Melee Smackdown - Who kicks more butt, PsyWar or Ftr? Prove it!

[Majere]

Fighters hit things
And they refuse to die

This is what they do.

Are they underpowered ?
No

Are they one dimensional ?
Yes

The main complaint about fighters is that they cant fly/open locks/ cast fireballs/ detonate planets.

Newsflash
Fighters ARE NOT MENT TO BE ABLE TO DO THOSE THINGS.

Fighters stand there, between the bad guys an the party.
And they hit things
And things hit them

Fighters arent under powered.
They just arent that exciting to play.

Of all the melee classess, the fighter does the most damage and takes the least.
They are also the most one dimensional.

Peronally I think fighters, and fighting classes in general, work just fine, and never want to be in a party without one.

Majere

 

[Scion]

Are they underpowered ?

Yep.

Of all the melee classess, the fighter does the most damage and takes the least.

Shown to be wrong even in this thread. But then the other fighter types did not have builds. Care to prove your point?

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Do the most damage? No. (Though they are only a few points behind barbarians; In general, PsyWars seem to do significantly better on a (Psionic lion's) charge and slightly worse in a full attack). That's excluding Retributive Amulets and Empathic Feedback, however. Include Empathic Feedback and PsyWars using (abusing?) it will shoot off the chart.

Take the least damage? Hard to say based on the numbers here. None of the defensively focussed candidates take appreciable damage from anything other than the dragon and there's only one candidate (my last skin of the Proteus fighter) with concrete numbers against the dragon (though my initial candidate can do better simply by using alter self and calculating in concealment from his gleaming armor--and can do much better by cranking Improved Combat Expertise).

Feat based tactical flexibility is where the fighter really shines and this thread really hasn't been able to properly evaluate that. (The benefit of Cleave, Spring Attack, etc is highly situational and doesn't really show up in damage/round comparisons).

 

[Scion]

your first guy had spring attack and a movement of 20 most of the time, would he even get much use out of it?

Still, at higher levels most of those feats simply fall behind in what is needed. Useing complete warrior helps a great deal because by then the designers were able to compile enough sources and toss in some higher quality feats. If that keeps up eventually the fighter will be able to simulate being a good class over a much broader range.

Does the fighter have much more feat flexibility than the psychic warrior? At max he is only 3 ahead, and the psychic warrior feats can be any fighter feat or psionic feats. So for feat flexibility the psychic warrior is right there in the same boat.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

your first guy had spring attack and a movement of 20 most of the time, would he even get much use out of it?

Whenever he uses the boots of speed he would have a move of 40 or 50 (depending how one interprets "up to a max of the character's speed"). If he has a Fly spell in his ring of spell storing, that increases his movement as well. So, when he needs the movement, he would be able to get it. However, spring attack is useful in quite a few situations where he wouldn't need the movement as well. Closing against a creature with reach? Spring attack. Need to leave a creature's reach so that the cleric can heal him without provoking an AoO? Spring attack. Want to get behind the enemy skirmish line to beat up on their spellcasters? Or just want to set up a flank for the rogue? Spring Attack. Up against a foe who is advantaged by trading full attacks but disadvantaged by trading single attacks? Spring Attack. Heck, even "took a five foot step, started a full attack, scored a critical on the first blow and took down my enemy, what do I do with the rest of the round?" Spring Attack lets the fighter reposition himself. (Quickdraw also gives him the option to finish the full attack with ranged attacks if he wants to do that).

So the answer to that is "yes, he would." I wouldn't have put the feat on the character if I didn't think it was useful.

Still, at higher levels most of those feats simply fall behind in what is needed. Useing complete warrior helps a great deal because by then the designers were able to compile enough sources and toss in some higher quality feats. If that keeps up eventually the fighter will be able to simulate being a good class over a much broader range.

What, is the difference between "simulating" being a good class and actually being a good class? As far as I can tell, it's only the level of condescension you get to employ.

Does the fighter have much more feat flexibility than the psychic warrior? At max he is only 3 ahead, and the psychic warrior feats can be any fighter feat or psionic feats. So for feat flexibility the psychic warrior is right there in the same boat.

True but none of the PsyWars statted up here have anything even remotely resembling the fighter's tactical flexibility except in their powers. In order to fund their all-day powers, crank their claw damage, or gain access to non-standard powers, they needed to spend those feats elsewhere. You could make a PsyWar with the non-power based tactical options of a fighter but the other PsyWar abilities showcased in the builds you submitted would suffer. (Personally I was expecting to see a PsyWar with Hustle, some of the expend focus feats, and a more fighter-like style but it may be that such characters are much better as multiclass fighter/PsyWars).

 

[Scion]

He cant move for very long under haste, he only has 10 rounds a day. I knew the other benefits of spring attack already, but a good portion of the time fighting defensively + mobility will work just fine. Or dropping 2 cc points (as you seem to like to do) into tumble. Then with the two above you also have a decent chance of simply being able to walk away

Spring attack is nice but not quite as much for a guy who wants to full attack more often.

The difference between 'simulating' being a good class and actually being a good one usually is on how much work you have to do and how many sources you have to pull from to find things that are very powerful or are incredibly powerful when put together. The fighter 'has' to do this. Unless you wish to try a pure fighter useing core only?

Also, the two builds I made for the psychic warrior the first was a fun one. Manifestor warrior all the way. The second one had a feat selection similar to your fighters. He didnt need spring attack though, not much has a longer reach than him and you dont provoke aoo's if you have total cover.


Anyway, I guess you can make up a fighter guy, give him whatever feats, then I could go through and modify it slightly into a psychic warrior. Would that make you happier?

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I'll go for the fighter using core only as soon as you can create a PsyWar using only the PHB, DMG, and MM.

As for the benefits of spring attack, you're right that combat expertise, mobility, and elusive target (to get the free trip attack when the foe misses) would make a lot of the AoO negating ones unnecessary--however, there are two other things to factor in:

1. The picture is somewhat skewed by a 20th level comparison simply by the fact that there are only a handful of CR 20+ creatures in the MM. If one were to go a bit further into epic-level play or just into epic level monsters (since 20th level characters are likely to face more than a few foes with CR >20), some of the pictures might change a little. It would be a lot more difficult to use combat expertise to avoid an AoO from such a foe without making the attack ineffectual.

2. The lack of higher CR monsters also means that cases of "will hit no matter what" monsters are not a factor.

Both of these are artificial factors introduced by this being a comparison rather than a game. In an actual game, both foes that could not be reliably hit while using combat expertise and foes who stand a good chance of hitting despite combat expertise and mobility would be a factor.

 

[Scion]

the 3.5 psionics handbook 'is' the corebook for the psychic warrior unless you would like to try to make the fighter without the phb?

I'll be nice though, you can use the psionics handbook as well.

I dont know anything about epic stuff really, I suppose we can try though.

Maybe we could try to make something that will be able to beat those nice steel dragons

Still, even useing just the core rules there are tons of CR 20 monsters, simply put class levels onto monsters. That is the beauty of the system. Not always as useful possibly, but it has always worked for me in my games.. then again, I rarely use the monstrous manual.. prefering to make up a good portion of the worlds creatures whole cloth.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Fighters hit things
And they refuse to die

This is what they do.

Are they underpowered ?
No

Are they one dimensional ?
Yes

The main complaint about fighters is that they cant fly/open locks/ cast fireballs/ detonate planets.

Newsflash
Fighters ARE NOT MENT TO BE ABLE TO DO THOSE THINGS.

Fighters stand there, between the bad guys an the party.
And they hit things
And things hit them

Fighters arent under powered.
They just arent that exciting to play.

Of all the melee classess, the fighter does the most damage and takes the least.
They are also the most one dimensional.

Peronally I think fighters, and fighting classes in general, work just fine, and never want to be in a party without one.

Majere

Fighters aren't too boring if you like using interesting tactics, like tripping, disarming etc.