Fighters -must- wear heavy armor

[Simon Marks]

But the Paladin's Smite is 'Divinely Powered' which makes it a lot more palatable than the Knights 'non-magical' taunt mechanic.

 

[Voss]

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

Which is fine if, when the rules come out, you want to play a berserker thats called a barbarian. And from the hints they dropped about what the 4e barbarian will look like, it will be even weirder, biting and scratching at people in a frenzy.


@Stogoe and Steely Dan- there is a definite design space and deference between the full plate fighter, the light/medium armor fighter I'm talking about and a rogue, ranger or just light armoured dextrous warrior. Lets have a use for the medium armor category beyond slapping 'mithril' on something else.

And Stogoe, do you really believe that the 4e classes will *just* be an array of combat powers? No fluff, flavor, theme or anything of the sort? That baggage. I have a hard time believing it won't exist at all.

And if it doesn't, well, there isn't much point in a class system at all. Just use the shared progression, include HPs in it and, say, pick three power trees and use feats to open up more power trees. Everybody is a generic adventurer that can be defined anyway they please.

 

[Mercule]

@Stogoe and Steely Dan- there is a definite design space and deference between the full plate fighter, the light/medium armor fighter I'm talking about and a rogue, ranger or just light armoured dextrous warrior.

This is how I felt about swashbucklers in 3e. The rogue or fighter/rogue just didn't seem to work right. I'm a bit more sanguine about what I'm hearing about 4e because it sounds like they really did consider adding a swashbuckler archetype. Apparently, it was decided it didn't merit a separate class and the rogue and ranger each got a few toys to help them fill aspects of that archetype.

In 3.5, I found the Swordsage (ToB) to be a better swashbuckler than most any other option. If you avoid the supernatural maneuvers, the flavor is pretty darn good. If I could spend a feat (or two) or dip into fighter for a level to get a better BAB, it'd be almost perfect and a fair trade. I'm expecting some of the 4e rogue's "martial powers" to be inherited from the swordsage. Plus, it sounds like cross-training feats and/or multi-classing in 4e will allow the feat/dip for BAB option, along with some of the fighter's selection of powers, which sounds more than satisfactory to me.

Of course, if any of my assumptions about 4e don't pan out, then I stand to be disappointed. But, I'm basing them on the best info I have, which seems fair enough.

 

[Lord Zack]

I do think that there should be a martial striker that's based around weapon choice like the fighter. If that should be some kind of modification of the Fighter or a new class or possibly the Ranger, I'm not sure. But I think from what I've heard the Rogue is tied to skill choice more than
weapon choice. However I also want to be able to play a martial defender that doesn't rely on armor and works similarly to the fighter. I don't think, I know that this will be possible. Why? Because the Swordmage is a defender that doesn't need armor. That's proof that the concept is viable.

 

[Remathilis]

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.

Lets do that.

10th level half-elf rogue. rapier, chain shirt, no magic. 13 str, 17 dex, 12 con. Dodge, Mobility, Spring Atk, Weapon Finesse.
AC: 17. Hp: 47. To Hit: +10, 1d6+1 +5d6 SA (assuming spring atk into a flank)

10th level half-elf fighter. rapier, chain shirt. 14 str, 16 dex, 14 con. Dodge, Mobility, Spring Atk, Wpn Focus, Wpn finesse, power atk, cleave, wpn spec, imp. wpn focus.
AC: 17. Hp: 79 To hit: +15, 1d6+5.

10th level half-elf fighter. Greatsword, plate mail. 16 str, 12 dex, 14 con. Power atk, cleave, grt cleave, wpn focus, wpn spec, imp wpn focus, imp sunder, iron will
AC; 19. Hp: 79. To hit: +15/+10, 2d6+6

Since they are underpowered without magic, lets let them fight a CR 7 monster. Here is an ogre, 4th level barbarian (CR 7, MM) AC 17, hp 111, +18 to hit, 2d8+16. (raging)

The rogue can hit him on a 7 or better (5 or better if he's going into a flank). His average damage is 22. (range: 7-37). He will get rocked on any roll the ogre makes, and take 25 hp damage (or two blows and he's down). The trick to his damage is that the ogre will probably focus on the guy whose setting the rogue up for flank.

The LA fighter hits on a 2 or better, and can power attack for 10 (his max) to hit on a 12 or better. Assuming his dice are lucky and he power atks max, he hits for 18 damage. (range 16-21). Thats higher low end damage, but lower on average and on max damage. He has the same chance of being hit as the rogue, and can survive three such blows before dropping.

The HA fighter also hits on a 2 or better with his primary and a 7 on his secondary. He's not so comfortable with a full PA, so he power attacks for 1/2 (+5) which yields him +10 due to 2handed style. He must roll a 7 and a 12. (equal to the rogue on first, LA on second). If he lands both blows (and let say he does) he does 46 damage per round. (or between 8-56 depending on 1 or 2 hits and dice roll). His AC is only slightly better than the LA or rogue (2 points, ogre misses on 1-2) and he can take the same amount of hits as the LA (three).

Assuming the rogue's flanker misses every round (and thus adds nothing to the math) the rogue will down the ogre in @ 5 rounds. The LA will do it @ round 6, and the HA will do it in @ 3 rounds.

Now, there are two caveats to this math.

1.) The rogue MUST have a partner to do this. Otherwise, his damage drops to only 4 per round average. Similarly, the foes must be crit-able (or otherwise not immune to SA). If he has high-enough bluff, he can try to feint every other round (making the ogre ff) and this his damage becomes 22 every 2 rounds, or 11/round (and he will kill the ogre on round 10 exactly).
2.) No where in the combat does anyone hit, or confirm a critical. A crit does little for the rogue (only adding an average of +4 to damage) but greatly helps the LA (+18) and the HA (+21). This is due to the fact extra dice are never doubled, but extra bonuses are, so the PA does double duty, but the SA is static.

So, the LA beats the rogue primarily if he is alone, facing a non-SA foe, or facing a critable foe and critting alot. He cannot come close to the HA fighter standing there tanking, and the rogue beats his average damage output in typical party scenarios.

Therefore, I'm going to conclude that barring those corner-case scenarios (alone, no-SA, or a lot of crits) the rogue does slightly better damage than a full PA Lightly armored fighter of the same level. Neither hold a candle to the typical plate-tank fighter. So I'm forced to conclude the LA is neither as useful as the rogue nor the HA in typical combat scenarios under the guidelines given.

 

[Lord Zack]

Nice math. Not that it'll matter when 4e comes out.

 

[pawsplay]

The LA fighter hits on a 2 or better, and can power attack for 10 (his max) to hit on a 12 or better. Assuming his dice are lucky and he power atks max, he hits for 18 damage. (range 16-21). Thats higher low end damage, but lower on average and on max damage. He has the same chance of being hit as the rogue, and can survive three such blows before dropping.

Either the LA fighter gets a second attack, or he gets to spring attack away and endure only a single attack from the ogre.

 

[Cadfan]

Either the LA fighter gets a second attack, or he gets to spring attack away and endure only a single attack from the ogre.

At level 10, this is true of all 3 characters.

 

[Remathilis]

Either the LA fighter gets a second attack, or he gets to spring attack away and endure only a single attack from the ogre.

True. Since Brother MacLaren was comparing the Spring Attacking Rogue to Spring Attacking LA Fighter, I only assumed the fighter would get one attack (and thus only need to dodge one attack) per round. If the LA stood his ground and full-attacked, he'd get a second attack at +0 (17 on the dice) but his per round damage would go up to 36. However, the second attack would miss more often than not (15% chance of connecting) so it would not statistically be useful to use it while full PAing.

If he went 1/2 pa like HA did (+5) his total to hit would be 7 (same as rogue) and 12 (as his full PA hit) and his damage would be 26 and he'd lose the benefit of all his mobility feats.

If the rogue (feeling brave) called in his second attack, he'd get a +5 atk (12 or better, as the full PA LA) and his total damage would rise to 44 (almost equal to the HA fighter, and clearly superior to the LA fighter's 2 atks).

And My AC calcs are a bit off. The rogue and the LA would have an 18 vs. the ogre (dodge) and a 22 vs. his AoOs, meaning the ogre still auto hits (sans 1) for normal and needs a 4 or better to connect for his AoO.

 

[Mercule]

While it isn't quite as definitive as the above math, I'll say that my experience in RtToEE (as we cycled through characters) is that a fighter/rogue/duelist teamed with a rogue/acrobat can take down most things a lot quicker than a barbarian teamed with a cleric.

In fact, the barbarian's player retired the character (who existed concurrent with the acrobat/duelist) because he almost never did a meaningful amount of damage, by comparison to the lighter combatants. Of course, that to aware the meat shield for the softer types.