Fighters didn't matter after 11th level?

[ProfessorPain]

1. Dragon or Giant or such=meatshield.

2. Polymorphing the fighter into a dragon doesn't help the parties overall beefiness like polymorphing the wizard into a dragon.

3. You can still cast spells when polymorphed into a dragon or giant.

4. I didn't personally polymorph anyone when I played a high level caster...but if I had that spell available I would never have been in my normal body. IIRC as long as you pick some humanoid form you could stay polymorphed for a week or more.

DS

1) A dragon or giant is much more than a meat shield, they do a staggering amount of damage.

2) But you don't want overall beefiness, you still want someone slinging spells in the background. Parties need a balance, a fighter polymorphed into a dragon, is a much better tactical choice than polymophing the wizard.

3) A dragon is disputable, but even if you could, you wont. What is the point of polymorphing if you are going to cast spells anyways. In which case, just polymorph the other characters so you can focus on spells.

4) So it seems, this hasn't been a problem for either of us then. Yes you can. But that is also pretty silly to do. If your character is going to walk around as a giant for a weak, people are going to react to him like he is a giant. I had one player who was a problem with shapechanging and he was a druid. And the problem was out of combat, not in it (because he insisted on walking around in wild shape). I just made sure people responded appropriately to his shape.

 

[Starbuck_II]

3) A dragon is disputable, but even if you could, you wont. What is the point of polymorphing if you are going to cast spells anyways. In which case, just polymorph the other characters so you can focus on spells.

What?
Dragon Shapechange (not polymorph with its low Hd limit) makes the Wizard better offensively, defensively, etc.

Less chance an enemy can harm the wizard now. Plus, you get breath weapon to save spells.

 

[ProfessorPain]

What?
Dragon Shapechange (not polymorph with its low Hd limit) makes the Wizard better offensively, defensively, etc.

Less chance an enemy can harm the wizard now. Plus, you get breath weapon to save spells.

This is a great spell, but it is also 9th level. So it isn't going to happen every combat. But hey, one of the fun things about being a wizard is going spells like shapechange.

 

[Thasmodious]

Wizards without fighters to protect them, are going to have a hard time casting spells in the first place. Something I learned early on in 3e was you must use concentration checks and add the damage to the DC when dealing with wizards. This is a real important balancing factor.

1. Wizards, at this level, don't need fighters to protect them. Fly, dimension door, summon dire bears, stoneskin and company...

2. Concentration checks to cast defensively are auto successes (or near enough) by mid levels.

 

[ProfessorPain]

1. Wizards, at this level, don't need fighters to protect them. Fly, dimension door, summon dire bears, stoneskin and company...

2. Concentration checks to cast defensively are auto successes (or near enough) by mid levels.

1) They still do. A flying wizard is plenty easy to hit, by a challenging foe. That and dimension door just put the wizard on the run, they gain him time. Stoneskin is cool (unless the enemies have adamantine) but it isn't a certain thing against high level opponents that can dish out lots of damage, and you waste your round casting it, so the enemy is already in front of you next round if the fighter isn't there. Summoning a dire bear is a round casting time, so the DC is damage + spell level + 10. At that high level, anything that causes a concentration check can easily do enough damage to make the check near impossible.

2) You can still get hit casting defensively, you just don't provoke an attack of opportunity. Any spell that is a round or more is going to have a difficult concentration check (Damage+10+ spell level). Plus you need to make the initial concentration check for the defensive casting (which is pretty easy).

 

[insanogeddon]

Equate

Clerics need to put in alot of effort to equate to fighters (by equate I mean get close to) and I have yet to see the buffed cleric thats better at fighting than a WELL made warrior and thats not even taking onto account the extra actions/ability to cope with shock troops etc the fighter gets thru not having to prep. (what SUPER genius and ancient EVIL opponent lets you sleep peacefully all the time? if DMs play the main villans that foolishly suicidal in my experience I can feel no more sense of achievement then if the big bad piled up his treasure and decapitate himself when the group first peeps into the dungeon).

Cleric spells match a fighter at a base level, but what fighter fights at a base level?? Cleric spells don't grant the feats/benefits from specialisation (or rage) up and so the matching is a base matching when in game after feats, items, stat expenditure etc etc they never come close and just waste effort being poor clerics and basic fighters as opposed to being exeptional clerics and channeling some o those buffs to group benefits making themselves more surviveable and making the fighters equally more surviveble and stomping all the foes with little disaster and becoming thusly rich and powerful without death continuity hassles derailing story without player boredom as others accrew dimond dust and debt thus loosingto the group that doesn't have such needless expenses.... I am still bitter about being wupped by an opposing adventuring party that I grudgingly admit had their heads in a better place than our groups back then generic 'silly selfish evil'.

A heroes feast in the morning and a recitation (two things that benefit everyone) is a far better spell use. And a fighter* and a cleric sticking to role will stomp and cleric/ melle cleric combo.

By fighter I don't necessarily mean the class.. warriors are not chained to a spoon fed path of caster level crumbs thus can immerse more in the DMs creation and like conan or any great hero adventurer be a pirate/soldier/savage/bandit/champion/fronteers man etc etc as they inevitably are over 20 levels. Level mechanics can show this as opposed to mere blurb selling this that casters need to rely on as they are trapped into a caster level arms race. Mixing Barbarian/fighter/ranger or anything that takes their fantasy and the DMs and other players further (guiding this to include the ability to use wands is never a crime.. no one in that much damaged alot has no just cause to have a soft spot for the divine).

 

[Runestar]

Wizards without fighters to protect them, are going to have a hard time casting spells in the first place.

Problem is, in 3e, I don't see what fighters can do to help protect the wizard. He has no abilities to make the foe want to attack him over the wizard. He will surely have a higher AC, more hp but lower damage potential than the wizard. Which then makes less sense for the monster to target the fighter over the wizard. In short, he is a glorified doorstop.

Typically, if my foes do end up attacking the fighter, it is more because the spellcasters have done such a good job of protecting themselves/keeping themselves out of harm that the fighter then becomes a more enticing target by comparison, and less of the fighter doing such a stellar job of tanking.

 

[Dacileva]

Scry, buff, seems to be more of a problem with munchkin players than the game itself. It's something a lot of people whine about, but I've never seen used once. If it becomes a problem, there are ways to work around even if it's just the players agreeing not to use such anticlimatic tactics.

It is not munchkin for characters to realize the effectiveness of and then repeatedly reuse an extremely successful tactic.

The players agreeing not to use such anticlimactic tactics is, in and of itself, proof that the caster dominance does exist unless the casters or their players choose not to.

The best solution for many is to balance the game such that the tactic, and casters in general, are no longer so strongly dominant that they have to choose through metagame not to use that dominance.

 

[insanogeddon]

Strike and Defend

Our games its often the fighter types that have to limit themselves to not do the charging/powerattacking/leaping/combat brute type 200 hp damage attacks.

Fighters just aren't doorstops or defenders. In 4th ed terms they were Strikers AND Defenders all rolled into one neat, flexible, gritty package. A package that granted is harder to play well as your melle types gain a greater boost from a grasp of tactics and strategy as opposed to the resource allocation a high level caster boils down to.

In our campaigns as any warrior worth his world changing heroics up to that point pretty much has a helm of teleport or some such with the cash casters are alocating to the caster level/one stat rat race and so often can teleport more often then said casters who rarely memorise 3 teleports a day.

A fighter with a bunch o cure wands (and a ranger level) of just a helm who uses some of his MANY feats on will save buffs can wander into a dungeon all alone far easier than a caster who needs the DM to be caster friendly and soft on enemy intelegence and their desire to live.

As said tho if in the highly magical dnd world with casters, gods, physics breaking shenanagan monsters and wealth assumptions your DM heavily restricts your gold and items from the srd standards he will no doubt have an issue with casters and they will be ever so special, then he will have to fix that with further limitations on casting to get it back to where it started.

Again if you can scry and buff (if your buffing presumably these are major opponents we speak about) those ~16th level NPCs are being handed to you on a platter by a charitable DM. Some emo encounters are good but its hardly epic if all your foes are rearing to end themselves.

 

[insanogeddon]

Amusing

Once when we were going after a lich and pinking in and out the DM before be teleported in for the final battle choose to try and out wit us .. US (he was dreaming, thats NOT possible) instead of using the blocking spells. Before we choose where we popped in he marked his map in pen. Seems he guessed correctly and the area we popped into was walled of with stone and filled with green slime all covered with an illusion... then it got worse... T P K



The DM leveled that day.



At least its not 2nd ed where a well placed permanent illusion over a 'block of souls' (a chunk of stone) in a very attractive teleport in area would have the smarty pants scry/teleport wizard choosing to teleport into the cloaked waist level stone and die horribly. Alas my poor Faustus Malikieth he died without genitals!



Why do monsters hang round in ancient civilisations, crypts, dungeons?

How come there are so many blasphmous depraved sculptures of ancient forgotten gods?

Hallow / Unhallow !!!! SRD 4th level

4000 - 5000 gp even if done fresh is a 40ft radius of 1 year (or permanent in richer civilisations) Protection from Fire (predict trolls in that room), Silence (predict a grappler or an enemy caster that rather likes his silent spell feat as he cut out his tounge for laughfs), Dispel Magic (in the entery chamber to the kings room), Dimensional Anchor (predict the big bads chamber), Invisiblity purge (the corridoor leading up to the guards)... anti-flight spell ? etc

When DMing I recomend having flash cards of each and on whim scatter them in where believeable if your playing a company-made crawl. The odd fly in the ointment encourages wit and others to shine.

Gods have a vested interest in the dnd world, they exist in vast numbers, the world is not young, 4000 gp is a joke for a kingdom or high level opponent, Clerics are willing to help all sorts of people/creatures for their gods unknowable ends (till your epic and attempting to take the goons down).

Just a sprinkling of wonder and flavour and cause and effect soon has mundane people that don't rely on magic comming good (like high level rogues).


Stuff like that adds flavour as well. I still remember the lone gnome sorcerer with silent, still and eschew materials that wiped the floor with us in gaseous form when we wandered through the 'unholy fog' that started taking over a town. It turned out to be a 'guards and wards' srd spell... it became a must have for my casters after that tremendously irritating cthulu type experience.

Its amusing to lock down places you intend to loot/come back to after a rest that you have not cleaned out. Irritates npcs (DM) no end and makes them work harder.

I digress