Crazy Jerome
First Post
I have little to add to dkyle's response, but must spread XP. He is especially on with his comments on HP and AC.
He was complaining about weapon choice also. But yes, I also vehemently disagree with him if he is indeed criticizing Roles: a Fighter should usually be the one to protect the weaker party members just like he did since OD&D. The Slayer is an interesting off-shoot, but fortunately the Fourth Edition clearly labels him as a striker lest his teammates be disappointed by his lack of mutual defense.
I wouldn't use Aggro in 5E...
Don't think of it as aggro, think of it as you diving in the path of the attack. I'm certain 3e had prestige classes that did this, and 4e has powers which do the same.
Depends how you flavor it.Yeah the Mark mechanic is much better than Aggro, since it allows the DM or player a choice still. You want to avoid mind control with a martial class.
The fact that just about every 4e weapon-using class had to pick a single weapon and stick with it is pretty telling that something was awry with the system. Wizard didn't have to choose between cold and fire spells!
That said, I rarely see a 4E fighter use a ranged weapon, which kind of makes me sad.
Well, in trying to define classes by role, the 4e designers did a lot of "excluding of options" so that your class would always be in its role. Since fighters were supposed to wade into melee and draw attacks to themselves, they simply couldn't be given the option of using bows. It would have violated concept.
Similarly, the ranger was supposed to be EITHER a two-weapon fighter or an archer. Doing both was just sub-optimal.
In other words, 4e's power system pigenholed every character into basically using one weapon for his whole career.
I was wrong, because as many have said, I was forced into a role, and forced into it hard. I wanted a spear to begin with, because spears are cool, but that meant being dextrous and having a lower AC (which later, paradoxically, turns out to be more useful when you are marking). So I went for sword-and-board instead, which meant I was never dealing significant damage.
Following up on another thread - perhaps Fighters are the only ones who should get real opportunity attacks?
The big stumbling block here is that "Fighter" *is* too broad of a concept. And I think the designers realized it in 4E, which is why they tried to change how we looked at it by getting us to think of class names in a different way.
Depends how you flavor it.
"Once per round, you may intercept an attack an enemy has aimed at an ally next to you. The enemy makes the attack against you instead of your ally."
Now its not mind control. Its you shouldering your way in between the monster and your friend. But mechanically its the same thing. The enemy wanted to attack Joe, but instead it attacked Steve.
Honestly I prefer the 4e version - you get in their space so you can smack them with your sword if they attack someone else. You the fighter make the hit happen. (It's clearer, admittedly, with Defender Aura). Marking is more akin to marking in basketball or football than a condition you impose.This is awesome, but it is not the same thing as a mark. Imposing yourself as a shield for an ally is not the same thing as giving the bad guy an evil eye that just makes it slightly harder to attack someone else.
In this instance, the enemy does whatever it was planning to do and YOU the fighter, make the defense happen.
This kind of blocking as a theme specialty for defender/protector types I can fully support.![]()
What's dangerous about the 3.X fighter is that although it looks like a simple class to play, I am hard-pressed to find another class where:
1 - to effectively do some things (disarm, trip, grapple, etc), you need to take a very precise chain of feats;
2 - There are more feats that look like they would be useful for the class, but are actually traps that are solely there to punish a lack of system mastery.
Well, in trying to define classes by role, the 4e designers did a lot of "excluding of options" so that your class would always be in its role. Since fighters were supposed to wade into melee and draw attacks to themselves, they simply couldn't be given the option of using bows. It would have violated concept.
Similarly, the ranger was supposed to be EITHER a two-weapon fighter or an archer. Doing both was just sub-optimal.
In other words, 4e's power system pigenholed every character into basically using one weapon for his whole career. While niche protection is very good for defining roles, it practically screams "THIS IS A GAME!" and is not the least bit realistic.
My two cents.
This is awesome, but it is not the same thing as a mark. Imposing yourself as a shield for an ally is not the same thing as giving the bad guy an evil eye that just makes it slightly harder to attack someone else.
4e did that a lot: there were few ranged powers initially for warlords, fighters used great weapons or sword-n-board, rogues were stuck with daggers and crossbows (really? No longsword or shortbow?), rangers were archers or dual-wielders, barbarians got max benefit out of 2-handed weapons, etc. I can see some use for iconic weapons (rogues don't need greataxes) but pigeonholing a class to one type of weapon is bad.
4e did that a lot: there were few ranged powers initially for warlords, fighters used great weapons or sword-n-board, rogues were stuck with daggers and crossbows (really? No longsword or shortbow?), rangers were archers or dual-wielders, barbarians got max benefit out of 2-handed weapons, etc. I can see some use for iconic weapons (rogues don't need greataxes) but pigeonholing a class to one type of weapon is bad.
A fighter is a human who studies combat. Fighters usually have greater strength than other characters. They usually hit monsters more often and inflict more damage.
Fighters protect the weaker characters. Strength is needed in many situations. For example a door may be stuck, or a huge boulder may block the party's progress; a strong fighter can often solve these problems. Magic might also work, but magic is limited, and a fighter can use strength as often as desired.
(The) fighter could probably survive a dungeon adventure when exploring alone...the other classes are not as self-sufficient as the fighter. Magic-Users and thieves are much weaker, and although clerics can wear any type of armor, they are limited in other ways.
Fighters need no special abilities to survive and prosper. Their great strength, hit points, strong armor, and many weapons make them a powerful character class.
(Dungeons & Dragons Player's Manual, Frank Mentzer, ed.; 1983.)
This is awesome, but it is not the same thing as a mark. Imposing yourself as a shield for an ally is not the same thing as giving the bad guy an evil eye that just makes it slightly harder to attack someone else.
In this instance, the enemy does whatever it was planning to do and YOU the fighter, make the defense happen.
This kind of blocking as a theme specialty for defender/protector types I can fully support.![]()
There's one word you use but don't emphasise enough. Initially. Almost everything listed is opened up. The archer warlord is completely viable as of Martial Power 2. Fighters use whatever the hell they like, including one build with improvised weapons and another with fists (I'm now having visions of an arena fighter using his greatbow with the improvised weapon rules in melee for what amounts to close range gun fu). Rogues now get shortbows and had maces very early - along with shortswords. You just need a feat for a longsword. The Whirling 2-weapon Barbarian was in Primal Power, and there's a sword and board Beserker build. The Hunter PHB ranger uses ranged weapon and two handed weapon, the marauder throws and smacks face, and IME Scouts carry longbows and are pretty good with them.
If a guy wearing good armor, waving a sword, axe or similar like he knows how to use it, with the physique to back up the threat, gets in your face, then calling it the "evil eye" is a kind of missing the point. I guess from a particularly odd point of view, that is a kind of mind control. Yeah, the guy is probably getting in your head a bit. But even if you are totally collected and not letting any head games happen, you'd have to acknowledge, "pay some attention to me or pay the consequences, your choice".
Now, in reality, you perfectly free to say, "Whatever, I'm not afraid of you," and go smack someone else. It's merely that when you tried that, the hit you took would be far worse than what 4E lets the fighter deal out. So if you want to add to marking something like the ability to ignore the mark in return for risking much greater damage, I'd be fine with that. To keep it simple, they decided that most people would rarely want to make that choice, though.
I can't even comprehend the kind of mindset that thinks marking is somehow out of place or immersion destroying or mind control or whatever objection we have this week, but thinks that completely ignoring a highly trained, heavily armed opponent is realistic. And then on top of that, the poor guy is dinged for being a "defender" when he "should be hitting people hard", and the first thing they want to get rid of is one of his best ways for hitting people hard. You'd almost suspect that someone had no idea how 4E or realistic combat actually worked, but rather had some stylized view of combat derived from earlier games that isn't being shared clearly.![]()