Evolution of the Fighter

[justanobody]

If the fighter is the only one around, or there is no rogue in the party, then yes the fighter SHOULD do it if he wants to. Even if there is a rogue, the fighter player should be allowed to try.

I do think it unreasonable to assume every gamer out there is munchkining/minmaxing/whatever their character for optimal bonus modifiers.

If you have to do that to play a class, then there is a severe flaw in the game.

Thankfully I have never had to do any of that and enjoyed decades of D&D.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Just as an aside ... a 4e fighter has a much better chance to pull off a thievery check than a 3e fighter [unless the fighter did something, like take a feat, to make sleight a class skill]. Untrained, a fighter is only going to be a bit behind the rogue [scale vs. leather is a wash, so it's the 5 + diff in dex, and certain fighters don't mind dex. It costs 1 feat to get the 5 pt difference covered, but even before then the fighter still has a "hail mary" shot of succeeding when the rogue has a pretty good chance of a success.

In arguing "anyone can try" ... the 4e skill system will beat the 3e system ... it's possible to complain about restricting the role of the fighter in 4e and other things like that ... but you can't say that the fighter isn't better off skillwise in 4e.

 

[Runestar]

If the fighter is the only one around, or there is no rogue in the party, then yes the fighter SHOULD do it if he wants to. Even if there is a rogue, the fighter player should be allowed to try.

And I have never said anything about not allowing the fighter to make a roll. Is my english really that bad, or are you just being deliberately dense?

It is just that more often than not, he will fail. If the check is such that he cannot succeed even on a natural 20, then why should he even bother rolling the die and wasting everyone's time?

But there is something to be said about a fighter who wants to sabotage his party by making dumb choices like this. He knows he is likely going to fail, and get the rest into trouble as a result (say because they get arrested by the militia), and still wants to go ahead with it rather than step back and let the rogue try it? Thank goodness I don't have such players in my party. What's next? The rogue trying to be a wizard by spending all his wealth on magic consumables like scrolls/wands and spam-UMD'ing them?

I do think it unreasonable to assume every gamer out there is munchkining/minmaxing/whatever their character for optimal bonus modifiers.

I however, do not find it unreasonable to expect that my players have a decent grasp of the rules, are able to build competent characters and play them effectively. And yes, this includes the fighter not entertaining any funny notions of trying to perform sleight of hand checks, especially not when the rogue's check easily exceeds his by 15+.

I said nothing about having to min-max the heck out of my PCs, so you can drop the pathetic attempts at a strawman argument. It wasn't funny the first time, and repeated tries are just getting irritating.

 

[Imp]

I don't see it as an unreasonable assumption. The rogue has 8+int mod skill points every level, what would he max, if not his core competencies? Knowledge skills?

Hide, Move Silently, Spot, Search, Disable Device, Open Lock, Tumble, Use Magic Device, whoops, there's eight, now are you a face, an acrobat, or a sneak-thief?

 

[Hussar]

When the system says to perform a thing a common human/oid can do is only allowed by someone trained, then the system is flawed.

I am not saying rogue vs fighter.

Just why can a fighter not do it? Only because the rogue exists in some way to make the rogue feel special?

The rogue is special because he has much better odds, but that doesn't mean he is the only one that can do it.

So why can a fighter not pick pockets?

I would say a DM settings some DC so high to not give a fighter a chance is playing DM vs players.

There should always be a slim chance for any class to do anything, that is why dice exist to show that chance and often extreme luck.

We aren't talking about a fighter flying by thinking it like a wizard might. Flight is beyond human ability and therefore should not be some option just granted, or then you don't really have humans in your game, and should change the name to something else.

All humans can pick pockets to a degree. Some much better than others, but there is a chance that even a novice will get it right.

Heck a broke clock is right at least twice a day!

So what rule says a fighter is not allowed to pick pockets?

No one, AFAIK has said the fighter is not allowed to pick pockets. Only that he will fail very, very often against opponents that are of an equivalent level.

Sure the fighter could go around picking low level commoner pockets. Who cares? At 10th level, why would he bother? His sword could likely buy everyone in the town a new house. What's the point?

 

[Lanefan]

There comes a point in the 3E rules where it becomes a mathematical impossibility to set a DC that a specialized Rogue has any chance of failing and a Fighter has any chance of passing. It happens whenever the total modifier gets to +20 or more apart. It happens at a +11 difference if the Rogue has Skill Mastery and is therefore able to take 10.

The fact that cross-class ranks max out at (Level +3)/2 instead of Level +3 guarantees that this breakpoint must occur, and at this point any DC the fighter has a chance at is essentially free loot for the Rogue.

There are plenty of solutions to this problem; it's almost trivial to come up with one. None of them are the rules of the game.

Then the flaw is in the rules, pure and simple.

As you say, solutions are ample and trivially simple...so why wasn't at least one included in the rules? Good job, 3e.

I used to play a Fighter...Lanefan, by name...who fancied himself as something of a Thief when he wasn't busy running things through. Of course he had no formal training in it, but if something was left lying around he'd take it; if someone (usually a wizard) in the party had p'ed him off...well, they had to sleep sometime. And so on.

And he was a 1e Fighter. Mechanically simple. *Never* boring!

Lanefan

p.s. someone upthread suggested playing a wizard who did nothing but cast Fireball all the time was boring...obviously, this person has never read the First Law of Wizarding: There is no problem that cannot be solved by repeated application of the Fireball spell in its immediate vicinity.

 

[Runestar]

Then the flaw is in the rules, pure and simple.

As you say, solutions are ample and trivially simple...so why wasn't at least one included in the rules? Good job, 3e.

How is it a flaw that a fighter is not able to do something which has no correlation with his profession at all? You want rogue skills, you MC into a rogue class.

 

[Lanefan]

How is it a flaw that a fighter is not able to do something which has no correlation with his profession at all? You want rogue skills, you MC into a rogue class.

Skills, schmills - I want to be able to try it anyway and have at least a tiny chance of success...just like real life. I've never picked anyone's pocket and thus have no skill at it, but if I were to try it sometime there's always a chance I'd get away with it. Why can't the game reflect this? All it needs in 3e is a simple "20 always succeeds, 1 always fails" and abolishment of that horrid take-20 rule. In earlier editions, it'd be a d% roll modified to suit the situation.

Your question, rephrased, could apply to wizard wielding weapons. Melee combat has no correlation with the profession of studying and casting spells, yet wizards as a function of their class get at least some training in it regardless of edition.

Lanefan

 

[justanobody]

I hate clicking quote instead of edit!

 

[justanobody]

I however, do not find it unreasonable to expect that my players have a decent grasp of the rules, are able to build competent characters and play them effectively.

Yes because unless you are visiting Char Ops boards all the time to minmax your character, you are incompetent and can't grasp the rules or build a character. Because to play any other way is badwrongfun.

No one, AFAIK has said the fighter is not allowed to pick pockets. Only that he will fail very, very often against opponents that are of an equivalent level.

True. There is nothing preventing the fighter from trying to make untrained sleight-of-hand checks, but he is going to fail every time, so why even bother?

Both of you skirt around trying to claim saying you would let fighters try to pick pockets, but in the end you would have them predetermined to fail.

Ergo, you are saying fighters are not allowed to try.

Runestar more so than yourself, because you claim a benefit of doubt in the fighter having a chance.

Sounds like the time I was playing when my fighter was bored with the politics being discussed and as he has a tendency to do, went to sit in the corner for a nap, and the DM responded with a resounding NO YOU"RE NOT.

"why even bother", "No you can't"; sound like the same thing to me.

Claiming the fighter has less options because of a stuck-up DM is not a fault of the system, and is nothing solved that makes 4th fighters better than earlier editions or gives them more options, because there will be crappy DMs out there for any edition, and players how cannot usae their own imagination to TRY to do something unless it is written down in black & white for them in the book.

That has nothing to do with any edition, and is just a fact that poor players exist. So blame the players for sucking instead of the edition.