Fighters are Weak? I think not!!

[Joachim Pieper]

It's all very well saying fighters aren't as good as spellcasters, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the spellcasters who would want to go toe-to-toe with one.
When we started playing our high-level game (started at 17th, now at 22nd) we didn't have a fighter. But the rogue, fighter-rogue, wizard, wizard-cleric and cleric simply weren't getting anywhere. What it boils down to is that spellcasters need someone big to hide behind. The fighter is the first pick in the party, I reckon. A party without one will struggle. You need a character who can take two hundred points of damage at epic level, because the gribblies are dealing that much. Also, unless you've not sorted your fighter out right, he should be causing more damage, consistently, than the party wizard.
That's what we found out. We also worked out that vorpal swords were broken in 3.0, but that's a different story.

 

[ruleslawyer]

It's all very well saying fighters aren't as good as spellcasters, but I can count on the fingers of one hand the spellcasters who would want to go toe-to-toe with one.

Casters don't go toe-to-toe with fighters. They turn improved invisible, fly, and bombard from hundreds of feet in the air using save-or-dies and forcecages.

When we started playing our high-level game (started at 17th, now at 22nd) we didn't have a fighter. But the rogue, fighter-rogue, wizard, wizard-cleric and cleric simply weren't getting anywhere. What it boils down to is that spellcasters need someone big to hide behind. The fighter is the first pick in the party, I reckon. A party without one will struggle. You need a character who can take two hundred points of damage at epic level, because the gribblies are dealing that much.

Yes, but a barbarian, multiclass fighter, or fighter/PrC (or barbarian/PrC, or paladin/PrC, etc.) does the damage soak job better.

Also, unless you've not sorted your fighter out right, he should be causing more damage, consistently, than the party wizard.

Again, that's not true at high levels, sadly; more to the point, it's not necessarily relevant. The point is that fighters have a decreasing range of options at higher levels, making them a) not so interesting as other character builds and b) potentially less viable compared to ftr/rogue or ftr/bbn multiclasses, barbarian damage machines, archer PrC types, and non-fighters. A more interesting and more, shall we say, sustainable fighter might be a welcome change.

 

[Joachim Pieper]

An epic fighter is not quite the soft spell target you make out. Shield of reflection? Ring of spell turning? Fire away with the save-or-die...

At epic level, multiclasing is a handicap, not an advantage. Look at some of the epic fighter feats. Do you know anyone who wants to be on the receiving end of a dire charge?

And I think, with the aid of four-fold-forging, that the epic fighter does, in fact cause much more damage in one round than a mage can hope to. To the tune of 400-500hp. Meteor swarm pales by comparison...

Add to this the fact that the fighter performs much better than most other classes when dispelled, it makes him invaluable. The key, to me, is that you need something in the party that the baddies don't get a save against. The barbarian fulfills the same role as the fighter, but without the flexibility. Multiclass fighters fulfil the same role, without the effectiveness. There are situations where you won't be hitting (especially epic) creatures unless your attack bonus in in the mid-thirties. Equally there will be situations where you need to have an AC in the fifties...


Cheers.

 

[Bards R Us]

There's a dwarven fighter in one of my groups and he's at least the 2nd most powerful member (the strongest one being an Ogre warrior which is pretty similar).

 

[Victim]

Let's take a look at the other combat classes for a minute:

* Barbarian: Walking target. More HP? Woop dee doo. Not being able to wear heavy armor makes them a big, damage absorbing mook. Sure, they can dish out more damage than a fighter, but only for a bit, then they're useless, and a second-level spell undoes them. The Fighter, meanwhile, can dish out his slightly less damage more consistantly over the course of a dungeon. In one combat, the Barbarian is going to seem to shine. Through an adventure, not so.

* Paladin: Sure, they're great at smashing up fiends, but so what? So's a Cleric. Paladins are hardly physically powerful creatures, at most being able to smite something for craps and giggles while on their pokemount charging with a lance. A fighter can do all that except the smite, which is no great claptraps. And facing lawful or good adversaries (or even those who simply aren't POWERED BY TEH EVUL!), a fighter clearly comes out ahead.

* Ranger: The woodsman is as frail as a twig. Once you spot the blighters, they fall like chaff before the flail (or pretty much anything else). Nearly everything a ranger gets (like a paladin) can be done with feats earlier by a fighter, and the ranger's left with some stealth and a pet meatbag, I mean animal companion.

* Cleric. Some gripe about the clerics UBER POWERZ, so we might as well bring him in. Give him War and Destruction, too, why not. Give him some buffs, and send him scampering. Now he's as well defended as a fighter, plus with uberstats. Well, (a) those buffs would've worked better on the fighter in the firstplace, (b) you've spent your entire class's power making up for the area in which you lack, (c) you don't have healing or divination left, which basically makes you a one-trick pony who the fighter STILL outclasses when the enemies get dispellin'. And he won't be the frail little twig like the Ranger, either.

So the point is no one comes close to the fighter in doing what he does. Just make sure you actually know what he's supposed to do before you change him to, say, meet the barbarian's role and then some....

The difference between Heavy armor or not is 1 whole point of AC and some Dex buffs. Add up the Max Dex and AC bonus on armors. Full Plate and Padded total at 9, most others at 8. So Barbarian AC potentially a mere 3 points lower during rages. While significant, it's not like arbs are running around naked getting hit by everything while stuff bounces off a fighter's plate. Barbarians can usually rage for more than one fight, since they get extra rages with levels and can take that extra rage feat. So, if you want to change your statement to: "Barbarian can dish out more damage than fighters during critical encounters, but will have slightly impaired performance in other fights. Meanwhile, a fighter will be impressively medicore in all fights." A second level spell ruins fighter's too: Hold Person. Calm Emotions has a save, so if an enemy can land it, they could have landed Hold, Charm, Dominate, etc. Oh, and since raging adds to Will saves, it's actually easier to disable the fighter with such spells.

While a paladin might not have the same physical stats as a pure fighter, they should still be respectable. Divine Might lets a paladin use his CHA for damage too, which somwhat makes up for the lack of physical stats. And fighters can't match a paladin's lance charging except at low levels. At higher levels, most mounts will need the extra HD and such in order to survive. But the real difference is the saves. A fighter can do all that a paladin can, except resist those pesky spells, spell like abilities, and assorted other tricks.

Battle clerics using self buffs generally have enough spells left over for some healing, divination, and other stuff. In some cases, the cleric could uber buff himself, pass some nice spells to the group, and still have a heal and some flamestrikes. And there are defenses against dispelling too. The same rings of spell turning or counterspelling that make up for the fighter's weak saves send the dispels right back at their casters.

 

[takyris]

While the barbarian's rage is a powerful asset to the team, I've found that it's a limited one. Enemies who know that the big guy with the axe is really powerful for about a minute or two at a time have a tendency to send in something just big enough to trip the rage button, then laugh and hide for awhile, then send in something again, then laugh and hide, and so forth.

I mean, if you're playing in a campaign where the bad guy is clearly visible and charges you with all his monsters in one fell swoop, good on ya. But a tactically inclined baddie sends things in bits, a pair here, a singleton there, trying to get the group to waste its limited use items and abilities before sending in the big guns.

The advantage of the fighter and rogue is that, aside from hit points and a few possible feats, everything they do, they can do all day. An individual wizard's spell is more powerful than an individual fighter or rogue's abilities, but the fighter never runs out of Power Attack or Expertise, and I've never heard the rogue say, "Should I use evasion NOW, or save it for later?"

I believe firmly that this is an intended balance feature -- that fighters and rogues, while less powerful blow for blow, don't run out of stuff, while spellcasters should run the risk of doing so. Campaigns that let the spellcasters rest all the time are skewing things in such a way that the rogue, to a certain degree, and the fighter, to a much larger certain degree, look weak.

 

[Will]

Sort of an as aside, I wish Experts were PC value. Much of the problems I've heard about fighters (particularly 'what knight doesn't have Knowledge (nobility)??') would be solved by Ftr/Expert.

Or Ftr/Aristocrat.

I think one of the problems with fighters is that their power is fairly linear, while that of spellcasters ... well, it's not exponential, but it's a curve. OTOH, of course, fighter abilities are constant. This means that depending on circumstances they may shine or not...

I find the urge to multiclass isn't bad. That fighters mix well with everything else just means, to me, that they are balanced. One of my complaints about spellcasters is that they are hard to multiclass without severely impairing their function. This is a sign not that they are powerful, but their design doesn't work properly with multiclassing (something WotC freely admits).

OTOH, fighters are great as a core or a fraction. That is, FtrN/Rog 1 or 2, Wiz 1 or 2, Pal 1 or 2, etc, or Something N/Ftr 1 or 2.

 

[ruleslawyer]

While the barbarian's rage is a powerful asset to the team, I've found that it's a limited one. Enemies who know that the big guy with the axe is really powerful for about a minute or two at a time have a tendency to send in something just big enough to trip the rage button, then laugh and hide for awhile, then send in something again, then laugh and hide, and so forth.

You play a different game than I do, then, tacky. Either the barbarian is smart enough to save up his rages, or he isn't. Against anything that's a sortie or testing encounter, the bbn can hold back on rage; his hit points and feats, plus judicious use of Power Attack, will hold him in fine stead.

And this leads us to the big problem: Non-exclusivity of the fighter's core ability. Anyone can take the useful feats if they want to; the fighter just has more of them. Not everyone can use evasion, or cast spells, or rage.

Campaigns that let the spellcasters rest all the time are skewing things in such a way that the rogue, to a certain degree, and the fighter, to a much larger certain degree, look weak.

You mean campaigns that allow teleportation, or rope tricks, or just plain retreat? At high levels, when casters are really taking off, and getting plenty of spells and items with which to last longer and longer, they're simultaneously getting the ability to limit their number of encounters per day with some ease. DM "tactics" to continually harry spellcasters with those resources smack more of contrivance than anything else.

An epic fighter is not quite the soft spell target you make out. Shield of reflection? Ring of spell turning? Fire away with the save-or-die...

Item dependency is NOT an advantage. Any character can pick up these items, for exactly the same cost as a fighter. The fact that the fighter needs these items to stand up to opponents is a liability, not an advantage.

At epic level, multiclasing is a handicap, not an advantage. Look at some of the epic fighter feats. Do you know anyone who wants to be on the receiving end of a dire charge?

Barbarians and PrC fighters can take these feats too, and do a better job with them.

And I think, with the aid of four-fold-forging, that the epic fighter does, in fact cause much more damage in one round than a mage can hope to. To the tune of 400-500hp. Meteor swarm pales by comparison...

On a full attack. With a lot of luck. Being able to dish out lots of damage in non-tactical melee (yeah, you heard right; full attacks are hard to pull off) isn't uber; it's good. And this is what fighters SHOULD be doing, and should be best at. Yet a barbarian or multiclassed fighter can do just as much damage and have just as many hp or more. Worse still, the barb doesn't even incur any penalties for raging at this point, meaning that he can do it for basically every encounter, all the time, without suffering in between.

Of course, an archer is able to pull this off nicely at epic levels, but here again, the fighter pales in comparison to the fighter/PrC, ranger/PrC, or combination thereof.

The barbarian fulfills the same role as the fighter, but without the flexibility. Multiclass fighters fulfil the same role, without the effectiveness.

This is where we disagree. I'm not whining about how much fighter-types are shafted in the game, but rather about how the straight fighter doesn't really compare with his multiclass or PrC counterparts. Thus my suggestion that high-level fighter abilities might be a good idea.

 

[takyris]

You play a different game than I do, then, tacky. Either the barbarian is smart enough to save up his rages, or he isn't. Against anything that's a sortie or testing encounter, the bbn can hold back on rage; his hit points and feats, plus judicious use of Power Attack, will hold him in fine stead.

Well, at low levels, he doesn't have that many rages per day. At high levels, there are other ways to de-rage him (or make his rage useless), some of which I'll get to below.

And this leads us to the big problem: Non-exclusivity of the fighter's core ability. Anyone can take the useful feats if they want to; the fighter just has more of them. Not everyone can use evasion, or cast spells, or rage.

That's true to a point, but only to a point. The fighter is the one who can exclusively have more completed feat-chains -- the one who can have whirlwind attack AND great cleave by sixth level, or whatever it is. The fighter's flexibility in combat is his exclusivity. He can be a weapon specialist, a tank, AND an archer. He has the feats to make that possible. Or he can be any two of those three and leave some non-fighter feats for save-boosting feats or improved initiative or other useful things. If your campaign is one that allows someone with a very limited focus fight well in that focus in every fight, then yeah, we're in different campaigns. If the DM never makes some fights start at close range, some fights start at long range, and some fights involve ground obstacles, then, uh, yeah, a limited focus guy shines. Otherwise, the generalist is ultimately better, because he's good at everything, as opposed to being great at one thing and lousy at the rest.

You mean campaigns that allow teleportation, or rope tricks, or just plain retreat? At high levels, when casters are really taking off, and getting plenty of spells and items with which to last longer and longer, they're simultaneously getting the ability to limit their number of encounters per day with some ease. DM "tactics" to continually harry spellcasters with those resources smack more of contrivance than anything else.

Does it smack of contrivance for an evil wizard to see that the party is heading towards his castle and try dirty tricks to get them to waste some of their spells/limited abilities beforehand? An illusion of a dragon, for example, to get the party to cast a bunch of buff spells (which will then wear off too soon to be of use in the real fight), for example? Or letting the party throw up their buff spells in the wizard's dimensionally anchored (everyone but him, specified as per the rules of the hallow(?) spell) lair and then tossing up a wall of force between himself and them, smiling smugly while their summoned monsters and Haste spells wither on the vine? I'm not talking about saying, "No, you can't rest, a magical spell stops you from regaining spells." I'm talking about good solid tactics. I mean, if I know that the enemy archer has only three arrows, you're darn right that I'm gonna try and make him waste those arrows while I'm under full cover.

Same deal with barbarian's rage. If I've never heard of the party, that's one thing -- but most major villains in my campaign have watched the party decimate their henchmen, and so they've seen what the party can do. Thus, they have plans to take away the party's strengths. I mean, that's what Divination spells are for, right? Or do you play in a happy campaign where the evil wizards are nothing but fireball machines who don't actually use intelligent tactics when faced with a party of tactically minded PCs? If I'm the evil wizard, I'm gonna make darn sure that I attack the barbarian when he's nice and winded (assuming he's at a level when post-rage means winded). If he outsmarts me, good for him, but the winded thing is in there for a reason. It shouldn't NEVER come up, just like the wizard shouldn't NEVER run out of spells he needs. If he never does, your campaign is too easy, and your fighter is getting shafted.

If DM "tactics" smack of contrivance to you, I pity your DM. You must have harried him into having nice stupid monsters who start out at the range you like and don't do any tactics that would negate your abilities.

This is where we disagree. I'm not whining about how much fighter-types are shafted in the game, but rather about how the straight fighter doesn't really compare with his multiclass or PrC counterparts. Thus my suggestion that high-level fighter abilities might be a good idea.

And here, I agree with you, at least in large part. I don't necessary want to see "abilities that only the fighter gets", but I'd have no problem with more high-level feats that either a) require a ton of different feats to get, making it likely that only a fighter can get them without making every feat he takes devoted to it, or b) fighter-only feats, like weapon specialization. For the record, I'm not a fan of weapon specialization -- unless I've got three falchions on me, I'm just one disarm attempt away from losing several of my best feats. But I would like to see other fighter-specific or fighter-only-likely-to-get feats, especially higher-level ones.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

And here, I agree with you, at least in large part. I don't necessary want to see "abilities that only the fighter gets", but I'd have no problem with more high-level feats that either a) require a ton of different feats to get, making it likely that only a fighter can get them without making every feat he takes devoted to it, or b) fighter-only feats, like weapon specialization. For the record, I'm not a fan of weapon specialization -- unless I've got three falchions on me, I'm just one disarm attempt away from losing several of my best feats. But I would like to see other fighter-specific or fighter-only-likely-to-get feats, especially higher-level ones.

It has long be my assertion that a number of PrCs could be replaced with imaginative feat chains. If the chain is long that is effectively a Fighter-only virtual PrC.