My recent experience with a fighter - and how that flies in the face of the typical line

[Sadrik]

So we are playing the Age of Wurms Pazio extravaganza. It is hard, very hard. In the first session. We had two clerics, a rogue, a wizard and a knight (PHII). I was playing one of the clerics. The rogue player dropped out after the first session. So I swapped my cleric to a rogue/fighter/barbarian with a plan to move into dervish - focused on doing lots of damage with a greatsword. So levels 1-4 were pretty easy but slowly the bonuses started getting more extreme. Pretty soon I was having to do massive recalculations with a zillion modifiers. I have never played a character so rigorous in the math and it is not really something I would lightly ask someone to play. I normally play wizards, wizards are way easier to play. The standard spout is that warrior types are the easy ones to play. Nope not true.

So Age of Wurms is really rough on the fighter-types our knight player has died 6 times and has come back as warrior types each time, my character died finally too. The cleric and wizard have not died. I was actually happy when my character died because the math rigor was too much for it to be fun. It was nuts.

With buffs and debuffs just the abilities on my character sheet it was crazy.

I wound up a rogue 3/barbarian 1/fighter 2/dervish 2... Extremely effective character. However, playing a warrior type is not for the faint of heart. Cleric constantly healing you, getting buffs and recalculating all your statistics, constantly asking for healing, when debuffed recalculating all your statistics, begging for healing, leaping in to combat only to find out they are tougher than you thought and have to run, pleading for healing, managing durations for each buff round by round, rolling crappy.

Give me a wizard any day. And I in fact came back as a wizard in out last session. I am now an order of the sevenfold veil initiate. Always wanted to play one... happy.

Anyone else have an experience like this?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I think the "easy mode fighter" vanished in late 3e. Or possibly even in early 3e, given the high usage of buffs compared to earlier editions.

The player of the paladin in my Kingmaker campaign (I wasn't the DM) literally used an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of his bonuses. He could program in when he was charging, not charging, Power Attacking, using Smite Evil (a bigger deal in Pathfinder) and of course it did the calculations for his iterative attacks too. On top of that we were frequently Hasted. I don't recall other party buffs being thrown around.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

D&D is number crunchy. Regardless of what class you're playing, if you're getting buffed and taking damage and all those kinds of things, you're going to need to do a fair bit of math.

I can definitely see myself using a spreadsheet to keep track of stats for any of my characters. Even though I'm quite good with the quick math for most D&D stuff, having it easily referenced helps tremendously.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

So by "Fighter" you don't mean the class, but a melee combatant.
Best melee combatant I've ever played was a Druid's animal companion. It hits things, while the Druid buffs and heals. Pretty good 1-2 combo.

 

[Sadrik]

I should point out I am a numbers guy too. It was just tedious. I agree with everyone on what they said too. And yeah fighter type...

 

[Argyle King]

I'd like to point out that you weren't exactly playing a Fighter. It looks like you took a 2-level dip in Fighter which is pretty much what everyone recommends that you do if you plan to take levels in the class so that you can get the extra feats. That doesn't in any way diminish your experience; you had fun with an effective character, and that is good, but I believe the experience actually supports the conventional wisdom instead of flying in the face of it. You did all of that number crunching and multi-classing so as to play a character that could contribute to the party; it was an optimized character. However, I could take the druid class and not even try to optimize at all and still end up with a character which contributes just as much to the party without even worrying about the number crunching and multiclassing CharOp... all while having a sidekick (animal companion) who is nearly as competent in the melee role as your character is.

Now, I do believe many of the conversations here, on rpg.net, and other such places exaggerate some of the 3rd Edition problems, but those problems do exist. They still exist in Pathfinder as well. With the party being 8th level, the casters in the party are going to start (if they haven't already) acquiring spells which are quite literally game changing.

 

[Nezkrul]

if you can use 3.5 books with a pathfinder fighter for feat choices, you can easily play Lockdown and be effective at your job as "tank". In my experience, it is the only fighter only type character I'm willing to play.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I'd like to point out that you weren't exactly playing a Fighter. It looks like you took a 2-level dip in Fighter which is pretty much what everyone recommends that you do if you plan to take levels in the class so that you can get the extra feats. That doesn't in any way diminish your experience; you had fun with an effective character, and that is good, but I believe the experience actually supports the conventional wisdom instead of flying in the face of it. You did all of that number crunching and multi-classing so as to play a character that could contribute to the party; it was an optimized character.

The point isn't that the fighter was an effective character. The point is the fighter was way more complicated than a wizard.

 

[PureGoldx58]

I'd like to point out that none of your examples were exclusive to a martial class at all, which is what I assume you mean by "fighter".

Building on that I'd like to point out that almost all of your examples were almost exclusively related to the magic users in your party (buffing/healing). It seems like, though you did track your own buffs (if I recall dervish has some, and barbarian also), the buffs were most likely provided by the cleric as that is how most people see them. If anything your comments relay the large amount of napkin mathematics that 3/3.5 requires moreso than the class.

However, regarding any vancian caster: they have the potential to have hundreds of spells (and clerics/druids do!) That alone is far more to track with every day spell prep, spell usage and a staggering amount of buffs that they can apply to themselves, my druid has so many modifiers that I doubt I've been in a fight without having to go over a "+x to x" checklist. 20 buffs that build on other buffs and multiply things based on other changing modifiers in addition to the same melee feats a fighter would have (power attack), I just don't see how "I rage, power attack, and haste. Roll attacks." Is that much harder. Call me crazy.

 

[Dozen]

However, regarding any vancian caster: they have the potential to have hundreds of spells (and clerics/druids do!) That alone is far more to track with every day spell prep, spell usage and a staggering amount of buffs that they can apply to themselves, my druid has so many modifiers that I doubt I've been in a fight without having to go over a "+x to x" checklist. 20 buffs that build on other buffs and multiply things based on other changing modifiers in addition to the same melee feats a fighter would have (power attack), I just don't see how "I rage, power attack, and haste. Roll attacks." Is that much harder. Call me crazy.

I do! As someone who spent the bulk of his PC career as a caster, no less.

There is a large gaping hole between having the convenient option to maximize your effectiveness, like Druids or Wizards do, or being required to maximize your effectiveness, as to keep up with classes far beyond your power level. The former is just fun with numbers, while the latter can come with enormous amounts of stress and peer pressure - something that, you may note, should never be part of a game you play to entertain yourself. It's the reason I shake my head and walk through the dreaded "Are you sure?" routine when a new player wants to play a Samurai in a group already including a Sorcerer, a Cleric, a Binder and a Warblade, then hope as he inevitably shrugs me off that he doesn't leave the table 1-4 sessions later in grave disappointment.

CoDzillas and their kin also have the option to forgo part or all of strategic planning. In the end, 'there is always a level of force against which no tactics can succeed' - And casters can whip pure murder out of their pruny finger just outside the bathroom for the most part, while a Fighter needs, not just optionally benefits from, his equipment close at all times, feat chains that don't screw him over, tactical feats, PrCs, to take his surroundings into account, to know grapple and AoO rules from the inside out to keep the game running, good distribution of physical stats and Gods know what else.

Your don't have to go over any of those fancy lists to play your Druid in a high-combat campaign. You do that because you like to, it's not some sort of requirement. Playing a Druid without your self-imposed challenge is a no-brainer. All you really need is Natural Spell and a decent Knowledge(Nature) check to stay relevant, while a Fighter goes through constant struggles to achieve a mere fraction of the same.