D&D 4E Forked Thread: Some Thoughts on 4e

In 4E reality a fighter is taught to be a meat shield while the rogue looks good doing the damage. This is an MMO thing.

A fighter that has to go out of his way to dish out a lot of damage is poorly trained as a fighter.

When you think about it, anyone who is well trained in martial arts and has good weapon skills (like a fighter) should be allowed to take advantage of suprise, flanking and be able to exploit openings as well as anyone. Denying these abilities to a fighter is done only for the purpose of justifying a semi-soft melee DPS class with high damage output and weak armor defenses.

Fighters have been meat shields since 1e and probably before. I even remember our group referring to them as such. . . until those dang MMOs stole the idea.
 

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All Power Attack All The Time was a simple option that unfortunately lead closer to failure then success, so it was "calculate Power Attack values and attack chance in your head to get the best value."

All Power Attack All The Time worked perfectly well for me, regardless of what the maths says. I didn't hit that often, but when I did EVERYONE knew about it.
 

Fighters have been meat shields since 1e and probably before. I even remember our group referring to them as such. . . until those dang MMOs stole the idea.

Of course fighters have always been there to take the brunt of the attack, but they USED to be the ones that also dealt the damage with weapons as well as they took it. I never said that fighters were not considered meat shields until recently.

The newer implementation has them still taking the damage with a decreased ratio of ability to return the favor. THAT is the MMO part, and what makes them more meat shield and less capable offensively.
 

Fighters have been meat shields since 1e and probably before. I even remember our group referring to them as such. . . until those dang MMOs stole the idea.

True. But, they were also damage dealers. As they got higher level, Fighters started dishing our real damage due to multiple attacks per round in earlier versions.

Although there are stronger higher level attacks for Fighters in 4E, they get nowhere near the damage of a Rogue. Most attacks are similar in power at most levels for the two classes except for Sneak Attack damage which occurs nearly every round for higher level Rogues.

The Rogue can take feats to significantly improve his AC so he can survive. There are no feats that allow a Fighter to concentrate on serious damage like Sneak Attack.
 

Personally, I think that your idea was imaginative, but the DM allowed it to go beyond the capabilities of the spell and also allowed it to go into the realm of compulsion when it is a simple little cantrip.

I was the DM in this situation.

Let's look at how things work once we strip away the colour.

PC: I take a standard action in order to hide the fact that I'm taking action against the ogre. If successful, I will make another attack to deal damage to the ogre.

If you think that is somehow overpowered or unjustified, I don't know what to tell you. That's how 4e works.

I don't have to worry if the cantrip was overused or not; what I have to make sure is that the action taken (as in Standard, Minor, Move, etc.) is balanced against other actions.

In this case, he used a Standard action to deal damage. I see no problem here.
 

The newer implementation has them still taking the damage with a decreased ratio of ability to return the favor. THAT is the MMO part, and what makes them more meat shield and less capable offensively.

Nah. My personal experience, and I've seen the sentiment echoed on these boards is that you can build your fighter to be get a nearly striker-level damage output if you want to. Fighters don't get the bonus damage that strikers do, but their weapon-related features (Weapon Training, Combat Challenge, Combat Superiority, the ability to sink most of their stat points into Strength) gives you quite a bit to work with.

An optimized two-weapon fighter, at say 4th level, can do something like 1d12+7 with his normal attacks at the same attack bonus as the rogue. A damage-dealing rogue does maybe 1d6+7 plus 2d8 sneak attack. So the fighter is dealing 14 damage on a hit, and the rogue 21. But, the fighter will also frequently be able to make AOs or Combat Challenge attacks. When that happens that's another 14 damage for the fighter (or, if he has Potent Challenge and Bracers of Mighty Striking, more like 19), while the rogue is doing 10. And it's not nearly as likely that the rogue will get these extra attacks compared to the fighter.

I don't know, you can argue one way or the other, since it's all situational, but in my experience, a fighter who wants to focus on offense does not lag far behind the strikers in damage, while still fulfilling his role as a defender.
 

does it really matter people will always learn ways to break the game and so far for the most only the core rulebooks have come out so all you who have whining about how it's not there watch the books that come out maybe they'll have what your looking for
 

does it really matter people will always learn ways to break the game and so far for the most only the core rulebooks have come out so all you who have whining about how it's not there watch the books that come out maybe they'll have what your looking for

If the basic nature of the fighter is changed so drastically in the core rules then I have no expectation that a splatbook will do anyhing nor the desire to buy splatbooks that build upon such a crumbling foundation. Questioning the decisions that were made about class functions and roles is not whining. Holding your breath until they decide to "fix it"...maybe;)

"Breaking" the game is a different issue altogether. Ultimate game balance through sheer mathematical equality is a phantom that will never be captured. The RPG principle is rather simple:

A good GM can run a good game with just about any rules (or none).

Detailed, complex, hyper-balanced rules can suck the flavor and spirit out of a game and still not be any sort of guarantee that the game will be good with a bad GM.

The answer to the question about "game breaking" depends on the individual and how large a ruleset he or she requires to be a good GM.
 

Of course fighters have always been there to take the brunt of the attack, but they USED to be the ones that also dealt the damage with weapons as well as they took it. I never said that fighters were not considered meat shields until recently.

The newer implementation has them still taking the damage with a decreased ratio of ability to return the favor. THAT is the MMO part, and what makes them more meat shield and less capable offensively.

1e fighters rarely dealt bucketloads of damage compared to, say, a 1e fireball, nor do I believe they need to be the primary damage dealers to be effective. Again, combat is a heavy part of D&D. You have a character who is tough AND a damage engine, and you obsolete several other classes. 4e fighters also have the chance to whack at those who ignore them. They pin people down, which was something they could never do too well in previous editions, despite the fact that their role was often to hold enemies away from the squishier targets. Damage is not the be all end all of a character's effectiveness, but you seem to insist that it is. In many actual fights, its the one who lasts longest that wins. Some do so through sheer durability. Some do so through damage output. In 4e the rogue and ranger are the damage output machines now, but go down easy if they're pinned. Its a fair tradeoff. My 4e fighter, despite his reportedly gimped status, deals out quite a bit of pain. So what if the rogue can deal a bit more? he's made of paper for the love!

True. But, they were also damage dealers. As they got higher level, Fighters started dishing our real damage due to multiple attacks per round in earlier versions.

Although there are stronger higher level attacks for Fighters in 4E, they get nowhere near the damage of a Rogue. Most attacks are similar in power at most levels for the two classes except for Sneak Attack damage which occurs nearly every round for higher level Rogues.

The Rogue can take feats to significantly improve his AC so he can survive. There are no feats that allow a Fighter to concentrate on serious damage like Sneak Attack.

They dealt damage because they were in your face, but in any group I was in it was the casters who really dealt out pain. Save or die, and even save or "might as well die" is effectively removing all your hp at once. Shapechanging druids maul enemies with damage out puts that are insane. Only very select fighter builds in 3e actually come close to this. Even with multiple attacks in 1e, the fighters were not laying down the pain like their wizard friend was. They were primarily keeping enemies away from their nuker, and chopping at those who came to close.

So what I say, if rogues do more damage? Martial ability does not necessarily = damage output. I've seen the fighter in action in 4e and he does his job admirably. In their previous incarnations as skill monkeys, rogues, were often outshined by everyone else except in select situations or the occasional sneak attack situation. The casters could easily outdo them in skills if they wanted, or even fighting if they wanted in cases like the cleric or druid. The rogue needed to be made more useful, so they gave them the damage schtick. You may not like it, and obviously don't, but I find it much more equitable in the larger scheme of things. Also, as indicated in an above post, a fighter can indeed do some pretty good damage with the right focus. Of course, if he could do it better than the rogue or ranger, then you just obsoleted two classes. Previous editions pretty much obsoleted half the classes by mid to high levels. This is not even slightly enjoyable for, what is, a game.
 

True. But, they were also damage dealers. As they got higher level, Fighters started dishing our real damage due to multiple attacks per round in earlier versions.
My 2e Dark Sun Fighter only did heavy damage because he was specialized in his weapon (which is the equivalent of taking some of the damage bonus feats, or the Kensai PP) and he was dual-wielding freaking longswords. He did 6d8+some ridiculous modifier in damage (I don't recall exactly, but he had like a 22 Str or something, because Dark Sun used higher stats) per round, every round...as long as he hit. Which, since I had my stats pumped up pretty good, he did most of the time.

In case you haven't noticed yet, there's no dual-wielding fighter in the PHB. When the Martial Handbook comes out, there will be the Flurry Fighter, and I'll bet that he does a helluva lot more damage than either the Single Weapon or Great Weapon Fighter we currently have. This will most likely somehow be at the expense of his protecting ability... So what you'll end up with is a higher damage fighter that's not as sticky as the current Fighters...just like in the older editions.

Although there are stronger higher level attacks for Fighters in 4E, they get nowhere near the damage of a Rogue. Most attacks are similar in power at most levels for the two classes except for Sneak Attack damage which occurs nearly every round for higher level Rogues.
And on the subject of the Rogue, they're only as good as their party. If a Rogue is not getting combat advantage against his target, he's not doing sneak attack damage. Without flanking, or someone else setting them up through knockdowns and such (which several of the Fighter powers can do, BTW) they have to rely on their own abilities. Since opponents are usually only granting combat advantage or getting knocked down until the end of the Rougue's next turn, it's not totally consistent. They're also vulnerable to getting swarmed.

It's mostly cooperation between the Defenders and the Strikers that allows the Rogue to do their damage. In my party, we have a Fighter, a Paladin, a Rogue and a Melee Cleric on the front lines. It's cooperation amongst the four of us that allows the Rogue to move in and out getting combat advantage against multiple opponents. Then he can concentrate on powers that just do big damage, rather than needing to set up combat advantage himself.
 

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