High Level Fighter Vs. High Level Barbarian

[jarlaxlecq]

LOL I'm starting to feel guilty for starting this thread

 

[DarkMaster]

Personally I'd rather pick up a couple of levels of psychic warrior if I was going for the dipping-for-feats-and-abilities route. I'd take it over fighter 9 times out of 10.. in my own made up on the spot number analysis..lol

mmm.. 2 fighter, 2 psychic warrior, 2 barbarian. Now that would be a fun guy

Can't say anything about the psychic warrior find the whole psychic thing broken so still don't want to touch it.

As for prestige class, I found that most of them are good for NPC or evil character (except some high level spell casting PrC like Archamge) Most of them a find too specific. You exceed in a specific aspect of your class but suck on all the other. simple example Gladiator. Fine your very good in the arena but outside you lack on the other fighter. And that goes against the fundamental principle of the hero they need to adapt to different situation and evironement, not restrict themselves (unless you have a very specific type of campaing). Some cool one are only for Evil character( Assassin, blackguard) I usually have a hard time with evil party.

I also noticed that a lot of people on these board talk about having character build like Fighter2/Rogue2/PrC1 3/PrC2 4/PrC3 2/PrC4 1/
I have a hard time with that I usually don't let my player take more than 2 related prestige class or three with 5 level or lower. Otherwise you endup with character that are broken and that can exist on paper but don't fit in the campaign world. ie sure you have the requirement to be animal lord and knight of Mergovie(homemade PrC) but why would you as an barbarian/druid/animal lord become a knight? because want to have that special charge?

PrC are way of life and should be considered so.

 

[jgsugden]

I understand what you mean, but it is a place to start. And really, there always has to be a place to start, being as close to perfectly logical is always beneficial Just because some people apply logic in a faulty manner doesnt mean that it isnt valid.

You may have missed my point.

Starting on subjects like this is a bad idea. The analysis can not *hope* to be complete enough to be relevant. Even if it is (by some miracle), it would be too conditional to be used as people tend to use it.

Logic is the foundation for economics. The most pervasive tool in economics is
cost-benefit analysis. Simpley put: If the cost of doing something exceeds the expected benefit it provides, it is not logical to do that thing. It takes a lot of time to do these analysis (high cost). The conclusions of this analysis are misused and misleading (negative benfit). The result: the cost exceeds the benefit - being logical demands that you don't do it at all.

I've said my peace. I hope it is helpful to some people. Now, I'll stop hijacking the this thread.

 

[James McMurray]

mmm.. 2 fighter, 2 psychic warrior, 2 barbarian. Now that would be a fun guy

You forgot to get some OA samurai, they get bonus feats too. Then you go into different PrCs so you never have to worry about XP penalties.

I agree with DarkMaster though, dippin is a distasteful practice to me. Can't say I'm not guilty of doing it though (usually just in arenas, although if the game I'm in his going to be heaviy power-gamed I might do it just to keep up).

 

[Scion]

umm.. that is what prc's are supposed to be, specializing in one area to the detriment of others. That is the whole point (although some generalize to the point of a lack of specialization, but those are basically doing the same thing as the above, just in the reverse fashion..lol)

 

[Scion]

You may have missed my point.

nah, I understand it, I just almost completely disagree. That is all.

 

[Scion]

I agree with DarkMaster though, dippin is a distasteful practice to me.QUOTE]

'Dipping' is just something people can do, and sometimes should do, for a specific character concept. A few levels of fighter, rogue, and sorcerer can make an interesting and flavorful 'class'.

In order to avoid this dipping phenomena you would have to create whole new base classes that get to where you want to go. Which is fine sometimes, but too much work to do everytime. Especially when the system as is works more or less well enough.

There are some holes in the system of course, but those are currently being plugged by special prc's. Which further inforce 'dipping' as something that the system expects to some degree

Has nothing to do with this thread though..lol

 

[Korak]

I also noticed that a lot of people on these board talk about having character build like Fighter2/Rogue2/PrC1 3/PrC2 4/PrC3 2/PrC4 1/
I have a hard time with that I usually don't let my player take more than 2 related prestige class or three with 5 level or lower. Otherwise you endup with character that are broken and that can exist on paper but don't fit in the campaign world. ie sure you have the requirement to be animal lord and knight of Mergovie(homemade PrC) but why would you as an barbarian/druid/animal lord become a knight? because want to have that special charge?

PrC are way of life and should be considered so.

Hehehe, well, PrCs are definitely a point upon which a lot of campaign immersion can turn. I greatly prefer a limited number of PrCs in a game world with established ingame organizations associated with them. In games with totally free multiclassing and an anything goes mentality for PrCs, you can get some pretty far out characters. Both of the games I am currently in are like that, anything goes. I tried to insert some sanity into them by playing a straight class barbarian, a straight class ranger, and a fighter with only a single prestige class, but they are still pretty wild. It is a different style of play, and some people like it; but it definitely opens a lot of doors for min/maxing.

 

[DarkMaster]

I agree with DarkMaster though, dippin is a distasteful practice to me.QUOTE]

'Dipping' is just something people can do, and sometimes should do, for a specific character concept. A few levels of fighter, rogue, and sorcerer can make an interesting and flavorful 'class'.

In order to avoid this dipping phenomena you would have to create whole new base classes that get to where you want to go. Which is fine sometimes, but too much work to do everytime. Especially when the system as is works more or less well enough.

There are some holes in the system of course, but those are currently being plugged by special prc's. Which further inforce 'dipping' as something that the system expects to some degree

Has nothing to do with this thread though..lol

Never said not to dip on base class, there is a rule that control abuse quite effectively for base class. Multi-Classing is a strength in 3.X edition what bugs me is people having 2 base class and five PrC Completly unrelated just because it's cool to have all those power and still don't suffer heavy penalty. Like I said PrC are way of life for your PC, and should be treated accordingly.

 

[Dark Jezter]

A while back, I actually ran this scenario. Using the NPC tables from the 3.5e DMG, I had a level 20 fighter and a level 20 barbarian duke it out. I optimized each combatant for one-on-one melee combat, and they were both humans. To account for the randomness of the dice, I decided to have them fight 10 times.

The barbarian won 8 out of the 10 fights.