"OK. Make a Will Save." POOF! Go the Fighter and Rogue

[Falcon]

No Rant, just curious as to what you all think. This is a post from a DM and Player.

I tend to play fighter types in D&D and have experienced many DMs who throw will-oriented spells at a party ASAP to neutralized the fighters and rogues in the group. ZAP! Gone. All the stuff a player wants to do as a fighter or rogue are denied them, as they stand frozen, fall asleep, are charmed, etc., etc. A rouge has more skills available to them, so that can help minimize the impact of such situations, in terms of overall campaign interactiveness (that a word???), but fighters in 3E don't have a heck of a lot of skill points, and unless they take the saving throw enhancement feats, which neccesarily reduce their efficacy as a fighter, a fighter PC can end up spending A LOT of time outside of combat, waiting to shrug off the spell cast at them.

The question then becomes for me, based on the five 3Ecampaigns I have played in and never seen a fighter advance beyond 8th level, why bother? It is really frustrating to see one fighter after another get blown up at 7th level by one sort of magic/undead thingie/divine power or another.

Thoughts?

 

[adndgamer]

Hum. I think it really's just stuff that comes with the territory. If your fighter spent more time honing his willpower, he wouldn't be as great of a fighter.

I play mostly wizards, and they have the same kind of thing, only for Fortitude saves. It sucks getting blindness cast on you.

Anyhow, fighters get many many feats compared to other classes. They can spare ONE feat to get iron will if this kind of stuff really bothers them. Or put a higher score in wisdom if you want your fighter to have a good mental resistance.

Personally, i don't play fighters because they get boring for me. Not enough options. Anyhow, that's my rantish response

 

[Falcon]

How often do feats come into play in your campaigns? I am not sure if defining a class by its feat access legimizes the reasoning that since they get so many feats, they need to take feats to *hopefully* counter all those nasty spell-slingers who know how to counter swordsmen.

The question I am asking is, how much of a chance does a fighter have in surviving to the high levels? I think they do fine until level 7 or so, based on my experience.

 

[Mark]

That is why, IMO, the group dynamic in 3E is so important. Aside from trying to secure magic items that might help with Will saves, a fighter needs to rely on his party spell casters to buff him up with protection and resistance spells if he is to have a fighting chance...

 

[fba827]

Well, I understand your comments, but the same argument could be made for Wizards and Ref saves - how often do they need to make a Ref save? Most of the typical damaging spells are the ref save ones (fireball, etc). And, on top of that, it isn't as though Wizards have the HP to spare (heck, a stiff wind that blows them over and kill 'em

So I think the point that adndgamer was trying to make was simply that low will saves is just part of that particular class. Then, as an offer for ways to help counter it, the suggestion was to use a save-boosting feat.

While I'm not disagreeing with you that Will saves can be an Achilles heel for fighters, just that the same can be said for other saves for other classes.

Having said all that, however, it could just the style of play your DM uses. In the gaming groups I've been in, rarely is a Will save spell used as the primary tactic used specifically to take down fighters.. i mean, what are the chances that your opponents always have those spells ready/accessible.

Just rambles ...

 

[adndgamer]

I just don't see how the fighter/rogue's lack of a good will save is any different than the wizard's lack of a good fortitude save.

(thanks fba827, for seeing where I was going with that one)

 

[adndgamer]

Having said all that, however, it could just the style of play your DM uses. In the gaming groups I've been in, rarely is a Will save spell used as the primary tactic used specifically to take down fighters.. i mean, what are the chances that your opponents always have those spells ready/accessible.

Just rambles ...

Good point. In both my campaign and my friend's campaign, the most widely used save for everybody in-general is the Reflex save (lightning, fireball, et al). And after that, it's probably the fortitude (poison and stuff) save with the will save in as a very close 3rd.

 

[hong]

I don't think there's anything wrong with taking feats or using other methods to counter your weaknesses. Every class in D&D has its blind spots, and you can't expect enemies never to take advantage of them. You can't design a character thinking solely of offense; that may work for NPC adversaries, but survivability is also important for PCs. In fact, it's pushing credibility even for NPCs, who presumably would never have got to high levels if they were easy to kill.

(And before anyone mentions it, this has nothing to do with "characterisation" or "roleplaying" or such. Rare is the character concept that's so detailed as to require every feat and skill point to be statted out in advance. There's plenty of wiggle room to take feats for pragmatic reasons, even if they aren't central to your concept.)

As for feats: the fighter _is_ a feat guy. That's how they get their funky abilities; without feats, they're just warriors with a few extra hp. Feats are the fighter's equivalent of the wizard's spells, or the barb's rage, etc; and they can be used for defense as well as offense. And even if you don't have any feat slots to spare, there are other ways to cover your butt. For example, the fighter in the last game I was in kept getting held, so he eventually got a ring of counterspells and got hold person cast into it. That was that problem solved.

 

[Heap Thaumaturgist]

Well, the argument that taking Iron Will detracts from the fighter's effectiveness is flawed ...

Because WITHOUT Iron Will, your Fighter is sitting around on the sidelines waiting for that hold person to wear off.

That's total ineffectiveness for every round he's stuck in the sidelines when IW would have kept him in the game.

That is, after all, why the feat is there.

I think Fighters are exactly the kind of person you want to Hold. If he's out of the game, physically, he's not hacking you apart with his combat-monster feats.

Iron Will becomes a highly useful feat in a campaign where wizards use Hold Person alot to keep fighters out of commission.

--HT

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Thoughts?

Make a fighter with a high wisdom.

FD