Which class do you hate the most?

Klaus · Mar 4, 2012

KarinsDad said:
Part of this is the introduction of feats and the introduction of increasing ability scores. The concept of feat and ability score specialization says that Fighters are never going to be ranged specialists ever again. The mechanics determine the class features.

4E backpedaled a little bit on this with heavy thrown weapons, but that's pretty much a hack to partially offset the rules that do encourage players of Fighter PCs to not use ranged attacks.

It would be nice if 5E design did not include 46 classes like 4E, but instead allowed Fighters to be ranged specialists, Wizards to be Illusionists, etc.

5E could really get away with about 8 to 12 classes where each class allows one to specialize. For example, a Rogue-like PC could specialize into a Thief-like or Assassin-like class. A Ranger could be a Scout. A lot of the extra abilities that were thrown into the mix, just in order to have yet one more similar class, could be part of some type of class specialization.

Thrown Weapons didn't do much for ranged fighters, because all their powers were "Melee".

What gave ranged capabilities to the Fighter were the Essentials subclasses that relies on basic attacks. A Slayer and a Knight can benefit from their stances with ranged weapons just as easily. If they take Melee Training (Dexterity), they can focus on Dex for melee and ranged attacks.

KarinsDad · Mar 4, 2012

Klaus said:
Thrown Weapons didn't do much for ranged fighters, because all their powers were "Melee".

What gave ranged capabilities to the Fighter were the Essentials subclasses that relies on basic attacks. A Slayer and a Knight can benefit from their stances with ranged weapons just as easily. If they take Melee Training (Dexterity), they can focus on Dex for melee and ranged attacks.

Sure they can. But, core Fighters still cannot.

And even these classes showed up 2 years after the game system was released.

Having it now by picking a different class doesn't mean that the 4E game wasn't designed to make it extremely difficult for Fighters in the first place.

And, this didn't start in 4E, it merely arrived in 4E. It started in 3E with the introduction of feats. Melee fighting is inevitable as a general rule for a Fighter PC, so every player that I've ever seen play a Fighter has always taken at least some melee feats, even if they prefer to do ranged combat. But, 3E at least had Fighter bonus feats that could be used for ranged attacking.

This problem did not really exist at all in 1E or 2E. If a Fighter had a decent Dex, that PC could fire off 1 or 2 shots with a bow for a round or two and then close in for melee. This is a somewhat difficult standard D&D character Fighter concept to achieve with 3E or 4E without going through hoops (like taking a subclass or a prestige class or being a Ranger instead or some such).

Even rules like strapping on a Shield takes a Standard action in 4E is anathema to a Fighter that prefers to shoot from range until close combat is required. At least 3E had it as a Move action.

4E dropped the concept of a Fighter being a ranged specialist completely in order for Fighters to be Defenders. Yes, Essentials brought it back a little, but it really is a bit of an issue when the game system tries to straight jacket PCs like this.

tuxgeo · Mar 4, 2012

Belphanior said:
I don't hate any class, but my least liked is the sorcerer.

In 3e it was a wizard, except worse. Less flexible, lags behind one level in spellcasting, and has to pay a price for using metamagic feats. Too heavy a price to pay if all you ever wanted was "not vancian".

In 4e I find them a little boring. Warlocks have more interesting flavor and mechanics which promote mobility and tactics, the sorcerer can literally just hang back and sling spells. Which is not very engaging to me.

But again, I don't hate it. I just like it least.

The Sorcerer is a class in search of a niche, still. I don't remember it's ever being a class until 3rd Edition, starting in 2000, so (unless it showed up somewhere else earlier) that's a class lifetime of 13 years. The whole game is some 38 years old, so the game has had a player-playable Sorcerer for merely a third of its existence.

This means to me that WotC is still feeling out how to use the Sorcerer.
They're getting better as time goes on; but it may be another twelve years before the Sorcerer has a broadly-accepted and -supported game niche -- beyond being NPC villains in Dark Sun, I mean.

Klaus · Mar 4, 2012

KarinsDad said:
Sure they can. But, core Fighters still cannot.

And even these classes showed up 2 years after the game system was released.

Having it now by picking a different class doesn't mean that the 4E game wasn't designed to make it extremely difficult for Fighters in the first place.

And, this didn't start in 4E, it merely arrived in 4E. It started in 3E with the introduction of feats. Melee fighting is inevitable as a general rule for a Fighter PC, so every player that I've ever seen play a Fighter has always taken at least some melee feats, even if they prefer to do ranged combat. But, 3E at least had Fighter bonus feats that could be used for ranged attacking.

This problem did not really exist at all in 1E or 2E. If a Fighter had a decent Dex, that PC could fire off 1 or 2 shots with a bow for a round or two and then close in for melee. This is a somewhat difficult standard D&D character Fighter concept to achieve with 3E or 4E without going through hoops (like taking a subclass or a prestige class or being a Ranger instead or some such).

Even rules like strapping on a Shield takes a Standard action in 4E is anathema to a Fighter that prefers to shoot from range until close combat is required. At least 3E had it as a Move action.

4E dropped the concept of a Fighter being a ranged specialist completely in order for Fighters to be Defenders. Yes, Essentials brought it back a little, but it really is a bit of an issue when the game system tries to straight jacket PCs like this.

Fighters pre-3e had to have high Str, otherwise they'd never be able to do their job (fighting) well. Dex was, at best, a tertiary score for Fighters, behind Strength and Constitution.

KarinsDad · Mar 4, 2012

Klaus said:
Fighters pre-3e had to have high Str, otherwise they'd never be able to do their job (fighting) well. Dex was, at best, a tertiary score for Fighters, behind Strength and Constitution.

Sorry, but not everyone played the earlier versions of the game like you did.

I've seen Dexterity as a primary stat for Fighters in 2E. A 16 Dex was +1 to hit whereas a 16 Strength was +0 to hit. A Fighter could walk around with an 8 Strength in 2E and there wasn't much difference between that and a 15 except for the weight of armor. Encumbrance only affected movement rate, so low Strength fighters were viable.

1E and 2E (shy of house rules) used dice rolling for ability scores. So, one couldn't guarantee a great primary, a good secondary, and an ok tertiary score like in point buy. Lots of PCs had one good score and a few similar secondary scores. Since Dex affected AC and gave a better to hit, some fighters put in higher Dex than Con and sometimes higher Dex than Str.

I ran a ranged specialist Fighter that did this. There was another Fighter in the group, so my PC hung back and fired arrows. Not so much to do damage, but mostly to target spell casters and other ranged foes, and to be a secondary line if we got surrounded. He'd come up and hold a line if necessary, but that wasn't his shtick. Ironically, he died in melee (the thing I tried to keep him out of) getting attacked by 3 trolls because the fighter next to him got knocked back and prone in a corridor (we used knockback/knockdown houserules in those days) and it didn't occur to me to have my PC back up to reform the line, so one troll moved in next to him and the other two attacked from in front. Oops.

Klaus · Mar 4, 2012

Interesting, but again, what you say is true, "not everyone played the earlier versions of the game like you did". IME, a player only rolled up a Fighter if the stats prevented him from playing a Paladin, Ranger or Cavalier. And when we allowed for "roll, then assign stats", the top stat always went to the one that gave the bonus XP.

Fighters were more common in multiclass combinations. I've seen many Fighter/Magic-Users (elf or half-elf), F/M/T (elf), and F/T (dwarves, mostly). More than pure Fighters, even.

Mattachine · Mar 4, 2012

Klaus said:
Fighters were more common in multiclass combinations. I've seen many Fighter/Magic-Users (elf or half-elf), F/M/T (elf), and F/T (dwarves, mostly). More than pure Fighters, even.

In the 18 years I played AD&D and 2e, I never had a player roll up and play a fighter--that would be about 20 different players, many of whom played D&D for as long as I have. There were a few multiclassed fighters (fighter/magic-users and fighter/thieves), and the rest of the warriors were rangers or paladins.

wrightdjohn · Mar 4, 2012

Martial Healing is the issue

I hate Warlord because I hate martial healing. Psionics is a close second. If I only counted editions prior to 4e I'd have voted psionics. The 2e Psionicist was a God.

The favorites in my campaigns were the core. Fighters were played the most. I never had less than one pure fighter. I would occasionally have a fighter/thief too. Wizards and clerics and thieves/rogues were both popular but fighter was most popular.

Aenghus · Mar 4, 2012

For me rogue/thief is the most disliked due to their player's tendency to be troublemaking, thieving instigators who just like stirring things up, robbing everything not nailed down, and pressing every button in sight. Much of their activities are solo affairs, and many of their abilities are binary, success or failure, when they are often in situations where one failure can get them killed or captured.

A close second would be wizards, as the class most likely to hog the spotlight, make a mockery of the referee's plots, and at one and the same time being the most powerful and the most vulnerable PC.

KarinsDad · Mar 4, 2012

Klaus said:
Fighters were more common in multiclass combinations. I've seen many Fighter/Magic-Users (elf or half-elf), F/M/T (elf), and F/T (dwarves, mostly). More than pure Fighters, even.

So, how exactly is it that you had Fighter Thief combinations without a high Dex? Thieves couldn't really wear heavy armor in the early versions. They often wore leather because of the penalties to most of their skills of other armor types. Fighter Thieves could wear heavier armor, but couldn't use thieving skills while wearing it. Fighter Thieves didn't need high Dex for their thieving skills, they needed it for their AC.

Which class do you hate the most?

What is your LEAST favorite class from across the editions?

Assassin

Barbarian

Bard

Cleric

Druid

Fighter

Illusionist

Monk

Psion/psionicist

Ranger

Rogue/thief

Paladin

Sorcerer

Warlock

Warlord

Wizard/magic-user

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