I don't want to be a druid/cleric, I want to be a fighter.

[Dannyalcatraz]

Count me as another vote for "Play a fighter."

I do not argue that the full casters can't out fight a fighter on paper. They can: the spell & feat combos that let them do so are well-documented. However, what exists on paper matters less than the concept in my head and the guys & gals I game with. I've been in the hobby since 1977, and to this day, I have yet to game with someone who wants to get their casters' hands dirty that way.

IME, then, its a non-issue due to the rarity of the problem (because of others' playstyle preferences) and my personal desire to play what I want.

 

[Henry]

A Fighter's Feats aren't remotely comparable to spells like Enlarge Person, Bull's Strength or Righteous Might, though, that's the problem. The latter in particular would be worth about a dozen Feats, were it a Feat. +4 STR/CON, weapons increase a category in size (massive damage increase in many cases), +2 AC, DR5/Evil. Any one of those bonuses would be considered wildly excessive for a Feat and "unbalanced" and so on.

I mean, as I alluded to upthread, actually, it wouldn't be. It would be fine to have Feats that gave +2 STR or the like if they were restricted strictly to full-class Fighters and so on, but the problem is, PF doesn't do that - the paths and the BAB restrictions and so on help, but if a Fighter can get an awesome Feat, so can a Cleric. A Fighter might get 3x more Feats (seems about that, I forget exactly how many), but that's not enough to make up for the issues.

Spells do indeed run out - but by level 10 or so, they don't run out for, as you seem to suggest, 2-3 encounters. 4 encounters/day is pretty much the maximum 3.XE/PF were designed to sustain. A Fighter can keep fighting beyond that, definitely (assuming Wands of CLW to keep him up and so on), but when the Cleric, the Wizard, the Druid and every other semi-caster and hybrid is out of spells, or low on spells, and only the Fighter can keep going meaningfully, it's going to take extreme circumstances for the party to go on..

I have to disagree because I've seen it first hand in play, a cleric with his hyper-buffs, complaining to the DM that he's not giving them a chance to rest for the day after three consecutive encounters, while the warriors of the group (a barbarian and fighter), while hurt, were able to continue. Mind you, the warriors weren't too thrilled by the situation but the cleric was forced into a secondary role, while the fighter and barbarian were All that stood between the party and a TPK. But the point was made - don't try to rest in a lich's domain when he knows you're there. There's a time to blow all your spells on offensive buffs, and a time to plan for the long game, and if you run a level 10+ character, you need to know the difference between the two.

Then again, as you say, up through level 7 to 10, it isn't much of an issue, because the spells that make a buffed up cleric pr druid the worst aren't in the game, yet.

 

[Henry]

Count me as another vote for "Play a fighter."

I do not argue that the full casters can't out fight a fighter on paper. They can: the spell & feat combos that let them do so are well-documented. However, what exists on paper matters less than the concept in my head and the guys & gals I game with. I've been in the hobby since 1977, and to this day, I have yet to game with someone who wants to get their casters' hands dirty that way.

IME, then, its a non-issue due to the rarity of the problem (because of others' playstyle preferences) and my personal desire to play what I want.

I do have to agree with this though: if properly prepared, a buffed up cleric or druid will numbers-crunch a melee fighter. But in most groups I've played in, both con games and regular home groups, the play styles are such that the 3e fighter can still hold enough ground that he or she contributes and contributes well to the group.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I do have to agree with this though: if properly prepared, a buffed up cleric or druid will numbers-crunch a melee fighter. But in most groups I've played in, both con games and regular home groups, the play styles are such that the 3e fighter can still hold enough ground that he or she contributes and contributes well to the group.

How much of this is because the fighter is soaking up the casters' buffs?

 

[Henry]

How much of this is because the fighter is soaking up the casters' buffs?

About as many as needed for the caster to replace the hit points lost by the fighter for shielding them or getting them out of a jam.

 

[TwoSix]

I do have to agree with this though: if properly prepared, a buffed up cleric or druid will numbers-crunch a melee fighter. But in most groups I've played in, both con games and regular home groups, the play styles are such that the 3e fighter can still hold enough ground that he or she contributes and contributes well to the group.

I do agree that unless a Cleric or Druid goes nova on the buffs (and that's often impossible due to the action economy), that the Fighter is equivalent and often slightly ahead at fighting.

My main issue is that the Cleric or Druid can remain at least competitive with the fighter in melee combat while still having all the capabilities inherent in being a full divine caster.

In a low level 3.X or PF game, sure, I'll play a fighter. Once you get to around level 9 or 10, it's time to start looking for convenient ways for the fighter to meet his glorious demise, and bring in your high-level caster.

 

[Neonchameleon]

About as many as needed for the caster to replace the hit points lost by the fighter for shielding them or getting them out of a jam.

Given that the fighter doesn't do any healing, and casters are at their best when dealing with jams, (the pre-4e Fighter's main strength being to keep going at the same strength all day long) this isn't reassuring.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Curious on the thoughts of other people around here concerning balance, character optimization, munchkining whatever you want to call it. In 3.5 and pathfinder and all of that people say that clerics and druids can potentially make better fighters than fighters.

Potentially. But you could always find specific cases where they don't, thus avoiding strict superiority and justifying, on some level, the choice of fighter. It's a stretch, and you have to optimize your fighter mightily to retain relevance out of the lowest levels, but it can be an interesting, even enjoyable challenge to do so.

It's really that 3.x Clerics/Druids/etc making virtually as good melee combatants as fighter /while also casting spells that are very useful to the party/. The fighter can marginally defend his own little conceptual niche in spite of the higher-tier classes, but they're still far above him in overall effectiveness.

So here's the question, if you want to be a fighter, do you pick fighter or a class that supposedly does it "better"? Of course this doesn't just apply to 3.5 and pathfinder, it's just the easiest example. Do you play the class you want and have it fit your original vision for your character (Fighter) or do you concede your original vision to something mechanically superior (Cleric or Druid)?

I think, first of all, you shouldn't use a class name in your character concept if you want a good answer to the question. If your concept is 'kicks ass in melee,' and you don't much care how, then there are a lot of options that could do that, fighter being only one of them. If your concept is an heroic warrior who pits courage, strength & steel against all manner of foes and wins through (a terribly common heroic fantasy archetype), you may have some issues. In classic D&D, you prettymuch had to be a fighter with that concept, and, while you were tough at first and could technically become a 'lord' later, you depended heavily on magic items to retain much effectiveness out of the lower levels. In 3.x you could be a fighter or fighter/rogue or even a rogue, really, or nip in a level or 3 of ranger, or other classes that didn't get supernatural powers /right away/. You had a lot more options, but you were still relegated to a relatively low optimization tier. In 4e, you could be a fighter or warlord or perhaps two-blade ranger (or archer-ranger or rogue), or even MC or hybrid two of those together. They were all solid class choices and effective enough at all levels, but none quite fit the whole archetype by itself. The fighter had the toughness, the ranger (and rogue) the hard-hitting dpr, the warlord the charisma/cunning and leadership. In 5e, you're back to the fighter as the only real choice that fits the concept, yet, as in classic D&D, doesn't have that much to back it up - /but/ you can use a good choice of Background to make up part of the lack. You may not be able to do justice to a knight concept, for instance, but you can take a Noble background that backfills some of it (that you could do so with any class notwithstanding).

 

[Ryujin]

I play concept first. If the PC I create isn't purposefully sub-optimized for some reason, but I'm still not very useful to the group, I don't play that particular game any longer.

I do the same; come up with the character concept and then see which class best fits. I want a character, not a stat block.

I hate optimization with a fiery passion and wish that players would realize if they don't create characters who could rule the known universe by level 3, then game masters don't ramp up the challenges to match.

 

[Greenfield]

In our last campaign, one player who hadn't played D&D since 1st Ed (25 years away from the dice) was unhappy withhow poorly fighters seemed to fare at 15th level or so. (His Cleric had a Cohort, an Awakened Bear with fighter levels.)

He said that he couldn't see why anyone would run anything but a spell caster.

I told him fighter types could be very much over the top in the system, if you tried. I promised him I'd run one in our new campaign.

So far I've set off alarms at the table over how powerful the character is, and I've been asked to scale it back a bit. We just hit 2nd level.

I think I need to explain/remind them of the difference in the power curves. A fighter's power curve doesn't curve very much as the levels advance. It isn't quite linear, but spell caster powers advance their total capacity geometrically. If a Fighter type is going to stay relevant at level 15, he needs to take off running at level one.

Now I'm not sure how this plays into the conversation, but I started with a Ranger, rather than a pure Fighter. Two good Saves and really good Skill base. I prefer versatility in my PCs, so sue me.

Going the Fighter route though, he'd be even more over the top. More Feats.

It's the carefully planned use of the Feats and Feat combinations that give a Fighter the capacity to stay in the running with the spell casters.

My long term plan is Ranger 1/Wizard1/Ranger all the way. Wizard gives me access to items, a few 1st level buffing spells like Shield to cover my AC limits when using a two handed weapon or firing a bow.

I considered taking a Familiar, which also gives the character Alertness. But the old "Eyes in the Sky" of a hawk or owl isn't what it used to be. Now it's more of, "What's that Lassie? Timmy fell down the well?" All you get is empathic communication. I suppose I could get a Raven, who can learn to talk, but since I won't be adding any Wiz levels, he'll never advance.

Instead I'm Specializing in Transmutation, and taking the Alternate Class Feature option from PHB II, whete the character loses the Familiar and instead gets Abrupt Shift. Once per day per Int modifier, he can gain a Climb, Swim or Fly speed equal to his normal movement rate, for one round. In the case of my Ranger, that's two shifts a day. The change is a Swift Action. (Or is it an Immediate? I'll have to look.)

Being able to Fly, and do a flying charge at 2nd level kind of has some of our group freaked. Suddenly rough terrain modifiers don't apply.

But like I said, for Fighter types it's go big, early, or go home.