Fighters -must- wear heavy armor

[John Q. Mayhem]

If the previously-mentioned "Cleric Training" and "Wizard Training" type feats work the way I think they do, it should be very easy to add the ranger's minor magical ability back in. You can even go back to the arcane and divine spells of yore!

 

[TwoSix]

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.

Which is somewhat ironic. In 3e, classes were supposed to be a grab-bag of abilities, that you mixed and matched in order to make the character build you want. In 4e, classes are much more defining, so if the ranger class isn't what you want now, you have a bigger case for raising a stink about it.

 

[MaelStorm]

If the previously-mentioned "Cleric Training" and "Wizard Training" type feats work the way I think they do, it should be very easy to add the ranger's minor magical ability back in. You can even go back to the arcane and divine spells of yore!

The strong point of 4E should be its flexibility in character conception. Tweaking the system a little bit to quote Mearl.

I am used to system like GURPS. So I really don't mind (or care) about the change as much as 3.5 players.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

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.

I don't think Rangers were made more open. How does removing their magic abilities make them more open? I think people are cheering because the magic aspect of the Ranger never quite made sense when people thought of Ranger types in fantasy literature.

I know Dr. Awkward already mentioned this: People need to recall that 4e is built around the idea that Classes have an expected Role and the game is designed and balanced around this idea of roles. The fighter class is a Defender. The lightly armored, mobile melee combatant is not a Defender, but a Striker. As long as you can fulfill the concept of the character, how much does it matter whether you call it a Fighter or a Ranger?

in 3e, people wanted to use the fighter to create many different styles of fighters because they got the bonus feats that allowed them to do so. We do not know how the Fighter is going to end up structred in 4e. My guess is that their abilities will be designed to make them fill a more standard concept, rather than the multitude of variations on the same concept that could be done in 3e. Is that better or worse for the game? I would not try to judge until we see the entirety of the rules.

One more thing people need to keep in mind when discussing 4e making things more confined:

Since many of the elements of character progression are unified, you could run classless D&D by allowing players to select maneuvers and spells from any class they want, mingling the two together, or start everyone with access to all heroic abilities and grant access to divine and arcane via feats.

It seems like that would be the ultimate in opening the game up if that is really what people desire - it just isn't the base assumption of the game.

 

[GreatLemur]

InIn most games, however, niche-protection means the fighter SHOULD wear heavy armor - if fighter is generic enough to cover any class that fought, we might as well adopt a True20-like system.

And indeed, I might.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I can make just about any character concept I want using 3.5; I know a lot more about D&D than anyone I game with. I'm hoping that 4E will make it easier for more casual players to make exactly the character they want. I'd like to play D&D more, but at the moment the ease-of-use of Savage Worlds has made it the system du jour 'round here.

 

[keterys]

The important thing to realize is that Dex bonuses in 4e will not be as high as they were in 3e. Let's pretend for a moment that chain shirt and full plate are the same, for a moment. +4 AC, 4 max dex. +8 ac, +1 max dex. Assuming Dex of less than 30 (+10 to cancel out the +9 from full plate), the fighter is better off with the full plate. Dex of 30 is impossible. Hell, the fighter most likely has no better than Dex 14.

But let's make him Dexy McFighter and give him an 18. Let's also assume he's willing to take the 1 AC hit for the improved maneuverability (which I suspect will not be as big a deal in 4e - one of the playtests talked about the rest of the party being unable to keep up with the fighter who ran off to do battle). Okay, so he just loses 1 AC for not being in heavy armor. Not too bad.

Except R&C also said fighters get improved Max Dex. Well, let's call that an extra +2 Max Dex. Now he's giving up 3 AC to wear light armor.

That seems a pretty dubious decision to make in a system where the math is as close as it is in 4e. Certainly the decision to make yourself 3 worse than another fighter, just for looks, isn't a really logical one. So if the DM strips out heavy armor... he should give fighters something.

Sounds reasonable.

 

[Mercule]

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

I didn't overlook it. I just recognized it as the non-change that it is. Fighters have been expected to wear heavy armor since 1974.

 

[drothgery]

Eh what? Heavy armor certainly isn't required (of anyone) in 3e. Armor is the best AC boost for the buck, especially at low levels, but I just finished off a campaign that went from 1st to 19th level, and no one wore anything heavier than a chain shirt. Ever. Unless you boost AC to ridiculous levels (40+) it's almost meaningless in high-level play, and other forms of avoiding or absorbing damage become more important.

That was a kind of odd game, though.
- The party tank was a fighter/barbarian, and so took a lot of penalties for wearing heavy armor (and wasn't run by the kind of player who'd flip through rulebooks and end up with mithral full plate and an animated shield)
- The party cleric had taken a Vow of Poverty
- My warmage had the highest AC in the party from the time he showed up in the game (at level 13 or 14) to the end (by wearing a mithral breastplate and carrying a shield), mostly because I needed the cloak slot for a cloak of charisma and so couldn't use it for a cloak of displacement (custom magic items and Magic Item Compendium alt rules nonwithstanding)

 

[Gloombunny]

I suspect that 4e will support lightly-armored swashbuckly warriors better than 3.5 can, by either multiclassing fighter with rogue or ranger or just building the character as a rogue or ranger in the first place. Now, such a character will play differently than a standard fighter - more mobility, less defense - but that strikes me as a good thing. A guy tromping across the field in full plate and a guy darting around in a chain shirt should play differently.

You will likely have problems playing a stay-in-one-place-and-guard-the-casters classic meatshieldy kind of warrior without heavy armor. That doesn't mean it's impossible, just suboptimal compared to a heavily-armored fighter. And I just can't see that as such a horrible thing.