Fighter Vs Paladin

[Andor]

Fighter vs Paladin:
Armour: Fighter gets scale, Paladin gets Plate - Advantage Paladin
Defences: Fighter get +2, Paladin gets +3 - Advantage Paladin
HP: Same
Healing Surges: Paladin gets 1 more
Skills: Fighter gets 3, Paladin gets 4 - Advantage Paladin
Weapon Proficiencies: Fighter gets Military Ranged over Paladin. Which nets out to be a +2 to hit with bows, unless the Paladin is an Elf and gets them for free anyway. - Advantage Fighter, maybe.

Marking - Fighter has better means of marking, the Paladin mark is vastly stronger. - I call it a wash.

Role - Fighter has better control over NPCs (I.E. Leans towards controller.) Paladin has healing and ally boosts (I.E. Leans towards leader.)

Powers: Damage is a wash as far as I can see. The fighter has more powers that make him seem tougher, which are pretty much negated by the Paladins ability to heal himself at will. ... Looking more closely the Paladin can do more damage and gets ranged attacks as well. - Coolness probably goes to the fighter but for usefullness I say advantage Paladin.

Why exactly should someone pick a Fighter over a Paladin? And don't say "Roleplaying", everytime someone complains they want an archer fighter or swashbuckly fighter they get pointed at the Ranger and told to imagine it has a different name, so obviously the same can be done here. So stuff it. Mechanically what does the fighter player have that the Paladin player envies?

 

[Wormwood]

Don't forget that a fighter hits more often (+1 with either one or two-handed weapons).

edit: for completion's sake only. I'm on the fence regarding the OP's point.

 

[pogminky]

Some fighter powers are reliable

 

[Kzach]

I haven't seen a paladin in action as a tank but I've played a fighter a few times and hot damn if their class features aren't uber.

As far as sticking opponents to you and making them attack you instead of the paladin, I'd have to say the fighter is the better defender of the two.

 

[krakenstar]

For me its this:

+1 to hit (2 levels nothing to scoff at)
Reliable powers
Tide of Iron At will. is so strong indoor with hallways.

Most importantly for me -

Combat Challenge + Shield Push (feat). Until you've played this combo a couple of sessions and master it's usage, you haven't played a "defender".

 

[Zurai]

Armour: Fighter gets scale, Paladin gets Plate - Advantage Paladin

Scale is the better armor, IMO. No need to go to plate.

Marking - Fighter has better means of marking, the Paladin mark is vastly stronger. - I call it a wash.

How is the Paladin mark "vastly stronger"? Because it does damage? So does the Fighter's, thanks to the second paragraph of Combat Challenge. The paladin also has a drawback with his; the fighter's is free and clear. I'd call Combat Challenge drastically better than Divine Challenge. Don't forget that Paladins can only Challenge one target at a time.

 

[Thasmodious]

The fighter's mark is not just easier to apply, its a lot better. The paladins can do some damage, but he must stay in contact and while there, is the likely target anyway. A marked opponent of a fighter will have a hard time even moving around the fighter without getting smacked and the fighter can take a number of feats to improve his combat superiority even further. The paladin doesn't touch the fighter in holding a line. He's tough and can heal both himself and others, which is his area, but the fighter has the ball when it comes to standing his ground.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

- Fighters get a bonus to hit with a particular weapon type
- Many Fighter Dailies are Reliable
- Fighters can Mark multiple foes.
- Combat Challenge

Mechanically, the Fighter is fine. He favors defending against more enemies, where the Paladin is better against fewer enemies, or one BBG. A 1-to-1 comparison of numbers in this case does not yield a final result. I don't think you've given the class a fair shake.

 

[Enthralled]

A creature can be subject to only one mark at a time. A new mark supersedes a mark that was already in place.

I clearly must be reading this wrong. I read this as saying that the second time the fighter tried to put a mark on an enemy the first mark would go away. Thus the "supersedes" text.

I can see how perhaps this was just trying to say that the fighter's mark could be overwritten by some other player's mark.

I can see how the paladin mark explicitly lists marking another target as dropping the first mark in addition to the supersedes language which makes me think my initial reading of the fighter mark was wrong.

Could anyone point me to any rules that would clarify this?

 

[useridunavailable]

You seem to be missing the point of the defender role, which I find to be pretty common. When comparing powers, you equate "healing oneself" to "seeming tougher" (by which I have to assume you mean "provoking aggro"). The first problem here is that you cite the Paladin's ability to heal himself while completely disregarding the fact that the Fighter also has powers which allow him to heal himself. Therefore, it is entirely inaccurate to equate "Paladin healing" to "Fighter aggro generation". The only valid comparisons here are between "Paladin healing" and "Fighter healing" and between "Paladin aggro generation" and "Fighter aggro generation".

The second problem with the above comparison is that you completely disregard the fact that the absolute most important function of a "defender" is to "defend". In order to do this, while I will grant that he has to remain alive in the long run, he must primarily (before health even becomes a factor) be able to stop the baddies from going after and squishing the clothies in the back ranks. Aggro generation is the most effective method of doing this.

You also factor damage output into the equation, which - although a nice bonus - has very little to do with the primary function of the defender role. If I'm in a party as a squishy wizard type and the tank is worried more about his damage output than his damage intake, he's fired. Tanks should be about damage output only insofar as it relates to their aggro generation. Beyond that, I don't care if the tank misses on every single attack - as long as he's getting attacked instead of me, he's doing his job.