What would a fighter versatile out of combat look like?

[Cadence]

ISo a fighter should be a knight who can lead the people, find succor with any noble, identify areas of tactics and strategy, gather an army or allies as needed, etc.
Or a tribal warrior who can race and sneak across the lands, identify plants and animals, climb mountains, swim rivers, etc.
Or an urban bruiser / tyrant who knows every connection, every route, whether for nefarious or legal reasons, as they enforce their will on the city.

In PF Those would be the Cavalier alternate class, Ranger core class, and Urban Ranger archetype. I don't understand why they all need the name "Fighter" attached to them to count.

The PF example doesn't really hold, because in PF a full caster (ex: druid) can get a fighter-in-a-pocket (animal companion) without sacrificing anything

I'd argue that shows the druid animal companion needs to be nerfed and nothing bad about the fighter. Can the fighter pick up useful help with Leadership?

Ie, there's no need to make sub-classes for things that every example literary fighter can do when we don't do so for every other basic class.

As @Ahnehnois and @N'raac note above, don't we already do that for the other classes?

PF does archetypes for every class. In D&D proper there is the Paladin, Ranger, and Barbarian playing off the Fighter; the Druid playing off the Cleric; the Clerical domains in 3e or the specialty priests in 2e; the schools of wizardry in 2e and 3e; the Sorcerer playing off the Wizard in 3e; the sorcerous bloodlines in 3e; the Assassin playing off the Rogue in 1e; the defender/striker/controller/leader variants in 4e, etc...

Even pure career soldiers learn nature, stealth, recon, logistics, etc at high levels of play. If a general country boy with a rifle is expected to know it, the fighter sure should be able to.

As noted in #36 above, the learning more is available in PF without needing any archetypes.

 

[N'raac]

@N'raac

I only think people played High Str because the game forced it. In 2nd edition and earlier, you got your bonuses form levels and specialization. High ability score helped but was not required. You could easily function with moderately good or average strating STR.

I found many 2e and prior groups had a preponderance of fighters (and other warriors) who rolled an 18 STR (and I didn't see close to half of those roll a 01-50 percentile either).

Quite frankly, keeping fighters Str or Dex focused, barbarians rage-filled, and rogues so sneakiness focused really limits the types of PCs you can play who are not overly magical.

So what other non-magical characters should we have, and what mechanics should they lose and gain? Also, I've definitely seen CHA based Rogues who are great con artists, but not all that stealthy, and the occasional INT based rogue who's a pretty effective locksmith and trap disarmer but, again, not too sneaky.

I liked the 3e move to getting bonuses spread out over stats - +2 to hit and damage sounds OK to me, so why not a 14 STR fighter? No, we have to have an 18 in our primary stat and dump everything else to eke out that extra +1 to our main specialty, whatever the cost. This is hardly unique to the Fighter - how many 15 INT Wizards do you see? I pick 15 INT because he can apply his level bonuses to have a 19 al L16, one level before he needs it to cast 9th level spells. But then he wouldn't have as high a save DC.

I ran a 3e fighter with a 16 STR and a 14 INT - he did all right. He used his 5 skill points (Human) per level to max out Blacksmithing, Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing, so he wasn't all that well rounded, but I could have swapped some stats around to have a bit better CHA and made him pretty effective with Interaction skills, especially if we moved to a Pathfinder system where "class skills" only make a 3 point difference across all levels (and he could take an extra skill point per level - he's got plenty of hp with d10 + CON bonus). Trip, Disarm, Expertise and Mobility feats made his main job control and flanking with the rogue, not a damage maximizer. I'm sure he'd be laughed off the optimization boards, but that wasn't the point of the character.

But our games weren't about "the optimal fighter maxing out damage per round", so we didn't have the same focus on blind optimization. Our Sorcerer dumped a lot for an 18 CHA, but his dump stat was DEX - so he didn't use ray spells, and his AC sucked more than normal. That didn't make him ineffective, but he certainly was not optimized. Of course, if the game rules evolve to set challenges appropriate to fully optimized characters, then you either focus in and optimize, or your characters get ground up by the game system. That means the designers need to assess whether the game is designed for optimizers or character-balancers. Maybe some guidance on appropriate bonuses and stats at various levels would help in that regard, rather than "do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law". Lots of games prescribe a healthy dose of GM oversight, recognizing that "balance" and "flexibility" are often incompatible.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think you mean spells that deal with fighting.

I don't. A fighter is a guy who fights. A wizard is a guy who uses magic. Those concepts are not necessarily equivalent in scope.

In fact, some classes are inherently very specialized (say, a monk, or a bard), while others are much more malleable. Such is the peril of class systems; it's a difficult and fruitless endeavor to define these abstract archetypes in ways that force an equivalency of scope between them.

If you wanted a game where the spellcasters only existed as specialists and there were no generalist wizards, and wherein the specialists had limited or no ability to use types of magic other than their own I wouldn't argue myself. It's magic; it's arbitrary how it works. Same for clerics; in fact I think it would be great if they just got specific abilities pertinent to their faith. Either one of those does constitute a rather large break from tradition and a disappointment for whatever players there are out there who really get into picking spells for those generalist wizards.

 

[Halivar]

I didn't read all the replies; I'll just answer the OP. The problem with 3.x, 4E, and PF fighters is the skill points and skill selection. They suck.

I want a system that is more open. Would prefer to roll against backgrounds instead of skills (a la FATE or 13th Age), but will settle for at least divorcing backgrounds from classes (a la 5E).

 

[Cadence]

I found many 2e and prior groups had a preponderance of fighters (and other warriors) who rolled an 18 STR (and I didn't see close to half of those roll a 01-50 percentile either).

Just think how wonderful the world would be today if all the 1e and 2e RPGers hadn't sucked all the luck out of it rolling their characters a few decades ago

I didn't read all the replies; I'll just answer the OP. The problem with 3.x, 4E, and PF fighters is the skill points and skill selection. They suck.

See post #36 above for a counter-argument to this for PF.

 

[Halivar]

See post #36 above for a counter-argument to this for PF.

PF and 4E mitigated the problem with traits and backgrounds, respectively, that let you add to the class skills. However, both systems felt narrow and strait-jacketed when compared with more forward-thinking, less-fiddly modern systems that (1) allow you to write your character concept down BEFORE you figure out your character sheet (which you could not do in 3.5, and can do with varying degrees of success in 4E/PF) and (2) not force you to enumerate skills that are often used in a narrative, non-crunchy manner anyway*.

If PF and 4E, what with their traits/backgrounds and skill feats have shown me anything, it's that there is simply no reason at all these days to have a class skill list, especially when so much effort is given to circumventing the restrictions anyway.

*Significant exception is rogue skills. In early editions these were siloed away for good reason. I would not be averse to making these "rogue only" skills or somesuch.

 

[Minigiant]

The thing is arcane spells is a lot more versatile that "weapons and armor fighting" in most editions. So a wizard's INT of X has a lot more uses that a fighter STR or DEX of X if the game stresses getting a 16 or more in your primary ability score and doesnts give you help via class feaures (like the rogue, bard, and ranger).

[MENTION=6681948]N'raac[/MENTION]
It is sneak attack I meant by rogue sneakiness. In D&D, the core has you as a backstabber, master warrior, or a spellcaster of some sort. And the fighter was too dependent on physical ability score in the last few editions which limited them in many sistuations in some ways.

 

[keterys]

I don't. A fighter is a guy who fights. A wizard is a guy who uses magic. Those concepts are not necessarily equivalent in scope.

True. The wizard could be the guy who only does ritual magic outside of combat. There's no requirement - and it's more fitting to the fiction - that the wizard rarely casts spells at all, relying on his wits to avoid fights and a sword or staff to fend off attacks until they _very rarely_ cast a spell at all.

Which, again, is not something that folks generally want.

Almost every magic system ever has limitations on it - even in D&D the wizard doesn't touch healing spells. Except when they do.

If you want to limit the fighter (which is fine), why do you not want to limit the wizard? They're both classes, so their scopes should be in similar chunks.

Even if that means that the wizard is more specialized, or the fighter is more diverse, or both, or even that the wizard requires far greater investment to do the things you expect the wizard to do in dnd so the wizard isn't the invisible flying fireball hurling polymorphing master of divinations and illusions until the end of the level spectrum, rather than the middle of it, so the fighter can also be a mountain-cleaving leaping-over-tall buildings while parrying fireballs demigod in his own right.

A person who only fights doesn't even make sense. Why would anyone ever want to resist giving the fighter the ability to do normal human things just because he has a silly class name? The archetypes specifically speak to giving him abilities. The fact that decades of development has filled all those niches already doesn't mean it's inappropriate, just that there are some really obvious examples of what the fighter should have access to

 

[Ahnehnois]

If you want to limit the fighter (which is fine), why do you not want to limit the wizard?

I don't want to limit the fighter. At least, not within its scope. The thread topic was about making a fighter that is good at things that aren't fighting, and to me, that is a diversion from the scope, certainly allowable, but with a cost (not a limit).

They're both classes, so their scopes should be in similar chunks.

I don't take that as given at all. What constitutes a class is pretty arbitrary and many of them are not remotely equal in the conceptual space they occupy. A paladin is clearly a small niche. A cleric is much bigger. Classes just don't work that way.

Even if that means that the wizard is more specialized, or the fighter is more diverse, or both, or even that the wizard requires far greater investment to do the things you expect the wizard to do in dnd so the wizard isn't the invisible flying fireball hurling polymorphing master of divinations and illusions until the end of the level spectrum

My feeling on that is again that I don't like limits, but I do like costs. To me, moving magic over the skills and feats would be an ideal opportunity to add costs. You want Polymorph? First you have to learn Change Self and spend X ranks in Transmutation. You want teleport? Learn five lesser conjuration spells and spend some ranks in Conjuration. You want Fireball? Learn some fire spells first. All doable individually, but this makes it much harder to cherry pick a list of spells for any individual character with limited points and slots, and adds a naturalistic sense of iterative learning to the mix.

We haven't seen that approach yet, but it seems obvious to me that adding prerequisites to spells would be a very good thing.

A person who only fights doesn't even make sense.

Sure it does. Soldiers, gladiators, streetfighters, mercenaries, the list of people who are good at fighting and aren't necessarily good at anything else is quite long. Sure, some of them might be smarter than they look, or leaders of men, or whatnot, but that's hardly the default, and hardly something that should be built into the class by default either. It's not like making fighters focus on fighting is forcing them into a corner. There are tons of diverse examples of what that can amount to.

 

[N'raac]

Just think how wonderful the world would be today if all the 1e and 2e RPGers hadn't sucked all the luck out of it rolling their characters a few decades ago

I wish they had at least left enough that I could xp you for that

@N'raac
It is sneak attack I meant by rogue sneakiness. In D&D, the core has you as a backstabber, master warrior, or a spellcaster of some sort. And the fighter was too dependent on physical ability score in the last few editions which limited them in many sistuations in some ways.

Who says that's sneaky? With the slightest drop in my opponent's guard, I can quickly strike him in a vital location. That's precision. He has to devote his full attention to me or I easily slip past his guard.