Dragon #308 previews new ranger and barbarian!

[Nightfall]

Well there's always the Player's Guide to Fighters and Barbarians to make things for the fighters more interesting... But that's just me.

 

[Felon]

By the way, the test of balance is not one of 'can one class beat the other in a single fight', but rather how useful is such a class to the average adventuring party.

There's truth to that indeed, but melee is the primary form of combat in D&D, and if a another class outshines the fighter's attack and damage bonuses in that major area, then something's not kosher.

Weapon specialization has the advantage of being persistent and can be downright deadly when combined with certain mounted combat feats.

Eh. Rage is persistent enough, as long as the use of one rage effectively lasts an entire encounter. Given that, then three a day is certainly enough to get by on, given the number of major battles PC's are likely to get into. The rest are just gravy. And you can use it anywhere, not just on a horse. That's flexibility.

 

[Felon]

Well there's always the Player's Guide to Fighters and Barbarians to make things for the fighters more interesting... But that's just me.

Yeah, that's pretty much my bright spot in all of this as far as fighters go. They can get re-balanced later on simply by making better feat chains available to them. That's the real main asset of their flexibility.

Oh, and Arcanna Unearthed is starting to look better and better.

 

[Nightfall]

Yeah but this only works if you allow d20/third party stuff.

 

[Technik4]

Counters

Hopefully there will be a couple counters for things in 3.5. For instance a spell that stops a raging barbarian, a spell that makes you immune to the rangers favored enemy bonus, etc. Not for every encounter, but just so there are more tactics to these classes.

Most games only get more interesting as more counters and counter-counters are added (ala fighting games).

The regular fighter of course, wont have a counter as he just has a collection of feats.

Technik

 

[Liquid Snake]

Sorcerer changes

Hmm, so now we have reasons to stick with the sorcerer throught the whole 20 levels (outisde of familair progression)?

Cool.

 

[The_Gneech]

I remember reading they wanted to give reasons for staying in a class for all 20 levels. Seems like we have a few couple examples of that here. Something you have to give up if you multi- or prestige-class.

Bah. The more reasons for multiclassing, the better, I say! You already give up a lot more than you gain in most combinations that I've played with.

-The Gneech, iconic multiclasser

 

[jasamcarl]

There's truth to that indeed, but melee is the primary form of combat in D&D, and if a another class outshines the fighter's attack and damage bonuses in that major area, then something's not kosher.



Eh. Rage is persistent enough, as long as the use of one rage effectively lasts an entire encounter. Given that, then three a day is certainly enough to get by on, given the number of major battles PC's are likely to get into. The rest are just gravy. And you can use it anywhere, not just on a horse. That's flexibility.

Oh, don't get me wrong, this is a major boon for barbarians and I would certainly say that the rage boost is worth a fair number of feats alone in terms of effectiveness. But the major boost comes at level 20. By that point a fighter can expect to have three feat chains down plus weapon specialization. At high levels, ranged combat tends to become more important as you begin to fight creatures with a large number of spell like abilities and flight. Here, the fighter will almost certainly outshine the barbarian. In a situation of open terrain, mounted combat and archery are both superior ways of unleashing damage while taking little in turn. Straight tanks become less usefull because at that point, anybody can get just about anywhere on the battlefield. At least mounted characters are archers can avoid a full attack progression by constantly moveing, while still being able to attack.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Re: Counters

Hopefully there will be a couple counters for things in 3.5. For instance a spell that stops a raging barbarian, ...
Technik

Like Calm Emotions (Cleric 2)?

 

[Felon]

Straight tanks become less usefull because at that point, anybody can get just about anywhere on the battlefield.

Well, it works both ways. At high levels, it's quite easy to bring melee to flying foes (have you seen what they're charging for Wings of Wonder these days? they're practically giving'em away!).

I was actually more peeved about barbs getting Greater Rage before 15th level, not to mention Will and Reflex save bonuses.