Stats scaling past 18/19

[Dandu]

Then show us how it is done, my good man.

Show us how you balance the costs of various weapons with that of magical armor and gear, and how you have good Strength for damage and melee accuracy, Dexterity for ranged accuracy, Constitution for hit points, and possibly Intelligence for Combat Expertise. I can argue with your words, but I cannot argue with good math.

I have already retooled my level 12 Fighter with your most excellent advice, and given him a bow and some archery feats.

Now, when he meets an 11 headed Cryohydra, he can whip it out and unleash a furious swarm of arrows at +18/+13/+8 for 1d8+8 damage each, or +16/+16/+11/+6 if using Rapid Shot. Add a +1 to attack and an extra attack at highest BAB if hasted. +17/+17/+7/+12/+7

Let's see... most of those will hit vs an AC of 21. Let's say 3.5 of them hit on average, which deals an average of (4.5+8)*3.5 = 43.75 damage, 21 points of which is healed by the Hydra's fast healing. At this rate, it will take him... about 5 rounds to work through the Hydra's 118 hit points. Such an awesome display of martial might is to be feared and respected in equal measures!

Archery, as clearly demonstrated, does a number on monsters who sit there and take it for extended periods of time. Now all we have to do is figure out how to spot enemies at great distances with a class that does not get Spot as a class skill.

 

[kitcik]

Not to labour the point, but this is why fighters carry ranged weapons. Disrupting spells being cast (for example) is a very fine use of multiple attack per round bow.

Not unless he's invested in Multishot, since you cannot ready a full round action. Note that Manyshot requires Point Blank Shot and Rapid Shot, so you are now investing a lot of feats in archery. And hopefully he has no defense up.

...the multi purpose fighter who at high level has likely got a +5 sword and a +4 bow with +5 arrows in his backpack (or an assortment of munitions) to quick strike at a distance at foes that can threaten him before he can shut down their abilities.

You do know that the +4 bow and +5 arrows don't stack?

Shut down their abilities? How?

If he's solo, you may do what I do when I play a fighter - get a good ranged attack and excellent melee capability. If you fancy a challenge, try it some time. Most fighters have a good DEX score, remember, because platemail is not available at low levels due to cost... so he's going to need it. Maybe, just maybe, you'll shift your position a little, but I do doubt it.

Good at both? Lets see the build. Good Dex score along with Str and Con? A MAD fighter? Let's see it.

 

[Alzrius]

- Being useful and having fun are often two different things. In core, Bards and Fighters are fun, doesn't make them useful.

Leaving aside how having fun is the primary purpose of playing a game, the issue of "useful" is one that's subjective, rather than objective. That's why questions of "builds" to show how "useless" a fighter is are a waste of time - it's going to come down to the situations experienced in during game-play.

- Damage dealing feats are late-chain feats. Removing their reach weapon and reducing their ability to trip prevents them from dealing significant damage, that is if you actually manage to get near enough to trip anything in the first place.

Even if I accepted the premise there, which I don't (you don't need reach weapons, you don't have to spend every feat slot on feat chains, etc.), there's also the question of how much damage is "significant," not to mention the issue that there's a lot that can be done in combat; a fighter is not "useless" if he's not performing his "specialized role" every turn.

What combat doesn't end in under five rounds? Also, I said -replaced-, not -useless-. They're unnecessary, because they've been replaced by a spell.

Quite a few combats don't end in under five rounds. Likewise, there can be multiple combats in a day.

In that quote, I said "effective". You don't need to hyper-optimize a caster to make it oodles more useful than a Fighter, but you do need to optimize a Fighter to hold his weight in a group after about level 6.

This is your experience, which seems to largely be based off of min-maxing, but that doesn't make it an objective truth. It's just your opinion.

If you can't make the Balance check, you can't move inside of a Grease spell. If you fail your check by 5 or more, you fall prone. With their heavy armor, few skill points, and Balance not on their class list anyway, they'll have a very difficult time making that check.

The DC there is 10, which means that on the die roll, they have a greater than 50% chance of succeeding. Likewise, not every fighter wears heavy armor, and there's no particular reason to say that they wouldn't spend their skill points in a cross-class skill. This entire line of logic is based off of the "optimized" build, which showcases - again - how it falls apart as soon as those expectations are disrupted.

Assuming they can even make it to the caster.

Which is not at all a big assumption.

There isn't any bending involved. Playing strictly by the book is all that is necessary.

You're confusing your terms here. Assuming that the rules are some sort of straitjacket for how the game is "supposed" to be played does not mean that you're playing it "by the book." Acting as though failing to optimize is some sort of aberrant way of playing is, in fact, bending the rules.

Casters are more able to deal with surprise scenarios than Fighters, too. A Fighter who loses 80% of his resources is down to 20% HP and almost out of consumables. A caster teleports home and rests for a night in his safe, warm bed.

See, this again proves the problem with this line of thinking. It presumes that the wizard has teleport, is willing to teleport away (abandoning the party), manages to successfully teleport (chance of off-target arrival), that home is a safe location, won't be followed or scryed on, etc. Not to mention the idea that losing 80% of aggregated resources will mean that hit points are likewise down to exactly 20% (and, for that matter, that the adventuring day will follow such strictly-measured percentages to begin with).

All assumptions that don't always, and indeed rarely, hold true.

Casters generally have great Will saves, making Silence ineffective in targeting them.

This is the same flawed reasoning. You presume that having a good save progression means that anything that uses that save is somehow ineffective. That's not only not true, but it ignores the rest of ways possible to use even one spell (e.g. put silence near a spellcaster, which allows no save).

Also, I like that you're trying to counter casters with casters, because that is the only effective way to do it.

I like that you're missing the larger point, which is that spellcasters won't always render a fighter ineffective with even a slight change to those optimized scenarios and builds you keep presenting - how that happens doesn't really matter (since it can happen a virtually infinite number of ways).

 

[kingius]

The archery feats are all fighter bonus feats (as you already know).

I never said that the arrows and bow pluses stack. It's the higher of the two that are used.

You might favour constitution over dexterity, but for a good multipurpose fighter, favour dexterity over constitution. This assists with ranged weapon strikes.

Shutting down abilities was in reference to disrupting spells so that they are not cast, taking the initiative so that tactically the battle is now going your way and (even better) eliminating them from the battlefield altogether. For example, ranged attacks against an enemy without a ranged attack or has dangerous touch attacks or multiple attacks per round that can penetrate your armour.

Why do you need to see a build to see the sense in this? I suppose it's because I'm right in that you've never solo'd with a high level fighter and had to cover as many scenarios as possible with him.

 

[kitcik]

Why do you need to see a build to see the sense in this? I suppose it's because I'm right in that you've never solo'd with a high level fighter and had to cover as many scenarios as possible with him.

If you can build a fighter that can do these things against a competent wizard, lets see it. I have played D&D since 1978 and, since the onset of 3E, I have not seen it. [Sidenote: I never played 2E - I played 1E until the release of 3E. In 1E, with the vastly different spell disruption rules, fighters were better in PVP, although still one-dimensional.]

Admittedly, I've never solo'd a high level fighter - because I have more than one friend to play D&D with. However, my current character is a 14th level thri-kreen monk / warblade. He is fun and can dish the damage like an all star (ubercharger), but there are a LOT of no-win situations for him where he needs the wizard or druid (we have no cleric) to step in.

 

[kingius]

Fair enough, but why must it be turned into an argument about fighters vs mages? We've all took down high level mages that were villains in campaigns I am sure so it seems downright bizarre to me that a simple statement about high level fighters being powerful should turn into some kind of class vs class theoretical gladiatorial combat and demands to see character builds.

Every class has its strengths and weaknesses /by design/ so that they complement each other. Yes, even the beloved wizard does. Just because you wouldn't pick a fighter at high level doesn't make them somehow weak. If you want to play a mage that's fine by me, but please stop trying to make out that somehow the fighter is 'useless' because it's utter nonsense.

 

[kitcik]

Well I agree with this to a point.

The point is this: D&D is designed around many concepts, two of which are:
- fighting CR appropriate challenges
- adventuring in mixed parties

These are not absolutes, and you can have plenty of fun totally ignoring them, but they are a part of the game as designed.

Contemplating these two concepts, you can conclude the following:

1) A fighter, no matter how well designed, is incapable of overcoming certain theoretically CR appropriate challenges at high levels. Full casters do not suffer from this issue.

2) A full caster, at high levels, can completely fulfill the fighter's role as well as add significant additional utility (see a cleric with Divine Might or a wild-shaped druid or a Shapechanged wizard). A fighter, on the other hand, cannot fulfill the caster's role.

It is these tow things, which certainly can be ignored if the group (including the DM) chooses to, which lead to the conclusion that the high level fighter is useless.

This conclusion will stand unless you can demonstrate a buid that overcomes these two points.

 

[kingius]

...or until a scenario comes up that can overwhelm a single high level wizard and he wishes he had a fighter around to help back him up which would be _useful_ by definition (as opposed to _useless_ by definition). To simulate just such a scenario, simply increase the Challenge Rating.

 

[kitcik]

...or until a scenario comes up that can overwhelm a single high level wizard and he wishes he had a fighter around to help back him up which would be _useful_ by definition (as opposed to _useless_ by definition). To simulate just such a scenario, simply increase the Challenge Rating.

This is your worst post.

The caster can simply summon (or become) a creature which is more powerful than a fighter. Or leave, summon one, and come back.

Faced with a similar overwhelming challenge (in which he needs an ally), a single high level fighter can do nothing.

Sure, having a fighter around is marginally useful. It's just not necessary. For instance, in your scenario, the "single high level wizard" would be better off with another caster, say a druid or cleric, than with a fighter. Under ANY circumstances (OK, let's not have the antimagic area argument because that gets too technical on RAW for antimagic).

Don't believe me? Name a CR appropriate encounter for a single 20th level character, and lets see what a full caster can do. Then I will name one and see what your fighter can do. One such encounter would be PVP.

 

[Alzrius]

kitcik, I wanted to weigh in with my thoughts here, I hope you don't mind.

Well I agree with this to a point.

The point is this: D&D is designed around many concepts, two of which are:
- fighting CR appropriate challenges
- adventuring in mixed parties

These are not absolutes, and you can have plenty of fun totally ignoring them, but they are a part of the game as designed.

I linked to a blog article on a previous page talking about how the first point ("CR-appropriate challenges") is much more flexible than the oft-cited "four encounters of CR equal to the party's level" paradigm. Hence, that particular point is something of a loose guideline, at best.

Contemplating these two concepts, you can conclude the following:

1) A fighter, no matter how well designed, is incapable of overcoming certain theoretically CR appropriate challenges at high levels. Full casters do not suffer from this issue.

I don't believe this to be the case. Presuming that you limit "CR-appropriate encounters" to monsters, then there's no particular monster that a fighter is "incapable" of overcoming. (e.g. the Tarrasque requires a wish to stay dead, but a ring of three wishes can step in there, as all characters have a certain amount of assumed gear values).

If you presume that such challenges include environmental ones (e.g. a fighter plane shifted to the Negative Energy Plane), then magic items are again the answer (e.g. a cubic gate).

If that seems like a cop-out, it isn't meant to be. Any of these scenarios could be equally deadly for a spellcaster with the wrong spells known or prepared, or is unable to cast them for some reason. Appropriate gear value is a part of character design, but the assumption of appropriate gear is like the assumption of appropriate spells...just an assumption.

2) A full caster, at high levels, can completely fulfill the fighter's role as well as add significant additional utility (see a cleric with Divine Might or a wild-shaped druid or a Shapechanged wizard). A fighter, on the other hand, cannot fulfill the caster's role.

There are a few different answers here, but one of the best ones is that this isn't any different than a fighter or rogue with a good UMD score and a set of scrolls.

Simply put, it's not really that hard for any class to step into another's role, and they can even be good at it for a little bit of time, but it's going to cost them resources that the intended class usually won't have to expend (or at least not as much) and can do longer.

It is these tow things, which certainly can be ignored if the group (including the DM) chooses to, which lead to the conclusion that the high level fighter is useless.

The thing here is that it's not that these are "ignored" so much as they are "focused on too much." See below for more on why.

This conclusion will stand unless you can demonstrate a buid that overcomes these two points.

The conclusion doesn't stand for reasons previously listed, but the larger point here is that a particular build doesn't really matter that much. Simply put, in a game where you can (attempt to) do anything, and virtually anything can happen, there's no build that's going to be universally - or even usually - "better" than another. Character build is only one part of the equation.

Now, if you have what is essentially the same type of encounter occurring in what is essentially the same pattern, then yes, certain responses will be better than others, but that's not the fault of the game. That's because you're doing the same thing over and over.