D&D 4E [4e] Wizard as good as a Fighter in Standard Melee

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If I pick a 3E 1st Fighter and a 3E 1st Wizard with the same strength and the same weapon all the Fighter has is a +1 advantage to attacks. Same as the 4E Fighter thanks to his Weapon talent. Once you add at-will powers, the Fighter suddenly can deal damage on a miss, push foes around, hit better or hit adjacent foes to his original target.

Once you add levels and ignore all those class abilities, you're getting strange results. The Fighter class abilities will make him more powerful in melee (weapon) combat then the Wizard is in melee (weapon) combat.

In 3E, it takes 20 levels to get to a +5 difference in attacks, which is a lot on a d20, but nothing compared to the differences taking into account if you also consider different in strength (due to ability increases, starting score, and magical items) and differences in weapon uses (enhancement bonus) and feats.

 

[ValhallaGH]

Also, I was thinking about this more in terms of how the game was designed. Since I'm looking to design YetAnotherRPGSystem, I've been looking over many that are out there and this struck me as a not so small departure from the previous DND systems

If you're looking at the underlying design philosophies, then the second half of my first post is exactly what you want to read.

 

[Engilbrand]

Other than the +1 bonus for Fighters, you're absolutely correct. BUT, as people have point out, that doesn't matter. It's a non-issue. What about the d20? It's theoretically possible for a Fighter and Wizard to stand in front of each other wailing away. If the Wizard gets lucky constantly on the d20 and the Fighter doesn't, the Wizard will probably win. So what? That's a worthless theoretical situation that could happen in literally every game in existence. As such, people don't usually think about it. The mechanics on the page and the "reality" of the gaming world are not identical. If, for some unknown reason, you have a game where the Fighter ditches his Strength and the Wizard constantly increases his, they had better have a lot of other things going on. If not, they're going against the purpose of the game and playing it wrong. Yeah. I said it. They're playing it wrong.

 

[Patlin]

A 30th level Fighter and a 30th level wizard built in absolutely bizzarre ways might have similar melee basic attacks, although the fighter will still have an edge. If you compare the best melee power of each, however, you'll see who the melee character is. That, and the assumption that a fighter and a wizard will have similar strength throughout their careers is fairly silly. One or both of them would have to be actively shooting himself in the foot to make that happen. Even if they somehow started with the same strength, the Fighter's strength should be 6 points higher than the Wizard's by 28th level.

To emphasize: 4e is all about the powers. Compare a high level fighter power to a wizard's melee base attack and you will see that a single class fighter and a single class wizard don't compare in melee.

 

[Thanee]

If true, then it seems the fighter is only a good fighter because of his feats and such.

A wizard is only a good wizard because of his or her spells and such, so that evens out.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Puggins]

If true, then it seems the fighter is only a good fighter because of his feats and such. Beyond those extras, he not really much better at fighting than any other class even though he's supposed to have been trained and been working on fighting all his adventuring career, while the wizard may have never even touched a melee weapon before the above combat.

(1) Incorrect. The wizard is proficient with the dagger- he is trained in its use, and knows how to swing it competently.

(2) Like about a dozen other arguments and observations, you're making wildly strange assumptions. The wizard in your argument will be so focused on melee combat that his spellcasting will be mediocre compared to other wizards, and he will still look like a complete buffoon in actual melee combat compared to the fighter.

You don't have to take my word for it- design a 1st level wizard with 18str, then design a 1st level fighter with 18str and focus on two-handed weapons. Then throw them a dagger and send 'em up against a goblin warrior. The wizard's survival will be in serious doubt- he will die quite often, perhaps more than half the time. The fighter will laugh heartily at the goblin and proceed to gut it 19 times out of 20, if not more often.

Things will only get worse as you progress in levels too. That high strength wizard (wielding a +3 dagger) will get absolutely owned at 15th level by a 15th level standard mob. I doubt you'll see him win at all. The fighter will, once again, win practically every match-up on a fairly regular basis- though he'll likely be forced to sweat sometimes, given that he's using such a cruddy weapon.

So I ask you- where's the problem?

 

[Doctor Proctor]

Here's another issue too. Say all equipment is the same, Strength is the same score, Wisdom is the same (and grants a positive modifier), etc... The fighter can move away from the Wizard, provoking an opportunity attack in doing so, and then charge at the Wizard. This grants a +1 to hit, which when combined with his class feature of a +1 to one-handed or two-handed weapons (player choice at creation) means a +2. Now, have the Wizard try the same thing... The Fighter will get an OA, add his Wis mod to the hit roll, and if he hits it will stop the Wizard's movement. This means the Wizard cannot charge, and he must make a melee basic. Both will get an OA and a basic melee each round, but the Fighter will hit more because of his OA bonus and the charge bonus. Therefore, even if they had the same hit points, the Wizard would lose a war of attrition over time. Even if you take out the Wis mod, the Wizard still loses.

Whenever you strip away every feature of a PC and try to match them up with equivalent ability scores they'll come out the same, because they are the same. A Rogue with the same Strength and weapons will hit like the Wizard because there's no way to get sneak attack. The Ranger is probably the only class that could take a Fighter on under these conditions, and that's because of his Hunter's Quarry feature.

It doesn't mean the system is broken though, just that you're stripping away everything that makes one PC a "Wizard" and the other a "Fighter".

 

[Doctor Proctor]

And to be even more blunt about it, take any random set of ability scores, equal them, use the same non-proficient weapon and they will hit at the same rate. "Duh", you say? Well of course! There's no differentiation in an ability score spread. No race, no class, no features, no powers, no proficiencies, no hit points. All you're doing in your example is just going one level above that and add in the class. You didn't even include race, which would change things. If you used Dwarves, for example, they have a Wisdom bonus. This would benefit the Fighter, and not the Wizard, and allow him to use the move+charge move to more effect. Any change beyond the ability scores serves to differentiate PC's and their class.

 

[F5]

You could look at this issue a different way, which does a better job of explaining the design philosophy behind 4E, as I understand it.

Take a Fighter, with an 18 strength, proficient in a longsword, and put him up against a Wizard, with an 18 intelligence, using an Implement he's proficient with. This is, I think, a much more reasonable assumption. The result being that the wizard will be hitting with his spells about as well as the fighter will with his sword.

The OP didn't play 3E, so wasn't familiar with the frustration of a wizard, and their low BAB, trying to hit a level-appropriate target with a ranged spell like Acid Arrow.

Yes, it's correct to say that the baseline to-hit calculation is the same for all characters. This is so that, once all appropriate modifiers have been applied, they all hit with their respective attacks/powers/spells/whatever at the same rate.

The fighter will still be better than the wizard at swinging a sword, once all other modifiers are taken into account, but the wizard will be better than the fighter at doing their wizard thing.

 

[Lacyon]

In 4e, take a wizard and fighter using the same melee weapon (staff, dagger, etc) in which both are proficient, and happen to have the same strength (i.e. the fighter didn't really go out to max his STR and the wizard wanted to be kind-of tough and upped his STR higher than a normal wizard). Now, if both were to attack an opponent with a standard melee attack (no feats), then is it true that they would both have the same chance to-hit? Even when they are level 10, 20, 30 (assuming they upped their strength equally over the levels)?

The Fighter gets also a +1 to hit if the weapon is part of his weapon style (he chooses 1-handed or 2-handed at 1st level)

If true, then it seems the fighter is only a good fighter because of his feats and such. Beyond those extras, he not really much better at fighting than any other class even though he's supposed to have been trained and been working on fighting all his adventuring career, while the wizard may have never even touched a melee weapon before the above combat.

The fighter is also a good fighter because his attacks (hit or miss; ranged, melee, close, or area) cause the target to become marked (having a -2 to hit characters other than the fighter). The wizard cannot do this.

The fighter is also a good fighter because once a target is marked, the fighter will get an immediate attack if that target attempts to shift into a better position or attack an ally. The wizard cannot do this.

The fighter is also a good fighter because he can hold his own in a melee; even if he has forgone armor for the sake of comparison, he will have more hit points and regain more each time he is healed. The wizard is going to find himself much worse for wear if he attempts to stand in the fighter's place.

Then there are powers, feats, and the like.