Quote Originally Posted by Cosi View Post
Any defense of the Fighter that starts with "ignoring spells" does not strike me as particularly compelling.
Oh, I agree, I just find it interesting that 3e managed to make the Fighter far more incompetent in 'martials only' games.

This is true. It's also bad design even if it is nominally balanced, because it is balanced in exactly one type of campaign: the one where you start at level 1 (where the Wizard sucks) and progress to level 10 (where the Fighter sucks)*. It's not balanced if you start at high level. It's not balanced if you stop at low level. It's not balanced if you don't progress (a la Conan or Superman). It's limiting the number of potential campaigns the game supports for no reason.

*: Obviously, simplified to not use AD&D advancement.
Oh, I totally agree here. I'm currently looking at Legends of the Wulin, and the only balance issue I can immediately find is that the Warrior's Art and the Scholar's Art are more difficult to use than the other three, but they still appear balanced (because Scholar does the same thing as the other 3, just on a different scale, and Warrior gives interesting options for increasing your power).