Fighters -must- wear heavy armor

[FireLance]

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...

It seems to me that if someone wanted rangers with spells, all he has to do is to multiclass into a spellcasting class or use one of the class training feats.

I think the class design philosophy in 4e is to avoid overlaps in abilities between classes. So, instead of giving you a fighter class, a cleric class, and a class that is halfway between a fighter and a cleric, they just give you a fighter class and a cleric class and allow you to mix and match levels and class abilities as you think fit.

On the other hand, if a class covers too broad and varied an archetype, it gets broken up. So, instead of a generic fighter class, you get a tank class, a swashbuckler class, and an archer class, and you tailor your individual fighting characters according to what proportion of each type of abilities you want.

 

[A'koss]

JFEI, jonrog1 (a playtester) did hint in an earlier thread that there would be "swashbuckler" style fighters in 4e.

I'm not going to give out any comparative details. i thought all the classes my group played not only played well, but had extraordinarily distinctive play styles. I will say that while the Paladin was super shiny, the Fighter for me had the lock on fun and useful "techniques" (I refuse to call them powers. But that's me). I can totally see how you'll not only be able to customize your Fighter, but how once you've made your choices you will have the tactics available to you that are immediately useful. *A dig-in-and-anchor fighter is going to be different from a swashbuckler at level one, and effective as an anchor Fighter at level one.

(* emphasis mine)

 

[hong]

Becmi J'fei, eladrin paladin of Bahamut and bane of Vecna.

 

[FireLance]

Becmi J'fei, eladrin paladin of Bahamut and bane of Vecna.

I would have gone with halfling since it looks like they might get a Charisma bonus. Besides, the name sounds better when spoken with a Jamaican accent.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

More's the question - is there a need to build a lightly armored fighter? If the game has sufficient ways to build a lightly armored combatant to fill people's desire for the cool swashbuckly roles, the lightly-armored fighter becomes largely a moot point.

This is just another reminded that in 4E classes do not key to archetypes, but instead key to functional roles. You could have two "soldiers," one of which is trained to fight in heavy armour and plod forward like a turtle with a greatsword, and one of which is trained as a harrier that outmanoeuvres enemies and gets around defensive lines, possibly switching between bow and sword as necessary.

In 3E, both could be fighters because in 3E the fighter was designed to take on all sorts of different "fighty" archetypes. In 4E, these combat roles are divided up into separate classes. So the two "soldiers" might be a fighter and a ranger or a fighter and a rogue.

 

[TwoSix]

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.

In 3e, fighter was the class to use to add martial ability to any character build. In 4e, fighter is the class that lets you be a heavily armored holder of the line. The 4e fighter is less flexible, in a concept sense, than the 3e one. Whether or not that appeals to you depends on whether you like 4e's concept of niche protection and role definition. But for many of the 4e classes, especially the ones based on the more generic 3e class like fighter and rogue, it's not possible to make an apples-to-apples comparison, since the design goals are so different. 3e classes were meant as tools to make your preferred character build. 4e classes are much more defining of the character as a whole.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Here's the quote: "The one stumbling block is that the game expects fighters to wear heavy armor, but you could get around that by building a simple house rule (a fighter in light armor gets a flat bonus to AC to make up the gap)."

How is that ANY harder to do in BECMI, 1E, 2E, or 3E? In any D&D game, if you want to say "fighters in light armor are also good," you can just give them a flat AC bonus in lighter armor. Simple. Easy. In fact, 2E did have this with the Swashbuckler kit. So I don't see "You can house-rule a flat bonus" as some visionary innovation.

A good place to start is the rules in Unearthed Arcana, under Defense Bonus.

 

[Derren]

In 3e, fighter was the class to use to add martial ability to any character build. In 4e, fighter is the class that lets you be a heavily armored holder of the line. The 4e fighter is less flexible, in a concept sense, than the 3e one. Whether or not that appeals to you depends on whether you like 4e's concept of niche protection and role definition. But for many of the 4e classes, especially the ones based on the more generic 3e class like fighter and rogue, it's not possible to make an apples-to-apples comparison, since the design goals are so different. 3e classes were meant as tools to make your preferred character build. 4e classes are much more defining of the character as a whole.

Personally I don't really care if the fighter can wear light armor or if this role is covered by a different class.
But considering how many people were outraged by 3E rangers having spells and did not accept a fighter(or barbarian)/rogue multiclass as spell less ranger substitute I imagine there are some people who do care.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It seems to me that if someone wanted rangers with spells, all he has to do is to multiclass into a spellcasting class or use one of the class training feats.

I am not actually interested in a spellcasting Ranger. I just wanted to point out that the "funny" contradiction didn't exist.

Personally I don't really care if the fighter can wear light armor or if this role is covered by a different class.
But considering how many people were outraged by 3E rangers having spells and did not accept a fighter(or barbarian)/rogue multiclass as spell less ranger substitute I imagine there are some people who do care.

Here's the difference between 3E and 4E, as far as I can see it:
Well, all 3 Ranger approaches end up with giving you abilities you don't care about when thinking of a Ranger, or even don't give you the abilities associated with a Ranger. Fighter/Rogue: Where's Survival/Tracking?
Barbarian/Rogue why do I need Rage to become a Ranger?
In fact, the only part that seems to work here is the Rogue part of the multiclass, because stealth and detection skills and even sneak attack can actually fit to a Ranger/Hunter).
For 4E, the abilities so far indicated for both Ranger and Rogue seem to fit well for a lightly armored fighter. (This might turn out totally wrong once we've seen the details, but I don't expect that...)

 

[Cadfan]

I'm one of the more outspoken advocates for swashbuckling characters, and I have to say that this doesn't bother me. If the differences between the best light armor and the best heavy armor are as big as they were in 3e (+4 AC, plus possibly a shield), then I completely understand why a class that CAN use heavy armor has to be balanced as if it DOES use heavy armor.

I know that a high dex fighter can match a high armor fighter in 3e, but it requires an 18 dex and a chain shirt to get an armor class one point lower than you can get with a 12 dex and full plate. That's a significant trade off, and it makes the lightly armored fighter much less viable. You have to balance based on the good choices, not the bad ones.

That being said, this is part of the reason I want more martial classes. I love my lightly armored brawlers.