The reason why fighters will never have nice things.

[Novembermike]

And that's what makes it Phantasy Physics, btw. In the real world, weight is cubed but strength is squared when you scale up.

Right, but big things in fantasy tend to be strong rather than worried about how they're putting their feet down because it's really easy to break a hip when you weigh that much.

[tussock]

The Hulk gets a fuck load of help from the authors. Being able to jump and punch (and be mostly immune to damage) should do absolutely nothing against all sorts of shit, stun him from helicopter with a few tonne of chem munitions, wait 'till he unhulks, load him up on happy gas, then cut his throat. Yawn.

Mid level fighters are quite capable of solving the Hulk's problems just like the Hulk does (various Items bring you closer still, but it's good enough either way). The Hulk just doesn't have problems with extra-dimensional teleporting Fiends and flying invisible save-or-lose spellcasters, because he'd lose.

Though Hulk does save on a 2+, like AD&D Fighters do and d20 Fighters should.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The Hulk just doesn't have problems with extra-dimensional teleporting Fiends and flying invisible save-or-lose spellcasters, because he'd lose.

Hulk deals with these people with sonic AOEs. Just saying.

[violence in the media]

The Hulk just doesn't have problems with extra-dimensional teleporting Fiends and flying invisible save-or-lose spellcasters, because he'd lose.

Hulk deals with these people with sonic AOEs. Just saying.

Didn't Superman trash the Hulk in the Marvel vs. DC mash up back in the 90s? I seem to recall that the generally agreed rationale was that Superman could just fly around the Hulk and heat vision him to submission, and there was little to nothing the Hulk could do in response.

[sabs]

Hulk can jump pretty fast. Hulk Smash! Superman sissy in tights.

I mean, it's hard to tell. Hulk has infinite strength depending how pissed off he is. Superman does have an upper bound on his strength.

it doesn't matter though because Mighty Mouse would kick both their asses.

[Swordslinger]

Didn't Superman trash the Hulk in the Marvel vs. DC mash up back in the 90s? I seem to recall that the generally agreed rationale was that Superman could just fly around the Hulk and heat vision him to submission, and there was little to nothing the Hulk could do in response.

I doubt that the heat vision would really even dent the Hulk much. Though pretty much how comics go, it's all author fiat anyway.

The only real objective thing you can say about Superman versus Hulk is that Superman will likely win because his powers are always on, while Hulk's aren't. Superman could just superspeed in and snap Banner's neck before he even knew what was going on, while Hulk can't do the same to Superman. So he just needs to fly around until Hulk turns back into Banner and kill him.

As for a straight up fight between the two, who the fuck knows. All of Superman's ranged attacks may just bounce off the Hulk and then Hulk could kick the crap out of him in melee range.

[RadiantPhoenix]

And that's what makes it Phantasy Physics, btw. In the real world, weight is cubed but strength is squared when you scale up.

Perhaps, but I was basing it on the premise that they had the same carrying capacity relative to weight as a human.

[violence in the media]

Here is a blurb from Wiki. I'd forgotten that the Hulk vs. Superman match up winner was fan vote determined.

[Juton]

The Hulk is actually stronger than Superman*, but who would win in a fight generally depends on who is writing the story. Even though Superman has a host of weird and wacky powers he usually settles fights by hitting things, the Hulk can hit back pretty hard.

* In several versions of the Avengers the Hulk can lift Mjolnir even if the hammer finds him unworthy. In one of the few DC / Marvel crossovers Superman is allowed to use Mjolnir to fight the BBEG, after that fight is over the hammer becomes too heavy for him to lift. So the Hulk is stronger.

[angelfromanotherpin]

There is more than one version of the Hulk. There is more than one version of Superman.

There was an earlier crossover where the Silver Age Superman 'fought' the Hulk by standing there and being punched over and over to no effect as the Hulk grew more and more frustrated; the narrator mentioned it was a conflict between a beast who could level mountains and a man who could move planets.

Of course, the Golden Age Superman isn't even in the Hulk's league.

bonus: found some of the comic panels

[Midnight_v]

Yeah... but the doomsday is hulk and doomsday killed supes.
Further supes tactics never include eyebeaming people at range though his theoretically could do that from space. It apparently isn't in his repatoire maybe the beams have a range limit or somesuch, I dont' know. The golden era link was buillshit, too, we're way into author fiat there. Cute though.
The point is that the fighter isn't the hulk.
A 10 level fighter isn't a threat to everything it comes across, there no singular reason for these ridiculious comparisons but no... its really kinda of a stretch to put them in the same category.
Now the wizard as superman...? Maybe, there's a lot you can do there, I remeber someone posted a superman build that was an ELAN psionisist of some kind. Superspeed, super strength, invincible... blah blah blah...
Its a closer analogy but as someone who occasionally tried posting comic books as references, its pretty much worthless to do so because author to author just makes up his own shit.

Can't we find a better angle on the discussion?

[Wrathzog]

Concerning Hulk vs. Superman, the Hulk fought The Sentry to a draw. The Sentry is pretty much on par with Superman as far as power levels go.

In a fist fight, it'd be a pretty even match.
Realistically, Superman would eventually be forced to do something like shove him into the Source Wall.

Anyhow, yeah, what does this have to do with Fighters?

[RadiantPhoenix]

Barbarian can be considered a subset of fighter for purposes of this discussion.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Anyhow, yeah, what does this have to do with Fighters?

Actually, I think this argument is fascinating and a perfect demonstration of one of the caveats of why I don't think DMFs will ever have nice things.

With these Hulk/Superman matchups, everyone focuses solely on the Hulk's fighting abilities. This conveniently ignores the fact that the Hulk has an extremely limited array of ways to solve an adventure in a way that doesn't involve fighting--which is one of the fucking problems with the DMF in the first place and is the exact trap that the Tome Fighter fell in. The Hulk can't even do a really simple adventure of 'find the interplanetary drug cartel selling Superpower Serum to little kids for their experiments and stop them, by force is necessary' without being led by the nose or by ignoring everything in his Hulk schtick. Batman would get stopped at the 'fight the bodyguards who inject themselves with the serum' steps. Superman and Wonder Woman and Iron Man could complete the adventure on their own, though.

The important thing to note is that even a lot of people who want to help the DMF are looking at the problem from a non-helpful way. The Hulk can now fight in close combat at the level of Superman and Green Lantern. So fucking what? What ELSE does he do?

[RadiantPhoenix]

But Batman has sneaking! He doesn't need to fight them!
Unless genre conventions demand a fight, of course.

[Parthenon]

Lago, you're forgetting Banner. Depending on the writer he can create impenetrable forcefields and outthink Reed Richards and Tony Stark while secretly being able to make realistic androids and hack the internet and all associated databases (e.g. one of the top 3 smartest people in the marvel universe).

But, keeping it relatively sane and ignoring the official fanfic, he could be intelligent enough to solve most mental problems, in a D&D setting would rival most wizards in terms of spellcasting, and would have access to various favours and knowledge from before he became the hulk.

In the suggested storyline of intergalactic cartel the mix of banner and hulk could complete the adventure. Of course, ported to D&D this would be like having a mega-barbarian that when he's not in a rage is a high level artificer with lots of useful skills- not a DMF at all.

[Wrathzog]

Couple of Quick Questions:

1) If a DMF can do more than hit things in the face with an axe, does he still qualify as a DMF?

2) If we've already established that DMF's aren't actually able to meaningfully participate in adventures past a certain point, then why are they even an option for players?
Why do we even care about buffing them?

Off Topic, while the Hulk doesn't usually go on Cosmic Adventures, he is a Cosmic level threat. See: Planet Hulk and World War Hulk.

Also Off Topic, Batman doesn't fight in Cosmic Level encounters, he bypasses them. While everyone else is murdering hordes of Parademons, he's rigging Apokolips to explode so he can blackmail Darkseid into capitulating. See: Superman/Batman: Apocolypse.

[Lago PARANOIA]

1) If a DMF can do more than hit things in the face with an axe, does he still qualify as a DMF?

Depends on what are those 'things'. Fiction tends to give them two typical solutions and a D&D-specific proposed method has also been floated.

A) Give them a schtick any ol' schlub can do but then arbitrarily exclude everyone else from doing it. As Sokka said, he's the only one who can come up with a plan because if Katara or Zuko do then he's made doubly pointless. This is extra suspicious because if Sokka gets killed off then Katara and Zuko are allowed to make plans again because it's not unbalanced for any of the benders to come up with Krazy Ideas as long as the role rotates. Yet if Zuko gets killed off neither Sokka nor Katara is allowed to firebend just because of that.

B) Make obstacles in the story able to be solved with abilities that a Vanilla Action Hero (rugged, muscled, disciplined, but ultimately human) could achieve without going into magical or weeaboo territory. For example, you totally CAN climb into the floating fortress of acid; you just need a good pair of gloves and some long rope and wait until the right day of the week. You CAN sneak into Asmodeus's Bedroom past the legions of Pit Fiends, you just need to hide in a wine barrel with a hole in it and wait for someone to deliver you to the adjacent storeroom. Of course the Pit Fiends would have to lose their enhanced senses and you'd have to handwave the transportation issue and no one would check the barrels, but that's the basic idea.

C) Load the fighter to the gills with magical gear. And I don't mean just mean a Hackmaster +12. You need to give them enough shit so that they're indistinguishable from spellcasters and psions and anime martial artists and whatnot. You can either do Rainbow Pimp Gear or compress it all into one item, but they'd have a laundry list of effects. In order to prevent the problem of you still being better off giving that shit to the non-DMFs, you need to provide such characters a class feature of 'Wear Planar Boots' or 'Only Rogues can use Rods of Wonders'.

2) If we've already established that DMF's aren't actually able to meaningfully participate in adventures past a certain point, then why are they even an option for players?

A) Because some people are just seriously along for the thrill of the combat ride. Give them some good combat options and let them Magic Tea Party the rest and they're good to go. While I am openly contemptuous of the leeches who fall asleep when it gets to the parts they don't like but then jump in when it's combat time like the Little Red Hen's neighbors, occasionally you'll have people at the table like the DM's grandma or 10-year old brother so you'll have to accomodate them.

B) A lot of people are in denial about how inappropriate the Badass Normal / Vanilla Action Hero / Dumbass Melee Fighter are after a certain point in the game. This is done out of one or more of nostalgia, misinterpretation of source material, or trying to prove some silly non-point about 'if you try really hard and BELIEVE IN YOURSELF you can compete against people who use shortcuts and were empowered from birth!'.

[Chamomile]

A) Give them a schtick any ol' schlub can do but then arbitrarily exclude everyone else from doing it. As Sokka said, he's the only one who can come up with a plan because if Katara or Zuko do then he's made doubly pointless. This is extra suspicious because if Sokka gets killed off then Katara and Zuko are allowed to make plans again because it's not unbalanced for any of the benders to come up with Krazy Ideas as long as the role rotates. Yet if Zuko gets killed off neither Sokka nor Katara is allowed to firebend just because of that.

What? Are you joking? You really think strategy is something "any old schlub" can do? Sure, if you wanted Zuko and Katara to spontaneously become brilliant strategists because Sokka died you could probably do it and get away with it, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be terrible character derailment and there's no reason to reflect it in game mechanics. For anyone familiar with Romance of the Three Kingdoms (alternatively, Dynasty Warriors), this is seriously like saying that if Zhuge Liang had died at Chi Bi, it would've been okay because then Zhang Fei could be the Shu Kingdom's new unbeatable strategist. On the other hand, Zhuge Liang was himself incapable of saving the Shu Kingdom after the deaths of Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Liu Bei (and, speaking historically, the disastrous defeat at Xiaoting, but in the legend and any TTRPG, it was the death of the three brothers that killed the kingdom).

Seriously, this is ridiculous. Everything done in the average adventure is exceptional. There isn't a single character concept anywhere in the PHB that could be performed by any old schlub. Yes, it's a problem that Wizards are better at killing things than Fighters and better at going unnoticed than Rogues, but that just means Wizards need a nerf.

B) Make obstacles in the story able to be solved with abilities that a Vanilla Action Hero (rugged, muscled, disciplined, but ultimately human) could achieve without going into magical or weeaboo territory. For example, you totally CAN climb into the floating fortress of acid; you just need a good pair of gloves and some long rope and wait until the right day of the week. You CAN sneak into Asmodeus's Bedroom past the legions of Pit Fiends, you just need to hide in a wine barrel with a hole in it and wait for someone to deliver you to the adjacent storeroom. Of course the Pit Fiends would have to lose their enhanced senses and you'd have to handwave the transportation issue and no one would check the barrels, but that's the basic idea.

That would just mean playing something other than D&D. Which is fine.

C) Load the fighter to the gills with magical gear. And I don't mean just mean a Hackmaster +12. You need to give them enough shit so that they're indistinguishable from spellcasters and psions and anime martial artists and whatnot. You can either do Rainbow Pimp Gear or compress it all into one item, but they'd have a laundry list of effects. In order to prevent the problem of you still being better off giving that shit to the non-DMFs, you need to provide such characters a class feature of 'Wear Planar Boots' or 'Only Rogues can use Rods of Wonders'.

No, you don't. You just need to build the class around a single, powerful weapon (or other item) that comes with a myriad of effects, preferably with a single theme. I am writing a story right now that has in it a character whose whole thing is that he's of a certain, near-extinct nationality, which allows him to wield an ancient sword forged by progenitor of that nation to commit the world's first murder (no prizes for guessing where I ripped that idea). It's got thirteen special magical abilities (the exact details of which I'm still working out) which are unlocked as the plot progresses, and a lot of the plot revolves around going places and doing things to discover the blade's secrets. These thirteen powers are the only thing that allows him to compete with a druid, a paladin, a wizard, an anime-style martial artist, an anime-style swordsman, and a guy who is basically the Incredible Hulk (though keep in mind the exact strength of the Hulk is flexible depending on both situation and writer, so it's not a perfect match-up). I haven't got the plot entirely worked out yet, but knowing me there'll probably be world-altering changes wrought upon the face of the world before it's over.

This isn't based off of an RPG I played or something. This is just me writing stuff. There's absolutely no reason the exact same character in terms of personality couldn't work as just a different flavor of wizard than the other wizard, using the dark magics of his ancestry or whatever, except the fact that I think the concept of being bonded to an exceptional weapon is really cool and I want to write a story about someone like that.

And there's all kinds of precedent for this in myth and legend. King Arthur and Excalibur has been brought up before, Galahad and the Holy Grail or Siege Perilous could also work, the aforementioned Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei all had signature weapons and Liu Bei's was even said to be imbued with the spirits of the ancestors, guiding him through battle. Mjolnir, Dyrnwyn, Fail Not, Tizona, the Sword of Gryffindor, the Keyblade, and the list goes on.

This is not some cop-out solution that someone stapled onto the DMF. This is a theme that runs through legend and myth through all of human history and culture. This is the basis for a million freeform RP characters. This is a concept that people would want to play even if they'd never played a TTRPG before in their lives. And it can totally have hard-written into it the ability to sink continents and raise them back up again, remade in the image of the wielder, as its 20th level ability.

[Psychic Robot]

maybe you should tell us about the blade's abilities because my interest is piqued at that and not more arguing about the same fighter shit we've done before

[Lago PARANOIA]

What? Are you joking? You really think strategy is something "any old schlub" can do?

It sure as hell doesn't have anything to do with the D&D class and level system. Once you're able to establish a 5th-level expert or aristocrat as the next Sun Tzu, that means that what class you are is irrelevant as far as being a strategist. Which is fine, it's just as cool for a necromancer to be the World's Best General as it is for a monk or a druid.

The point is though that you pretty much have to give the DMF this role since it's more or less class and level independent and it's a role that needs to be done--and the DMF can't really do anything else but fight. If the paladin or the warden was the designated strategist class or were even allowed to dabble in the role then that just makes the character even more unimportant since those guys have l33t powers AND some useful muggle schticks.

The DMF IOW is pissing in everyone else's cheerios in order to get screentime. Again.

There's absolutely no reason the exact same character in terms of personality couldn't work as just a different flavor of wizard than the other wizard, using the dark magics of his ancestry or whatever, except the fact that I think the concept of being bonded to an exceptional weapon is really cool and I want to write a story about someone like that.

Yeah, and if you were emulating this character in D&D YOU WOULD MAKE THIS CHARACTER AN ARTIFICER BECAUSE YOU HAVE A FINITE AMOUNT OF SPACE TO WORK WITH.

Unless you're planning to write short, mostly interchangeable character classes and a lot of them (like the 3E PrC explosion) you do not have enough room to write 3-4 different magical item schtupping classes. It's overly narrow and it's a waste of space. You could broaden your horizons by not locking the characters on rails such as giving the fighter 15 different kinds of fighter-exclusive magical swords to choose from but you are still wasting writing space because you could compress all of that shit into one class.

[Chamomile]

Yeah, and if you were emulating this character in D&D YOU WOULD MAKE THIS CHARACTER AN ARTIFICER BECAUSE YOU HAVE A FINITE AMOUNT OF SPACE TO WORK WITH.

Great. Next time someone wants to play a DMF in one of your games, tell them to try an Artificer with unusually Fighter-ey flavor text. Problem solved.

[RadiantPhoenix]

C) Load the fighter to the gills with magical gear. And I don't mean just mean a Hackmaster +12. You need to give them enough shit so that they're indistinguishable from spellcasters and psions and anime martial artists and whatnot. You can either do Rainbow Pimp Gear or compress it all into one item, but they'd have a laundry list of effects. In order to prevent the problem of you still being better off giving that shit to the non-DMFs, you need to provide such characters a class feature of 'Wear Planar Boots' or 'Only Rogues can use Rods of Wonders'.

I would call this sort of character the "Castlevania Hero"

EDIT: They would have the power of getting to use the items better (e.g., activating multiple standard-action requiring items at once).

[Midnight_v]

C) Load the fighter to the gills with magical gear. And I don't mean just mean a Hackmaster +12. You need to give them enough shit so that they're indistinguishable from spellcasters and psions and anime martial artists and whatnot. You can either do Rainbow Pimp Gear or compress it all into one item, but they'd have a laundry list of effects. In order to prevent the problem of you still being better off giving that shit to the non-DMFs, you need to provide such characters a class feature of 'Wear Planar Boots' or 'Only Rogues can use Rods of Wonders'.

I would call this sort of character the "Castlevania Hero"

EDIT: They would have the power of getting to use the items better (e.g., activating multiple standard-action requiring items at once).

Castlvania my ass.
I know a barbie when I see one.
Magic Accessory Barbie
(now available w/dsl's, for your dm's pleasure!)

[RadiantPhoenix]

There's a difference! Castlevania heroes do heroic stuff when you dress them up! Barbies just look pretty!

EDIT: Also, Castlevania heroes are sometimes wizards on top of all that.