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

[Sashi]

Third option:

Keep the "mundane" Fighter, name and all, but have him as a minion/NPC class.

The cool Warrior/Swordsman/Barbarian/whatever PC classes can do superhuman stuff. A high level "Wuxia" warrior for martial arts and can jump so high they might as well fly, a high-level Berserker guy performs feats of great strength and causes earthquakes by smashing the ground, etc.

Everybody wins!

Fighter should be a 5-level class because that's about the level the fighter concept starts to die out.

After that, you can multiclass out into Dragon Knight or Warrior of Light or something.

[deaddmwalking]

Fighter should be a 5-level class because that's about the level the fighter concept starts to die out.

After that, you can multiclass out into Dragon Knight or Warrior of Light or something.

Make that 4-level class. At 5th level you get +1 BAB. No improvement to saves, no special abilities. It's the absolute WORST thing about playing a fighter. And that's saying something.

[Lago PARANOIA]

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.

Fvck you and fvck your elitism.

How about fuck them and fuck their laziness/selfishness? Dave zoning out or playing Smash Bros. when stories don't directly involve him and his awesome exploits with his Hackmaster +12 yet insisting that I pay attention to him when the spotlight is on him is incredibly selfish.

[fectin]

Dave zoning out or playing Smash Bros. when stories don't directly involve him and his awesome exploits with his Hackmaster +12 yet insisting that I pay attention to him when the spotlight is on him is incredibly selfish.

If you're running a game for Dave, and those are the stories he likes, why are you not telling those stories? Conversely, if you want to tell stories about intricate Elven cultural tea ceremonies, why did you invite Dave to that game?

Finally, if you're settling for Dave because there's no one else, and he's polite enough to let you shove your ceremonial tea inanities up his ass, have common decency to give him a reach-around and let him play a character he doesn't hate.

[Midnight_v]

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.

Fvck you and fvck your elitism.

+1
I got to that same point and thought the exact same thing.

People play what they like, not what "YOU" think they should be playing, in from your ivory tower. You sound like every fucking moron that says "a fighter doesn't DESERVE..." cool things. Which is pretty much going to reprehensible to many, many people.
Stabbing "GODS" in the face, with MORE DAKKA and minimal flash is a concept that lots of people love, you stating the above is just wankery.
Ideas like that, are why the game stays having shitty things at all.

[Lago PARANOIA]

fectin, I find your post hilariously unaware and ironic, because the Straw Nerd in that comic is Dave, not me. Dave is the one declaring that he wants a slice of cake when we're serving cupcakes right now and is going to complain until someone provides the cake or pet he wants.

If you're running a game for Dave, and those are the stories he likes, why are you not telling those stories?

What a nice bit of equivocation! Want and Story are such evocative words. How could I be against giving something they want, especially if what they want is something as stimulating and utilitarian as a story! Especially as a game designer, someone who is tasked with maximizing enjoyment for profits. Guess that is pretty damning.

But, you know, something occurs to me. Want and Story aren't very specific words. Without context, they're so, you know, subjective, you know! For example:

[*] If you're running a D&D game for Dave and he likes the stories where his character's favorite food is honey-roasted ham, why are you not telling those stories?

That so makes me look like the bad guy here! Gosh, what a dictator I am, wanting such control over the game that I won't even let Dave decide what's his favorite meal. How dare I stick my hand into peoples' game sessions and make this kind of petty, arbitrary decision! But wait! What if the kind of story he wants is more... unsavory?

[*] If you're running a D&D game for Dave and he likes stories where he's playing a dimension-hopping character from Touhou, why are you not telling those stories?

[*] If you're running a D&D game for Dave and he likes stories where he's a FATAList mass rapist, why are you not telling those stories?

Hmm. You know, maybe the broader principle of 'give people what they want!' fails when you, you know, what the person wants is disruptive to what other people want? Just maybe? The further thought occurs that maybe, MAYBE you should have asked me a more specific question.



tl;dr: Those are weasel words strung together to make an especially weaselly phrase, fectin. Why don't you be more specific, like asking, 'why do you not want people to play DMFs in a game with an extensive combat minigame'?

[NineInchNall]

People have been trying to do this longer than the history of D&D.

And many times they've succeeded. It's only in the context of D&D that people fail hard, primarily for reasons discussed at length and to death on this very board. As you've said many a time, people assume specific fictional representives for their D&D, despite the fact that they do not accurately model the game (and vice versa).

You'll forgive me for not wanting to enable their denial any longer, won't you?

Fair enough, I guess. But I tend to think people have just gone about it in the wrong way. It's always asserted that dumbasses are just not familiar enough with their own source material, which is true, and so the attempted solution is to provide reams of examples from within the corpus of Western fantasy, fairy tale, and myth. This will never work, because the idjits' expectations are still limited by how the familiar settings have developed over the decades.

[fectin]

Actually, I'm fine with all of your 'extreme' examples. If you regularly game with ham-fetishists, touhou fans, or FATALists, you should be running HamQuest, Shooty Girls, or Fantasy Rape League, respectively.

Your whole premise is that some people won't have fun playing your way, and that they are wrongheaded and must play your way.

If you won't compromise, and he can't compromise, why are you playing that game?

[Lago PARANOIA]

And many times they've succeeded.

REALLY? I'd love to hear the names of fictional works that:

[*] Had a mixture of characters that had impossible powers (impossible in the sense of, 'can't happen in the real world' as opposed to WOW THIS IS SO AWESOME I CAN'T BELIEVE IT) and those who were stuck with VAH schticks.
[*] Had a plot and obstacles that could be described as appropriate challenges for, oh, Spider-Man level or above.
[*] The characters did not have to rely on deus ex machina, plots specifically contrived to only be bypassed by a mundane ability, plot coupons that are ability-agnostic (like a Mecha).
[*] The plot did not do off-screen nerfing like Flash being unable to outrun a speeding car, Batman dodging Omega beams from a dozen yards away, Superman forgetting that he can fly, etc. etc..
[*] The characters contributed to a roughly equal extent.

I can think of stories that fulfill all except for one condition. Stories that do all of the above? I'm claiming that it's impossible. This ain't just a D&D problem, fectin. When I said that this was a problem that's older than D&D, I am not joking. And such an extraordinary claim needs extraordinary evidence. Or any evidence at all, really.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Your whole premise is that some people won't have fun playing your way, and that they are wrongheaded and must play your way.

What I've actually said as opposed to the imaginary Lago in your peabrain is that for the kind of stories and gameplay that D&D pushes, the Numerically Valid DMF and its effect on gameplay is inappropriate. If someone still wants to play a DMF, then whatever. Different strokes for different folks. More power to them. But people who still want to play a DMF in D&D, or, worse, asking me why I'm not throwing a bone to those people?

Those are the people I'm telling to fuck off. Just so that they don't feel left out, I'm also telling people who want to play time-travelling SASers, Touhous, FATALites, Neo-Confederates, characters who do solo-missions for an extended period of time, strict pacifists, people wanting to play higher- or lower- level characters than the rest of the party, and/or space aliens to fuck off.

The DMFs I have to be extra-firm with because of its history and the fact that unlike someone requesting to play Daffy Duck it seems on the surface plausible and fair. Mostly because of the former. But in the end, a DMF is as disruptive to my vision of a D&D game as a Warner Brothers character and needs to be attacked just as vigorously as someone requesting to play an incredible fighting chocolate ball in D&D.

God, I forgot how much the original DBZ anime butchered the manga. That was one of the funniest scenes ever and it was completely ruined by padding and recycled reaction shots. Probably the only thing stopping Toriyama from ripping out the eyeballs of the animation studio was being pinned underneath a pile of money.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm of the opinion that the Fighter (and others of that type) need more conceptual space without actually being 'magic'. For example, why can't a fighter 'cut through a spell with his sword'? Some people think that it requires magic to fight magic, but there's plenty of literature that supports a different style... Why is blocking a blast of dragon fire with a shield magical?

Because if you do that you have to allow Batman to dodge Omega Beams even though it's stated that this is a difficult task even for The Flash. And then you have to allow Batman to, without special gear, be able win an arm-wrestling contest with Spider-Man. And so on. You push this far enough and either:

[*] Batman loses the flavor of a preternatural, but ultimately mortal mundane and people straight up admit that his superpower of 'not having a superpower' still allows him to do -- unassisted by outside phlebtonium -- feats impossible for a real preternatural, but ultimately mortal mundane. Once you've admitted that Batman can survive a bodyslam from the Hulk, Batman should also be able to not only survive being picked up by a tornado, flung 300 feet in the air and land gracefully but that it's a mild inconvenience. He will be able to participate on equal footing with the rest of the Justice League, but he will be much more different in feel and function than he was in Batman: Year One.

Also, grognards will call your character weeaboo and retarded. I'm fine with this, actually.

[*] The story insist that Batman is a preternatural, but ultimately mundane mortal. Not in a 'wink and nod to the audience' way like the above, either. It's done in such a way that while Batman is allowed to survive a bodyslam by the Hulk as long as there's a quick cutaway and it's dusty and he makes a show of grimace he's not allowed to survive getting shot in the head with a bullet at point blank range or a harpoon in the heart. Even though the former is much more likely to kill him if you apply some fucking THOUGHT to it.

This not only creates dissonant and dishonest stories, not only requires nerfing everyone else, but also has a tendency to fuck over the fighter in a way that isn't even consistent from campaign to campaign as different groups have different suspension of disbelief thresholds. Look at 4th Edition D&D and its 'epic levels' to see this leads.

[NineInchNall]

REALLY? I'd love to hear the names of fictional works that:

[*] Had a mixture of characters that had impossible powers (impossible in the sense of, 'can't happen in the real world' as opposed to WOW THIS IS SO AWESOME I CAN'T BELIEVE IT) and those who were stuck with VAH schticks.

I of course agree with you that combining reality-warpers with VAHs is a recipe for unbalanced shite. It's even part of what I was describing that such a combination would never happen, because it is far from uncommon for me to rant at length to anyone who will listen that the "realistic warrior" is an archetype that has an expiration date.

This is the part where we're butting heads: In the type of set up I'm talking about, the VAH as you conceive does not exist - at least not as a major character. Even the least "magical" of the main characters has impossible (in the real world) abilities. Kenpachi is simply an example of just this paradigm, where the DMF (can't really describe Kenpachi as anything but) is in fact not a VAH, but within the context of the fantastic world is "vanilla".

Your bright, fiery hatred for the VAH has blinded you to the very thing that you want: a scenario wherein the VAH is not a member of the party.

[Lago PARANOIA]

This is the part where we're butting heads: In the type of set up I'm talking about, the VAH as you conceive does not exist - at least not as a major character. Even the least "magical" of the main characters has impossible (in the real world) abilities. Kenpachi is simply an example of just this paradigm, where the DMF (can't really describe Kenpachi as anything but) is in fact not a VAH, but within the context of the fantastic world is "vanilla".

I'm aware. And while to a high-level game non-VAH but DMFs like Kenpachi or Touma aren't as disruptive as non-DMF but VAHs like James Bond or Conan they're still disruptive and/or superfluous. For much of the same reasons.

But when you get right down to it I'm in fact more against enabling DMFs than VAHs. You can run some pretty good cooperative stories with a VAH mixed with supernaturals if you juggle the plot right. But there's no getting around the fact that The Hulk and Doomsday and The Thing are more limited from a plot-solving perspective than the rest of their teammates and are inappropriate at almost all ranges of play for cooperative, self-actualized plots.

[NineInchNall]

Yes, for self-actualized (which I take to mean PC-driven) plots, DMFs are rather, um, poor. I would also of course agree that all classes should be able to influence the plot with similar efficacy.

The DMF doesn't go away when you make the class capable of being an Intelligent MF, however. That's a player artifact; e.g., the "advice" in Complete Mage.

[Endovior]

Not familiar with Doomsday, but aren't Hulk and Thing both scientists? And thus theoretically capable of solving non-combat problems by 'doing science to them' in the same sense as their cohorts?

Now, admittedly, I can't think of an example offhand where the Thing is the primary instigator of a science-type solution; he's clearly a lesser scientist then Mr. Fantastic, and the best he seems able to do is provide Aid Another bonuses. That said, in the most recent movie, Banner/Hulk is explicitly sought out for his science abilities, and uses them to do important plot-relevant things... so including him on the list is actually inexcusable.

[Leress]

Not familiar with Doomsday, but aren't Hulk and Thing both scientists? And thus theoretically capable of solving non-combat problems by 'doing science to them' in the same sense as their cohorts?

Doomsday is just a raging monster. It depends on what version of the Hulk Lago is talking about, the current one is a hulking scientist, but I think he is trying to use the old version that is a scientist that hulks out, and the Thing is a pilot.

[DSMatticus]

Because if you do that you have to allow Batman to dodge Omega Beams even though it's stated that this is a difficult task even for The Flash. And then you have to allow Batman to, without special gear, be able win an arm-wrestling contest with Spider-Man. And so on. You push this far enough and either:

UUUUUUUURGH.

A D&D fighter is superbly underpowered, but can still accumulate more strength than an ogre without magic. You get that? Naked, magicless, mundane D&D fighters of sufficient level can go toe to toe with ogres in contests of strength.

What you are doing (and it is totally wrong) is assuming that not having a source of phlebtonium in fantasyland is the same as not having a source of phlebtonium in real life. And that's just not right, because D&D fighters of the most mundane variety imaginable can already take catapult hits and arm-wrestle ogres without magic, which is something people in the real world cannot do at all.

To make it as clear as possible: mundane means something completely different based on the setting. Your use of Batman v the Flash v Spiderman is inappropriate, because Batman is explicitly a real life mundane who does not behave like a real life mundane. But a D&D fighter is a D&D mundane who acts like a D&D mundane, so that's totally consistent and no one has to scratch their head that he can take catapult rocks to the face despite his mundaneness. And that is why the conceptual space for a mundane fighter is potentially very large (still not as large as 'wizard', but what is?).

P.S., I have a bone to pick with you on the use of the word DMF, in that it really encapsulates two different 'problems' that are totally unrelated:
1) Dumb, which refers to the lack of non-combat abilities, and
2) Melee, which refers to the narrow combat shtick which is sometimes infeasible.
Those problems really have nothing to do with eachother except that they occur together in the D&D fighter, and using one negative buzzword to encapsulate the two problems is very misleading. Handing the fighter a bow has not made him any better at non-combat. Giving him non-combat skills won't let him catch flying wizards.

It's kind of important, because the fact that Kenpachi is a melee fighter is not a problem. Bleach is a setting where mobility is uber and everyone is basically always in melee range and everyone fights in melee anyway. There's like one or two fights in the entire series that revolve around the inability to keep someone else in range of your attacks. But Kenpachi would have a very poor non-combat profile nonetheless relative to anyone with any investigative skills or spirit science skills or whatever.

[Voss]

fectin, I find your post hilariously unaware and ironic, because the Straw Nerd in that comic is Dave, not me. Dave is the one declaring that he wants a slice of cake when we're serving cupcakes right now and is going to complain until someone provides the cake or pet he wants.

Actually, Lago, no it isn't. Dave isn't here shouting at the cupcake. You are.

But in the end, a DMF is as disruptive to my vision of a D&D game as a Warner Brothers character and needs to be attacked just as vigorously as someone requesting to play an incredible fighting chocolate ball in D&D.

As you say quite clearly here, this isn't about what is good for D&D, it is solely about _your_ vision of what a D&D game should be. That is... honestly fine. But it doesn't really have any meaning to anyone who doesn't share your vision, so it is also fine that people are tired of you screaming at the cupcake.

[Fuchs]

There are players who don't want to drive plots outside combat. They are perfectly content to let another player do all the plot "work", aka dice rolls and such, and just add planning or commentary or plain fluff to the plot ("While you research the undead killer's origin, I'll go and see if I can seduce the princess").

Further, the ability to play taxi to the planes or go and roll some knowledge checks doesn't make or break a character concept. Often, the DMF having to ask an NPC wizard to do that for him would get more screen time with the scenes being played out, fluff and complications added, than the competent PC wizard who could just get to cast the spell or roll the dice.

Want to add some non-combat functionality to a character who has not many if any non-combat skills? Add a cohort to order around to the character, problem solved. Instead of "I research the history of the kingdom to find a way to counter the duke's proposal (roll)" it's "I have my squire dig around for historic stuff to counter the duke's proposal (roll or DM roll)".

[Sashi]

Yeah, Fuchs. But those players who don't want to drive plots outside combat should be neither forced nor rewarded for doing so.

[Whipstitch]

There are players who don't want to drive plots outside combat. They are perfectly content to let another player do all the plot "work", aka dice rolls and such, and just add planning or commentary or plain fluff to the plot..

That doesn't mean you have to build a class around those habits and frankly there's good reasons not to. If some dufus wants to grab big piles of overlapping shit in a skill based system and eat nachos whenever people aren't dealing with their chosen mini-game I would call it unfortunate and generally a poor way to build a character... but I wouldn't be that offended by it.

However, I would be offended if I crack open a book and start grooving on a character concept only to find out that mechanically it's a second class citizen just because the devs figured some people don't give a shit anyway. It really, really sucks when official classes are trap options because now people who fell in love with the concept face an uphill battle to convince by-the-RAW MCs as to why they shouldn't have to get used to the taste of shit before playing a monk.

[Fuchs]

I must confess I am a bit jaded about the threat of "not getting to participate outside combat" since in my experience, participation in a non-combat scene is usually not tied to having a plot power. I mean some of the examples we keep getting shown - transport to powers/planes, research for the weakness/origin of the BBEG or macguffin - are not really all that and a bag of chips. Being a taxi is not a minigame. No one zones out and eats nachos in the 10 seconds the mage gets to say "Are we all ready? I cast Plane shift". Researching something is also not a minigame, the mage can visit the library and roll the dice, the Fighter can visit the library and have the librarian roll the dice. No real difference.

The real deal outside combat is social interaction, and as long as everyone can get comparable social skills/powers needed for that minigame it's ok.

So, a "Fighter" character would be viable in my opinion as long as it can hold its own in combat and has social options as well, maybe a cohort or too for transport/other "roll a die, done" checks.

[Midnight_v]

I must confess I am a bit jaded about the threat of "not getting to participate outside combat" since in my experience, participation in a non-combat scene is usually not tied to having a plot power. I mean some of the examples we keep getting shown - transport to powers/planes, research for the weakness/origin of the BBEG or macguffin - are not really all that and a bag of chips. Being a taxi is not a minigame. No one zones out and eats nachos in the 10 seconds the mage gets to say "Are we all ready? I cast Plane shift". Researching something is also not a minigame, the mage can visit the library and roll the dice, the Fighter can visit the library and have the librarian roll the dice. No real difference.

The real deal outside combat is social interaction, and as long as everyone can get comparable social skills/powers needed for that minigame it's ok.

So, a "Fighter" character would be viable in my opinion as long as it can hold its own in combat and has social options as well, maybe a cohort or too for transport/other "roll a die, done" checks.

I've always had a problem with the whole "Dumb Jock" archtype they reinforced by giving the fighter no social skills. Historically, there are plenty of warrior poets, and educated warlords, so there's ZERO reason for that except the basic nerdism that the smart guy beats the muscle guy in the end etc...
There's no valid reason that the game was structured that way at all, so there's no reason to continue that idea because its patently UNTRUE.
Assuming you can get a working skill system, fixing that problem can be accomplished by tinkering with the amount of skill points/allowed abilities that each class gets.
Its ridiculously arbitrary that fighters don't get "tumble" but frankly it's pretty obnoxious that people can't just spend the skills they want how they want yo craft the concept they want.
I keep thinking how the wrestling coach of our high school was also the physics teacher, and recieved awards in both fields.
Mirko Crocrop is a Ufc fighter AND a Legislator (Parliment Member?) in his country.
Also, now that I think of it being an officer in the military flat our requires a degree, and the MCMAP program was headed up by people who fought full time AND held multiple degree's.
One does not preclude the other. Its a foolish thing to perpetuate.

Though I have a care to the relative ideas behind when people say things like "Has nothing to do outside of combat" because again the fighter totally can. Tome Fighter for example. . .

[tussock]

Is there a resurrection Emote here? 'Cos the Dorfs ate my week, and much fun ensued.

Anyhoo, yeh, enough with the badwrongfun stuff.

AD&D, with it's ... challenging mechanics and ... traditional worlds, was always the go-to game, when it died it killed the whole industry. That was in part because you could be a nerd a play a Mage, or a dick and play a Thief, or everyone's 2nd best friend and play a Cleric, while someone who just wants to roll some dice and kill shit without having to think can be a Fighter.

Like, read some Robin Laws. 3e's DMG2 gives a brief summary. People really do play RPGs for divergent and largely incompatible ends which just happen to overlap in classic D&D tropes of the complex bundle of infinite potential of the Mage and endless rolls to hit for damage (then go play smash bros) of the Fighter.

And yes, it's perfectly valid to design a new edition of D&D to support the idea of a Fighter better, like when Lolth had 66 hit points, AC -3, lived in a small teleport-resistant cave while being functionally immune to magic, and you had to chop up an extremely long conga-line of giants to get there. Hell, when the lords of Evil are gathering their power in a temple complex with 10' high ceilings and portals to their home bases. When the solution to almost all of your problems really is to throw the Fighter at them.

Rolling back all the stupid powerups the Wizard's gotten in the last 30 years would be a good start. Like, it used to be genuinely challenging to cast high level spells at all, and regathering them all could take a week if you ever went nova. In 3e there's literally a 2nd level spell that resets all your spells. (4e isn't D&D, etc).


But if you're going to keep the stupid world-smashing do-everything-and-again-tomorrow Wizards, then the Fighters need some crazy world-smashing do-everything shit that doesn't make them prepare it or roll extra dice or keep track of anything or any of that shit, because that's the class is for now. That is why a lot of people play D&D in the first place, and D&D needs to support them too, unlike what 4e did.



Also, the google image search for Thief works better, much hiding in shadows leading up to a stab in the back (and old-time striped shirts and money-bags, and ski-mask with laptop, which are also correct).

[DSMatticus]

And yes, it's perfectly valid to design a new edition of D&D to support the idea of a Fighter better, like when Lolth had 66 hit points, AC -3, lived in a small teleport-resistant cave while being functionally immune to magic, and you had to chop up an extremely long conga-line of giants to get there. Hell, when the lords of Evil are gathering their power in a temple complex with 10' high ceilings and portals to their home bases. When the solution to almost all of your problems really is to throw the Fighter at them.

Rolling back all the stupid powerups the Wizard's gotten in the last 30 years would be a good start. Like, it used to be genuinely challenging to cast high level spells at all, and regathering them all could take a week if you ever went nova. In 3e there's literally a 2nd level spell that resets all your spells. (4e isn't D&D, etc).

No, it wouldn't, and I hate you for suggesting it. Increasing the interval between five minute work-days does absolutely nothing to change the fact that you are encouraging five minute work days. 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.

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.