AMF causes summoned creatures and incorporeal undead to wink out. That does not hold true for other minions. A calling spell, as opposed to a summoning spell, summons the real thing to fight for you, and it can enter an AMF unimpeded. Likewise, other minions - corporeal undead, golems, elementals, and the like - are explicitly stated as being able to enter an AMF. Summon them outside of the AMF and send them in.

4. Lastly, unless he has a way to bypass it (e.g. Sculpt Spell), the caster of an AMF is just as susceptible to its effects as you are. Moreso - because it emanates from him, he may not leave it, but he may dismiss it. While he is within it, however, he can't use spells at all. In other words, he's a sitting duck.

So, yeah. Smart Wizard not only knows his own spells; he knows how to bypass other spells, too.


As far as dealing with a fighter effectively, I realize there are plenty of ways to do that. Some of those ways (like the rust monster, flying/incorporeal/invisible enemy, etc) are specific to an environment though and aren't always an option or threat.

Neither are AMFs.


As for the comment I made about the wizard becoming "god-like", I didn't mean to make it sound like the wizard was getting unfairly singled out, but more so to highlight that I think a good DM plans things to make the whole party feel useful and make the rest of the party feel like they don't rely on any one member to be effective. That can be accomplished by having certain characters fall ill, get kidnapped, etc and [I]Shouldn't be done without talking to the player. This can be done to great effect if the person is planning on being out of town or is otherwise not available on the projected game night and keeps their character relevant to the game even without them being there.

That's a good position, and a fair point. But that has more to do with a DM's tendency to do that for his players, and a good player's tendency not to outshine his fellow players, than with a particular class. The classic "God Wizard" is actually designed around the idea of empowering your party to overcome any objective, rather than doing so oneself.


As for other classes features, I feel very similarly about them as I do about the fighter in general. They may be weaker, but their abilities have fewer resource limitations. I think that's similar to one of the arguments about why archery in D&D is, in general, weaker than melee because it is relatively safer. The list of creatures immune to sneak attack is much smaller than the list that are susceptible to it. Monk is just... well... difficult :smalltongue: but as you said, you like your monk augmented with something else and I can't disagree with you.

But that's precisely it. At low levels, yes, having a renewable resource is extremely valuable. Having infinite ammo with a peashooter is fine when one or two shots can take out an enemy. But at higher levels, the Wizard's resources have increased in number (although they still aren't infinite) and in power, while the non-caster's resources have only increased slightly in power. That peashooter was great against the neighborhood kids, but no matter how many pebbles you have, it's worthless against a tank. It's why the term Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard is used - at low levels, the Fighter's even power growth makes it valuable, but at higher levels - when encounters become an arms race - the Wizard's power and versatility skyrocket, while the Fighter's just grow at that same slow pace.


I think my overall idea of the fighter is that when it comes down to it, they can fight in pretty much any situation. They have options, you just have to be creative about how you do it. Same for the wizard. Also, the fighter is really a big team player. The team Can get along without the fighter (or fighter type), but everything goes a little bit better for everyone when you enable the team player and everyone helps.

The Fighter doesn't have options. That's the key point. The Fighter, generally, has one option - put the pointy end in the other guy. The Wizard, potentially, has a solution for every problem - monster hunting, trap dismantling, door opening, travel, diplomacy, world hunger. The Fighter hits things with his axe.

Nor is the Fighter a big team player. He has no options that help the team. The Bard has options that help the team - Inspire Courage, for example. The Paladin has an aura and Lay on Hands. Even the Ranger could dredge up a buff or two. The Fighter does nothing for the team except kill the nearest monster. That's not team play, it's solo play around other people.

[eggynack]

Scenario 1 enter the room:
the fighter will usually have better att and damage and HP than a druid or cleric.
There was no foreknowledge that this battle would occur, so neither caster would prepare spells for the encounter, or cast such spells in advance if they had.

Better attack, damage, and HP than the druid itself? Sure. Better attack, damage, and HP than the animal companion? Less accurate. HP advantage in particular likely goes to the dog, which has 13, and with the barding, AC advantage might go that way too, with 18. Damage goes to the fighter, but not by a crazy amount. And then you add in the simple fact that the druid has a sling to up the damage somewhat, and a body, to absorb more damage from opponents as well as flank if necessary, and the druid is in a really great spot. And then you add spells. Not spells for this encounter, because what does that even mean, but regular old spells. Impeding stone, for example, because we were planning to enter a stone area, or entangle, using plants attached to the riding dog if the DM is strict about the spell, or enrage animal, if you just want direct action, or a summoned wolf, if you want a bit of temporary damage and control. The advantage seems strongly in the hand of the druid, with zero preparation for this situation.

There may be an argument for a druid - but it still has entry level companions at this level and I suggest that the fighter would be a better melee combatant than a druid and entry level companion combined.

The advanced riding dog is certainly less advantaged than before, but it's a close thing, and that's before you account for the druid, with its spells and fighting capabilities.

I suppose a druid may get lucky and have animal companion trigger the trap.
Luck has nothing to do with it. The animal companion is the meat shield and beat stick, so it's usually going to be travelling ahead of the druid, rather than behind.

[jywu98]

The fighter is bad because it shoehorns you into specific builds that are mostly one-dimensional, and if you don't build a fighter right, you end up with a character that at mid to high levels cannot even face appropriate challenges for his level. A large part of this problem comes from that fact that most fighter feats are useless but required in feat chains, and the fact that your one class feature is bonus feats.

[Gnaeus]

Really?

Lets use ogre as an example. I am sure you will accept that lots of other enemies would be less favourable to you (for example zombies)

An ogre has an extremely high chance of killing you in a single round - He really only needs to roll a 3 on his attack to hit an sorcerer with AC 11. So lets assume that if he gets an attack he wins.

Essentially this means if the ogre wins initiative, he wins. Ogres are -1 initiative, so you may have 55 - 60 % chance of winning that.

Then you colour spray him - he has (say) a 30% chance of saving, in which case you lose.

If you are successful, you have D4+1 rds of the ogre being blind and stunned (average 3.5 rds). He has 12 AC while blind and stunned, so you will presumably be able to hit him 45% of the time. Lets say you average 3 damage a hit (1.35 damage a round) - that is an average of 4.725 damage over the 3.5 rounds he is stunned. That means you would have to succesfully color spray (with a 30% chance of him resisting) him 9 times to kill him.

I suggest that that the odds of that occurring are not much different from a lv1 fighter being able to kill him. The fighter would need to rely on the ogre missing him (about 50/50 each attack depending on AC) about 5 or 6 rounds in a row. In both cases the ogre would be heavily favoured.

Of course you are talking about your contribution to a team effort - you stun and the striker strikes. This carries a much higher probability of success against the ogre - but that point that should be taken from that is that a debilitator and a striker working as a team are more capable than each working individually. It does not mean that the debilatator was more valuable to the exercise than the striker.

Well, first off, I was assuming the presence of generic party. Even if your other 2-3 teammates are wizards with their spells expended or commoners you should be able to drop him before the color spray ends. Clerics or rogues or druids or anyone else more useful than a fighter can also be a "striker" for this purpose. Maybe there are 2 ogres, or an ogre and some goblins, and dropping one ogre from the fight turns a deadly encounter into something easy to manage.

Second, your numbers are awful. 3 damage per round? Worst case is the light crossbow once per round, so 4.5 per hit, with +1 dex (you said I had 11AC), so 2.25/round. Even a staff should do 3.5. But most casters can do way better than that. Most sor/wiz bloodlines get a ranged touch attack for 1d6 that should virtually auto-hit. But if I was a caster actually planning on soloing? I would add my own striker. My goat adds a flanker, improving my damage, + 3.5 damage/round/% hit chance. But the real way to win solo is to color spray, then follow it up with sleep. The coup de grace with my non proficient scythe is average 20 damage for a DC 30 fort save or die. And if he rolls a 20 he is still stunned, prone, blind, flanked, and badly injured.

[Liquor Box]

The scenario was a sudden CR 1 dropping into the room. The animal companion can deal with this.

My bad. Last time I discussed this with someone, the scenario was down a well, and I forgot that I used a different one this time. Have edited previous posts.

What animal companion would you choose that would be welcome in the room of an inner city inn (which was the scenario). I doubt a dog or a wolf would be allowed. Remember that you don;t know this is going to occur, so you wouldn;t choose an animal companion for this specific scenario (liek a snake you could smuggle into the inn).

If a decent combat animal companion was present, I acknowledge the druid might be as good or even better.


The second scenario was several, protracted fights with varying, low CR monsters. As the animal companion is just as good as the fighter, if not better, at most levels, the druid can deal with this scenario and still have spells.

What animal companion is that you think is "just as good as a fighter, if not better" at level three. I suggest that a wolf (for example) and a druid together would be weaker in melee than a lvl 3 fighter.

The spells would only help against the first few monsters, afterward the druid would have run out.


Why would you ever use actual spell slots when a Wand of Summon Monster I is 750 gold?

I was not envisaging you building/equiping the cleric/druid/fighter for this specific encounter. Rather using a cleric/druid/fighter you had built and equipped for general play, dropped into this scenario. So, do you generally equip your lvl 3 cleric/druid with a wand of summon monster?

Even if you did, I am not certain it would allow a cleric to prevail in the second scenario. You meet the enemy. On your first action you are summoning a weak monster, which on the figther's first action he is attacking the lower CR assailant - possibly winning hte encounter with that single attack. This would seem to open the cleric up to being attacked more often than the fighter.

Even if a cleric summoned a monster BEFORE entering every room (would it summon both the celestial monkey and the combat moster), a cleric together with a lvl one summoned monster is likely to be less capable in melee than a lvl 3 fighter.

I suppose a druid who used the summons in conjunction with a strong animal companion might outdo a fighter in this sceanrio.

Actually a wand of CLW would probably be better than a summon wand - the fighter druid could use that to heal between each encounter.


As to triggering the trap - again this depends on your usual play style to be to arm your lvl 4druid/cleric with a summoning wand before entering a dungeon, then to summon its monkey before every room (how many rooms in an average dungeon - say 15?). If that is your usual play style, then fair enough.

[Tanuki Tales]

I do personally buy a summon wand as soon as possible on a caster and nothing stops you from summing multiple monsters before each room, you have so many yummy charges to blow through.

Also, it's been outlined several times by now how good a properly equipped riding dog is, as an animal companion.

Thinking about it, isn't there a feat a cleric could grab to get an animal companion as a druid?

Edit:

Mind, the Wand was more for trap setting off than combat, as it only lasts for one round. You'd probably want scrolls of higher summoning magic.

[Liquor Box]

Well, first off, I was assuming the presence of generic party. Even if your other 2-3 teammates are wizards with their spells expended or commoners you should be able to drop him before the color spray ends. Clerics or rogues or druids or anyone else more useful than a fighter can also be a "striker" for this purpose. Maybe there are 2 ogres, or an ogre and some goblins, and dropping one ogre from the fight turns a deadly encounter into something easy to manage.
Assuming the presence of a party who compliments your skills, either is likely to be successful. A fighter with 2 or 3 companions (of any class) would probably beat the ogre as would your sorcerer. 4 fighters are as likely to be succesful as 4 sorcerers, but as mentioned, complimentary classes are best.

One ogre is never easy for a level 1 party. If the ogre wins initiative, it has a good chance of killing a person before the party even gets an action (a much better chance if there's a sorcerer to target).


Second, your numbers are awful. 3 damage per round? Worst case is the light crossbow once per round, so 4.5 per hit, with +1 dex (you said I had 11AC), so 2.25/round. Even a staff should do 3.5. But most casters can do way better than that. Most sor/wiz bloodlines get a ranged touch attack for 1d6 that should virtually auto-hit. But if I was a caster actually planning on soloing? I would add my own striker. My goat adds a flanker, improving my damage, + 3.5 damage/round/% hit chance. But the real way to win solo is to color spray, then follow it up with sleep. The coup de grace with my non proficient scythe is average 20 damage for a DC 30 fort save or die. And if he rolls a 20 he is still stunned, prone, blind, flanked, and badly injured.

Remember you are a level 1 sorcerer who has color spray as one of your known spells. Is your other known spell the ranged touch attack? At level 1 you get four castings of your level 1 spells (assuming charsima bonus) you've used one for colour spray so you get three more, and then you can't repeat the colour spray if the ogre's not killed in time.

Where do you get a goat? Do you swap your ranged touch attack for a summoning spell, or your color spray? Do you hope the ogre misses you (10% chance say) in the round you spend summoning the goat, or do you colour spray it first and then use one of the rounds when it is stunned up summoning the goat?

Which spell known do you lose for sleep? Colour spray, your ranged touch attack, or summon goat?

I still think odds are heavily against you (the odds of winning initiative, then having the ogre fail its first will save are already against you).

Also, you are designing your sorcerer for this specific encounter (to the point of having him wield scythe) rather than going in with an ordinary sorcerer.

[LTwerewolf]

My bad. Last time I discussed this with someone, the scenario was down a well, and I forgot that I used a different one this time. Have edited previous posts.

What animal companion would you choose that would be welcome in the room of an inner city inn (which was the scenario). I doubt a dog or a wolf would be allowed. Remember that you don;t know this is going to occur, so you wouldn;t choose an animal companion for this specific scenario (liek a snake you could smuggle into the inn).

If a decent combat animal companion was present, I acknowledge the druid might be as good or even better.

Why would a simple riding dog not be allowed inside? Even if the dog is not allowed inside, how difficult would it be to call the dog and have it come (It isn't) and why would the druid not take high offense and find somewhere else to stay, even if that meant staying outside? I personally find it more likely an innkeeper would say "no weapons" than "no basic dogs." How well does your fighter fair without a weapon since we're trying to make sure people don't have parts of their class available?




What animal companion is that you think is "just as good as a fighter, if not better" at level three. I suggest that a wolf (for example) and a druid together would be weaker in melee than a lvl 3 fighter.

I answered this already, but I'll answer it again: a standard riding dog is not only easy to get, but it outpaces fighters decently well into 7th or 8th level.


The spells would only help against the first few monsters, afterward the druid would have run out.

Your fighter also runs out of hit points as well, with no way to replenish them. You're failing to say how many encounters, versus what, and how long they have to recover.




I was not envisaging you building/equiping the cleric/druid/fighter for this specific encounter. Rather using a cleric/druid/fighter you had built and equipped for general play, dropped into this scenario. So, do you generally equip your lvl 3 cleric/druid with a wand of summon monster? I get a wand of summon monster on any character ever that can use it, including any that get UMD as a class skill, so yes, I do.


Even if you did, I am not certain it would allow a cleric to prevail in the second scenario. You meet the enemy. On your first action you are summoning a weak monster, which on the figther's first action he is attacking the lower CR assailant - possibly winning hte encounter with that single attack. This would seem to open the cleric up to being attacked more often than the fighter.

If the fighter can possibly win the encounter in a single attack, so can a cleric. Fighters at this level aren't getting significant amounts of bonus damage from anywhere (maybe +2 from a 2h power attack, but that puts their BAB on par with a cleric). A cleric is also not required to open up with the summon monster, they have the option to do so. The fighter does not have this option.


Even if a cleric summoned a monster BEFORE entering every room (would it summon both the celestial monkey and the combat moster), a cleric together with a lvl one summoned monster is likely to be less capable in melee than a lvl 3 fighter.

The cleric is aware of the problems of the room before ever entering. This is a significant advantage and reduces the chances of sneak attacks because of the summoned creature getting attacked. This is not nothing, but you seem to want to treat it to be nothing.


I suppose a druid who used the summons in conjunction with a strong animal companion might outdo a fighter in this sceanrio.

There is no way in which a fighter is better in this scenario.


Actually a wand of CLW would probably be better than a summon wand - the fighter druid could use that to heal between each encounter.

The fighter does not get UMD as a class skill, and therefore you're admitting that he needs spells from the cleric or druid class to get by. This is a point in favor of the cleric and druid, not the fighter.



As to triggering the trap - again this depends on your usual play style to be to arm your lvl 4druid/cleric with a summoning wand before entering a dungeon, then to summon its monkey before every room (how many rooms in an average dungeon - say 15?). If that is your usual play style, then fair enough.

I can easily expect to make the 225 gold back from a 15 room dungeon, yes. Not only that, it kept the entire party significantly safer, not just my individual character. It's cheaper to let a single monkey die (15 gold) than to heal 30 hp (75 gold average).




Remember you are a level 1 sorcerer who has color spray as one of your known spells. Is your other known spell the ranged touch attack? At level 1 you get four castings of your level 1 spells (assuming charsima bonus) you've used one for colour spray so you get three more, and then you can't repeat the colour spray if the ogre's not killed in time.

Pathfinder sorcerers get cantrips at will, so they do indeed have ranged attacks that do not run out. D&d sorcerers can still themselves shoot crossbows. At level 1, the fighter has 1 Bab higher than the sorcerer and the damage on a crossbow will be the same.



I still think odds are heavily against you (the odds of winning initiative, then having the ogre fail its first will save are already against you).

An ogre hits for 2d8+7. A level 1 fighter has d10+con, so probably 16 hp. That means even with pretty low damage rolls, your fighter is likely to die in a single hit. You would need a 22 con modifier to be able to be at 0 after an average damage hit. The fighter effectively is no different in hp than the ogre. The difference is the sorcerer has a chance to shut down the ogre with a single spell. With 29 hp, your fighter using a 2h weapon is going to need a critical hit (and a high damage one at that) to kill the ogre in a single hit. The sorcerer has a better chance of winning here.

[Gnaeus]

The Sorcerer spell list has a lot of nigh-useless spells. Does that make it a bad class? The tier system assumes that characters are built with at least some competency, so the bottom-of-the-barrel options can be discarded entirely.

The fighter's abundance of feats didn't save it from being awful in 3.5, and having a slightly smaller feat surplus over other classes doesn't hurt it much in Pathfinder. The PF fighter with Advanced Weapon and Armor Training is a solid combatant and has at least a couple things to do outside of a fight. I'd say they're about on par with the Barbarian.

Lower tier=/ bad class. Sorcerer is higher tier than Dread Necro. But Dread Necro has a much higher optimization floor. Its all about the tier definitions. I could make a perfectly competent archer or chain tripper fighter in 3.5. But I could also make a twf/disarm build that sucked in a way no barbarian could. Tier 4 is "good at something". Tier 5 is "maybe not good even at fighting" and the PF fighter, like the 3.5 fighter, has a real chance of accidently doing that if you fall into one of many traps.


Polymorph was broken as all heck in 3.X even after they patched on the various fixes (polymorph subschool, single-form polymorphs, etc). I'm glad to see it gone.

Also, losing polymorph as an effective buff doesn't affect how good the fighter is - it affects how much time and resources it takes for a wizard to make a fighter competent, but the idea of the tier system is to look at classes on their own, without assuming the presence of allies with any particular abilities.

Better or worse it still hurts the fighter way worse than it hurts the wizard. And no, while I agree it wouldn't alter the tier analysis, it does speak to whether, as was claimed in the original post, he is "definitely in better shape than the 3.5 fighter." Our 3.5 chain tripper, Polymorphed into a 4 armed flying monstrosity with natural attacks and 30-something strength, was absolutely in better shape than any PF fighter will ever be.

[Troacctid]

Fighters more versatile than literally anyone else? They have the lowest skill points in the game with no Int synergies, they have no class features, all their built-in options do one of two things (make it harder for enemy to move or deal damage) and every other class has those same options. I think it's reasonable to argue that Fighter is the least versatile class in the game and because of how the feat chains are structured, they reward hyperspecialization (you can become reasonably competent with one weapon and one combat style by taking all your Fighter-feats).
They are pretty low, but not the lowest. I would put knight, samurai, soulknife, dragon shaman, and swashbuckler all below fighter.


Why would you ever use actual spell slots when a Wand of Summon Monster I is 750 gold?
Because summon spells at CL 1 are trash?

[Tanuki Tales]

Because summon spells at CL 1 are trash?

For summoning something with a fast movement speed and just have it do a trap run?

[AnimeTheCat]

The Fighter doesn't have options. That's the key point. The Fighter, generally, has one option - put the pointy end in the other guy. The Wizard, potentially, has a solution for every problem - monster hunting, trap dismantling, door opening, travel, diplomacy, world hunger. The Fighter hits things with his axe.

Nor is the Fighter a big team player. He has no options that help the team. The Bard has options that help the team - Inspire Courage, for example. The Paladin has an aura and Lay on Hands. Even the Ranger could dredge up a buff or two. The Fighter does nothing for the team except kill the nearest monster. That's not team play, it's solo play around other people.

Hmm, I disagree with these two points. As far as options are concerned, i mean options within combat. With a fighter's big pool of feats you can choose to take Combat expertise, improved trip, and improved disarm as a first level character. Now you can fight in many different ways. You can choose to sit back directly in front of your wizard and provide concealment for him against ranged attacks while simultaneously cutting off attack routes from melee combatants. Another option is to step in and disarm the threat. Third option is to stand between the squishier members of the party and trip the opposition if they try to move past you. Alternatively you can take a more active role where you take improved unarmed strike and improved grapple as a half orc fighter. You can seek out and grapple enemy spell casters and pin them so that they can't use their magic, thereby freeing your caster up to use his. alternatively you can go yet another route and pick up power attack, improved sunder and debilitate your enemies by sundering their weapons, armor, or shields or even cutting the enemy wizard's spell pouch off so he can't cast his spell without first picking up the pouch. That's what i mean by options and those are available from level 1 to level 20. And from all of that, I've shown many options that the fighter has that very much directly support and help the team. That's not including being a flanking buddy, being a buffer between the less heavily armored allies and the charging enemies, etc. Positioning is really important when playing a fighter and it does take an intelligent player to play the fighter effectively. Having more allies capable of doing this is not a bad thing. The fighter is just as supportive to the party as a druid's animal companion because he can use his feats to stack up on battlefield utility. Ok, he doesn't hit as hard. If you want to play a martial class that hits hard, barbarians look good this time of year, or perhaps you would rather do something from Tome of Battle, neat those are tasty too. None of those classes will have the same potential battlefield utility of the fighter by the simple fact that they don't get as many feats built in to their class. Think less specialized and more broad list of combat abilities.

[LTwerewolf]

Anyone else notice that people are trying to argue that fighter is useful at level 1 but don't seem to be arguing very far beyond that? This is not a point in favor of the fighter.


With a fighter's big pool of feats you can choose to take Combat expertise, improved trip, and improved disarm as a first level character.
Fighter gets one bonus feat at level one. Anyone else that wants to do these things is one feat behind.



You can choose to sit back directly in front of your wizard and provide concealment for him against ranged attacks while simultaneously cutting off attack routes from melee combatants.

Anyone can do this, namely barbarians and paladins which are also core.


Another option is to step in and disarm the threat.
Disarming itself isn't very good, but assuming it's useful in the situation this is again not something exclusive to fighter.


Third option is to stand between the squishier members of the party and trip the opposition if they try to move past you.
Not sure how this is very different from the first one, but again not fighter exclusive here. Your options only require two feats, which anyone else can have.


Alternatively you can take a more active role where you take improved unarmed strike and improved grapple as a half orc fighter.
Or take a level of monk and you get significantly more.


You can seek out and grapple enemy spell casters and pin them so that they can't use their magic, thereby freeing your caster up to use his.
Most casters can make the concentration check while grappled, making it far less effective. Entirely useless once freedom of movement comes online.



alternatively you can go yet another route and pick up power attack, improved sunder and debilitate your enemies by sundering their weapons, armor, or shields or even cutting the enemy wizard's spell pouch off so he can't cast his spell without first picking up the pouch.

Still just two feats and not fighter exclusive (in fact clerics can do this better by not spending feats and taking a domain). Not only this, you can't sunder armor other people are wearing (it says this right in the sunder rules).


That's what i mean by options and those are available from level 1 to level 20.
Except the usefulness of those options diminish as levels get higher, many of which become entirely ineffective in most circumstances (disarm vs monsters), or have little chance of actually working (any combat maneuver on a larger opponent).


And from all of that, I've shown many options that the fighter has that very much directly support and help the team.
When they work, which most of the time they don't. Conversely, giving direct bonuses (such as morale bonuses from things like bless) or indirect bonuses (size increase from enlarge person) tend to help much more.


That's not including being a flanking buddy, being a buffer between the less heavily armored allies and the charging enemies, etc.
This is something literally anyone can do. Other classes arguably do it better. A paladin can at least heal themselves and don't rely on others to keep them alive. A barbarian has more hp and damage reduction. "Be a warm body with a weapon that can attack" is the only requirement for flanking. Except the warm body thing doesn't even always apply (lol undead, construct, and reptilian characters).


Positioning is really important when playing a fighter and it does take an intelligent player to play the fighter effectively.
You know classes that position better than a fighter right out of the box? Barbarian, scout, and monk. Because they can move more and two of them have tumble.


Having more allies capable of doing this is not a bad thing.
I agree, but the fighter isn't bringing anything special to the table others can't do.


The fighter is just as supportive to the party as a druid's animal companion because he can use his feats to stack up on battlefield utility. Ok, he doesn't hit as hard.
I'm not sure how this isn't directly saying fighters aren't quite as good as one aspect of a druid's class.


If you want to play a martial class that hits hard, barbarians look good this time of year, or perhaps you would rather do something from Tome of Battle, neat those are tasty too. None of those classes will have the same potential battlefield utility of the fighter by the simple fact that they don't get as many feats built in to their class. Think less specialized and more broad list of combat abilities.
You may want to look at ToB again if you think fighter feats hold up in any way. ToB gives a lot more options than the fighter feats do, while still allowing the adepts to deal more damage (while still being able to move). I would argue every one of the ToB classes have more utility than the fighter right out of the box. Especially as you get higher level, class features get far more powerful than feats. Even at low level, they're not even really equivalent. The fighter gets 11 extra feats that diminish in value over time. The warblade gets 4 bonus feats and explicitly counts as a fighter (of a slightly lower level) for the very very few fighter specific feats. Swordsages actually get pretty large bonuses to tripping from setting sun as well as the ability to deal decent enough damage while probably going first. The crusader, while I don't like its recovery mechanic as personal taste, is incredibly good in most ways, especially at lower levels. It can deal superior damage to a fighter, with the same hit points and armor, while healing itself. Arguably the swordsage might need to specialize a little bit to do the job, but they can still take other maneuvers to maintain their utility. If we consider each known maneuver as a bonus feat, the crusader is getting +14, the swordsage is getting +25, and the warblade +13. Each of them also has superior saves, and superior skills/skill points. I wasn't going to bring ToB content into this discussion because I felt it would be too easy, but I felt the need to respond to the idea that they could somehow be inferior to a baseline fighter.

[eggynack]

What is this scenario, incidentally? Not, like, what the details are, but what's its deal? Why are these monsters arranging themselves one to a room, one after the other, when any form of traditional tactics would dictate grouping those monsters up somewhat? Are they just contractually obligated to make themselves that way? Because the thing is, the monsters probably get an advantage against caster and fighter alike by just being in the same room as each other, because it provides an action economy advantage, but the caster gets a clear advantage over the fighter relative to the monsters by dint of access to BFC effects and the general ability to engage multiple enemies simultaneously through minions and such. This whole situation seems ludicrously contrived.

[AnimeTheCat]

Anyone else notice that people are trying to argue that fighter is useful at level 1 but don't seem to be arguing very far beyond that? This is not a point in favor of the fighter.


Fighter gets one bonus feat at level one. Anyone else that wants to do these things is one feat behind.



Anyone can do this, namely barbarians and paladins which are also core.


Disarming itself isn't very good, but assuming it's useful in the situation this is again not something exclusive to fighter.


Not sure how this is very different from the first one, but again not fighter exclusive here. Your options only require two feats, which anyone else can have.


Or take a level of monk and you get significantly more.


Most casters can make the concentration check while grappled, making it far less effective. Entirely useless once freedom of movement comes online.



Still just two feats and not fighter exclusive (in fact clerics can do this better by not spending feats and taking a domain). Not only this, you can't sunder armor other people are wearing (it says this right in the sunder rules).


Except the usefulness of those options diminish as levels get higher, many of which become entirely ineffective in most circumstances (disarm vs monsters), or have little chance of actually working (any combat maneuver on a larger opponent).


When they work, which most of the time they don't. Conversely, giving direct bonuses (such as morale bonuses from things like bless) or indirect bonuses (size increase from enlarge person) tend to help much more.


This is something literally anyone can do. Other classes arguably do it better. A paladin can at least heal themselves and don't rely on others to keep them alive. A barbarian has more hp and damage reduction. "Be a warm body with a weapon that can attack" is the only requirement for flanking. Except the warm body thing doesn't even always apply (lol undead, construct, and reptilian characters).


You know classes that position better than a fighter right out of the box? Barbarian, scout, and monk. Because they can move more and two of them have tumble.


I agree, but the fighter isn't bringing anything special to the table others can't do.

You're right pretty much any human can do any of those things out of the box, but none of those classes can do all of that before level 10. The fighter can. You could even throw improved overrun and improved bullrush on there too. I don't even think an animal companion can do all of that at all. That's a lot of different options available to a single person in combat. You fight the way that is necessary for the situation. When grappling a caster you can opt to silence them thereby rendering them unable to cast any spell with a vocal or somatic component (that sounds like most spells) meaning the caster will need to have still silent spells prepared and that is a pretty hefty spell level tax. What the fighter brings to the table is, well... everything, if you think about it in that way. They can do something in every combat situation.

[jywu98]

You're right pretty much any human can do any of those things out of the box, but none of those classes can do all of that before level 10. The fighter can. You could even throw improved overrun and improved bullrush on there too. I don't even think an animal companion can do all of that at all. That's a lot of different options available to a single person in combat. You fight the way that is necessary for the situation. When grappling a caster you can opt to silence them thereby rendering them unable to cast any spell with a vocal or somatic component (that sounds like most spells) meaning the caster will need to have still silent spells prepared and that is a pretty hefty spell level tax. What the fighter brings to the table is, well... everything, if you think about it in that way. They can do something in every combat situation.

The problem with the fighter is that many of these options are in fact traps that are worse than just attacking the enemy. For example sunder is actually detrimental to the party since it destroys your loot if it actually succeeds. Bullrush is only useful to push enemies away from squishies but casters have BFC that does it way better. Overrun is a worse version of grease, and grapple has its own disadvantages, namely only being able to attack with light weapons. Also all these are dependent on opposed checks, which means that if a fighter did not already specialize in one of these options he'll essentially just waste an action.

[ryu]

You're right pretty much any human can do any of those things out of the box, but none of those classes can do all of that before level 10. The fighter can. You could even throw improved overrun and improved bullrush on there too. I don't even think an animal companion can do all of that at all. That's a lot of different options available to a single person in combat. You fight the way that is necessary for the situation. When grappling a caster you can opt to silence them thereby rendering them unable to cast any spell with a vocal or somatic component (that sounds like most spells) meaning the caster will need to have still silent spells prepared and that is a pretty hefty spell level tax. What the fighter brings to the table is, well... everything, if you think about it in that way. They can do something in every combat situation.

You know what most everyone else can do by level 10? Things the fighter can't do at level 20. This is most prevalent with casters, but even other less terrible melee still gets nicer things.

As for the non-issue of grappling would you like a list of solutions available by level and class that render that moot without a single roll? Oh how about things that do that in magic item form that literally anyone can have? Oh or how about the laundry list of ''no you don't get melee range'' tactics? Or a list of ways to be better at grappling than a fighter will ever be while spending less than a tenth of his resources?

[AnimeTheCat]

The problem with the fighter is that many of these options are in fact traps that are worse than just attacking the enemy. For example sunder is actually detrimental to the party since it destroys your loot if it actually succeeds. Bullrush is only useful to push enemies away from squishies but casters have BFC that does it way better. Overrun is a worse version of grease, and grapple has it's own disadvantages, namely only being able to attack with light weapons. Also all these are dependent on opposed checks, which means that if a fighter did not already specialize in one of these options he'll essentially just waste an action.

Sundering a wizard's worn spell component pouch does not destroy it's contents but it does prevent that wizard from casting spells that require them without first picking up the spell component pouch. This is effective starting at first level. You do not have to use sunder to destroy the weapon of the opponent, but except at low levels, picking up every item the enemy was using is not really an effective way of making money. that gets heavy quick.


You know what most everyone else can do by level 10? Things the fighter can't do at level 20. This is most prevalent with casters, but even other less terrible melee still gets nicer things.

As for the non-issue of grappling would you like a list of solutions available by level and class that render that moot without a single roll? Oh how about things that do that in magic item form that literally anyone can have? Oh or how about the laundry list of ''no you don't get melee range'' tactics? Or a list of ways to be better at grappling than a fighter will ever be while spending less than a tenth of his resources?

You're right that other classes do things that fighters can't. I never said that a fighter was better at fighting than wizards, clerics, druids, etc. I did say they have some merits that those classes don't. Namely a fighter can pick up the vast majority of weapons in the game and use it proficiently. Druids, Wizards, Clerics, etc. can't without using a spell to do so. Sure, they can enable themselves to do so, but the fighter doesn't need to. I made no claim that a fighter was better overall than any of the above mentioned classes, but i do still hold that it's not bad and that people tend to give it a bad rap (granted not without reasons). I like fighters and I'm really not trying to make it sound like i'm brushing off anyone's argument. I see them and of course they're valid, so please don't think that i'm simply ignoring the facts that you're putting out there. I'm simply countering the ones I can.

[jywu98]

Sundering a wizard's worn spell component pouch does not destroy it's contents but it does prevent that wizard from casting spells that require them without first picking up the spell component pouch. This is effective starting at first level. You do not have to use sunder to destroy the weapon of the opponent, but except at low levels, picking up every item the enemy was using is not really an effective way of making money. that gets heavy quick.




It's hilarious you think the fighter can actually just get close to the wizard with ease.

Also, just because a fighter can use a bunch of weapons doesn't make it better. You are going to use only a few specific ones anyway. It's like saying McDonald's is a good restaurant because it serves you multiple different flavors of diabetes.

The point is fighters suck because everything they can do another character can do better. The class itself is very feat based, and the thing is most combat feats suck complete ass.

[Big Fau]

We're on the same page when it comes to early levels. For the later levels though, wizards get scribe scroll for free at starting level. They can make scrolls for the fighter to use or to be used on the fighter

First and foremost: Scrolls are absolutely not worth their prices or action economy usage. A single scroll of a 4th level spell is the same price as a 10-charge Wand of the same spell. 10 castings VS 1 casting is a no-brainer in any situation. For higher level spells, Staves with 3 or more spells are significantly more efficient than any number of Scrolls.

Second, Fighters do not get access to UMD. This means they have to either invest CC ranks or rely on someone who can use the scroll innately, which means depending on someone else to help you. Self-reliance is a key portion of party cohesion during encounters: If you can't pull enough weight you need to revise your strategy or there will be a friendly casualty.

Specifically, this:


Decipher a Written Spell
This usage works just like deciphering a written spell with the Spellcraft skill, except that the DC is 5 points higher. Deciphering a written spell requires 1 minute of concentration. (25+Spell Level)

Emulate an Ability Score
To cast a spell from a scroll, you need a high score in the appropriate ability (Intelligence for wizard spells, Wisdom for divine spells, or Charisma for sorcerer or bard spells). Your effective ability score (appropriate to the class you’re emulating when you try to cast the spell from the scroll) is your Use Magic Device check result minus 15. If you already have a high enough score in the appropriate ability, you don’t need to make this check.

Use a Scroll
If you are casting a spell from a scroll, you have to decipher it first. Normally, to cast a spell from a scroll, you must have the scroll’s spell on your class spell list. Use Magic Device allows you to use a scroll as if you had a particular spell on your class spell list. The DC is equal to 20 + the caster level of the spell you are trying to cast from the scroll. In addition, casting a spell from a scroll requires a minimum score (10 + spell level) in the appropriate ability. If you don’t have a sufficient score in that ability, you must emulate the ability score with a separate Use Magic Device check (see above).

A Fighter typically doesn't have the Int/Wis/Cha to use a scroll without first emulating the ability scores, he has to identify the scroll himself (there's no rules regarding a friendly Wizard scribing a scroll for someone allowing them to automatically decipher the spell), and then you have to make a final UMD check. 3 checks, and if one of them fails you wasted your Standard action. In-combat this is suicide, and out of combat it still isn't WBL-efficient (for either the Wizard or the Fighter).



in essence putting the fighter where they are effective without having to strain their resources too badly.

WBL and XP may be rivers, but there are better ways to buff than to use scrolls. Seriously, bad idea.


Even if anti-magic or dispel magic are present, the wizard won't be flying either

Barring a pair of monsters from MM4, anything capable of using Antimagic Sphere is literally crippling itself when it does. That's one of the worst "anti-mage" tactics out there, as it relies on you being within 10ft of the Wizard to actually work. How many Wizards do you know get that close willingly? How many beings capable of using magic are going to open with Antimagic Sphere?


and fighters are proficient with bows so flight is a little less painful, but still is a roadblock that has to be overcome. As for "Lasers from your eyes" and all that jazz, it's pretty easy to bolster a fighter's touch ac with two feats and a tower shield.

You're assuming PVP as a balancing point. PVP isn't balanced in any D&D-based system, and is not a good measurement of a class' capabilities due to the nature of Rocket Tag gameplay (that is, whoever wins init can end the encounter).


You can have a touch AC of 15 or higher at first level (if you can charm your way in to a tower shield from your DM). That helps against a large number of rays that could otherwise adversely effect the fighter. Even if you can't get a tower shield that early, you can still easily get a 13 touch AC at first level with a simple heavy wooden shield. You'll also get that shield bonus to resist a lot of combat maneuvers that common enemies like wolves and the like will use against you (trip, bull rush, disarm, etc.). That's pretty good for a character that's planning on being in the face of danger with relatively little effort put in and without gimping them either. That bonus will also be present through the entire game.

Shields do not apply to touch AC without a feat.


I slightly touched on the resources thing, but 50 arrows is a lot more than the 36 spells per day (not including bonus spells) a wizard gets naturally at level 20. Plus, arrows are cheap. While its not the best option, it is still an option.

Counter-point: At nearly every level, Wizards have the ability to end encounters with 2-3 spells (not counting buffs). How many arrows does it take to end a single encounter?


I think my overall idea of the fighter is that when it comes down to it, they can fight in pretty much any situation. They have options, you just have to be creative about how you do it. Same for the wizard. Also, the fighter is really a big team player. The team Can get along without the fighter (or fighter type), but everything goes a little bit better for everyone when you enable the team player and everyone helps.

You kinda just proved a point here: The Fighter is replaceable. Expendable even. The Wizard? Not as much. A party without a Fighter can replace him a number of ways (summons, Planar Binding, Animal Companions, Polymorph effects) that are all cost-effective, but a party without a Mage of some sort is in a bad way without investing numerous resources to replace him. Spells are daily, WBL is not.

[Liquor Box]

Why would a simple riding dog not be allowed inside? Even if the dog is not allowed inside, how difficult would it be to call the dog and have it come (It isn't) and why would the druid not take high offense and find somewhere else to stay, even if that meant staying outside? I personally find it more likely an innkeeper would say "no weapons" than "no basic dogs." How well does your fighter fair without a weapon since we're trying to make sure people don't have parts of their class available?

I generally tend to infer what would and wouldn't be allowed based on real life and vary that based on what would make sense in the campaign setting.

A quick google search couldn't confirm it - but I suspect large dogs were not allowed in the rooms of medieval taverns. Certainly horses (another riding animal) would be stabled but admittedly they are bigger. Do we have a history buff who can confirm whether dogs were allowed to sleep in their master's room in medieval inns? Maybe it never arose because people don't often travel with dogs.

As for weapons, there is plenty of historical precedent for those being allowed in inns, especially in circumstances where the population is well armed (wartime, american frontier etc).

If there were no weapons or animal companions - I suggest the fighter would do better than the others (unless druid that shilleleagh memorised).


I answered this already, but I'll answer it again: a standard riding dog is not only easy to get, but it outpaces fighters decently well into 7th or 8th level.

Yeah, I thought the animal companion powered up at lvl 4, but its actually lvl 3 which changes the balance in the druid's favour somewhat. I still think that a reasonable well built 3rd level fighter would be significantly more powerful than an advanced riding dog.



Your fighter also runs out of hit points as well, with no way to replenish them. You're failing to say how many encounters, versus what, and how long they have to recover.
True, but the figther will have more HP, and likely a high AC (depends - but will probably spend more on armour)

I am thinking of numerous encounters against low CR monstors like kobolds, skeletons, pigs etc.


I get a wand of summon monster on any character ever that can use it, including any that get UMD as a class skill, so yes, I do.

Fair enough


If the fighter can possibly win the encounter in a single attack, so can a cleric. Fighters at this level aren't getting significant amounts of bonus damage from anywhere (maybe +2 from a 2h power attack, but that puts their BAB on par with a cleric). A cleric is also not required to open up with the summon monster, they have the option to do so. The fighter does not have this option.
True, but a fighters would do so more often. Fighters will tend to have a marital weapon, not a simple one, is more likely to have an enhanced weapon (not spending cash on wands), will have higher BA, and will probably have more str on most builds (no requirement for a high wisdom), and is also more likely to have useful feats.


The cleric is aware of the problems of the room before ever entering. This is a significant advantage and reduces the chances of sneak attacks because of the summoned creature getting attacked. This is not nothing, but you seem to want to treat it to be nothing.

Aware because the monkey went in first you mean?

True, if you are sending a monster into each room first it would remove the possibility of your character getting sneak attacked by those few low level monster that have that as a class skill. Not sure how much impact that would have overall though.


There is no way in which a fighter is better in this scenario.
A fighter is better in a scenarion where a cleric sends a celestial monkey into a room then enters afterward, because the fighter is better in combat than a cleric and a celestial monkey combined.


The fighter does not get UMD as a class skill, and therefore you're admitting that he needs spells from the cleric or druid class to get by. This is a point in favor of the cleric and druid, not the fighter.

Yes, that was an admission that the cleric would have the advantage of a CLW wand. I wasn't trying to postulate as an advantage to the fighter. Although I suppose the fighter may buy potions.


I can easily expect to make the 225 gold back from a 15 room dungeon, yes. Not only that, it kept the entire party significantly safer, not just my individual character. It's cheaper to let a single monkey die (15 gold) than to heal 30 hp (75 gold average).

Well the scenariois a 15 room dungeon with no monsters and one trap, so not sure what level of wealth might come out of it. And it wouldn't be a single monkey, it would be 15 monkeys - for 15 rooms with one trap.

But if it is your usualy practice to send a monkey into every room you go into, then fair enough, with that tactic your cleric would outperform the fighter with respect to the trap. My point only stands if most clerics would not do that unless where they had no forewarning that a trap would be in one of the rooms.


Pathfinder sorcerers get cantrips at will, so they do indeed have ranged attacks that do not run out. D&d sorcerers can still themselves shoot crossbows. At level 1, the fighter has 1 Bab higher than the sorcerer and the damage on a crossbow will be the same.

An ogre hits for 2d8+7. A level 1 fighter has d10+con, so probably 16 hp. That means even with pretty low damage rolls, your fighter is likely to die in a single hit. You would need a 22 con modifier to be able to be at 0 after an average damage hit. The fighter effectively is no different in hp than the ogre. The difference is the sorcerer has a chance to shut down the ogre with a single spell. With 29 hp, your fighter using a 2h weapon is going to need a critical hit (and a high damage one at that) to kill the ogre in a single hit. The sorcerer has a better chance of winning here.

I was assuming 3.5 (because i know it better), but we can go to pathfinder if you prefer. This would only mean ranged touch attacks that don't run out if if a ranged attack was selected as a spell know. Remembering that we are no designing our sorcerer for this specific encounter, do you think that ranged touch attacks are a usual selection at lvl 1? I gogoled it and found a thread here which suggested utillity spells (prestigitation, read magic, detect evil, detect magic were the important selections.

As tot he crossbow, it only changes the formula slightly - at an average damage of 4.5 per hit and a 45% hit rate (against the stunned, blinded AC12 ogre) that's 2 damage per rd (2.025). Against 29 hit points, that is 14 rds, plus the rds spent stunning him again (he would need to be stunned 5 times with color spray's average duration of 3.5rds), which comes to 19 rounds for the kill (with crossbow). The elephant in the room here is that a lvl sorcerer can';t cast color spray that many times.

The fighter biggest advantage on attack is his likely str bonus - +4 ( I assumed +4 cha for the sorcerer when setting save DC, so best to be consistent). As this applies to hit and damage (1.5 times if he uses a 2h wpn) it would have a much bigger impace than you give it credit for.

I agree we can assume a HIT by the ogre would kill the fighter on most occasions, but the difference is we can assume that an ATTACK by the ogre kills the sorcerer on most occasions. The difference is not in the hit points, but in the armour class. A lvl sorcerer is likely to have AC close to 10, against the ogre's +8 attack. A lvl fighter's AC may easily be 16 (or 18 with shield), meaning the ogre may only hit half the time or slightly more frequently.

It is extremely likely the ogre would lose to either character.
- Against the sorcerer it wins if get a single attack in - by winning initiative (45%) or by saving against a color spray (30%) or by still being standing when all the sorcerer's stuns have been expended (haven't calculated this - but very likely indeed.
- Against the figher it would get an attack every rounds, and would only need to hit with one (40% - 50%) to win. It would take quite a few unlucky rolls for it to lose.

[LTwerewolf]

Those other classes can do those things at level 10 as well. Wizard? Instead of grappling a single opponent at level 10, he can cast black tentacles and grapple everything in a 20 foot radius, while still being able to do other things. A summon monster spell means you can pick and choose what you summon so the thing you summon can be good at the thing you need. But instead of tripping the opponent, the wizard could dominate them. Now you have not only taken away one opponent, you have added an ally in the same action. With roughly the same chance of success or a fighter trip. The wizard has far more tools to remove opponents from play than the fighter does. Does a wizard want to grapple? Probably not unless they're polymorphing, but they also don't really need to.

Druid? Their animal companion can cover one or two of the options, while the druid can cover the rest with a couple spells, plus still have several other spells left over of things the fighter can't do. Want them immobile? The druid's been able to do that reliably from level one (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/entangle.htm). The difference? Even if they roll their save, they're still partially affected and their movement is reduced. If they roll a success on their grapple check? You wasted your turn, they're next to you, and they get a full round action to turn you into pudding. This is not a favorable situation for you. If you're facing the druid? Your cambat maneuvers have been useless since level seven (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/freedomOfMovement.htm). Now it's a slugfest between you and the druid. All of this is before getting into the various large sized wild shapes they can go into. I need to grapple. I'm a bear. I want to charge. I'm a rhino, or a smilodon, or a dire lion, or a dire tiger, or a fleshraker, or a deinonychus, or any other number of things. Want to get away? Dire hawks, bats, eagles, etc to fly away if they only have land options. You're not winning a versatility or a power war here. Also kelpstrand. Just kelpstrand.

Cleric? First time I'm actually pulling anywhere but from core here, but I feel it's an important one. Heroics. You may gain a fighter bonus feat for 10 minutes/level. All of that versatility you had the cleric also has. The selling point? The cleric only needed to take combat expertise. They can now give themselves improved trip/disarm/feint. Only need power attack for bull rush/overrun/sunder. Let's say you're doing core only. Well your BAB and extra hp mean a whole lot less when the cleric can give themselves your BAB and extra hp off the top with divine power. Can also get a size bonus to those combat maneuvers you find so handy, so not only can the cleric do them as well, they can do them better.

And this is all ignoring the fact that making the opponent dead faster is a superior solution in any situation that they don't need to be kept alive for some reason. Then again, for those reasons these other classes are better as well. Stun them, sleep them, wrap them up. The fighter has to take penalties to hit for nonlethal damage, then still has to do enough damage to knock them out.

[Liquor Box]

Anyone else notice that people are trying to argue that fighter is useful at level 1 but don't seem to be arguing very far beyond that? This is not a point in favor of the fighter.


Of course it is a point in favour of the fighter - it's just not conclusive. If anything level 1 is probably more relevant than lvl 20, because more campaigns start at level 1 than any other lvl, and many probably don't get to far beyond that. I suspect lvl 1 would be the most played level.

Also, I have argue beyond that - some of my examples refer to a level 4 fighter.

[Troacctid]

Clerics with the War domain do the exact same thing as the fighter, except with -1 or -2 to hit (give or take) in exchange for full 9th level spellcasting. You even get the bonus feats, thanks to Ordained Champion. Not to mention Knowledge Devotion and/or Law Devotion, which take your -1 or -2 to hit and turn it into +1 or +2 to hit. And this is all without DMM or even any in-combat buff spells at all, because just your basic chassis is nearly good enough to match the fighter without any special effort at all.

[LTwerewolf]

Of course it is a point in favour of the fighter - it's just not conclusive. If anything level 1 is probably more relevant than lvl 20, because more campaigns start at level 1 than any other lvl, and many probably don't get to far beyond that. I suspect lvl 1 would be the most played level.

Also, I have argue beyond that - some of my examples refer to a level 4 fighter.

Level 4 is not very far beyond level 1. It is reasonable to expect most campaigns to get right around levels 7-10. It;s also reasonable to expect most campaigns will not get much above that. This seems to be the general experience both by myself and a significant portion of the people I've talked to. Even at 4 the fighter struggles to maintain relevance at all (still not being the best). Any argument that a class is only relevant at level 1 loses before it begins.

Also note I have only once brought anything outside of core for the druid, cleric, or wizard, but have no problem with the fighter going outside of core for whatever feats they desire. Not saying core is balanced, but the options are presented right there in the first book.


You keep saying the fighter is better than a druid and its companion, but you never say how. Let's go with a 36 point buy. Higher point buy puts things more in favor of the fighter. I'll even put the fighter stats really heavily towards doing nothing but fighting beatsticks like ogres. Not worrying about int or skills or anything but smacking around an ogre.

Human Fighter level 3, 18 str, 12 dex, 18 con, 8 int/wis/cha. This gives your fighter 28 hp (taking average hp).
Feats
H
1
F1
F2
3

Fill in the rest there, with weapons and armor. 2700 gold to work with. When you do that I'll go with a pretty basic druid. This is intended to be a little learning exercise.

[Liquor Box]

What is this scenario, incidentally? Not, like, what the details are, but what's its deal? Why are these monsters arranging themselves one to a room, one after the other, when any form of traditional tactics would dictate grouping those monsters up somewhat? Are they just contractually obligated to make themselves that way? Because the thing is, the monsters probably get an advantage against caster and fighter alike by just being in the same room as each other, because it provides an action economy advantage, but the caster gets a clear advantage over the fighter relative to the monsters by dint of access to BFC effects and the general ability to engage multiple enemies simultaneously through minions and such. This whole situation seems ludicrously contrived.

Is this for me?

I hadn't thought about it. Your "traditional tactics" assume the monsters would ally with each other, which seems unlikely if they are all different (I did say different random CR1 monsters).

I suppose it could be a single room where a Cr1 or less monster gets summoned every 20rds or so, and you have to hold out till help arrives. It could be a large expensive inn, where you go room to room killing the inhabitants - typically one or two creatures share a room. Or it could be any environment where (a cave complex, a desert, under the water) where the inhabitants avoid each other (to avoid conflict)

It may seem contrived (it is, I contrived it), but the point is numerous very easy fights. The point is that the fighter can swing all day (better than the druid or cleric) - and this would give it an advantage in some scenarios (it was originally said the cleric and druid are better in any situation). Admittedly, the animal companion makes the druid much closer - although in games I play realistic limitations are imposed on when animal companions will be available - (eg, not in a hotel room, nor even in a city if a bear or other dangerous animal) - I think this also fits in with druid fluff (natural settings, not built up settings).

[Liquor Box]

Level 4 is not very far beyond level 1. It is reasonable to expect most campaigns to get right around levels 7-10. It;s also reasonable to expect most campaigns will not get much above that. This seems to be the general experience both by myself and a significant portion of the people I've talked to. Even at 4 the fighter struggles to maintain relevance at all (still not being the best). Any argument that a class is only relevant at level 1 loses before it begins.

Also note I have only once brought anything outside of core for the druid, cleric, or wizard, but have no problem with the fighter going outside of core for whatever feats they desire. Not saying core is balanced, but the options are presented right there in the first book.

You keep saying the fighter is better than a druid and its companion, but you never say how

A few points:
1. I never said the fighter was better, I only said it was better in some scenarios - particularly those which are unexpected so don;t allow the druid to prepare specific spells, or those when the animal companion (in my view) would usually be denied to him.
2. If most campaigns go to level 7-10, then levels 1-4 is basically half the campaign.
3. I did not talk about only being a beatstick
4. I don't think I have gone outside core even once in my discussions.


. Let's go with a 36 point buy. Higher point buy puts things more in favor of the fighter. I'll even put the fighter stats really heavily towards doing nothing but fighting beatsticks like ogres. Not worrying about int or skills or anything but smacking around an ogre.

Human Fighter level 3, 18 str, 12 dex, 18 con, 8 int/wis/cha.
Feats
H
1
F1
F2
3

Fill in the rest there, with weapons and armor. 2700 gold to work with. When you do that I'll go with a pretty basic druid.

As to your challenge, what are we trying to make the characters do? Fight each other? Does the druid come with his self buffs already cast, and his animal companion in tow, or unbuffed? Do we assume average rolls for hp every level (so 13 from dice for druid 16 for fighter)? Such contests are somewhat contrived if the characters are designed explicitly to fight each other, rather to face the ordinary challenges of adventuring parties.

However, if you want to set down exactly what the challenge is, I may participate (or I may admit the druid wins on those rules, if they involve choosing specific spells in advance for this challenge and self buffing in advance).

[LTwerewolf]

As to your challenge, what are we trying to make the characters do? Fight each other? Does the druid come with his self buffs already cast, and his animal companion in tow, or unbuffed? Do we assume average rolls for hp every level (so 13 from dice for druid 16 for fighter)? Such contests are somewhat contrived if the characters are designed explicitly to fight each other, rather to face the ordinary challenges of adventuring parties.

However, if you want to set down exactly what the challenge is, I may participate (or I may admit the druid wins on those rules, if they involve choosing specific spells in advance for this challenge and self buffing in advance).

I wasn't intending them to fight each other (the fighter would stand no chance at all). I was thinking a same game test. In fact if I set up a same game test would anyone be willing to put together a druid for it so there's no bias?

[eggynack]

Is this for me?
Quite. I'd finished the post awhile before I actually posted it, cause I forgot, and at the time it fit in with the surrounding conversation more naturally. There was also an undirected element of it, because the scenario had entered more general discussion.


I hadn't thought about it. Your "traditional tactics" assume the monsters would ally with each other, which seems unlikely if they are all different (I did say different random CR1 monsters).
Well, you're fighting them one right after the other. It seems weird that 20 completely unaffiliated enemies would attack you one after the other.


I suppose it could be a single room where a Cr1 or less monster gets summoned every 20rds or so, and you have to hold out till help arrives.
Why are they being summoned 20 rounds apart? That just seems dumb. There's not much in the way of limits where summoning timing is concerned.


It could be a large expensive inn, where you go room to room killing the inhabitants - typically one or two creatures share a room.
Why are you killing completely unrelated inn-folk? Are you just in it for the killing or something? Is it something against the inn? This doesn't really make sense.


Or it could be any environment where (a cave complex, a desert, under the water) where the inhabitants avoid each other (to avoid conflict)
So they all avoid each other, to avoid conflict, and none of them avoid you, the one that's constantly killing them. That just seems weird.


It may seem contrived (it is, I contrived it), but the point is numerous very easy fights.
I understand the point. I just don't think the point is reflective of any realistic situation. And if the situation can't happen, then it's not relevant. Sure, some unaffiliated monsters make some sense. Maybe you fight a monster, arbitrarily, and then you fight a second monster, arbitrarily, and then a third, and that makes sense, but twenty or thirty in a row strains the bounds of a realistic scenario. It's also kinda boring, from a meta-perspective, but that's possibly besides the point. The thing is, you need these really really high numbers to give the fighter any kind of plausible advantage, and those really high numbers just don't make much sense. It's as if fighters have an ability that deals a decent amount of damage to laser giants that are wearing toupees and which can only use swords on the first Tuesday each month for dietary reasons. The fighter's advantage in that scenario is pointless because the scenario does not exist in any meaningful sense.

Edit: We actually did a same game test of fighters versus druids at level eight or so awhile back. Things started around here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?333460-In-defense-of-the-Fighter/page27), more or less. Didn't reach much of a conclusion, but it's notable that the druid I designed had summons which individually exceeded the optimized fighter in just about every way possible, up to and including battlefield control ability. And that was two years ago, so it'd probably have some cooler things now.

[ryu]

On the point of sundering spell component pouches did you all know that they cost literally 1GP, are hilariously light, and can be worn in vast numbers without conflict of any sort due to not being magic items themselves? Sunder as many spell component pouches as you please. They're all wasted actions. Thats if you get close enough to get even one to begin with by the way. Are you starting to see why this fight is so one sided? Every tactic that's supposed to be wizard kryptonite has anywhere from one simple universally available and cheap counter to dozens of still pretty cheap counters any one of which you may well have without even having considered its value in countering fighters.

[LTwerewolf]

I generally tend to infer what would and wouldn't be allowed based on real life and vary that based on what would make sense in the campaign setting.

A quick google search couldn't confirm it - but I suspect large dogs were not allowed in the rooms of medieval taverns. Certainly horses (another riding animal) would be stabled but admittedly they are bigger. Do we have a history buff who can confirm whether dogs were allowed to sleep in their master's room in medieval inns? Maybe it never arose because people don't often travel with dogs.

As for weapons, there is plenty of historical precedent for those being allowed in inns, especially in circumstances where the population is well armed (wartime, american frontier etc).

If there were no weapons or animal companions - I suggest the fighter would do better than the others (unless druid that shilleleagh memorised).





Didn't see this part. Weapons were not in fact allowed around most towns in the medieval era. It was a very big deal. Dogs however, were allowed most places except for the higher establishments. If we're talking level one, you're not paying for the highest of establishments. The druid has their dog. The fighter now has no weapon.

To the mayor and sheriffs of London. Order to cause proclamation to be made, forbidding any man of whatsoever estate or condition to make unlawful assemblies in the city or suburbs of London, to go armed, girt with a sword or arrayed with unwonted harness, carry with him such arms, swords or harness, or do aught whereby the peace may be broken or the statutes concerning the bearing of arms contrary to the peace, or any of the people be disturbed or put in fear, under pain of losing his arms etc. and of imprisonment at the king's will, except lords, great men, knights and esquires of good estate, other men upon entering or leaving the city, and the king's officers and ministers appointed to keep the peace; and order after such proclamation to arrest all whom they shall find acting contrary to the same with the exceptions aforesaid, their followers, the arms, swords etc. found with them, and to keep them in custody in prison until further order, causing their arms etc. to be appraised and answer to be made to the king for them, and certifying in chancery from time to time the names of those arrested and the price and value of their arms etc. and so behaving that henceforward no more mischief be there done by their default; as it has now newly come to the king's ears that there are evildoers and breakers of the peace, some armed, some girt about the midst with swords, and some arrayed as aforesaid, who lurk in divers places within the city and suburbs and run to and fro committing batteries, mayhems, robberies, manslaughters etc., and hindering and disturbing the ministers and officers of the city from the exercise of their offices, in contempt of the king and breach of the peace, to the disturbance and terror of the people and contrary to the said statutes, which the king will not and ought not to endure.

[Nightcanon]

Thats about the only thing I agree with. Barbarians are better fighters.

Fighters are feat machines . There are thousands of feats out there and hundreds of those feats are overpowered and broken just waiting for a cunning player .

I like both Fighters and Wizards . Both are fun to play neither are useless . I cannot imagine a game where fighters are labled "not the best at anything" . I will not question the fighter but that game itself .

This is the key thing, though. Of course a fighter is valuable and can do stuff if we are talking about an abstract concept in fantasy, rather than within the confines of the game. But if we are talking about 3rd edition D&D, then other classes are manifestly better at anything that is important. That's not to say that they should be, or that this is what was intended, but it is the case. Fighters get more feats than anyone else- one every other level. On the other hand, Rogues get an extra d6 of sneak attack, and casters get a whole raft of new and more powerful spells with exactly the same frequency. Are fighters bad? That becomes a question of semantics when other classes are clearly better.

[Jon_Dahl]

No matter how much I try, I have never understood something:
Fighter is all about fighter feats. These feats get better and better until 12th level. That's the end. Then you get epic fighter feats at 21st. What happened to 13th to 20st level fighter feats that outshine their 1st-12th level counterparts? If we simply had lots of cool stuff there, I think we could complain a little less. Maybe.

[Liquor Box]

I wasn't intending them to fight each other (the fighter would stand no chance at all). I was thinking a same game test. In fact if I set up a same game test would anyone be willing to put together a druid for it so there's no bias?

Of course the fighter would stand a chance 1 v 1. It can probably one hit kill the druid (unless you set the druid up as a HP monster specifically for the challenge) all it would need is initiative.

As for the test, again, how would it work (apologies if this is widelyknown). Would the druid have a chance to re-spell depending on who it was fighting? Would it come in already buffed?

[Gale]

Didn't see this part. Weapons were not in fact allowed around most towns in the medieval era. It was a very big deal. Dogs however, were allowed most places except for the higher establishments. If we're talking level one, you're not paying for the highest of establishments. The druid has their dog. The fighter now has no weapon.

Historical accuracy aside, even if an inn had a rule barring animals from entering the establishment it would still be fairly trivial of the party to circumvent this through entirely mundane means. A dog, even a big one, isn't a monster; and an innkeeper has little incentive to strictly forbid it, especially if the druid can demonstrate that it's well-trained and won't create a mess, i.e. handle animal. Any party member with a fair amount of Diplomacy and possible a few gold pieces could easily convince an innkeeper to allow the dog to sleep in the room.

[Liquor Box]

Quite. I'd finished the post awhile before I actually posted it, cause I forgot, and at the time it fit in with the surrounding conversation more naturally. There was also an undirected element of it, because the scenario had entered more general discussion.


Well, you're fighting them one right after the other. It seems weird that 20 completely unaffiliated enemies would attack you one after the other.

Why are they being summoned 20 rounds apart? That just seems dumb. There's not much in the way of limits where summoning timing is concerned.

Why are you killing completely unrelated inn-folk? Are you just in it for the killing or something? Is it something against the inn? This doesn't really make sense.

So they all avoid each other, to avoid conflict, and none of them avoid you, the one that's constantly killing them. That just seems weird.

I understand the point. I just don't think the point is reflective of any realistic situation. And if the situation can't happen, then it's not relevant. Sure, some unaffiliated monsters make some sense. Maybe you fight a monster, arbitrarily, and then you fight a second monster, arbitrarily, and then a third, and that makes sense, but twenty or thirty in a row strains the bounds of a realistic scenario. It's also kinda boring, from a meta-perspective, but that's possibly besides the point. The thing is, you need these really really high numbers to give the fighter any kind of plausible advantage, and those really high numbers just don't make much sense. It's as if fighters have an ability that deals a decent amount of damage to laser giants that are wearing toupees and which can only use swords on the first Tuesday each month for dietary reasons. The fighter's advantage in that scenario is pointless because the scenario does not exist in any meaningful sense.

Edit: We actually did a same game test of fighters versus druids at level eight or so awhile back. Things started around here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?333460-In-defense-of-the-Fighter/page27), more or less. Didn't reach much of a conclusion, but it's notable that the druid I designed had summons which individually exceeded the optimized fighter in just about every way possible, up to and including battlefield control ability. And that was two years ago, so it'd probably have some cooler things now.

Sure, it might be boring. I am not writing a story. But I don;t htink it is any less realistic than several scenarios I read about on this forum. I could flesh some stories out around them:
1. The summoning machine has a 20rd cooldown, or there is max summoned creatures at a time of 1 (favours the fighter as not casting between combats) - double the 20, half the 20 doesn;t make much difference. If anything a CR1 creature/rd would favour the fighter, because would be better able to dispatch a creature per round.
2. Murderhobos
3. The try to avoid each other to avoid conflict. perhaps they come accross each other from time to time and fight. I don;t see how encountering solitary creatures every now and then is unrealistic in any setting where solitary creatures exist.

The greater the numbers the bigger the advantage - a one off battle favours the druid because it can use all its spells. Two battles in a row faovurs the druid les because it has to ration its spells - or perhaps it has none because it blew them all on the previous battle (depends if it knows there will be lots of battles in advance.

[eggynack]

Sure, it might be boring. I am not writing a story. But I don;t htink it is any less realistic than several scenarios I read about on this forum.
Seems a decent amount more unrealistic, to be honest. Or, more accurately, it's unrealistic in a way that takes it further from reality than other unrealistic scenarios. For example, setting an encounter on a white featureless plane might take you pretty far away from anything even slightly plausible, but the only meaningful mechanical difference is the various terrain features. Here, you're a bit more realistic but a lot more different from reality.

1. The summoning machine has a 20rd cooldown, or there is max summoned creatures at a time of 1 (favours the fighter as not casting between combats) - double the 20, half the 20 doesn;t make much difference. If anything a CR1 creature/rd would favour the fighter, because would be better able to dispatch a creature per round.
Are either of those a thing? You could invent one, certainly, but is it any kind of mechanical object? And, while the fighter can dispatch enemies rapidly, the companion can as well, and the caster is better at dealing with immediate failure.


2. Murderhobos
That's just weird. So none of these arbitrary victims are running away, clumping together such that they're harder to kill? No one is alerting the guard, forcing a confrontation with a group of somewhat more difficult foes? I'm not sure this situation even gives the fighter an advantage, either. You're killing these beings of your own arbitrary volition, yeah? So there's no ticking clock, no important underlying motivation, nothing but the kill. Which means that you don't have to take the direct stabby approach anymore. Now you can screw with the terrain, plan out spells particularly for hotel murder, time out buffs to get as many targets as possible, know exactly how many spells to use. Casters don't strictly need to prepare to be awesome, but preparation makes casters even more awesome than they usually are.


3. The try to avoid each other to avoid conflict. perhaps they come accross each other from time to time and fight. I don;t see how encountering solitary creatures every now and then is unrealistic in any setting where solitary creatures exist.
Encountering solitary creatures from time to time is completely realistic. Encountering 20 sequentially is unrealistic. That's just a crazy density for the creatures in question to be solitary. What, does every creature in the area have their own weird zone?



The greater the numbers the bigger the advantage - a one off battle favours the druid because it can use all its spells. Two battles in a row faovurs the druid les because it has to ration its spells - or perhaps it has none because it blew them all on the previous battle (depends if it knows there will be lots of battles in advance.
That's not all there is to it. The druid also has effects that hit multiple enemies. But just because the situation has advantage for the fighter doesn't mean that it's an actual situation, and it doesn't mean the fighter is actually better in the situation. And, the more advantage the fighter has, the less likely the situation is to actually exist, meaning that the theoretical situation where the fighter might manage to succeed might be past the inflection point of ridiculousness.

[LTwerewolf]

Of course the fighter would stand a chance 1 v 1. It can probably one hit kill the druid (unless you set the druid up as a HP monster specifically for the challenge) all it would need is initiative.

As for the test, again, how would it work (apologies if this is widelyknown). Would the druid have a chance to re-spell depending on who it was fighting? Would it come in already buffed?

A fighter isn't going to be one shotting a level 3 druid, especially if it has an animal companion to deal with as well. You seem to be forgetting that druids are only getting an average of 1 hp less per level than a fighter is. That's 3 hp fewer. Unless you're trying to do nothing but deal damage it's not gonna happen. Even if you are it's not guaranteed. With 18 str and a greatsword you're dealing ~11 damage. With a full power attack (reducing your accuracy by 3) you would do 17, maybe 23 if you take more feats specifically to boost damage (but this also means you're not doing anything else and ruining any argument of versatility).

The Same Game Test, or SGT, is a balance guideline used to gauge the level of power a character class or option brings to the table. It is a series of challenges and how the given character would deal with said challenges. These challenges run the gamut from single opponent, multiple opponent, traps, and more.

[Troacctid]

The fighter has +1 to hit and +2 HP. The druid has a whole second character, doubling their actions every turn. Why are we even discussing this? It's not remotely close to being close.

[ryu]

The fighter has +1 to hit and +2 HP. The druid has a whole second character, doubling their actions every turn. Why are we even discussing this? It's not remotely close to being close.

And spells. Also more skills if they're relevant for any reason. That and casting feats tend to be stronger than melee feats.

[eggynack]

The fighter has +1 to hit and +2 HP. The druid has a whole second character, doubling their actions every turn. Why are we even discussing this? It's not remotely close to being close.
Oh, yeah, I arbitrarily forgot about half-orc stuff. A druid can totally exceed a fighter's HP at first. Like, exceed as in have the companion and druid each have more HP. Fighter can make up the difference with the druid, but at that point the fighter is playing keep up instead of actually getting ahead.

That and casting feats tend to be stronger than melee feats.
True enough. We haven't even gone into all that crazy stuff, like greenbound at the high end, or ashbound somewhat further down. Or both, if you go human. The tragic truth to fighters is that they don't even have a feat advantage in these comparisons, as much as it may seem like they do, just because a druid feat can be worth so many times more than a fighter feat.

[Liquor Box]

Didn't see this part. Weapons were not in fact allowed around most towns in the medieval era. It was a very big deal. Dogs however, were allowed most places except for the higher establishments. If we're talking level one, you're not paying for the highest of establishments. The druid has their dog. The fighter now has no weapon.

To the mayor and sheriffs of London. Order to cause proclamation to be made, forbidding any man of whatsoever estate or condition to make unlawful assemblies in the city or suburbs of London, to go armed, girt with a sword or arrayed with unwonted harness, carry with him such arms, swords or harness, or do aught whereby the peace may be broken or the statutes concerning the bearing of arms contrary to the peace, or any of the people be disturbed or put in fear, under pain of losing his arms etc. and of imprisonment at the king's will, except lords, great men, knights and esquires of good estate, other men upon entering or leaving the city, and the king's officers and ministers appointed to keep the peace; and order after such proclamation to arrest all whom they shall find acting contrary to the same with the exceptions aforesaid, their followers, the arms, swords etc. found with them, and to keep them in custody in prison until further order, causing their arms etc. to be appraised and answer to be made to the king for them, and certifying in chancery from time to time the names of those arrested and the price and value of their arms etc. and so behaving that henceforward no more mischief be there done by their default; as it has now newly come to the king's ears that there are evildoers and breakers of the peace, some armed, some girt about the midst with swords, and some arrayed as aforesaid, who lurk in divers places within the city and suburbs and run to and fro committing batteries, mayhems, robberies, manslaughters etc., and hindering and disturbing the ministers and officers of the city from the exercise of their offices, in contempt of the king and breach of the peace, to the disturbance and terror of the people and contrary to the said statutes, which the king will not and ought not to endure.

Well that says there are no weapons allowed in the city, which I think did happen in quite a few cities. But unless you apply that to cities in DnD (not usually the case in my experience) it wouldn't apply to the inns either. In my post I specified that armed cultures (such as the American frontier, but also Australia and New Zealand when being settled) allowed wepoans in inns. A lot of people were hunters.

As for animals, I would be interested to see your source that dogs were allowed in inn rooms.

[Liquor Box]

Seems a decent amount more unrealistic, to be honest. Or, more accurately, it's unrealistic in a way that takes it further from reality than other unrealistic scenarios. For example, setting an encounter on a white featureless plane might take you pretty far away from anything even slightly plausible, but the only meaningful mechanical difference is the various terrain features. Here, you're a bit more realistic but a lot more different from reality.

Are either of those a thing? You could invent one, certainly, but is it any kind of mechanical object? And, while the fighter can dispatch enemies rapidly, the companion can as well, and the caster is better at dealing with immediate failure.


That's just weird. So none of these arbitrary victims are running away, clumping together such that they're harder to kill? No one is alerting the guard, forcing a confrontation with a group of somewhat more difficult foes? I'm not sure this situation even gives the fighter an advantage, either. You're killing these beings of your own arbitrary volition, yeah? So there's no ticking clock, no important underlying motivation, nothing but the kill. Which means that you don't have to take the direct stabby approach anymore. Now you can screw with the terrain, plan out spells particularly for hotel murder, time out buffs to get as many targets as possible, know exactly how many spells to use. Casters don't strictly need to prepare to be awesome, but preparation makes casters even more awesome than they usually are.

Encountering solitary creatures from time to time is completely realistic. Encountering 20 sequentially is unrealistic. That's just a crazy density for the creatures in question to be solitary. What, does every creature in the area have their own weird zone?


That's not all there is to it. The druid also has effects that hit multiple enemies. But just because the situation has advantage for the fighter doesn't mean that it's an actual situation, and it doesn't mean the fighter is actually better in the situation. And, the more advantage the fighter has, the less likely the situation is to actually exist, meaning that the theoretical situation where the fighter might manage to succeed might be past the inflection point of ridiculousness.

Something pretty similar to the summoning machine existed in a DnD (2ed) computer game, the main differnece being that you could smash the machine (also it produced higher level monsters of a unifrom type), so in the mind of the writers it was plausible - I don;t think they were trying to advantage particular character classes.

I don't see why encountering 20 solitary weak creatures is at all unrealistic. In the real world for example white tail female deer are solitary (unless with fawns). They each have a territory of about a square kilometer (about 15 minutes walk from one to the next), and a person hunting in a place inhabited by such deer (or even passing through) may well encounter 20 in a row without encountering any other large animals. The only differnece between my scenario and the deer is that I am postulating a range of different types of monsters (but that is only to avoid either class havng mechnical advantages or disadvantages against the enemy type, like clerics and undead). You want a motivation? Maybe the locals are paying a bounty so the area is cleared of monsters.

As for the advantages you mention for druids - perhaps. In my discussion with Eldariel I already granted that druids may be able to match fighters in this sceanrio once I realised their animal companions gain HD at lvl 3 not lvl 4 (which I had earlier thought).

[Liquor Box]

A fighter isn't going to be one shotting a level 3 druid, especially if it has an animal companion to deal with as well. You seem to be forgetting that druids are only getting an average of 1 hp less per level than a fighter is. That's 3 hp fewer. Unless you're trying to do nothing but deal damage it's not gonna happen. Even if you are it's not guaranteed. With 18 str and a greatsword you're dealing ~11 damage. With a full power attack (reducing your accuracy by 3) you would do 17, maybe 23 if you take more feats specifically to boost damage (but this also means you're not doing anything else and ruining any argument of versatility).

The Same Game Test, or SGT, is a balance guideline used to gauge the level of power a character class or option brings to the table. It is a series of challenges and how the given character would deal with said challenges. These challenges run the gamut from single opponent, multiple opponent, traps, and more.

Well it depends on your set-up of course. But there's no reason why a fighter can't one-shot a druid if it gains initiative. An animal companion wont be able to prevent its masters death unless it gains initiative and can block the fighter from hitting the druid.

With 18 strength and a greatsword one averages 13 damage (you forgot to mulitply the str by 1.5), but deals 8 to 18 damage without power attack. An average lvl 3 druids HP is 13 (plus consitution modifier), so unless you specifically set your druid up to have lots of HP, he can be one-shotted by a basic fighter (no magic weapons, power attack dmg enhancing feats). You could set your druid up as having more HP, but you could also set your fighter up to do more damage.

Yes, I know the basics of the same game challenge - my question was whether the druid would be able to pre-buff for it, or choose different spells depending on which challenge it was facing?

[LTwerewolf]

Well that says there are no weapons allowed in the city, which I think did happen in quite a few cities. But unless you apply that to cities in DnD (not usually the case in my experience) it wouldn't apply to the inns either. In my post I specified that armed cultures (such as the American frontier, but also Australia and New Zealand when being settled) allowed wepoans in inns. A lot of people were hunters.

As for animals, I would be interested to see your source that dogs were allowed in inn rooms.

So we're leaving medieval fantasy and going to western USA frontier and settler australia and new zealand? Sorry to say but because of the high homicide rate, weapons were banned in most bars and inns there too starting rather early. The few that did allow weapons also allowed the other very important hunting tool: the dog. Hunting dogs had been a staple for a long time.

As far as medieval fantasy goes (the thing d&d is based on), england was not the only place to do that. Most of the western european countries, as well as most of the eastern countries had a very similar law. It was but one of many.


You could set your druid up as having more HP
Con being one of the only two stats a druid really needs, yes, they're going to have more hp than that by a good bit. I'm assuming an 18 con, giving it an extra 12 hp. Or are we assuming that only fighters are allowed to have high con scores now? You need to help me keep up with all these new rules since they're not in the game.


my question was whether the druid would be able to pre-buff for it, or choose different spells depending on which challenge it was facing?
Depends on the challenge, and no.

[Liquor Box]

So we're leaving medieval fantasy and going to western USA frontier and settler australia and new zealand? Sorry to say but because of the high homicide rate, weapons were banned in most bars and inns there too starting rather early. The few that did allow weapons also allowed the other very important hunting tool: the dog. Hunting dogs had been a staple for a long time.

As far as medieval fantasy goes (the thing d&d is based on), england was not the only place to do that. Most of the western european countries, as well as most of the eastern countries had a very similar law. It was but one of many.

I ask again, have you a source for dogs being allowed in inns and taverns in these places, or for most frontier inns not allowing weapons?

For weapons being allowed in those locations, wikipedia has a list of famous gunfights, and several took place in inns or taverns. Here's one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Branch_Saloon_gunfight. As to the relevance, the point is that these cultures where bearing weapons was common, like most DnD settings - and unlike medieval england.

[Liquor Box]

The fighter has +1 to hit and +2 HP. The druid has a whole second character, doubling their actions every turn. Why are we even discussing this? It's not remotely close to being close.

Don't be silly. At level 3 a fighter has +3hp, martial weapon proficiency, +1 BA, probably more str (doesn't have to spend on wisdom), probably better amrour and weapons (doesn;t spend on wands etc), more feats and probably more combat relevant feats.

As pointed out, either character can essentially win the fight if it gets initiative (the fighter with a one shot kill, the druid with a save or suck spell). The druid may be able to do it slightly more frequently, but it is remotely close to being close.

[Liquor Box]

Con being one of the only two stats a druid really needs, yes, they're going to have more hp than that by a good bit. I'm assuming an 18 con, giving it an extra 12 hp. Or are we assuming that only fighters are allowed to have high con scores now? You need to help me keep up with all these new rules since they're not in the game.

What new rules? I haven;t made any. Unless you mean the rule that we actually apply the bonus for wielding a weapon in two hands:smallwink:

Sure, I already said, if you want to prepare your druid specifically for this fight and make it a HP monster the contest changes. Not all druids have high constitution because so many fight in wild form (at higher levels) and use the animals con modifier for fort saves meaning the stat only has half the aplicability it has to normal classes, and at the same time they have a deccent skill list including charisma based skills.

But if you want to engineer yoru druid for the particular battle, the fighter can as easily be engineered to do higher damage. As you say in your previous post, they both lose versatility. But that's the difference between building a character for a specific battle of having a reasonable standard model.


Depends on the challenge, and no.

Could be interesting then. I'd back the druid myself.

[LTwerewolf]

I ask again, have you a source for dogs being allowed in inns and taverns in these places, or for most frontier inns not allowing weapons?

For weapons being allowed in those locations, wikipedia has a list of famous gunfights, and several took place in inns or taverns. Here's one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Branch_Saloon_gunfight. As to the relevance, the point is that these cultures where bearing weapons was common, like most DnD settings - and unlike medieval england.

Yes, the united states had a lot of gunfights. It's no secret the united states has had the worst gun laws in the world since the beginning. I also said nothing of the united states not allowing it. I said australia and new zealand didn't. The united states is also not what d&d is based on. Bearing weapons is common in your setting, whichever wild west setting that might be. If you're basing your setting off of medieval europe however things would be different. It's common in d&d for adventurers and those in the tippyverse to be armed to the teeth all day every day. This does not mean your average joes are going to be doing this. Since you clearly have a world that only fighters are allowed to fight and have to be the best and everything is set up so it's convenient for them and no one else is allowed to have nice things, I'm sure in your setting fighters are ok. I don't see much more point in continuing this though. You just don't seem to see what pretty much everyone here is saying in an overwhelming fashion.

[Pugwampy]

If the guy in a dress and 5 hp can get away with anything , its because the DM is inexperienced . No point in patting yourself on the back , DM either allows it or he does not know or his style is tactically beneficial for spellers.

There is an answer to any problem on the battlefield and it works both ways .
When ol merlin bleets for a rest , that would a nice time bring out a surprise fight . Really not much of a threat with empty spell slots .

There is only one Over Powered entity and thats the almighty prophet of the dice gods .
If DM,s environment favours a certain class then .... awesome ?

My game style favours fighter types . 4 - 6 lil wizard players in my game would be bad comedy .

<WHAT IS DEAD "DM" CAN NEVER DIE !!! >

[eggynack]

Something pretty similar to the summoning machine existed in a DnD (2ed) computer game, the main differnece being that you could smash the machine (also it produced higher level monsters of a unifrom type), so in the mind of the writers it was plausible - I don;t think they were trying to advantage particular character classes.
That's interesting, but it doesn't really mean that much in this system. Advantages from out of system aren't especially interesting because they're so arbitrary. One might as well claim some magic item with the specific power to ward out animal companions.



I don't see why encountering 20 solitary weak creatures is at all unrealistic. In the real world for example white tail female deer are solitary (unless with fawns). They each have a territory of about a square kilometer (about 15 minutes walk from one to the next), and a person hunting in a place inhabited by such deer (or even passing through) may well encounter 20 in a row without encountering any other large animals. The only differnece between my scenario and the deer is that I am postulating a range of different types of monsters (but that is only to avoid either class havng mechnical advantages or disadvantages against the enemy type, like clerics and undead). You want a motivation? Maybe the locals are paying a bounty so the area is cleared of monsters.
Well, the creatures don't just need to be solitary. They also need to be aggressive. Prey animals make more sense solitary than predators.

Don't be silly. At level 3 a fighter has +3hp, martial weapon proficiency, +1 BA, probably more str (doesn't have to spend on wisdom), probably better amrour and weapons (doesn;t spend on wands etc), more feats and probably more combat relevant feats.

As pointed out, either character can essentially win the fight if it gets initiative (the fighter with a one shot kill, the druid with a save or suck spell). The druid may be able to do it slightly more frequently, but it is remotely close to being close.
I think she was talking about the animal companion, rather than the druid, in terms of those stats. Anyway, it doesn't matter if the fighter can win the fight (not least of which because a direct arena fight is mostly irrelevant). What matters is the percentage odds on that fight, and other fights. If the druid always, or almost always, has better odds of victory, then the fighter is just worse. And the druid does likely have those odds.


Sure, I already said, if you want to prepare your druid specifically for this fight and make it a HP monster the contest changes. Not all druids have high constitution because so many fight in wild form (at higher levels) and use the animals con modifier, and at the same time they have a deccent skill list including charisma based skills.

Wild shape doesn't use the animal's constitution modifier for HP, so it's very much a secondary stat. I'd put it more at 14 than 18, but it's not like 18 is ridiculous. That half-orc druid I mentioned would likely have a base constitution of 18 and a d10 at level one, and also toughness for the animal companion. But, y'know, 14 at base, depending on various factors.

[Troacctid]

Well it depends on your set-up of course. But there's no reason why a fighter can't one-shot a druid if it gains initiative. An animal companion wont be able to prevent its masters death unless it gains initiative and can block the fighter from hitting the druid.

With 18 strength and a greatsword one averages 13 damage (you forgot to mulitply the str by 1.5), but deals 8 to 18 damage without power attack. An average lvl 3 druids HP is 13 (plus consitution modifier), so unless you specifically set your druid up to have lots of HP, he can be one-shotted by a basic fighter (no magic weapons, power attack dmg enhancing feats). You could set your druid up as having more HP, but you could also set your fighter up to do more damage.

Yes, I know the basics of the same game challenge - my question was whether the druid would be able to pre-buff for it, or choose different spells depending on which challenge it was facing?

Okay. With 18 Strength, no animal companion, no feats, and no weapon at all, a druid with the shapeshift variant (that's right, the same one that's a huge nerf) is doing an average of 12.5 damage with her natural bite attack, and at a higher to-hit bonus than the fighter. While also having spells, more skill points, and other class features.


Don't be silly. At level 3 a fighter has +3hp, martial weapon proficiency, +1 BA, probably more str (doesn't have to spend on wisdom), probably better amrour and weapons (doesn;t spend on wands etc), more feats and probably more combat relevant feats.
Oh, +3 HP, not +2, I'm so sorry, that changes the entire calculation in favor of the fighter! :smalltongue:

[ryu]

Oh, yeah, I arbitrarily forgot about half-orc stuff. A druid can totally exceed a fighter's HP at first. Like, exceed as in have the companion and druid each have more HP. Fighter can make up the difference with the druid, but at that point the fighter is playing keep up instead of actually getting ahead.

True enough. We haven't even gone into all that crazy stuff, like greenbound at the high end, or ashbound somewhat further down. Or both, if you go human. The tragic truth to fighters is that they don't even have a feat advantage in these comparisons, as much as it may seem like they do, just because a druid feat can be worth so many times more than a fighter feat.

And animal companion feats.... and wildshape feats.... Do I even need to get into giving your celestial whatever companion vow of poverty for most all the benefit while still getting to use items yourself? This is a ''contest'' that starts blatantly unfair and only gets progressively more unfair as levels happen.

[Liquor Box]

Yes, the united states had a lot of gunfights. It's no secret the united states has had the worst gun laws in the world since the beginning. I also said nothing of the united states not allowing it. I said australia and new zealand didn't. The united states is also not what d&d is based on. Bearing weapons is common in your setting, whichever wild west setting that might be. If you're basing your setting off of medieval europe however things would be different. It's common in d&d for adventurers and those in the tippyverse to be armed to the teeth all day every day. This does not mean your average joes are going to be doing this. .

Well, what you actually said was this: "So we're leaving medieval fantasy and going to western USA frontier and settler australia and new zealand? Sorry to say but because of the high homicide rate, weapons were banned in most bars and inns there too starting rather early.". But ok, lets assume you just meant Aus and NZ.

In Australia serious restrictions on guns were not put in place until the 1920s. Prior to that it was common for nearly every family to own a gun. Australia, if anything, was more renowned for outlaws than early USA. Remember that Australia was originally a penal colony - the majority of its early white inhabitants were criminal sentenced to work there. The wikipedia page on the topic has this information.

New Zealand probalby had less of a gun history that Australia, but they were still commonplace. There was several conflicts with Maori, including the Maori land wars. Guns may not have been commonly opnely worn in large cities, but certainly were in small towns.

As for the relevance of these settings you said it yoruself - it is common in DnD for people to be armed to the teeth - like in froniter USA, but unlike in some parts of medieval europe. Do you actually ban weapons in cities in your games?

And for the fourth time - do you have any source for your proposition that dogs were often allowed in inns or taverns?


Since you clearly have a world that only fighters are allowed to fight and have to be the best and everything is set up so it's convenient for them and no one else is allowed to have nice things, I'm sure in your setting fighters are ok. I don't see much more point in continuing this though. You just don't seem to see what pretty much everyone here is saying in an overwhelming fashion

Oh dear. This is a pretty bad strawman. Did I say any of this? I don;t think so.

[Liquor Box]

That's interesting, but it doesn't really mean that much in this system. Advantages from out of system aren't especially interesting because they're so arbitrary. One might as well claim some magic item with the specific power to ward out animal companions.


Well, the creatures don't just need to be solitary. They also need to be aggressive. Prey animals make more sense solitary than predators.

To be honest mate, I don't think we can take this aspect of the conversation much further. The made the scenarios to answer the proposition that there was no scenario where a cleric or a druid wouldn't be better than a fighter. I was not suggesting that a fighter is better than those classes generally (even at low level).


I think she was talking about the animal companion, rather than the druid, in terms of those stats. Anyway, it doesn't matter if the fighter can win the fight (not least of which because a direct arena fight is mostly irrelevant). What matters is the percentage odds on that fight, and other fights. If the druid always, or almost always, has better odds of victory, then the fighter is just worse. And the druid does likely have those odds.

That makes more sense in terms of the animal companion.

As to the fight, I wans;t suggesting the fighter would usually win. Again I was only answeringthe proposition that was put to me, which was this "the fighter would stand no chance at all". That proposition is clearly and demonstrably wrong.


Wild shape doesn't use the animal's constitution modifier for HP, so it's very much a secondary stat. I'd put it more at 14 than 18, but it's not like 18 is ridiculous. That half-orc druid I mentioned would likely have a base constitution of 18 and a d10 at level one, and also toughness for the animal companion. But, y'know, 14 at base, depending on various factors.

I know that, but the lack of applicability to fort saves makes it somewhat less useful than for other characters. I actually found a druid's handbook which rated wisdom as the most important colour, and charisma, Constitution and intelligence equally after that. On a 36 point buy (which was specified) if you have two stats at 18 it means three stats at 8 and one at 12. Some people may give their druid 18 in those circumstances, but it does hint at prpearing for this particular challenge. I agree with your 14, but that leaves the druid in one shot kill range for a reasonably standard fighter set-up. I didn;t see your half-orc druid comment, but LTwolf specified humans and core only.

[Pugwampy]

I know of more then one DM who does not allow raise dead options . Those poor shlubs have their loot stripped by their buddies and they must make a new PC . How many mages make it past level 1 in such a game ?

You could say non arcane temple healing and raise dead are conducive to making wizard gods . Fighters have lots of HP to survive and slowly recover . Healers can automatically recover .

I stick to my beliefs . Fighters and Clerics are essential but wizards are not .
You can tell who wants to be a wizard player , they ask about temples and they would like to start at a higher level instead of 1 .

[Liquor Box]

Okay. With 18 Strength, no animal companion, no feats, and no weapon at all, a druid with the shapeshift variant (that's right, the same one that's a huge nerf) is doing an average of 12.5 damage with her natural bite attack, and at a higher to-hit bonus than the fighter. While also having spells, more skill points, and other class features.

Sure, as I said to LTwolf, you can build the characters for a specific fight - which changes the dynamic - the fighter may have toughness, improved initiative (which would be pretty crucial for a figth where either can potentially win in a round), power attack and weapon focus. Toughness and weapon focus are not good feats onmost fighters, but on one that never goes past level 3 they are fine.

The druid may well win more often than not at third level. I have never said the fighter would usually win at level 3. I am only answering the assertion that it could never possibly win against a standard druid set up using only core. That assertion is clearly silly.

[eggynack]

To be honest mate, I don't think we can take this aspect of the conversation much further. The made the scenarios to answer the proposition that there was no scenario where a cleric or a druid wouldn't be better than a fighter. I was not suggesting that a fighter is better than those classes generally (even at low level).
Fair enough. Just seemed like an unlikely scenario to me.


As to the fight, I wans;t suggesting the fighter would usually win. Again I was only answeringthe proposition that was put to me, which was this "the fighter would stand no chance at all". That proposition is clearly and demonstrably wrong.
I don't think it was necessarily meant in that sense, in terms of a direct one on one fight. And I definitely don't think that the "stand no chance" thing meant 100% victory in a particular battle.



I know that, but the lack of applicability to fort saves makes it somewhat less useful than for other characters. I actually found a druid's handbook which rated wisdom as the most important colour, and charisma, Constitution and intelligence equally after that. On a 36 point buy (which was specified) if you have two stats at 18 it means three stats at 8 and one at 12. Some people may give their druid 18 in those circumstances, but it does hint at prpearing for this particular challenge.

The lack compared to other characters is marginal, and means way less than the advantage that a druid has in terms of constitution, simple SADness. A fighter has more to gain by investing in constitution, but they also have more to lose by doing so. I don't think that allocating that way is specifically preparing for a low level thing, in any case, because I think constitution is about as valuable on a druid late as it is early. Now, if the druid were allocating points into dexterity for the challenge, that'd be a different story, cause that's a stat that goes crazy downhill later, but constitution is universally great.

Separately, can't recall seeing that handbook. Sounds like a pretty poor handbook, at least in those terms. Pointing to my own handbook as a counterexample would be a bit incestuous, argument-wise, but I can always just point to the older handbook, which says, "This is a very close second to Wisdom for your most important stat, as it determines your HP in both native and alternate forms. It also modifies your Concentration skill."

[Milo v3]

I know of more then one DM who does not allow raise dead options . Those poor shlubs have their loot stripped by their buddies and they must make a new PC . How many mages make it past level 1 in such a game ?
Exact same number as those in games without that houserule, since level one characters don't really have access to raise dead....? :smallconfused:

[Troacctid]

Sure, as I said to LTwolf, you can build the characters for a specific fight - which changes the dynamic - the fighter may have toughness, improved initiative (which would be pretty crucial for a figth where either can potentially win in a round), power attack and weapon focus. Toughness and weapon focus are not good feats onmost fighters, but on one that never goes past level 3 they are fine.

The druid may well win more often than not at third level. I have never said the fighter would usually win at level 3. I am only answering the assertion that it could never possibly win against a standard druid set up using only core. That assertion is clearly silly.

If your fighter isn't built for a specific fight, then neither is my example shapeshift druid. They're built to do the exact same thing: attack in melee and deal damage. And the druid does it better even with its hands tied behind its back. It's not remotely close. The druid is a better fighter than the fighter. Period.

Give your fighter Toughness. Fine. Now she's up 6 HP over the druid. Except the druid also has at least four spell slots—so if you care about HP, just fill those 1st level slots with three lesser vigors, and now she's rocking an additional 39 HP over the course of an adventuring day.

Give your fighter Weapon Focus too. That's cool, it just evens out the discrepancy from the lower Strength bonus. Now they have the exact same to-hit.

Improved Initiative? Well, you're out of bonus feats now, so we might as well have both characters take that one. But the druid doesn't really need to, because she'll get a better version completely free two levels from now when she unlocks primal instinct.

Maybe it's rough for the fighter at level 3. Okay. How do you possibly see it getting any better at later levels, when the druid is unlocking progressively more powerful and versatile abilities, while the fighter is getting nothing new at all, and essentially skipping all the odd levels?

[Pugwampy]

Exact same number as those in games without that houserule, since level one characters don't really have access to raise dead....?

I am sure the average DM makes provisions for that . Temple or Unicorn , raise dead wishing well or whatever ?

Just saying a Fighter has more AC and HP and more likely to survive Hard Core DM to enjoy his level 2 .

[eggynack]

Just saying a Fighter has more AC and HP and more likely to survive Hard Core DM to enjoy his level 2 .
Not necessarily. Yes, they have more survival stats, but a low level wizard has the benefit of their effects happening from range. Magic lets you not be where swords are, so you don't strictly need AC or HP, even though it helps a bunch. Also, wizards have abrupt jaunt, which is arguably a better defense than that AC and HP, and they get better low level initiative boosters than just about anything in the game, so things don't get to just kill them with no recourse so much.

[Liquor Box]

I don't think it was necessarily meant in that sense, in terms of a direct one on one fight. And I definitely don't think that the "stand no chance" thing meant 100% victory in a particular battle.

the words "no chance" seem pretty unambiguous to me. Thechance isn;t even that small. At lvl 3 the fighter has a chance to one shot the druid (even at 18 cons, although that becmes less likely). If it makes its save or survives whatever the druid does in rd 1 it gets a second chance to do the same. This isn't a miracle victory we are talking about.


The lack compared to other characters is marginal, and means way less than the advantage that a druid has in terms of constitution, simple SADness. A fighter has more to gain by investing in constitution, but they also have more to lose by doing so. I don't think that allocating that way is specifically preparing for a low level thing, in any case, because I think constitution is about as valuable on a druid late as it is early. Now, if the druid were allocating points into dexterity for the challenge, that'd be a different story, cause that's a stat that goes crazy downhill later, but constitution is universally great.

Separately, can't recall seeing that handbook. Sounds like a pretty poor handbook, at least in those terms. Pointing to my own handbook as a counterexample would be a bit incestuous, argument-wise, but I can always just point to the older handbook, which says, "This is a very close second to Wisdom for your most important stat, as it determines your HP in both native and alternate forms. It also modifies your Concentration skill."

The handbook is this one.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YcZrU_D9k8e422LHd9RJ705WJ0-IzFkdES_A-C38_1o/edit#heading=h.4ey6zom0c0z
Wisdom is blue (best) Cha, con and int are black (next best) and str and dex are red (worst). As to the text, the word "great" is described for intelligence and cons, so they may beat out cha slightly in the author's opinion.

Dexterity would be a good attrbute for this challenge because it add to initative and AC - it may be better for the druid than con - for this challenge only.

[Eldariel]

I am sure the average DM makes provisions for that . Temple or Unicorn , raise dead wishing well or whatever ?

Just saying a Fighter has more AC and HP and more likely to survive Hard Core DM to enjoy his level 2 .

Yeah, HP is nice but it's even better to not get hit; something like an Ogre can oneshot a level 1 character and even a simple Orc Warrior can crit for enough to kill basically anybody (their Falchions deal an average of 18 critical damage). Thus, being there yourself to take hits is always risky; Fighters are always one unlucky roll away from death. It's much safer to have hirelings or animal companions or whatever in the frontline, or to engage enemies in ways that don't let them strike back. Wizards are experts of the latter; Color Spray/Sleep/Grease can all incapacitate foes so that they can't really fight back and Enlarge Person combined with a reach weapon Warrior can be used to Trip-control any groundbound creatures with reach of under 20' provided the Warrior can make the strength checks. A Wizard is a force multiplier and a party without one will be severely diminished.

It's worth noting that Wizards who do want defense on level 1 do have access to Abrupt Jaunt. That ability is limited to Conjurers but Conjurers are pretty sweet and being able to teleport as an immediate action means you basically never have to take hits from melee or most ranged attacks. Combine that with the Wizards' ability to cast at range and disabling dangerous enemies before they get to crit the melee types to death and I'd rather consider Wizard rather essential. A party with a Wizard will have much easier time vs. low level bruisers (say, Ogre or Shambling Mound) than a party without. Wizards are also great against masses (Color Spray, Sleep, Grease are all great AOE), unlike basically anything else. In short, Wizards are offensive powerhouses on low levels; no other class matches their encounter-ending potential. And winning encounters fast and decisively is the key to not giving your enemies the chance to crit your frontliners dead.

Indeed, when I was running tests to figure out the best low level party for taking on enemies beyond their ability in CR in Core 3.5, the 4-man party that performed the best was 2 Gray Elf Wizard, 2 Human Barbarians (Combat Expertise -> Improved Trip). Barbarians with their 40' movement speed can kite slow enemies. Vs. faster bruisers, Enlarge Person + Rage + Tripping leads to easily holding them down until they can get splattered. Vs. most bruisers, Will/Reflex save-or-loses can likewise momentarily them and Wizards have access to Ray of Enfeeblement to further expand the difference (I think the Wizards had different specializations with one covering Sleep and the other Ray of Enfeeblement). A martial party without a Wizard would have no chance vs. a Shambling Mound or a Tendriculous or something of the sort. A Wizard makes such fights possible to defeat. Likewise, a martial party faced by something like 4 Orcs is at a serious risk of death, while a Wizard can probably nuke multiples of them.

Outside Core, Wizards get access to stuff like Ray of Stupidity (level 2 spell that can oneshot a Purple Worm, a CR12 encounter).

[Liquor Box]

If your fighter isn't built for a specific fight, then neither is my example shapeshift druid. They're built to do the exact same thing: attack in melee and deal damage. And the druid does it better even with its hands tied behind its back. It's not remotely close. The druid is a better fighter than the fighter. Period.

Give your fighter Toughness. Fine. Now she's up 6 HP over the druid. Except the druid also has at least four spell slots—so if you care about HP, just fill those 1st level slots with three lesser vigors, and now she's rocking an additional 39 HP over the course of an adventuring day.

Give your fighter Weapon Focus too. That's cool, it just evens out the discrepancy from the lower Strength bonus. Now they have the exact same to-hit.

Improved Initiative? Well, you're out of bonus feats now, so we might as well have both characters take that one. But the druid doesn't really need to, because she'll get a better version completely free two levels from now when she unlocks primal instinct.

Maybe it's rough for the fighter at level 3. Okay. How do you possibly see it getting any better at later levels, when the druid is unlocking progressively more powerful and versatile abilities, while the fighter is getting nothing new at all, and essentially skipping all the odd levels?

We may be talking about different things. LTwolf and I were discussing a 1v1 with a lvl 3 fighter and a lvl 3 druid. Lessor vigor does no good at all to the druid because of the opportunity cost of casting it. It doesn't matter if the druid gets somethign two levels later, because that wont help it in this fight. Not sure why your druid would have higher strength either.

If you want to discuss whether a druid or a fighter would be a better melee warrior at lvl 3, we can. But that would be a new discussion.

[eggynack]

the words "no chance" seem pretty unambiguous to me. Thechance isn;t even that small. At lvl 3 the fighter has a chance to one shot the druid (even at 18 cons, although that becmes less likely). If it makes its save or survives whatever the druid does in rd 1 it gets a second chance to do the same. This isn't a miracle victory we are talking about.
Seems pretty ambiguous to me. It really depends on what "no chance" is referring to. If it's referring to an individual bout, then sure, it's ridiculous. If it's referring to the probabilities as exist in every given scenario, then it's a lot less ridiculous. Or, more simply, it could just be saying that a fighter has no chance at winning a particular same game test against a druid, even if you limit the parameters of that test to a single repeated situation.



The handbook is this one.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YcZrU_D9k8e422LHd9RJ705WJ0-IzFkdES_A-C38_1o/edit#heading=h.4ey6zom0c0z
Wisdom is blue (best) Cha, con and int are black (next best) and str and dex are red (worst). As to the text, the word "great" is described for intelligence and cons, so they may beat out cha slightly in the author's opinion.
What are you talking about? That stat is blue and has always been blue.

Welp, now I feel dumb. I wonder if I should make clear that constitution is the secondary stat. I'ma make it blue, to signify secondary status over the tertiary status of intelligence or charisma. I mean, if we're getting technical here, yes, the entry does say great, but that's a modifier to "tertiary stat", meaning that it comes after wisdom, the big primary stat, and constitution, the big secondary stat. Tertiary here implies that it's something that's good to have but nowhere near a necessity.


Dexterity would be a good attrbute for this challenge because it add to initative and AC - it may be better for the druid than con - for this challenge only.
Plausibly so, yes. But, as I said, that'd be metagamey in a way that constitution really isn't.

Edit: To be clear, the issue with the handbook entry is that druid stats exist in four tiers, primary, secondary, tertiary, and dump, and I'm only using three ratings. So, either constitution gets lumped in with the primary stat or the tertiary stats, and either way there's a little bit of information loss. Considering the problem further, I think the current 2/2/2 arrangement is superior, both because it's rather clear that wisdom is better than constitution, and because constitution feels more like a stat you should definitely raise, up in blue, than a stat you should consider raising, down in black.

[Gnaeus]

I am sure the average DM makes provisions for that . Temple or Unicorn , raise dead wishing well or whatever ?

Just saying a Fighter has more AC and HP and more likely to survive Hard Core DM to enjoy his level 2 .

Funny, in every game I've ever played, the most likely to die was the front liner, usually due to an unfortunate crit or bad poison save. Now, by mid level, since we did allow raise dead, this wasn't instantly game over for the fighter. But it did usually mean that aside from all his other problems he was usually about a level behind because of being raised.

Playing in hard mode the fighter has to do his job for 20 levels standing next to the enemy without them getting a lucky break once. The Wizard has to be careful for a few levels, before he is generating his own cannon fodder and enjoying defenses like mirror image, stone skin, contingency, energy resistance and a giant pile of other spells to keep him safe.

[Gnaeus]

I was assuming 3.5 (because i know it better), but we can go to pathfinder if you prefer. This would only mean ranged touch attacks that don't run out if if a ranged attack was selected as a spell know. Remembering that we are no designing our sorcerer for this specific encounter, do you think that ranged touch attacks are a usual selection at lvl 1? I gogoled it and found a thread here which suggested utillity spells (prestigitation, read magic, detect evil, detect magic were the important selections.

Of course I won't take a ranged touch attack as a first level spell, or memorize it as a wizard. I will, however, probably get one as a side benefit from my bloodline or school. Its a common level 1 power. They tend to be usable 3+casting stat/day, so plenty.

The goat, of course, is my familiar. As a solo caster, I might take a cayman instead. Its not as good as an animal companion, but it changes the numbers in that fight considerably.



I agree we can assume a HIT by the ogre would kill the fighter on most occasions, but the difference is we can assume that an ATTACK by the ogre kills the sorcerer on most occasions. The difference is not in the hit points, but in the armour class. A lvl sorcerer is likely to have AC close to 10, against the ogre's +8 attack. A lvl fighter's AC may easily be 16 (or 18 with shield), meaning the ogre may only hit half the time or slightly more frequently.

Maybe. Of course, the wizard will know mage armor, and the sorcerer is likely to know it if his second spell isn't sleep. So if we aren't looking at a color spray/sleep combo we probably have a 15 AC, which is within 1 point of your fighter's likely AC. hardly a huge advantage.


It is extremely likely the ogre would lose to either character.
- Against the sorcerer it wins if get a single attack in - by winning initiative (45%) or by saving against a color spray (30%) or by still being standing when all the sorcerer's stuns have been expended (haven't calculated this - but very likely indeed.
- Against the figher it would get an attack every rounds, and would only need to hit with one (40% - 50%) to win. It would take quite a few unlucky rolls for it to lose.

No, as pointed out, the cloth caster's damage is way higher than you suggest, and the real key to easy victory, as I think Eldariel pointed out, is to memorize a couple of color sprays and a couple of sleeps. Because once it is asleep the math is all on the wizard side. And again, PF actually favors the fighter here over 3.5, because if you give the wizard abrupt jaunt the chance that the ogre can beat him drops to nearly 0.

And the funny part is that this is when the fighter type is strongest compared with the cloth caster.

[Red Fel]

Hmm, I disagree with these two points.

I'd respond, but LTwerewolf did a great point-by-point job. That said, I'll do it anyway.


As far as options are concerned, i mean options within combat. With a fighter's big pool of feats you can choose to take Combat expertise, improved trip, and improved disarm as a first level character.

Here's the thing: You keep talking about the "options" a Fighter gets from Fighter feats. And I think that's where we're having a miscommunication. When I use the word "option," I mean something you could not previously do, or alternatively, something you can do that others can't, or not as well.

Spells give you new things. A character cannot, by default, blind targets, stun them, fly, turn invisible, etc. - they need either a racial ability, class ability, magic item, or other source of such a power.

Anyone can pick up a weapon. They may not all wield them equally well, but anyone can. Anyone can make a trip attempt, a disarm attempt, etc. These are not things that make the Fighter unique.

Nor is the Fighter the only one who can take these feats. All you have to do is meet prerequisites.


Now you can fight in many different ways.

Which comes back to the point. The Fighter's "option" - his only real option, actually - is to fight. That's what he does, it's in the name. And as you mention later, there are other classes - non-caster classes - that do that better. The feats don't give him any options other than to fight - although, as you note, they make him slightly better at different aspects of fighting.

Let me be clear: I do not consider a +X bonus to something you could already do to be a new "option."


You can choose to sit back directly in front of your wizard and provide concealment for him against ranged attacks while simultaneously cutting off attack routes from melee combatants.

Except that they can move around you. You are not inherently highly mobile, nor can you defend your Wizard from multiple angles. Further, after a certain level, your Wizard can provide his own concealment - total, in fact, which is more than you can offer.


Another option is to step in and disarm the threat.

If you can disarm the threat, you could be killing them instead. Disarming is generally a waste of time. Also completely useless against higher-level enemies, many of which use natural weapons which cannot be disarmed.


Third option is to stand between the squishier members of the party and trip the opposition if they try to move past you.

This assumes that you're in a space that prevents them from moving around your threatened range. Unless you're standing in the middle of a doorway or corridor, that's not the case. This also assumes that they can't fly or teleport - and at higher levels, that's not a safe assumption. This also assumes that your trip attempt will be successful - and against larger enemies, it probably won't.


Alternatively you can take a more active role where you take improved unarmed strike and improved grapple as a half orc fighter. You can seek out and grapple enemy spell casters and pin them so that they can't use their magic, thereby freeing your caster up to use his.

As LTwerewolf mentioned, Freedom of Movement says hi. Also, you assume that casters will let you get close, and you assume that they can't cast while grappled.


alternatively you can go yet another route and pick up power attack, improved sunder and debilitate your enemies by sundering their weapons, armor, or shields or even cutting the enemy wizard's spell pouch off so he can't cast his spell without first picking up the pouch.

First off, there's a quote circulating the Playground that if you're close enough to sunder a Wizard's spell component pouch to keep him from casting spells, you're close enough to stab him in the kidneys to keep him from living. Second, as has been mentioned, a Wizard may carry more than one pouch. Third, you're assuming you can get close enough to sunder. And fourth, Eschew Materials is a thing.


That's what i mean by options and those are available from level 1 to level 20. And from all of that, I've shown many options that the fighter has that very much directly support and help the team.

No, you haven't. Again, "taking out the threat" isn't team effort. It helps the team, but it also helps while soloing. The difference between "solo options" and "team support" is that the latter can involve options that would be dramatically less effective if alone. For example, Inspire Courage gives a bonus to saves. That's a nice boost to a lot of people. For a single person, it's kind of a waste of effort. By contrast, killing your target is something you would do irrespective of the presence of the party.


That's not including being a flanking buddy,

Which anyone can do.


being a buffer between the less heavily armored allies and the charging enemies, etc.

Which anyone can do, and in the later game, a lot of enemies can bypass.


Positioning is really important when playing a fighter

False. It is only important inasmuch as being a melee requires you to place yourself in melee.


and it does take an intelligent player to play the fighter effectively.

True.


Having more allies capable of doing this is not a bad thing. The fighter is just as supportive to the party as a druid's animal companion because he can use his feats to stack up on battlefield utility.

As LTwerewolf said, when Class X has a class feature that can replace Class Y entirely, that's not a mark in Class Y's favor.


Ok, he doesn't hit as hard. If you want to play a martial class that hits hard, barbarians look good this time of year, or perhaps you would rather do something from Tome of Battle, neat those are tasty too.

But hitting hard is the only thing a Fighter can do. And if you concede he can't even do that better than others, that's not a mark in his favor, either.


None of those classes will have the same potential battlefield utility of the fighter by the simple fact that they don't get as many feats built in to their class. Think less specialized and more broad list of combat abilities.

False. Barbarians have a ton of ACFs that give feats, sometimes for which they wouldn't otherwise qualify. Warblade has actual options, including the ability to shrug off debuffs (IRON HEART SUUUUUUUUURGE) and to completely break the initiative order. Feats are mere +1s to various things - maneuvers give you actual new skills and tactics.

Warblade also gets bonus feats, so there's that too.


You're right pretty much any human can do any of those things out of the box, but none of those classes can do all of that before level 10.

Correction. None of those classes can take all of those feats before level 10. Can they still trip, disarm, sunder? Sure. But why bother? You don't need to trip, disarm, or sunder an enemy who is already dead.


The fighter can. You could even throw improved overrun and improved bullrush on there too.

Equally unimpressive.


I don't even think an animal companion can do all of that at all. That's a lot of different options available to a single person in combat. You fight the way that is necessary for the situation. When grappling a caster you can opt to silence them thereby rendering them unable to cast any spell with a vocal or somatic component (that sounds like most spells) meaning the caster will need to have still silent spells prepared and that is a pretty hefty spell level tax. What the fighter brings to the table is, well... everything, if you think about it in that way. They can do something in every combat situation.

You can opt to silence them? Did I miss something there?

What a Fighter can do in every combat situation is fight. He can hit something. He can hit something to trip, or sunder, or disarm, but so can anybody else, frequently better. He can hit something to deal damage, but so can anybody else, frequently better.

And you're missing the point that I keep making, which is that even if I accept your argument that a Fighter can do something in every combat - and I don't - that's only in combat. Outside of combat, he has no skills. His skill points are limited and his ability scores are physically-focused. He's not a diplomancer, he can't help the party travel quickly, he can't disarm traps or attack puzzles.


Sundering a wizard's worn spell component pouch does not destroy it's contents but it does prevent that wizard from casting spells that require them without first picking up the spell component pouch. This is effective starting at first level. You do not have to use sunder to destroy the weapon of the opponent, but except at low levels, picking up every item the enemy was using is not really an effective way of making money. that gets heavy quick.

Eschew Materials. Multiple spell component pouches. Heck, Astral Projection, and the Wizard was never there to begin with.


You're right that other classes do things that fighters can't. I never said that a fighter was better at fighting than wizards, clerics, druids, etc. I did say they have some merits that those classes don't. Namely a fighter can pick up the vast majority of weapons in the game and use it proficiently.

Most of those weapons being useless. A handful have excellent damage modifiers or abilities, and people inevitably gravitate towards them. Also, let's not forget that, if you can throw lightning bolts, you're probably less worried about the ability to wield a longsword.


Druids, Wizards, Clerics, etc. can't without using a spell to do so. Sure, they can enable themselves to do so, but the fighter doesn't need to. I made no claim that a fighter was better overall than any of the above mentioned classes, but i do still hold that it's not bad and that people tend to give it a bad rap (granted not without reasons).

That's fair. People do give the Fighter a bad rap, not without reason, but still. And for the record, I do like Fighter as a class, as I've previously mentioned.

[Gnaeus]

Re maneuvers, they can be decent (although again they arent really a fighter's specialty) but a well built fighter is really unlikely to want to be good at more than one. Usually trip, but for specific purposes grapple, bull rush, or (PF) dirty trick.

If your fighter has improved disarm, grapple, sunder, trip, and all that other stuff you mentioned (and the prereqs like combat expertise), he isn't even a good fighter. His damage will really suffer. He doesn't have the feats left to walk very far up a worthwhile feat tree (like charging, battlefield control or archery). And a sizable subset of enemies will be functionally immune to all of them just based on high size/str. I would call that a trap build, with a high likelyhood of being entirely useless in any given combat. The fact that you present it as a fighter strength shows exactly why fighter is T5. It looks like it is versatile and should be good. But in practice it is only good at a small subset of combat and it will get worse every level as the monsters get bigger.

[Eldariel]

Improved Sunder is good in niche cases. Like inconveniencing enemies that are nigh' invulnerable thanks to their items or some big things with poor quality weapons or hydras. That said, basically the only way to reliably make it work is to put it on NPCs or to use it as a stepping stone into something like Combat Brute that does more than just break your loot.

I personally like Dungeoncrasher/Shock Trooper/Combat Brute; even without effort it does enough damage and has workable Bull Rushing and if necessary, Sundering. It also gets incidental tripping through the Domino Bull Rush on Shock Trooper. That said, it's still fundamentally just a Fighter doing damage and of limited use vs. enemies it can't reach, enemies it can't use combat maneuvers on (incorporeals, too large, burrowers, in many cases fliers, ranged combat teleporters, fast stuff like breathstrafing dragons, etc.). It also lacks the feats to gain decent long range proficiency; I suppose he can learn to use Javelins and that's about it.

[Necroticplague]

The talk about fighters being versatile at every role in combat seems to make one of two assumptions, both of which are false.

1. A Schrodinger's Fighter of even less possibility than the Shrodinger's Wizard. A fighter that happens to have the exact combination of feats it needs to perform this task. Given how fighters can only change their feats when they level, this is unlikely. At least a wizard has a little bit of leeway in this regard, since they can change what they do every day. An StP erudite has even more, once you cheese your way around their UPpD limit.

2.The various forms of fighting style can be acheived competently with only one or two feat a piece, allowing a fighter to simply pick a broad array of feats to do anything, in a manner similar to a Wizard simply loading up on spells that are useful in every situation. In summary:HAHAHAHAHAHano. Simply taking "improved X" is not enough to make you reliably able to pull the combat style off. That's a bare minimum as a stepping stone to even consider using it. To be competent and actually keep up with tough enemies, you pretty much have to invest half a build.

And a side assumption that seems to be built into a lot of stuff I'm seeing from pro-fighter camp: the type of enemies one is up against. They seem to implicitely assume assume a type of enemy that the Fighter can interact with in a meaningful manner. By bringing up various combat maneuvers, they implicitely assume "not a good deal bigger and stronger than the fighter". By bringing up Sunder, they assume the enemy's equipment is some integral part of it's function. By talking about body-blocking, they assume enemies aren't really fast, flying, teleporting, burrowing, incorporeal, ranged, or have massive reach. In short, when talking about the fighter's capabilities, they seem to be assuming an itemless Human Warrior as an enemy. Which, unfortunately for the Fighter, begins to diverge farther and farther from being a reasonable assumption as you go up in level. At the higher levels, that assumption pretty much entirely breaks down, as everything that's near in size to Medium or smaller has magical abilities out the wazoo, while anything without a bunch of magical abilities is usually incredibly big and strong. That's not to say the two are mutually exclusive, of course, quite a few creatures are big, strong, and have magic leaking from their pores.

[AnimeTheCat]

Thanks everyone for sharing your views and enlightening me! I appreciate it, truly. What are some of the arguments about why other classes aren't considered "good" though? Like swashbuckler? It looks like a pretty decent class and I've played a few that have been quite successful. I realize that they don't have spells and what not, so aside from just not being full casters why are they frowned upon? They get full BAB, free weapon finesse, bonuses to saves, and int to damage all in the first three levels, they have fewer dead levels than a fighter and get built in class abilities that can help the on bad terrain (like ships and the like). What's the deal with their bad rap?

[Gnaeus]

Well, 1, are we talking about 3.5 or PF swashbuckler, because they are very different.

Without going into too many specifics at this point, the easiest answer is that they are a muggle, without scaling abilities, and that it is harder to make a good dex fighter than a str fighter. The easiest way to get big damage numbers is to take a 2H weapon and get a high Str and power attack. Swashbuckler is a fighter locked into a sub-optimal style. There are redeeming virtues to either the 3.5 (Daring Outlaw) or the PF (Panache, deeds) swashbucklers, and I enjoy my PF swashbuckler/paladin/warlord//Daevic greatly. But he is still a fighter type that requires jumping through a lot of hoops to get even the same damage as a fighter.

[ComaVision]

Swashbucklers are bad for the same general reasons that Fighters are. There aren't very many options for making them viable and even if you manage that then they have little to no versatility.

[AnimeTheCat]

Yeah, 3.5. Sorry. I keep seeing that pop up but I never really answered the questions :smalltongue:

And I see what you're saying about the damage aspect. They don't even have the luxury of getting heavy armor proficiency for levels where heavy armor is most beneficial, and no shields so defense is a little low for a front line fighter type. I guess I see them in more of a rogue role. I didn't think about that aspect. They do get their int to damage and if they do end up going the daring outlaw route they will get sneak attack. If you build for two weapon fighting I feel like you can get some pretty decent damage numbers up there. Plus, they don't have the same options problem as the fighter where they don't get skills for out of combat. They actually do get some skills and skill points (albeit not the greatest). I think swashbucklers are actually pretty good on ships since they have profession, balance, swim, use rope, and tumble.

Edit:
@ComaVision:
I think I see what you mean, but they do seem a little more viable out of the box than fighter, if nothing else than from feat support like daring outlaw, but I guess that is combining a "better" class with it and doesn't support the Swashbuckler class very much.

[Necroticplague]

Thanks everyone for sharing your views and enlightening me! I appreciate it, truly. What are some of the arguments about why other classes aren't considered "good" though? Like swashbuckler? It looks like a pretty decent class and I've played a few that have been quite successful. I realize that they don't have spells and what not, so aside from just not being full casters why are they frowned upon? They get full BAB, free weapon finesse, bonuses to saves, and int to damage all in the first three levels, they have fewer dead levels than a fighter and get built in class abilities that can help the on bad terrain (like ships and the like). What's the deal with their bad rap?

1. Weapon finesse is crap, so getting for free isn't that good. You're basically paying a feat to have your damage and attack bonus scale with different stats.
2. MAD. Melee needs STR for damage, swashbuckler needs DEX for AC (since it can't wear heavy armor), everyone needs CON for HP, INT for damage. Theoretically, you can shave off the STR requirement, but that requires Multiclassing or waiting until about level 9 at soonest.
3.the bonus to saves is less than if it, oh SIMPLY HAD GOOD REFLEX SAVE!
4.the vast majority of it's abilities are combat related, so it has very little utility. Sure, it has more skill points than the fighter, but not much more, and the list is only marginally better (since it's basically fighter+social skills).

In essence: if the class's main abilities are all centered around combat, it'll get a bad rap because anyone can do combat. What a class needs it versatility, and ability to handle a broad array of situations. And frequently, a lack of utility hinders combat ability severely as well, because it means you don't have abilities that allow you to effect foes (no methods of overcoming Regeneration, DR, or incorporeal), or reach them (no way of dealing with flying or burrowing reatures other than to ready actions and hope it comes into range).

[Gale]

Swashbuckler feels like a combination of Rogue and Fighter. It has full base attack bonus progression, light armor proficiency, and free weapon finesse, emphasizing dexterity over strength. It also has a decent selection of skills like Diplomacy, Sense Motive, and Tumble, allowing the class to be a little more useful outside of combat than the Fighter.

Where it fall short is its ability to actually be meaningful in combat. It doesn't gain any other bonus feats, making it much harder to optimize a build for anything; and it doesn't have any means of doing damage on its own. It seems like the class is designed around being a supportive fighter with its bonus to dodge and flanking, but it doesn't give the player anything to make that bonus meaningful. Rogue at least has Sneak Attack, which can be deadly when combined with multiple attacks, but the Swashbuckler has nothing. Nothing except for Insightful Strike, which is indisputably weaker than Sneak Attack and much harder to optimize.

The Swashbuckler can't really do anything. All of its class abilities are too trivial on their own to make it a decent class. It honestly does feel weaker than the fighter. It's one saving grace is the Daring Outlaw feat, which lets you combine the class with Rogue. Otherwise, the class is mostly pointless.

[AnimeTheCat]

1. Weapon finesse is crap, so getting for free isn't that good. You're basically paying a feat to have your damage and attack bonus scale with different stats.
2. MAD. Melee needs STR for damage, swashbuckler needs DEX for AC (since it can't wear heavy armor), everyone needs CON for HP, INT for damage. Theoretically, you can shave off the STR requirement, but that requires Multiclassing or waiting until about level 9 at soonest.
3.the bonus to saves is less than if it, oh SIMPLY HAD GOOD REFLEX SAVE!
4.the vast majority of it's abilities are combat related, so it has very little utility. Sure, it has more skill points than the fighter, but not much more, and the list is only marginally better (since it's basically fighter+social skills).

In essence: if the class's main abilities are all centered around combat, it'll get a bad rap because anyone can do combat. What a class needs it versatility, and ability to handle a broad array of situations. And frequently, a lack of utility hinders combat ability severely as well, because it means you don't have abilities that allow you to effect foes (no methods of overcoming Regeneration, DR, or incorporeal), or reach them (no way of dealing with flying or burrowing reatures other than to ready actions and hope it comes into range).

I feel like a swashbuckler would be good on a ship though. I get the parts about being MAD, especially since you acknowledged about shaving off of Strength, and I understand all of those points pretty well at this current juncture. Profession: Sailor is needed for pretty much anything on a ship (If I'm remembering Stormwrack correctly). The only things that don't need that are things that require Use Rope or a different profession (Siege weapons or something I think). It sounds like a swashbuckler would be pretty good in that scenario and would be able to do things that an animal companion or spell caster couldn't do. Most spell casters don't have profession or use rope and most summons and companions don't either. That could be a (very small... like baby sized) feather in a Swashbuckler's hat. Maybe? :smallsmile:

Edit: Just looked, all of the most mentioned spell casters have profession. Never mind about that bit :smalltongue:

[Red Fel]

Yeah, 3.5. Sorry. I keep seeing that pop up but I never really answered the questions :smalltongue:

And I see what you're saying about the damage aspect. They don't even have the luxury of getting heavy armor proficiency for levels where heavy armor is most beneficial, and no shields so defense is a little low for a front line fighter type. I guess I see them in more of a rogue role. I didn't think about that aspect. They do get their int to damage and if they do end up going the daring outlaw route they will get sneak attack. If you build for two weapon fighting I feel like you can get some pretty decent damage numbers up there. Plus, they don't have the same options problem as the fighter where they don't get skills for out of combat. They actually do get some skills and skill points (albeit not the greatest). I think swashbucklers are actually pretty good on ships since they have profession, balance, swim, use rope, and tumble.

It frequently comes back to the tier system. Love it or hate it, agree or disagree, one point that the tier system makes is that versatility is awesome. For many classes, including the Fighter but also more specialized sub-species of Fighter (such as Swashbuckler), versatility is limited to what you can do with a weapon. Get bigger numerical bonuses, change your AC or increase your damage output or boost your saves. It's all doing the same stuff, but with bigger numbers. That's not actual versatility at all.

Even if we stay away from spellcasting classes, there are classes with more versatility. Take, for example, one of my favorite classes, the Storm Sentry. To enter it, all you need is a Least Dragonmark; a Commoner can have that. The Least Dragonmark in question gives you the Gust of Wind spell as an SLA 1/day, simple enough. The five-level Storm Sentry class - which does not advance spellcasting - takes this single SLA, gives you multiple uses of it, and then gives you additional ways to apply it; you can use it to cast Feather Fall instead, or Shield, or as a special bull rush option, or to turn your weapon temporarily into a Shocking weapon. It adds some neat versatility to a simple concept.

That's what versatility means, and it's why spellcasters have it in spades. Now, some martial classes are more versatile than others, either because they have numerous ACFs, or because they have special mechanics (such as ToB's maneuvers), or other reasons. The trick is that the class needs to be able to do something either very unique or very well. Barbarians aren't versatile, but they are powerful; they can smash very effectively. But unlike a Fighter, for whom out-of-combat options are limited, Barbarians can also do things like optimize Intimidate, which they do surprisingly well. Barbarians also have access, via ACF, to Improved Grab, which makes them uniquely capable grapplers (for all that it's worth).

Most martial base classes, as compared to prestige classes, have the same problems as Fighter. Put the pointy end in the other guy. Put the pointy end in the other guy, but harder. Put the pointy end in the other guy, but faster. Put the pointy end in the other guy, but while dodging. A few have special abilities that let them stand out, but for many, it's more of the same. The "bad rap" really isn't independent of the one the Fighter has - it all stems from the same problems. In fact, in many cases, the Fighter stands above them because they are narrower subspecies of the Fighter. In effect, you give up what little versatility the Fighter has - in terms of equipment and feats - for narrower bonus options, many of which the Fighter could replicate with his feat selection.

[Flickerdart]

I feel like a swashbuckler would be good on a ship though. I get the parts about being MAD, especially since you acknowledged about shaving off of Strength, and I understand all of those points pretty well at this current juncture. Profession: Sailor is needed for pretty much anything on a ship (If I'm remembering Stormwrack correctly). The only things that don't need that are things that require Use Rope or a different profession (Siege weapons or something I think). It sounds like a swashbuckler would be pretty good in that scenario and would be able to do things that an animal companion or spell caster couldn't do. Most spell casters don't have profession or use rope and most summons and companions don't either. That could be a (very small... like baby sized) feather in a Swashbuckler's hat. Maybe? :smallsmile:

Anybody can put ranks in a Profession skill. Use Rope isn't even trained-only. Neither is a skill that gets used often, meaning that a Swashbuckler putting ranks in these can't afford to put ranks into actually useful skills.

Meanwhile, the wizard can fly over water, and a psion can just turn himself into a ship.

[ComaVision]

Most spell casters don't have profession or use rope and most summons and companions don't either. That could be a (very small... like baby sized) feather in a Swashbuckler's hat. Maybe? :smallsmile:

Literally every PC class has Profession...

[Gnaeus]

I feel like a swashbuckler would be good on a ship though. I get the parts about being MAD, especially since you acknowledged about shaving off of Strength, and I understand all of those points pretty well at this current juncture. Profession: Sailor is needed for pretty much anything on a ship (If I'm remembering Stormwrack correctly). The only things that don't need that are things that require Use Rope or a different profession (Siege weapons or something I think). It sounds like a swashbuckler would be pretty good in that scenario and would be able to do things that an animal companion or spell caster couldn't do. Most spell casters don't have profession or use rope and most summons and companions don't either. That could be a (very small... like baby sized) feather in a Swashbuckler's hat. Maybe? :smallsmile:

Well, profession is Wis based, and Wis is a dump stat for swashbucklers. Climb and swim are handy on a ship, until about 5th level when casters start being able to fly/breathe water/summon aquatic stuff to ride.

[Troacctid]

Swashbuckler is down there as one of the worst classes in the game. I think it is actually worse than samurai and soulknife.

The problem with it is that it does nothing. Like actual nothing. It is essentially an NPC class. It lets you use DEX instead of STR for attacks and INT instead of STR for damage—except that this is just straight up worse than using STR for both, because it's a more MAD version of the exact same thing. It gives you a bonus to Reflex saves that's worse than just having good Reflex saves. And that's it, that's all you get out of the class. Not only is it filled with dead levels, it actually has more dead levels than non-dead! It's soooo bad, I can't even figure out why anyone would think it's good.

It's so bad, it's actually worse than some racial hit dice. I would rather have levels of dragon or outsider than swashbuckler, every time, and it's actually not even close, which is very sad.


Literally every PC class has Profession...
Not true, actually. Truenamer doesn't, off the top of my head.


We may be talking about different things. LTwolf and I were discussing a 1v1 with a lvl 3 fighter and a lvl 3 druid. Lessor vigor does no good at all to the druid because of the opportunity cost of casting it. It doesn't matter if the druid gets somethign two levels later, because that wont help it in this fight. Not sure why your druid would have higher strength either.

If you want to discuss whether a druid or a fighter would be a better melee warrior at lvl 3, we can. But that would be a new discussion.
Okay, you realize the comparison only gets worse for the fighter at level 1, right? I didn't use any 3rd level feats or 2nd level spells in my comparison, so the druid's stats are the same while the fighter no longer has one of her feats and can't afford better armor.

The druid has higher Strength because that's what the ability does. It gives a Strength boost.

[Liquor Box]

Okay, you realize the comparison only gets worse for the fighter at level 1, right? I didn't use any 3rd level feats or 2nd level spells in my comparison, so the druid's stats are the same while the fighter no longer has one of her feats and can't afford better armor.

The druid has higher Strength because that's what the ability does. It gives a Strength boost.

Actually I think that lvl 2 is probably fighter's best level relative to druids. The fighter gains an extra feat at level 2, which is more important than the druid's extra lvl1 spell. But more importantly the druid's animal companion (the strongest part of its class at early levels) doesn't get anything at all, not even extra hit points. Lvl 4 is also a decent spot for the fighter vs the druid for similar reasons.

Re - your comparison, I didn;t pay it much attention at all. As I said, I was discussing a different comparison, and I didn;t realise until your last post that you weren;t contributing to that same discussion. As I said, if you want to discuss the druid vs the fighter more generally at early levels, I am happy to. But I should advise at the outset that I think the druid is probably the stronger class (it is possible the strongest class of all at low levels - maybe a warblade could compete), so you wont be able to pat yourself on the back afterward if the druid proves stronger.

[Eldariel]

It frequently comes back to the tier system. Love it or hate it, agree or disagree, one point that the tier system makes is that versatility is awesome.

This actually draws back to much more general principles about maximizing your available options at the time of making your choice. Of course a spellcaster's options positively dwarf a non-spellcaster's since every slot can potentially present a very different option that allows approaching any given thing from a completely different perspective. It's the very same principle AlphaGo (the Go-program that finally beat top human pros) used while learning the game for itself: its play essentially maximizes the number of moves it has available. This is apparently a feature of intelligent systems in general, and the benefits of such choices are rather trivial to see; when you have a large toolbox, you're prepared for more things and you can pick better answers for the same questions.

[Liquor Box]

Of course I won't take a ranged touch attack as a first level spell, or memorize it as a wizard. I will, however, probably get one as a side benefit from my bloodline or school. Its a common level 1 power. They tend to be usable 3+casting stat/day, so plenty.

The goat, of course, is my familiar. As a solo caster, I might take a cayman instead. Its not as good as an animal companion, but it changes the numbers in that fight considerably.



Maybe. Of course, the wizard will know mage armor, and the sorcerer is likely to know it if his second spell isn't sleep. So if we aren't looking at a color spray/sleep combo we probably have a 15 AC, which is within 1 point of your fighter's likely AC. hardly a huge advantage.



No, as pointed out, the cloth caster's damage is way higher than you suggest, and the real key to easy victory, as I think Eldariel pointed out, is to memorize a couple of color sprays and a couple of sleeps. Because once it is asleep the math is all on the wizard side. And again, PF actually favors the fighter here over 3.5, because if you give the wizard abrupt jaunt the chance that the ogre can beat him drops to nearly 0.

And the funny part is that this is when the fighter type is strongest compared with the cloth caster.

I thought we were comparing a level 1 fighter with a particular level 1 sorcerer you had designed? Are we now comparing it with a level 1 wizard? If so, the wizard has 2 or 3 lvl 1 spells. Somuch for having mage armour, and a couple of color sprays and a couple of sleeps.

As for mage armour, it isn;t quite a simple as that. You would have happened to run into the ogre during that one hour per day the spell is active, not the many hours it is not.

As to the goat familiar - is that what you usually choose for your familiar (or what your sorcerer has chosen) or you again tailoring your character to optimise it for this specific fight? Likewise with most of yoru options - did your bloodline sorcerer have a damaging ray at lvl 1, did it choose mage armour or sleep as spells known, did it have a bladed weapon? Or are you saying that it is possible to choose options for a sorcerer that makes it viable (but still far more likely to lose than not) against an ogre?

This argument started because you disagreed with one of my propositions - that the assertion that fighters are low tier assumes he are not talking about low level play. In trying to disprove it you have fallen foul of the other assumption that applies to comparing wizards to fighters - that is assuming the wizard or sorcerer will know what foe it will face and prepare for it accordingly. I am assuming a standard fighter build - not one prepared for soloing in particular, or for fighting humanoids/giants in particular. The CR4 challenge was one proposed by you for our lvl 1 characters, and your sorcerer has not been able to outdo the fighter. If we chose a challenge less tailored to your sorcerer (such as a zombie) I suggest the fighter would clearly prevail. I am not suggesting the fighter is better than the sorcerer, only that it tends to belong in a higher tier at the very early levels.

[Gnaeus]

I thought we were comparing a level 1 fighter with a particular level 1 sorcerer you had designed? Are we now comparing it with a level 1 wizard? If so, the wizard has 2 or 3 lvl 1 spells. Somuch for having mage armour, and a couple of color sprays and a couple of sleeps.

As for mage armour, it isn;t quite a simple as that. You would have happened to run into the ogre during that one hour per day the spell is active, not the many hours it is not.

As to the goat familiar - is that what you usually choose for your familiar (or what your sorcerer has chosen) or you again tailoring your character to optimise it for this specific fight? Likewise with most of yoru options - did your bloodline sorcerer have a damaging ray at lvl 1, did it choose mage armour or sleep as spells known, did it have a bladed weapon? Or are you saying that it is possible to choose options for a sorcerer that makes it viable (but still far more likely to lose than not) against an ogre?

This argument started because you disagreed with one of my propositions - that the assertion that fighters are low tier assumes he are not talking about low level play. In trying to disprove it you have fallen foul of the other assumption that applies to comparing wizards to fighters - that is assuming the wizard or sorcerer will know what foe it will face and prepare for it accordingly. I am assuming a standard fighter build - not one prepared for soloing in particular, or for fighting humanoids/giants in particular. The CR4 challenge was one proposed by you for our lvl 1 characters, and your sorcerer has not been able to outdo the fighter. If we chose a challenge less tailored to your sorcerer (such as a zombie) I suggest the fighter would clearly prevail. I am not suggesting the fighter is better than the sorcerer, only that it tends to belong in a higher tier at the very early levels.

What we were specifically stating is that a level 1 cloth caster is not behind a level 1 fighter in terms of versatility or fighting ability. My particular sorcerer would never have to kill the ogre, because he had a party. But honestly, my particular sorcerer would never have bothered to use color spray at all, because his spell focus enchantment meant that his sleep spell had a higher DC. I wouldn't have bothered getting within charge range of the thing. I won most of my fights from 80 or 90 feet behind the front lines. Facing an ECL 3 enemy, I would have used the Eastern Mysteries trait, for a DC 19 sleep. and then I would have let my rogue murder it. I did have a ranged touch attack that I could have used (celestial bloodline) but since it doubled as a heal for good aligned creatures I would never have wasted it on an ogre. In a less dangerous encounter I would have relied on a DC 16 Daze at will cantrip, or my +9 intimidate.

So, yes, my level 1 sorcerer, with his 5 spells per day, + healing, + debuff, + cantrips, + a longspear for aoos on approaching enemies, rather exceeded my party's fighter in terms of versatility and fighting ability. But no, he would not have physically been the one that murdered the ogre, because he was specced to drop enemies from 100 feet. But you were so excited to work through the math of how could a Sor/Wiz actually solo the ogre, I was more than willing to oblige you. The goat and scythe combo are one I use on another character, which being in a 2 man group is rather better designed to finish his own victims. So, no, it isn't a shroedingers wizard where I am picking what I need to kill an ogre. It is you changing the target to how you actually inflict the death blow, and me pointing out that in a party where that is a necessity, the sor/wiz can easily perform that adequately as well without a dedicated striker.

[Zale]

Well that says there are no weapons allowed in the city, which I think did happen in quite a few cities. But unless you apply that to cities in DnD (not usually the case in my experience) it wouldn't apply to the inns either. In my post I specified that armed cultures (such as the American frontier, but also Australia and New Zealand when being settled) allowed wepoans in inns. A lot of people were hunters.

As for animals, I would be interested to see your source that dogs were allowed in inn rooms.

So medieval inns and taverns were disgusting. It wasn't uncommon for horse crap to litter the floor in even the nicest places. This is because the past is gross and covered in poop like 80% of the time. I mean seriously, the victorian era was like 83% gross. One of the biggest crises that a metropolitan area faced was the sheer amount of horse excrement left behind by day-to-day business traffic. Heck the only thing that fixed it was that we stopped using horses because cars were invented. That's the only reason you can walk across the road without always stepping in poop.

Gross.

So I wouldn't be surprised if you could bring your dog into the inn and into the inn room. It couldn't possibly lower the hygiene of the room itself; thought traveling with dogs would probably be uncommon for most people? I mean, maybe members of the gentry who are planning on hunting at some point, or maybe if they're going to visit someone and want to bring their own hunting dogs. Nice inns might have kennels for dogs, maybe.

There was actually a breed of dog meant to work in kitchens for these sorts of establishments. They were called Turnspit dogs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnspit_Dog); they are presently an extinct breed. They were bred to run on a little wheel (like a hamster or gerbil) in order to turn meat on a spit so that it could be evenly cooked. Apparently, some people liked to bring them to church as foot warmers as well.

You might wonder why this is relevant, but consider this: If people were willing to let dogs work in their kitchens turning meat on a spit, I find it hard to believe they'd object strenuously to a dog being in their Inn.

If that's not good enough,


The late 14th-century author of Goodman of Paris (http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/09/dogs-medieval-mans-best-friend.html) remarked how ‘a greyhound, mastiff or little dog, whether on the road, or at table, or in bed, always stays close to the person who gives him food and ignores all others, being distant and shy with them. Even if far away, the dog always has his master in his heart. Even if his master whips or throws stones at the dog, the dog will still follow him, wagging his tail and lying down in front of his masters to placate him. The dog will follow the master through rivers, woods, thieves and battles.’

I feel like a medieval person wouldn't think it that odd if you wanted to keep a beloved pet near you, especially if you were some crazy person who loved trees and lived out in the woods 80% of the time, you know?

If that's not good enough, I can also email one of my professors! However, as it's the summer, I wouldn't expect a prompt response, if any. Her specialty is medieval history; with an emphasis on travel and women- so I'm sure she could present an answer, or at least point me towards some sources.

[Liquor Box]

What we were specifically stating is that a level 1 cloth caster is not behind a level 1 fighter in terms of versatility or fighting ability. My particular sorcerer would never have to kill the ogre, because he had a party. But honestly, my particular sorcerer would never have bothered to use color spray at all, because his spell focus enchantment meant that his sleep spell had a higher DC. I wouldn't have bothered getting within charge range of the thing. I won most of my fights from 80 or 90 feet behind the front lines. Facing an ECL 3 enemy, I would have used the Eastern Mysteries trait, for a DC 19 sleep. and then I would have let my rogue murder it. I did have a ranged touch attack that I could have used (celestial bloodline) but since it doubled as a heal for good aligned creatures I would never have wasted it on an ogre. In a less dangerous encounter I would have relied on a DC 16 Daze at will cantrip, or my +9 intimidate.

So, yes, my level 1 sorcerer, with his 5 spells per day, + healing, + debuff, + cantrips, + a longspear for aoos on approaching enemies, rather exceeded my party's fighter in terms of versatility and fighting ability. But no, he would not have physically been the one that murdered the ogre, because he was specced to drop enemies from 100 feet. But you were so excited to work through the math of how could a Sor/Wiz actually solo the ogre, I was more than willing to oblige you. The goat and scythe combo are one I use on another character, which being in a 2 man group is rather better designed to finish his own victims. So, no, it isn't a shroedingers wizard where I am picking what I need to kill an ogre. It is you changing the target to how you actually inflict the death blow, and me pointing out that in a party where that is a necessity, the sor/wiz can easily perform that adequately as well without a dedicated striker.

That may have been what you intended to state. What I said was that assigning fighter a low tier assumed that you were not playing at low level. You replied "not really" and went on to say that your sorcerer would win on average against a 4 HD enemy (I was charitable and assumed that you were excluding creatures immune to mind effects) while the fighter would be "owned". By all means check page 1.

You started by saying your sorcerer had color spray at level 1, and in this post you have clarified that it has sleep. So those are its two level 1 spells known, so no need for us to talk about lvl 1 rays or mage armour or anything like that any more.

The rest of your post goes on to say that your sorcerer was specced for assisting the party in dispatching an ogre, and you decided to use other builds to compare with the fighter for soloing itself. That in itself is an indication of having less versatiliy. I didn't even need to give the fighter any feats or talents for it to be the match of all your differently specced sorcerers and wizards at dispatching the ogre one on one. But the same fighter (without any repseccing) would play just as important role in killing the ogre as part of a group (it would be striker - your character was the debilitator - both were necessary to the strategy you described).

[Darth Ultron]

Thanks everyone for sharing your views and enlightening me! I appreciate it, truly. What are some of the arguments about why other classes aren't considered "good" though? Like swashbuckler? It looks like a pretty decent class and I've played a few that have been quite successful. I realize that they don't have spells and what not, so aside from just not being full casters why are they frowned upon? They get full BAB, free weapon finesse, bonuses to saves, and int to damage all in the first three levels, they have fewer dead levels than a fighter and get built in class abilities that can help the on bad terrain (like ships and the like). What's the deal with their bad rap?

They just don't get anything. The creators just don't get it. They just can't bring themselves to give martial types nice things, and what they do give is often so pathetic as to be useless.

Take the Swashbuckler ability of Grace. At 20th level they will get a whole +3 to reflex saves....wow. They might make a couple saves with that massive bonus. It's bad enough that for like half a dozen levels they get a +1, wow, a whole +1. And finally at 11th level, when the swashbuckler gets the big +2, that makes them equal to the first level wizard with a weasel familiar. Not to mention that by 11th level a spellcaster can get way more then that +2 by dozens of spells.

The Dodge ability is just as bad. A plus vs a single target...wow. All the way to +4 at 20th level. And it's not even equal to a first level spell that give that high of a plus vs all targets...not just one.

The slipper mind feature is not bad...except it comes way late at 17th. It would sure be a lot more useful around 5th-10th, when a swashbuckler will encounter all the 3-5 level enchantment spells.

The thing is, it would not be so hard to make things make more sense....but they just won't do it. Slippery mind would be good to have at like 5th level, maybe like ''once a day per Int point'', but it's not written that way...

[Liquor Box]

So medieval inns and taverns were disgusting. It wasn't uncommon for horse crap to litter the floor in even the nicest places. This is because the past is gross and covered in poop like 80% of the time. I mean seriously, the victorian era was like 83% gross. One of the biggest crises that a metropolitan area faced was the sheer amount of horse excrement left behind by day-to-day business traffic. Heck the only thing that fixed it was that we stopped using horses because cars were invented. That's the only reason you can walk across the road without always stepping in poop.

Gross.

So I wouldn't be surprised if you could bring your dog into the inn and into the inn room. It couldn't possibly lower the hygiene of the room itself; thought traveling with dogs would probably be uncommon for most people? I mean, maybe members of the gentry who are planning on hunting at some point, or maybe if they're going to visit someone and want to bring their own hunting dogs. Nice inns might have kennels for dogs, maybe.

There was actually a breed of dog meant to work in kitchens for these sorts of establishments. They were called Turnspit dogs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnspit_Dog); they are presently an extinct breed. They were bred to run on a little wheel (like a hamster or gerbil) in order to turn meat on a spit so that it could be evenly cooked. Apparently, some people liked to bring them to church as foot warmers as well.

You might wonder why this is relevant, but consider this: If people were willing to let dogs work in their kitchens turning meat on a spit, I find it hard to believe they'd object strenuously to a dog being in their Inn.

If that's not good enough,



I feel like a medieval person wouldn't think it that odd if you wanted to keep a beloved pet near you, especially if you were some crazy person who loved trees and lived out in the woods 80% of the time, you know?

If that's not good enough, I can also email one of my professors! However, as it's the summer, I wouldn't expect a prompt response, if any. Her specialty is medieval history; with an emphasis on travel and women- so I'm sure she could present an answer, or at least point me towards some sources.

That is very interesting Zale, you obviously have a decent knowledge of medieval history, and you may well be right that dogs (but not wolves or bears or dinosaurs or giant tortoises) were allowed into inns. I would have assumed not, but your reasons for thinking they would seem sound.

I would be really interested in hearing what your profesor would have to say, but please only bother him if it is not too much trouble.

[Honest Tiefling]

The very first time I tried to play a fighter, I fell asleep midcombat. Admittedly, it was a pretty bad build, but that is why I dislike the fighter. Sure, a good optimizer could make a decent bruiser with a fighter, which will work in a game that is both low power and low level game just dandy. However, I don't always play with optimizers. I play with people with attention spans that can only be measured in nanoseconds.

My biggest complaint about the fighter is that it is a horrible class to give to a newbie. It is a horrible class to give to anyone but a good optimizer. Even a badly played cleric tends to work out in the end. A bad wizard who is dying a lot can at least do something useful now and again. Not so true for the fighter, it's optimized or you are a waste of space.

As for the argument that the fighter is better then a Planar Ally, I'd like to propose the following: (and apologies if this was already stated) the fighter is at best, a little better then the planar ally. But the fighter takes up a character slot, the planar ally comes with a free wizard or sorcerer attached. The fighter is simply too costly at higher levels if one thinks of it that way.

As for the animal companion, I wonder what the bluff check is to claim that your dog is simply a wolfhound or part wolf...Or would disguise be better?

[Arbane]

Arcane damage spells start falling off the radar around spell level 4 and 5 yet a warrior keeps getting more Hp more AC more magic goodies and has more attacks easily dishing out 100 damage per smack .


On the offchance this hasn't been asked yet, how are they doing 100HP per attack at level 5? O_o

[eggynack]

On the offchance this hasn't been asked yet, how are they doing 100HP per attack at level 5? O_o
Seems a bit high, but it's not too far off plausible. You have base 18 strength, +4 from rage, +4 from being a water orc, so that's a +8 mod, for +12 damage with a two handed weapon. Go the whole mounted lance route, because we're after a single big attack, so 4.5 damage, total of 16.5 now, doubled to 33. Add 10 points of power attack, doubled to 20, so 53 damage. Add headlong rush, which I think turns the doubling into a tripling, putting us up to 79.5. After that, I guess you want spirited charge, which takes you up to over 100 average damage per attack. So, lessee, that's power attack, headlong rush, mounted combat, ride-by attack, and spirited charge, for five feats. Only a single level of barbarian and the racial choice is currently accounted for, and you get two feats baseline at this point, so you need three more, which is doable through four levels of fighter, one necessarily taken after you have the BAB for rush (because the timing of feats doesn't work out otherwise), but the rest are, I think, unbounded apart from the ordering. Not the way I'd actually build things, but it hits the given total. I also didn't really use money, which I'd meant to use, so the damage total is actually higher than that.

Edit: Though, it must be said, arcane damage does not necessarily fall off the radar after level five. If you optimize the caster the way I just optimized the fighter, then you get to start pulling off mailman stuff, dealing an absolute ton of damage and doing so in a way that can't be resisted as easily as that big attack.

[Pugwampy]

I just optimized the fighter, then you get to start pulling off mailman stuff, dealing an absolute ton of damage

I read quite a little bit in my life <of course not everything> and I yet to come across any rule or loophole or feat that can offer even a 20 % spell damage increase that can be stacked with maximize .

Wizard is usually stuck with what spell he gets . I had a player even more well read and tactical when it came to optimizing heroes , argue and wrestle me for a "missile storm spell" found in Never Winter Nights the computer game because he found nothing in the books.

[eggynack]

I read quite a little bit in my life <of course not everything> and I yet to come across any rule or loophole or feat that can offer even a 20 % spell damage increase that can be stacked with maximize .

Wizard is usually stuck with what spell he gets . I had a player even more well read and tactical when it came to optimizing heroes , argue and wrestle me for a "missile storm spell" found in Never Winter Nights the computer game because he found nothing in the books.
Look up and read the mailman, then. It's not usually about having your orb of fire do more damage as it is just having more orbs in less time. Also, energy admixture is a thing. Casters can get very good at dealing a lot of damage. It's not always the best plan, because you're necessarily funneling a lot of resources into it that could be used on other more versatile plans, but it's a plan that exists.

[Morty]

Being fair to the fighter, the game is fundamentally rigged against classes without native spell-casting abilities, not just fighters. And the non-magical combat system is awful for everyone without bolting on sub-systems to expand it. Still being fair, other non-magical classes actually have features, unlike the fighter - whose substitute relies on yet another dysfunctional part of the rules, the feat system.

[Big Fau]

Being fair to the fighter, the game is fundamentally rigged against classes without native spell-casting abilities, not just fighters. And the non-magical combat system is awful for everyone without bolting on sub-systems to expand it. Still being fair, other non-magical classes actually have features, unlike the fighter - whose substitute relies on yet another dysfunctional part of the rules, the feat system.

Detailing this: The Fighter is the only class in the PHB whose entire class fits on an index card. Chart, features, and all.

[Gnaeus]

That may have been what you intended to state. What I said was that assigning fighter a low tier assumed that you were not playing at low level. You replied "not really" and went on to say that your sorcerer would win on average against a 4 HD enemy (I was charitable and assumed that you were excluding creatures immune to mind effects) while the fighter would be "owned". By all means check page 1.

You started by saying your sorcerer had color spray at level 1, and in this post you have clarified that it has sleep. So those are its two level 1 spells known, so no need for us to talk about lvl 1 rays or mage armour or anything like that any more.

1. My sorcerer was 1 sorcerer, built for a specific purpose. The way he could be built for different things speaks to versatility.

2, being in a PARTY, My character could deal with an ogre, in a way the fighter could not. I could remove him from combat safely in a way the fighter could not. If an ogre had appeared behind me, I could have color sprayed, retreated 30 feet, and then cast sleep on him, or engage some other enemy from the other direction. The fighter could not even have safely blocked the ogre.

3. As I told you before, bloodlines and schools are a thing. I did have those 2 spells and rays at level 1, and I told you how I did it. It required 0 optimization chops, it came with my bloodline. (Although being human, I did have another feat. Being in a group, I blew it on the sub optimal Persuasive, to kick up my diplomacy and intimidate a little further to add to my debuffs and out of combat utility, but if damage had been a thing my group had needed, there were plenty of ways I could have contributed in that direction also.)

4. Versatility means you can do different things. I could immobilize enemies at point blank range or 100 feet away. I could heal. I could debuff. I could casually and without resource expenditure lock down stronger enemies. I could shoot touch attacks for range damage, although I didn't, because I had better things to do. My fighter could hit things. A different fighter might have been able to say, hit things and grapple, in the same sense that a different sorcerer might have been able to do 90% of what I could do + provide his own melee damage. Or a wizard could do all that + make cheap scrolls of useful spells. I also had some handy utility cantrips and the diplomacy and intimidate to be the party face, while the fighter was useless in places that didn't involve hitting things.


but the same fighter (without any repseccing) would play just as important role in killing the ogre as part of a group (it would be striker - your character was the debilitator - both were necessary to the strategy you described).

Yes, the fighter sucks for group play. He has the exact same options, stand in front of it and try to hit its ac, in a group as it does solo. And no, the fighter would not play just as important a role in killing the ogre as part of a group, because everyone else can do the fighter's job as well. The rogue and druid could easily have murdered the sleeping or stunned ogre, while bringing more to the table. We could easily win encounters without a fighter that we could not have won without a cloth caster.

But even if you were right, and the fighter did play an equal role to debilitator in fighting difficult encounters, that still does not prove your point that the fighter is more powerful and versatile at level 1. It rather proves the opposite, that the cloth caster is just as effective at first level as the fighter is. That the argument that sor/wiz at level 1 has to be carried somehow by the superiority of the fighter is BS. The Sor/wiz is way better at pulling their weight at level 1 than the fighter is at pulling his weight at level 10.

[ryu]

1. My sorcerer was 1 sorcerer, built for a specific purpose. The way he could be built for different things speaks to versatility.

2, being in a PARTY, My character could deal with an ogre, in a way the fighter could not. I could remove him from combat safely in a way the fighter could not. If an ogre had appeared behind me, I could have color sprayed, retreated 30 feet, and then cast sleep on him, or engage some other enemy from the other direction. The fighter could not even have safely blocked the ogre.

3. As I told you before, bloodlines and schools are a thing. I did have those 2 spells and rays at level 1, and I told you how I did it. It required 0 optimization chops, it came with my bloodline.

4. Versatility means you can do different things. I could immobilize enemies at point blank range or 100 feet away. I could heal. I could debuff. I could casually and without resource expenditure lock down stronger enemies. I could shoot touch attacks for range damage, although I didn't, because I had better things to do. My fighter could hit things. A different fighter might have been able to say, hit things and grapple, in the same sense that a different sorcerer might have been able to do 90% of what I could do + provide his own melee damage. Or a wizard could do all that + make cheap scrolls of useful spells. I also had some handy utility cantrips and the diplomacy and intimidate to be the party face, while the fighter was useless in places that didn't involve hitting things.



Yes, the fighter sucks for group play. He has the exact same options, stand in front of it and try to hit its ac, in a group as it does solo. And no, the fighter would not play just as important a role in killing the ogre as part of a group, because everyone else can do the fighter's job as well. The rogue and druid could easily have murdered the sleeping or stunned ogre, while bringing more to the table. We could easily win encounters without a fighter that we could not have won without a cloth caster.

But even if you were right, and the fighter did play an equal role to debilitator in fighting difficult encounters, that still does not prove your point that the fighter is more powerful and versatile at level 1. It rather proves the opposite, that the cloth caster is just as effective at first level as the fighter is. That the argument that sor/wiz at level 1 has to be carried somehow by the superiority of the fighter is BS. The Sor/wiz is way better at pulling their weight at level 1 than the fighter is at pulling his weight at level 10.

You don't even need a rogue or a druid to do the fighter's job. A few years back when the skillmonkey was busy bleeding, the cleric was busy patching him up, and I was crowd controlling, a relatively young child NPC we'd rescued with a decently heavy rock did the fighter's ''job'' just fine during a standard encounter. That's the thing. After the enemy is crowd-controlled effectively and no one is gonna die in the next few turns it becomes harder to find things that CAN'T coup de grace the enemy until it dies than things that can. This is one of the main reasons I don't respect that class, and never will.

[Big Fau]

You don't even need a rogue or a druid to do the fighter's job. A few years back when the skillmonkey was busy bleeding, the cleric was busy patching him up, and I was crowd controlling, a relatively young child NPC we'd rescued with a decently heavy rock did the fighter's ''job'' just fine during a standard encounter. That's the thing. After the enemy is crowd-controlled effectively and no one is gonna die in the next few turns it becomes harder to find things that CAN'T coup de grace the enemy until it dies than things that can. This is one of the main reasons I don't respect that class, and never will.

An observation on this: There are two kinds of damage; enough and overkill. If you don't have enough, you resort to overkill or you lose. Simple as that.

[Darth Ultron]

Just to point out the obvious ones:

Wizards and Sorcerers, in addition to spells get familiars, a ''mini second character'' that grants some abilities.

Fighters and other such classes do not get anything equal to a pet. And you know what would make a lot oF sense: a squire.

Wizards and Sorcerers, in addition to spells get lots of metamagic feats, feats that alter their already powerful spells.

Fighters and other such classes do not get anything equal to such feats. Where is the fighters ''mighty blow feat'' where they pay a cost and then can do max damage? Maybe using attacks for spell levels? So at the cost of two attacks the strike will do max damage... metacomabt feats would sure be nice...

Spellcasters can switch spells like changing socks, fighters are stuck in the mud.

[Arbane]

I see it's time to break out the Bingo Board (http://i.imgur.com/jNT6Ce6.png).



Fighters are feat machines . There are thousands of feats out there and hundreds of those feats are overpowered and broken just waiting for a cunning player .


With the possible exception of Leadership, how many of them are equal in power to a 6th-level spell?

[Extra Anchovies]

I see it's time to break out the Bingo Board (http://i.imgur.com/jNT6Ce6.png).

Oh dang, this gave me a good laugh. Saving it for the next time this thread comes up.


With the possible exception of Leadership, how many of them are equal in power to a 6th-level spell?

And that's the crux of why the 3.5 fighter is garbage. Bonus feats can support other features to produce a nicely-balanced whole (e.g. Slayer or uRogue in Pathfinder), but on their own they don't make for a good class. There's even a number of solid combat-usable feats that aren't on the Fighter bonus list - Karmic Strike, Throw Anything, and Zen Archery are a few examples, and that's just from Complete Warrior.

[Beheld]

I read quite a little bit in my life <of course not everything> and I yet to come across any rule or loophole or feat that can offer even a 20 % spell damage increase that can be stacked with maximize .

Wizard is usually stuck with what spell he gets . I had a player even more well read and tactical when it came to optimizing heroes , argue and wrestle me for a "missile storm spell" found in Never Winter Nights the computer game because he found nothing in the books.

Off the top of my head, Energy Admixture, Split Ray, Twin, and Repeat, and arguably Quicken, all provides a 100% bonus to damage that stacks with Maximize.


1. My sorcerer was 1 sorcerer, built for a specific purpose. The way he could be built for different things speaks to versatility.

No it really doesn't. This is absolutely a minor point in all this, but the ability of another character who is not your character of same class to do something is not an argument for the versatility of your character, and the versatility of anything besides your character (or a hypothetical character) is meaningless. Some other character could do something else, but your character can only do what it can do, and the Fighter could just be some other character that is a Druid, if you are allowed to be some character that is a completely different Sorcerer. Sorcerer's are still more versatile than Fighters, but not because some other character could do something they can't do.

[Troacctid]

I read quite a little bit in my life <of course not everything> and I yet to come across any rule or loophole or feat that can offer even a 20 % spell damage increase that can be stacked with maximize .
You can't have looked very hard if you never even found Empower Spell. Just saying.

[Gnaeus]

No it really doesn't. This is absolutely a minor point in all this, but the ability of another character who is not your character of same class to do something is not an argument for the versatility of your character, and the versatility of anything besides your character (or a hypothetical character) is meaningless. Some other character could do something else, but your character can only do what it can do, and the Fighter could just be some other character that is a Druid, if you are allowed to be some character that is a completely different Sorcerer. Sorcerer's are still more versatile than Fighters, but not because some other character could do something they can't do.

Sure it is, because not all games are the same. Odds are good that you may know some or all of:
How many pcs in the group
Their classes
The play style of the other players
Their optimization level
The play style of the DM
His optimization level
What kind of enemies will likely dominate the campaign (is it in raven loft? Largely nautical? Does the adventure path have the word Drow on the cover, or Dragon)

Certainly, some of those things help fighters as well, like if you know that your primary enemies will be humanoids it makes disarm less of a waste.

But a caster, starting at L1 can pick out of a list of powers the ones most likely to be helpful to them. Should I buff or control? Will downtime allow crafting? Do I expect to be fighting lots of undead? If one player in the group is way behind the others in optimization, do I need to supplement their role with buffs or workarounds?

I have one DM who loves having one single big fight/day. For a fighter that info doesn't help a lot. But for a sorcerer that significantly changes which spells I'll pick. You can build the tier 2 with the powers you think your group will need. That's hard to do with a T5

[Arbane]

Just to point out the obvious ones:

Wizards and Sorcerers, in addition to spells get familiars, a ''mini second character'' that grants some abilities.

Fighters and other such classes do not get anything equal to a pet. And you know what would make a lot oF sense: a squire.


A Pathfinder Eldritch Guardian (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fighter-archetypes/eldritch-guardian-fighter-archetype) gets a familiar.



Wizards and Sorcerers, in addition to spells get lots of metamagic feats, feats that alter their already powerful spells.

Fighters and other such classes do not get anything equal to such feats. Where is the fighters ''mighty blow feat'' where they pay a cost and then can do max damage? Maybe using attacks for spell levels? So at the cost of two attacks the strike will do max damage... metacomabt feats would sure be nice...

The joke third-party supplement The Genius Guide to Horrifically Overpowered Feats (http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/libertad/the-genius-guide-to-horrifically-overpowered-feats/) contains a set of 'Meta-Attack' feats. (The link is to a Something Awful user reviewing the feats and deciding that compared to the stuff a wizard if equal level can do, not many of the combat feats are actually 'horriffically overpowered'. Some of the caster feats, though...)



Spellcasters can switch spells like changing socks, fighters are stuck in the mud.

Pathfinder came up with the "Martial Flexibility" class feature, which is basically a spontaneous combat feat you can get for one minute (level) times a day. The Martial Master Fighter (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo---fighter-archetypes/martial-master) has it, and it's generally agreed to be pretty good. (I've got a Battle Oracle who has it, and it's a lot of fun, actually getting to USE a lot of the ridiculously-situational combat feats once in a while.)

A Pathfighter with the Eldritch Guardian, Mutation Warrior (can do things like temporarily grow wings at level 7), and Martial Master archetypes (you can have all three at once) is agreed to be pretty good but it misses out on a lot of the fun the new Armor/Weapon Master Handbooks made available.

[Honest Tiefling]

I dunno about the squire. I don't know what their upper age limit was, but I thought the lower age limit was around 14-15. Throwing a young teenage boy at a dragon sounds hilarious, but not pratical unless you've poisoned him first and covered him in barbeque sauce.

[AnimeTheCat]

I dunno about the squire. I don't know what their upper age limit was, but I thought the lower age limit was around 14-15. Throwing a young teenage boy at a dragon sounds hilarious, but not pratical unless you've poisoned him first and covered him in barbeque sauce.

Throwing a common house cat, a badger, or a toad is much better that a 15 year old with a sword lol. I do see your point though.

[Gnaeus]

A Pathfighter with the Eldritch Guardian, Mutation Warrior (can do things like temporarily grow wings at level 7), and Martial Master archetypes (you can have all three at once) is agreed to be pretty good but it misses out on a lot of the fun the new Armor/Weapon Master Handbooks made available.

That is true. There are some hidden gems, and with sufficient system mastery you can fix some of the fighters problems. And that combo doesn't suck. It does, however, look like jumping through a lot of hoops to play a less versatile alchemist or magus when it is rather easier just to build an alchemist or magus who can fight.

[Pugwampy]

You can't have looked very hard if you never even found Empower Spell. Just saying.

Really ? Wow ..... have 50 xp pity points

The cost of stacking empower with maximize is beyond not worth it . I am sorry I thought everyone understood that .

....just saying

[Big Fau]

Really ? Wow ..... have 50 xp pity points

The cost of stacking empower with maximize is beyond not worth it . I am sorry I thought everyone understood that .

....just saying

Metamagic Rods, Sudden Maximize, Legacy Items, etc. There are ways, and those ways can be cheap.

[Flickerdart]

Really ? Wow ..... have 50 xp pity points

The cost of stacking empower with maximize is beyond not worth it . I am sorry I thought everyone understood that .

....just saying
Nobody actually pays the cost of metamagic - there are loads of ways to mitigate is, from using another resource (Divine Metamagic, Metamagic Song, Spelldance, Incantatrix) to straight up reducing the cost (Arcane Thesis, Practical Metamagic, Metamagic School Focus, Easy Metamagic).

This is the problem with fighters - they are not just weak in reality, they are weak in what they can be, because they have so incredibly little in the way of resources to trade away for things that are actually useful. It is very difficult to write new material for fighters that isn't either "instead of a bonus feat" (in which case it should be equal in power to feats, and feats are weak) or straight up free (in which case it can't be strong, or grogs will complain).

[Troacctid]

Really ? Wow ..... have 50 xp pity points

The cost of stacking empower with maximize is beyond not worth it . I am sorry I thought everyone understood that .

....just saying

Hey, you're the one who claimed to be ignorant of its existence. I only took your word for it. Relevant xkcd (https://xkcd.com/169/).

[Beheld]

Sure it is, because not all games are the same. Odds are good that you may know some or all of:
How many pcs in the group
Their classes
The play style of the other players
Their optimization level
The play style of the DM
His optimization level
What kind of enemies will likely dominate the campaign (is it in raven loft? Largely nautical? Does the adventure path have the word Drow on the cover, or Dragon)

Certainly, some of those things help fighters as well, like if you know that your primary enemies will be humanoids it makes disarm less of a waste.

But a caster, starting at L1 can pick out of a list of powers the ones most likely to be helpful to them. Should I buff or control? Will downtime allow crafting? Do I expect to be fighting lots of undead? If one player in the group is way behind the others in optimization, do I need to supplement their role with buffs or workarounds?

I have one DM who loves having one single big fight/day. For a fighter that info doesn't help a lot. But for a sorcerer that significantly changes which spells I'll pick. You can build the tier 2 with the powers you think your group will need. That's hard to do with a T5

None of this even remotely addresses what I said.

Of course you can build a character to do well in a campaign, but that doesn't change that the ability of a character that is not your character to deal with a problem is irrelevant to the versatility of your character. You can also choose to be a homebrewed Firemage in one game, and a homebrewed Cold Mage in another game, that doesn't make your Fire Mage more versatile, that just means that you could play something different than what you are playing. Characters are versatile based on what they can do, not what other not them people can do, and the hypothetical ability to choose a different character is worthless in measuring anything that we actually care about.

[Pugwampy]

Perhaps i phrased it wrong . When i talked about increasing spell damage I meant something to be used in combination with or independent of meta magic .

[Gnaeus]

None of this even remotely addresses what I said.

Of course you can build a character to do well in a campaign, but that doesn't change that the ability of a character that is not your character to deal with a problem is irrelevant to the versatility of your character. You can also choose to be a homebrewed Firemage in one game, and a homebrewed Cold Mage in another game, that doesn't make your Fire Mage more versatile, that just means that you could play something different than what you are playing. Characters are versatile based on what they can do, not what other not them people can do, and the hypothetical ability to choose a different character is worthless in measuring anything that we actually care about.

Of course it does. If a level 1 sorcerer has, say 4 tricks (2 spells, a bloodline power, and something from a feat perhaps). And 3 of those things are redundant or useless in your game, then you have 1 trick. That's no better than a fighter. But if you have 4 tricks that are beneficial to your party in your game, that are relevant enough that you have to think to choose between them, that is versatility. If you are playing a fire Mage in a game where everything is immune to fire, you are vastly less versatile than a cold Mage in that same game, because he has meaningful options and you don't. If your trick is bypassing traps, but you have a rogue who is more than adequate at doing that with less resources than you, being the second best trap smith in a party is useless and it brings nothing to the table at all. But if your party needs that, and your game contains standard traps, it does add to the versatility of your character. Options only count if they are meaningful in the context of your table.

[Extra Anchovies]

Perhaps i phrased it wrong . When i talked about increasing spell damage I meant something to be used in combination with or independent of meta magic .

How about more metamagic? Pretty much anything that increases a spell's effects ended up as a metamagic feat or just improves the spell's caster level. And as several others have stated, low- or no-cost metamagic is almost trivial for full-casters, who can generally do what they want with their feats.

That's another thing: Fighters, and non-spellcasters in general, don't have much build freedom - most if not all of their feats, especially at early levels, are taken up by prerequisites or build-necessary feats. Magic-users, on the other hand, work just fine without a single feat taken, so they can more easily afford to spend feats on fun things they want (like reserve or crafting feats) rather than things they need (like Point Blank Shot or Combat Expertise).

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Perhaps i phrased it wrong . When i talked about increasing spell damage I meant something to be used in combination with or independent of meta magic .CL boosters do stuff like this. +1 CL means better SR penetration and more damage to most spells. For things like telekinesis, especially with something like Chain Spell applied, this can give benefits all out of proportion to what most spells get from CL boosts. Also, shrink item. Check the difference in damage between a CL 7 and CL 8 shrink item'd granite boulder via telekinesis.

[Beheld]

Of course it does. If a level 1 sorcerer has, say 4 tricks (2 spells, a bloodline power, and something from a feat perhaps). And 3 of those things are redundant or useless in your game, then you have 1 trick. That's no better than a fighter. But if you have 4 tricks that are beneficial to your party in your game, that are relevant enough that you have to think to choose between them, that is versatility. If you are playing a fire Mage in a game where everything is immune to fire, you are vastly less versatile than a cold Mage in that same game, because he has meaningful options and you don't. If your trick is bypassing traps, but you have a rogue who is more than adequate at doing that with less resources than you, being the second best trap smith in a party is useless and it brings nothing to the table at all. But if your party needs that, and your game contains standard traps, it does add to the versatility of your character. Options only count if they are meaningful in the context of your table.

... None of that addresses anything that I said. At all.

Options only count if they are options that your character has available. Options your character does not have are meaningless. If you take a level in the "Adventurer" class, which has a single class ability, the ability to choose one other class at first level, and then treat all your adventurer levels as levels in that class and this can never be changed, then the "Adventurer" class is the best class, but that also is meaningless, because anyone who wanted to be a Wizard could have taken levels in Wizard, anyone who wanted levels in Druid could have taken Druid, ect.

The only thing that matters is what actual characters a class produces, and how good or bad those are (by assorted metrics). The number of different characters is meaningless on every conceivable level, since if you are playing character A, you can't be playing Character B, so Character B doesn't matter.

[eggynack]

... None of that addresses anything that I said. At all.

Options only count if they are options that your character has available. Options your character does not have are meaningless. If you take a level in the "Adventurer" class, which has a single class ability, the ability to choose one other class at first level, and then treat all your adventurer levels as levels in that class and this can never be changed, then the "Adventurer" class is the best class, but that also is meaningless, because anyone who wanted to be a Wizard could have taken levels in Wizard, anyone who wanted levels in Druid could have taken Druid, ect.

The only thing that matters is what actual characters a class produces, and how good or bad those are (by assorted metrics). The number of different characters is meaningless on every conceivable level, since if you are playing character A, you can't be playing Character B, so Character B doesn't matter.
I think that what's being argued is that the wider variety of available options has a beneficial impact on the sorcerer, because you necessarily know some things about the game state. Let's assume the weird alternative scenario for a moment. That is, a world where the player loses all knowledge of the play environment the second he starts choosing spells. We can further assume a perfect player, and thus some platonic spell list, a list that any other perfect player would independently duplicate. In this strange environment, the sorcerer gets no advantage from any spells except those on that platonic list. It doesn't matter that you have theoretical access to both enlarge person and grease, because you ran the numbers and grease happens to be a better spell. Here, you may as well be a fixed list caster.

We can thus see the advantages provided in a normal game. In this actual game, enlarge person happens to be better than grease because your party is loaded up with melee characters that need the reach. Solid fog is above its usual level and black tentacles below it, because you're fighting more melee folk and fewer castery folk. In this sense, the breadth of the sorcerer list makes it better than it would be if you were slotted into this platonic ideal list. You are more assured than you'd otherwise be that your spells will be applicable, and this is more true for a sorcerer than for a fighter for whom most options look similar, and where the platonic ideal is much closer to optimal. I think I agree with you though. I wouldn't call that advantage versatility in the way I'd usually think about versatility. They have class versatility, I suppose, but it doesn't extend into character versatility, which is more meaningful. Yes, you can adapt your spell list level to level, to suit the situation, but that's much less potent than the ability to swap lists from day to day. It doesn't extend far into actual gameplay, if it does at all, so it's not that meaningful beyond its nature as a general power booster.

[Liquor Box]

1. My sorcerer was 1 sorcerer, built for a specific purpose. The way he could be built for different things speaks to versatility.

I don't think that is what is meant by versatility. Any class can be built in different ways. The point of versatility is that a single build can offer lots of options - not that a class can be built to different things. That's why wizards are said to be more versatile than sorcerers - not because they have more build options, but because they can rehash their spell list daily so take on different challenges each day. At level one your sorcerer was not versatile - as you have admitted it struggled once soloing, it is also only able to be effective against creatures affected by mind magic, not the significant minority which are not. The fighter is versatile enough to be able to do things solo, do things in a group, do things against zombies etc.


2, being in a PARTY, My character could deal with an ogre, in a way the fighter could not. I could remove him from combat safely in a way the fighter could not. If an ogre had appeared behind me, I could have color sprayed, retreated 30 feet, and then cast sleep on him, or engage some other enemy from the other direction. The fighter could not even have safely blocked the ogre.
Yes, your character could have dealt with an ogre (as part of a party) in a way the fighter could not. The fighter could also have dealt with the ogre (as part of a party) in a way your character could not have. Because the fighter does a different thing does not make it inferior.

You character could not have dealt with an ogre that appeared behind it "safely" at all. Lose intiative you lose, the ogre saves against the color spray you lose, fail to have a striker rescue you before the color spray wears off you lose.


3. As I told you before, bloodlines and schools are a thing. I did have those 2 spells and rays at level 1, and I told you how I did it. It required 0 optimization chops, it came with my bloodline. (Although being human, I did have another feat. Being in a group, I blew it on the sub optimal Persuasive, to kick up my diplomacy and intimidate a little further to add to my debuffs and out of combat utility, but if damage had been a thing my group had needed, there were plenty of ways I could have contributed in that direction also.)

Actually you said, in the context of your theoretical build for this battle, that you would "probably" get a ray as a bloodline. And this was in response to my asking about mage amrour (in addition to sleep and color spray).


4. Versatility means you can do different things. I could immobilize enemies at point blank range or 100 feet away. I could heal. I could debuff. I could casually and without resource expenditure lock down stronger enemies. I could shoot touch attacks for range damage, although I didn't, because I had better things to do. My fighter could hit things. A different fighter might have been able to say, hit things and grapple, in the same sense that a different sorcerer might have been able to do 90% of what I could do + provide his own melee damage. Or a wizard could do all that + make cheap scrolls of useful spells. I also had some handy utility cantrips and the diplomacy and intimidate to be the party face, while the fighter was useless in places that didn't involve hitting things.
You are obviously not talking about the context of the ogre here so neither will I. Versatility does mean being able to do different things. A typical lvl 1 fighter can avoid damage by having a high AC, absorb damage by having high HP (in the context of CR1 enemies), damage enemies from 200 feet away or at point blank range, have his main features work on a wide range of CR1 enemies, if healing is available could contribute meaningfully to 10 battles in a day.....
As for outside of combat, the fighter can succed at strength checks, smash hardened objects, potentially climb or jump places, survive traps he accidently sets off by virtue of higher hit points.


Yes, the fighter sucks for group play. He has the exact same options, stand in front of it and try to hit its ac, in a group as it does solo. And no, the fighter would not play just as important a role in killing the ogre as part of a group, because everyone else can do the fighter's job as well. The rogue and druid could easily have murdered the sleeping or stunned ogre, while bringing more to the table. We could easily win encounters without a fighter that we could not have won without a cloth caster.

So you logic is that because other classes can also make functional strikers, the fighter would not play as important of a role? But wizards, sorcerers, clerics and druids (and a myriad of other classes including some tomeo of battle martial classes) can make effective debilitators at level one. So other classes would have been able to fill the sorcerer's role.
At the end of the day, the tactic you described that your party would use was for the debilitator to debilitate the ogre and for the striker to kill it. This requires both a debilitator and a striker. Either role can be adequately filled by many classes, but both are equally important to the tactic you described.


But even if you were right, and the fighter did play an equal role to debilitator in fighting difficult encounters, that still does not prove your point that the fighter is more powerful and versatile at level 1. It rather proves the opposite, that the cloth caster is just as effective at first level as the fighter is. That the argument that sor/wiz at level 1 has to be carried somehow by the superiority of the fighter is BS. The Sor/wiz is way better at pulling their weight at level 1 than the fighter is at pulling his weight at level 10.
I didn't say the fighter was more powerful or versatile, I just said the tier system didn't apply at level 1. You arguesd against that by saying the sorcerer was MORE powerful and versatile at level 1. A druid probably does remain more powerful and versatile than a fighter at low levels ( as I am forced to concede after several pages discussing the subject), as does a warblade. Not a sorcerer though I don't think.

I do still think the fighter is more useful in a party situation, than the sorcerer you described for the following reasons:
- You sorcerer may be equally useful in the boss fight against the ogre, but it needs to conserve its resources in the 5 or 6 fights against the kobold minions leading up to the boss fight. The fighter has something to do throughout, especially with healing support.
- The sorcerer is optimised against enemies susceptible to mind effecting spells like sleep and color spray (even if it has some backup against other enemies. The fighter is fully effective against a much wideer range of low CR foes.
- You have also described your sorcerer's tactics as bing at most use at long range. Typical low level encounters happen in rooms, where long range play is impossible. In this sort of play he would have been more susceptible than the fighter to being killed by someone taking a swipe at him.
- As you have already acknowledged, your sorcerer was optimised for party play, wheras the fighter functions well in solo in addition to group.

I don't mean to be critical. I am sure your build was very good at what it was designed for, and functioned well within the group. I also expect it would have exceed the capabilities of any fighter that may have been in the party once the part went from low level to mid level. But I don't think it would have been more capable or versatile than the fighter at very low levels.

[eggynack]

I don't think that the sorcerer is more powerful than the fighter at first, but I also don't think the fighter is better. They're pretty comparable. As opposed to the stated build, I'd probably give the sorcerer silent image and either color spray or sleep, rather than both of those, probably color spray, because sleep gets worse faster. Color spray acts as the main offensive force, and silent image enables more diverse in combat strategies as well as a bunch of out of combat impact. The cantrips shouldn't be discounted either. Prestidigitation is great, and it can be backed up by detect magic, ghost sound (to help with the silent image sometimes, among other things), and let's say amanuensis. You wind up with a good amount of power both in and out of combat, and you have the spells/day to keep it up through most of an adventuring day. The skill list is also better, which is nice, though the low number of points hurts. I'd call it superior versatility, comparable power, and perhaps inferior sustained action.