Fighters -must- wear heavy armor

[Derren]

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?

Why would monsters bother to kill 20 ft slow Str fighters? Walk around them, kill the wizards and then kite them to death....

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Why would monsters bother to kill 20 ft slow Str fighters? Walk around them, kill the wizards and then kite them to death....

Why kill the Wizard if the Fighter deals similar amount of damage per round, and stands in front of you?And if he can take an AoO if you try to get past him? How do you even get to the stupid wizard that likes flying around, outside your reach? And what do you do after you killed the Wizard? Do you think the Fighter will just go home disappointed? Okay, if you want to give up your lair, fine... But then why don't you just run?

Why should a monster bother to kill a lightly amored fighter this deals little damage and is running away from you all the time? Why not just jump a more "squishy" target that is actually a threat? Maybe it's really worth trying to jump up to that nasty Wizard and catch him?

The best solution off course is to deal massive amounts of damage, being fast, and being hard to hit at the same time, but that's hardly achievable in 3E. Speed for a Fighter is only useful for catching up to an opponent, not for moving away from him (unless he's retreating). If he is not near his opponent, the opponent has the best chances to pick targets as he likes it, which is probably what you don't like.

That off course is only true if you're using a Fighter in a Defender role. That's very often expected, but not a given, in 3E.

 

[Stogoe]

And if you want to play a fighting guy without the other baggage of a rogue or ranger

What baggage? The Rogue's 'lightly armored, mobile striker' baggage? Or the Ranger's 'lightly armored archer/TWF-er' baggage?

 

[Steely Dan]

I know other people have already pointed this out – if you want to play a lightly armoured, dextrous warrior, play a rogue.

And the barbarian (primal defender?) might be another lightly armoured option.

 

[Jack99]

Why would monsters bother to kill 20 ft slow Str fighters? Walk around them, kill the wizards and then kite them to death....

kite them to death? what is this, Everquest?

Mustrum_Ridcully answered your question fairly well, so I am just going to say this;

The monster will "bother" with the hard-hitting - 20' moving fighter because he might actually pose the semblance of a threat, while the dancing queen in tight shorts and wielding a rapier is just as dangerous as window-dressing.

Cheers,

 

[Aenghus]

I do expect the 4e fighter to be mainly Str-based powers-wise, from the little info out at this point. Some powers seem to use other attribs, but by and large the fighter stereotype is the heavily armoured Str-based fighter.

Conversely, I expect the rogue to have a number of Dex-based combat powers, so that high Dex can contribute to damage, something that didn't happen in 3e mostly and made low-Str, high-Dex combatants weak comparatively speaking.

 

[ruleslawyer]

arg.

 

[DaveyJones]

Are you saying that in a Shatnerian voice? I hope you're not saying that in a Shatnerian voice.

i think i just shat nerd
iykwimaityd



i like my heavy armored tanks to be fighter types too

 

[ruleslawyer]

I know other people have already pointed this out – if you want to play a lightly armoured, dextrous warrior, play a rogue.

This.

Just like if you want to play an archer, play a ranger.

This is true in 3e to a strong extent as well. It is grossly inefficient to run a combatant who uses Dexterity to maximum advantage (including light armor, finesse weapons, and skills) as a fighter; rogue is a much better way to build a swashbuckling type. In 4e, it appears that the rogue will kill the swashbuckler and take his stuff, which means that "fighter" now connotes medieval-style armored knight (or hoplite, or samurai, or whatever). But that's no different from 3e, where to play a Dex fighter you either needed to play a rogue or the swashbuckler niche class (which is no longer needed in 4e).

 

[Derren]

Why kill the Wizard if the Fighter deals similar amount of damage per round, and stands in front of you?And if he can take an AoO if you try to get past him? How do you even get to the stupid wizard that likes flying around, outside your reach? And what do you do after you killed the Wizard? Do you think the Fighter will just go home disappointed? Okay, if you want to give up your lair, fine... But then why don't you just run?

Why should a monster bother to kill a lightly amored fighter this deals little damage and is running away from you all the time? Why not just jump a more "squishy" target that is actually a threat? Maybe it's really worth trying to jump up to that nasty Wizard and catch him?

The best solution off course is to deal massive amounts of damage, being fast, and being hard to hit at the same time, but that's hardly achievable in 3E. Speed for a Fighter is only useful for catching up to an opponent, not for moving away from him (unless he's retreating). If he is not near his opponent, the opponent has the best chances to pick targets as he likes it, which is probably what you don't like.

That off course is only true if you're using a Fighter in a Defender role. That's very often expected, but not a given, in 3E.

When the monster can't reach the flying wizard then the fighter is just blocking the way and not needed. Sorry that I look at examples where the fighter would actually be useful.

Second, why has the lightly armored fighter always have to run away?
Third, why should a monster bother with a slow ass moving fighter? No matter how much damage the fighter deals, when the fighter is too slow to reach it he isn't a threat.
Look at the geometry discussion, with the 1-1-1 rule its already rather easy to walk around protecting fighters to reach the wizards unless the fighters always stand within 5ft of the wizard which makes them very boring to play.
So what would a smart monster do? lure the fighter away, walk around him to the wizard, kill the wizard while the slow moving fighter is moving close and then use ranged attacks to kill the fighter while staying out of his range (= kiting which was used very successfully in real life by mounted archers for example).
In comparisation, a lightly armored fighter, while hitting for a bit less damage is still able to catch the monster so he is the bigger threat.

Just because a class is a defender doesn't mean that the enemies will attack him automatically.