The Quadratic Fighter - rebuilding the class (PEACH)

[harpy]

I've been tinkering with the martial classes, trying to figure out ways to tweak them so that they fall more in line with the power curve of the full casters in the game.

So I decided to go back and look at the now long established "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" issue and decided to just tackle it head on. Why not simply rebuild the Fighter class so that it has a quadratic progression?

It might not work, it might be grossly overpowered, but since there is such a huge disparity between the Wizard and the Fighter in the later levels of the game there ought to be plenty of room to boost the fighter without it becoming problematic.

In addition, because of Star Wars Saga and it's heavy use of talents, and seeing that the Rogue in Pathfinder is also using this method for progression, I thought to rework the fighter using this method. It adds more variety and flavor for the player to work with and I think is ultimately a superior way of customizing most classes.

In terms of sources, I'm drawing upon the updated fighter out of Trailblazer, the Warrior in Fantasy Concepts, and of course the Pathfinder Fighter. The basis of the analysis is building off of the work that Craig Cochrane did with his overhaul of the CR system.

Beat it, mash it, smash it apart... but we can rebuild him... bigger, faster, stronger.

The Quadratic Fighter

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Beat it, mash it, smash it apart...

I can't see that you explicitly accounted for the fact that the fighter has no resource management:

As the wizard uses up his spell slots, his power curve will obviously invert; you're comparing them in a static (fully rested) state-- which is fine, but neither is it negligible from a design standpoint. You have a pretty complex problem to solve and it's going to require a calculus that includes dT (change over time). After 5 rounds, the wizard's power has changed; after 5 encounters, the wizard's power has changed dramatically. Conversely the fighter doesn't suffer any loss of power/resources. (They both have to worry about hit points as a resource; I'm happy to drop them out of the equation but, if not, I'll simply note that the fighter has more.)

Furthermore, I would only count the wizard's top 3-4 levels of spells, as spells below that (regardless of how he tries to optimize) will dramatically fall off in utility with respect to combat power (which, ultimately, is what folks seem to want to compare).

You should probably also "value" the spells quadratically-- so that if a 1st level spell has a value of X, a 9th level spell could have a value of 81X; but you seem to have valued them linearly (4x spell level). The power of spells doesn't actually scale quadratically, I don't believe; but something in the wizard's arsenal needs to be valued quadratically or his power won't actually scale quadratically. Something in there needs to be valued as the square function of our known variable, Level.

Your graph-- ergo your methodology-- seems to show the 1st level wizard starting out with power in excess of the 1st level fighter. That's definitely not the case so I'd send you back to the drawing board.

Personally I don't find it desirable to compare the wizard's ability to cast one or two wish spells at 17th level with anything in the fighter's arsenal. The two classes are not meant to operate under the same (or even remotely analogous) mechanic.

 

[harpy]

Excellent!

I can't see that you explicitly accounted for the fact that the fighter has no resource management:

It was probably somewhat of a mistake, but how I was working the analysis was in part built on the resource of time.

As the wizard uses up his spell slots, his power curve will obviously invert; you're comparing them in a static (fully rested) state-- which is fine, but neither is it negligible from a design standpoint. You have a pretty complex problem to solve and it's going to require a calculus that includes dT (change over time). After 5 rounds, the wizard's power has changed; after 5 encounters, the wizard's power has changed dramatically. Conversely the fighter doesn't suffer any loss of power/resources. (They both have to worry about hit points as a resource; I'm happy to drop them out of the equation but, if not, I'll simply note that the fighter has more.)

One of the principles that I was working with is the notion that on average a combat encounter lasts on average five rounds. So as the wizard goes up in levels the number of spells increases to the point past which you can realistically use in any given encounter.

In the realpolitik of a gaming session, it would seem really difficult to run through five encounters simply because turns take far too long with lots of iterative attacks and high powered spells and powers being flung about, so a 20th level wizard who has 55+ spells prepared is going to have more resources than the game is likely going to push them to expend.

So even though the fighter has less resource management, the limited time of needing to be expending them ends up favoring the wizard more and more.

Still, all of that is very broad in assumption, and fine tuning really is needed.

Furthermore, I would only count the wizard's top 3-4 levels of spells, as spells below that (regardless of how he tries to optimize) will dramatically fall off in utility with respect to combat power (which, ultimately, is what folks seem to want to compare).

I'd agree that it is the top few layers of spells that are going to have the most impact, though the issue of Quicken Spell, along with scrolls and other magic items (which I wasn't accounting for) is another layer that seems to favor the wizard even more. At the highest levels the wizard is going to be able to burn mid level spells to get some of the new still effective low level spells (like grease) to be cast in the same round that a high powered spell is being flung, thus pushing the limited time factor of "rounds per day" even father into wizards corner.

I didn't take those factors into account, seeing them more as a buffer in, what I have to admit, was not as rigorous of a methodology as you'd been using.

You should probably also "value" the spells quadratically-- so that if a 1st level spell has a value of X, a 9th level spell could have a value of 81X; but you seem to have valued them linearly (4x spell level). The power of spells doesn't actually scale quadratically, I don't believe; but something in the wizard's arsenal needs to be valued quadratically or his power won't actually scale quadratically. Something in there needs to be valued as the square function of our known variable, Level.

Your graph-- ergo your methodology-- seems to show the 1st level wizard starting out with power in excess of the 1st level fighter. That's definitely not the case so I'd send you back to the drawing board.

I agree. The math is a bit too ham fisted. I started plugging numbers in and went back to your class rebalance section and followed your and Craig's method.

Now the thing that I'm kind of scratching my head over is that both of you decided to average out the class features over 20 levels. I'm not sure why this was done because it seems like it just flattens the power curve, when that really needs to be highlighted to show the disparity between spellcasters and martial characters.

Plugging all of the numbers in that you and Craig used (and using the .005 value for spell factor multiplication), but not doing the averaging I got:

The numbers for the graph are:

Now, the Wizard was higher that the fighter right from the start mainly because of the familiar being stated out and added to the wizard, rather than just giving the wizard a +0.2.

But the main issue is with the high levels of play. There the the gulf opens up between the wizard and the fighter. But with these new numbers I'm not too sure how to use them. Just by the factors alone a 20th level fighter and 20th level wizard are 162.95 "feats" apart (assuming the 0.2 value for a feat) which if people think 45 feats is too much, would think this factoring absurd.

I know that one avenue would be to try and work out the value of feats as they progress over the levels. A feat gained at first level probably isn't going to be as potent as one that has a level 16 prerequisite. However even there the disparity in power isn't that great compared to 1st level spells vs 9th level spells.

Overall though, I just wanted to get this concept out onto the boards because I haven't found anyone trying to do a quadratic fighter concept. It seems obvious that the fighter's 11 extra feats are inadequate, and so if you just go withe the concept of a fighter being a "feat wizard" then it really just comes down to trying to figure out how many feats should roll out at certain levels.

In the most broad thematic view, the idea is to emulate the AD&D fighter which was more of the "total package" guy who'd gain a large number of proficiencies in weapons. Rather than hyper specializing and becoming a one-trick pony, the fighter can pretty much pick up any weapon and be deadly with it. So if you pack enough feats onto a 3.5 fighter then they have something similar in terms of diversity.

 

[Aus_Snow]

So I decided to go back and look at the now long established "linear fighter, quadratic wizard" issue and decided to just tackle it head on. Why not simply rebuild the Fighter class so that it has a quadratic progression?

You could do that. I went the other way. To each their own.

The class I chose as a reference point, to work out from? Rogue.

In the end, they all looked pretty different (from the Rogue, and from each other) but it was still a nice, easy, and solid base, I felt.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

In the realpolitik of a gaming session, it would seem really difficult to run through five encounters simply because turns take far too long...

The game session is not a relevant measurement of time. The PCs don't reset between game sessions.

I'd agree that it is the top few layers of spells that are going to have the most impact, though the issue of Quicken Spell, along with scrolls and other magic items (which I wasn't accounting for) is another layer that seems to favor the wizard even more.

I was not aware that low level spell slots had been redeemed. Perhaps I should revisit the multiclass spellcaster without the emphasis on those top level spell slots.

At the highest levels the wizard is going to be able to burn mid level spells to get some of the new still effective low level spells (like grease) to be cast in the same round that a high powered spell is being flung.

A mid-level spell slot is a mid-level spell slot regardless of whether or not it's a true mid-level spell or a metamagicked low-level spell. Regardless, mid-level spells fall within the range of "top 3-4 levels of spells."

Now the thing that I'm kind of scratching my head over is that both of you decided to average out the class features over 20 levels. I'm not sure why this was done.

Craig's tool is not well suited to a point-by-point micro-analysis of class power. It is useful as a benchmark. Even if you could get a point-by-point breakdown of the exact power of every class feature, the tool becomes less and less reliable as soon as the first die is rolled. There are simply too many variables in any D&D combat-- too many variables and yet too small a sample size (5 rounds of combat?) for the variance to wash out. The model simply can't maintain any predictive value.

Do NOT mistake precision for accuracy. Craig's system gives the false impression of accuracy because the point-to-point comparisons he uses appear very precise (down to the 1/1000th of a CR).

What Craig does is set baseline values so that you can make apples-to-apples comparisons between the classes. It is still just a benchmark.

If you compare two computers, you will benchmark many different values-- CPU speed/memory, GPU speed/memory, HD access speed, etc.-- hopefully weighting them along the same value scheme, but at the end of the day you'll just look at the "Best Computer" bar graph and see how they shake out.

If the final analysis shows the DELL slightly behind the HP, you can go back and add a better graphics card to the DELL, which WILL improve the final benchmark value of the DELL-- it's a "better" computer than it was-- but don't lose sight of the fact that your benchmark deals with many variables in aggregate. You don't necessarily know if the improvement in graphics speed puts the two computers on the same footing.

That comes down to the accuracy of your value weighting.

I don't have much confidence in the value weighting between feats and spells and-- indeed-- even between feats. There is uncertainty built in to Craig's model and it is not exactly hiding.

... because it seems like it just flattens the power curve, when that really needs to be highlighted to show the disparity between spellcasters and martial characters.

The disparity between spellcasters and martial characters is well known and needs no highlighting. It's also well known that the spellcaster's power scales more quadratically and the fighter scales more linearly.

Is it a problem? And how are you proposing to fix it?

Now, the Wizard was higher that the fighter right from the start mainly because of the familiar being stated out and added to the wizard, rather than just giving the wizard a +0.2.

Ah, I see what you did there. So the familiar is worth more than 0.2. Good methodology.

Is Power Attack worth more than Endurance? Will you apply a different value to each fighter depending on what feats he chooses?

You see where I'm going here, I hope.

But the main issue is with the high levels of play. There the the gulf opens up between the wizard and the fighter. I know that one avenue would be to try and work out the value of feats as they progress over the levels.

Only if the problem warrants the effort.

Overall though, I just wanted to get this concept out onto the boards because I haven't found anyone trying to do a quadratic fighter concept.

Book of Nine Swords.

4e.

 

[Kaisoku]

The reason I'd see fixing the Fighter's linear progression is to give him more options.

A Wizard (or Sorcerer) isn't just getting more "power" at higher levels, he's getting more options that can be interchanged and swapped out as needed.

What the Fighter needs is some way to compete with options.

If you want to just go all out, here's how I'd do it:

Replace each "Bonus Feat" with "Combat Stance/Talent/Pool/etc +1". This is the number of feats the Fighter can train every morning.

Then, give him a feat pool that increases quadratically (2,4,7,10,14,18,23,28,34,40) instead of linearly (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10).
This gives him quadratic options, instead of making his power grow astronomically.

At 20th level, the fighter can have most trees under his belt, he just has to pick which ones he is using today.

If you want to give the Fighter extra options that aren't just combat (to help him have a role outside of fighting), add some extra feats to the list:

Skill Focus (any fighter class skill)
Endurance
Diehard
Fleet
Run
Any +2/+2 feat that has a fighter skill included
Toughness
Master Craftsman
Craft Magic Arms and Armor

Lastly, I might add a few more skills to the Fighter's skill set (Perception, Sense Motive, Knowledge (nobility), and increase his skills to 4 + Int.

There... now we have a Fighter who can adapt to the situation, and has wider options out of combat that are better than a Commoner of the same level.

 

[Kaisoku]

Also, while I'm at it, I'd add some kind of morale boosting bonus.

Yeah, yeah... Bards. But follow me on this one:

Who is the guy that most movies, tv shows, literature, etc, all have as the leader of the group? Who is the person the average commoner looks up to and admires and wants to follow?

The Bard? He's the guy playing music to cheer people up (barring those specific drill sergeant builds).
The Cleric? He's the pious "holier-than-thou" boob.
The Wizard? He's the bookish, mysterious, no-one-understands, snob.
The Sorcerer? Didn't his mom "do-it" with a Dragon or something?
The Rogue? Need I say more?
The Druid? Does he even like people?
The Ranger? That scary guy who just appeared out of no where with a pet wolf? Yikes!
The Barbarian? He's scarier than the wolf!
The Monk? His mouth isn't even in synch with his words!

No.. barring some special story about a unique "classed" character, it's often the layman warrior who leads the group. Both because he's supposed to be knowledgeable with tactics (which really needs to be a knowledge), and because he's the one people want to follow. A man's man.

So give him a morale booster (in place of his Bravery), that can be used to increase a check for anyone (everyone?) within earshot or sight. This can be a check for saves against fear (Hold fast! We've fought worse!), to confirm criticals (Strike hard my friends! Remember his weakspot!), or as a bonus to a single skill check (from the fighter skill set).

Make it a move action to grant the bonus, which could turn into a free action at later levels.
Do it 3 + Cha times per day?

Call it Tactical Leadership.

You could even add feats to expand on this:

Extra Tactics
+2 uses

Tactical Movement
grant a move action

Tactical Strike
grant a single attack

Which, of course, could be chosen for their feat pool in the previous suggestion.

.

This, to me, gives the Fighter some inter-party oomph, without really making him that much more powerful (it's a +5 bonus by 20th), as well as some unique options that are more than just "Hey, it's a another +1!".

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

What the Fighter needs is some way to compete with options.

I disagree, but I'll grant you this for the sake of argument.

This gives him quadratic options, instead of making his power grow astronomically.

That's definitely a more interesting approach to me.

(FWIW, I don't think your sequence is growing quadratically...)

At 20th level, the fighter can have most trees under his belt, he just has to pick which ones he is using today.

This definitely removes the fighter as a choice for the casual gamer and pushes it towards "hard core;" i.e. the assumption that what fighters really want is the same book-keeping exercise that wizards go through every day.

Call me skeptical.

But again, I do appreciate your approach.

 

[Scott DeWar]

Wolf ratbane mentions that the spells of a wizard aare not linear in value as per the level of the spell. I wish to produce a bit of evidence as to the accuracy of his statement with two spells both of the same school: Necromancy.

(I would also like to thank Jreyst for his workon the D20PFSRD as this is my source of the spell informaion.)

first level spell: chill touch- touch attack

A touch from your hand, which glows with blue energy, disrupts the life force of living creatures. Each touch channels negative energy that deals 1d6 points of damage. The touched creature also takes 1 point of Strength damage unless it makes a successful Fortitude saving throw. You can use this melee touch attack up to one time per level.
Targets: creature or creatures touched

for the sake of argument I am assuming a level 18 wizard as this is what is needed to cast a level 9 spell, we are talking 18 victums of d6 damage and 1 str point per hit spread over 18 rounds with a fort save to avoid, if the wizard succeeds at a touch attack.

level 9 spell: Wail of the banshee- sonic attack

When you cast this spell, you emit a terrible, soul-chilling scream that possibly kills creatures that hear it (except for yourself). The spell affects up to one creature per caster level, inflicting 10 points of damage per caster level. Creatures closest to the point of origin are affected first.
Target: one living creature/level within a 40-ft.-radius spread

so, once again we have the 18 th level wizard casting a 9th level spell, this time doing (18 levels times 10 points per level) to 18 different targets. this time it is area of effect and not touch attacks. 180 points and 18 creatures. i don't see this as linear in any way, even in my limited mathamatical abilities. (Very limited at that!)

note that both spells require the same save.

 

[TanisFrey]

In 1st and 2nd edition AD&D they created balance by having different experience charts for each class. This allowed the classes with liner power curves to gain several levels on those with a exponential power curve. Is was not perfect and had some errors at high levels (at level 15+ fighters needed more experience the wizards of equal level, 350,000 vers 250,000.) and some simply needed to cost more like the cleric.


My Suggestion Solution:
Because of the unbalance power curves of the classed in pathfinder and the fact that they included three experience charts lest us to try giving different classes to one of the charts. The nonspell casters get the fast chart, the partial spell caster get the medium chart and the full spell caster get the slow chart.

If someone multiclasses within a chart group than you operate as if standard 3.5ed multiclassing. If a character wants a class outside of their initial group they need to spend a half of the second level experience cost for level one. Any experience gained can be split between groups as the player wants but once dedicated to a group they cannot change it. As for prestige classes I look at the class in question and decide if it will be a nonspell caster or a partial spell caster or a full spell caster.

Example from the 3.5 DMG; the nonspell caster prestige classes: Duelist, Dwarven Defender, Horizon Walker, and Shadowdancer. The partial spell casters form the 3.5 DMG: Arcane Archer, Assassin, Blackguard, Dragon Disciple, and Hierophant. The full spell caster form the 3.5 DMG are: Arcane Trickster, Archmage, Eldritch Knight, Loremaster, Mystic Theurge, Red Wizard and Thaumturgist.


What do you think of this idea.