Are warriors & rogues required at high level?

[Grishnak]

After playing my previous 5 weekly sessions as the main warrior of the group (Ranger 7/Shadowdancer 9, 2 weopon fighting style) And roughly 10 weeks with my previous (Barbarian/ Frenzied Berserker) I've pretty much just sat around doing nothing whilst the mage and cleric do all the work. My whole contribution has been roughly 50 points of damage or so spread out over about 10-15 creatures or so with my latest character. I've discussed and argued this with my friends who have admitadly played longer than myself but they are still arguing from previous editions that groups require the 4 main classes but I say a wizard/cleric can cover the aspects of the other classes, they can summon allies to fight while they cast and the access of spells covers almost everything else.
Now I'm the sort of player that needs to feel useful to the group but at this moment in time playing the last 2 warriors gaining levels whilst doing pretty much nothing is not my idea of useful or fun!! The previous warrior I had more enjoyment attacking the party in a frenzy due to the little I had to do. It's got to the point now where there's been combats and obvious exits away from the fight and me stating my character would be heading through the portals with others in the group saying you cant leave the fight and whats through the other side etc for my character to just to run around trying to fight and do a few points of damage if he does hit the extremely high ac's we seem to be facing where only the 1st attacks (+19 Longsword / +19 Shortsword) has a chance of hitting with a 15+ rolled!

Has anyone else encountered this in their games and what did you do to get around it? I've been considering leaving the group for some time to have a break as I've got totally down with my hobby which is costing me money driving to & from the venue for me to do nothing. I'm waiting to see how the game session goes with another DM taking over for a couple of months at level 1 and continuing on a 2 weekly basis with the original dm taking the other 2 weeks.

This isn't a rant at my dm or anything like that as I wouldn't have played for over 8 years so please dont take it like that.

 

[Umbran]

Depending how you look at it, with a good DM who's thinking about his party when designing encounters, either everyone is necessary, or nobody is necessary. Meaning that the DM can alter the encounters to fit his party's needs, dramatically speaking.

In the best of all possible worlds, everyone gets their moment to shine. Perhaps your DM needs to toss in a few more critters with high SR, and the like. Sure, the spellcasters should be instrumental, but so should everyone else.

 

[Melkor]

Depending how you look at it, with a good DM who's thinking about his party when designing encounters, either everyone is necessary, or nobody is necessary. Meaning that the DM can alter the encounters to fit his party's needs, dramatically speaking.

In the best of all possible worlds, everyone gets their moment to shine. Perhaps your DM needs to toss in a few more critters with high SR, and the like. Sure, the spellcasters should be instrumental, but so should everyone else.

Unofortunately Grishnak, I can't directly answer your question, but I'll try and offer a bit of advice.

I can't answer your question because, although I have played 3rd Edition since our first game the day after the PHB was released, I have never played a character above 8th level - so the problems you see arising have never happened in my group.

My bit of advice would be to talk to the DM, and ask him to throw in some of those elements that Umbran mentioned, or ask him if you could make up another character that you might enjoy playing more.

I can tell you that my gaming group broke up a year ago, and I had my first D&D game with a new group last weekend.....I hated not playing, and at the time we stopped, I was sick of the hobby. I missed it a lot more than I thought I would, and I really wished we had stuck it out.

 

[BSF]

I suppose a well-built party of Cleric's or Cleric/Wizards could do just about everything, but I hardly think that invalidates Fighter & Rogue types.

I try to give my players a good selection of things to chew on regardless of class. I have had combats where the fighters were less useful, and combats where the spellcasters were less useful.

You say this isn't a rant at your DM, but your DM is the one that can change this. You can also look at your playing style. Does the group only adventure long enough for the spellcasters to start running low on spells and then try to rest? If so, your group is favoring the spellcasters. Don't get me wrong, that is a smart tactic, if you can pull it off. But the strength of fighters and rogues is that they can keep swinging a sword when the spellcasters have run out of magic. You should also evaluate your role. Are the spellcasters able to cast spells because you are the damage sponge that keeps the nasties from ripping them to shreds? I admit, that role is not very fulfilling, but it is useful.

I have run a large scale assault where a fighter picks a position near a cave mouth and makes sure nothing gets to the rest of the party. One fighter effectively held off 200 hobgoblins while the rest of the group dealt with the Hydra, trolls, ogres, mid-level cleric and high-level Ranger BBEG. Admittedly, this was a climatic battle, involving nearly a dozen PC's from two groups, with a few NPC's as well. But, the fight was no pushover and that one fighter kept the (average) hobgoblins from moving into position to harass the spellcasters. I intentionally set that scenario up so that one of the fighters could jump into that role. I figured somebody with Great Cleave and good AC would be able to handle it. There were 3 in the party and the one with the highest inititiave stepped up and said "I'll take care of the cave, the rest of you take care of everything else." It was cool!

The point is, I knew there would be problems keeping that many characters feeling useful, so I put in challenges so that each character would have a moment to shine.

Evaluate your groups style, evaluate the types of opponents your DM is throwing at you, consider what would make it more fun for you, and then approach your DM with your thoughts.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

After playing my previous 5 weekly sessions as the main warrior of the group (Ranger 7/Shadowdancer 9, 2 weopon fighting style) And roughly 10 weeks with my previous (Barbarian/ Frenzied Berserker) I've pretty much just sat around doing nothing whilst the mage and cleric do all the work.

Well as a Ranger/Shadowdancer, you're not a straight fighter. You've got all sorts of other abilities, scouting, summoning shadows, tracking etc etc etc.

It's not like you're a Fighter 16 who would be expected to hit everything. As a mutliclass character doing 2wpn fighting, you're giving up several points of BAB, plus you almost certainly don't have a high Str, don't have Imp. Weapon Focus...it's no surprise you're not able to hit the AC's of the creatures you are fighting!

 

[Grishnak]

QUOTE=Tallarn]Well as a Ranger/Shadowdancer, you're not a straight fighter. You've got all sorts of other abilities, scouting, summoning shadows, tracking etc etc etc.

It's not like you're a Fighter 16 who would be expected to hit everything. As a mutliclass character doing 2wpn fighting, you're giving up several points of BAB, plus you almost certainly don't have a high Str, don't have Imp. Weapon Focus...it's no surprise you're not able to hit the AC's of the creatures you are fighting![/QUOTE

My full stats as follows
Str 22
Dex 24
Con 20
Int 13
Wis 14
Cha 10

I am the front liner as it stands, there is another ranger but went down the bow line and a deepwood sniper.

My pluses to hit are 19,14,9 Longsword 19,9 Shortsword.
The shadow isnt an option at our levels as 1 round or attacks would pretty much kill it as I found out the other night dropping from 130 hp's to 7 in 1 round.

The group I see is geared to the spellcasters, opportunities to rest etc etc and the fact that the last 5 combats have all been completed near enough totally by the casters with the warriors contributing about 40-60hps of damage.

As for the dropping out, you wouldn't miss it if you sat there doing near enough nothing for 5 weeks on the trot and not a hell of a lot for the 10 before that with my old char.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

My main group comprises a wiz14/clr1, clr16, rog16, and bar16. The barbarian does quite well in combat and is essential to the group. His massive hp total really soaks up a lot of damage. The rogue also does well in combat, but is really crucial for traps, gathering information, and bluffing/diplomacy.

 

[reapersaurus]

Grishnak - You MAY be in a party that doesn't play D&D the way you, or I, believe it should.
I've seen and heard of many groups that prefer to play the way you describe, with the mages getting advantageous opportunities to have their strenghts shine, yet not have any of their weaknesses be exposed.
The real tough part is: IF the group is like that, they likely see NO PROBLEM with the mages being the ones that accomplish alost everything, and the fighters (in their eyes) should be just meat-shields (if they even get into melee).

It's a prevalent opinion, even here on the boards, even though many people fail to see how they match that description.
In fact, a case could easily be made that D&D BY DESIGN is meant to perpetuate the view that mages should accomplish everything ('mage' also including cleric in 3E-- basically a synonym to "full spellcasting class").

So if what you say is accurate, than you have a choice to confront the group about your perceptions, and see if what they see corroborates your views.
Or you can leave.
But the only way to fix your situation is to discussing it and resolving it (something I've seen WAY too many groups be unable/unwilling to do). They will not spontaneously change their gamestyle to reduce the spellcasters' dominance - they like it that way, and obviously the DM does too.

 

[ForceUser]

At low levels, warrior-types deal the majority of the damage and take the majority of the damage. At higher levels, spellcasters do the majority of the damage, and warriors are still there to lump it and soak up hits while the spellcasters destroy the bad guys. But without the warriors to soak the damage, the spellcasters can't do the damage, and once in a while at high levels you can get in a few cool rounds of combat. Spellcasters own at high levels - that's just the way the game's set up.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

If the mage and cleric are using spells, there is always a chance the spell might fail. Or that an enemy spellcaster will render their spells useless.