High Level Fighter Vs. High Level Barbarian

[Darklone]

ACs:

Fighter: Adamantium Full Plate +5 (DR 3/-) & Large Shield +5 & Dex +1

Barbarian: Mithral Full Plate +5 (DR 5/-) & Buckler +5 (w/ Improved Buckler Defense) & Dex +3 & Rage -2

The barbarian's AC i equal and DR is higher. If the fighter goes two-weapon (and not spiked shield) his AC goes down by 1. If the fighter switches to Mithral Plate to gain AC, he loses in the DR race. The fighter can pull ahead by using a Tower Shield for two more AC, but then he loses the ability to fight with two weapons effectively.

Defensively, fighters and barbarians are fairly closely matched.

Ehem. Improved Buckler defense means, the barbarian hits at a -1 (giving the fighter an edge in the to hit department) and it does not say you can use the feat with a twohanded weapon... which would mean a REALLY serious drawback for the barbarian. The barbarian would have to go for an animated shield, that puts the fighter at a +2 advantage that he can use for more AC or miss chances...

About the high level paladin: I don't have seen many high level 3.5 paladins in play yet, but at low levels the new Divine Might... ah well. Let's just say that the paladin (with worse attributes) causes more damage than anyone else.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

By the way, are you all serious when you say UMD is a cross class skill? I don't own a 3.5 PHB, but in 3.0 it was an exclusive skill (and it's not mentioned in the SRD). If so, that's just horrible.

There are no longer any exclusive skills in D&D. Everybody can attempt to learn Use Magic Device.

I still think a generic Barbarian against a generic fighter still has some advantages in grapple.

1. There is no reason that only the fighter has armor spikes.
2. Weapon Focus & Weapon Specialisation on Grapple weapons are unlikely
3. Damage Reduction hurts more against low damage outputs like they are usual in grapple
4. Rage bonus apply to all melee attack and damage rolls.

Unfortunately, a grapple specialised Barbarian isn`t a good choice in a regular campaign, because there are to many opponents that are bigger and better in grapples. (especially dragons)

Finally, I think the best and fairest solution would be to build a barbarian and a fighter as if they were meant for a regular campaign, not for a stand up arena fight. The arena fight will probably never happen inplay, so there is no need for a character to specifically prepare for it. (The game is Dungeons and Dragons, not pits and arenas). It might be interesting to run a fight between a fighter and a barbarian who fought side by side during a long campaign - they probably compenplate each other greatly. Now, if one of them becomes corrupted or dominated, the fight is a bit more plausible - and more interesting, I guess.

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I would actually say exactly the opposite. The generic fighter is at an advantage over the barbarian in a grapple.

1. The fighter has enough feats to be good at grappling without sacrificing too many non-grapple abilities. (A fighter can spend feats on Imp Unarmed Strike, and Imp Grapple and still have enough for weapon focus and specialization, power attack, and cleave by fourth level (if human); for a barbarian, even the basic grappling feats (Imp Unarmed Strike and Imp Grapple) are a very significant investment that delay other combat skills for a long time. . . .and the fighter can multiclass with monk without penalty if he wants to get the feats that way).

2. Grappling significantly reduces a character's damage output making battles last longer. A grappling barbarian does d3 or d4 +str instead of d12 or 2c6+1.5(str). Assuming a raging strength of 22 to 26 (which works for up to the mid levels), that's a difference of 7.5-10.5/round to 15.5-19/round. Without considering the difference in success probabilities between winning the opposed grapple check and simply attacking (which depends upon too many variables to consider properly), that's approximately halving the damage output and making the fight last twice as long. Long fights are not in the barbarian's favor since rage has a rather limited duration.

3. The fighter is more likely to be using a light weapon to begin with (a defensive fighter may very well use Imp Shieldbash and dual wield a light weapon with a heavy shield designating the shield as his "primary" weapon)--a significant advantage in a grapple since even one round of attacking with a +2 flaming wounding bane shortsword yields much better damage than several rounds of a nonspecialist's grapples.

Rage bonus may apply to all grapple checks while the generic fighter's weapon focus, etc feats don't, however this is, IMO, not making best use of the barbarian's potentially significant advantage to damage (+8 strength translates to +6 damage with a two handed weapon to the fighter's +4).

I still think a generic Barbarian against a generic fighter still has some advantages in grapple.

1. There is no reason that only the fighter has armor spikes.
2. Weapon Focus & Weapon Specialisation on Grapple weapons are unlikely
3. Damage Reduction hurts more against low damage outputs like they are usual in grapple
4. Rage bonus apply to all melee attack and damage rolls.

Unfortunately, a grapple specialised Barbarian isn`t a good choice in a regular campaign, because there are to many opponents that are bigger and better in grapples. (especially dragons)

 

[Scion]

I don't think jgsugden is trying to argue with the way balance works across different games, I think he's pointing out that the method some people are using for comparing is ineffective.

While on this thread it can make sense, on a lot of others it does not. I was just asking why he goes around saying pretty much the exact same thing on all kinds of threads. Even if those threads main purpose is to work things out with the numbers present in the system.

As to this issue it does come down to a lot of things. But it still winds up coming back to the same question in my eyes:

Is the fighter so much better in combat that it is all right that he is almost a nonperson outside of it? In my eyes no, he is not so superior. I've done some heavy modification of the fighter for my games, and currently he seems a whole lot more on par for where I would like most classes to be.

 

[Trainz]

Is the fighter so much better in combat that it is all right that he is almost a nonperson outside of it? In my eyes no, he is not so superior. I've done some heavy modification of the fighter for my games, and currently he seems a whole lot more on par for where I would like most classes to be.

This I have to conceed. I think the fighter is the best combatant, but not by such a margin that he should be totally deprived of other skills. Which is what it really comes down to. He should have more (skills).

 

[DarkMaster]

While on this thread it can make sense, on a lot of others it does not. I was just asking why he goes around saying pretty much the exact same thing on all kinds of threads. Even if those threads main purpose is to work things out with the numbers present in the system.

As to this issue it does come down to a lot of things. But it still winds up coming back to the same question in my eyes:

Is the fighter so much better in combat that it is all right that he is almost a nonperson outside of it? In my eyes no, he is not so superior. I've done some heavy modification of the fighter for my games, and currently he seems a whole lot more on par for where I would like most classes to be.

The same could be said about the wizard rogue cleric outside their speciality they are almost nonperson. fighter , wiz/sor, rogue, cleric represent the four building block of all the class, if you want a fighter with a lot of skill multi-class with rogue. Your character will be more well rounded but every descision comes with a price, your character will be more versatile but he won't be as good in combat.

If you look at the way the fighter character is designed it is clear that this class was made for multiclass. I see a lot of players taking a few level in fighter to gain some feat to improve their combat skill but they rarely go pure fighter (There is an exception in my group but...). If you think about it your stuck in a full plate with heavy weapon. most skill become so penalised that you don't bother with them, you can't cast arcane spell because of the armor, what's left COMBAT.

when I say that this class is made to be multiclass, notice that it is the only class that doesn't have higher power as it go up in class, you only get BAB improvement, D10HP, strong Fortitude save, and a bonus feat every two level.

In my group you usually have the Barbarian/Ranger, the rogue and the sthealty sorcerer in front as scout and the cleric in heavy armor and the fighter in heavy armor in the back waiting for the scout to make sure that the other two can move up front without alerting the whole place. When heavy support is required a then they join the fun. I find the stereotypical fighter a very limited adventurer class. The wizard/sorcerer is also limited but can compensate for their weakness with various spell.

 

[Scion]

The same could be said about the wizard rogue cleric outside their speciality they are almost nonperson. fighter , wiz/sor, rogue, cleric represent the four building block of all the class, if you want a fighter with a lot of skill multi-class with rogue. Your character will be more well rounded but every descision comes with a price, your character will be more versatile but he won't be as good in combat.

??

Rogue, lots of skill choices, lots of abilities, and he is good both in and out of combat by nature. Some even say he is too good in combat, but those are usually people who dont know what makes sneak attack not work. But while he isnt as good of a combatant as the fighter, he is still more than passable. The fighter is not passable outside of combat. Wizard? They cast spells, I guess you mean outside of their specialty by 'antimagic field'. Otherwise they can do just about anything, for a short while. Whatever needs to be done they have a chance of doing it, more if they prepare. They can fight, for a time. They can be incredibly skilled, for a time. Same with the cleric, although they are generally better at everything than the mage

Mainly out of all of the classes the fighter has the biggest problem, with the vary question I put above

 

[DarkMaster]

??

Rogue, lots of skill choices, lots of abilities, and he is good both in and out of combat by nature. Some even say he is too good in combat, but those are usually people who dont know what makes sneak attack not work. But while he isnt as good of a combatant as the fighter, he is still more than passable. The fighter is not passable outside of combat. Wizard? They cast spells, I guess you mean outside of their specialty by 'antimagic field'. Otherwise they can do just about anything, for a short while. Whatever needs to be done they have a chance of doing it, more if they prepare. They can fight, for a time. They can be incredibly skilled, for a time. Same with the cleric, although they are generally better at everything than the mage

Mainly out of all of the classes the fighter has the biggest problem, with the vary question I put above

I agree, but there is no better class to multi-class to if you want to improve your combat skill whoever you are.

 

[jgsugden]

Scion: A valid question. Unfortuantely, I don't have a lot of time to discuss it today. I'll try to do it briefly.

People look at threads on message boards and draw a conclusion about the subjects being discussed. That conclusion is based upon the analysis presented in the thread. Once that conclusion is in their brain, they have a tendency to stick to it. This is a natural tendency for people - draw a conclusion, internalize it and stick with it. Once a person has a belief stuck in their head, it is hard to get them to reconsider that belief - people are stubborn. If you don't belive me, just try to change my mind about people being stubborn.

The problem here (and in many places on the internet) is that the conslusions being drawn are flawed. In many instances, people draw very general conclusions (ie; 'barbarians are better than fighters') based upon a very small amount of the relevant information (ie; one battle scenario with one set of mock characters). In other instances, people draw faulty conclusions because they're drawing their conclusions by looking at the wrong information (ie; people thinking that 4 attacks that deal 30 damage each is 'better' than 8 attacks that deal 14 each, even though in many circumstances, the second option takes down more foes in less time because of the hit point total of the foes [Note: I'm saying that both options have strengths and weaknesses - I'm not saying that either is 'better'].)

Once people have these flawed theories stuck in their brain, they tend to hold on to them very tightly. They use these conclusions in other discussions without analysing whether their analysis holds true under the circumstances of the new argument. They use their conclusions as a basis to demand (or, in rare instances, request) that WotC change a rule.

People yelled and screamed about how the new 3.5 power attack was going to destroy all 3.5 games. They had numbers to back them up. Other people yelled and screamed about how Mystic Theurges would be the only spellcasters in D&D within 6 months of 3.5 being released. They had lots of mock examples to back them up. When 3.0 came out, people said that the 'new' strength modifiers to attack/damage would make the game unplayable. They had plenty of examples of how things were 'broken' because they changed the balance of power between PCs and monsters.

In the end, these types of analysis result in confusion, misinformation and frustration. Those problems are reflected back into other threads and create more and more flawed statements. That is a lot of wasted time and effort.

Why does it matter to me if people spend time doing this type of analysis? Why can't I just ignore those threads and read threads on the subjects where that analysis is not being used?

Because people take their conclusions and apply them everywhere. In a thread on tactics that a melee fighter might use when attacking a creature with high movement, you'll start seeing people quote threads like this one with statements like, "Only an idiot players a fighter. Barbarians kick a fighter's butt, so nobody worth listening to plays a fighter. So stop wasting time talking about how to move fast in heavy armor!"

*Sigh* So much for brevity.

These types of analysis are misleading and incomplete because there are FAR too many things to consider. The only effective way to compare them is to put them in a game environment and see if they both work in that environment.

 

[Scion]

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.

Still though, thanks for the answer. I didnt mean to hijack the thread too much, you and I are on different sides of arguments often but there is never hard feelings on my end


Darkmaster, I know what you mean. But being a good class to take for only a level or two does not make it a good class. Seems sortof like the problems people have with prcs, sometimes you only want the first couple of abilities and the rest of the prc is horrible for whatever reason.

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