When did the Fighter become "defender"?

Imaro · May 10, 2012

pemerton said:
I quoted p15 of the 4e PHB above. Here it is again:

The classic adventuring party includes one character of each role: wizard, fighter, cleric, and rogue.

Character roles identify which classes can stand in for each other. For example, if you don’t have a cleric in your party, a warlord serves just as well in the leader role.

Roles also serve as handy tools for building adventuring parties. It’s a good idea to cover each role with at least one character. . . If you don’t have all the roles covered, that’s okay too—it just means that the characters need to compensate for the missing function.

4e is not geared towards a certain party composition. In fact, I would say it is very robust across a wide range of party compositions. Part of the logic of its flexible PC buid rules, retraining rules, magic item wishlists, etc is to put a good deal of the onus on the players to build PCs that they find mechanically satisfying.

That said, the DMG does give good advice on the mechanical side of party building, including how different sorts of terrain affect different PC roles. This is one respect in which the 4e DMG is not at all deficient.

Emphasis mine... I would claim pg.10 in the DMG seems to contradict you on this point... you know where it cautions against not filling the four roles and gives the DM advice on how missing roles will affect encounters.

Argyle King · May 10, 2012

Ideally, I think I view the melee classes as something like this:

Offense...........Balance.........Defense
Barbarian<----Fighter----->Paladin

Through things such as feats or various other choices, the fighter might move one direction or the other, but never be quite as good offensively as a barbarian optimized for offense nor quite as much of a tank defensively as a Paladin optimized for defense. A Paladin might move a little more toward the direction of fighter and barbarian, but not be able to move as far away from the tank/defense role (without multiclassing); a Barbarian could likewise make choices to move a little more toward the direction of fighter and paladin, but not be able to move as far away from the striker/heavy hitter role (without multiclassing.) The fighter's strength would be versatility; part of that versatility possibly being defined by weapon choice.

Fifth Element · May 10, 2012

Imaro said:
Emphasis mine... I would claim pg.10 in the DMG seems to contradict you on this point... you know where it cautions against not filling the four roles and gives the DM advice on how missing roles will affect encounters.

I think it's an overstatement to say that 4E is not geared (to some degree) to a standard party composition. I would, however, say that it is less so than previous editions.

Bedrockgames · May 10, 2012

pemerton said:
The claim being made is that the fighter is a bodyguard rather than an "into the fray" combatant.

And the retort is that, while any given player may choose to play their fighter like that, there is no mechanical support for playing a 4e fighter in that way (eg the fighter doesn't get many immediate actions which would support such an approach, unlike the paladin) and there is a huge mechanical incentive for the player of a fighter to get into the fray: namely, it's the only way (i) to mark, and (ii) to enforce your mark.

The only similarity I note between these two arguments is that one side - the 3E wizard is overpowered side, and the 4e fighter is not a bodyguard side - refers to the mechanics to support their claims, while the other side refers to mechanics-indepenent choices (like "we didn't make wands" or "we didn't scribe scrolls" or "my 4e fighter chose not to mark, because I thought the rulebook told me to play him as a bodyguard".)

There is a genuine difference of perspective here, but in my view it has very little to do with thresholds. It's to do with those who regard the mechanics as constitutive of the game, and those whose outlook is in some fundamental way that of freeforming, with social contract carrying a huge burden of both PC build and action resolution (but they still use the mechanics sometimes, for some things, although I'm not entirely clear what).

But in my view there can be no legitimate perspective on 4e's fighter mechanics that suggest that the 4e fighter is not mechanically well suited to being in the thick of melee. Between AC, hp, marking rules, and the almost complete absence of non-melee/close burst attacks, being in melee is the only way a fighter can bring any of his/her mechanical features and attributes to bear.

Saying that 4e's fighter mechanics encourage bodyguarding is as absurd as saying that AD&D's wizard mechanics encourage being a frontline melee combatant.

It all depends on what one means precisely when one says "Fighter as Bodyguard". People have been speaking in vague terms and I think there is plenty of room for varying interpretations when you are talking about hazy ideas like "the 4E fighter feels like a bodyguard" or "they don't excel at melee". What you regard as excelling at melee isn't going to be the same as what others do, and a lot of it is going to pivot on how one sees the other roles stepping into that space. If you want to challenge a specific mechanical claim that is fine, but I think you are drawing some overly confident conclusions here.

Argyle King · May 10, 2012

Being that it's possible for a 4E fighter to out-dps some of 4E's striker classes, I think it's a hard argument to make that fighters are not capable in melee.

Herschel · May 10, 2012

Imaro said:
Ok, first please clarify what you mean by "short bursts"... because I have run and played in D&D games where inter-party rivalry and conflict changed depending upon the actions of the PC's.

Second what exactly about the earlier D&D systems hinders PvP conflict?

The fact that it was poorly balanced. A low-level wizard gets owned by a house cat, let alone a fighter or Cleric. Once you get to high levels, the Fighter is hosed unless he starts on the Wizard or gets on him first. Rocket tag does not equal balance.

Bedrockgames · May 10, 2012

Johnny3D3D said:
Being that it's possible for a 4E fighter to out-dps some of 4E's striker classes, I think it's a hard argument to make that fighters are not capable in melee.

If that is your metric I think the argument is probably on sounder ground than some of the other claims people have made about fighters. Now I am only familiar with the PHB, DMG and MM (since I never bothered with the other books) and my understanding is things did improve with some of the later releases. But I found this very hard to do the times I made a 4E fighter. I am no master builder when it comes to 4E, but the few times I did make and play fighters I found their DPS generally behind the strikers (which seems to make sense since that is the purpose of the striker in the game).

I did find this thread and see some suggestions on how to address the issue, but even if there is a "can out-dps strikers here" I imagine it is probably even easier for a striker to out-perform the fighter who succeeds in this area with a an equal amount of elbow grease. On the whole it looks like people are pretty divided on this point:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-discussion/316956-advice-friends-dps-fighter.html

Imaro · May 10, 2012

Herschel said:
The fact that it was poorly balanced. A low-level wizard gets owned by a house cat, let alone a fighter or Cleric. Once you get to high levels, the Fighter is hosed unless he starts on the Wizard or gets on him first. Rocket tag does not equal balance.

Uhmm, this doesn't explain why it's poorly suited to PvP or inter-party conflict. I guess it explains why you wouldn't enjoy it for such purposes... but I don't think balance is necessary for PvP or inter-party conflict to be played out. As an offhand example...I don't think Vampire is particularly balanced between PC's... but it still promoted and was fun to play PvP and resolve conflicts between PC's. Oh, and the low-level wizard can own a fighter with Sleep and/or Color Spray, I've seen it happen in play.

Imaro · May 10, 2012

Fifth Element said:
I think it's an overstatement to say that 4E is not geared (to some degree) to a standard party composition. I would, however, say that it is less so than previous editions.

Yeah, but now we're in the realm of subjective measures and opinion.

Fifth Element · May 10, 2012

Imaro said:
Yeah, but now we're in the realm of subjective measures and opinion.

Absolutely, but let's not forget the context: blaming the 4E roles for an issue that has always existed in the game. My subjective judgment that this issue is less important in 4E than in other editions doesn't change that.

When did the Fighter become "defender"?

Imaro

Legend

Argyle King

Legend

Fifth Element

Legend

Bedrockgames

Legend

Argyle King

Legend

Herschel

Adventurer

Bedrockgames

Legend

Imaro

Legend

Imaro

Legend

Fifth Element

Legend

Similar Threads