Oh, I get it now, Fighters /should/ have spells.

[tussock]

Increasing the interval between five minute work-days does absolutely nothing to change the fact that you are encouraging five minute work days.

That isn't true at all. When the grunts can handle a lot of the fights, but not all of them, you don't blow your load in the first few fights. 3e's complexity and XP rewards system encourages stupid-hard fights that gave great benefit to blasting away from the first (which promoted even harder fights), but that's not how AD&D works at all.

Compare a late 3e module to one of the big 1st edition jobs. Totally different game play. It's moved to the big encounter structure that 4e wanks to. You know, hey you're first level, so here's an EL 5 fight to welcome you to the table, hope you've got exactly the right spells and gear, LOL.

And making things easier to sword does nothing to change the fact that wizards have ultimate cosmic power like high-level spells and fighters keep swording, always and forever. And making scary things immune to magic so the fighter and wizard can alternate being cockblocked is not a valid way forward.

If the ULTIMATE POWA is unreliable in combat without a Fighter to keep the monsters off your back, I'm happy playing that Fighter despite not having the win. It's just that simple. What, you want everything with no challenge, no teamwork requirements, all the prises and none of the costs? Because 4e's over that way ->.

You either give each class their time in the spotlight, or you accept that one class will have a numerical advantage all day and all the others are a waste of paper, or you make it 4e where there's only one class under the hood and anyone who doesn't like it goes and plays Pathfinder where there's two or more classes. High level monsters either have to be functionally immune to typical high level spells, or those spells need to not exist. There's really no middle ground there.

A few people right in this thread are claiming I shouldn't be allowed to play in their game at all because I'm not enjoying the same things they enjoy. Like with gay people not being allowed to get married, that's a deeply conservative and cowardly attitude. Also 4e.

Yes, hitpoint bloat is a problem. Yes, fighters used to be able to cut things to pieces in combat, and now they can't. But the fundamental issues of wizard v fighter have been there forever and all of the "solutions" from older editions are terri-fucking-bad.

Meh. People played Mages in older editions and people played Fighters alongside them. The former didn't really dominate until over 3 million XP, which was maybe 3-4 years solid play. OD&D Wizards are stupid good, but AD&D+UA Fighters are more than a match for them over years of solid play. A lot of people still won't use UA mods because they make fighters TOO GOOD.

Seriously, by late 2nd edition a lot of people thought Wizards were stupidly underpowered compared to Fighters all the time because they never played above 15th level or so. Those patches worked, a little too well if anything. 3e Wizards are fine up until 7th or 8th level.

[Kaelik]

Tussock. A shadzar with capitalization and punctuation.

[Sashi]

If the ULTIMATE POWA is unreliable in combat without a Fighter to keep the monsters off your back

This is something that doesn't get discussed often enough. The fact that a lot of players want Fighters to suck and wizards to have ultimate power with some weird chance to explode every time they cast a spell, usually by way of casting a spell that is too good.

I think this is best example is Warhammer Fantasy RPG, where mundane combat is a gritty gritty grit fest, and magic wins except when it makes you explode (which is often) then it makes you win hard.

[ishy]

A few people right in this thread are claiming I shouldn't be allowed to play in their game at all because I'm not enjoying the same things they enjoy. Like with gay people not being allowed to get married, that's a deeply conservative and cowardly attitude.

No you retarded fucktard. Those things are nothing alike.
Saying that people who like different things should play different games in different ways has nothing to do with if gay people are allowed to get married or not.

[Chamomile]

It'd be more akin to saying that gay people should marry gay people of the opposite sex, so that everyone has the exact same type of marriage.

[Username17]

Every time tussock posts on this subject, he gets less coherent. I figure by the time we get to page ten he'll be basically copypastaing Ron Paul trolls from youtube. I mean seriously:

High level monsters either have to be functionally immune to typical high level spells, or those spells need to not exist. There's really no middle ground there.

I can't even engage with that argument. You could:

• Have high level spells completely destroy high level monsters and have high level monsters come in large numbers.
• Have high level spells require a successful RPS setup to destroy high level monsters.
• Have high level spells blow up high level monsters to a comparable degree to what low level spells do to low level monsters.
• Have high level spells do impressive things to high level monsters - but still not as impressively as sleep and color spray handle kobolds.

Those are all perfectly defensible balance points you could design a game around. The thing where fighters are required to take up space and keep the magic user from getting attacked just ceases to be a possible concern once the enemy stops being this, and starts being this. Your ability to "stand your ground" means absolutely fuck all once the enemy is a fucking kaiju that is torching whole city blocks at a time.

The fighter tussock is talking about remains relevant as long as the enemy maps to "some orcs" such that you could plausibly "get in their way" or "slow them down". As soon as the enemy gets sufficiently bigger than that that you can't be meaningfully "in their way", the entire concept has to grow up or shut up. That tussock is still having a temper tantrum about this very obvious reality several pages after it has been explained by fucking every single person on this thread just goes to show how hard it is to disabuse people of their dumbass melee fighter dreams.

-Username17

[RadiantPhoenix]

The fighter tussock is talking about remains relevant as long as the enemy maps to "some orcs" such that you could plausibly "get in their way" or "slow them down". As soon as the enemy gets sufficiently bigger than that that you can't be meaningfully "in their way", the entire concept has to grow up or shut up.

Does it count as 'growing up' if the class has superpowers that make it able to 'get in the way of' things it wouldn't ordinarily be possible to 'get in the way of', e.g. summoning giant magical barriers?

EDIT: Or fillibustering the Dark Assembly?

[OgreBattle]

but AD&D+UA Fighters are more than a match for them over years of solid play. A lot of people still won't use UA mods because they make fighters TOO GOOD.

Seriously, by late 2nd edition a lot of people thought Wizards were stupidly underpowered compared to Fighters all the time because they never played above 15th level or so. Those patches worked, a little too well if anything. 3e Wizards are fine up until 7th or 8th level.

what did UA give to Fighter that made them so competent?

[hyzmarca]

Those are all perfectly defensible balance points you could design a game around. The thing where fighters are required to take up space and keep the magic user from getting attacked just ceases to be a possible concern once the enemy stops being this, and starts being this. Your ability to "stand your ground" means absolutely fuck all once the enemy is a fucking kaiju that is torching whole city blocks at a time.

The fighter tussock is talking about remains relevant as long as the enemy maps to "some orcs" such that you could plausibly "get in their way" or "slow them down". As soon as the enemy gets sufficiently bigger than that that you can't be meaningfully "in their way", the entire concept has to grow up or shut up. That tussock is still having a temper tantrum about this very obvious reality several pages after it has been explained by fucking every single person on this thread just goes to show how hard it is to disabuse people of their dumbass melee fighter dreams.

-Username17

Dragonraper

Hit Die: D10
Requirements: +10 BAB

Class Features

Size Doesn't Matter: At first level, a dragonraper may block or grapple any creature regardless of its size.

No Mountain High Enough: At second level a dragonraper may block, grapple, or make a melee attack against flying enemies and enemies with high ground without regard for their height.

Always Prepared: At level 3 a dragonraper may remove his pants at any time as a free action.

[Blasted]

Meh. People played Mages in older editions and people played Fighters alongside them. The former didn't really dominate until over 3 million XP, which was maybe 3-4 years solid play. OD&D Wizards are stupid good, but AD&D+UA Fighters are more than a match for them over years of solid play. A lot of people still won't use UA mods because they make fighters TOO GOOD.

Seriously, by late 2nd edition a lot of people thought Wizards were stupidly underpowered compared to Fighters all the time because they never played above 15th level or so. Those patches worked, a little too well if anything. 3e Wizards are fine up until 7th or 8th level.

what did UA give to Fighter that made them so competent?

UA Brought in weapon specialisation, which allowed fighters to do some more damage. By the time you got the appropriate specialisation, you were still only advancing linearly. As opposed to, not at all. Which, prior to UA, is what actually happened. You relied on the magic items your DM handed over and if that didn't happen, you were stuck with your 1d8 damage.

Tussock's claim that mages didn't outrun fighters in either first or second ed. is just untrue. In 1E, first level MUs get access to sleep, a no save AoE killer. Illusionists get colour spray, a no save solution to level appropriate opponents until level 6.
They're the worst offenders, but the lists are absolutely packed with Save or Suck spells, which effectively remove opponents on a failed save. And 1E saves were rather bad. Even with random spells, because of the proliferation of nasty spells, they're so much better than fighters from level 1, it's insane.

The magic users suck meme comes from MUs getting caught up in magic missile and fireball and ignoring spells of significantly more power. Also from people not doing the maths, where saves are involved. I've seen people seriously arguing that 1E monks are OP and mage killers. Which is odd, given that any other class can effectively one round them for the first 5ish levels. At which point their HP total has a good chance of being more than 10.

tl;dr
Mages have always dominated fighters from level 1.

[Kaelik]

Dragonraper

Hit Die: D10
Requirements: +10 BAB

Class Features

Size Doesn't Matter: At first level, a dragonraper may block or grapple any creature regardless of its size.

No Mountain High Enough: At second level a dragonraper may block, grapple, or make a melee attack against flying enemies and enemies with high ground without regard for their height.

Always Prepared: At level 3 a dragonraper may remove his pants at any time as a free action.

Block is not a game mechanical term. This doesn't do anything except let you grapple stuff with absurdly higher grapple scores.

Then at level 2, you get into an adjudicatory mess where the fighter keeps trying to redefine what direction is up, since depending on how you draw the grid he can either hit anything anywhere, or still nothing just like before.

Also, it's that really stupid thing where you expect the same people who are completely unwilling to play a Fighter 4/Shadow Lord 8 because they want to be a DMF so bad to accept the idea that they can swing their sword and hit something five miles up in the air.

If they were willing to accept that, they's just a play a Shadow Lord who uses his Shadow Blade to attack the Dragon's Shadow.

[Red_Rob]

Does it count as 'growing up' if the class has superpowers that make it able to 'get in the way of' things it wouldn't ordinarily be possible to 'get in the way of', e.g. summoning giant magical barriers?

EDIT: Or fillibustering the Dark Assembly?

The point is that once you reach higher levels of play the game changes such that positioning and "being the tank" are no longer applicable. High level fights in D&D are about countering each others defenses and finding the right power/spell to exploit your opponents weakness. Finger of Death vs. Death Ward vs. Dispel Magic vs. Counterspell in a Ring of Storing, until one of you finds a power the opponent can't defend against or strips away the protective magic.

And fighters don't get to play this game.

[Aryxbez]

(sighs) I feel like there's been some mad terrible mindsets, and poorly executed communication from my reading through of this thread. Unfortunately since I'm not as fancy a speaker as others, probably going to be having trouble conveying thoughts for ideally for clarity in some way.

Look, I do agree with the fact that we do need to have simple characters with a low storytelling and tactical burden so that Little Trevor and the DM's girlfriend can play. But we have those characters for the same reason why we have training wheels. People who voluntarily choose such a sippy cup class when they can perform better otherwise should be viewed either piteously or contemptuously.

Yes, it's good to get new players into the hobby when you have such access friendly classes that can be played quickly, and still be effective in the game (like the Tome Barbarian, as obvious). However I do not think it should be condemned, it's totally fine to want to play a mighty barbarian that just accumulates hoards of treasure in his super special castle of babes and baubles. I remember reading something from Frank about this awhile back, portrait of conan and all, talking about how it's a concept that has its place (DM Girlfriend, "steve/Tim/Bob" player, don't forget Drunk!). Even I feel the Tome Barbarian would be pretty fun sounding to play, go in and buttstab some demon lords, Oorah!

Also I too have played and know of players who don't really do anything outside of combat. From what I've been seeing even nowadays, they don't do any socializing for the most part either, not even going about courting the princess. It would be pretty spot on as people mentioned about Kenpaichi, of just going to meditate, watch a little girl do cute things, drink, underwater basketweaving or whatever. Doing nothing but one minigame of the entire experience is BAD, and we shouldn't encourage to give up on design for it, or worse, design nothing for it in mind. I suppose it's fine when the Fighter type character is going about courting a princess, or partaking in some intrigue, but if he doesn't have the abilities to enforce any of that, then he's going to find themselves rather disappointed and encouraged to just go play Smash Bros anyway. It's bad when the game doesn't give fighter-type class/archtype abilities to participate outside combat, or worse the stuff they are given isn't something be good at (Damn intimidate being keyed off Charisma...), and attribute systems exist to limit that too be damned. It's pretty boring to be doing nothing once the combat music ends, even if it might help having humorous banter of your fellow players around you. I also don't find it that iconic of main protagonist warrior types being uninvolved out of combat, after all, even Conan had quite the silver tongue (even if he was basically a Rogue, all the same).

I think these people that are "content" with being useless, tend to be of limited interest of the game in the first place, or just being overall shy people. Could also be of accepting the terrible tropes like how the "Fighter just fights, wears big armor, and its cool to do nothing else", despite that's a terrible prospect to assume, and even sadder when people willing to accept what they find "inevitable".

After all, I think it to be pretty lame when my awesome Fighter concept just gets relegated to being the party "sidekick" or essentially an NPC..

[Username17]

To see how incredibly entrenched the idea that Fighters don't need nice things, go ahead and check out actual neckbeards in their natural environment. They have been relying on DM Pity so long that they don't even realize that they don't have abilities.

I mean, what the fuck do these assholes need legwork abilities, when they can already attempt to track an ancient paranoid flying genius with no known associates over miles of mountainous wilderness and expect to succeed because their DM will take pity on them?

But yes, Fighters need something to make them matter in combat, and they need legwork abilities. Yes, some players might sit around and play Smash Brothers rather than use their legwork abilities. Some players might end up pursuing ideas where their contributions aren't really dependent upon their abilities (such as "checking all the warehouses" or "buying a map"). But it should be at least possible for every character to contribute during the "what the fuck do we do next?" phase. Shadowrun had the right idea there, every character had some contacts and the ability to make Etiquette checks to acquire information.

-Username17

[Midnight_v]

Long winded shit...

I actually loved the Tome Fighter it was just what I wanted to play in many a way, the "Samurai" and really the Barbarian were really good fits overall. . .
So there's no fucking reason that you can't give them nice things, exception there's a large audience out there that aren't going to let them have nice things no matter what.
Lago, Kaelik on the 1 side / Neck-Beard and his merry pirates being the other.
The thing about the dragon slaying etc... is that in our myths, dudes with sword and shield totally killed dragons.
Thing is today we're talking Kaiju and really it takes the hulk to punch out a kaiju.
I went and looked up "small monster that will fuck you up" and really most small critters kill large critters via poison. So there is no analog to killing monsters which are giant sized in real life.

The problem is this isn't supposed to be real life at all. Dudes are animating dead bodies, and summoning large and very obvious demonic entities to go fight for them. There really ARE Kaiji! So... it is a reasonable expectation that a dude with a sword is allowed to fucking kill said Kaiju.
Means is supposed to have no bearing. Its really fucking annoying.

Xp is supposed to be the measure of power. So when you get enough Xp you become superpowered. PERIOD.
This is why 4th edition gave you "Tiers" of play, to forcibly shut up "bullsiht" like fighters don't exist.
The tome did it with the knight, but honestly theres, no real reason for that when you think of XP.

greater XP = The more badass you are = the more badass you become/things you can do = The more badasses you can bitchslap (problems you can solve) = greater XP...
xp is supposed to be the measuring stick of super humanity in these games.
The ability to create magic swag should actually NOT be tied to the class based knowledge to cast spells. Why? There are monsters who do it, no using books at all. Or rather there's no rational reason behind it, except to say "I want normals, normal, and I want supers, super. Moreso, I want my supers to have a source.

It's Neo From the Matrix. Some people will look at him and go "thats what the 20 lvl fighter does" and some people say "NO! THAT OBVIOUSLY A CASTER!" while the truth is: Thats shit that level 20 character does. Dodge bullets, Transverse the bleed, learn superfast. . . It shouldn't take a fucking miracle to sort that.
Its not tied to "casting" in the traditional since at all because there are things like... the totemist, that are playing the same game as the wizard and fighter, who aren't doing wizard things either at level endgame either.

Tl;dr? Its a frustrating loop for all sides that should result in "tiers of play" for all sides. So you can be
Levels: 1-X: DMF
Levels: X-Y: Superhuman light
Levels: Y++: Superhuman Major.
All of that is supposed to be governed by XP, not class abilites and the abilites granted by those tiers are supposed to allow access to the same "Types of things".
If they dont' then you fucking fail. Further, if someone wants to say I'm doing this without magic, I'm using "grit" or whatever, that supposed to be okay. You can say thats NOT okay but really there's no argument that has been presented that doesn't put the word "selfish intoerant dick" into peoples mind, in one way or the other. You're saying you can't play at high levels without a power source...
Which is bullshit. You telling me that my ability to kill shit and absorb its lifeforce (xp) is any different from anyone else's, is nonsense. Its a natural part of the universe. Chi/Grit/Badassery... Martial power source.
So now you can teleports... and dodge bullents. Enjoy.

edit:

Shadowrun had the right idea there, every character had some contacts and the ability to make Etiquette checks to acquire information

I am of the staunch opinion that things that would be considered "skills" in D&D should NOT be tied to class at all. I see them fail at creating a skill system that's really worth anything. Skills I see either are too strong, too weak, or "Must haves". When really "Skills" in the d20 sense are the things that are supposed to define a character outside the combate minigame, theres zero reason why you can't have a barbarian with knowledge history, or religion, due to rich oral histories. Though really its one of those things that stays in the way of play the charcater you want. Piss poor in many ways.

[Whipstitch]

Don't those RPGsite guys realize that it's empowering and interesting to understand what your character can and can't do well? For example, let us say that I'm playing Shadowrun and have just beaten up the bad guys only to discover there's an armed explosive that only has 10 seconds left on its action movie LED timer. Now, obviously, there's no Nobel Prize for realizing that "Hit the deck!", "Disarm the bomb!", "Put on your shades and walk away like a boss," are all potential strategies for handling this situation. But having explicit information like "I have Demo 4" or "I am a troll with big clumsy sausage fingers... and a huge soak pool" is what keeps it from being more interesting than shrugging at the GM and flipping a coin because your answer doesn't matter anyway.

[Username17]

Don't those RPGsite guys realize that it's empowering and interesting to understand what your character can and can't do well? For example, let us say that I'm playing Shadowrun and have just beaten up the bad guys only to discover there's an armed explosive that only has 10 seconds left on its action movie LED timer. Now, obviously, there's no Nobel Prize for realizing that "Hit the deck!", "Disarm the bomb!", "Put on your shades and walk away like a boss," are all potential strategies for handling this situation. But having explicit information like "I have Demo 4" or "I am a troll with big clumsy sausage fingers... and a huge soak pool" is what keeps it from being more interesting than shrugging at the GM and flipping a coin because your answer doesn't matter anyway.

Actually, they don't. It's the opposite of most AD&D and OD&D holdouts because instead of fapping to DM control, they are fapping to player empowerment. That basically the player should be able to do anything they want, and the DM should always coddle them.

So in that instance, they would prefer to have no numbers on their sheet at all, because then they can choose to Disarm the Bomb or Put On Shades and Walk Like a Boss and have that always work. By not having any numbers or specific abilities, they have what is in essence perfect numbers and all the abilities. Because if the DM dares to slap down whatever idea they have... well, I'll let them explain it themselves:

That's a DM problem, not a game problem. I'm getting tired of people blaming the game for shit DMs. The DM you are describing sounds exactly like Frank (not on your sheet, you can't even attempt), and quite frankly, if I were at a gaming table with Frank and he pulled that BS I'd tell him to shove it and leave.

Got that? If the DM tells you you can't do something on the grounds that your character does not have the ability to perform that action, you just tell the DM to shove it and leave. You essentially hold the game hostage with player veto and have all the abilities all the time until someone calls you on your bullshit and then you just throw a temper tantrum and end the game.

The argument is seriously: not having abilities doesn't keep you from doing things as if you had abilities as long as you're willing to insult everyone at the table and end the game if things don't go your way.

-Username17

[fectin]

Actually, no. They are wrong in a different way.

First assert that anyone should be able to track something that leaves a trail of dead cows every ten feet. Because that's self-evidently true. Then, equivocate that to "tracking," which is otherwise a ranger ability. Then fighter must be able to use ranger-style tracking, (possibly at some bullshit penalty), and off you go.

The underlying problem is that "tracking" is a ranger-specific class feature vice a general system. However, if your only standard for "good enough" is whether you can have fun doing it with your friends, then nearly anything is good. (Seriously, one of the best times I've had watching a movie was Battlefield Earth, with a whole theater full of people ad-libing sound effects.)

[John Magnum]

The GURPS defaulting system seems like a decent way to have rules that handle your characters attempting to do stuff that's slightly but not completely outside their purview of competence. It doesn't even take all that much text to say that Skill X defaults to Y minus 2, Z minus 4, or W minus 4. Maybe since GURPS has so many skills and doesn't allow iterated defaulting you run into situations where there are a dozen plausible defaults and they only list a couple, but still. Since it's cheap to have a bunch of skills at moderate competency, you can easily have a ton of stuff that you can try to do even though you haven't specifically invested points in it. Although you'll suck at it.

[fectin]

right, but GURPS has both point-based advancement (i.e. different), and more well thought-out systems than early DnD (i.e. better).

[Kaelik]

To see how incredibly entrenched the idea that Fighters don't need nice things, go ahead and check out actual neckbeards in their natural environment. They have been relying on DM Pity so long that they don't even realize that they don't have abilities.

My favorite golden nugget:

1) Clerics can outfight fighters.
2) How?
3) Just do X.
4) NONONO! X involves a supplement, and therefore, Clerics cannot outfight fighters, because I do not allow the use of filthy supplements in my games.

Now, before you dumbasses go "Oberoni" that's not why this is so horrible. I mean, sure it is one, and that's dumb. But the reason this is horrible is because that dumbass believes that other people who do not play in his games can't have a cleric outfight a fighter because he won't allow it in his game.

He wasn't talking about how he just doesn't allow Clerics to outfight fighters (I mean, he said that too) but he was arguing that it is not true that other people playing in different games cannot make a cleric outfight a fighter.

[Whipstitch]

What I found striking was the degree to which that one guy was wedded to meta-game ideal of casters-as-selfless-buff-bots regardless of domain, alignment or deity. FFS, Kord is pretty much the god of lead-from-the-front personal bad assery and he's one of the nicer gods. There is seriously nothing conceptually awry with the notion that Clerics can be interested in stomping some ass. That's pretty much Hextor's whole shtick.

[Sarandosil]

How do you even resolve combat with a few hundred minions?

[RadiantPhoenix]

How do you even resolve combat with a few hundred minions?

With a bucket of icosahedrons.

[hyzmarca]

How do you even resolve combat with a few hundred minions?

Treat groups of minions as a single unit. If you've got 200 minions, 50 per unit works fine. Just make a single attack roll and a single damage roll. Multiply the damage by 50.