Fighter design goals . L&L April 30th

[mlund]

These are all good signs.

Being the best at fighting means you are, given the circumstance of a fight where two sides are trying to beat each other up, the fighter is the best aggregate combination of dishing out and taking a beating. What that translates to in terms of damage, damage resistance, and battlefield control is anyone's guess (and will probably vary fighter-to-fighter).

The one mechanical hurdle I'm hoping they design around are the save-or-suck scenarios pointed at fighters. A fighter who just ignores all non-HP attacks is just as negative an experience as a fighter who is constantly taken out of the fight by Enchantment effects. If the fighter has a simple mechanic for burning HP to "fight through" negative effects I'd be very pleased. Heck, if everyone had that option but the fighter was just better at it by virtue of his massive reserves of Hit Points that would be even better!

I also don't want the fighter producing a massive series of attack rolls ever round to keep up with the wizard. I'd like a high-level fighter to have a huge aura of beat-down that's constantly on. Enter an Epic-level fighter's threat radius (and he cuts a rather wide swath, I must say) and just eat damage to the face, no rolls necessary. Chafe swarms in armies should die whenever an epic fighter takes a move action through their space - seriously. He's just a carnival of carnage to his enemies.

As to the best jouster, swordsman, and archer being fighters - Mearls didn't say anything about them being the same fighter. The class is versatile, and fighters should generally be excellent with all weapons of war. There's nothing there saying a fighter can't become a specialist with a particular weapon. That's actually a long-standing tradition.

- Marty Lund

 

[GX.Sigma]

I am very much against fighter specialization. Rather than repeat myself, I'm just going to quote myself:

"
I understand that someone might want to "be good with swords," but that necessarily means they're not as good with other weapons. Thus, any weapon you pick up that isn't a sword is basically useless.

Why not just say, Fighters can use swords, axes, spears, maces, and bows, and then the player can just use whichever they want. So if you want to use a sword, just use a sword (rather than spending character resources on it at the expense of other weapon types).
...
If a fighter needs to specialize to "keep up," all that means is that he's only useful with whatever he specialized in, and not useful with anything else. Specialization is not a bonus, it's a punishment.
"

Now, with news of combat maneuvers, it's interesting to see how they'll go with weapon specialization. It could be that every other level, you get a combat maneuver, and many of them only work with certain kinds of weapons. I think that would be fine; if you use a sword all the time you can do tricky stuff with swords, but you can still pick up a bow and be good at shooting.

 

[kave99]

I believe this is the First public playtest WOTC has done, how are "and no one I sure how long it will run or what exactly is in the PT. How is WOTC ..."So, like before, they're going to let us actually have the rules when it's too late to have input on them?" How many WOTC PTs have you participated in so far ?

Maybe we can stop BASHING the playtest until you have it, & have played it for a week or Two. Rally, the sky is NOT falling.

They did for 4th in much the same way though it was far closer (if I recall correctly) to the release date. At the time many long time (eg old guys) players where excluded ( at lest that's the way it appeared) from the closed play tests. As I recall we did not get a vary good feel for the game from it though it did spark a lot of intreging conversations.

 

[Oni]

If a wizard, a limited resource class, throws everything they have at a fighter and the fighter can consistently shrug it off the bulk of the time then that is very poor design indeed.

 

[frankthedm]

If a wizard, a limited resource class, throws everything they have at a fighter and the fighter can consistently shrug it off the bulk of the time then that is very poor design indeed.

I'd say it is poor design for the wizard to be ABLE to throw everything at one target in one single combat. If a ruleset lets a character go nova, that is a no go for me.

 

[Oni]

I'd say it is poor design for the wizard to be ABLE to throw everything at one target in one single combat. If a ruleset lets a character go nova, that is a no go for me.

If you want to take is so literally I would be forced to agree, but I say everything based on the language used in the blog post.

Even if a wizard unleashes every spell at his or her disposal at a fighter, the fighter absorbs the punishment, throws off the effects, and keeps on fighting.

Really I take that to mean that to mean the best of the best from their small pool of higher level spells that they could get off in a few round combat. Traditionally wizards are a nova class, since the power of their daily allotment of resources varies, and if they blow all their best spells in one combat then they have essentially gone nova, they've burned bright at the expense of later, and that is fine by me, actually I would say it's an essential part of the experience. If going nova somehow means blowing the action economy out of the water I'm not so okay with that.

 

[WarlockLord]

I don't see this actually working. Note their fighter did not get good saves, can't fly under his own power (oh, so necessary), and, as I said earlier, all of the mythical fighter things in the article can be done by a mid-level wizard.

Kill 400 mooks? Spam fireball. Not even impressive by D&D standards.

Rip off a monster's arm? Disintegrate. Level 11.

Kill a dragon in one hit? SoD OR Shivering Touch (level 5).

Not to mention the fighter's entire "take melee damage, hit things" schtick is entirely invalidated by throwing away expendable summons.

And none of this counters the teleporting flying demon wizard.

PS: No, Pathfinder fighters cannot beat wizards. Wizard spell DCs went up (as every race gets mental ability bonuses), they got more spells a day due to PF specialization mechanics, stupid class features like "I go first" (diviner) or "bigger army of skeletons" (necromancer) and they still have plenty of "I win" like charm, dominate, magic jar, fly, gate, planar binding, suffocate, web, hideous laughter,plane shift...do I need to continue? Meanwhile, Pathfinder nerfed power attack. Mr. Mearls, please do not emulate Pathfinder.

 

[am181d]

And none of this counters the teleporting flying demon wizard.

Eh. My fighter and his trusty small room can take your teleporting flying demon wizard any day of the week.

 

[Grimmjow]

i love the idea of the fighter gaining a lot of versatility

 

[WheresMyD20]

The myths and legends where the guy with the sword is the star of the show, often killing the guy in robes with glowing hands?

Please provide examples.