Wizards should be better than fighters.

[Peat]

Complaining about people not wanting solutions might make more sense if this was a thread about solutions. It is a thread in which someone gave their opinion on how things should be and why, with the result of a lot of people saying it should be a different way based in no small part on the OP's logic. Just because solutions exist doesn't mean they should have to, or that they're the ones people think should exist.

[Dienekes]

I think you're looking to much at the name of the class instead of the role of the character. Whether they are a Barbarian, a Monk, a Paladin, or even the Knight class itself, a character can just BE a Samurai regardless of what their class name actually is.

Yup. And that's true for Wizards too, given many people don't think you'd use one to represent Gandalf.

Besides, if we do want exact name to class, then the Knights of the Round Table aren't Fighters. The clue is in the name.

(And Psyren pointed out the running thing could be done by fighters).

Getting hung up on exact cases kinda feels like a distraction from what is (or should be) the main argument, which is there's no reason Martials of all stripes should be deprived of interesting abilities, or that Fighters should be the poor cousins there. Which is mostly agreed on anyway.

Wait now. Hold up here. The original challenge was Fighter class is suitable to perform anything done by a completely human martial legend who did not gain powers from magic items. I gave a list feats performed by several such figures. And now you’re saying it’s my fault it’s not working because I’m being too limited with just using the Fighter class?

That was the original challenge! And hell I’m not even making him stick to it. If he wants to add monk and knight and marshal and whatever go ahead. He just can’t use Bard and Barbarian, partially because one is a caster class so it breaks the entire premise of the argument. But the other is he literally can’t. They were lawful good characters, the rules stay that to be a Bard or a Barbarian you must be of any non-lawful alignment.

[Peat]

Wait now. Hold up here. The original challenge was Fighter class is suitable to perform anything done by a completely human martial legend who did not gain powers from magic items. I gave a list feats performed by several such figures. And now you’re saying it’s my fault it’s not working because I’m being too limited with just using the Fighter class?

That was the original challenge! And hell I’m not even making him stick to it. If he wants to add monk and knight and marshal and whatever go ahead. He just can’t use Bard and Barbarian, partially because one is a caster class so it breaks the entire premise of the argument. But the other is he literally can’t. They were lawful good characters, the rules stay that to be a Bard or a Barbarian you must be of any non-lawful alignment.

I wasn't even aware there was a challenge.

But in any case - D&D 3.5 is built around the assumption of multiclassing, PrCing, multiple classes to cover slightly different niches etc.etc. I may not entirely agree with how much it is needed but that is it how it is built. As a result, expecting all things that could be considered fighter to be found under Fighter makes little sense, and I'm fairly sure Psyren wasn't arguing against that at any point. If that is actually the expectation then, well, fair enough. If it is "Can I do it in D&D 3.5", it goes out of the window.

Also Paladin with Harmonious Knight or Smite to Song totally gets around needing to be a Bard for Inspire Courage.

[Psyren]

Well the thread is about Fighters. And he's pretty clearly not a Bard which you tried to pass off some of his abilities onto. I'm sorry, but if to get the feats of a knight you need to take levels of Bard then the system has failed. As to not being a Barbarian, because Bors is clearly lawful good for one thing so he can't take the class levels, and doesn't fly to any murder rages. Though Gawain actually does get angry enough to vow revenge upon Lancelot, but the reason he did that was because his oaths compelled him not to attack a kinsman. So Gawain is still pretty far on the law side of the alignment pool as well. And as to a Monk? Well he certainly doesn't fit the fluff the class is going for, since he's a horse riding heavily armored sword, lance, and shield knight. But, if you can make it work for the build, sure I suppose. Cavalier as well I don't really have a problem with, other than the fact this was supposed to be a Fighter challenge. But if you want to add it I'm not really opposed.

You're taking the thread title a bit too literally I'd say. What really matters here is the caster/martial divide - once we bring up the actual builds of fictional characters and their abilities I think you'll find that most of them are multiclassed in some way. Even Conan, the most iconic barbarian imaginable to this day, is often statted with some rogue in there, and several folks even view him as being lawful.

With that said, I don't have to go to a magical class like Bard to inspire people - Seasoned Commander Fighter and Exemplar Brawler can do it, for example, and if you interpret "inspire" more broadly then Cavalier and even Ranger are in too. As for monk, a Sohei or Shou Disciple can do the armor and horse thing.

Fair enough. Let's set a baseline here. The biggest thing they did was create a magical plague that effected an entire kingdom instantly. What's the minimum level a mage class can do that?

Sounds like a ritual/incantation, in which case the answer is "whatever level the plot needs it to be." You can move it up or down with mitigants and other factors to a near limitless degree.

If we're going by the story. The demon was trying to tempt him with a willing woman to break his vows to his wife, then when he would not be tempted offered a "test of strength" that if he did would curse a village, which Gawain then turned around back on the demon to trick him. The demon realized he had been bested, returned to his true form and fought Gawain, and Gawain beat him.

That doesn't sound like a Balor at all; FC1 doesn't put them in the "manipulator" or "corrupter" categories. They also don't have any shapeshifting. Whatever fiend it was, it's undoubtedly weaker than that if it sought to manipulate first.

[Peat]

Also, if I was to pick the most supernatural attributes of ostensibly completely human warriors in mythology, I'd look at Culhwch and Olwen. Cei can survive 216 hours underwater without breathing, go 216 hours without sleep, nobody can heal a wound from his sword (arguably weapon qualities, but seems to imply its any sword of Cei as Bedwyr is called out as having a magic spear but Cei isn't), he can grow as high as a tree, and can radiate heat from his hands. It's a pretty funky list.

[Afghanistan]

A first level fighter is not a special forces guy. He's not even a basic infantry army grunt. He's a peasant's son that's either been conscripted or an idolent third son of some noble that's decided to join up for adventure (or vice-versa) and happens to have a little bit of fighting talent*. He's scrounged, inhereted, borrowed, or been issued some basic kit. That's it. He's either worked out or been taught by somebody how to use standard, military arms and armor to a degree that he's more likely to hurt his foes than himself.

I contest this for a number of reasons, namely that this simply an argument to box in the creativity of identity for the fighter and serves to minimize the potential for a Fighter. While I am sure you would absolutely never declare that

A Wizard is not Archimedes or a super scientist. He's a scruffed little bookworm, the child of a peasant witch who was burned as a child, or a thrillseeking noble scion too distant in relation to any serious power to be a threat to the family that decided to join up for adventure and happens to just know how to read a bit of magic text and chuck a magic bullet once in a blue moon. She stole, scrounged, or made up a few magic words to form the basics of their spellbook. That's it. She's either worked out, or been taught how to cast some basic cantrips and maybe some basic spells, and is more likely to hurt his foes than himself.

I do not believe this is fair to limit characters who are supposed to be heroes in such constrained ways. There is a MASSIVE gap in strength between the bog standard Commoner and even the Warrior and the Fighter.

---

Wait now. Hold up here. The original challenge [...]

Gonna stop you right there and say I do not recall any such challenge being issued, nor ever accepting any such challenge. Furthermore...

That was the original challenge! And hell I’m not even making him stick to it. If he wants to add monk and knight and marshal and whatever go ahead. He just can’t use Bard and Barbarian, partially because one is a caster class so it breaks the entire premise of the argument. But the other is he literally can’t. They were lawful good characters, the rules stay that to be a Bard or a Barbarian you must be of any non-lawful alignment.

You are constraining to a martial/caster dichotomy, when this is not necessarily the case. This should not be the case, and in practice usually isn't. Does the Wizards ability to cast spells prevent it from being able to make melee attacks? Must they always, on each round cast spells or do they cease to become a Wizard? No. Often at low level play, you will see dedicated spellcasters, any one that can equip a crossbow, will do so simply because it is a reliable source of damage that scales with them until they gain more spellcasting abilities. This experience of not casting, does not somehow negate them as spellcasters, it is simply them taking a tactical option.

Note: Pathfinder and 5es cantrip system and options allow them to bypass this method, however despite this, Wizards at low levels can still elect to fight as mentioned above. My description is unique to early D&D.

Furthermore, your two examples, the Bard and Barbarian, do not in anyway negate class features if they simply cease to be their respective alignment, so why you would choose such a poor example is beyond me.

[Rater202]

One of the best PRCs from direct melee combat is the Warshaper, which gives immunity to stunning and crits, and immunity to crits makes you immune to sneak attack and similar, as well as big boosts to strength and con, fast healing, and the ability to spend a turn to make yourself heal even more(neither of which are enough to shrug off damage, but they lower your dependency on healers.)

But most importantly, it gives you the ability to make an arbitrary number of natural weapon attacks from five feet away, meaning that, theoretically, within a six-second round a warshaper can inflict an infinite amount of damage to a single target(GM permitting.)

One is more likely to hit, and thus will take up less time and be more likely to get away with it, if they have a high base attack bonus, so while wizards are caable of becoming Warshapers(which is suboptimal as it doesn't progress spellcasting) the best Warshapers would-be fighters or other classes with a full base attack bonus who would not be penalized by a lack of 1-5 levels of spellcasting. (and would not be overly penalized by 1-5 levels of 1/3 base attack bonus.)

Thus, one could argue that, in a Total op scenario, the absolute best damage dealer would be a Fighter 8+/Warshaper 4(the capstone is kind of worthless if you're not a caster taking it as a gish build) with Weapon Focus, Specialization, and Melee weapon mastery, as well as Multiattack and Improved Multiatack, who sets up an arbitrary number of natural weapons that inflict the kind of damage they have Melee weapon Mastery in who then tears apart individual enemies with full attack actions. Only if an enemy is immune to that attack type or has DR high enough that none of your natural weapons can pierce it is it not a theoretical One Turn KO, and this can be mitigated with two more melee weapon mastery feats if your initial weapon focus is "natural weapon: Bite"

Thus, fighters are better than Wizards, who take far longer to set up such a build and do not have access to some of the necessary feats.

See, anyone can make an inane argument that's dependant on extremes and logical leaps.

[danzibr]

This reminds me of a thread I made... looks like 8 years ago, entitled "*Should* melee be able to rival casters?"

Conversation went on for 34 pages.

[digiman619]

I think that when you boil this question down to its basest form, it's "Should having magic be as good than not having magic?" And for the folks that come down on the side of magic, I can totally respect that opinion.

However, there is a second, unasked question here that, in my mind, is more pertinent: "Does something being magic automatically mean it should be usable by mortals?" And to me, the answer is clearly no. But D&D wizards are capable of so many incredibly powerful things that many gods in other settings can't and no one cares. But god forbid a martial have any out of combat utility. Hell, I've seen people complain about even minor boons giving them line effects on their attacks as "too anime". Which is stupid as hell, as D&D casters can stop time and create demiplanes and all sorts of broken crap, while the most that most anime casters can do is elemental blasting or general buffs.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'll agree they're not a special forces guy... But this article provides reasoning for why the best in our world would probably only hit Level 6. So I suppose a Navy SEAL would be around Level 3-5. Even at Level 1, that's no reason for them to have so few skill points or Class Skills warriors would need to be remotely effective beyond, "Imma a button masher."

My issue with the bolded part is that what you're describing sounds more like the Warrior NPC class. If we want to bring in 2E for a moment, a Fighter was called a Veteran at Level 1... Even then, I think this becomes a moot point by the time they hit Level 4-5 and are still, mechanically, so inept that these fantasy badasses would get laughed out of real world armies for how incompetent they are. The 3.5E Fighter fits more in line with a dumb henchman than anything...

The -entire- difference between the fighter PC class and the warrior NPC class is that talent. The former is a little tougher, a little more prone to figuring out the tricks of the trade, a little luckier perhaps. The same XP gets you the same number of levels and their training is in the same field. What else would you use to explain why one gets a larger HD and -way- more combat competency?

The issue is that Fighters need to multi-class to be able to function at all beyond dumb brutes. The D&D Fighter was inspired by characters such as Conan the Barbarian, who could sneak and had high perceptive abilities.

That goes back to my commentary on CC skills. You're not -forbidden- to put ranks in skills that aren't class skills. You're not forbidden from having a high int score (virtually all of mine have at least a 14 for combat expertise). You -choose- whether or not to do those things. A fighter that's put max cross-class ranks in hide and move silently has used the exact same number of skill points as one who has put max ranks intimidate and ride. He's not as good as an equal level rogue at stealth but why should he be?

The question isn't whether or not he -can- sneak, you don't need ranks at all for that. The question is whether he has enough to succeed at stealth often enough. That doesn't take much when the overwhelming majority of foes and creatures are only gonna have a few points of overall bonus to their spot and listen checks. Conan never had to sneak past a grell so why would you expect a fighter to? Being stealthy enough to pick a copper piece out of an old red's scales is the design space for the skirmisher types like rogues and scouts. The fighter's design space is running the beast through and prying that copper out with a crow-bar after. He can be sneaky enough to get past its kobold minions without a fight though.

Let's put some numbers to it, just to really hammer the point home.

Human thug fighter 20 with int 14 and dex 12. Really wants to be a proper sneak so he takes the feats guerrilla scout and guerrilla warrior.

7 skill points a level means he can have just about max ranks in each of spot, listen, hide, and move silently and 5 other skills. About level 9 or so, he picks up darkstalker, just to be safe.

So at 20, he has 11 ranks in all 4 of those skills and still has plenty of points left over to also have, let's go with know (local), gather info, tumble (skilled city-dweller article), intimidate, and jump. He's even picked up a couple of skill tricks since he could only advance the other 4 on every other level.

Let's go ahead and give him greater boots and cloak of elvenkind for +10 to each and a set of gloves of dexterity +4

So that's 11 ranks, +10 competence, +3 dex for a total bonus on stealth rolls of +24. For comparison, most of the spot/listen modifiers at the same level on the SRD only have that beat by about 5 points. The 20k spent on these skills is chump change from the 760k that a level 20 character gets and that's not even close to the highest bonus you can get without epic items. It's also only 3 feats out of the character's 18 total.

You can lean even harder into stealth without being any less of a fighter with another feat or two and a few 10's of thousands more gold if you want but I think the point is made here and the same is true for -most- skills. If your fighters are big, dumb brutes then it's because that's how you build them.

A Fighter can't do what even basic fantasy (or real world) warriors would be capable of without multiclassing or being very careful with what skills they pick, let alone step into the realms of the gods like a Wizard can (I admit, a Fighter can hit stuff REALLY hard... Hercules can also do that, and much harder... So can Thor...). Fighters don't scale in damage too well unless you pick the right feats (Power Attack, Vital Strike) and even then, they can't move more than 5 feet to do a Full Attack... While Wizards can cast higher level spells as a Standard Action and move, along with the bit about their spells increasing in damage automatically with level (by a d6 or so). Wizards get to be potentially everything at once, Fighters get to be the henchman of the Wizard is why people like me have a problem.

There's nothing really left to say on this except to repeat my theses. Don't look to class alone to make your character everything you want him to be. The caster archetype is more limited and the non-casters less so than they're given credit for in these discussions.

There are plenty of ways to move and full attack and get damage up to decent levels as well as do a whole host of other things. A spell you can have ready in 15 minutes doesn't do you a lick of good if you need it right now.

I contest this for a number of reasons, namely that this simply an argument to box in the creativity of identity for the fighter and serves to minimize the potential for a Fighter. While I am sure you would absolutely never declare that



I do not believe this is fair to limit characters who are supposed to be heroes in such constrained ways. There is a MASSIVE gap in strength between the bog standard Commoner and even the Warrior and the Fighter.

Your little blurb doesn't match mine. You forgot the all important "first level" phrase from your wizard description. If it's placed at the beginning of the first sentence, as it was with my fighter description, then I absolutely would describe a first level wizard that way.

First level characters have not yet had any adventures. They have the minimum competence as described in their class entries; armor and weapon proficiencies and their first level class features. For a fighter, that's one more combat trick than the next guy. For a wizard it's a bare handful of slots and a book with next to nothing but cantrips in it. They're more talented than warriors and magewrights and capable of growing to far greater heights but they're not there yet and there's no reason their backstory should say different.

Both wizards and fighters are -far- too customizable to make any definitive statement of what they are much beyond first level but at first level they're barely competent nobodies.

Same goes for pretty much all of the classes to one degree or other. Favored souls and sorcerers are special at level one by virtue of having their powers invested in them by something greater than themselves but pretty much everybody else had to work for it and they're barely off the starting line yet at level 1.

You want to be a super-special snowflake at level one, you're gonna have to come up with a peculiar race. Elans used to be something but are no longer. An incarnate effigy of something humanoid shaped and with only one HD is definitely not something you see every day. You could be a failed mind seed implanted in the clone of a cerebremancer as an experiment. End of the day though, you're still a level 1 nobody that's barely competent now and you've got to earn being something by leveling and accomplishing feats and deeds.

You can be as creative as you want but there's gonna be narrative and cognitive dissonance if your creativity outstrips your actual character's abilities.

[AntiAuthority]

I think that when you boil this question down to its basest form, it's "Should having magic be as good than not having magic?" And for the folks that come down on the side of magic, I can totally respect that opinion.

There is a second, unasked question here that, in my mind, is more pertinent: "Does something being magic automatically mean it should be usable by mortals?" And to me, the answer is clearly no. But D&D wizards are capable of so many incredibly powerful things that many gods in other settings can't and no one cares. But god forbid a martial have any out of combat utility. Hell, I've seen people complain about even minor boons giving them line effects on their attacks as "too anime". Which is stupid as hell, as D&D casters can stop time and create demiplanes and all sorts of broken crap, while the most that most anime casters can do is at best elemental blasting.

It's ok for completely mortal magic users to make gods in most settings look incompetent because magic is fantastic. It's wrong for completely mortal martial types to do the same thing because we need an explanation for that.

Before someone brings it up, Ainz Ooal Gown from the Overlord anime is a spell caster can stop time, throw around elements, teleport, etc. Things you'd expect from anime, right? Well yes and no... The thing is Ainz is from an MMORPG heavily inspired by D&D 3E, so everything he's doing that counts as "too anime" are mostly things you'd find in D&D. So everything is "too anime."

---

The -entire- difference between the fighter PC class and the warrior NPC class is that talent. The former is a little tougher, a little more prone to figuring out the tricks of the trade, a little luckier perhaps. The same XP gets you the same number of levels and their training is in the same field. What else would you use to explain why one gets a larger HD and -way- more combat competency?

I'd say the Fighter has more training because of their ability to gain more combat feats.

The same XP doesn't make sense for an argument, because Fighters and Wizards also level up at the same XP, so they should be equal if we're using XP... So why are you against Fighters having more versatility in the form of class skills? Everyone levels up at the same rate in 3.5E, that doesn't imply one class has more talent than another since they're all progressing in levels at the same time.

Fighters having Armor and Weapon Training , more feats and more Class Skills as a class feature while Warriors don't supports them not getting luckier or figuring it out. Just better training than Warriors... I just don't understand why the better trained class has as few skill ranks as the lesser trained one...

If we look at the Starting Ages thing, the higher ages imply Fighters have longer training than someone like a Barbarian or Rogue... But they still have far fewer skill ranks than either...

That goes back to my commentary on CC skills. You're not -forbidden- to put ranks in skills that aren't class skills. You're not forbidden from having a high int score (virtually all of mine have at least a 14 for combat expertise). You -choose- whether or not to do those things. A fighter that's put max cross-class ranks in hide and move silently has used the exact same number of skill rank as one who has put max ranks intimidate and ride. He's not as good as an equal level rogue at stealth but why should he be?

In an earlier post, I covered why a D&D Fighter is so incompetent that they'd be considered slow by the standards of real world and other fantasy armies because of how they lack class skills that real and fantasy warriors tend to have. Basic soldiers in the real world are capable of performing stealth, even fantasy warriors are capable of this. Fighters apparently fail at that archetype and are reduced to unskilled brutes.

The question isn't whether or not he -can- sneak, you don't need ranks at all for that. The question is whether he has enough to succeed at stealth often enough. That doesn't take much when the overwhelming majority of foes and creatures are only gonna have a few points of overall bonus to their spot and listen checks. Conan never had to sneak past a grell so why would you expect a fighter to? Being stealthy enough to pick a copper piece out of an old red's scales is the design space for the skirmisher types like rogues and scouts. The fighter's design space is running the beast through and prying that copper out with a crow-bar after. He can be sneaky enough to get past its kobold minions without a fight though.

So you're in support of Fighter's main option being violence to get what they want? Because that's fitting... For a dumb bandit or monster that a hero would kill in any other story, not the usual hero you'd follow in a story.

Let's put some numbers to it, just to really hammer the point home.

Human thug fighter 20 with int 14 and dex 12. Really wants to be a proper sneak so he takes the feats guerrilla scout and guerrilla warrior.

7 skill ranks a level means he can have just about max ranks in each of spot, listen, hide, and move silently and 5 other skills. About level 9 or so, he picks up darkstalker, just to be safe.

So at 20, he has 11 ranks in all 4 of those skills and still has plenty of points left over to also have, let's go with know (local), gather info, tumble (skilled city-dweller article), intimidate, and jump. He's even picked up a couple of skill tricks since he could only advance the other 4 on every other level.

Let's go ahead and give him greater boots and cloak of elvenkind for +10 to each and a set of gloves of dexterity +4

So that's 11 ranks, +10 competence, +3 dex for a total bonus on stealth rolls of +24. For comparison, most of the spot/listen modifiers at the same level on the SRD only have that beat by about 5 points. The 20k spent on these skills is chump change from the 760k that a level 20 character gets and that's not even close to the highest bonus you can get without epic items. It's also only 3 feats out of the character's 18 total.

So the fantasy warrior that is super unskilled compared to even real world or other fantasy warriors is ok because he had to spend feats to be competent at skills fantasy, mythological and real world warriors would have had as class skills/basic training? Even better, it's ok because he has to use magic items instead of his own class features (Like a Rogue's class skills being stealth along with a bunch of skill ranks or a Wizard just being able to buff their stealth through spells)?

You can lean even harder into stealth without being any less of a fighter with another feat or two and a few 10's of thousands more gold if you want but I think the point is made here and the same is true for -most- skills. If your fighters are big, dumb brutes then it's because that's how you build them.

So why don't they have Class Skills such as Disable Device (like traps), Persuasion (real world and fantasy warriors are more than just killing machines, they usually have to give orders too and have enough presence to make their underlings want to follow them least mutiny happen), Perception (So they don't walk into said traps), Geography (to be able to use the stars as a map) etc. Anything that mythological, fantasy or even real world soldiers would have or did have at some point in the past? Even more, why do they have so few skill ranks? Was their entire training just, "Stand here and pound on the enemy until one of you is dead"?

That sounds appropriate if a Fighter is meant to be a bandit living out in the wilderness or a socially ungraceful killing machine instead of a warrior that can contribute to society outside of stabbing things and maybe building things to stab more people with.

There's nothing really left to say on this except to repeat my theses. Don't look to class alone to make your character everything you want him to be.

This is what a Pathfinder Fighter is described as that I have an issue with.

Far more than mere thugs, these skilled warriors reveal the true deadliness of their weapons, turning hunks of metal into arms capable of taming kingdoms, slaughtering monsters, and rousing the hearts of armies.

Far more than mere thugs... Their class skills revolve almost entirely around brute strength and intimidating people... Like mere thugs. Doesn't add up with description.

Skilled warriors... Only 2 Skill Ranks + Intelligence. Doesn't add up with description.

Taming kingdoms... How are they supposed to do this when they can't even use Diplomacy or Persuasion? Just stab people until they get heard? Doesn't add up with description.

Rousing the hearts of armies... Without any Diplomacy or Persuasion as Class Skills? So they just stab people until the army gets inspired enough to follow them? Doesn't add up with description.

Admittedly they could fix this by gaining class skills from Adaptable Training or Versatile Training... They're spending EX on things that probably should have come as a Class Skill from Level 1 by the description and even real world, fantasy and mythological precedents. This would be like telling a Rogue, "You can turn Stealth into a Class Skill, you just have to go and use up one of your Rogue Abilities later on for that thing that you were described as having in the description." The Pathfinder Fighter doesn't have class skills matching up to the description, you're pretty much just a guy who hits stuff and maybe knows some possibly useful stuff revolving around physical labor, scaring people and building stuff to maybe scare more people.

Even the Barbarian (the class that is noted to have little training in its description) has more Skill Ranks than the trained Fighter. WTF were Fighters being taught? It sounds like they got ripped off if the people who know "little of training" are apparently more skilled than them.


The issue is that the Pathfinder Fighter's description might seem like a lie to most people since the class' mechanics don't reflect it at all. I don't think many people are going to be happy if they realize the game could be interpreted as lying to them about something their class as having, let alone what plenty of fantasy warriors have had since mythology.

The caster archetype is more limited and the non-casters less so than they're given credit for in these discussions.

Can you define what you mean by caster archetypes?

Because 3.5E Wizards are capable of fulfilling every single role to my knowledge with their vast array of spells that even mythological gods would be staring at...

Or do you mean "Greek God+" as a caster archetype? Because I don't think you'll see many magic caster archetypes like a D&D Wizard.

This might sound sarcastic, but I really don't understand what you mean by caster archetype as a D&D style Wizard wouldn't even fit with most fantasy stories because there's rarely magic users as versatile and powerful as a D&D Wizard in fantasy.

Considering Fighter is a broad term and the class seems to imply a lot of training (about as much as a Paladin), I'd imagine someone that's skilled instead of someone who apparently doesn't know much about anything beyond hurting people... Like a mere thug. But apparently the barely trained person like a Barbarian (both from the description and Vital Statistics page) knows more somehow.

There are plenty of ways to move and full attack and get damage up to decent levels as well as do a whole host of other things.

What can a fighter do to move (preferably at full) and Full Attack?

And why is a Wizard capable of casting higher level spells as a standard action as a default for the class, while a martial player apparently has to figure out how to Full Attack and Move at the same time? Even at lower levels, why should the Wizard be better at hurting multiple targets and getting able to move while a Fighter needs a feat to hit more than one person unless they want to use their Full Attack action?

Even more, the bulk of the martial's increased damage comes from picking certain feats while a magic user's damage scales by a d6 every level or so, on top of any feats the mage may take to augment their damage further.

First level characters have not yet had any adventures. They have the minimum competence as described in their class entries; armor and weapon proficiencies and their first level class features. For a fighter, that's one more combat trick than the next guy. For a wizard it's a bare handful of slots and a book with next to nothing but cantrips in it. They're more talented than warriors and magewrights and capable of growing to far greater heights but they're not there yet and there's no reason their backstory should say different.

Both wizards and fighters are -far- too customizable to make any definitive statement of what they are much beyond first level but at first level they're barely competent nobodies.

Same goes for pretty much all of the classes to one degree or other. Favored souls and sorcerers are special at level one by virtue of having their powers invested in them by something greater than themselves but pretty much everybody else had to work for it and they're barely off the starting line yet at level 1.

You want to be a super-special snowflake at level one, you're gonna have to come up with a peculiar race. Elans used to be something but are no longer. An incarnate effigy of something humanoid shaped and with only one HD is definitely not something you see every day. You could be a failed mind seed implanted in the clone of a cerebremancer as an experiment. End of the day though, you're still a level 1 nobody that's barely competent now and you've got to earn being something by leveling and accomplishing feats and deeds.

You can be as creative as you want but there's gonna be narrative and cognitive dissonance if your creativity outstrips your actual character's abilities.

Took me a second to recall, but... In older D&D, a first level Fighter was called a Veteran. Not exactly 3.5E, but I think that's pretty much the only thing we have to go on in regards to what Level 1 counts as. Take it for what it was, as it was a different edition, but your interpretation is just as valid as anyone else's.

Outside of your personal interpretation, there's nothing supporting what you're saying. and the only thing I found was basically saying the opposite. This sounds like head canon that you're trying to push onto others.

[Afghanistan]

Your little blurb doesn't match mine. You forgot the all important "first level" phrase from your wizard description. If it's placed at the beginning of the first sentence, as it was with my fighter description, then I absolutely would describe a first level wizard that way.

Oh how dare I forget the all important "first level" phrase that you very clearly mentally filled in yourself and knew exactly what I was doing.

First level characters have not yet had any adventures. They have the minimum competence as described in their class entries; armor and weapon proficiencies and their first level class features. For a fighter, that's one more combat trick than the next guy. For a wizard it's a bare handful of slots and a book with next to nothing but cantrips in it. They're more talented than warriors and magewrights and capable of growing to far greater heights but they're not there yet and there's no reason their backstory should say different.

Maybe YOUR first level characters have not had any adventures. Sometimes discovering that you have a PC class level can be your first adventure all on it's own, but for some reason you've elected to just make your characters ding at minimum class age and suddenly decide to be adventurers for no other reason than to to be a bundle of stats. Min/Maxing past at 1st level isn't very hard as it is a time in game play when poisons are lethal, a +1 bonus can mean the difference between victory and defeat, and magic is not the end all, be all solution to your problems. Furthermore, most people work with their GMs to establish characters within the setting that fit the overarching themes of the setting, even if (and especially so) your character concept is that you exist outside of and uniquely within the setting. Furthermore, in a setting where you are walking around with at most 6 more hp than everyone else, and 2 more hp than people trained to fight at the same level, you are by default inherently and mechanically more unique than most other individuals within the setting strictly based on your class mechanics.

You want to be a super-special snowflake at level one, you're gonna have to come up with a peculiar race. You can be as creative as you want but there's gonna be narrative and cognitive dissonance if your creativity outstrips your actual character's abilities.

You can just write your backstory to suggest that you are in some way special because simply by virtue of even having class levels, you are already simply a cut above the rest. Furthermore, at level 1, a character has a plethora of options worth noticing and talking about that can make them special. The ones that come to mind immediately are Precocious Apprentice, Improved Initiative, Greenbound Summoning, even feats like Aberration Blood can be useful at this level as the at this point in the game, it really comes down to very minuscule numbers to improve your chances, or clever gameplay when literally one attack can potentially end an entire encounter no matter how feeble it might be.

Superhuman accuracy can be replicated by a Fighter simply taking Point Blank Shot, and then Precise Shot as their fighter bonus feat. Superhuman strength can simply be Grappling and just rolling very well for your Strength Score. I think you are grossly overestimating the abilities of a bog standard NPC commoner, that has 1 less feat, a dozen less proficiencies, even less hit points, and even less relevance to the story than what should be our brave heroes.

[Glorthindel]

It's ok for completely mortal magic users to make gods in most settings look incompetent because magic is fantastic. It's wrong for completely mortal martial types to do the same thing because we need an explanation for that.

No, its wrong because some people do not want to play that archetype.

Look, there are many classes out there with different degrees of magical, mystical and superhuman. The idea of a melee combat class that uses elemental, magical, superhuman or superpower abilities should absolutely exist for the players that want to fulfil that character idea or engage in that fantasy archetype. And they do; we have Monks, Paladins, Barbarians, Rangers, and many PrC classes that blend those power types to a variety of degrees. That role is fulfilled.

But what about the guy who just wants to play the medieval knight? Or the farmboy turned sellsword (who is not the subject of a prophecy, or concealing some chosen-one bloodline)? He plays a Fighter. And as soon as you start tacking on the ability to jump small buildings, fire rays of energy from his sword, and smash the ground to cause earthquake ripples, you are removing the space for his fantasy archetype.

I doubt anyone disagrees that Fighters couldn't be better (why they have so few skill points is ludicrous), but the reason that a lot of ideas face push back, is that these ideas do not take into account for a number of the fantasies that the Fighter Class fulfils. Its why the "anime" comment is often used as a slur against highly-fantastical solutions; not because anime-fantasies are inherently wrong (they are not, and design space should be given just as much to people that want to fulfil this character fantasy), but pasting them over a very tonally different fantasy archetype, and in doing so erasing that archetype completely, is wrong if it leaves nothing for the players that preferred that archetype.

[AntiAuthority]

No, its wrong because some people do not want to play that archetype.

Look, there are many classes out there with different degrees of magical, mystical and superhuman. The idea of a melee combat class that uses elemental, magical, superhuman or superpower abilities should absolutely exist for the players that want to fulfil that character idea or engage in that fantasy archetype. And they do; we have Monks, Paladins, Barbarians, Rangers, and many PrC classes that blend those power types to a variety of degrees. That role is fulfilled.

But what about the guy who just wants to play the medieval knight? Or the farmboy turned sellsword (who is not the subject of a prophecy, or concealing some chosen-one bloodline)? He plays a Fighter. And as soon as you start tacking on the ability to jump small buildings, fire rays of energy from his sword, and smash the ground to cause earthquake ripples, you are removing the space for his fantasy archetype.

I doubt anyone disagrees that Fighters couldn't be better (why they have so few skill points is ludicrous), but the reason that a lot of ideas face push back, is that these ideas do not take into account for a number of the fantasies that the Fighter Class fulfils. Its why the "anime" comment is often used as a slur against highly-fantastical solutions; not because anime-fantasies are inherently wrong (they are not, and design space should be given just as much to people that want to fulfil this character fantasy), but pasting them over a very tonally different fantasy archetype, and in doing so erasing that archetype completely, is wrong if it leaves nothing for the players that preferred that archetype.

The thing is... Wizards are already doing some anime sheninagans.

By saying it's wrong because some people don't want to play that archetype, I could easily say the same about anyone who wants to play Harry Potter or Gandalf (as seen in the movies) but end up with something like Dr. Strange at Level 20. The solution to that? Play lower levels.

The same with playing a completely mundane warrior if I want to play someone like a regular knight. I'd play at lower levels so that large animals are still a threat to my character and he's not capable of easily killing things much bigger than him with a pointy metal stick or deflecting boulders.

You can play Harry Potter as a Level 20 Wizard, but it'll be clear you're far above the power and versatility of Harry Potter. You can play Captain America as a Level 20 Fighter, but it's clear you're hitting and tanking much better than anything Captain America could.

By saying "this archetype that does high powered anime/comic type stuff is ok at higher levels" but "this archetype that does high powered anime/comic type stuff isn't ok at higher levels" is a double standard.

The issue is "regular dude with a sword" is a low level concept and is best represented at lower levels when they're still squishy, guns are a threat to them, and falling from high distances is a very good way to kill them. If anything, you can even capture the underdog Badass Normal tone better at low levels because you literally have no reason to be traveling with a party of pseudo gods and super humans, but you still choose do... You might be squishier than them, lack their fancy powers and such but it'll also force your character to be more tactical than just smashing the very powerful beings until they die. A Level 20 Fighter trying to do this feels like someone who is clearly superhuman pretending to be someone who is athletic to peak human at best, which is ok, but seems dishonest to me when they can apparently wade through lava from Hit Points alone for more than a few seconds and they're apparently striking things so hard they don't need guns to go dinosaur hunting through instantly killing them, but whatever...

Anything higher and you're left wondering (to me) "Why are these ancient, god-like beings with all these powers not instantly murdering me the second battle starts? I'm just a guy! Screw this, my guy knows when to fold em and this is that time when the side characters realize they're hopelessly outmatched and leave it to the main characters..." Unless my character is suicidally overconfident in his ability to be relevant in these types of battles, has a hero complex and doesn't realize they're actually getting in the way of the party members that are relevant or a complete masochist who enjoys being destroyed every other round.

[OrbanSirgen]

But what about the guy who just wants to play the medieval knight? Or the farmboy turned sellsword (who is not the subject of a prophecy, or concealing some chosen-one bloodline)? He plays a Fighter.

The first is a knight (PHB2), and the second is either a commoner or a warrior...

[Segev]

No, its wrong because some people do not want to play that archetype.

Look, there are many classes out there with different degrees of magical, mystical and superhuman. The idea of a melee combat class that uses elemental, magical, superhuman or superpower abilities should absolutely exist for the players that want to fulfil that character idea or engage in that fantasy archetype. And they do; we have Monks, Paladins, Barbarians, Rangers, and many PrC classes that blend those power types to a variety of degrees. That role is fulfilled.

But what about the guy who just wants to play the medieval knight? Or the farmboy turned sellsword (who is not the subject of a prophecy, or concealing some chosen-one bloodline)? He plays a Fighter. And as soon as you start tacking on the ability to jump small buildings, fire rays of energy from his sword, and smash the ground to cause earthquake ripples, you are removing the space for his fantasy archetype.

I doubt anyone disagrees that Fighters couldn't be better (why they have so few skill points is ludicrous), but the reason that a lot of ideas face push back, is that these ideas do not take into account for a number of the fantasies that the Fighter Class fulfils. Its why the "anime" comment is often used as a slur against highly-fantastical solutions; not because anime-fantasies are inherently wrong (they are not, and design space should be given just as much to people that want to fulfil this character fantasy), but pasting them over a very tonally different fantasy archetype, and in doing so erasing that archetype completely, is wrong if it leaves nothing for the players that preferred that archetype.

Your bolded part of your first sentence strikes me as fundamentally flawed. Maybe I'm misparsing you, or misunderstanding your meaning, but if you mean that some players don't want to play a martial hero who can slay gods and leap mountains, then you're not really arguing for class features not to exist, but for levels of play to be left alone.

If you don't want to play a character that can do things high level characters can do, play in games where you're not that level. Yes, I know, currently you can choose a class that just doesn't let you keep up at those levels, and you're playing the "archetype" that is not a demigod warrior, but is a more "grounded" warrior. But this is, again, a problem if it means that other classes are leaving yours in the dust.

I feel like I should elaborate and clarify more, but I also feel like I'll just be repeating myself. Does what I've said make sense? Am I utterly missing your point and thus arguing against a construct of my own imagination rather than what you're actually saying?

[Rater202]

On cross-class skills: The cap for cross-class skill ranks is much lower than that of class skills.

A fighter as a tactically trained warrior will absolutely never be as good as setting up ambushes or figuring out where hidden enemies are as a common crook with no formal combat training.

And any magic items that could make the fighter better also apply to the Rogue: It's like in the comic: Haley takes Elan's glibness potion becuase her already being better at bluff than him means that she'll get more out of it.

The rogue with max ranks in stealth has just as much access to stealth boosting items as the fighter but will benefit from it to a greater degree.

The fighter sucks at things a fighter should be expected to do and at absolute best can only be competent if they neglect other aspects of their archetype and even then they'll never be able to compete with a rogue who likewise specializes in stealth, who will quickly dwarf them.

The obvious solution to me would be to combine the rogue, Barbarian, and Fighter classes in a manner similar to a Gestalt character, remove the alignment restrictions and illiteracy from the barbarian, and which one your character depends on how you play it and what your backstory is.

[Dienekes]

You're taking the thread title a bit too literally I'd say. What really matters here is the caster/martial divide - once we bring up the actual builds of fictional characters and their abilities I think you'll find that most of them are multiclassed in some way. Even Conan, the most iconic barbarian imaginable to this day, is often statted with some rogue in there, and several folks even view him as being lawful.

With that said, I don't have to go to a magical class like Bard to inspire people - Seasoned Commander Fighter and Exemplar Brawler can do it, for example, and if you interpret "inspire" more broadly then Cavalier and even Ranger are in too. As for monk, a Sohei or Shou Disciple can do the armor and horse thing.

You mean Conan the Thief, Conan the Pirate, Conan the tactical genius who wears the heaviest armor available to him? Yeah I'm aware the Barbarian class is a horrible representation for him.

I have no doubt you can make a build that can do any 1 thing off the list. I have yet to see one that does it all.

Sounds like a ritual/incantation, in which case the answer is "whatever level the plot needs it to be." You can move it up or down with mitigants and other factors to a near limitless degree.

So now we have Time Stop and an effect that can only be replicated with Wish, apparently.

That doesn't sound like a Balor at all; FC1 doesn't put them in the "manipulator" or "corrupter" categories. They also don't have any shapeshifting. Whatever fiend it was, it's undoubtedly weaker than that if it sought to manipulate first.

Balor was what I thought was a fair baseline for a Duke of Hell, since in the game that would technically be a named character like Dispater, Bel, and so on, who actually do work behind the scenes and mnaipulate people to their grand designs. Don't really see how stating it has more magical effects automatically means it is weaker. But you are right, Balor's aren't really big picture kind of characters. They mostly just kill things, though they are smart enough to recognize when someone is stronger than them, as Gawain was. So, which of the Archdevils or Demon Lords has shape shifting?

Gonna stop you right there and say I do not recall any such challenge being issued, nor ever accepting any such challenge. Furthermore...

Well, probably because I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to Psyren, as I have quoted him on all my posts. If you would like to participate, so far the challenge is a single non-magical build that is able to do the effects of a single non-magical but legendary character from Arthurian legend. No magic one way (in the legend) no magic the other way (in the class features). If you want to participate, awesome. I want to see these builds (so I can steal them for my next game).

If you don't want to participate. Then don't.

[Psyren]

You mean Conan the Thief, Conan the Pirate, Conan the tactical genius who wears the heaviest armor available to him? Yeah I'm aware the Barbarian class is a horrible representation for him.

So if you're aware of that fact for the most iconic barbarian in the history of fiction, why insist on Fighter 20 for Gawain or whoever? It makes no sense.

So now we have Time Stop and an effect that can only be replicated with Wish, apparently.

Do you know what incantations are? They don't involve Wish at all.

So, which of the Archdevils or Demon Lords has shape shifting?

None of them would behave anything like the character in your story so it's irrelevant.

[digiman619]

It's ok for completely mortal magic users to make gods in most settings look incompetent because magic is fantastic. It's wrong for completely mortal martial types to do the same thing because we need an explanation for that.

The hell it is. 'Because magic' only goes so far. It's an incredible act of hubris to suggest that a person could hold that much power.

[Dienekes]

So if you're aware of that fact for the most iconic barbarian in the history of fiction, why insist on Fighter 20 for Gawain or whoever? It makes no sense.

I'm not insisting. I thought that's what you claimed you could do. But I have since said "go ahead" to pretty much any class you could add so long as they don't have spellcasting or directly contradict the character. No Bard because magic. And if you can find a way for Barbarian to fit, sure, but since the class has the alignment restriction: must be non-lawful and Gawain was lawful good I find that hard to do. You find a way around it, go ahead.

Do you know what incantations are? They don't involve Wish at all.

My point is that we are using the legends to try and find a fair base level. So far every high level spell they seem to be doing you are trying to brush under DM fiat. Which makes this fairly trying and honestly just makes me think you're trying to wiggle out of making the character.

None of them would behave anything like the character in your story so it's irrelevant.

I don't care how they behave, they're different characters. I care about what they can do to fit a baseline of abilities for our martial must fight.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'd say the Fighter has more training because of their ability to gain more combat feats.

And yet a fighter and a warrior that have had the exact same adventures, side by side even, will yield different results. If it is a difference of training, then it's one that takes place entirely before first level.

The same XP doesn't make sense for an argument, because Fighters and Wizards also level up at the same XP, so they should be equal if we're using XP... So why are you against Fighters having more versatility in the form of class skills? Everyone levels up at the same rate in 3.5E, that doesn't imply one class has more talent than another since they're all progressing in levels at the same time.

I've already addresssed this though you seem to have either misunderstood or ignored the point. Which skills are class skills is -not- a restriction on what skills he can put ranks in. Neither, for that matter, are the number of skill points a class gets a function of their intelligence. The number of skill points a -character gets is a function of intelligence and that is reflected in the fact that all classes get +int skill points per level. If you have a smart fighter, you'll have as many skill points as a wizard does at the same level unless the GM is giving out skill points for magically enhanced intelligence. More, if he's a thug fighter.

As for wizards being more than fighters of the same level, they're quite obviously studying in completely different fields. It's an apples and oranges comparison. Every character only has so much time in a day to devote to anything. A wizard spends his trying to cypher out the bendable rules of reality to the exclusion of everything else. A fighter spends his cyphering how best to make his foes fall to his blade.

Fighters having Armor and Weapon Training , more feats and more Class Skills as a class feature while Warriors don't supports them not getting luckier or figuring it out. Just better training than Warriors... I just don't understand why the better trained class has as few skill ranks as the lesser trained one...

That only works if you throw out a known quantity in the fact that both advance through levels at the same rate.

Honestly, this argument almost sounds like an argument for something like UAs generic classes more than one for why any particular class is wrong.

If we look at the Starting Ages thing, the higher ages imply Fighters have longer training than someone like a Barbarian or Rogue... But they still have far fewer skill ranks than either...

2 less than the barbarian, or the same in exchange for some armor proificiencies and a feat. The rogue is trading a -huge- amount of combat ability for his skill points compared to either of them. Again skill points are -not- a function of intelligence when you're examinging a class. A thug fighter that focuses intelligence to the extreme is going to have as many or more skill points than a rogue that doesn't on top of his comparatively myriad combat abilities. The nature of his focus on combat will make what he gets for them a bit different than what a rogue gets for his but that's part of the nature of a class based system.

Remember, when you're talking about the training characters have as they progress, -eveything- about their class is training, not just the skill points; armor and weapon proficiencies, skill points, and all class features. The character feats are -also- training that's unrestricted by class so as to be a way to represent either still further training in their field of specialization -or- outside of it.

The fighter -class'- specialty is to have as many reliable combat techniques as possible. The barbarian's is to rely on conditioning and natural instinct, the knight's to be an medieval tank, the warblade's to have a wider variety of tricks that he can't perform as reliably, etc and so on. If any one of them doesn't quite fit your ideal for what you want your fighting character to be, FFS blend them by multiclassing and/or look for a PrC to expand on them.

In an earlier post, I covered why a D&D Fighter is so incompetent that they'd be considered slow by the standards of real world and other fantasy armies because of how they lack class skills that real and fantasy warriors tend to have. Basic soldiers in the real world are capable of performing stealth, even fantasy warriors are capable of this. Fighters apparently fail at that archetype and are reduced to unskilled brutes.

I'm not sure exactly which post you're referring to but I suspect this one. If you'd be so kind as to confirm, I'll break this one down in my next response.

So you're in support of Fighter's main option being violence to get what they want? Because that's fitting... For a dumb bandit or monster that a hero would kill in any other story, not the usual hero you'd follow in a story.

Again, the class is not the whole of the character. That aside, you've missed the point of that example. An old red dragon is a creature -noted- for its extraordinary senses (as with all older true dragons). It's something from which you'd only expect an extraordinarily skilled stealth specialist to be able to avoid detection. A single classed fighter is not that. As I demonstrated, he's perfectly capable of being an adequate sneak, even an extraordinary one when compared to lower level characters and most other creatures. A character that is -mostly- a fighter can give up a point of BAB, fort save, and a few HPs to become just as skilled at stealth as anyone else. Trade any -one- level of the fighter I outlined with any of the classes designed for the stealth space and he can double the ranks he has and become a ghost compared to most fighters.

I seriously cannot overstate how very powerful a character building tool the multiclassing rules are for expressing a whole character.

So the fantasy warrior that is super unskilled compared to even real world or other fantasy warriors is ok because he had to spend feats to be competent at skills fantasy, mythological and real world warriors would have had as class skills/basic training? Even better, it's ok because he has to use magic items instead of his own class features (Like a Rogue's class skills being stealth along with a bunch of skill ranks or a Wizard just being able to buff their stealth through spells)?

You're putting the cart before the horse. You're expecting the class to do everything you want for the character rather than picking classes amongst other build resources based on the character you want. Choosing to take fighter at every level, and you do get to choose at -every- level, is saying to the game that you -want- to be hyper-focused on being the very best "stick the pointy end in the other guy" chaaracter you can be to the exclusion of most other things.

As for spending feats on doing what you want the character to do, that's the whole point of feats. That's why almost none of them have a specific class as a requirement even if they are defacto for that class by expanding on an option unique to it.

And finally there's that ridiculous canard of "worse at stealth than literally every warrior ever" that's -still- a choice. Even without the boots, gloves, and cloak, the one I showed is skilled enough at hiding that he can be within 10 feet of an eagle and have close to even odds of escaping its detection in shiny metal armor. While using the gear that he uses to improve his stealth (something everyone who's ever worn camo has done to a lesser degree) he becomes so stealthy as to be outright undetectable by any real life animal with game stats and even has good odds of avoiding detection from security specialists that are anything less than legendary (level 11+).

So why don't they have Class Skills such as Disable Device (like traps), Persuasion (real world and fantasy warriors are more than just killing machines, they usually have to give orders too and have enough presence to make their underlings want to follow them least mutiny happen), Perception (So they don't walk into said traps), Geography (to be able to use the stars as a map) etc. Anything that mythological, fantasy or even real world soldiers would have or did have at some point in the past? Even more, why do they have so few skill ranks? Was their entire training just, "Stand here and pound on the enemy until one of you is dead"?

That sounds appropriate if a Fighter is meant to be a bandit living out in the wilderness or a socially ungraceful killing machine instead of a warrior that can contribute to society outside of stabbing things and maybe building things to stab more people with.

How about because no one class is meant to do everything? Even the vaunted wizard can do -anything- not everything. You want trapfinidng, take a dip into -any- of the 8 or so base classes or handful of PrCs that get it. Nothing's stopping you from putting ranks in the skill before or after that dip or grabbing gear that further enables your ability to find traps. You want to be as good at it as a skirmisher type character, multiclass one and be happy that you can accomplish your character goal.

And I'm gonna keep hammering this: not as good as a specialist in his field is -not- utterly incompetent. Taking cross-class ranks is always an option.

This is what a Pathfinder Fighter is described as that I have an issue with.



Far more than mere thugs... Their class skills revolve almost entirely around brute strength and intimidating people... Like mere thugs. Doesn't add up with description.

Skilled warriors... Only 2 Skill Ranks + Intelligence. Doesn't add up with description.

Taming kingdoms... How are they supposed to do this when they can't even use Diplomacy or Persuasion? Just stab people until they get heard? Doesn't add up with description.

Rousing the hearts of armies... Without any Diplomacy or Persuasion as Class Skills? So they just stab people until the army gets inspired enough to follow them? Doesn't add up with description.

Here's the 3e description

The questing knight, the conquering overlord, the king’s champion, the elite foot soldier, the hardened mercenary, and the bandit king—all are fighters. Fighters can be stalwart defenders of those in need, cruel marauders, or gutsy adventurers. Some are among the land’s best souls, willing to face death for the greater good. Others are among the worst, with no qualms about killing for private gain, or even for sport. Fighters who are not actively adventuring may be soldiers, guards, bodyguards, champions, or criminal enforcers. An adven-turing fighter might call himself a warrior, a mercenary, a thug, or simply an adventurer.

Class description fits just fine to the class' featues.

One more reason for me to stick to one over the other.

Even so; it's not hard to find examples of characters doing and being those things on strength of arms alone.

A thug is nothing but brute force and bravado. Simply being a skilled master of arms makes you more than a mere thug.

Skilled warrior.... okay, dude. it takes skill to be able to do all the combat tricks that a fighter does. Treating the term as a keyword here is just deliberately looking for problems. The implication never was that fighters would be good at forgery or spellcraft or something.

Taming kingdoms: people are very prone to follow a winner. History is replete with examples of leaders that were skilled warriors and utter failures at statecraft and pure competency as a means of acquiring rank is relatively new as a widespread phenomenon. Being a skilled wordsmith -can- help but it's not strictly necessary.

And as for rousing the hearts of armies, you seem to be an anime fan so let's see if I can get this one in just five words: Monkey D Luffy, Roronoa Zoro. Here's a bit more, for those who don't get the reference; it is entirely possible to inspire through competent example, even if you're not good with words. The two characters named, especially the latter, are examples of exactly that; men of few, simple words that nonetheless inspire large numbers of people with their exploits and the virtues (for a certain value of the term) they embody.

Admittedly they could fix this by gaining class skills from Adaptable Training or Versatile Training... They're spending EX on things that probably should have come as a Class Skill from Level 1 by the description and even real world, fantasy and mythological precedents. This would be like telling a Rogue, "You can turn Stealth into a Class Skill, you just have to go and use up one of your Rogue Abilities later on for that thing that you were described as having in the description." The Pathfinder Fighter doesn't have class skills matching up to the description, you're pretty much just a guy who hits stuff and maybe knows some possibly useful stuff revolving around physical labor, scaring people and building stuff to maybe scare more people.

Even the Barbarian (the class that is noted to have little training in its description) has more Skill Ranks than the trained Fighter. WTF were Fighters being taught? It sounds like they got ripped off if the people who know "little of training" are apparently more skilled than them.


The issue is that the Pathfinder Fighter's description might seem like a lie to most people since the class' mechanics don't reflect it at all. I don't think many people are going to be happy if they realize the game could be interpreted as lying to them about something their class as having, let alone what plenty of fantasy warriors have had since mythology.

I won't pretend I know more about pathfinder than I do. What I -do- know is that a lot of what I've said about the 3e fighter holds up just fine though. The description being less than super accutely accurate really feels like a nit-pick given the fact that fluff tends to be mutable within the limitations of what the class that can actually do.

Can you define what you mean by caster archetypes?

Because 3.5E Wizards are capable of fulfilling every single role to my knowledge with their vast array of spells that even mythological gods would be staring at...

Or do you mean "Greek God+" as a caster archetype? Because I don't think you'll see many magic caster archetypes like a D&D Wizard.

This might sound sarcastic, but I really don't understand what you mean by caster archetype as a D&D style Wizard wouldn't even fit with most fantasy stories because there's rarely magic users as versatile and powerful as a D&D Wizard in fantasy.

Caster archetype, as I use it, is a catch all for workers of magic of all stripes; the bookish types that study the fundaments of reality or religious apocrypha to find ways to bend reality, the religious zealot or chosen of the gods that work miracles through faith, those who make dark pacts or have blood of inhuman creatures that allow them to ignore the natural rules of the world, and even those whose connection to the natural or spirit world is close enough that the world itself responds to their will.

This is contrasted with the warrior archetype; character's whose primary concern is skill at arms above all else; and the skillful skirmisher archetype that is chiefly concerned with always having some way to apply their skills (not the ruleset key term) and wit to the situation at hand.

The ur-examples of each are the wizard, fighter, and rogue respectively. There are, of course, classes and characters that take splashes from more than one or even hybridize them; the ranger being a single-class examples of a hybrid of all three archetypes.

Considering Fighter is a broad term and the class seems to imply a lot of training (about as much as a Paladin), I'd imagine someone that's skilled instead of someone who apparently doesn't know much about anything beyond hurting people... Like a mere thug. But apparently the barely trained person like a Barbarian (both from the description and Vital Statistics page) knows more somehow.

Knowing how to fight effectively, nevermind perform a whole host of combat tricks also requires knowledge and skill. The actual mechanic of class skills and ranks is not the exclusive meaning of the term "skill."

What can a fighter do to move (preferably at full) and Full Attack?

In PF? No idea. I'd be surprised if there wasn't something though.

In 3e, there are a whole host of feats, maneuvers, and items that enable it. Top of my head: travel devotion, sudden leap, belt of battle, DC 40 tumble for 10 foot step, pouncing charge, anklets of translocation, tattoo of inconstant location, and wolfpack tactics stance. Some of those are 10 feet, some are full speed and at least one is potentially greater than normal speed. A couple can even be combined with each other for greater effect. If you're willing to dip so much as a single level, there's also the sparring dummy of the master and the lion spirit totem.

Oh right. And archery.

And why is a Wizard capable of casting higher level spells as a standard action as a default for the class, while a martial player apparently has to figure out how to Full Attack and Move at the same time? Even at lower levels, why should the Wizard be better at hurting multiple targets and getting able to move while a Fighter needs a feat to hit more than one person unless they want to use their Full Attack action?

Because a wizard is very squishy and can do virtually nothing -but- cast spells. At low levels, a martial class only gets one attack a round anyway unless he's a TWF or flurry type.

It's also worth remembering that an attack roll does not represent a single swing of a warriors arm. The combat abstraction for a single attack roll is described as being a single genuine attempt to penetrate the enemy's defense amongst more general probing and positioning to look for an opening. Doing so to the extent that you find 2 or three, nevermind half a dozen or more, is a tremendous feat of martial talent and skill. To do so after closing a 10, 20, 30 foot or wider gap? Nothing less than phenomenal.

Even more, the bulk of the martial's increased damage comes from picking certain feats while a magic user's damage scales by a d6 every level or so, on top of any feats the mage may take to augment their damage further.

Looking at it a different way, a caster's damage only scales in one way that he doesn't have much say over. A warrior's damage can scale in several, many of which can be stacked; stat increases, BAB through power attack, multiple attacks whether by iteration or acquiring extras through feats and gear.

Metamagic can allow a caster to put out shocking levels of damage but only at the end of chains of feats and gear. Every metamgic has to be acquired and its cost mitigataed before it starts to do more than slightly edge ahead of unadjusted spells. A mailman can blast just about anything you like clear out of existence but he's got to bend his entire build around that idea to do it even a handful of times a day. A fighter has everything he'll even need to reach horrific levels of damage by level 6 on a charger setup. Pushing past that very quickly gets into overkill.

Took me a second to recall, but... In older D&D, a first level Fighter was called a Veteran. Not exactly 3.5E, but I think that's pretty much the only thing we have to go on in regards to what Level 1 counts as. Take it for what it was, as it was a different edition, but your interpretation is just as valid as anyone else's.

Outside of your personal interpretation, there's nothing supporting what you're saying. and the only thing I found was basically saying the opposite. This sounds like head canon that you're trying to push onto others.

Don't care about previous editions. XP used to be bought with cash.

It is an interpretation, yes. If you think you can come up with one that's sufficiently different to matter and also in line with what a level one character can actually -do- then I'm all ears.

For real, 3 or 4 first level -commoners- can bring down a 1st level fighter or barbarian with a little luck and coordination. He has shockingly bad odds against a couple big dogs, nevermind any real predators.

Now level 2, after a battle or 3, -that- is a veteran. That's somebody who's seen some stuff and probably isn't gonna get offed by a miner getting in a luck hit.

Oh how dare I forget the all important "first level" phrase that you very clearly mentally filled in yourself and knew exactly what I was doing.

Words mean things, my dude. If I'd made my comment about fighters in general, I'd deserve every bit of the scorn implicit in these two responses. I didn't though.

I didn't presume you meant first level, as it's entirely possible you missed me saying it while reading quickly.

Maybe YOUR first level characters have not had any adventures. Sometimes discovering that you have a PC class level can be your first adventure all on it's own, but for some reason you've elected to just make your characters ding at minimum class age and suddenly decide to be adventurers for no other reason than to to be a bundle of stats. Min/Maxing past at 1st level isn't very hard as it is a time in game play when poisons are lethal, a +1 bonus can mean the difference between victory and defeat, and magic is not the end all, be all solution to your problems. Furthermore, most people work with their GMs to establish characters within the setting that fit the overarching themes of the setting, even if (and especially so) your character concept is that you exist outside of and uniquely within the setting. Furthermore, in a setting where you are walking around with at most 6 more hp than everyone else, and 2 more hp than people trained to fight at the same level, you are by default inherently and mechanically more unique than most other individuals within the setting strictly based on your class mechanics.

Even if you're starting as a venerable elf, several hundred years old, the fact you're only level one means you haven't done -jack- in those hundreds of years. Not in the realm of adventure, at least.

Yeah, maybe some dramatic event triggered the decision to become an adventurer after a life of the mundane but the life before that -must be- mundane else it's inappropriate to start at 0 xp. That's just not a substantial enough difference to invalidate my point that 1st level characters are nobodies. The exception is, as I said, in racial choices that are a bit out there.

You can just write your backstory to suggest that you are in some way special because simply by virtue of even having class levels, you are already simply a cut above the rest. Furthermore, at level 1, a character has a plethora of options worth noticing and talking about that can make them special. The ones that come to mind immediately are Precocious Apprentice, Improved Initiative, Greenbound Summoning, even feats like Aberration Blood can be useful at this level as the at this point in the game, it really comes down to very minuscule numbers to improve your chances, or clever gameplay when literally one attack can potentially end an entire encounter no matter how feeble it might be.

Being a slightly better than average nobody doesn't make you somebody. It makes you someone with the -potential- to be somebody. You've still got to get there first.

Superhuman accuracy can be replicated by a Fighter simply taking Point Blank Shot, and then Precise Shot as their fighter bonus feat. Superhuman strength can simply be Grappling and just rolling very well for your Strength Score. I think you are grossly overestimating the abilities of a bog standard NPC commoner, that has 1 less feat, a dozen less proficiencies, even less hit points, and even less relevance to the story than what should be our brave heroes.

Oh dear god, no. point blank shot does -not- represent super human accuracy, at all. It's 5% more accurate at 30 feet or less. It -at most- puts you to 30% more accurate than an average commoner with a crossbow, as opposed to the 25% more accurate for further than 30 feet. That's not nothing but it's a far cry from being Deadshot. It's also more likely than not a bigger gap than you're gonna see with most archer builds. That's a -lot- more likely to be 20% and 15%.

Str 18 is not superhuman. It's impressive, certainly, but it's not enough to even have a shot at breaking free of a set of average manacles. It's just over half the lifting capacity for the world record for lifting over your head (clean and jerk) and less than half of the record for carrying a you walk (farmer's walk).

Don't get me twisted. Beyond a certain level, every character, even commoners, become superhuman. That level isn't level 1 for any of them though. Even the classes that get overtly supernatural powers at level 1 are still otherwise -very- human beyond those powers. Even the ones that aren't actually humans are still pretty human, given that any dramatic deviation from the starting point of human is assessed a level adjustment.

Like I said to AntiAuthority, if you can come up with something that meaningfully deviates from "nobody with a little bit better than average skill (still not the game mechanics key word)" while still oberving the limitations of what the character can actually do then I'd be happy to hear it.

[Psyren]

I'm not insisting. I thought that's what you claimed you could do. But I have since said "go ahead" to pretty much any class you could add so long as they don't have spellcasting or directly contradict the character. No Bard because magic. And if you can find a way for Barbarian to fit, sure, but since the class has the alignment restriction: must be non-lawful and Gawain was lawful good I find that hard to do. You find a way around it, go ahead.

No, what I specifically said was that your examples weren't remarkable. Sitting perfectly still for weeks without food or drink - congratulations, you've removed yourself from anything relevant to the campaign and gotten no adventuring done for that entire time either, you might as well have just starved instead. Inspiring your men - I listed several non-Bard ways to get Inspire Courage, and even more that inspire in other ways. Keeping up with a horse on foot, easy with just a few levels of barbarian or monk, and hardly does anything related to caster/martial disparity anyway.

My point is that we are using the legends to try and find a fair base level. So far every high level spell they seem to be doing you are trying to brush under DM fiat. Which makes this fairly trying and honestly just makes me think you're trying to wiggle out of making the character.

There is no spell (regardless of level) that can infect an entire country with a disease in an instant; not even Wish has that in its effects. So saying it must be a custom ritual or otherwise fiat is a logical conclusion. If you consider that somehow "trying," that's your prerogative, I don't really care.

I don't care how they behave, they're different characters. I care about what they can do to fit a baseline of abilities for our martial must fight.

Some fiend claiming to be noble in your story does not equal an arch-anything in the Great Wheel or Great Beyond cosmologies.

[Bartmanhomer]

Oh goodie. It's time to bring my popcorn to hear the argument.

[Segev]

I'll point out that several of the knights of the round table were also men with non-human heritages.

And reitterate that that really doesn't prove anything regarding why wizards should be doing magic and non-casters should have to take a race to do awesome stuff. Because it's hard-pressed to find wizards from the same sources being quoted for these heroes who were not demigods or similar, themselves.

The only one I can think of is Solomon, who was expressly given a gift of Great Wisdom by the Almighty God. So, though born human and mortal, his sorcery is due to divine blessings.

[The Insanity]

Honestly, I don't particularly care about mundane characters. I chose PF/D&D because it's fantasy. If a DM/group needs to justify my martial's superhuman feats through some supernatural ancestry then so be it. In PF you can just decide that you have it by multiclassing into Sorcerer or Bloodrager and get actual class abilities from it, so I see no reason why I couldn't say my Fighter is descendent from a god or something.

[AntiAuthority]

The hell it is. 'Because magic' only goes so far. It's an incredible act of hubris to suggest that a person could hold that much power.

Who cares if you're reduced to a sidekick? Or would have Odin begging you to join his side to prevent Ragnarok? /s

But seriously though, I think if magic gets to surpass mythological gods in terms of power then so should martial prowess do the same for warrior types.

---

I've already addresssed this though you seem to have either misunderstood or ignored the point. Which skills are class skills is -not- a restriction on what skills he can put ranks in. Neither, for that matter, are the number of skill points a class gets a function of their intelligence. The number of skill points a -character gets is a function of intelligence and that is reflected in the fact that all classes get +int skill points per level. If you have a smart fighter, you'll have as many skill points as a wizard does at the same level unless the GM is giving out skill points for magically enhanced intelligence. More, if he's a thug fighter.

I figured it was more a reflection of how well the character was trained. A Wizard likely doesn't get many outside of their field because they'd usually (I presume) spend their time reading books. A Fighter/soldier that is only trained at "hit stuff" isn't... Quite that great if we want to use real life, historical or fantasy precedents.

As for wizards being more than fighters of the same level, they're quite obviously studying in completely different fields. It's an apples and oranges comparison. Every character only has so much time in a day to devote to anything. A wizard spends his trying to cypher out the bendable rules of reality to the exclusion of everything else. A fighter spends his cyphering how best to make his foes fall to his blade.

The issue is a Wizard can summon monsters to fill in the Fighter's role (Killing multiple enemies since the 3.5E Fighter needs to take a feat to be able to move and full attack). Sounds like the 3.5E Fighter is obselete around the time that happens, and would either need Feats or careful planning to avoid these things Wizards get as a class feature.

2 less than the barbarian, or the same in exchange for some armor proificiencies and a feat. The rogue is trading a -huge- amount of combat ability for his skill points compared to either of them. Again skill points are -not- a function of intelligence when you're examinging a class. A thug fighter that focuses intelligence to the extreme is going to have as many or more skill points than a rogue that doesn't on top of his comparatively myriad combat abilities. The nature of his focus on combat will make what he gets for them a bit different than what a rogue gets for his but that's part of the nature of a class based system.

Considering skill points and skill ranks are universal to all classes... I'd say it reflects the training the characters get. My issue is (as I've said before) how poorly unskilled 3.5E Fighters are in regards to how it seems to come down to, "I hit stuff."

The fighter -class'- specialty is to have as many reliable combat techniques as possible. The barbarian's is to rely on conditioning and natural instinct, the knight's to be an medieval tank, the warblade's to have a wider variety of tricks that he can't perform as reliably, etc and so on. If any one of them doesn't quite fit your ideal for what you want your fighting character to be, FFS blend them by multiclassing and/or look for a PrC to expand on them.

This will be important later.

I'm not sure exactly which post you're referring to but I suspect this one. If you'd be so kind as to confirm, I'll break this one down in my next response.

Yep. My point was that the 3.5E Fighter should, if we're going by what fantasy warriors have, be able to sneak since warriors were usually trained in that instead of "hit the other person harder." I suspect you'll try to say the 3.5E Fighter isn't something like a trained warrior that was taught like IRL Warriors would be or that Armed Forces are actually a multi-class or just took ranks in things like Stealth in their off time or something... In which case the 3.5E Fighter is what happens if you break the capabilities of real world warriors into three separate classes, which is the point of what I was making with that post and breaking it down to say something along the lines of they're multi-classing/a different archetype, 3.5E Fighters shouldn't emulate the capabilities of other warriors or something proves my point when Wizards get to be every archetype and you're limiting Fighters to "guys who hit the other person harder."

Again, the class is not the whole of the character. That aside, you've missed the point of that example. An old red dragon is a creature -noted- for its extraordinary senses (as with all older true dragons). It's something from which you'd only expect an extraordinarily skilled stealth specialist to be able to avoid detection. A single classed fighter is not that. As I demonstrated, he's perfectly capable of being an adequate sneak, even an extraordinary one when compared to lower level characters and most other creatures. A character that is -mostly- a fighter can give up a point of BAB, fort save, and a few HPs to become just as skilled at stealth as anyone else. Trade any -one- level of the fighter I outlined with any of the classes designed for the stealth space and he can double the ranks he has and become a ghost compared to most fighters.

Once again, stealth training is something plenty of real world warriors and fantasy types could accomplish. The bolded part will be important later too.

You're putting the cart before the horse. You're expecting the class to do everything you want for the character rather than picking classes amongst other build resources based on the character you want. Choosing to take fighter at every level, and you do get to choose at -every- level, is saying to the game that you -want- to be hyper-focused on being the very best "stick the pointy end in the other guy" chaaracter you can be to the exclusion of most other things.

Not quite, it's that I'm focused on becoming a better warrior... Too bad a 3.5E Fighter fails at that archetype (stealth, perception, astronomy, diplomacy) as Class Skills. And picking Wizard every level is saying, "I want to be able to do almost anything?" by comparison then? You're forcing the Fighter into the role of "I hit stuff REALLY HARD." And bolded again for importance later.

And finally there's that ridiculous canard of "worse at stealth than literally every warrior ever" that's -still- a choice. Even without the boots, gloves, and cloak, the one I showed is skilled enough at hiding that he can be within 10 feet of an eagle and have close to even odds of escaping its detection in shiny metal armor. While using the gear that he uses to improve his stealth (something everyone who's ever worn camo has done to a lesser degree) he becomes so stealthy as to be outright undetectable by any real life animal with game stats and even has good odds of avoiding detection from security specialists that are anything less than legendary (level 11+).

... Armed Forces members are trained to do that, which is why I was saying 3.5E Fighters should get Stealth and such as a class skill. It's not something they pick up in their spare time or whatever (like picking none class skills are, I presume), it's something they're trained to do. The fact that classes all have the same Class Skills as part of their Class implies it's something they're trained in. The camo argument, if anything, is agreeing with me. If "figuring out how to not die (via blending in) is something that isn't covered in basic training, the Fighter's training sounds nonsensical and like something I'd expect from the Incredible Hulk or something.

How about because no one class is meant to do everything? Even the vaunted wizard can do -anything- not everything. You want trapfinidng, take a dip into -any- of the 8 or so base classes or handful of PrCs that get it. Nothing's stopping you from putting ranks in the skill before or after that dip or grabbing gear that further enables your ability to find traps. You want to be as good at it as a skirmisher type character, multiclass one and be happy that you can accomplish your character goal.

... I don't know if you understand what you're implying, but IRL soldiers are trained to find traps. That 3.5E Fighters don't get this as a Class Skill is a good indicator that the 3.5E Fighter isn't trained for such things like IRL warriors would be. If "finding out how to detect traps" is something the class is left to do in their own time, their training is awful and doesn't reflect most formally trained warriors. It feels like you're either missing what I'm saying or ignoring it.

And a Universalist Wizard has access to virtually all spells. That includes blasting/summoning monsters to replace Fighters, turning invisible/having spells to undo locks to fill a Rogue's niche, they gain access to cast Rage/the Barbarian's unique thing on themselves, can use Blood Money (in Pathfinder at least) + Limited Wish to perform divine spells or spells they don't have... I'm sure there's more than that, but I don't feel like making a giant list of the things a Wizard can do.

And I'm gonna keep hammering this: not as good as a specialist in his field is -not- utterly incompetent. Taking cross-class ranks is always an option.

My thing is, let the 3.5E Fighter be trained in things that make sense for the archetype of trained warrior. You seem to be misunderstanding this.

Skilled warrior.... okay, dude. it takes skill to be able to do all the combat tricks that a fighter does. Treating the term as a keyword here is just deliberately looking for problems. The implication never was that fighters would be good at forgery or spellcraft or something.

... When did I ever say they should get forgery or spellcraft? Either you're misremembering something I said, putting words into my mouth or responding to the wrong person.

Taming kingdoms: people are very prone to follow a winner. History is replete with examples of leaders that were skilled warriors and utter failures at statecraft and pure competency as a means of acquiring rank is relatively new as a widespread phenomenon. Being a skilled wordsmith -can- help but it's not strictly necessary.

And history is replete with examples of leaders that were skilled warriors and had skills outside of the battlefield. Your point?

And as for rousing the hearts of armies, you seem to be an anime fan so let's see if I can get this one in just five words: Monkey D Luffy, Roronoa Zoro. Here's a bit more, for those who don't get the reference; it is entirely possible to inspire through competent example, even if you're not good with words. The two characters named, especially the latter, are examples of exactly that; men of few, simple words that nonetheless inspire large numbers of people with their exploits and the virtues (for a certain value of the term) they embody.

If we want to bring in One Piece (and I honestly don't know too much about it except for a friend tells me), but... Luffy has low intelligence but high Persuasion or something with how often he's able to turn his enemies into allies and inspire people with his speeches. He likely has Persuasion as a skill, probably as a Class Skill from being raised by his grandfather to be a Marine. Even then... Luffy doesn't know how to use martial weapons, as my friend mentioned he got a sword and just wildly swings it around (much to Zoro's annoyance). I can't comment too much about Zoro, but he does know how to use a sword at least, just that I think it's mentioned (early on anyway) he's pretty much useless without swords, so not an expert of all martial weapons like a 3.5E martial is... But he's close enough I guess?

I won't pretend I know more about pathfinder than I do. What I -do- know is that a lot of what I've said about the 3e fighter holds up just fine though. The description being less than super accutely accurate really feels like a nit-pick given the fact that fluff tends to be mutable within the limitations of what the class that can actually do.

Bolded for importance.

Caster archetype, as I use it, is a catch all for workers of magic of all stripes; the bookish types that study the fundaments of reality or religious apocrypha to find ways to bend reality, the religious zealot or chosen of the gods that work miracles through faith, those who make dark pacts or have blood of inhuman creatures that allow them to ignore the natural rules of the world, and even those whose connection to the natural or spirit world is close enough that the world itself responds to their will.

The caster archetype is more limited and the non-casters less so than they're given credit for in these discussions.

... The caster archetype including pretty much everything under the sun... Cool... So that means they should be able to do all of those things because it's in the archetype? Like how warriors should be able to do stealth, find traps, and lead people as class skills? But no, it's cool because you seem to be for limiting Fighters to "I hit stuff."

By the way, catch all and limited are antonyms. It'd be like saying I have real-fake object or something is big-small or that you have something that is ugly-beautiful. Do you understand what you're saying is directly contradicting itself?

This is contrasted with the warrior archetype; character's whose primary concern is skill at arms above all else; and the skillful skirmisher archetype that is chiefly concerned with always having some way to apply their skills (not the ruleset key term) and wit to the situation at hand.

For the bolded for importance part... This is what I meant earlier. You're the one limiting 3.5E Fighters as people who just specialize in overwhelming violence. You're the one saying what a 3.5E Fighter is and isn't while paradoxically saying they're not as limited as people assume. Of course Wizards make sense when you define the archetype they're part of as, "I can do whatever magic I want as a Class Feature" when Fighters are limited to being "people who focus on hitting." This is a perceptual thing you're trying to enforce as absolute truth because it's what you think. Warrior archetypes tend to have social skills and stealth abilities, but you're against them being given them as class skills because of your perception that the 3.5E Fighter "just focuses on hitting stuff" and fails at any other warrior archetype beyond unskilled brute.

Also, about warrior archetypes and skillful skirmisher archetypes... You do realize that there's a reason battles were called skirmishes in the past? Skirmishers were warriors/soldiers. Skirmishers are part of the warrior archetype, you're insisting "I only understand weapons and violence" is the only part of the warrior archetype. This seems a lot like putting limits on a "less limited than assumed" class.

You can blend combative ability with a whole host of other options, including virutally everything mentioned in this thread, to one degree or other without ever deviating substantially from the non-magical fighting man archetype as long as you don't latch on to the idea that it all has be expressed by a single classed, fighter 20.

The caster archetype is more limited and the non-casters less so than they're given credit for in these discussions.

... So the caster archetype is more limited is a way of saying they're able to pursue any and all fantastic path and abilities they want... That sounds like the opposite of limitations. Like if a Wizard were forced to be only a diviner, only a summoner, only a blaster, only a whatever... But they have the potential to be all of those things through just leveling up, casting Limited Wish or finding another Wizard's spellbook as well as having Knowledge All ... This is a limit to you...?!

Non-casters being "less limited than they're given credit" also directly contradicts what you said earlier since, according to you (see bolded for importance parts), a 3.5E Fighter has to be someone who is focused solely on hitting things. They don't get to have the abilities associated with other warrior archetypes as a class feature...

I can't help but feel you got these two things mixed around... So which is it?

And non-magic isn't the same thing as being non-fantastic (examples include most Battle Shonen protagonists who don't use magic as an example of fantastic), and it definitely isn't the same thing as, "Fighty fighty punch punch is all I know" You're the one pushing for that archetype while also saying it's not limiting at the same time.

In 3e, there are a whole host of feats, maneuvers, and items that enable it. Top of my head: travel devotion, sudden leap, belt of battle, DC 40 tumble for 10 foot step, pouncing charge, anklets of translocation, tattoo of inconstant location, and wolfpack tactics stance. Some of those are 10 feet, some are full speed and at least one is potentially greater than normal speed. A couple can even be combined with each other for greater effect. If you're willing to dip so much as a single level, there's also the sparring dummy of the master and the lion spirit totem.

Oh right. And archery.

Because a wizard is very squishy and can do virtually nothing -but- cast spells. At low levels, a martial class only gets one attack a round anyway unless he's a TWF or flurry type.

Martial Player: I looked it up and I FINALLY found a way to move and full attack.

Caster Player: My character gets to cast AoE spells AND move without having to find a feat or item to allow me to do so!

Martial Player:.... What?

It's becoming increasingly clear that you're willing to give the caster archetypes everything with plenty of justifications because "because they do nothing but cast spells, so it's ok for them to be able to do an AoE that hits a bunch of enemies at once and move" (Because Magic). I could easily make the same argument that Warrior Archetypes, those guys who (according to you) specialize in only destruction and hitting things until they die, should be able to full attack and move at full speed because "Because martials are very tanky, and can do virtually nothing -but- hit, so it makes sense they'd be able to move at their full speed and be able to pull off their Full Attack without items or specific feats or anything else beyond what comes with the class when they level up."

This sounds a lot like giving magic users plenty of advantages because magic and trying to rationalize why nerfing martials makes sense somehow... Could just be me, but this is what I'm getting from that.

It's also worth remembering that an attack roll does not represent a single swing of a warriors arm. The combat abstraction for a single attack roll is described as being a single genuine attempt to penetrate the enemy's defense amongst more general probing and positioning to look for an opening. Doing so to the extent that you find 2 or three, nevermind half a dozen or more, is a tremendous feat of martial talent and skill. To do so after closing a 10, 20, 30 foot or wider gap? Nothing less than phenomenal.

How do you know this for sure?

And if we're using abstractions... Couldn't the same be said for Wizards casting spell? "You aren't actually creating a fireball, that's just an abstraction of what your character is doing." It can easily be applied both ways.

Looking at it a different way, a caster's damage only scales in one way that he doesn't have much say over. A warrior's damage can scale in several, many of which can be stacked; stat increases, BAB through power attack, multiple attacks whether by iteration or acquiring extras through feats and gear.

... It makes sense for the squishy person to automatically become better at dealing out an entire die's worth of damage per every level as much than someone who (according to you on what a 3.5E Fighter is) specializes solely in hurting people?

Fighter: Well, I wasted my time learning how to fight, I only get small incremental bonuses to my damage while the bookworms automatically increase in damage by themselves in much larger amounts. I can't even full attack and move without figuring out some steps while they can cast spells and move but... I think my training was a scam.

It is an interpretation, yes. If you think you can come up with one that's sufficiently different to matter and also in line with what a level one character can actually -do- then I'm all ears.

I'm not going to force my personal head canon onto you. I would like you to do the same.

Now level 2, after a battle or 3, -that- is a veteran. That's somebody who's seen some stuff and probably isn't gonna get offed by a miner getting in a luck hit.

Cool, that's your interpretation, not an objective truth though. I agree with you that that seems logical, but it's not an objective truth and the only clarification we have from D&D supports that not being the case, but whatever.

But back to what I noticed earlier... When you list "caster archetypes" to be open to being literally every type of archetype yet also somehow limited... I don't know what to tell you beyond that's not what a limit is? 3.5E Wizards aren't "a archetype" the problem is that 3.5E Wizards have the abilities of "all archetypes" except maybe the ones where they need to pray to a god, as that covers Clerics, but a 3.5E Wizard can still replicate their spells with Limited Wish. I find it weird that the caster archetype also includes things that mythological warriors can do... Like Sun Wukong's growing bigger shtick being represented by Enlarge Person for example... Meanwhile, by you saying a 3.5E Fighter has to be "focuses on hitting things" is pretty much the definition of limiting compared to what I and others are saying. If you want Wizards to be cool, great, don't try to pass it off as some sort of "limitation" when the archetype includes "every archetype that uses magic" including the magic that lets them do things even mythological warriors can do. while defining the Fighter/Warrior archetype as "being able to hit stuff" instead of giving it the same warrior archetype (stealth, leaders, etc.) as other warriors in fantasy and real life as class features.

You're giving one class/archetype "basically everything" and another "you have to do this one thing" is what I'm trying to get at, and it's pretty illogical to try to pass off the first as some sort of limitation. "Becoming able to imitate the powers of several gods/mages/prophets/even warriors/even rogues" is not a limitation as far as I'm aware and I doubt you'll be find many people that agree either. Especially a catch all also being limiting, which are two things that mean the opposite of each other.

[lylsyly]

I have really been enjoying this discussion. However, to me the bottom line is CASTERS are better than MUNDANES because that is the way the game is designed. Let's face it. Wizard 20 with just the SRD is how much more powerful than a fighter 20 with full splatbook support?

[Bartmanhomer]

*I'm eating popcorn to hear this argument.*

Mmm...needs more butter.

[AntiAuthority]

I have really been enjoying this discussion. However, to me the bottom line is CASTERS are better than MUNDANES because that is the way the game is designed. Let's face it. Wizard 20 with just the SRD is how much more powerful than a fighter 20 with full splatbook support?

I'm in agreement with you that casters are better than martials in 3.5E. I'm mostly arguing there's no reason to justify that beyond it just being the way the game was designed, when the designers could have just as easily made martial characters like Hercules, Thor or Gilgamesh and casters into someone like Merlin or David Copperfield or something. There's no reason to justify the limits of fictional characters based on realism like the OP was claiming or others say. It's solely based on how the game was designed, like you said. And even then, a D&D 3E designer admitted that he regrets some of the design decisions, such as making certain options deliberately better than others...

And I don't like the word mundane much for fantastic characters, mainly because it tends to mean "dull" and "uninteresting" or "ordinary." Which is pretty much the opposite of fantastic. When a guy can kill large predatory animals in a few seconds with a normal weapon or go into a group of them with only a pointy stick and come out slightly injured, I don't think they count as "mundane." Maybe not spell casters, but not mundane since even Captain America's returning shield can be replicated at Level 5, so it stands to reason Level 20 definitely left mundane behind a while ago...

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*I'm eating popcorn to hear this argument.*

Mmm...needs more butter.

Don't forget to add salt.