Martial equivalent of Wish..

[Lord Zardoz]

I think that some peole are missing the point I have been trying to make. My choice of subjects for the thread title does not help. But I want to be clear. I am not advocating that Fighters literally get a wish like ability. I am advocating that they get something equally powerful and impressive.

Fighter-type characters should NEVER have anything that looks like magic, or accomplishes magical effects, because they're not magic users.

This I agree with. I am not looking for a feat or martial ability that lets a fighter type make an arbitrary wish statement. I am looking for something comparable that would also fit with the general flavor of a fighter character.

An ability that would allow a fighter to do some combination of the following is what I have in mind.

- Become Indestructible for a short time
- Attack rolls and Saving throws automatically succeed for X number of rounds
- All damage rolls count as critical hits for X number of rounds
- Every melee attack has the effect of a coup de grace for X number of rounds
- Fighter can ignore all spells and psionic abilities if he wins an opposed 'caster' check based on his Bab for X number of rounds
- Each attack roll with a melee weapon hits all threatened squares for X number of rounds (Think Iterative Whirl Wind attack)
- Ignore all damage reduction and Hardness values for X number of rounds
- Automatic success on all opposed rolls for X number of rounds
- Fighter may make 3 standard actions per round for for X number of rounds

These are the kinds of effects I am thinking of. Are they absurdly powerful? Hell yes, but then again, so is the Wish spell. Should a fighter get all of them at once from a single ability? I do not know. Thats why I started this thread.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Umbran]

So only the magic-user players get to do cool stuff?

A bit excessive on the extrapolation, there. Not having Wish or Miracle does not equate to "does not get to do cool stuff". We are talking about one particular cool thing they may not get to do.

Perhaps we need to see what the 4e version of the Wish is before we start worrying about whether the Fighter has something equally cool...

 

[Celebrim]

Become Indestructible for a short time
- Attack rolls and Saving throws automatically succeed for X number of rounds
- All damage rolls count as critical hits for X number of rounds
- Every melee attack has the effect of a coup de grace for X number of rounds
- Fighter can ignore all spells and psionic abilities if he wins an opposed 'caster' check based on his Bab for X number of rounds
- Each attack roll with a melee weapon hits all threatened squares for X number of rounds (Think Iterative Whirl Wind attack)
- Ignore all damage reduction and Hardness values for X number of rounds
- Automatic success on all opposed rolls for X number of rounds
- Fighter may make 3 standard actions per round for for X number of rounds

Whatever you come up with has to be as fair in the hands of a PC as it is in the hands of an NPC. Wish, for all it's power, is just another powerful spell in the middle of combat.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

20th level fighter in 3e can litterally kill thousands of low level warriors with out dying.

Seems about on par with a wish. Wish is more versatile but spell casters always are.

 

[Klaus]

Turn his weapon into a Slaying weapon temporarily;
Bypass any DR for a while;
Auto-crit;
Gain DR = (Con Score)/-;
Gain SR equal to level +10 +Cha modifier;
Automatically intimidate foes within 100' after successfully killing a foe of higher HD than they are;
Reflect spells back to caster;

 

[Brother MacLaren]

In the past, there were 3 game-balance mechanics applied to wizards relative to fighters. These were not bugs -- they were design principles that made playing a magic-user a very different kind of challenge than playing a fighter.

1) Wizards started off weak but could eventually become very powerful (the delayed-gratification balance)
2) Magic was very effective but limited, whereas strength could be used as often as needed (the resource management balance)
3) Wizards needed more XP to advance than fighters did

I liked all of these. The removal of #3 was necessary to allow for 3E's elegant and useful multiclassing. #1 and #2 were watered down somewhat in 3E; in 4E, #1 looks to be completely gone and #2 nearly gone. All classes equally useful at all levels, and all classes having a very similar resource management paradigm.

It's an enormous challenge to make non-magic characters balanced with high-level casters in terms of power and -- especially -- versatility. This simply was not an issue before. A high-level caster WAS more powerful than a high-level fighter, and he had earned the right to be by working his way up through the difficult lower levels. I don't know if the 4E approach is going to work. I imagine they'll have to seriously nerf high-level casters to make this happen.

 

[FireLance]

When everybody's special, nobody is.

You know, given that the quote was delivered by the antagonist in the film, it's not surprising that everyone gets a gut-level, "No, not everyone should be special!" reaction to it.

However, think about it a bit more. It's actually saying that the world ought to be divided into "special" people and "non-special" people, and implying that the special people are better or more valuable than the rest. Whether or not this is true in reality, it's a potentially dangerous line of thought.

In a way, the quote isn't even true. It would be more accurate to say, "When everyone is special in the same way, no-one is", but it wouldn't be as nice a sound bite.

If everyone is special, but in different and unique ways, everyone can take pride that they can do something that no-one else can, and still appreciate other people for the things that only they can do. Sure, if everyone can shoot fireballs, or if everyone has a +5 weapon, then shooting fireballs or having a +5 weapon is not special. However, if one person can turn invisible while another is very fast and another is very strong, they are all special in their own ways.

 

[BASHMAN]

How about "The Last Stand"

The warrior can kill all enemies within a 100 foot radius through various wuxia special effects without having to resolve the attacks. They just die. Then, afterwords, the hero drops to his knees, says something inspiring and dies...

 

[Celebrim]

How about "The Last Stand"

The warrior can kill all enemies within a 100 foot radius through various wuxia special effects without having to resolve the attacks. They just die. Then, afterwords, the hero drops to his knees, says something inspiring and dies...

My NPC villains would just love that one.

Me: "You finally make it to the throne room of the evil warlord."
PC: "Zarkess, your evil plans are about to come to an end!"
Me (as Zarkess): "I've been expecting you. Prepare to meet your doom."
*everyone rolls for initiative*
PC: "I charge across the throne room, screaming my battle cry, "Remember Valeria!!!" *dice clatter*
Me: Ok... hit.. and 26 damage. Nice. Zarkess's turn. "Zarkess cuts you down in a motion so swift your comrades don't see anything but your evicerated remains collapsing to the floor. You die. Before anyone else can even react or register what they've seen, he moves is a blur of flame across the room, cutting down each pc in turn with a series of flashing moves of his great sword. As the blood flows from your torn bodies, your last sight is Zarkess sinking to his knees grimly saying, "I will be resurrected... but you... will not."
Me: Ok, that was a fun campaign. Want to have another go?

 

[Gentlegamer]

N
Now, Wizards have the Wish spell Clerics, at least in 3rd edition, have Miracle. But what about fighters? What would be the martial equivalent, in terms of potential to affect the game world, of a wish spell? Obviously, unless your DM has a house ruled "Chuck Norris" character class where you can round house kick a planet into tiny bits, nothing really exists.

How about the character gets to attack every enemy character with a flurry of cool sword flourishes that does mega damage?