Mustrum's Mythical Fighter Techniques

[WarlockLord]

Nevertheless, or in spite of that, my insinuation remains: the thread that you started already explored those questions -- including but not limited to explorations of verisimilitude of magic and perspectives on flying fighters -- and so it's disheartening to read your questions posed as if that thread that you started never existed or had no impact. I guess I and others have spent our 50 stamina points and all failed our rolls.

From what I remember of the thread, the consensus was that fighters needed some mythical powers, wizards needed to be powered down somewhat, and very few people not named Remathilius believed in an all-mundane fighter. Feel free to enlighten me if I missed anything.

I, personally, have the sneaking suspicion they will not power down the wizard at all so as they can claim it feels like D&D. After all, that playtest survey was full of 3.5 spells, and wizards have throughout the editions retained the ability to shove it to fighters. And I would rather see warriors brought up to wizard power level anyway.

 

[Underman]

From what I remember of the thread, the consensus was that fighters needed some mythical powers, wizards needed to be powered down somewhat, and very few people not named Remathilius believed in an all-mundane fighter. Feel free to enlighten me if I missed anything.

I believe in a nutshell the consensus was that the mechanics could somehow (via power selection or modules/supplements) support all playstyles, including all-mundane or mythical or mudane-ish with mythical-ish explanations, without simplistically dictating anything like (paraphrasing) "it doesn't go far enough, fighters should be able to fly, why not?"

 

[Elf Witch]

First, I fail to see how "fighters can learn to fly" violates verisimilitude if that's a fact of the world and everyone knows it. I don't think that word means what you think it means. Likewise, metagame. That means it relates to the fact that it's a game. If in flying-fighter verse everyone knows that due to the laws of physics which support giants and wizards, you can fly by learning enough kung-fu, it's not metagaming.

Second, you had a sorceror. You know, the class that most people think is worse than the wizard because they get less spells. One could make an argument that a competent wizard could solo that encounter, but I don't know the level. But regardless, spell resistance is widely considered not an actual defense due to the prevalence of summons, polymorphing/replacing fighters, conjuration, and other things. I don't know what level you were at. But there's a difference from the caster you're describing, and the caster in an optimized game who walks in with an army of the dead, persisted defenses, and a few planar bound bruisers. THAT guy would have soloed the above encounter without breaking a sweat.

So, compared to that kind of caster, how are we overpowering fighters again?

It breaks it because you need a reason why a someone without wings can fly? Now if you want to say that everyone in your world is born with some kind of ability that lets them fly or everyone has the ability to channel air elementals. Then that is find and does break the reality of the world.

But if you are saying that just because someone becomes an expert fighter with weapons some how that leads to him being able to resist gravity and fly through the air like a bird then you are breaking my suspension of disbelief.

As for the old sorcerer wizard debate it really depends on if the wizard has the right spells memorized. The sorcerer may not have as many spells known as a wizard but he has a lot of spell slots and all his spells are always available.

There is no way a mid level wizard could take on a dragon and wizard vampire by himself.

i am all for giving the fighter cool things to do I just don't want to see it done in a way that does make sense or ends up making them over powered that does not solve any issues it just creates more of them.

 

[WarlockLord]

Erm...wizards don't have wings.

And we can use Eastern Philosophy on the fighter, which I would much prefer to yet another "he has weapons, but he begs the DM for plot devices to survive" fighter which the D&D fighter has been all about.

And yes, a mid-level wizard - say 11th - wizard can take on a dragon and wizard vampire.

From your example, the wizard vampire doesn't seem to actually be optimized - he's casting fireball for god's sake. But I'll stick to the noncombat way:

11th level wizard.

Step 1: Set up a circle -at your house, away from the wizard and vampire - and cast Planar Binding. Get an Efreeti.

Step 2: Explain to the efreeti you need a wish, but he's still got two he can't use for himself, can we work something out?

Steo 3: Cash in your wish for a candle of invocation, Lawful Evil alignment, and send the efreeti home with his cash or whatever.

Step 4:Use the candle of invocation to get another Efreeti. This efreeti has to do whatever the hell you want, so have him use 1 wish to teleport the dragon into space (see transport travelers), one wish to teleport the vampire into space, and the last for another candle of invocation.

Step 5: Repeat as many times as you want until the dragon and vampire are in space.

Alternatively, you could use planar binding to get a nightmare, and have it use astral projection on you. You then planeshift over and attack the vampire and dragon. Rinse and repeat.

You could also go grave-robbing in giant town or hydra murdering to get fun undead things.

This would be a lot harder if the vampire was a competent wizard, but as it stands you have described him as using fireball, so clearly he is not.

For an actual fight, we could do all kinds of stupid crap. Like pre-buffing with assay spell resistance and shivering touching the dragon to death. Or metamagiced ray of stupidity abuse. Or maybe we decide to do something stupid with magic jar and force the vampire and dragon to kill each other because we're possessing one of them. There are a lot of things the wizard can do besides "I cast fireball and do less damage than the fighter, hur dur durr," and those things are honestly pretty unbalanced.

So, what's the fighter getting that competes with this stuff again?

 

[Elf Witch]

Erm...wizards don't have wings.

And we can use Eastern Philosophy on the fighter, which I would much prefer to yet another "he has weapons, but he begs the DM for plot devices to survive" fighter which the D&D fighter has been all about.

And yes, a mid-level wizard - say 11th - wizard can take on a dragon and wizard vampire.

From your example, the wizard vampire doesn't seem to actually be optimized - he's casting fireball for god's sake. But I'll stick to the noncombat way:

11th level wizard.

Step 1: Set up a circle -at your house, away from the wizard and vampire - and cast Planar Binding. Get an Efreeti.

Step 2: Explain to the efreeti you need a wish, but he's still got two he can't use for himself, can we work something out?

Steo 3: Cash in your wish for a candle of invocation, Lawful Evil alignment, and send the efreeti home with his cash or whatever.

Step 4:Use the candle of invocation to get another Efreeti. This efreeti has to do whatever the hell you want, so have him use 1 wish to teleport the dragon into space (see transport travelers), one wish to teleport the vampire into space, and the last for another candle of invocation.

Step 5: Repeat as many times as you want until the dragon and vampire are in space.

Alternatively, you could use planar binding to get a nightmare, and have it use astral projection on you. You then planeshift over and attack the vampire and dragon. Rinse and repeat.

You could also go grave-robbing in giant town or hydra murdering to get fun undead things.

This would be a lot harder if the vampire was a competent wizard, but as it stands you have described him as using fireball, so clearly he is not.

For an actual fight, we could do all kinds of stupid crap. Like pre-buffing with assay spell resistance and shivering touching the dragon to death. Or metamagiced ray of stupidity abuse. Or maybe we decide to do something stupid with magic jar and force the vampire and dragon to kill each other because we're possessing one of them. There are a lot of things the wizard can do besides "I cast fireball and do less damage than the fighter, hur dur durr," and those things are honestly pretty unbalanced.

So, what's the fighter getting that competes with this stuff again?

But the wizard is using magic to fly a supernatural thing. If you want to give your fighter the ability fly the do so for your game and I think a wuxia supplement would be a great idea for people who want that kind of playstyle but it is a limiting play style and not one suitable for all DnD games so it should not be the standard.

Aww the old this why the wizard is a god because he do ll these things yet all these things assume that the player playing the wizard is dictating the entire game and the DM and the other people at the table have nothing to say about it.

First of all the encounter with the dragon and wizard happened on the way to a set of cairns where the party was going to retrieve a needed magic item. So if there was a wizard there was no way he could just pop home and summon an efferti

Second you can't force the efferti to give you the wishes you need to negotiate and maybe roll a diplomacy and since diplomacy is not a class skill for the wizard nor is charisma a main stat for a wizard good luck on that.


So to take on the wizard vampire and the dragon the wizard needs to be lawful evil and have time to prepare all these things.

So tell me what does a lawful good wizard do is attacked by the dragon and the vampire while he is out in the wilderness?

What does said wizard do if he is out of spells and runs into these duo?

The fighter does not get to summon creatures but he is eleventh level why can't he have an item that lets him fly which he activates and using his strong BAB, feats, hit points and weapons gets in the air and takes on the dragon.

Sure he is going to be hard pressed to handle both but then so is the wizard who didn't know and have time to plan a head for this encounter.

The best way to handle this encounter is with a team working together to take down the bad guys.

 

[WarlockLord]

But the wizard is using magic to fly a supernatural thing. If you want to give your fighter the ability fly the do so for your game and I think a wuxia supplement would be a great idea for people who want that kind of playstyle but it is a limiting play style and not one suitable for all DnD games so it should not be the standard.

Aww the old this why the wizard is a god because he do ll these things yet all these things assume that the player playing the wizard is dictating the entire game and the DM and the other people at the table have nothing to say about it.

First of all the encounter with the dragon and wizard happened on the way to a set of cairns where the party was going to retrieve a needed magic item. So if there was a wizard there was no way he could just pop home and summon an efferti

Second you can't force the efferti to give you the wishes you need to negotiate and maybe roll a diplomacy and since diplomacy is not a class skill for the wizard nor is charisma a main stat for a wizard good luck on that.


So to take on the wizard vampire and the dragon the wizard needs to be lawful evil and have time to prepare all these things.

So tell me what does a lawful good wizard do is attacked by the dragon and the vampire while he is out in the wilderness?

What does said wizard do if he is out of spells and runs into these duo?

The fighter does not get to summon creatures but he is eleventh level why can't he have an item that lets him fly which he activates and using his strong BAB, feats, hit points and weapons gets in the air and takes on the dragon.

Sure he is going to be hard pressed to handle both but then so is the wizard who didn't know and have time to plan a head for this encounter.

The best way to handle this encounter is with a team working together to take down the bad guys.

Well, let's see now...

Wizards can cast teleport. So he can go home.

If the wizard wins the charisma check against the efreet, he can make the efreeti do whatever the hell he wants to. So if he cast's eagle's splendor that's +2 right there. Heroism for another +2. +4 to his charisma roll. The efreet has +2, so we're already ahead. If we want we can dumpster dive for even more charisma/check bonuses. The wizard is also offering the efreet 2 wishes, which should be worth something.

You can attempt to compel the creature to perform a service by describing the service and perhaps offering some sort of reward. You make a Charisma check opposed by the creature’s Charisma check. The check is assigned a bonus of +0 to +6 based on the nature of the service and the reward. If the creature wins the opposed check, it refuses service.

So no, you don't need diplomacy at all.

As for the fighter's supposed assets...the wizard can dispel the flight item and the dragon and wizard can play "strafe the moron." And, quite frankly, the feats and hit dice probably are not up to the task of meleeing a dragon - a creature with more and better hit dice, a higher BAB, more feats than a creature of it's CR and enough spellcasting to cast "fighter-be-gone" spells like mirror image. This is also assuming the vampire decides not to exploit the fighter's crappy will save with his dominate attack.

I would also like to point out that creatures of any alignment can activate the gate portion of a candle of invocation, so a Lawful Good wizard can pull this off too. So, to answer your question, he teleports home and prepares. Or, if he has spells, he breaks out the shivering touch and disintegrates and tells the encounter to go away.

Your question of "what if the wizard is out of spells for the day" is the same as "what if the fighter is down to 3 hit points." If you are out of resources you're screwed regardless of class. Although the wizard is probably hiding in a rope trick at that point. But hey, we can watch the lone fighter die.

And while you're correct that a team would be better to handle the encounter, a better team would be druid, cleric, wizard, and psion. Either the cleric or druid can handle front-line combat better than a fighter via self-buffing. And of course, casters get real defenses like miss chances and they can crank their AC higher.

Sure the DM can change any of this...but that doesn't mean the rules are fair.

 

[Elf Witch]

Well, let's see now...

Wizards can cast teleport. So he can go home.

If the wizard wins the charisma check against the efreet, he can make the efreeti do whatever the hell he wants to. So if he cast's eagle's splendor that's +2 right there. Heroism for another +2. +4 to his charisma roll. The efreet has +2, so we're already ahead. If we want we can dumpster dive for even more charisma/check bonuses. The wizard is also offering the efreet 2 wishes, which should be worth something.



So no, you don't need diplomacy at all.

As for the fighter's supposed assets...the wizard can dispel the flight item and the dragon and wizard can play "strafe the moron." And, quite frankly, the feats and hit dice probably are not up to the task of meleeing a dragon - a creature with more and better hit dice, a higher BAB, more feats than a creature of it's CR and enough spellcasting to cast "fighter-be-gone" spells like mirror image. This is also assuming the vampire decides not to exploit the fighter's crappy will save with his dominate attack.

I would also like to point out that creatures of any alignment can activate the gate portion of a candle of invocation, so a Lawful Good wizard can pull this off too. So, to answer your question, he teleports home and prepares. Or, if he has spells, he breaks out the shivering touch and disintegrates and tells the encounter to go away.

Your question of "what if the wizard is out of spells for the day" is the same as "what if the fighter is down to 3 hit points." If you are out of resources you're screwed regardless of class. Although the wizard is probably hiding in a rope trick at that point. But hey, we can watch the lone fighter die.

And while you're correct that a team would be better to handle the encounter, a better team would be druid, cleric, wizard, and psion. Either the cleric or druid can handle front-line combat better than a fighter via self-buffing. And of course, casters get real defenses like miss chances and they can crank their AC higher.

Sure the DM can change any of this...but that doesn't mean the rules are fair.

Sure I will teleport home and leave the cairn unguarded and let the dragon and vampire get the item that I need to fight Vecna, Hextra and Erythnul. Hey maybe I can make the efreti make them give me the item. Or just give me a wish that that bad guys will stop being bad and we can all sit down and have nice cup of tea.

The wizard can cast all those spells and raise his charisma to make the efreti do what he wants and while is busy doing all that the dragon and vampire are now in route to drop the relic that is needed to save the world in a volcano that is just a five minute flight away.

Oh and the fact that the wizard is good who cares just this once I will be evil and then I go back to being good. I am sure the DM won't have an issue with that.

But wait I am evil then why do I care what the dragon and vampire are doing after all they were hired to get the item from the good guys this not concern me at all. Maybe I will join them and we can really stick it the good guys.

And what is to stop the dragon and vampire from dispelling any magic the wizard is using? What is to stop the vampire from dominating the wizard oh yes I forgot some people think a wizard never rolls a 1 on a save or can't roll hihh enough to combat cast and they never fail the roll that to not lose a spell when they are hit.

What is to stop the vampire wizard from going home summoning some eferti and sending the wizard into space?

But you know it is funny how a party of four working together managed to win and get into the cairn and retrieve the item. Even when the warlock was dominated and started hitting us with eldrtich blasts and the rogue got hit with a level drain by the vampire.

These examples people pull out to showcase just how powerful the wizard is never take in to consideration that the wizard does not live in a vacuum and that not everything is under his control it is like Jim Butcher says of wizards in his Harry Dresden books a well prepared wizard is a very powerful thing to bad most of Harry's encounters happen out of his control and so he has to do his best.

 

[WarlockLord]

Sure I will teleport home and leave the cairn unguarded and let the dragon and vampire get the item that I need to fight Vecna, Hextra and Erythnul. Hey maybe I can make the efreti make them give me the item. Or just give me a wish that that bad guys will stop being bad and we can all sit down and have nice cup of tea.

The wizard can cast all those spells and raise his charisma to make the efreti do what he wants and while is busy doing all that the dragon and vampire are now in route to drop the relic that is needed to save the world in a volcano that is just a five minute flight away.

Oh and the fact that the wizard is good who cares just this once I will be evil and then I go back to being good. I am sure the DM won't have an issue with that.

But wait I am evil then why do I care what the dragon and vampire are doing after all they were hired to get the item from the good guys this not concern me at all. Maybe I will join them and we can really stick it the good guys.

And what is to stop the dragon and vampire from dispelling any magic the wizard is using? What is to stop the vampire from dominating the wizard oh yes I forgot some people think a wizard never rolls a 1 on a save or can't roll hihh enough to combat cast and they never fail the roll that to not lose a spell when they are hit.

What is to stop the vampire wizard from going home summoning some eferti and sending the wizard into space?

But you know it is funny how a party of four working together managed to win and get into the cairn and retrieve the item. Even when the warlock was dominated and started hitting us with eldrtich blasts and the rogue got hit with a level drain by the vampire.

These examples people pull out to showcase just how powerful the wizard is never take in to consideration that the wizard does not live in a vacuum and that not everything is under his control it is like Jim Butcher says of wizards in his Harry Dresden books a well prepared wizard is a very powerful thing to bad most of Harry's encounters happen out of his control and so he has to do his best.

Wizard has protection from evil. He doesn't need to make the save because he's immune. And there's nothing to stop the vampire wizard from spacing the party...but doesn't that kinda prove that wizards>everyone? Also, the wizard is far less likely TO get hit because he has actual, real defenses that don't hurt him, and casting defensively is really easy.

As for dispels, it's likely the vampire's a lower level wizard than the wizard (due to CR guidelines) and the dragon's caster level doesn't match its CR. Also, the wizard could have a ring of counterspells (or 2) containing dispel magic, which will automatically counter dispels flung his way,. For 4000 gp. Yes, this is in fact a common strategy.

Yes, there could be plot crap. But you've been shifting the goal posts from "defeat these bad guys" to "get the magic item, while simultaneously defeating these bad guys" When in reality if the goal is "get this magic item that somehow kills gods," the correct response is "I teleport to the cairn, grab the thing, and run."

Oh, and wizards get these divination thingies that help them prepare. You know, Contact Other Plane and whatnot.

As for your alignment ramblings...I have no idea how "defeat these bad guys" is an evil act (technically calling the efreeti could require the casting of a good spell, magic circle against evil, so that's out), and there are a million reasons for an evil guy to not be an idiot. Like "I live in this world and I want to keep my stuff," or "I owe these guys."

I'm not really seeing the team of four contention here. Because the wizard can do it means the team can't...what? That really seems like bizarre logic to me...

 

[TwinBahamut]

It breaks it because you need a reason why a someone without wings can fly? Now if you want to say that everyone in your world is born with some kind of ability that lets them fly or everyone has the ability to channel air elementals. Then that is find and does break the reality of the world.

But if you are saying that just because someone becomes an expert fighter with weapons some how that leads to him being able to resist gravity and fly through the air like a bird then you are breaking my suspension of disbelief.

If that breaks your suspension of disbelief, then you clearly didn't grow up watching Dragonball Z like I did.

i am all for giving the fighter cool things to do I just don't want to see it done in a way that does make sense or ends up making them over powered that does not solve any issues it just creates more of them.

Unless you are talking about 4E, Fighters have a long way to go before they need to worry about being overpowered. I mean, 3E's Warblade and other Tome of Battle classes are undoubtably vastly more powerful than a standard 3E fighter, but they were hardly overpowered. They were still significantly weaker than the 3E Wizard, Druid, and Cleric, after all. They actually sat right in the spot I'd call "appropriately powerful." The Fighter needs some pretty potent stuff in order to stay balanced. I'd say that both the Warblade and the 4E fighter made a lot of sense without any overtly supernatural abilities, too. I don't think you have much reason to have those worries.

 

[Elf Witch]

Wizard has protection from evil. He doesn't need to make the save because he's immune. And there's nothing to stop the vampire wizard from spacing the party...but doesn't that kinda prove that wizards>everyone? Also, the wizard is far less likely TO get hit because he has actual, real defenses that don't hurt him, and casting defensively is really easy.

As for dispels, it's likely the vampire's a lower level wizard than the wizard (due to CR guidelines) and the dragon's caster level doesn't match its CR. Also, the wizard could have a ring of counterspells (or 2) containing dispel magic, which will automatically counter dispels flung his way,. For 4000 gp. Yes, this is in fact a common strategy.

Yes, there could be plot crap. But you've been shifting the goal posts from "defeat these bad guys" to "get the magic item, while simultaneously defeating these bad guys" When in reality if the goal is "get this magic item that somehow kills gods," the correct response is "I teleport to the cairn, grab the thing, and run."

Oh, and wizards get these divination thingies that help them prepare. You know, Contact Other Plane and whatnot.

As for your alignment ramblings...I have no idea how "defeat these bad guys" is an evil act (technically calling the efreeti could require the casting of a good spell, magic circle against evil, so that's out), and there are a million reasons for an evil guy to not be an idiot. Like "I live in this world and I want to keep my stuff," or "I owe these guys."

I'm not really seeing the team of four contention here. Because the wizard can do it means the team can't...what? That really seems like bizarre logic to me...

Just how many spells does your wizard have a day and did he sneak in and read the DMs notes so that he knows exactly what spells he needs that day.

Also while he is casting all these protections on himself what are the dragon and vampire doing? Are they being gentleman and just letting him cast all these things?

But you know clerics, paladin, sorcerers get his spell to and you can buy an item with it on it so the classes that don't get have access to it as well.

And the vampire and dragon could also have a ring of counter spells. And why the dragon keeps the wizard busy the vampire teleports and gets the item and then teleports away with it to bad the wizard didn't have anyone else with him to stop the wizard. Oh let me guess the wizard is going to summon a monster. And while is he doing that the dragon being the gentleman he is not goint to attack that round.

I am not shifting goal posts at all the encounter was with a dragon and a vampire who attacked the party on the way to the cairn to retrieve an important relic you said that a wizard could have have handled that encounter by himself.

But to do that you had the wizard teleport home to cast a bunch of spells to summon an eferti and all I am pointing out that while you are doing this the world keeps turning and the dragon and vampire continue on with their mission.

I am also pointing out to use your tactics the wizard needs to be either neutral or evil he also needs to have available the exact spells he needs to accomplish all this if he does not he can wait until tomorrow but by then the relic has been destroyed.

So the wizard teleports in grabs the item and of course he can't ever misroll and have the teleport go astray because that never happens because wizards never fail any saves or have dice that are rolling badly.

But because the wizard is a PC the NPC can't possibly use his tactics against him and scry on him and teleport after him and get him and the relic and the lone wizard does not have any team members to watch his back while he sleeps to get back his spells or protect him while he is memorizing new ones.


And again I need to have a talk with my dice because I have been hit and lost a spell and I have flubbed my combat casting roll and lost the spell. Now granted I believe that it is to easy to max skills out but that goes for all of them not just the ones wizards do I have seen rogues that have a hard time ever taking an AOO because they have maxed out tumble.