Fighters vs. Spellcasters (a case for fighters.)

[Wicht]

Can you achieve a good cause through impure means?

You are begging the question that violence is inherently impure and death is inherently bad. Real-world morality and religious arguments aside, Dungeons and Dragons is pretty much built on the assumption that those two philosophical extremes are not true. As a cheerful eater of meat, I can easily accept the position the game world poses, which is that violence is an acceptable tool/mechanic to achieving righteous ends. Those who are so diametrically opposed to the idea in real life, that they cannot accept the moral matrix of the game, are advised to try a different endeavor which does not require killing copious amounts of one's enemy to achieve greatness.

 

[TwoSix]

If you can't see the "there," I can't help you. The experience is different enough for me, and, being solely representative of myself, it is enough for me.

De gustibus non est disputandum. I can see doing it if there's no casters, of you're in a low-tier or E6 game, but at mid-high levels, I find it crippling.

 

[ImperatorK]

The other casters don't try to fight in melee, aside from the druid who has a handy pet.

I was under the impression that we're talking about the casters matching the Fighter. I did mention buffs after all, and I wasn't just talking about the Cleric. I see you had something else in mind for non-Clerics.

 

[Wicht]

De gustibus non est disputandum. I can see doing it if there's no casters, of you're in a low-tier or E6 game, but at mid-high levels, I find it crippling.

Hasn't been yet in our game. In point of fact, when fighting enemy spellcasters, the melee warriors tend to be the ones who do the best at high levels, perhaps because there are no saving throws against a sword. Our current campaign, admittedly right now only at 6th level, the bow using ranger and the fighter/barbarian far eclipse the evocation wizard for damage per round, though as noted some pages earlier, her consistency in dealing damage makes sure there are few rounds where the party does not make progress against the foes. But we have played higher levels and the party always worked well together (if they wanted to survive), and the fighters have always played their part in the team.

 

[ImperatorK]

In point of fact, when fighting enemy spellcasters, the melee warriors tend to be the ones who do the best at high levels, perhaps because there are no saving throws against a sword.

Oh, but there are. They're called AC. But first the fighter has to even hit the caster, which might be hard considering he's invisible, flying, incorporeal, behind a wall of summons, polymorphed into some uber war machine, etc. But that would mean the caster is actually using the vast and powerful options he possesses, which is preposterous, I know.

 

[Wicht]

Oh, but there are. They're called AC, miss chances. And I won't even mention the fact that a caster can make himself unreachable to a melee fighter.

Then the melee fighter is unprepared. Its called a bow. One of our recent fights was, in fact, against a flying demon. It was the ranger with her bow that was most effective (ridiculously so) against the thing.

As for AC, it is often the case that there is only a 1 in 20 chance that the fighter is going to miss, especially at high levels.

 

[Wicht]

But why are we hashing this out again, I thought it was already determined the disparity had more to do with play-styles then rules as written.

 

[TwoSix]

Hasn't been yet in our game. In point of fact, when fighting enemy spellcasters, the melee warriors tend to be the ones who do the best at high levels, perhaps because there are no saving throws against a sword. Our current campaign, admittedly right now only at 6th level, the bow using ranger and the fighter/barbarian far eclipse the evocation wizard for damage per round, though as noted some pages earlier, her consistency in dealing damage makes sure there are few rounds where the party does not make progress against the foes. But we have played higher levels and the party always worked well together (if they wanted to survive), and the fighters have always played their part in the team.

I'm curious as to what your higher level games look like. In mine, it's usually been the party casters distribute the important buffs amongst themselves (mass resist energy, freedom of movement, haste) we make sure to have teleport ready for a quick extraction, and we spell-load our offense based on what we're fighting (dispel magic or greater dispel magic vs humanoids, Will save targeters and debuffs via large guys, assay SR via outsiders, elemental effects if vulnerable, Fort save targeters via casters). We've always had a melee guy, so we drop some buffs on him so we don't have to rez him when he dies. In an ideal all-caster party, we'd let the druid, cleric, or summons handle the melee part.

 

[Dandu]

You are begging the question that violence is inherently impure and death is inherently bad. Real-world morality and religious arguments aside, Dungeons and Dragons is pretty much built on the assumption that those two philosophical extremes are not true. As a cheerful eater of meat, I can easily accept the position the game world poses, which is that violence is an acceptable tool/mechanic to achieving righteous ends. Those who are so diametrically opposed to the idea in real life, that they cannot accept the moral matrix of the game, are advised to try a different endeavor which does not require killing copious amounts of one's enemy to achieve greatness.

So your previous statement about "Rather, any PC that does these things is going to have major in-campaign consequences, and NPCs that do it define themselves as villains" is either wrong or needs to be qualified.

And the PCs can slaughter as many barmaids as they want as long as the Paladin casts Detect Evil on them first.

 

[TwoSix]

But why are we hashing this out again, I thought it was already determined the disparity had more to do with play-styles then rules as written.

You responded to this post. It was about 40 posts back. Since we all like arguing, here we are again.

And, in coming full circle, many people's problem with 3.X is that spellcasters are granted those abilities by RAW, and must be remediated by either Rule 0 or focused non-neutral scene framing. Which is to say predetermined counter-measures, or focused enemy attention based on the presence of the spell effect, not necessarily the effects. And remember, in enshrining an objective campaign world as the ideal, it's not trivial to determine where those countermeasures are coming from. You can't just put them in ex post facto. Not saying it's not doable, but it often requires your world to be reshaped around D&D spell assumptions. I mean, just as an example, how do you stop a mid-level druid from destroying towns with Control Winds? Is it tacit social contract, Rule 0 as to the spell effects, or an in-game countermeasure?