Flying Fighters and Other Stories of Dependence, Independence and Interdependence

[Chris_Nightwing]

On the mention of the ability for Fighters to gain Magic Resistance from 2e Skills & Powers..

I did once take that, and survive a bad DM call to Cone of Cold the party at 1st level thanks to a lucky 2% roll.

But my real point is that perhaps Fighters' own abilities can remain in the mundane realm if they develop superior resistance to magic than everyone else. Why do you need a Fighter in the party? Enemy spellcasters.

 

[Someone]

[...] how can wizards and fighters need each other?

That's going to be a problem as long the wizard has the non-schtick of “is able to cast all spells”, and spells being tacitly defined as the thing that not only follows no rules but also can break the game's basic rules.

But we know that's not going to change soon, and certainly not in 5e.

 

[S'mon]

Yes. People have experience in 3e that suggests otherwise. Any vaguely competently made 3e Cleric or Wizard (or Druid, or Sorcerer etc...) would outclass a Fighter. But that wasn't the case in 1e/2e. Why do you insist on assuming that if DnD Next's Fighter is non-Vancian, then we must have a return to 3e's (as opposed to 1e's) power structure?

That's my feeling. One thing I recall from GMing 1e was that NPC Fighters were generally a much deadlier threat than NPC Magic-Users, so much so that I tended to avoid using them vs lower-level parties. You see this in the 1e adventures too, when they wanted a high level BBEG vs low level NPCs they turned to classes like Cleric due to its lack of offensive punch - see eg N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God, Cleric-7 vs 1st level PCs.

I really don't know why 3e went out of its way to destroy the existing class balance of 1e-2e etc.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yes. People have experience in 3e that suggests otherwise. Any vaguely competently made 3e Cleric or Wizard (or Druid, or Sorcerer etc...) would outclass a Fighter. But that wasn't the case in 1e/2e. Why do you insist on assuming that if DnD Next's Fighter is non-Vancian, then we must have a return to 3e's (as opposed to 1e's) power structure? Even if you simply refuse to consider that 3e's power structure may not accurately represent that of the previous editions, why do you still simply refuse to consider that the power structure could be changed? It certainly is possible. After all, we could simply remove all combat spells from the spell lists. I wouldn't suggest such an extreme measure, but it shows that something is possible.

Actually it was the case in 1e. The 1e fighter sucked. I won't say it was the clarinetist of 1e classes - simultaneously sucking and blowing - as that distinction belonged to the 1e Monk. But the Pre-weapon specialisation fighter was little better than the cleric at what the fighter was supposed to be good at.

This is why Gygax introduced Weapon Specialisation, Cavaliers, and Barbarians in Unearthed Arcana. Turning the fighter into something powerful in mid-1e.

Yeah, the playtest fighter is outshone pretty hard, I'll grant you that.

And that's the fundamental problem. If we started off with a 2e fighter, who hit half as often again as someone else, there'd still be complaints about being boring. But that would be stylistic.

Actually, fighter vs wizard is a distraction most of the time. There are two sets of comparisons that matter and that seem to always be missed from these debates. If the wizard doesn't need the fighter you didn't just drive past the stop signal - but you've just gone through the wall, driven over one cow, and finally come to a stop by driving into a charging bull.

The magic vs mundane class comparisoms that are obvious are:

1: Fighter vs Cleric.
2: Wizard vs Rogue.

The fighter vs cleric is the battle of the heavy armoured melee types. If the fighter doesn't leave the cleric in the dust, he might as well sit down and slit his wrists. Clerics will always bring more hit points to the party if they have any sort of cure spells. And more flexibly. Clerics are simply tougher. And bring a lot of utility through magic. So if the cleric can fight almost like the fighter (Spiritual Hammer, I'm looking at you!) the fighter is redundant.

Wizard vs Rogue. The tricksy classes. The wizard will always be able to do things the rogue can't. Keeping the rogue in the hunt with that handicap is the problem.

 

[Underman]

- the Fighter at some point inevitably becomes magical or supernatural (not to everyone's tastes)

As touched upon elsewhere, I personally don't have a problem with fighters (and to a lesser extent, rogues) that have the equivalent of a prestige class or advanced theme based powers.

A fighter with regeneration, for example (troll blood infusion?)

A fighter that makes a devil pact to increase abilities scores (why should pacts only provide warlocks with pew-pew magic?)

And so forth. Clerics and wizards could be 'allergic' to these types of power boosts due to their devotion to divine/arcane.

A fighter without advanced theme powers could be, by default, a weapon master with super-probable expertise, and DMs should tweak campaigns accordingly (following DMG advice about wizard access to certain types of magicks, empower fighters with a Plan B against flying dragons, etc.)

That kind of thing works well for me, as long as the fighter is given powers that are not a) Vancian in implementation or b) redundant with those of other classes

 

[Li Shenron]

A fighter with regeneration, for example (troll blood infusion?)

A fighter that makes a devil pact to increase abilities scores (why should pacts only provide warlocks with pew-pew magic?)

A fighter without advanced theme powers could be, by default, a weapon master with super-probable expertise

I am also fine with all these examples, and I wouldn't even need a prestige class because I don't really see the need for a supernatural explanation of these (regeneration sounds supernatural only if you interpret it as healing the wounds, but with the current 5e description of HP it can be just a regeneration of stamina and luck). Also an increase of Str, Con and Dex beyond human limits (but not too much!) for the Fighter only is fine for me without any supernatural explanation: it's fairly compatible with real-life professional martial artists who train hours per day.

 

[Mattachine]

The magic vs mundane class comparisoms that are obvious are:

1: Fighter vs Cleric.
2: Wizard vs Rogue.

The fighter vs cleric is the battle of the heavy armoured melee types. If the fighter doesn't leave the cleric in the dust, he might as well sit down and slit his wrists. Clerics will always bring more hit points to the party if they have any sort of cure spells. And more flexibly. Clerics are simply tougher. And bring a lot of utility through magic. So if the cleric can fight almost like the fighter (Spiritual Hammer, I'm looking at you!) the fighter is redundant.

Wizard vs Rogue. The tricksy classes. The wizard will always be able to do things the rogue can't. Keeping the rogue in the hunt with that handicap is the problem.

Yes!
Those are the comparisons that concern me, too.

 

[Hussar]

That's my feeling. One thing I recall from GMing 1e was that NPC Fighters were generally a much deadlier threat than NPC Magic-Users, so much so that I tended to avoid using them vs lower-level parties. You see this in the 1e adventures too, when they wanted a high level BBEG vs low level NPCs they turned to classes like Cleric due to its lack of offensive punch - see eg N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God, Cleric-7 vs 1st level PCs.

I really don't know why 3e went out of its way to destroy the existing class balance of 1e-2e etc.

Umm, I'd point out that if you used a 1st level MU in N1, you'd TPK the party with the first Sleep spell. The only survivor would be the DMPC wizard that you were supposed to take along to help you deal with the Cleric 7.

And, after that cleric, guess what you meet - a Naga that has wizard casting abilties. Ready to drop a fireball on the first person through the secret door. The BBEG in that module isn't the cleric.

 

[S'mon]

Umm, I'd point out that if you used a 1st level MU in N1, you'd TPK the party with the first Sleep spell. The only survivor would be the DMPC wizard that you were supposed to take along to help you deal with the Cleric 7.

You got several things wrong.

1) The DMPC M-U is for fighting the Naga, not the Cleric-7. The only help you get vs the Cleric-7 is an unarmed girl in a cage!

2) If you create an NPC M-U 1 using the rules for PCs in the 1e DMG, he's very unlikely to roll Sleep on the random spell table. If you 'cheat' and just give him the deadliest spell in the book, then yes of course he'd have a good chance to TPK an Elf-less group.

 

[Neonchameleon]

That's my feeling. One thing I recall from GMing 1e was that NPC Fighters were generally a much deadlier threat than NPC Magic-Users, so much so that I tended to avoid using them vs lower-level parties. You see this in the 1e adventures too, when they wanted a high level BBEG vs low level NPCs they turned to classes like Cleric due to its lack of offensive punch - see eg N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God, Cleric-7 vs 1st level PCs.

That's not my reading.

Wizards with a decent spell are the deadliest class. But they drop to a stiff breeze, so who cares?

But clerics are primarily a defensive and buffing class rather than the offence of a fighter or wizard. They are more focussed on taking and recovering from hits than actually causing GBH. I'd expect a level 7 Weapon Specialist fighter to TPK a 1st level party unless he botched a save. I'd expect a level 7 wizard to TPK a 1st level party if he was able to get a single 4th level spell off. But a 7th level cleric? Hits no harder than a 1st level 1 (although he gains something like +4 to hit), doesn't have the same line in save or die spells, and won't be able to cast on the battle line. He just sounds scary and has quite a lot of hit points.