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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8257174" data-attributes="member: 82106">LFQW was a real thing, even in TSR D&D, yes. I mean, fighters get some nice stuff. It might even seem like in some games this is making them equally good and useful, but there are a few real issues:The fighter needs magic items simply to keep doing his job. Imagine a hypothetical level 12 party with no items. The fighter's AC is the same as level 1, his damage output is 3x higher because of 3 attacks/round, but he probably cannot hit the really threatening creatures well at all! His THAC0 is now 9, but he may well be fighting creatures with AC as low as -4 (or even better) and they can hit him on an 8. He cannot really do anything he couldn't do at level 1, literally. Yes, he'll have about 10x the hit points, but the monsters he's taking on also have 10x the hit points, probably do 5x the damage, and have many special abilities. He can stand in front of the party and be a blocker, and will certainly kill lesser threats moderately well (his saves are really good too). Meanwhile the casters have gained radically increased and entirely novel capabilities, now having access to 6th level spells! The lack of items will make them vulnerable to attack as well, but they can avoid or negate attacks by casting. While items are gold to any PC, the casters are much less dependent.The fighter's supposed main advantage, a 'stronghold' and followers, doesn't actually do THAT much for him in terms of practical personal power. The followers are mostly FAR below his level, so they serve little purpose in an adventuring sense. The stronghold itself may be fun, and play into another power dynamic, but many campaigns, probably the vast majority, do little with this element. In fact, the stronghold is likely to be a 'trouble magnet', an obvious point of pressure for the DM to apply to the PC! Magic Users actually get far more real utility from their towers, they can store libraries and house potent henchmen there who can help with item construction, spell research, scroll manufacture, etc. While the tower might also prove troublesome, it has genuine level-appropriate advantages. To add insult to injury, clerics get strongholds too, and they are also potent casters...Frankly, at 12th level, again, a party is better off made entirely of casters with the role of melee defense taken up by a carefully cultivated cadre of henchmen and NPC associates. The main purpose of such being simply to insure that the casters don't need to melee and to perhaps deal with some secondary threats directly. This also supplies needs for things like scouts and whatnot (not to say it isn't fun to play a PC who is in that role, they could then have an NPC caster as a henchman too). But that just shows, the best tactic for a fighter would be to hire a Magic User when he's maybe 3rd level and make sure that sucker gets protected and fed some decent items. That way, at high levels he'll have a caster at his back who is nearly his level. The obvious alternative tactic being the ever-popular Elf Fighter/Magic User, though at 12th level the value of that option does start to decline, assuming you play that high.I mean, my experience, with a reasonable amount of items and players who played hard and used every advantage (and DMs who were consequently diabolical) was that straight up fighters pretty much disappear from parties after name level. My 14th level wizard for example would have basically no use for a fighter. He's flying, invisible, stone skinned, displaced, wearing a robe of eyes, has an AC below 0 most of the time, etc. He's got multiple items that can generate medium to high powered attacks, so he is unlikely to run out of spells or need a 'clean up guy' to save him from using them. Sure, his hit points are in the 30's, but no DM has ever yet caught him in AoE. I am pretty sure he's got some sort of fire resistance, though I don't recall exactly what that was. If things go really pear-shaped there is always Contingency <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />. Considering that the other PCs he'd be with on any dangerous mission would be equally powerful, well there are things like classic D&D demon lords which are downright nasty. We did kill one of those once, but it was stupid hard. Still, what would a fighter do against Demogorgon? There is a 0% chance he'd ever get to melee range unless he was loaded with magic, and probably that would involve the MUs helping out. Given old 2-head's AC and hit points, I don't think melee is going to be a decisive tactic, especially considering his extreme mobility (limitless tactical teleport, fun stuff).</blockquote>

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