Fighters -must- wear heavy armor

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Its the same as with the ranger. In 3E you could make a rogue/fighter multiclass and call him ranger if you wanted a nonmagical one but as you see on the reaction to Mearls nonmagical Ranger this was not enough.

So in 4E it looks that while nonmagical rangers can finally be rangers, every lightly armored fighter has to be a rogue.
And imo its quite funny that Mearls informs us that the ranger looses its magic theme but in the same posts also says that fighters are expected to wear heavy armor and that you should (have to?) houserule if you don't want them to.

Where's the funny? What if someone liked Rangers with spells? Now he has to houserule that.
The new Ranger isn't any more flexible than the old...

And why is bad to play a Rogue or Ranger if you want to play a lightly armored character? The Rogue & Ranger class obviously excel at fighting lightly armored - why need a third class that can do that, too
Or do you just think that any one that is fighting with a melee weapon should be a Fighter, regardless of the rest of his equipment?

 

[Dausuul]

He does imply that people with light armor will have less AC than people in heavy armor. In 3E this wasn't always teh case depending on the Dex.

He implies that FIGHTERS with light armor will have less AC than fighters in heavy armor.

Anyway, when was the last time you had a 3E character whose Dex was so high that his/her AC would not be improved by wearing full plate? You need a Dexterity of 28 for that. With mithral plate, you need a 32. If you started with a base 18 Dex, played an elf, put all your stat bonuses into Dexterity, and spent all your gold on +Dex items (+6 gloves of dexterity and a +3 manual of quickness in action)... you'd still be 14th level before you got your Dex up to 32, having horribly gimped your character in the process.

Mearls was talking about "what the game assumes." 3.5E assumes fighters in heavy armor, too. Other classes have built-in reasons to wear lighter gear, but fighters are a "heavy tank" class by design.

 

[Jack99]

He does imply that people with light armor will have less AC than people in heavy armor. In 3E this wasn't always teh case depending on the Dex.

3.5 core rules
You would need a 26 dex for it to be better for you to switch. I don't know how many 26 dex fighters you see, but while it is possible, AC is generally a poor choice for fighters, especially if it comes at the expense of damage or HP's.

And please note that when you have 26 dex, the better choice isn't a lighter armor, it's no armor at all (or rather, bracers of armor). Below 26 dex, the heavier armor (meaning fullplate will always beat the others) is always the better choice, if we only compare AC.

EDIT: Ninja'ed by Dausuul! Must type quicker.

 

[Sitara]

Rangers come with the woodland baggage. Furthermore what if you want a fighter who wears light armorand yet also uses the fighter maneuvers, 2 handed sword instead of dual weild, etc?

 

[MaelStorm]

The character classes in the PH will probably be very modular: to create a light armored fighter you take a striker class (like rogue or ranger) and you simply imports the feats/powers/talents from the fighter. It shouldn't be that difficult IMO. Treat it as a defender for the attack and as a striker for the armor.

Maybe you will have useful guidelines in the DMG regarding what you can and can't do with the classes in the PH.

 

[Derren]

Where's the funny? What if someone liked Rangers with spells? Now he has to houserule that.
The new Ranger isn't any more flexible than the old...

And why is bad to play a Rogue or Ranger if you want to play a lightly armored character? The Rogue & Ranger class obviously excel at fighting lightly armored - why need a third class that can do that, too
Or do you just think that any one that is fighting with a melee weapon should be a Fighter, regardless of the rest of his equipment?

Why is it bad to play a fighter/rogue multiclass when you want to play a nonmagical ranger (in 3E)?
I just think its funny that people cheer because rangers are made more open but in the same post it is revealed that fighters are made more confined.[/quote]

Anyway, when was the last time you had a 3E character whose Dex was so high that his/her AC would not be improved by wearing full plate? You need a Dexterity of 28 for that. With mithral plate, you need a 32. If you started with a base 18 Dex, played an elf, put all your stat bonuses into Dexterity, and spent all your gold on +Dex items (+6 gloves of dexterity and a +3 manual of quickness in action)... you'd still be 14th level before you got your Dex up to 32, having horribly gimped your character in the process.

Wow, so in your game only heavy armor exists? Why do all people who argue against "lightly armored fighters must be houseruled" somehow think the fighter must reach the AC of a heavy armored one when being naked?
Unless you go into extreme Dex and mithral territory the maximum dexterity of full plate is just 1 AC higher than most other Armor/Dex combinations (Padded armor reaches the same AC with high Dex, medium armor sucks as usual).
So in the end a 18 Dex chainshirt fighter had the same AC than a 10 Dex fullplate fighter and was faster. In 4E it seems that the chainshirt fighter is at least not expected to work.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Wasn't there a tidbit somewhere that said Fighters would be able to get the equivalent of a higher max dex bonus in heavy armour? or am I confusing them with something else?

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

Wasn't there a tidbit somewhere that said Fighters would be able to get the equivalent of a higher max dex bonus in heavy armour? or am I confusing them with something else?

Races and Classes, p60.

 

[hong]

Rangers come with the woodland baggage. Furthermore what if you want a fighter who wears light armorand yet also uses the fighter maneuvers, 2 handed sword instead of dual weild, etc?

As baggage goes, woodland is pretty minimal. Don't forget there's also the rogue.

 

[Dausuul]

Wow, so in your game only heavy armor exists? Why do all people who argue against "lightly armored fighters must be houseruled" somehow think the fighter must reach the AC of a heavy armored one when being naked?
Unless you go into extreme Dex and mithral territory the maximum dexterity of full plate is just 1 AC higher than most other Armor/Dex combinations (Padded armor reaches the same AC with high Dex, medium armor sucks as usual).
So in the end a 18 Dex chainshirt fighter had the same AC than a 10 Dex fullplate fighter and was faster. In 4E it seems that the chainshirt fighter is at least not expected to work.

I'll concede that you don't have to have a Dex as high as I originally argued... but putting an 18 into Dex is going to take away from the investments in Str and Con that are vital to a fighter's success.

Face it, 3E assumes heavy armor on a fighter just as much as 4E presumably will. 3E fighters are expected to put their best stat in Strength and their second-best in Constitution, and rely on armor to give them AC.

Now, with careful stat tweaking, you can make a chainshirt fighter more or less viable, if not quite as effective as the full-plate fellow... but who's to say you can't do that in 4E too? 4E could well use the exact same armor rules as 3E, and Mearls's statement would still make perfect sense. The fighter is built on the assumption that he's using heavy armor. If you don't wear heavy armor, the system makes no guarantees that the math will work out.