Mechanically sound, thematically retarded solutions to Fghtr

[OgreBattle]

Fighters are good at one thing, making big piles of damage. There's lots of talk about fixing fighters and whatever, but here's my angle.

Mechanically sound, thematically retarded solutions.

So how about "A Fighter can use his damage roll to substitute for a skill check", and the swording applies to anything you can put a DC on.

The attack is made against 'the problem', it does not mean an actual person is hurt.

So you can literally sword your way through a conversation, sword your way to uncover some clues, sword your way into lore, and sword somebody until the poison leaves his body.

As a swift/immediate action, the fighter gains spell resistance equal to a damage roll.


Mechanically, can this work, at least for a few more levels of shelf life?

[Sigil]

That sounds retarded!

But seriously, I could see the Tome Fighter getting an ability that allowed them to, as an immediate action, expend their combat focus and make an attack roll instead of a normal skill check, or negate incoming damage equal to a damage roll. But the fighter can already succeed skill checks when built to do so, and can already avoid/mitigate damage with the items he's already going to get. The other thread was about giving the fighter not just "out of combat" utility (which is the wrong name) but adventure utility. No skill check or damage negation will let the fighter teleport.

[DSMatticus]

Attack damage is a very bad roll to use against level-scaling challenges, because attack damage does not scale with level in any coherent way.

Also, (fuck you Sigil don't you ninja me) certain abilities are not actually numeric challenges and are instead binary capabilities. Whether or not you can teleport to a place is not a DC, it's either written on your character sheet or is isn't, and no act of simple roll substitution however favorable will put that ability on your character sheet.

[OgreBattle]

Attack damage is a very bad roll to use against level-scaling challenges, because attack damage does not scale with level in any coherent way.

Also, (fuck you Sigil don't you ninja me) certain abilities are not actually numeric challenges and are instead binary capabilities. Whether or not you can teleport to a place is not a DC, it's either written on your character sheet or is isn't, and no act of simple roll substitution however favorable will put that ability on your character sheet.

UMD on a teleportation device, like the Fonz hitting a jukebox.

[Whatever]

You could fix a lot of problems by giving those tasks a DC. Say, DC 20 Survival check to adventure underwater, DC 30 Spellcraft to teleport. Or whatever. If it's something the party is expected to have access to by level X, make it possible.

[Seerow]

You could fix a lot of problems by giving those tasks a DC. Say, DC 20 Survival check to adventure underwater, DC 30 Spellcraft to teleport. Or whatever. If it's something the party is expected to have access to by level X, make it possible.

Just set the DC based on what it would take to UMD an item that gives the appropriate ability, with a +10 modifier because you don't actually have that item around.

You want to sword the Air to create a portal to take you across the world? Hit a DC43 with your swording ability and done. Need to help your cleric buddy back from the dead? Sword the grim reaper at DC39 and he's back.

Edit: Actually going with 10+CL*2, rather than 30+CL might be better. That makes the relevant DCs 28 and 36 respectively. But puts something like Water Breathing, for an underwater adventure, down at a more accessible DC20 instead of DC35 going by the formula for UMD.

[CCarter]

Roadhouse.

[DSMatticus]

Attack damage is a very bad roll to use against level-scaling challenges, because attack damage does not scale with level in any coherent way.

Also, (fuck you Sigil don't you ninja me) certain abilities are not actually numeric challenges and are instead binary capabilities. Whether or not you can teleport to a place is not a DC, it's either written on your character sheet or is isn't, and no act of simple roll substitution however favorable will put that ability on your character sheet.

UMD on a teleportation device, like the Fonz hitting a jukebox.

I am way more amused by that than I should be. That said, you kind of have to be careful how far you go down that road because at the extremes it becomes "I'm valuable to the party because I'm exceptionally good at pretending to be a wizard."

You could fix a lot of problems by giving those tasks a DC. Say, DC 20 Survival check to adventure underwater, DC 30 Spellcraft to teleport. Or whatever. If it's something the party is expected to have access to by level X, make it possible.

You would probably want to tie those to ranks and not DC's, because when a character will be able to meet a given skill DC is wildly variable and not really all that particularly well-tied to level. Really, for a level-based game D&D has a whole lot that is not very well-tied to level at all.

[Sigil]

If you're going to go a skill route, I'd say it would be much more suitable to come up with a list of "Things That PCs Should Be Able to Do", divide them up into the various skills, and assign them DCs by hand. This way you can actually make them make sense NARRATIVELY.

-Water Breathing (Survival DC 25): When in coastal areas or other wetlands, you can spend two hours foraging for the natural plants or whatever that will allow you to breathe underwater. Once assembled these materials are equivilant to a Potion of Waterbreathing, except that the effect lasts for 24 hours. This potion degrades to uselessness after 24 hours.

-Portal (The Planes DC 30): With 24 hours of work and 1000 gold in crushed gems, you can open a portal to a plane of your choice, just as if you had cast Plane Shift. If you fail by 5 or more, you end up somewhere fucking horrible instead of where you wanted to go.

And so on and so forth.

Edit: Totally glossed over Whatever's post since it was so short. He said pretty much the same thing.

[ishy]

Honestly I think you're focussing on the wrong thing.

Side note: drop the name fighter. Assuming everybody fights in your game, it is a terrible terrible name that doesn't say anything meaningful about the class.

But for your actual design of the class, instead of focussing on how do I make them not suck, figure out what you actually want the class to do first.

What does your class need to do so
A) you have fun actually playing the class
B) the rest of your party likes having you around
C) which problems can you solve somehow

[Username17]

Damage and skill outputs in 3e and 4e D&D are not actually predictable or balanced level by level. Even if Shield guys were balanced against Two Weapon Fighters, they would still do less damage. Skill bonuses are all over the fucking place at every level. Picking the right race can give you a +10 bonus to jump or swim at first level. AD&D numbers on these things are just as insane if not more so (10th level characters are expected to have the same woodcraft and listening checks as 1st level characters, unless they are Rangers or Thieves).

So obviously you wouldn't literally be offering people special effects based on the damage or skill mechanics of any previously published D&D edition. So what we're left with is the assessment: "Warriors should be able to emergently perform high level actions by dint of being high level characters and interacting with the world in a high level way." To which I guess... I agree?

But contrary to what I was promised, this thread is therefore talking about a thematically cool and acceptable solution to the Fighter problem that is backed up by no usable mechanics at all.

-Username17

[JigokuBosatsu]

Is there a game that does "fighter" well? Or at least acceptably?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Is there a game that does "fighter" well? Or at least acceptably?

No. Not unless the game is intentionally supposed to be thematically, tactically, and roleplaying-ly shallow like DragonStrike.

VAHs being fun and balanced to play, sure. "Fighter" or facsimiles thereof (Warrior, Squire, Soldier, etc.) being an appropriate TTRPG class for anyone above Trevor or grandma level? Fuck no.

[zugschef]

Is there a game that does "fighter" well? Or at least acceptably?

No. Not unless the game is intentionally supposed to be thematically, tactically, and roleplaying-ly shallow like DragonStrike.

VAHs being fun and balanced to play, sure. "Fighter" or facsimiles thereof (Warrior, Squire, Soldier, etc.) being an appropriate TTRPG class for anyone above Trevor or grandma level? Fuck no.

the point being: you can't do "fighter" well.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Is there a game that does "fighter" well? Or at least acceptably?

Do cyborgs who can chop tanks in half with their monofilament swords count?

I hear that one edition of Warhammer Fantasy made an armored-up fighty guy pretty viable.

[Username17]

Is there a game that does "fighter" well? Or at least acceptably?

The "Killer" in Feng Shui is fine.

-Username17

[Seerow]

Is there a game that does "fighter" well? Or at least acceptably?

I'd say the WoW Warrior isn't too bad, but even there it's got a lot of things that people probably wouldn't accept for their Fighter in a tabletop, and it doesn't really do much to answer the non-combat side of things. It has a ton of mobility and utility in combat, but out of combat, no WoW classes really get a lot that's unique. You could give him WoW blacksmith/engineering and get a fair bit of utility.

Blacksmith lets him craft magical weapons/armor, and make skeleton keys that can pick any level appropriate lock for doors/chests. Engineering lets him make fun utility toys like a wormhole generator (ie teleportation device), rocket boots, a modification to turn your cloak into a glider, a mind control hat, a bot that will repair gear and carry his stuff, a bot that gives him free stuff once a day, a portable forge so he can set up shop and make anything he doesn't have when needed, and a special swiss army style knife that acts as basically any tool you need at any given time). It's also used to make ranged weaponry (bows/crossbows, scopes, etc), bombs, and goggles that make it easier to see stealthing enemies or find resources.


Honestly, I think that a WoW Warrior based class could probably be very competitive actually. You have your class defining the vast majority of your combat capability, with out of combat utility defined by the capability to make useful things.

[Wrathzog]

Engineering lets him make fun utility toys like ...

At this point, you've made an Engineer Class.

Is there a game that does "fighter" well? Or at least acceptably?

It's all relative. The biggest reason why The 3E Fighter looks so bad is because you can compare him to the 3E Wizard (or anyone who can cast spells). But if you look at 4E, Fighter's are a pretty Solid class... because Everyone in the game kind of sucks.

[Seerow]

At this point, you've made an Engineer Class.

Not really. There's a big thematic difference between a guy who is primarily about fighting using his own skill and capability, and uses engineering for occasional out of combat utility, vs someone who is an engineer and references engineering for all of his big class features.

Fact is you can get away with a heavily combat focused class, as long as you have something to do outside of combat. BS/Engineering provides just enough to give you something to do, but fails to overshadow your own personal capabilities.

[ishy]

Is there a game that does "fighter" well? Or at least acceptably?

Rift has an interesting take on the fighter.
In that game you can choose between 4 'base classes': cleric, rogue, wizard, fighter.
Then each class has multiple souls they can choose between (select 3 out of 12 or something).
Fighter can select souls like tempest, which is all about doing lightning and electricity damage from range.

[Wrathzog]

BS/Engineering provides just enough to give you something to do, but fails to overshadow your own personal capabilities.

Your base abilities better be pretty bad-ass if they're gonna compete against Flight, Teleportation, Mind Control, Companions, and All of your out of combat utility.

[Seerow]

BS/Engineering provides just enough to give you something to do, but fails to overshadow your own personal capabilities.

Your base abilities better be pretty bad-ass if they're gonna compete against Flight, Teleportation, Mind Control, Companions, and All of your out of combat utility.

I can provide a list of Warrior in combat capability if you'd like.

But to clarify, the Teleportation isn't particularly useful in combat (it's mostly to get you long distances faster than you could run there). In combat mobility is provided from the class features (see Charge, Intercept, Intervene, Heroic Leap. Which are all effectively swift/immediate action movement in D&D terms) and enhanced movement speed.

The companions are all weak and non-combat oriented, but do useful things for you. It's basically equivalent to having a few mid level experts following you around. Mind Control and Flight are the only ones that really come up in combat, the first could be written with some limitations (it sure wasn't regularly useful in game. The most I saw it used was for the occasional pull where you wanted to thin out a couple of enemies before engaging), and Flight is one of those things that as a melee class is great when you need it, and whatever when you don't. Having access to it is a necessity, and isn't something that will overshadow your other capabilities, but rather supplement them.

[Wrathzog]

Dawg, it doesn't matter because we're not playing an MMO. We're playing a TTRPG and if you provide someone with Engineering, they're going to put Rockets on their Glider and divebomb enemies with packs of dynamite. You can't do that in WoW, but I can guarantee that'd happen in D&D because I came up with the idea in five seconds.

Good luck getting people to use the Charge Power when you've given them Death Gliders.

-e-
Unless we are playing an mmo, in which case nevermind.

[Seerow]

Dawg, it doesn't matter because we're not playing an MMO. We're playing a TTRPG and if you provide someone with Engineering, they're going to put Rockets on their Glider and divebomb enemies with packs of dynamite. You can't do that in WoW, but I can guarantee that'd happen in D&D because I came up with the idea in five seconds.

Good luck getting people to use the Charge Power when you've given them Death Gliders.

Honestly, I'm already taking into account a tabletop game is far more flexible in assuming that turning your cloak into a hang glider allows flight, because I basically assume people are going to combine that with rocket boots and fly around with that shit. But the issue of flying around dropping bombs on people? That's trivially avoidable. The explosives aren't grenade like, but need to be set and take some time to set up and let go. They can be used to break through walls and shit, or to set traps (ie out of combat utility that we want), and if you have the jump on someone you might be able to set up a single bomb as part of your ambush (some utility in a situation where you have time to prepare, this is okay), but that's not going to be the majority of your combat (what you are suggesting).

And the difference between flying with poor/average maneuverability, even at a decent speed, vs running around and moving across the battlefield, possibly even multiple times in a round, is night and day. Do you honestly think that just because you give the Fighter wings of flying, his go-to tactic for any fight is "Fly over it and drop alchemical fire on it" rather than using those wings to get into melee when the enemies are flying?

[Username17]

I think the bottom line is that anyone who is concerned that you are getting too much Weeaboo in their "Fighter" concept by letting them sing songs of opening or brew healing potions is going to laugh in your god damn face if your suggestion is that they "make rocket boots".

-Username17