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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Korak" data-source="post: 3615854" data-attributes="member: 9781">What amuses me in general is the notion that there are all these straight class melee characters out there.  In all my years playing 3.0 and 3.5, I have played one straight class melee... a 20th level barbarian joining an already in progress campaign about to hit epic.  I did it for giggles, wondering if I could make it a competitive build with careful magic item and feat selection.  I'm not sure if I have ever seen another straight class melee character over level 6.  That includes playing with several home groups and at multiple large Living Greyhawk conventions.  Who plays barbarian 12 or Fighter 9 or Ranger 14?  Maybe those folks are out there and I just haven't met them, but even a cursory reading of the rules makes the benefits of heavy multiclassing evident in melee builds.  Base attack stacks!So... why all the comparisons of Fighter 20 vs Barbarian 20 vs Paladin 20?  Compare the builds that people actually play.In my experience, the mages have been about battlefield control, area magic for mook clearing, BBEG debuffing, and one shot/one kill save or dies.  The sorcs and wizards could deal more damage in a round by hitting many enemies or by using crazy effects like TK'ing arrows prebuffed with GMW and several energy substituted flame arrows... but against single targets, melee builds have been extremely competitive, if not completely superior in raw damage dealing.  As you move down towards 25pt buy and restrict material closer to phb only, the mages gain vs melee, but with just a few splatbooks and a few more points of point buy, the melee can keep up damage wise.As for MWM... it makes me not feel like a sucker for building a melee character without 1 level of barbarian and extra rage.  It makes the multiclass monks and paladins much more competitive.  Then again, when I can build one with MWM, barb 1, and extra rage, then I can feel free to insert a level or two with no BAB... etc.It is definitely a powerful feat, but I don't think it is even approaching "broken."Weapon Focus on the other hand is far from a must take feat.  I have built and seen many very capable melee builds that don't use weapon focus.  It's good, but most of it's value comes from it's use as a pre-preq for better feats and certain prestige classes.</blockquote>

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