Core Strictly Better Fighter

[blackwindbears]

I do you feel about a build that has more damage but less accuracy or multiple hits that produce more or equal damage in average?

If you can show that it does more expected damage (including when you have to move and can't get a full attack for melee) for _any_ AC I think that's good enough.

[Troacctid]

All you need is shocking grasp for better average damage (5d6 avg 17.5), and ignoring armor is effectively a higher attack bonus, so the offense is trivial to achieve. A Small race with mage armor and a +1 mithral buckler should have about the same AC. Casting false life should bring HP up to par, but we can be a gnome just to make sure. Since we didn't use any feats, we can take Improved Initiative in a normal slot. Just in case we run up against electricity resistance, we can take magic missile (3d4+3 avg 10.5), which also serves as a ranged option and helps against incorporeals. If we cast an average of 3 or 4 spells per encounter plus one each of our hour/level buffs at the start of the day, that lets us cover 3 encounters pretty easily, which should let our sorcerer meet the benchmark with two spells known, six cantrips, a feat, and a familiar still unused.

[blackwindbears]

All you need is shocking grasp for better average damage (5d6 avg 17.5), and ignoring armor is effectively a higher attack bonus, so the offense is trivial to achieve. A Small race with mage armor and a +1 mithral buckler should have about the same AC. Casting false life should bring HP up to par, but we can be a gnome just to make sure. Since we didn't use any feats, we can take Improved Initiative in a normal slot. Just in case we run up against electricity resistance, we can take magic missile (3d4+3 avg 10.5), which also serves as a ranged option and helps against incorporeals. If we cast an average of 3 or 4 spells per encounter plus one each of our hour/level buffs at the start of the day, that lets us cover 3 encounters pretty easily, which should let our sorcerer meet the benchmark with two spells known, six cantrips, a feat, and a familiar still unused.

So the assumption is that you will make no more than 10 attacks in a day with 3 to 6 encounters as long as the adventuring day is less than 5 hours?

It looks to me like you hit all the stats, but you've got to make some assumptions to make sure it stays that way.

Looks like this hits all the encounters you plan for, but none of the ones you don't, right?

Good job hitting the stats though

[Troacctid]

So the assumption is that you will make no more than 10 attacks in a day with 3 to 6 encounters as long as the adventuring day is less than 5 hours?

Sounds to me like all you need. And keep in mind each of those attacks is about 40% more effective than your fighter's equivalent, and I didn't even need all the build's resources. We could, for example, take Improved Familiar and get another 9 DPR every single turn, even without casting a spell. We also have enough gold left to comfortably afford a nice wand. Those two things combined would provide the same DPR as the fighter even after all spell slots are depleted.

[Zarator]

But it also means you have less spells. Maybe having a Druid instead of a Fighter means your Cleric needs to cast more spells. But unless he needs to cast more additional spells than the Druid is able to cast in a day, your party still comes out ahead. It is certainly true that a Fighter having an at-will "hit them with a sword" attack can allow you to forgo casting spells in some encounters. But so will a Cleric Archer, a wild shape'd Druid, an animal companion, some skeleton or zombie troops, and whatever other permanent minions casters can bring to the table. And unlike the Fighter, none of that costs you a full character's worth of spell slots.

Putting aside that I already conceded the Druid's prolly better than the Fighter at pretty much all levels (because of a combination of wildshape at higher levels and animal companion at lower levels), and that my point was more about comparing Fighter to Cleric and Wizard... Cleric archer rly isn't a thing in Core (you don't get to use Wisdom for ranged rolls, no Elf domain, etc.), skeleton/zombie troops aren't a thing good-aligned Clerics (that is to say, a large chunk of adventuring Clerics in the game) can even use, and aside from those (and the aforementioned animal companion) you don't really get much in the way of permanent minions before mid-high levels unless you flat out hire them or something (and at that point, can't the Fighter also hire people? It's not really a territory I wanna go into).

But those are not things you want a Fighter to fight! Mindless constructs lose to a 1st level silent image. Undead are blown up by Turning or (for mindless ones) taken over by command undead.

Just because someone doesn't use an option doesn't mean that option doesn't count. Plenty of people will build their characters in a way that leaves a niche for the Fighter because they're playing socially and don't want to make the guy who made a character that can be trivially replaced feel bad by replacing him. But that doesn't mean the Fighter is a good use of resources.

I wouldn't say that playing a Good-aligned Cleric is something you do primarily in order to not put the Fighter out of a job (rather than, say, because you don't want to play an Evil or evildoing character).

You mean like a Druid or a Cleric? Maybe they're not "strictly better", but even in Core, it's hard to see how you get more value out of the Fighter's marginally better chassis than you do out of the Cleric or Druid bringing additional characters to the table. As I noted earlier, a lot of the buffs you can cast on a Fighter are multi-target, meaning the Fighter is a worse target for them than a Cleric or Druid.

Yes as I said I did concede Druids can fully replace Fighters (and pretty much any other core melee class except Rogue) at pretty much all levels, though I'd be a bit more cautious about saying the same about Clerics, at least at low levels. Though IMO there's no contention that this is 100% true at higher levels, even factoring magic items and WBL guidelines.



Don't get me wrong - I overall agree with the general point that druids/clerics/wizards are vastly superior to the likes of fighters/barbarians/paladins, even in core. I was just expressing my annoyance as to how these conversations end up assuming a lot of contextual elements (such as how often you can rest to regain your spells) which are a lot more controversial than what some players seem to believe.

For example, I've even read (even on this forum) some players claiming that Rogues are also useless under the assumption (generally implicit but often explicit as well) that the DM would obviously cut down on traps if the party has no Rogue. Like... why? If the party deliberately eschewed picking a Rogue, it's their own fault - the reality of the game shouldn't depend on whether the party has or doesn't have a certain class.

[blackwindbears]

Don't get me wrong - I overall agree with the general point that druids/clerics/wizards are vastly superior to the likes of fighters/barbarians/paladins, even in core. I was just expressing my annoyance as to how these conversations end up assuming a lot of contextual elements (such as how often you can rest to regain your spells) which are a lot more controversial than what some players seem to believe.

For example, I've even read (even on this forum) some players claiming that Rogues are also useless under the assumption (generally implicit but often explicit as well) that the DM would obviously cut down on traps if the party has no Rogue. Like... why? If the party deliberately eschewed picking a Rogue, it's their own fault - the reality of the game shouldn't depend on whether the party has or doesn't have a certain class.

Fortunately, here I'm removing _all_ of the contextual elements by just providing a well defined set of stats to hit.

I'm with you on the rogue bits though. I run mostly AP's, my party currently has no Rogue. I'm not removing traps from the published adventure because they don't have one. They just have to figure it out.

[Anthrowhale]

When within melee range you provoke an attack of opportunity from casting by default. This can be avoided with a DC 16 skill check for a first level spell. Concentration could be as high as 8+3(con)=11 without feats. Hence, I think you need an additional feat for Combat Casting to reliably avoid the AOOs.

[Zarator]

When within melee range you provoke an attack of opportunity from casting by default. This can be avoided with a DC 16 skill check for a first level spell. Concentration could be as high as 8+3(con)=11 without feats. Hence, I think you need an additional feat for Combat Casting to reliably avoid the AOOs.

Skill Focus (Concentration) is generally better in 3.5 because it was upgraded from +2 to +3 and it works on ALL Concentration checks, not just those to cast defensively. For example, if enemy archers prepare an action to hit you the moment you cast a spell, even casting defensively won't rly help since they're still going to shoot you before you cast (and then if you take damage you gotta roll for a normal Concentration check, not one where you can benefit from Combat Casting). Similarly, effects like summon swarm and sleet storm force you to make Concentration checks against which you can't take advantage of Combat Casting. Combat Casting is just too narrow for justifying its 1 extra bonus over Skill Focus (Concentration), and should've been upgraded to at least a +5 in 3.5 to retain a shred of its usefulness.

[DMVerdandi]

Ive been ruminating about even posting back in this thread, but Troacctid inspired me with their no nonsense sense.



Lets say, they both live sequestered in a sort of no mans land. Not greyhawk, but lets just say it's mostly NPC's in their village. There is danger all around, but they are the only folk with PC class levels. Real hicks.


Natively, there is one big HUGE thing that separates the casters from the fighter. All they need is pen and paper to make magic items. PERIOD. No special stuff, no woowoo. Natively, It just works. Eschew materials for the needy.


Scribe Scroll smokes whatever "infinite resource" fighters have? What is that? Swing the weapon, right? Power attack? Cause it's not anything else. It DEFINITELY isn't HP.

If anything, early game meta with ANY caster without Scribe Scroll at level 1 is absolute madness.
Level 1, caster level 1 scrolls cost 12 bucks and like 1 XP.
Also Sling. Sling is OP. Club is OP.

Extend Spell is the next one to grab. No maybes.

Other than that, Long bow, and they have fighter beat CONSISTENTLY at Damage, Life lead, Having actual skills, Everything.


So level 5?

CLERIC
Any domain you want is fine, but war guarantees you a longbow if you want it. Other ones may even be better. Arcane is pretty stellar in general, especially if you aren't restricted by the standars of this thread.

Scribe scrolls of cure light wounds, sanctuary, entropic shield [Full caster level], 12 DOLLAR MAGIC STONE SCROLLS. And Scribe Scrolls of contagion and Bestow Curse [Both are touch, so I count it as smacks].

Shoot with longbow, Extend spiritual weapon, Hit the boss with contagion and bestow curse. As well as any fighters, to shut them down completely.


Druid
Extend Produce flame and Shilelagh.
12 dollar produce flame scrolls. Barkskin lasts so long that you can make those dumb cheap. Cure light wounds,

Even here, you are hitting so far away from a fighter that it's nonsense. At least the greatsword fighter. And in fact, druid buffs are so long in duration, that I would actually give druid empower spell so you could use an empowered produce flame. Then you ABSOLUTELY are doing more.
Contagion scrolls for hard dudes.

WIZARD
HEHE Free scribe scroll. Take Elf for free longbow.

Touch of fatigue on all cantrips. Cantrip scrolls for random nonsense.
Fatigue is NUTS. Especially when you need to escape.

True Strike scrolls are nuts.
Ray of enfeeblement scrolls are nuts
Expeditious retreat scrolls are nuts
Ghoul touch scrolls are nuts.
Invisibility scrolls are BEYOND nuts.
[no less than 5 each before any adventure.]


Fill up all level one slots with Chill touch[RIP the opps]
Extend Protection from arrows.
Extend spectral hand.

You gonna get touched, and you gonna get hurt. This completely bypasses any AC fighter has, and any enemy for that matter.

And when all that runs out, you have arrows. AND protection from them. 100 points of soak.




This is without ANY DM intervention.
Wizard is "vulnerable" early in the game, but there is no reason they should be low level when they first start adventuring anyway. You'd just farm XP for a second until you got what you needed.


Yes, I acknowledge that railroad tracks will change this dynamic and what not, but yeah. We are talking Cell games? Mages Smoke them 100%
Oh sure, that's very specific. So is a power attacking greatsword fighter. Where is the all toughness feats unarmed fighter? Popeye is a thing innit.



People are just notoriously bad at playing them without breaking everything or just dying super fast.
They die because they don't craft, and they don't understand that part. The downtime part.
They break cause it's easy.






Core. There you go. With everything taken away but core, consistently, the mages will outfight a fighter easily. Honestly, Low level, in a lot of ways Sorcerer is MONSTROUS. Base sorcerer. If they are played like so, but sorcerer requires WAY more brains to play than wizard ironically. You have to know which spells to even grab. INTIMATELY.



Does that mean fighter is easier to play? Absolutely not. Because spells are gold. Literally. You can just hustle by selling spells to people. And that's also XP. Scrolls are downtime from your job as a local spellcaster.
More gold and xp, more scrolls, more scrolls, more power.


The fighter doesn't even have the heal skill.


I wouldn't call any of that trivial, but they past this thread's test. Not only can they do those sorts of things to outdo the fighter in core, but they can allow OTHERS to do better.


They don't need WBL.
They need paper and pen and an actual caster behind the wheel.Every single one has a combat killer in core that can be done multiple times. Wizard is the only one who can't natively heal themselves in core. But not getting hit is better than healing, and if you play them right, they won't get hit.

[Lans]

An augmented crocodile is like 1 pt behind the fighter in average damage.

[MeimuHakurei]

So about 1st level Wizards:

-Elf gives you a Dex boost but a Con Penalty. With the Elite Array we make:
10 Str
16 Dex
11 Con
15 Int
12 Wis
8 Cha

And we add a Toad familiar for 3 additional HP. 7 isn't that much but you can take a hit or two from Level 1 threats. Mage Armor puts you at 17 AC, which has the same armor value as the Fighter's Scale Mail. And your Longbow is only one point less to hit than the Fighter's and the same damage. Conjuration is generally a good specialization so we take that so we have three first level spells to work with, dropping Enchantment and Evocation. So if we get a few too many enemies on us we can Sleep/Color Spray to clutch us out. Touch of Fatigue gives us an edge in close quarters to either take out a melee threat or at least bail. Additionally, let's add Silent Image to our loadout to allow us to slip away from mindless foes. We should also have enough skill points to help us with Knowledge as well as put a point into things like Survival to take 10 on them. Let's max out Spellcraft and Concentration, spend two points each in Spot, Listen and Survival to help us move about more easily. We dip our last two points into Knowledge for Arcane and Nature; Taking 10 on those will help us with a variety of creature identifications. Improved Initiative is probably the call because going first will significantly help our survivability.

Putting it all together, we have:

7 HP
13 AC (17 with Mage Armor)
Spot +4, Listen +4, low-light vision; Init +7
30 ft Speed
+0 Fort, +3 Ref, +3 Will; immune to sleep effects, +2 vs. enchantment
Attack: Longbow +3 (1d8), Longsword +0 (1d8)
Spells:
0th level: Daze, Touch of Fatigue, Touch of Fatigue
1st level: Mage Armor(spec), Color Spray, Silent Image

Core only does make playing a Level 1 Wizard somewhat challenging, but nothing too bad to overcome. The biggest hurdle is dealing with vermin type creatures who can poison on hit as we lack budget to invest in our Fortitude. But since we have Scribe Scroll and several options for scrolls, noncombat problems shouldn't be that big of a deal. We can take 10 on Survival to sustain ourselves in the wilderness too.

Let's try and make a ranged Fighter that can keep up with this:

I'll take Half-Elf because Elf has Wizard as a favored class so I'll pick one that has any. For our stats, I'd do it like this:

10 Str
15 Dex
14 Con
13 Int
12 Wis
8 Cha

The only choices we're making as a Fighter is where to put our skill points and feats. I put 4 ranks into Intimidate, two points in Spot, Listen and Survival and a point in Climb and Swim. Taking 10 on movement skills helps us with some rough terrain. We get three whole feats to choose from - to optimize for archery, let's take Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot and Rapid Shot. We can eat an opportunity attack coming for us and even get a plus for shooting people up close. Two attacks is helpful for delivering damage effectively. Let's be a bit generous and assume we can start with a Chain Mail, one of the best options for a Dexterity character to boost their AC. Since we have no more choices to make, there's no consideration about spells and how to tackle problems with them, better hope the Longbow does it for us.

Putting it all together, we get:

12 HP
16 AC
Spot +3, Listen +3, low-light vision; Init +2
30 ft Speed
+4 Fort, +2 Ref, +1 Will; immune to sleep, +2 vs. enchantment
Attack: +3 or +1/+1 Longbow (1d8), Longsword +1 (1d8) [+4 or +2/+2 on Longbow within 30 ft]

Our final build could match the Wizard in senses and AC if we went Elf, which would drop our HP to 11 and Fortitude to +3.

I'll leave it up to the readers here to call a verdict on comparing those two builds.

[bean illus]

Here's something i don't remember being mentioned.

Cleric 5: combat casting, skill focus concentration, heighten spell. Get a +2 Wisdom item on a 16 Wis.

Combat casting check: 8 +1 +3 +3 =15
Sanctuary spell: DC 10 +1 +1 +4 =16

Now buff yourself, and cast spiritual weapon, or maybe hold person.

[Anthrowhale]

Now buff yourself, and cast spiritual weapon, or maybe hold person.

It's not quite clear what an attack is for the purpose of Sanctuary, but I wouldn't be surprised to see DMs imposing the standard from Invisibility, which would preclude Spiritual Weapon or Hold Person.

[eggynack]

Gotta say, one thing I haven't seen pointed out about the premise is that the "core only" thing is a bit wonky. I feel like it has been evidenced that this comparison tends to swing the way of casters in core, but, at the same time, the impetus for the argument was apparently some people being like, "Casters can outfight the fighter and still have casting left over," and this claim notably doesn't restrict things to core. More to the point, core isn't usually the context where I see the claim made. The reason clerics are assumed able to fight all day is in large part because of DMM persist. Broadly, I would say that changing the book access to out of core mostly benefits the casters. Like, fighters get zhentarim soldier, I guess? Dungeoncrasher? Maybe we get generous and allow a dip for pounce? It's definitely an upgrade on the baseline core chain tripper (which, gotta say, that's probably what we should be comparing the fifth level caster to), but casters get a lot more. Clerics get to persist stuff, druids get fleshraker shenanigans, and both of them get lots and lots of spells that are highly useful in melee combat. Maybe it's irrelevant because the core comparison already seems fairly slanted, but I think it's notable that other contexts arguably make it even more lopsided.

[RandomPeasant]

Gotta say, one thing I haven't seen pointed out about the premise is that the "core only" thing is a bit wonky. I feel like it has been evidenced that this comparison tends to swing the way of casters in core, but, at the same time, the impetus for the argument was apparently some people being like, "Casters can outfight the fighter and still have casting left over," and this claim notably doesn't restrict things to core. More to the point, core isn't usually the context where I see the claim made.

The claim is also never "strictly better". The Cleric isn't better because she has better numbers than the Fighter, she's better because she has "good enough" numbers and also can see the future and summon angels. Discounting the future-seeing and angel-summoning the Cleric does in pursuit of narrowly better numbers is missing the point of the argument being made. As I've been saying from like the third post of the thread, it's not really clear to me what the point of this exercise is supposed to be. "Claim no one makes is false in context most people don't care about" doesn't strike me as a particularly useful point, unless (and, yes, I know OP insists they don't plan to) you want to misrepresent your results to advance an agenda.

Broadly, I would say that changing the book access to out of core mostly benefits the casters.

I would disagree with that. They're banned for some reason, but Core casters get planar binding and the various derivatives. That's already enough that you will never need a dedicated PC frontliner, and it's not even the limit of what you can do with those spells or the only broken spells that exist in Core. If you open things up to more books, the Cleric goes from Cleric + skeletons + planar ally + I still have all my spell slots today to Cleric + skeletons + planar allly + a few Persistent buffs + I have most of my spell slots today. Conversely, the Fighter (or rather, Fighter-type, as even in Core this character doesn't want to take more than two Fighter levels) goes from "maybe a Horizon Tripper, I guess" to some kind of ToB-based build with white raven tactics (allowing her to provide combat support in the same way that casters are always expected to) and the Diamond Mind save-replacers (which are a highly effective defensive option). Her non-combat options are still pretty much limited to "Diplomacy" and "break things real good", with a Cleric likely being better at the former anyway, but it's much easier for me to imagine that character having a niche than a Core Fighter.

[Gemini476]

Yeah, Fighter's definitely going to get better out of core just by virtue of having more options. It's not getting so much better that it outpaces the out-of-core Wizard et. al., who fully take advantage of the variety (especially Clerics! Gotta love knowing your whole list!), but it's definitely better.

Even the quality of [Fighter Bonus Feat]s is generally on an upward trend... and that's before you bring into the picture that there's, like, 200ish of them. Unfortunately the Fighter's still only going to be picking the handful that look the tastiest, but it's something.
I've gotta say, Paizo was on to something when they made a Fighter archetype that let you change up what bonus feats you're using.

The biggest benefit to the Fighter is, unfortunately, also going to be... no longer being a fighter. Exciting new prestige classes, dips into other classes, there's a lot of things that a Fighter will prefer to do over getting one bonus feat every other level. Grab two levels of fighter, maybe six if you're going Dungeoncrasher, eight if you're feeling really spicy, and then off to the races with multiclassing.

[Gnaeus]

. Broadly, I would say that changing the book access to out of core mostly benefits the casters. Like, fighters get zhentarim soldier, I guess? Dungeoncrasher? Maybe we get generous and allow a dip for pounce? It's definitely an upgrade on the baseline core chain tripper (which, gotta say, that's probably what we should be comparing the fifth level caster to), but casters get a lot more. Clerics get to persist stuff, druids get fleshraker shenanigans, and both of them get lots and lots of spells that are highly useful in melee combat. Maybe it's irrelevant because the core comparison already seems fairly slanted, but I think it's notable that other contexts arguably make it even more lopsided.

For me the non core argument is that it makes fighter meaningful at all. The core fighter cares about 2 feats to do his job, power attack and improved trip. And the cleric can trivially get those because there aren't many core feats worth getting. You can compare apples to apples, and then the cleric gets a free banana and a side of grapes. Non core, the fighter can achieve a meaningful build that the T1 melee types can't easily and directly match until much higher level. Like chargers or battlefield controllers. "How does my battle cleric or druid compare with a huge chain tripper with mage slayer line and ToB stuff" is a much more apples to oranges comparison. I still feel CoDzilla is better in every way I find meaningful. But it's a much more complicated discussion, and much harder to answer without answering questions like "how likely are enemy NPC casters to carry hard counters to a mage slayer area control build" or "where exactly is the line between practical and theoretical optimization, and what counts as equivalent optimization between these builds".

[Lans]

This is definitely the winner so far!


- Flying isn't a ranged weapon. Long distance on the plains for example. We've still got the druid though? Maybe with small size and some feats they can get there?

How far of a distance do you expect to engage? At 3 range increments a druid can summon a hippogriff and have it dive attack, At 6 increments it can do so after running for a round.

+8 to hit for 2d4+8 damage. Almost as much as 2 rounds of the fighter firing his bow at either the same or better attack bonus.

[RandomPeasant]

The biggest benefit to the Fighter is, unfortunately, also going to be... no longer being a fighter. Exciting new prestige classes, dips into other classes, there's a lot of things that a Fighter will prefer to do over getting one bonus feat every other level. Grab two levels of fighter, maybe six if you're going Dungeoncrasher, eight if you're feeling really spicy, and then off to the races with multiclassing.

I mean, to be fair, it's not like the casters are particularly excited to take levels in their base classes either. Clerics would happily PrC out at 2nd level if there was a way to do that without losing casting. Very few base classes are competitive with the PrCs you can qualify for coming out of those classes. Druid and maybe Rogue probably the only ones in Core (arguably Monk, if you ignore the fact that there are a bunch of non-class-specific PrCs that are better than being a Monk).

For me the non core argument is that it makes fighter meaningful at all. The core fighter cares about 2 feats to do his job, power attack and improved trip. And the cleric can trivially get those because there aren't many core feats worth getting. You can compare apples to apples, and then the cleric gets a free banana and a side of grapes.

But that's not an apples-to-apples comparison either. Which I think is the fundamental issue. The "strictly better" framework OP wants to use is simply not applicable in this case. Even if you found some build that exactly satisfied all OP's conditions for what "strictly better" means (or proved to his satisfaction that no such build exists), the base-level reality is that the vast majority of resources a Druid or Cleric directs to such a purpose are things that can simply do something else tomorrow. And that means that looking at a stat-to-stat picture is never going to give you the whole story.

"where exactly is the line between practical and theoretical optimization, and what counts as equivalent optimization between these builds".

I would argue that Anthrowhale has demonstrated that this question can't be avoided even in Core. The fundamental problem with optimization discussions in 3.5 (and, frankly, a lot of games) is that there are things that just break the system. So there's always going to be a whole layer of pre-debate debate (usually conducted in parallel in practice) where people try to hash out what stuff is allowed.

[eggynack]

I dunno, fighter gets some cool stuff but I'm pretty skeptical. Casters just get so much stuff, including the stuff that makes their melee deal really work. Instead of being a deinonychus with an ape companion tossing out lions, you can be a venomfire fleshraker with a venomfire fleshraker, summoning greenbound lions, and you can even go deep and pull that off at 5th with surrogate spellcasting instead of having to wait for 6th. And that's next to, y'know, a bunch of other stuff. Fighters are invariably kinda limited in terms of how they access the stuff they want to do. Casters just have all of it all the time.

Also, a lot of this added fighter utility is in stuff besides dealing maximum damage to maximum enemies. ToB and mageslayer and such. And, really, at that point this just becomes kinda silly, right? It's vaguely interesting to ask whether a caster can out-melee a fighter in an all day sort of way. It's deeply uninteresting to ask whether a caster can out-BFC a fighter. Like, one of the best things those greenbound lions can do is toss out walls of thorns for free. Direct damage is arguably the thing casters are worst at, simply because they have such a relative advantage in every other area. All that expanding the conversation does is make the fighter look worse.

[icefractal]

The claim is also never "strictly better". The Cleric isn't better because she has better numbers than the Fighter, she's better because she has "good enough" numbers and also can see the future and summon angels. Discounting the future-seeing and angel-summoning the Cleric does in pursuit of narrowly better numbers is missing the point of the argument being made.

The argument being made on some other thread? I'm looking at this thread. Which has a fairly simple and relatively clearly defined question. I don't honestly care what arguments somebody is making elsewhere.

As I've been saying from like the third post of the thread, it's not really clear to me what the point of this exercise is supposed to be.

What is the point of an Iron Chef or Zinc Saucier thread? It's not likely than in an actual campaign, the GM will say that your build needs to focus on (checks latest) the Siren PrC. The point is that it's an interesting challenge and you might learn something in the process. Is "How effective can you make a caster whose offense is entirely weapon attacks, in core?" an interesting challenge? That's subjective, and fair enough if it doesn't interest you personally, but then ... just don't reply?


And personal opinion, but ...
"Casters vs Martials, how should they be balanced?" is IMO a pointless topic that's been endlessly reheated and never produced much. It's IME always turned into either an unending circular argument, or just choir-preaching, neither of which has any utility I can see.

More specific challenges/questions, on the other hand, can be interesting and sometimes produce useful insights. For example, this thread has brought to my attention a few things:
* DMM Persist is a huge factor in how Clerics compare to other classes (including other casters). Sometimes people have said it's not a big deal because Clerics are already so good at self-buffing - not true.
* It's no surprise that (mid-level+) Druid is the best combat class in core, but I hadn't realized how big the gap was.
* Going beyond core helps full casters as much as it does other classes. Yes, some of the most powerful spells are already in core, but being able to fill in the gaps makes a major difference.

[Lans]

Up till AC 25 a hippogriff with augment summoning does more damage, past that the hippogriff does more on the 1st round. Almost any melee animal companion swings the difference, and the druid can shoot into the melee or poke with a stick. At ranged either the fighter is heavily penalized due to range or the Griff can cover the distance in 1 round then dive down for massively more damage. That's 3 fights, he then has 2 3rdlevel spells, then wild shape.


So Griff > fighter except for melee fights against creatures with between 25-29 AC past the first round. Animal Companion can cover the difference.

How often does 25 ACs come up at level 5? If it's less than 3 times a day he can throw out a dire wolf

[blackwindbears]

Up till AC 25 a hippogriff with augment summoning does more damage, past that the hippogriff does more on the 1st round. Almost any melee animal companion swings the difference, and the druid can shoot into the melee or poke with a stick. At ranged either the fighter is heavily penalized due to range or the Griff can cover the distance in 1 round then dive down for massively more damage. That's 3 fights, he then has 2 3rdlevel spells, then wild shape.


So Griff > fighter except for melee fights against creatures with between 25-29 AC past the first round. Animal Companion can cover the difference.

How often does 25 ACs come up at level 5? If it's less than 3 times a day he can throw out a dire wolf

Real dumb question here:

If you're surprised how is the hippogriff dealing more damage than the fighter on the first round? I'm counting between 3-6 fights, three of which you have no control over. Is this meant to be exclusively for the case in a large field to make up for the lack of a ranged weapon?

Would it be a little easier to just give the druid a bow? (Not saying it would be "better", just in terms of hitting the avg 8 damage with +8 to hit at range...)

[Lans]

Real dumb question here:

If you're surprised how is the hippogriff dealing more damage than the fighter on the first round? I'm counting between 3-6 fights, three of which you have no control over. Is this meant to be exclusively for the case in a large field to make up for the lack of a ranged weapon?

Would it be a little easier to just give the druid a bow? (Not saying it would be "better", just in terms of hitting the avg 8 damage with +8 to hit at range...)

Originally the hippogriff was for a large field, with croc during normal fights, I then ran numbers and the hippogriff out performed the croc. The bow locks me into stat and race that I wanted to leave open. The Griff has a combat range of 240 from the druids starting location, and can move another 200 feet if an enemy is still out of range

[bean illus]

It's not quite clear what an attack is for the purpose of Sanctuary, but I wouldn't be surprised to see DMs imposing the standard from Invisibility, which would preclude Spiritual Weapon or Hold Person.

Of course.
I was only creating a cleric option, that was different from the other cleric options that i had mentioned.

This one uses no melee or fighter feats. Instead it aims for 6th, 9th, and 12th level magic based feats (possibly extend, quicken, maybe spell penetration?).

The ability for a Wis based caster to consistently hit concentration checks and raise spell DC is not a given in core, with only a 25 point buy.

[Anthrowhale]

...

The larger point that Sanctuary is a powerful spell seems quite valid in combination with summons (for example). It's also pretty compelling for Imbue with Spell Ability.

[blackwindbears]

Originally the hippogriff was for a large field, with croc during normal fights, I then ran numbers and the hippogriff out performed the croc. The bow locks me into stat and race that I wanted to leave open. The Griff has a combat range of 240 from the druids starting location, and can move another 200 feet if an enemy is still out of range

But, you still lose the first attack, right? Also, casting SMX during combat seems really risky to me. Is it intended to be used exclusively for pre-combat summoning?

[bean illus]

The larger point that Sanctuary is a powerful spell seems quite valid in combination with summons (for example). It's also pretty compelling for Imbue with Spell Ability.

You would consider hold person or spiritual weapon attacks, but not summon monster? Or were you just addressing the usefulness of sanctuary?

Again, that +6 (and a 12 Int plus eagle's splendor) are pricey, but your chance of not wasting the spell is greatly improved (in the theoretical 'front line cleric').

I hope you know how impressed i am with your builds.

[Anthrowhale]

You would consider hold person or spiritual weapon attacks, but not summon monster?

Yeah, summon monster passes the Invisibility test since the spell does not target a foe or include the foe in an area of effect.

I hope you know how impressed i am with your builds.

Oh, thanks

[Lans]

But, you still lose the first attack, right? Also, casting SMX during combat seems really risky to me. Is it intended to be used exclusively for pre-combat summoning?

Yes, I thought it had the casting time of a full round action, not 1 round. Definitely still useful for covering range and times where a prebuff/summoning.