A Rekindled Glimmer of Hope

[NewJeffCT]

Try any single monster encounter where the monster gets hit by Blinding Spittle or Glitterdust.

Or any dragon encounter where dragon gets hit with Shivering Touch.

Or any large group encounter where they get webbed and die.

Any Golem encounter where the golem got buried under mounds of druid summons and beaten to death.

Any encounter ever where the words "time stop" were uttered.

Etc.

Quite easy for a Wizard to trivialize many encounters. Fighters... not so much. They tended to whack things for pretty good damage, but they never really shined, even in combat. Outside of combat, welp.

I guess since I never ran into the problem of one or two classes consistently outshining the rest of the party, I must have done something improper when building encounters to challenge my party.

As for a dragon encounter, I can't imagine any dragon in 3E that could cast spells of at least level 2 that wouldn't have Scintillating Scales prepared and ready to go (if not precast) - it would allow the dragon to add its natural armor bonus to its touch AC (as one player in my group said, "what dragon wouldn't be using it?") and make it nearly invulnerable to touch attacks and ranged touch attacks until it's dispelled. On top of that, Shivering Touch required a touch attack, not a ranged touch... and a wizard is going to have to suck up an AoO charging in to touch a dragon.

 

[Baron Von Mandrick]

If your character was wearing heavy armour, how did he escape? As I recall, platemail reduced speed to 6" - too slow to escape anything but green slime, unless the DM was arbitrarily kind...

Or maybe your fighter just died - a glorious death was always a viable option.

Him dying did happen as well while the party got away. But the time I remember most clearly, was kind of a perfect storm of things. A group of NPC's we thought were helping us. Our thief had gotten trouble in a city for stealing or something like that. The thief was due to be put in the stocks overnight when we knew some horrible undead monsters were going to hit the town that night. Our defenseless thief would have been slaughtered. So we had to rescue him prior to evening.

We fought a running battle with various groups of town guards, until we had to climb over the wall. That was when the NPC's we thought were helping us turned out to be doppelgangers and were attacking the party at the same time as the town guards were. The fighter had to hold off a large group of town guards, while the rest of the injured party took out the doppelgangers. Part of the party had already climbed the rope, and part were still on the ground. The fighter held off the enemy on the ground while the whole party managed to get to the top of the wall, and fight the fight up there. Their fight was difficult, but easier because of how many of them there were. Finally after taking out more than 6 town guards and wounding others, the rest of the party took out the doppelgangers and couple of guards on top of the wall in time in time to take out the remaining guards still attacking the fighter, and get him out before more reinforcements arrived.

It could have ended in TPK. The fighter definitely didn't do everything himself, but he was the guy who shone in that fight because of his actions. Those actions were just him taking advantage of being the guy with the best armor, and most hit points, plus some decent magic weapons and THACO.

Similar things happened on smaller scales when a sleeping group was attacked while the fighter was on guard duty, and therefore already armored and ready. There were a number of encounters where the fighter had time to shine. It wasn't always, but he had his fair share.

Also back then fighting higher level guys meant they had greater saving throw chances and reduced spell casters ability to dish out damage many times. Where as a fighter would always have a decent THACO especially with a magic weapon.

 

[DMKastmaria]

I had a hasted dwarf fighter annihilate my balor in one round with a full attack where he scored 3 critical hits and dealt out over 200 points of damage. (in case you were wondering, we make all of our "to hit" rolls on the table in front of everybody)

I can go on with several other examples as well, but that one came first in my head.

When I ran 3.x, the only Fighter type PC was a Fighter/Samurai/Kensai. At 14th level, he was a virtual Whirlwind of Death!

I think 3.x removed too many restrictions on casters, but the whole "fighters can't do anything but hold the Caster's coattails in 3e" thing is overstated. Granted, in 3.x I never saw, or heard of anyone playing a straight Fighter. With no prestige classes, or anything, piled on. And I've always given Fighter's nice magical accouterments.

Also, granted, the 3.x magic system is one of the reasons I don't run that game, anymore.

In 1e, high level MU's are the most powerful class in the game. But, they don't dominate the game and the other classes aren't lackey's. Not if you're using the AD&D spellcasting rules and the players know how to run the class they're playing. And not if the DM gives out some decent magical gear.



Any Pathfinder player's care to chime in?

 

[Sadras]

Try any single monster encounter where the monster gets hit by Blinding Spittle or Glitterdust.

Or any dragon encounter where dragon gets hit with Shivering Touch.

Or any large group encounter where they get webbed and die.

Any Golem encounter where the golem got buried under mounds of druid summons and beaten to death.

Any encounter ever where the words "time stop" were uttered.

Etc.

Quite easy for a Wizard to trivialize many encounters. Fighters... not so much. They tended to whack things for pretty good damage, but they never really shined, even in combat. Outside of combat, welp.

Try any single monster (non sludge) encounter where the monster gets hit by a Sword of Sharpness.

Or any single giant getting hit with a Giant Slayer sword

Or any Troll hit by a Sword of Wounding

Or any single dragon by a Sword of Dragon Slaying of the dragon's kind

Or any Titan by a Vorpal Sword to have him decapitated by a single stroke

Or any creature with mental capabilties by a Trident of Submission

Or any Paladin ignoring the effects of a spell due to his carrying of a Holy Avenger (50% Magic Resistance)

Or where a Fighter wields a Sun Blade against a horde of undead

Or a large group encounter where the Fighter uses a Net of Entrapment

Or where a Fighter wields a Mace of Disruption against a pack of wights

Or a large group underwater encounter where the Fighter uses a Net of Snaring.

Or a single opponent encounter where the Fighter rolled a 20 with his Life Stealing Sword or Sword of Nine Lives.

Or a single opponent who has just been hit by a Dagger of Venom thrown by the Fighter.

Or where a Ranger kills a single enemy with its particular Arrow of Slaying.

I could go on, there are many more weapons, many many more - and we havent even covered armour, warrior specific magical items...etc.
My point is NEVER say warriors NEVER really shined in combat, because then posts like these will happen. And its embarrasing.

 

[Raith5]

From the chat on May 16:

Mearls: The biggest thing is making it OK for one character to own a particular encounter. If the wizard casts sleep and KOs a group of six kobolds, that's OK. In the next encounter, the rogue might sneak up on the kobold shaman and gank him, or the fighter blocks a doorway and takes down a wave of attackers. Same goes for characters with good social abilities, and so on.

It also means for a much faster game - characters contribute in each encounter, but we can let someone shine without feeling that everyone must have at least 4 or 5 turns to do their thing.


Mr. Mearls, you just keep right on applying this philosophy to D&D 5e, and you'll have an excited customer on your hands in Mr. Innerdude.

Excellent.

This does sound good but one thing I like more than individuals shining because they have abilities/powers/resources to do so, is individuals shining because of teamwork or a good plan. D&D is after all a social game. 4th ed had strong elements of encouraging the intersection of abilties and powers in combats (and in social situations/skill challenges) and thus had some great collaborative experiences at my table.

 

[mlund]

It's saying: "If an entire encounter is solved with a single spell, that doesn't mean the spell is overpowered."

There's a limit to how far that carries, though. It's OK if an ability can skip an encounter or turn it on its head as a statistical outlier. "Crit happens," as it were. Just because the upward bound of an action could get a little silly doesn't automatically mean it needs to be rebalanced.

This in no way implies that it is desirable for such things to become the norm for any given spell, ability, class, or character. Those sorts of moments are special because of their scarcity.

The crux of the game, however, is found in that 90% range between the 1 and the 20. That's where every player ought to expect his or her character to take their lumps and have their moments in the sun. There shouldn't be any characters sitting around waiting for the nat-20, or having to stop the adventure for the whole day due to "I win"-button burn-out.

- Marty Lund

 

[Lwaxy]

I like it when different PCs come up with different ways to march through an encounter by themselves. Not all the time, not too often, but it is a good change of pace every now and then. Especially when they really surprise me. It is even fine when they go through one adventure like this and then overestimate themselves and get in a pickle in the next.

But it shouldn't become the norm. Otherwise I need not prepare encounters.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Try any single monster encounter where the monster gets hit by Blinding Spittle or Glitterdust.

Or any dragon encounter where dragon gets hit with Shivering Touch.

Or any large group encounter where they get webbed and die.

Any Golem encounter where the golem got buried under mounds of druid summons and beaten to death.

Any encounter ever where the words "time stop" were uttered.

Etc.

Quite easy for a Wizard to trivialize many encounters. Fighters... not so much. They tended to whack things for pretty good damage, but they never really shined, even in combat. Outside of combat, welp.

This is a tired old threadcrap, attempting to divert a thread into well-trodden 'I hate wizards/they are unbalanced/no they aren't/yes they are land.

So I'm booting you from this thread.

 

[mlund]

You know what would be a kind of neat outlier scenario for a Fighting Man? Exploding Damage Dice. I know, D&D Heresy - but it would beat the tar out of a flat +2 damage bonus from Weapon Specialization or a random Backstab. It seems like no particular class should have a monopoly or moratorium on trumping a combat encounter.

- Marty Lund

 

[Mercule]

The difference in philosophy is that pre-4E physical damage classes never "shined." They just did what they did, consistently. As people got more and more clever with spell usage, Wizards, Druids, and Clerics had more and more ways to shine, while physical classes got to ride in the back of the bus.

Disagree. I've never been much good at wizards, and I prefer "martial" heroes, anyway. So, I've consistently played fighters, rangers, and rogues/thieves across editions. They can absolutely shine in a number of situations, if you're paying attention to the descriptions of the world around and and being creative.

Truth told, casters could probably do most of the stuff that lets martial characters shine -- but the spells always seem to make people think different, which is probably appropriate.