Fighters -must- wear heavy armor

[Brother MacLaren]

In all honesty, the nimble fighter loses on two fronts: he's not as good a damage dealer as a heavy-armored fighter or a lightly-armored rogue. If your losing on two fronts, throw in the towel and go with a winner...

Could I see the numbers you used to arrive at this conclusion? Spring-Attacking rogue vs. Spring-Attacking fighter? By my reckoning (25-pt buy, core only, no magic), they are back-and-forth on damage, generally very close over most levels, IF the rogue can Sneak Attack and IF the fighter uses PA so his attack bonus matches the rogue's. It would be a more complicated situation to compare them against a range of ACs (say, ECL+8 to ECL+20), but that might give a better answer than forcing the fighter to PA for the difference every time.

 

[pawsplay]

Wait, what? That doesn't make any sense. Enhancement bonuses cost the same whether they're on a chain shirt or full plate, and bracers cost the same as an equivalent enhancement bonus, just without the armor. A +2 chain shirt is about three times the cost of ordinary full plate and still provides less AC. You only save money by wearing lighter armor if it's not magical at all, and then your AC lag is going to be rather more than "smallest".

You're assuming armor bonus is always a net gain. With max Dex, not true. A +2 chain shirt is actually one point better than plate armor if you have 18 Dex. Bracers are nearly as good as cloth or leather and provide protection against incorporeal attacks.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You're assuming armor bonus is always a net gain. With max Dex, not true. A +2 chain shirt is actually one point better than plate armor if you have 18 Dex. Bracers are nearly as good as cloth or leather and provide protection against incorporeal attacks.

The question is - what did you invest (and lose somewhere else) in getting a Dex of 18?

Our group regularly plays with 25 point buys, and any "lightly armored fighter" builds always seems inferior to the standard full plate wearing fighter. Even if you get a similar AC, you will then lack in the damage or the to-hit department...

 

[Gloombunny]

Oops... I was going to say something about high Dexterity in there, but I guess I forgot it. The thing is that having a really high Dexterity is going to detract from your other attributes, such as Strength, and compensating for that loss is going to cost a lot more than compensating for a mediocre Dex by wearing heavy armor.

Saying that you can save money for more weapon enhancements isn't very exciting when you're already behind on attack and damage rolls because the other guy has more Strength.

 

[Derren]

The question is - what did you invest (and lose somewhere else) in getting a Dex of 18?

Our group regularly plays with 25 point buys, and any "lightly armored fighter" builds always seems inferior to the standard full plate wearing fighter. Even if you get a similar AC, you will then lack in the damage or the to-hit department...

Lets compare Dex to Str....

Str:
- Adds to melee attacks
- Adds to melee and throwing damage
- Increases carrying capacity
- Adds to Jump, Climb and Swim

Dex:
- Adds to ranged attacks
- Adds to initiative
- Adds to reflex saving throws
- Adds to AC/Flat footed AC
- Adds to Balance, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Ride, Slight of Hand, Tumble and Use Rope

So its quite easy to see why Dex as a stat is more valuable than Str. The only thing Str has going for it is the increased melee damage. The attack bonus can be covered by weapon finesse.

 

[Lord Ernie]

Lets compare Dex to Str....

Str:
- Adds to melee attacks
- Adds to melee and throwing damage
- Increases carrying capacity
- Adds to Jump, Climb and Swim

Dex:
- Adds to ranged attacks
- Adds to initiative
- Adds to reflex saving throws
- Adds to AC/Flat footed AC
- Adds to Balance, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Ride, Slight of Hand, Tumble and Use Rope

So its quite easy to see why Dex as a stat is more valuable than Str. The only thing Str has going for it is the increased melee damage. The attack bonus can be covered by weapon finesse.

You comparison is flawed, since it's too general, and fails to list dex's limitations. We're comparing Str and Dex for Fighters here, melee fighters at that, not in general. With that in mind, let's look at your dex advantages again.

Dex:
- Adds to ranged attacks -> Unrelevant to a melee fighter
- Adds to initiative -> Minor relevance, but not really critically important.
- Adds to reflex saving throws -> With the fighter's low dex save, won't make a difference except at low levels.
- Adds to AC/Flat footed AC -> False. Flat footed = no dex, for starters. Touch AC, yes. For the AC issue, we have heavy armor.
- Adds to Balance, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Ride, Slight of Hand, Tumble and Use Rope -> none of these except for Ride are fighter skills, and having minor bonuses here won't help at all.

And then we have Strength:

Str:
- Adds to melee attacks -> No feat required. Good.
- Adds to melee and throwing damage -> Together with melee attack of prime importance for a melee fighter. Outstrips 90% of the Dex advantages with ease.
- Increases carrying capacity -> Good, since we're making a fighter, and if we're not gonna super boost dex, we need heavy armor.
- Adds to Jump, Climb and Swim -> All three class skills. The Strength bonus will actually matter.

So, without a feat that adds some way of boosting damage for dex-based fighters, Str is clearly superior.

 

[Noinarap]

And if you want to play a fighting guy without the other baggage of a rogue or ranger and still don't want heavy armor? Say you want to be strength focused rather than dex focused, for example. Or follow a cultural trope that doesn't involving buckling swashes or running around the woods with animals, yet not wearing full plate? (Vikings, Celtic warriors [naked man with a two handed sword- dacian falx, late roman republic period] and Spartans seem appropriate here). The 4e response seems to be 'go do something biologically impossible to yourself'.

Playing a barbarian when the rules for one come out is not biologically impossible.

 

[Talislan]

Ideal world:

Heavy armour fighter harder to damage when hit (has more protection), Light armour fighter harder to hit in the first place (has greater mobility).

Damage delivery potential should be equal in both cases if both are of an equivalent ability with their chosen weapons. Lighter weapons that do less damage should hit faster and more often. Larger 'Heavy Weapons' should be slower but cause more damage per average hit.

How to balance that in game mechanics:

Str?/Dex?: to hit (dependent on weapon type rather than 'weapon finess' maybe?)
Dex?/speed?/AG?: to avoid being hit
Strength?/speed?: to damage (or multi-wound)
HP?Con?DR?: to prevent damage
Armour: increase ability to take damage, lower ability to avoid being hit

I don't know what the answer is for D&D never mind 4e (as some of these things may be viewed as 'un-D&D' in nature) but I am looking forward to what ever they come up with this time. If it boils down to having to play a stereotype while they spend more time making sure new stereotypes balance in game then that is fine by me. For now.

I should also state that this is all just - IMHO - and I am not saying that any other way of playing is badwrongfun.

 

[Jack99]

Lets compare Dex to Str....

[snipped]

So its quite easy to see why Dex as a stat is more valuable than Str. The only thing Str has going for it is the increased melee damage. The attack bonus can be covered by weapon finesse.

Derren, you need to a few miles swing north and bring me some of that german beer that you have been drinking.

Dex is nowhere as valuable to a figher as strength is. A fighter can only do very few things, one of which is dealing damage, to kill or keep monsters on him. A DEX fighter will rarely be able to hold them locked down/kill them, since if he won't do any (significant) damage; I mean, why on earth would a monster bother with trying to kill him?

 

[Lord Zack]

Of course this applies only so much to 4e (how much I don't know exactly, I haven't seen the whole rules), since powers will increase damage. And rapier powers will probably be designed specifically around Dex (though if I played a light defender I'd probably use sword and board).