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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5525838" data-attributes="member: 87792">Indeed.  Calling Thomas a 3.X fighter is highly questionable.  The class I'd use as the 3.X best guess would be the Psychic Warrior.  If Thomas is a fighterthen he's a ridiculously house-ruled one.  Which means that he's a good exception that proves the rule - in order to keep Thomas relevant, he needs to be given some pretty extreme magical empowerment.  Indeed.  And because they are cross-class skills with an awful rate of return most fighters don't invest in them.  Which means that despite having travelled across the plains, faced doppelgangers and demons, and who knows what else, a 15th level fighter is no better than a first level fighter under the rules as written at seeing through Nigerian 401 scams and games of three card monte.  The main thing he takes from having travelled all this way and been part of events few mortals ever are is ... the ability to swing his pointy bit of metal a bit better. He's hung round with a thief so good he's either legendary or no one even knows his name.  But he's no better at noticing when bob the first level street urchin picks his pocket than he was when he was fresh off the farm (Spot/Listen).  And he's seen the thief vanish into shadows more times than he cares to count - but still hasn't picked up the first clue about what makes a good shadow to hide in.  The party wizard has probably cast more combat spells over the course of a dozen levels than most mages do over a lifetime.  And he's been right there beside it.  And that's not even counting enemy spellcasters.  But does he get better at recognising spells?  Does he gain some rudimentary spellcraft?  Does he heck.  For all he knows about spellcraft he might as well never have met a wizard in his life.  And religion?  He's faced worshippers of more cults than most people have even heard of.  He's had more divine magic cast on him than most clerics.  And has very probably spat in the eye of demons and possibly even met the gods themselves.  But knows no more about religion or the divine than kids in sunday school There is no assumed competence.  There is no assumed observation.  The fighter's the worst case here (fewest skill points, worst skill list, fewest means of getting round these restrictions) but every class except the bard suffers from it.  In that case under 3.X rules what they should want is not a fighter, but a cleric.  Also stands beside them, is tough, and unlike the fighter is able to heal them or provide magical support.  (And fwiw, Charisma is exactly what you need to recruit a volunteer army in my opinion - although logistics is vastly more important for making it effective). Tactical knowhow *is* related to being able to swing a sword well. If you don't have both tactics and physical ability, you are not going to survive to 3rd level.   Subodai, arguably the greatest general the world has known, was carried into battle on a litter.  Napoleon was known as "The Little Corporal" and I may be wrong but I don't recall evidence that he was a great hand to hand fighter.  Wellington was a notoriously poor shot.  I see little evidence that any of these men was a fighter.  Yes, they could wield weapons.  But that was about it.  And classes other than fighters can wield weapons - so why insist that generals need to be fighters?  There is, so far as I can tell, little mechanical support for this. And on the other hand there are people who are fighters.  The general's bodyguards.  Very few generals will have been better fighters than their bodyguards.  Which means the bodyguards are better fighters than the general - but somehow the general needs to be a higher level fighter than his bodyguards to be a general? And if you look mechanically, so far as I can tell in all the skills required for generalship the bard is at least as good as the fighter - better at inspiring his troops, better at knowing the mind of his people and the enemy generals, better at knowing the terrain.  And a bard with Perform (Oratory) gives great speeches.  He just gets beaten round the training ring by his bodyguards (as you'd expect). So why do you insist that the general should be a fighter?  I see no scrap of mechanical support for this.  And a lot of mechanics indicating that bards and clerics both do a better job.</blockquote>

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