Fighters -must- wear heavy armor

[Mad Mac]

Hmmm...I agree that Dex Fighters have never been very good. I should note that Races and Classes states that Chain Mail is sometimes attractive to Elf and Halfling Fighters, so there is probably at least some incentive for High Dex fighters to wear lighter armor.

Rogue sounds like it is going to be very Swashbuckler friendly though, especially with the skill paths. You've basically got Sneaky Rogues, Backflippy Rogues, and Talky Rogues. If you focus more on the non-sneaky paths, you should be able to make a pretty good swashbuckler. And if you want to mix in some defender, than take fighter training or whatever.

 

[Set]

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

I suspect that 4E defenders will have a 'taunt' mechanic similar to the Knight. They couldn't perform their role without some way of forcing enemies to strike them instead of the squishies.

Since 3.0 came out, none of our Fighters have used anything heavier than a Chain Shirt (and usually upgrade to a magical Mithril Chain Shirt at first opportunity). Mobility trumps AC, in our games as few characters enjoy sucking up Full Attacks from dragons, etc. when they can avoid it...

We did have a character who wore Mithral Full-Plate, but he was a Warlock with Fell Flight and Battle Caster.

 

[Derren]

I suspect that 4E defenders will have a 'taunt' mechanic similar to the Knight. They couldn't perform their role without some way of forcing enemies to strike them instead of the squishies.

That would anger quite a lot of people.
The taunt mechanic we have seen so far "Attack me or suffer bad effects" is still acceptable. The problem is that you still need to be in range to use such abilities.
You would need MMO style taunts and a lot of people don't want to have that in D&D.

 

[RigaMortus2]

While everyone is happy about spell less ranger, a other information from Mearls gets overlooked.
Fighters are expected to wear heavy armor.

Apart from the thematical restriction it also says a bit about how armor will be balanced in 4E (no more Dex - AC balance like in 3E).

Why in your subject heading do you say Fighters must wear heavy armor, then in your description you say they are expected to wear heavy armor? You do realize they don't mean the same thing, don't you?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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.

Well, if the monster is able to pick off the fighter with ranged attacks (as you imply below), then he could do the same for a flying wizard. Furthermore, the flying wizard is just one of several arguments that stands against ignoring the Fighter, and it might not always apply.

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.

I'm assuming the monster isn't just randomly wandering and has decided to pick of some adventures, but is actually there because it defended the place, or because it wanted something else from the place. (If not defending, plundering might be it)

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.

The effects of the 1-1-1 rule can easily be replicated with a monster just having a 10 ft (or so) faster speed (and be void if it was 10 ft slower).

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.

And that's the wrong assumption. The defender must "motivate" the monster to attack him, not someone else. And then he must be able to survive the monsters attacks, too.
The lightly armored fighter can't protect the wizard if the monster doesn't care for him. A good defender doesn't ensure just that the monster is killed in the end, but that none of his allies is killed while doing so.

Again, as I said, it would be great if you could have all 3 things - lots of damage, speed and good armor class. But that's not possible with limited resources. You have to pick your priorities, and this is informed on what you want to do - which role you take.

I suspect the 4E fighters will have abilities that address his shortcomings (faster speed in heavy armor, better Dex bonus to AC and so on), but this enforces his reliance on heavy armor.

 

[Cadfan]

In 4e, it appears that the rogue will kill the swashbuckler and take his stuff,...

If this is true, I will be happy. My fear is that the rogue did not kill the swashbuckler and take his stuff, that rather the rogue is what I will be told to play because the swashbuckler isn't there.

The 3e swashbuckler, while a heavily flawed class, got some things very right.

Flaws:

1: Giving abilities that removed flaws in the rules-implementation of the swashbuckler archetype, and assuming that this counted as giving the class its ability for that level. Weapon Finesse and Insightful Strike, while both abilities that I think definitely needed to be included, fall into this category. The flaw in the way the rules treat swashbucklers is that dexterity is key for the archetype, but dexterity does not naturally increase attack bonus or damage. That means that this flaw must be fixed to make a swashbuckler possible. Weapon Finesse and Insightful Strike both remedy this problem, but all this accomplishes is bringing the Swashbuckler back up to par. Unfortunately, paying two class abilities between levels 1 and 3 in order to meet par for level 1 is not good, because now you're two levels behind. A lot of what is wrong with the swashbuckler could be met by giving out two early bonus feats to make up for this.

2: Important abilities are received too late. Past level 14, the swashbuckler is a solid critical hit machine. With Improved Critical and a rapier, you can receive a slow but relatively reliable stream of critical hits that slowly weaken your foe. But you have to make it to level 14 for this to work, and that involves traveling through a long list of very weak levels.

3: Too many abilities are just a hair on the weak side. Often they can be fixed with feats, but you have no surplus of feats.

4: Slippery Mind lets you fail your save twice. Grr. Pet peeve of mine.

Successes:

1: Intelligence to damage was a quick way to increase the damage of a dexterity based fighter, while also allowing the character class to focus on its other schtick- skills.

2: The dodge bonus. The flaw with the feat "dodge" is that its so much bookkeeping for a single +1 to ac. A class ability that helps raise that is nice. Noting a single opponent per round and receiving +3 ac versus that opponent is actually worthwhile, and is an archetype-appropriate way to increase armor class. Unfortunately this ability is not strong enough out of the gate- one of the lessons that seems to have been learned in Book of Nine Swords is that abilities like +X to AC (unlike +X to damage) inherently scale: +4 to AC is just as valuable at level 1 as it is at level 20. This means there's no reason to start a character with +1 and slowly raise him to +4; you can start at +4 right away. But that set aside, the idea was a very good one.

3: Special effects on critical hits. Fits the archetype, fits the traditional weapon choice, and is quite useful.

4: Taking 10 on certain skill checks. This makes them reliable, and means that you will use them in combat more often- letting you do more cool acrobatics than you otherwise might.

Editted to add: I should have addressed bucklers. I don't consider this a flaw or success in the swashbuckler, but they're something that needed addressed. I can't figure out whether the designers expected swashbucklers to use bucklers even though they're non proficient, since a masterwork buckler has no penalty for non proficiency, or whether the designers assumed that swashbucklers would not be using bucklers. This comes up with every class that has a free hand and no shield proficiecy, and needed to be resolved. A buckler is a cheap source of a few extra points of AC at medium to high levels, and needs to be more explicitly included or excluded from a class.

 

[FireLance]

That would anger quite a lot of people.
The taunt mechanic we have seen so far "Attack me or suffer bad effects" is still acceptable. The problem is that you still need to be in range to use such abilities.
You would need MMO style taunts and a lot of people don't want to have that in D&D.

It might be a case of fitting the ability to the right archetype. I believe there is conceptual space for a defender that gets opponents to attack him by insulting or taunting them, and then using some other ability to avoid the attacks. I think most people would find it acceptable if it was an Arcane, Psionic or Shadow defender using magic to cloud an opponent's mind and interfere with his better judgement. However, it might even be possible for it to be Martial abilities that rely on the character's skill at reading his opponent well enough to know which buttons to push.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

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.

I agree that a Dex-first build isn't best for a fighter in the 3E rules. You want that Str bonus to damage and the ability to Power Attack, and if you want to be doing acrobatics, it helps to have the skill ranks.

But it isn't necessary for the swashbuckling type to be a viable fighter build in order for "agile, mobile, lightly armored combatant" to be a viable fighter build. Because the swashbuckler is only one type of lightly-armored fighter. Spring Attack is very useful for a fighter using a greatsword or polearm, not exactly finesse weapons. In that case, you'd likely want Dex as your second-highest stat, behind Str, and I think you'd prefer light armor over medium for the higher movement rate. You *might* take Tumble and Balance cross-class until you have a +10 or so in each one, though it's not really necessary.

 

[Derren]

It might be a case of fitting the ability to the right archetype. I believe there is conceptual space for a defender that gets opponents to attack him by insulting or taunting them, and then using some other ability to avoid the attacks. I think most people would find it acceptable if it was an Arcane, Psionic or Shadow defender using magic to cloud an opponent's mind and interfere with his better judgement. However, it might even be possible for it to be Martial abilities that rely on the character's skill at reading his opponent well enough to know which buttons to push.

I don't think so. The paladins "can't get a line of effect to anyone except me" smite is already on the border of what many people are willing to accept as a taunt mechanic. Anything more explicit which de facto dictates what the monster has to do will upset quite a lot of them as being to "WoWish" etc. And I would agree with them. No defender should be able to controll the actions the enemies take, especially not with a martial power source.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I don't think so. The paladins "can't get a line of effect to anyone except me" smite is already on the border of what many people are willing to accept as a taunt mechanic. Anything more explicit which de facto dictates what the monster has to do will upset quite a lot of them as being to "WoWish" etc. And I would agree with them. No defender should be able to controll the actions the enemies take, especially not with a martial power source.

yes derren, but it is only marginally stronger than lesser confusion... a 1st level? 3.5 bard spell IIRC. And we speak of a Paladin (divine defender) 27 1/encounter talent that lasts a round.

If "taunts" are kept on that line powerwise it will be quite fine.