Mathematically Proving That Fighters Suck

[User3]

Sorceror 4 / Cleric 6 / Mystic Theurge 10


16 (Start) + 6 (Headband) = 22 Charisma
15 (Start) + 5 (Levels) + 6 (Headband) = 26 Wisdom

Feats: Extend Spell
Magic Items: Hand of Glory (10,000 gp), Ring of Wizardry II x 3 (120,000 gp), 10 Pearls of Power V (250,000 gp). 26 (!!) Rods of Lesser Extension (120,000 gp), +6 Headband of Wisdom (36,000 gp), +6 Cloak of Charisma (36,000 gp), 4x Prayer Bead of Karma (80,000 gp) for a grand total of 652,000 gold pieces.
Spells- That dumb spell that gives you fighter bonus feats, Triadspell

Okay. You're a 14th level sorceror, which entitles you to 6 level 2 slots, which just so happens to be the level of the dumb bonus feat spell, hereby referred to as DBFS. You obviously want as many spell slots as possible. Fortunately, there's an often-forgotten item in the DMG that lets us do that, called the Ring of Wizardry. It doubles your non-bonus spells. Because we're doing this build with as little DM input as possible (otherwise we could use the item creation rules for non-standard slots to score us additional 'rings), this limits us to a total of three rings of Wizardry II, if we put the third one on the Hand of Glory.

So you have a total of 24 spells of second level. And you have two bonus spells of said level which gives you a total of 26 2nd level spells. Wow. But we're not done.

Moving on. The real moneymaker of this scheme is Triadspell, which lets you prepare any spell of 3rd level or lower two additional times. It's instantaneous, too, so you could just use downtime to load up on additional spells. However, for the purpose of this build, we'll say that the additional castings don't stack from day to day.

You need to be able to cast Triadspell for as many sorceror spell slots as you have. Which is to say 26. Wowzer Bowsers. A cleric of your level has 12 slots to put spells in. With bonus spells from a wisdom of 26, you get 16. So you'll need 10 pearls of Power to make up the difference.

You triadspell all of your 2nd level spells and end up with a grand total of 78 spell slots. Just for fun, you devote your 3rd and 4th level spells to the mix for the DBFS (extended of course), to, which with bonus spells gives you a grand total of 92 spell slots. This will take 2 minutes and 18 seconds to cast per spell duration (see later), which falls under the time limit for a prayer bead of karma.

You need rods of extension, lesser. Fortunately for you, they are cheap as hell. You'll need 26 of them, for a grand total of 120,000 gold.

Since all of the spells are extended, they will last at twenty minutes per caster level. With a prayer bead of karma, this means that each casting of the DBFS will last for 360 minutes per casting, or 6 hours. This means that you will need 4 prayer beads of karma for this to last all day.

There are twenty-four hours in a day, so you need to devote 4 castings of the same spell per day to keep your mojo running non-stop. Unfortunately, sorcerors need 8 hours of rest to prepare their spells. But we'll include this dubious handicap in there anyway, just to show how much fighters suck and to account for the DM getting fed up with your character and launching an attack in the middle of nappy time.

Regardless, even with these considerable handicaps, the sorceror ends up having a grand total of TWENTY-THREE FIGHTER BONUS FEATS to play with all day long. That's more than twice what the regular fighter gets!

Remember, this entire thing has been a minimalist, worst-case scenario calculation the whole time. If the character had, say, taken Initiate of Mystra or had bonus spell options from other splatbooks or whatever, the amount of fighter bonus feats they have could go up--way the fuck up. I mean, just by not having your mojo running during the spell preparation phase (which is common for wizard types in general), could leave you with over 30 fighter bonus feats to play with.

And this is a really retarded character build, too. This character sucks in every way that matter compared to a straight casters and yet utterly destroys fighter builds in the ways that matter.

The point I'm trying to make is that fighters suck the big one and this disgusting discrepancy should be fixed post-haste.

[MrWaeseL]

The only problem is that you're using more gold than you're entitled to at that level, and you're spending it all towards your "shtick".

Not that I disagree with you, but people who are pro-fighter will probably not be swayed.

[User3]

One, the wealth-by-level for level 20 characters is 760,000, but I can drop it by a level and invest in item creation feats if that'll make it better.

Two, primary spellcasters can afford to put all of their money towards advancing one schtick. I mean, the sample character could just pick up the trickery domain and use the domain slots (which I haven't touched) to cast Polymorph Any Object, making equipment irrevelant.

Three, and most importantly, is that the character is getting the class features of not one, but TWO characters rolled up into one. That had better cost a lot of fucking money. There are monks out there that pay 200,000+ gold for a measly +5 to two stats, if I gave them the offer of buying feats for that price they'd fucking puke their pants.

[RandomCasualty]

Eh, I'm not convinced. It's all based on a spell that was designed to kick fighters in the balls anyway. Not to mention you're burning all your equipment slots on pearls of power and crap, plus you've still got only a d4 hit dice and no real fighter gear.

A core only wildshaped druid is IMO the best example of how fighters suck. It's not contingent on anything. You can even ban natural spell and the wildshaped druid is *still* better. And I find arguments for D&D are better based off generalized utlity builds as opposed to specialized gimmick builds based on one feat that a DM can disallow that just sends the whole argument tumbling down like a house of cards.

[Lago_AM3P]

Note that this build didn't touch the 1st, 5th, 6th, and 7th level spells a sorceror gets for this build nor any of the 1st-4th or domain spells a cleric gets. If you'd like, you can forgo some of the fighter bonus feats (say, 4) and that would free up your 8th, 7th, and 6th level spell slots completely. I'm sure you could fill these spells up with things that'll make up for the dearth of equipment.

I mean, you can burn fewer slots than that if you like; I intentionally exaggerated my example by putting up a clearly non-minmaxxed build and throwing on the most limiting contingencies. For example, If the sorceror was willing to forgoe 8 hours without fighter bonus feats and was willing to settle for just 11 bonus feats (same as fighter), it'd hardly cost even a dime. Then the rest of the money could go towards equipment.

The point of the build is that this character has more than twice as many feats as a fighter, the only thing that makes them different from an NPC class, and they're still markedly inferior to a straight caster. If this is the case, then how the heck is a regular fighter going to stand up?

Furthermore fighters have been inferior for a long time; the DBFS is just a way to highly the deficiency in the frickin' FACE. I'd still rather have a standard cleric archer in my corner pocket than the DBFS build, but people who say that fighters are still viable plug their ears and go 'B-but Lago...! FEATS! Feats, yo! Theys gots thes FEATZ!'

Well, here's a build with someone who has twice as many feats as your beloved fighter and he still sucks.

[Book]

I have to look at it some more, but I'm more interested in the incremental power curve of the build/concept from levels 1 through 20. A level-by-level evolution analysis would be more helpful. Or even levels 1-5 / 6-10 / 11-15 / 16-20 if that is too detailed.

Isolated spotlighting on one 20th level build (a level very, very, very few people ever play at) is too niche oriented to use in an overarching comparative analysis to Fighter-XX.

[Neeek]

The spell is called Heroics, in case anyone was wondering.

Of course, if you want to, you can do all of this for 0 gold. A Sorc 6/Incantatrix 10/Fatespinner 4 with Extend Spell, Persistent Spell, Practical Metamagic(Persisent Spell), and Versatile Spellcaster can cast Heroics persistently 28 times a day with a 28 Cha, as well as Extended versions another 24 times, and regular versions 8 times, and if your Int is at least 16, 6 more of those are persisted instead. Heck you could throw in an Extra Spell to pick up Divine Power, then persist at as a 9th level spell (which drops your total persistent Heroics to a mere 33), just to add injury to injury.

[Lago_AM3P]

I'm almost positive that you can't persist Heroics. Otherwise I wouldn't have even bothered with that extend spell bullshit since 3.5E has made it really easy to get shit persisted for free.

[Neeek]

Hmm. You're correct. I suppose you could use Ocular spell then shoot yourself, it would eliminate about 7 uses though.

[Lago_AM3P]

I have to look at it some more, but I'm more interested in the incremental power curve of the build/concept from levels 1 through 20. A level-by-level evolution analysis would be more helpful. Or even levels 1-5 / 6-10 / 11-15 / 16-20 if that is too detailed.

Well, okay.


Jeane the Human Wizard 5 / Red Wizard of Thay 7
Stats
Feats:
1- Scribe Scroll, Extend Spell, Arcane Disciple: Competition
3- Tattoo Focus
5- Craft Wondrous Item
6- Leadership
9- Item Familiar
12- Arcane Disciple: Hero/War

Int: 16 (start) + 2 (levels) + 4 (headband) = 22
Cha: 15 (start) + 1 (levels) + 2 (cloak) = 18
Wisdom: 12 (start) + 2 (amulet)

Equipment: Vest of Wizardy II (20,000 gp + exp) and a headband of intellect +4/periapt of wisdom +2, cloak of charisma +2 (13,000 gp + exp), and three rods of lesser extension, costing 48,000 gp for her level--so far. I don't care what else she spends the money on, she's a buffing wizard.


The character leads a circle every morning after spell prep time. They're attracted to her sexy leadership score, so they're around all of the time. Her leadership score of 17 entitles her to a 4th level mage and an 11 level mage, which when she performs circle magic will boost her caster level by 8. She gets another +3 to her caster level from her red wizard level, for a grand total of 23 caster levels.

Her Vest of Wizardry entitles her to a grand total of 8 2nd level wizard spells, but with specialization and the bonus spell it's 10. She can extend 9 of them. If she sets fire to all but two of her 3rd level spells, too, then she has a total of 14 spell slots to fill with the DBFS and thirteen of them will be extended.

Assuming that there's 10 hours of the day where she doesn't (can't) kick ass:

She can have 6 fighter bonus feats in her corner pocket the entire time. And her 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th level spells will be untouched.

The amount of bonus feats that a fighter of her level has? Seven.

You might argue that the fighter isn't obligated to have the selection of regular character feats that this character has, but the majority of them (Extend Spell, Arcane Disciple, Craft Wondrous Item, Leadership, and Item Familiar) are already really awesome to begin with.

The character imbues her familiar with spell ability for some miscellaneous 1/round a level buffs (to be cast on her) and then uses the Contingency and Permanency spells to get buffs what a fighter couldn't get. By my count, she has just enough Contingency to have it for at least three encounters a day--which means that she should never be caught with her pants down and without a divine power. One of her 5th level spells will be a divine power, but whatever.

You can work out whatever buffs she has left over and what should go in them your own damn selves. If you wanted to, you could set fire to all of your 4th level spells except for the ones you want divine power to go in to, too, and have exactly as many bonus feats as a fighter. But who gives a rat's ass?

[dbb]

You need a Wisdom of at least 15 to cast a 5th level spell via Arcane Disciple.

Also, you can only attract a cohort two levels or more below your current level, so only a level 10 Wizard there.

--d.

[RandomCasualty]

But you're still going into melee with 12d4 hit dice, and likely your best score is spent on int, so your con, str and dex suck ass...

[Lago_AM3P]

Ooch, nice catches, ddb.

That reduces the ass-kicking time drastically, though I'm sure there's some cheap +1 caster level trick I'm forgetting somewhere.

A stat going from 10 to 11 isn't a big deal, though, but I'll note that.


RC, the sample character is having divine power running for all day for important encounters with a caster level of 22--this actually nudges his hit point average to that of a cleric.

If he really needs the extra hit points he can have his familiar imbue him with an extended false life. Or polymorph into something good. Whatever.

[MrWaeseL]

1147638328[/unixtime]]One, the wealth-by-level for level 20 characters is 760,000, but I can drop it by a level and invest in item creation feats if that'll make it better.

Durrr, for some reason I thought your build was 16th level. Nevermind

[Fwib]

Same Effect with Differing Results: The same spell can sometimes
produce varying effects if applied to the same recipient more than
once. For example, a series of polymorph spells might turn a creature
into a mouse, a lion, and then a snail. In this case, the last spell in the
series trumps the others. None of the previous spells are actually
removed or dispelled, but their effects become irrelevant while the
final spell in the series lasts.

Does this not apply, preventing you from having multiple extra feats?

[Lago_AM3P]

Does this not apply, preventing you from having multiple extra feats?

It actually doesn't (and in fact, the polymorphing one was the root of all 3.5E polymorph cheese until they came out with the heavy-handed nerf).

Think of it like dominate person. You can get hit by dominate person on three separate occasions and one instance doesn't necessarily make it irrelevant. For example if you're getting mind controlled by a wizard and a vampire who tell you to 'not move from this spot' and then a pixie mind controls you and to hand over all of your items, the fact that you're getting mind control doesn't prevent you from following a new master.

There isn't any special caveat in Heroics that prevent multiple castings or stackings; thus each casting can potentially give you an additional feat.

[Fwib]

Ok. why does it not apply?

I'm right there with you on certain spells making a nonsense of that rule (Blindness/deafness, Protection from Energy, charm stuff (as you point out) etc etc), but I looked in the FAQ for something to let you ignore that rule 'when it makes sense' but couldn't find it.

[dbb]

The most likely counterexample involves Resist Energy. Since I don't actually own any WotC 3.5 adventures, though, I couldn't say whether an encounter involving someone with Resist Energy versus multiple different energy types has been published.

--d.