The reason why fighters will never have nice things.

[Kaelik]

...and the Fighter is completely unable to hear that the image is silent. And his neck hairs never raise up to indicate that vile magic is near. And he's a naive cripple armed with a spoon... who's asleep.

If you're going to continually define the fighter as, "worthless in all possible ways," all you're doing is telling us why 3eDnD fighters aren't as awesomely powerful as a well-played 3eDnD spellcaster, which is old and not worth rehashing. You're not adding to any solutions because you're refusing to attempt any. You're not even coming up with a reasonable explanation why fighters necessarily suck, only that your conceptualization of them is shit.

I think you are confused mean liar. Fatr said that Transcendental Warriors can usually keep up at high level, and kick be really awesome, as evidenced by standard Shounin Anime main characters who are all "I hit it harder." or "I move even faster."

I choose to appeal to exactly that media, and show how that's not actually the case. Ichigo has the Main character subtype, and he has the special ability "Aizen hasn't cast Silent Image on me yet." and that is literally the only reason he isn't as useless as everyone else.

No one can beat Aizen, at all, because he can cast Silent Image (technically, it's Major Image, at it has no save) So my point is that no amount of being a badass will ever math him in combat, because you can't match the sheer power of Major Image.

[Ice9]

There's actually one more option, although it's a pretty big departure from D&D as we know it, and not necessarily how I'd personally like it: the narrativist-Fighter. He has the ability to rewrite the underlying plot and circumstances in such a way as to accomplish things. So for instance:

Problem: Giant demon made out of iron.
Solution: Weak point on its foot, the Fighter knew about or lucked into hitting it.

Problem: Trees of might.
Solution: A common poison happens to be fatal to trees of might. The Fighter happened to be carrying some.

Problem: Need to get to the city of Brass.
Solution: If you go to a magma vent, sometimes there are natural portals there. And the Fighter knows where a nearby one is.

And don't claim it doesn't work outside of single-author fiction. FATE practically runs on this stuff.

[Kaelik]

Well, I'll pretend to be constructive instead of just destructive to bad ideas for like six seconds:

1) Get rid of the Fighter. Have a Knight, and a Barbarian, and a Rogue, and a Monk, and a whatever, but ditch the name fighter for everything but an NPC class, because fuck this, every time someone says "Fighter can do this" someone responds with "But that's not fighting. Fighting only."

2) You can go for plot restructuring, but honestly, that's a very different style, and people usually don't want that. I don't want to be able to say "I know the week point in this wall" I want to say "My character can chop down walls, let's go." I think that preference applies to most others as well.

3) I do like the forced tiering black woods style. You are a Fighter, and then a Knight, and then a X Knight.

You are a Warlock, then a Storm Wizard, then a Storm Being.

You are a Thief Acrobat, then you are a magic thief, then you are a whatever.

[mean_liar]

#1 is totally, completely, without restriction the way to go.

Personally I'd say run it off of an effects-based system and just have everyone choose their non-combat schticks separate from their combat schticks, but DnD needs its classes and #1 is the way to do that.

#2 isn't DnD. It's something that I think is cool but it's not DnD.

#3 I think goes with #1.


...

Here's my take on the DMF:

1. It's not a badass normal. It's a Dumb Melee Fighter. Their major schtick in combat is that they hit shit and then that shit dies. That includes dragons, which are way too fucking big to do that to as a badass normal. Previously I had been conflating the DMF with the badass normal. This was a mistake. They are separate things.

2. Giving the DMF appropriate toys to play with is easy, so long as they follow the sort of thing that Frank pointed out earlier: they're self-sufficient at some point, they get people to do their accounting, and they live a comfortable life. They hit shit, it dies. Past that you can give them all kinds of fire-and-forget abilities that run in the background.


The Badass Normal is much more troublesome: they will lean heavily, probably exclusively, on outlandish circumstance or applications of skill. Retconning would probably be a central feature of the class. A high-level Badass Normal can parry, frustrate and generally stand toe-to-toe with the god of war because he's just that badass. Parry parry parry parry parry RIPOSTE trip. Now, he's still normal and so unless your gods are Olympian-style he can't actually kill them, but he can act as action-denial sufficient to let Brofag the Angel Barbarian put the Demon-splitter Axe through someone important's skull.

You would not give the Badass Normal to players that can't be imaginative. These people need to be able to whip out mystical tinfoil from under their hats in order to block mind rays, they need to have a vial of ultraGlue to stick the spider to its web, and yes, that means that they'll probably have to also be a gadgeteer of some kind because you can't punch a dragon to death as a Normal (even a badass normal). You can, however, put an arrow into something's eye (and have that mean something more than d8 + magic damage).

A shitty player will cause that to degenerate into slapstick. Then again, Brofag hitting EVERYTHING with his Demon-splitter Axe would do the same, but its a little more expected.


...


"The Fighter should be better at fighting than everyone else"



What does that even mean? He's the best killer? What about assassinating? Or against iron golems? Or demons immune to non-holy effects?

What I'm trying to get at is that the DMF I was conceptualizing has, say, total immunity to everything at his HD-4. Period. They cost him (n HP) per minute or something, and it's the kind of cost where he can take on an army of them all day, Roland-style.

But just saying "they fight" isn't sufficient. It needs more detail.


Re: In DnD everyone mows down hordes

See above. A squad of wizards with wands is going to force you to roll that 1 eventually, or the 20s will wear you down, or whatever. There's a way to make something that the DMF can do.

[PoliteNewb]

No one can beat Aizen, at all, because he can cast Silent Image (technically, it's Major Image, at it has no save) So my point is that no amount of being a badass will ever math him in combat, because you can't match the sheer power of Major Image.

Really?

This spell functions like Silent Image.

Saving Throw: Will disbelief (if interacted with)

Also, it's not Major Image:

Duration: Concentration + 3 rounds

The hypnosis is apparently long-lasting, seeing as the Visored are still affected by Kyōka Suigetsu even though they were hypnotized at least 110 years ago.

You don't find comparing an awesomely powerful and extremely broad-based illusion power to a 3rd level spell to be a bit disingenuous?

[Sashi]

It does seem like "fighter" is a sacred cow that needs to be slain. Or possibly reduced to a 5 level class. The idea that someone can be a "pure" 20th level ANYTHING is pretty lame and stupid, and it's especially stupid for the Fighter, who can epitomize literally any kind of combat style that doesn't encompass magic.

"fighter" is really just a 4 level long class that you take when you're feat starved, And making combat abilities that aren't available unless you take a dozen feats is a shitty thing to do.

[CatharzGodfoot]

1) Get rid of the Fighter. Have a Knight, and a Barbarian, and a Rogue, and a Monk, and a whatever, but ditch the name fighter for everything but an NPC class, because fuck this, every time someone says "Fighter can do this" someone responds with "But that's not fighting. Fighting only."

I'm all for ditching stupid class names, but if you're getting rid of "fighter" you might as well toss out "monk" as well.

[Kaelik]

Really?

First, to be fair to you, my typos aren't really helping this conversation, I assume you took "at" to be "as" but it was actually the word, "and" representing a difference from regular Major Image.

You don't find comparing an awesomely powerful and extremely broad-based illusion power to a 3rd level spell to be a bit disingenuous?

No, I don't find comparing an awesomely powerful and extremely broad based illusion power to a 3rd level spell to be disingenous.

That third level spell represents the ability to do all the things that Aizen can do. Yes, Aizen can do them no save, as a free action, because he's a badass. But this is about competing at level 15-20, not 5th level in the first place, and since level 15 Wizards can do Major Image as a free action at will with a duration of infinity, and only miss the no save aspect, it's not that big a deal.

[Kaelik]

1) Get rid of the Fighter. Have a Knight, and a Barbarian, and a Rogue, and a Monk, and a whatever, but ditch the name fighter for everything but an NPC class, because fuck this, every time someone says "Fighter can do this" someone responds with "But that's not fighting. Fighting only."

I'm all for ditching stupid class names, but if you're getting rid of "fighter" you might as well toss out "monk" as well.

Well, I think Monk can be made to represent the Transcendental Warrior aspect, encompassing basically the same conceptual space as Psychic Warrior and Monk and Soulblade.

[Ice9]

But this is about competing at level 15-20, not 5th level in the first place, and since level 15 Wizards can do Major Image as a free action at will with a duration of infinity, and only miss the no save aspect, it's not that big a deal.

Although actually you could get pretty far with saving throws. I mean, it wouldn't help with non-combat challenges much, but you could keep a DMF fairly effective with just this:

Shrug it Off: The DMF succeeds at all saving throws. If an effect doesn't have a save, he still succeeds at it, if that result makes any sense.
Throw Harder: The DMF can treat thrown weapons as melee attacks, applying all relevant feats and bonuses, as long as the result makes any sense. Also, he can throw anything up to Long range with no penalty.
Mobile: The DMF makes a full-attack as a standard action. This includes being able to ready it.

And this isn't even something that's outside the action-hero aesthetic.

[PoliteNewb]

Really?

First, to be fair to you, my typos aren't really helping this conversation, I assume you took "at" to be "as" but it was actually the word, "and" representing a difference from regular Major Image.

Ah. In all honesty, I did assume that, and corrected, that makes more sense.

[Kaelik]

Shrug it Off: The DMF succeeds at all saving throws. If an effect doesn't have a save, he still succeeds at it, if that result makes any sense.
Throw Harder: The DMF can treat thrown weapons as melee attacks, applying all relevant feats and bonuses, as long as the result makes any sense. Also, he can throw anything up to Long range with no penalty.
Mobile: The DMF makes a full-attack as a standard action. This includes being able to ready it.

I have serious issues with Throw Harder and Mobile as it represents 3.5 D&D or some variation of it for reasons involving interesting abilities vs "I instantly kill anything that I can full attack, and then I make the things I can full attack more often" and how one of those is fun, and one of thus is fucking retarded.

But I could accept those things in a hypothetical 5e depending on a lot of things.

But here's the thing. I would murder anyone who put anything like Shrug it off into any game.

Shrug it off is literally the worst thing you can ever make in any game ever.

Shrug it off is exactly like telling everyone that the Fighter is the main character, and they are all auxillary. Shrug it off is saying "Fuck balance, no one can ever kill this character, so it is automatically the best character unless there is a serious fuck it in game design."

Ect. The problems with shrug it off are actually endless, and part of the reason the Tome Barbarian is a terrible class.

[Sashi]

Shrug it Off: The DMF succeeds at all saving throws. If an effect doesn't have a save, he still succeeds at it, if that result makes any sense.

This makes the Fighter the arbitrary "kill magic things" class. And while currently the Fighter is definitely the class you turn to for killing Iron Golems in Antimagic Fields, that's really a "MC decides to give you a situation you excel in" kind of thing, not a "build a class around" thing.

Throw Harder: The DMF can treat thrown weapons as melee attacks, applying all relevant feats and bonuses, as long as the result makes any sense. Also, he can throw anything up to Long range with no penalty.

I understand that this is trying to deal with the mongol problem, but I don't think the most effective solution to the mongol problem is turning everyone into mongols. Actual methods to fuck with Mongols is a better direction to take.

Mobile: The DMF makes a full-attack as a standard action. This includes being able to ready it.

Seriously? If you give this to the fighter at level N, people will take level N of fighter and no further.

[CatharzGodfoot]

1) Get rid of the Fighter. Have a Knight, and a Barbarian, and a Rogue, and a Monk, and a whatever, but ditch the name fighter for everything but an NPC class, because fuck this, every time someone says "Fighter can do this" someone responds with "But that's not fighting. Fighting only."

I'm all for ditching stupid class names, but if you're getting rid of "fighter" you might as well toss out "monk" as well.

Well, I think Monk can be made to represent the Transcendental Warrior aspect, encompassing basically the same conceptual space as Psychic Warrior and Monk and Soulblade.

Transcendental Warrior is a bit of a mouthful, but I suppose it works.

[Lokathor]

My favorite ACTUAL solution to this problem by the way is Earthdawn, where EVERYONE is magic. Of course, I have never actually played Earthdawn and can't say anything about its systems.

Let's talk about Earthdawn for a minute, it deserves a say.

Earthdawn is a game made in the early 90s when DnD2e was in full swing, and it has things like 6 stats and levels, but it also has things like skill and talent ranks that add to stat ranks, because it was made by the Shadowrun guys (even set in the shadowrun world). Now, everyone has magic because all the heroes are "Adepts", but what does that mean? It means that instead of training to get better with a sword, you meditate and focus on your learning to become a warrior and in a flash of insight you're better at swinging a sword. Instead of spending 2 weeks training for +1 skill rank you spend 8 hours meditating for +1 talent rank. Some skills are slightly worse than the talent they emulate, and skill versions can only go up to 10 instead of 15 like talents can, but the cap thing doesn't really matter to the majority of the population in the first place because 90% of the Earthdawn adventures you'll play end around circle 8 or maybe 9, so you've saved a lot of of screen time not-training for weeks and weeks for each skill rank, but you haven't gained anything super special.

There are talents that don't have skill forms, and these are things like Fireblood which lets you use your combat rage to activate your healing surges (which you get about 2 or 3 of a day), or you can use shouting powers to intimidate your foes and give them penalties, or you can use magical insight to get the drop on your foes and then go for a dodge+counter attack. When you get to the higher circles you can do cooler things like "make a check and you automatically win the surprise round". yeah. Basically all the people who would normally be called "mundanes" are still doing kinda mundane sorts of things, but it's called MAGIC so it's super cool right? I guess.

At the same time, there are also Magicians. The basic kind supplies 4 kinds, and the add-on book in 3e adds a fifth that mixes spell lists from the other four. What do magicians do? What ever the fuck they damn well please. They have many spells that are just as silly and off the wall as all the spells in DnD as you go up the ranks. Also, you can use spells as often as you want, not X/day or X/combat. What's the catch? Huge action investment to get spells going. Like most spells are a minimum of 2 rounds to cast, and spells at the higher levels are often 3 or even 4 if you don't get good rolls. So, the party needs a balance in the sense of "if you don't have any non-magicians you're gonna get ganked while you're threadweaving;; and if you guys over there don't get any magicans you'll be stuck dealing with things in normal and mundanish kinds of ways all the time". So really you could get along in a group with no magicians if you wanted to, but you'd be playing a hard-mode version of the game.

Me? I like Gilgamesh. And Herc washed out a barn by picking up a river and using it like a hose. He picked up a river. That guy was cool.

[Judging__Eagle]

Why not use the term from Jodorowsky's comics "L'Incal"; and call them Meta-Warriors?

The very first Meta-Baron sneaks a space ship onto the Imperial capital planet; puts to sleep all of the guards; and cuts a hole into the doors to talk to the Imperial Couple, about how to save their potentially lost child, being held for random by a planet-sized carrier full of space ships.

His son sneaks into the imperial court and flies down from the ceiling, blasts the lead general of the Imperial forces with a hand-beam; and then declares themselves mercenary to the highest bidder (since they, as the Meta-Baron are the deciding factor in any battle, everyone who hires him ends up winning their battles/wars/quests).

His son, is revealed as being a body with a cyborg head; who changes the entire imperial court into a giant flower; and creates a golden version of his father's Meta-Craft; before going off to face off with his father's invading employers.

His Daughter/Son gets a job as an executioner on a prison planet; and has to fight things like armies of super trolls, and Kaiju with nothing but Hirs lineage's increasingly powerful attacks of summoned and channeled energy. They also face off against the hive-mind of an other attacking universe; who they cut into quarters; and then speak to, and murder the mind-core of said invading universe ("Victory or death" being the oft repeated code of the Castaka clan).

The Metabarons series is pretty crazy; but honestly it beats american comics for character development and plot pacing. An entire generation rises, and passes on, over the course of a trade paperback; and the series continues in this manner all the way to the end.

[Neurosis]

I suppose I stand...corrected. Although as I initially said I don't know anything about Earth Dawn.

1) Get rid of the Fighter. Have a Knight, and a Barbarian, and a Rogue, and a Monk, and a whatever, but ditch the name fighter for everything but an NPC class, because fuck this, every time someone says "Fighter can do this" someone responds with "But that's not fighting. Fighting only."

I actually agree with this, but for completely different reasons.

"The Fighter should be better at fighting than everyone else"

Sad

What does that even mean? He's the best killer? What about assassinating? Or against iron golems? Or demons immune to non-holy effects?

What I'm trying to get at is that the DMF I was conceptualizing has, say, total immunity to everything at his HD-4. Period. They cost him (n HP) per minute or something, and it's the kind of cost where he can take on an army of them all day, Roland-style.

But just saying "they fight" isn't sufficient. It needs more detail.

I am more and more getting the sneaking suspicion I don't know what this topic is about. Isn't the initial thesis of this topic that 'classes with non-magic flavor can't be relevant'? And additionally, are we discussing abstract conceptual stuff here or nitty gritty specifics of the 3.5E rules that I don't know a damn thing about?

Nonetheless, without really knowing what level we're discussing this at, let me try to answer you.

It means he should have the most hit points, the most constant DPS, the best AC and the most staying power out of all characters. A fully buffed gish or paladin should be slightly less good than a Fighter of equivalent level. The fighter gains in raw power enough to make up for what it lacks in variety is the idea. It is hard to get into this without the D&D 4E concept of roles coming up. The fighter is not meant to be crowd control, he is not meant to be about stealth and one-hit takedowns, and he is not meant to be a summoner or bag of tricks.

What he should be able to do is hit everything near his level for decent damage all of the time, and be able to survive their attacks better than any another class.

[PoliteNewb]

Shrug it off is literally the worst thing you can ever make in any game ever.

Shrug it off is exactly like telling everyone that the Fighter is the main character, and they are all auxillary. Shrug it off is saying "Fuck balance, no one can ever kill this character, so it is automatically the best character unless there is a serious fuck it in game design."

How does automatically making all saves = unkillable? It means unkillable by SoD, which I realize some people love, but all it really means is "you have to sword this guy to death", or use no-save or direct damage spells (which would need a boost). Or hell, battlefield control.

Depending on whatever else you introduced, it could well introduce a stalemate, where the Fighter can't sword the Wizard, and the Wizard can't turn the Fighter into a newt...but they can kill their own archetype just fine.

I'm not saying that's desirable, necessarily, but I hardly think it's the ultimate insult you do (which is natural, seeing our different tastes).

EDIT:

I also just realized...do you recall that AD&D Fighters basically DID have that ability? By 17th lvl, a Fighter pretty much did automatically make all his saves. Hell, a dwarf with a high Con and a decent Ring of Protection could do it as early as 11th.

[Judging__Eagle]

Schwarzkopf, that's entirely too broad of a definition.

All characters should be able to deal decent damage for their level; and survive enemy attacks.

What you're describing would need more spell casting than a wizard; better combat forms than a Druid, and more damage potential than a Barbarian.... which is pretty untenable, since that just has them stepping on other people's toes.

The RoW fighter covered the "fighter" role pretty well for 3.5 imo; it was a generalist that didn't suck; or a specialist who excelled at a few things.

[Jilocasin]

How does automatically making all saves = unkillable? It means unkillable by SoD, which I realize some people love, but all it really means is "you have to sword this guy to death", or use no-save or direct damage spells (which would need a boost). Or hell, battlefield control.

That part that says this.

If an effect doesn't have a save, he still succeeds at it, if that result makes any sense.

You could apply it to anything. Reflex half? Oops you take no damage. Shivering Touch? Hrm, well most spells like this have saves of some kind so you don't take any ability damage. And on and on and on.

[PoliteNewb]

If an effect doesn't have a save, he still succeeds at it, if that result makes any sense.

You could apply it to anything. Reflex half? Oops you take no damage. Shivering Touch? Hrm, well most spells like this have saves of some kind so you don't take any ability damage. And on and on and on.

Whoops. Yeah, did kind of miss that part (somehow). And yes, if you read it as "you ignore everything, whether it allows a save or not", that would be pretty stupid and pointless.

[FatR]

Aizen casts Silent Image. You lose.

Idiotic exaggerations like this are only undermining the position you're trying to argue for, you know?

[FatR]

Lago, if you think the badass normal has to be less good than the magical guys, then you don't understand the badass normal trope. In the end, against all possible odds, time and time again Kaneda beats Tetsuo. Not the other way around.

No, you don't understand it. Badass normal trope is exactly about being less good than the magical guys but pulling off wins because authors babysit him at every turn through courage, wit and a lot of luck. And even in fiction, where development of the encounters and outcomes of the rolls are controlled by an author, this trope has limited shelf life. The most badass normal in the history of badassery will never be able to affect Aizen, or Frieza, or Sailor Galaxia, or Doomsday. Chances are, he'll be accidentally killed by stuff they do, without even being noticed as an opponent.

Now, it has been explained many times, that even before its point of expiration in fiction, this does not fly in RPG. Because the GM does not control development of the encounters, and is not supposed to contol outcomes of the rolls. So, characters who are less good than their enemies will, in general, just be defeated.

[Ice9]

You could apply it to anything. Reflex half? Oops you take no damage. Shivering Touch? Hrm, well most spells like this have saves of some kind so you don't take any ability damage. And on and on and on.

No, I didn't mean "immune to everything", I just meant "if there's some BS spell that would normally have a save but for no good reason doesn't (such as Shivering Touch), then you get a save anyway." If the save is for half, you still take half. And that may be unnecessary. Basically the intent is that you have to kill them "the hard way".

And I'm not claiming that's a comprehensive or even well thought-out Fighter fix. It's just an example of how stabbing things can actually be pretty effective if you resist the "lol no, you lose" countermeasures.

[Jilocasin]

Okay, fair enough, having to kill things the hard way does make swording a viable tactic. Dragging it out over the career of a character is still really boring though. I was sort of assuming that since abilities exist that make reflex half = reflex none plenty of people would interpret it that way. Thing is though (and I'm assuming some hypothetical new edition or system at this point) you'd have to either remove SoDs entirely and have the mental resolve to stick to that decision or you include them and make basic swording non-viable at some point in the progression of the characters. You cannot grant a blanket auto save that renders the best abilities of an entire set of classes useless. I'm pretty sure that's not something you'd want anyway.

Just to be clear, I like save or dies and shivering touch is one of my favorite dragon slaying spells. I fully admit it's a bs spell, but man is it fun, especially with more bs spells like assay spell resistance and lower spell resistance.

More importantly though, I honestly don't believe that anyone who would actually design a game with world interaction and player narrative powers and market it would completely leave out save-or-suck or save-or-die powers, even if that was an actual goal. Hell, in my view it would be worse if doing so was an actual goal since almost inevitably there would be a few and those powers/spells would be the new (ever rarer!) entangle/freezing fog/color spray/haboob. The result being that any character who didn't take them was just a sucker.