How do we get rid of the Fighter

[Kaelik]

No, you fucking idiot, when you make the cleric a melee powerhouse with almost no magical ability and various abilities tied to martial techniques and make it so it absolutely can't change it's abilities except at level up and then only to add more. It is no longer the cleric. And if you disagree that stripping out what makes a class that class and putting other things in instead I'd like to point you to the Tome Wizard Revamp.

I know it looks like a barbarian, but really, it's the wizard, it can use anti-magic field see?

Okay look asshole, you brought up a character I have never heard of and defined him as a character who casts buff spells to hit things and utility spells outside of combat. That is a fucking Cleric. If you don't want me to think that he fucking casts buff spells to fight in combat then don't tell me about how he casts buff spells to fight in combat.

Maybe he is better represented by the Runic Warrior PrC from Complete Champion, but if he casts buffs in order to hit people in the face as a central conceit of the character, that's pretty much a Cleric. DMM Persist is just a way of walking around slightly more combat ready to reduce buff rounds.

[darkmaster]

No, he hits people and occasionally casts a buff when fighting bigger guys. The point was that he rarely uses magic because he rarely needs to because he's mostly a guy who swords other guys.

[Voss]

Okay, I was just being a dumb ass and reading way too much into what Voss said. I'm a bit tired because I've been having trouble sleeping.

Its mostly a lot easier to see if you look at the BECMI, 1st edition or 2nd edition spell lists. 3rd... changes things, and it gets washed out in the plethora of [Animal]'s [Buff] and other utility crap. But in the early editions the cleric was in many ways an Old Testament prophet who just walked out of the desert, with an obscure medieval restriction that basically amount to smashing bones was somehow more moral than cutting people.

[Kaelik]

DMM Persist Clerics mostly just sword other people too. And then occasionally they cast buff spells for the really tough ones, and cast utility spells outside of combat.

[Mistborn]

Wow if Drolyt is done ranting about how vancian casting raped his dog maybe we could get on with it. To reiterate why the fighter fails as a class.

1) You can't adventure without out combat abilities: any character than can only interact with the game through a blades edge is not acceptable. End of story. Which is why the fighter fails even when compared to the other mundane classes

2) If you ain't glowing you ain't doing shit: D&D is a high magic game, as you go up in levels you increasingly have to deal with things that no action with any remotely "mundane" description will help you aginst.

Now remember what happened when someone tried to "fix" those problems and have a "fighter" that was appropriate all 30 levels we got 4e and it sucked.

>>balanced classes
>>fighters
>>not a shitty 4e clone
pick two guys

[RadiantPhoenix]

>>balanced classes
>>fighters
>>not a shitty 4e clone
pick two guys

I think you mean, "pick up to two."

[darkmaster]

>>balanced classes
>>fighters
>>not a shitty 4e clone
pick two guys

This is disingenuous and you know it. You can balance the classes, and have high magic, and not be a 4e clone. You do it by limiting the spell-caster' access to every ability and you give non-caster's access to out of combat abilities.

The other thing you do is take some of the teeth out of save or lose spells.

The idea I've been kicking around is actually limiting full casters by school, give them two or three maybe and staging saves for save or lose spells such that you only automatically lose when you fail the save catastrophically, like by 15 or even 20 with less severe penlites for lower saves that become worse as your approach the cut-off point where you just die. Probably with a penalty to saves if you're damage beyond a certain threshold.

[Kaelik]

The idea I've been kicking around is actually limiting full casters by school, give them two or three maybe and staging saves for save or lose spells such that you only automatically lose when you fail the save catastrophically, like by 15 or even 20 with less severe penlites for lower saves that become worse as your approach the cut-off point where you just die. Probably with a penalty to saves if you're damage beyond a certain threshold.

Condition tracks are a thing that has been tried many times, to limited degrees of success. In general it just changes which spells are the real power spells, IE, no save spells can't really be condition tracked, so Solid Fog has to stay Solid, and Stun Ray has to keep stunning people. It is a very selective weird nerf.

[darkmaster]

That's true, ideally you'd come up with some way to limit such spells. Stun Ray actually already has a save, so you just change the conditions to being stunned for 1d4+1 rounds at whatever your top level failure is, then the next one down would be 1 round, and then you'd be slowed or something.

Solid fog is trickier, I'd probably add a reflex save and make conditions up to full effect for lower failures. It doesn't make much logical sense, but neither does a gas that stops arrows like a wall. Though it'd still provide concealment and probably stop arrows but if you can move at least you can get out of it. Maybe extend the range so someone with a 30 foot move has to take a whole round to get out so it's got some applications when people make their save.

[Kaelik]

That's true, ideally you'd come up with some way to limit such spells. Stun Ray actually already has a save, so you just change the conditions to being stunned for 1d4+1 rounds at whatever your top level failure is, then the next one down would be 1 round, and then you'd be slowed or something.

Solid fog is trickier, I'd probably add a reflex save and make conditions up to full effect for lower failures. It doesn't make much logical sense, but neither does a gas that stops arrows like a wall. Though it'd still provide concealment and probably stop arrows but if you can move at least you can get out of it. Maybe extend the range so someone with a 30 foot move has to take a whole round to get out so it's got some applications when people make their save.

Then you aren't really adding a condition track, you are just nerfing spells to nerf spells. Adding a save to something that is no save is not staging a save, it is just nerfing all the spells because you hate spells. Welcome to 4e.

[darkmaster]

Except that that's not true at all because it's adding a condition track to things that instantly end fights, especially the ones that don't even bother pretending they care about the game being, you know, balanced.

There's no problem with spells that deal massive damage, and no problem with spells the cause effects, but neither can be instant wins with no or little mitigating factors or it's bad for your game.

[Kaelik]

Except that that's not true at all because it's adding a condition track to things that instantly end fights, especially the ones that don't even bother pretending they care about the game being, you know, balanced.

There's no problem with spells that deal massive damage, and no problem with spells the cause effects, but neither can be instant wins with no or little mitigating factors or it's bad for your game.

Well 1) You said staging saves. That is not staging saves. Yes, it is adding a condition track to things that previously just had an effect. Just like changing Fireball into a 15ft cone that does 1d4 damage per two caster levels, max 5d4 is tweaking the damage. What you just described is Fog Cloud, not Solid Fog.

2) Neither of those spells are instant wins, and there are tons of mitigating effects. This is my point. When you say "neither can be instant wins with no or little mitigating factors or it's bad for your game" I respond by asking why you don't play 3e without any nerfs to any spells, because there are no spells that fall into that category anywhere in 3e (Actually, there are two, Gate and Wish. So nerf those).

[darkmaster]

Except at a single round of not being able to do anything is fucking huge at level 13 when you get Stun Ray, and a spell that essentially let's spell casters say "oh you want to play this game too? lol no" totally is actually an effect with little or no mitigating factor that you can't escape actually is an instant win unless you happen to be a wizard who filled their first level spells with magic missile.

I don't see why this is a problem because things that just fucking let your party do whatever they want (unless the fools decided they wanted to play "anything that isn't a wizard") for one or more rounds no matter what is stupid, and dumb, and stupid.

[Kaelik]

Except at a single round of not being able to do anything is fucking huge at level 13 when you get Stun Ray, and a spell that essentially let's spell casters say "oh you want to play this game too? lol no" totally is actually an effect with little or no mitigating factor that you can't escape actually is an instant win unless you happen to be a wizard who filled their first level spells with magic missile.

I don't see why this is a problem because things that just fucking let your party do whatever they want (unless the fools decided they wanted to play "anything that isn't a wizard") for one or more rounds no matter what is stupid, and dumb, and stupid.

Initative!

You and your party of Other Wizard/Druid/Cleric suddenly are facing four slaads. You cast Stun Ray, and one of them... can't act, in return for you not acting. This is literally Daze Monster levels of stupid, but without the possibility of them making a save and you being completely stupid. Only you want to add that level of stupidity back in and make Stun Ray worse than Daze Monster.

But aside from just not always being a good action when you are facing more than one enemy to trade one of yours for one of theirs, they could also just be stun immune. Unlike Daze Monster. That overpowered spell.

And I assume that incoherent part about lol/no was you defending Solid Fog as uncounterable, so I will point out that teleport, being bigger than the Solid Fog, Being a single monster alone who doesn't care about most AoEs, having a wind effect, all counter solid fog hard. Seriously, you are another dumb shit who nerfs spells and whines about them without even knowing how to play D&D at the level where you think these things are a problem.

[tussock]

Can I just say that AD&D, as released in 1978-1980, fixed a lot of the problems you guys are having here with Fighters and Wizards?


Because in 1980 Wizards don't have the whole spell list, they each have a personalised weighted-random selection of about 8 spells per spell level and that's it forever (or a lot of levels anyway), and good luck finding the ones you're allowed to learn in the dungeon sometime.

Also, new spells don't go on the Wizard class list. Gary made all these cool new MTP Illusion spells and so we got the fucking Illusionist class to cast most of them. There'll never be more than 150 Wizard spells, and you'll never learn them all, that'd be stupid.

And Fighters can totally sword Gods and Demon lords, who have 90% magic resistance and immunity to all that save-or-lose shit (and save on a 4+ anyway) but only have about 150 hit points (or half of that for the little ones). And if you want to walk somewhere and talk to a God on their home plane you can just do that, like in all the modules. Walk to the Faerie plane? Yes! It's called a "forest", where the elves and pixies live.

And out of combat? Please, in 1980 that's all MTP anyway. Why would anyone ever add restrictive bullshit rules for doing non-combat stuff that you have to MTP anyway, and then not give any of it to Fighters? That's insane, don't do that.



Someone's broken y'all game at some point (~1989 and ~2000), because these "problems" weren't problems thirty-three fucking years ago now, back when someone who played the game and understood probability was writing it (though he did under-power fighters and monsters a bit, by his own account, and was a total dick at times, such is life).

[Kaelik]

Can I just say that AD&D, as released in 1978-1980, fixed a lot of the problems you guys are having here with Fighters and Wizards?

No one is complaining that they wish they didn't have the ability to make the character that they wanted, and instead their character was determine by a roll of dice. We also don't think roll in order is a good idea.

Nor is anyone complaining that it sucks that Wizards get to take actions that succeed at doing anything at all more than 1/10th of the time.

(Well except darkmaster.)

[darkmaster]

Eat a dick kaelik all I'm saying is wizards should, in fact, fail on occasion and since no one is ever going to be able to stop a wizard from casting in 3e without massive rewrites resisting is where it's at.

[Kaelik]

Eat a dick kaelik all I'm saying is wizards should, in fact, fail on occasion and since no one is ever going to be able to stop a wizard from casting in 3e without massive rewrites resisting is where it's at.

And I am saying that all kinds of resists, including just making the goddam save already exist. But when you say that spells don't have their effect unless someone fails the save by 15 or 20, you are just saying that spells never have their effect.

I've never failed a save ever by 10. I don't think it is even mathematically possible for the vast majority of level appropriate opposition to fail by 10.

You would have to completely rewrite the game to change sicken/fear ect to be -5 effect and invent like eight more before you could even imagine a situation where someone ever casts Finger of Death and some actually dies.

[Dean]

>>balanced classes
>>fighters
>>not a shitty 4e clone
pick two guys

This is disingenuous and you know it. You can balance the classes, and have high magic, and not be a 4e clone.

You can do that. But the requirement is to also do it with Fighters, which he's correct in saying you can't. Put another way his list would be
Balanced Classes
No Magic Classes
High Magic Classes

You can't have high Magic classes and low or no magic classes together in a single game and be balanced. The only way you can do it is to just lie to people and tell them that 1 round per day levitation counts as "High Magic" and that sort of 4E shit. He is quite correct in saying that you can't have high capability classes and low capability classes together and have them both be balanced. And "Fighters" conceptual space is far too limited and weak to have them be anything other than a low capability class. That doesn't mean you can't have characters that stab people as standard operating procedure but you can't have them unless they're also glowing and shit.

[Omegonthesane]

Not sure I buy the bit about flavor being mutable completely, because people will still say "oh, so it's a cleric" because that's just what people fucking do. Anyway the mechanics are also not there since clerics also get all of the everything ever and Ashley very specifically doesn't, and most of the abilities he does have are explicitly just him being really good with the stabbing instruments and never change.

So spend most of your spells on DMM Persist. Also probably better as a DMM Persist Archivist. I'm just saying that your description of someone who casts buffs, punches people in the face, and casts a set of utility spells including some divinations is basically a cleric. And you can make him a cause Cleric of knowledge or reading or asskickery or himself if you want.

But someone who comes up with spells from books to cast buffs on themselves in combat sounds like certainly not a fighter.

No, you fucking idiot, when you make the cleric a melee powerhouse with almost no magical ability and various abilities tied to martial techniques and make it so it absolutely can't change it's abilities except at level up and then only to add more. It is no longer the cleric. And if you disagree that stripping out what makes a class that class and putting other things in instead I'd like to point you to the Tome Wizard Revamp.

I know it looks like a barbarian, but really, it's the wizard, it can use anti-magic field see?

It's a good thing not a single person on this entire forum suggested that shitty strawman, isn't it?
What was being postulated was that you implement a primary fighter over the framework of a cleric who primarily spends spells to be a better fighter and only spends his "not a buff" spells as emergency magical utilities. If people complain too loudly that "you have Cleric written on your character sheet" then fuck them, they're the reason Fighters can't have nice things.

[Drolyt]

Alright, I've started a new topic for the vancian stuff. I apologize for hijacking this thread.

Back on topic, uh, I'm not sure this is going anywhere. There seems to be this fundamental problem that there are at least three camps of people who can never agree with each other:

Camp 1 wants to keep playing fighters at high levels even if that means the fighter has to start looking more like an anime character than a sword and sorcery hero. Camp 1 thinks that camp 2 is unimaginative and camp 3 is filled with idiot grognards.

Camp 2 thinks the fighter concept is inherently too limited for high level play so we should just replace it with classes whose fluff doesn't limit them. Camp 2 thinks that camp 1 is missing the point about why fighters don't work and camp 3 is full of idiot grognards.

Camp 3 doesn't want fighters to be superhuman but wants them to play at high levels anyways. Camp 3 thinks that camps 1 and 2 are full of weaboos.

[ishy]

1) You can't adventure without out combat abilities: any character than can only interact with the game through a blades edge is not acceptable. End of story. Which is why the fighter fails even when compared to the other mundane classes

Sure you can. Many protagonists in stories do so.
Hell DMs often get upset when you can actually do something, because it ruins the story. So I can see the appeal in playing a character that can't do anything to affect the story, just so that nobody gets upset at you at the game table / you suffer arbitrary nerfs with the reason being given: "GM fiat".

[Drolyt]

1) You can't adventure without out combat abilities:

Sure you can.

This is another of those fundamental disagreements that will never ever be solved.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Sure you can. Many protagonists in stories do so.

Like who?

[zugschef]

Sure you can. Many protagonists in stories do so.

Like who?

yeah, i'd like to know that, too. i don't know of any protagonists without out-of-combat abilities.