Whats wrong with the 3E fighter?

[Hunter In Darkness]

I keep hearing over and over how weak the 3e fighter is.Now i have changed it but then i reworked most of the PHB classes however we have been running STAP with PHB classes and I have yet to see the issue.Now the guy playing the fighter has only been playing a year at most this is his 2nd character.Havening said that he deals an obscene amount of damage at times in the 3rd adventure he killed the hydra by himself took me off guard.In a party of deathdealer 's never once has he lagged behind or felt like he was weak. I get so tired of hearing g i guess i swing my sword theres nothing else i can do im just a fighter. I have seen him charge ,use his shield as a ram,drop the shield to go twohanded ,bull rush,use trip hell use a table once and a wagon .So let me ask you what is wrong with the fighter that cant be fixed by not falling back on the well I cant do anything else excuse ?

 

[Wik]

Well, at low levels, the fighter is great. But, that usefulness drops fast as he progresses. Especially if he's a shield fighter.

At low levels, he can deal a fair amount of damage, each round. Our goliath fighter in STAP would regularly deal around 20 dmg each round at 3rd or 4th level, while even the rogue landing a sneak attack critical might not get that close.

That, combined with their high AC, and things are great. The other fighter in our group (who was also a dragon shaman) couldn't be hit by pretty much anything - he was a TANK.

The problem with it all is that those advantages of the fighter drop out around 10th level or so. That insane damage turns into just a fair amount, which is often surpassed by mages who deal large damage drops. Also, fighters are frontline fighters, and against monsters that can easily deal 50+ points of damage, fighters quickly turn into "Do I fight this round and risk being knocked from 40 HP to dead, or do I hide and heal?" - they are almost a liability to clerics (and they're one of the reasons Clerics can be annoying to play - our cleric at 10th level really hated the fact that he had all these great options, but instead had to heal a fighter that couldn't even deal the same amount of damage!)

And that AC boost? Well, at 10th level, most any monster can hit you, regardless of your AC. Our dwarf with the AC of 30 was still getting hit quite often at 10th level, which isn't unusual. By 10th level, the mages are harder to hit than fighters - our mages would fly out of reach and shoot. Hell, even at 3rd level, mages can be nearly impossible to hit, with spells like Blink. The last mage I played, a 4th level Wu Jen in an Eberron game, made it a point to go invisible and then cast buffs and summon spells. Nearly impossible to hit at that level.

Anyways. In our STAP game, most everyone started out as a fighter - but by the time we got to the 6th episode, all of our fighters had swapped out their characters - one became a phanaton warmage (and later a duskblade, when the phanaton was killed by some poisoned arrows) while the AC monkey dwarf decided to play a wild mage. Fighters really stop being fun by the time you hit 10th.

 

[crow81]

Nothing is wrong with the fighter. There are plenty of builds that make them incredible damage dealers. I find that the perception is more dice equal more damage. Yet with power attack strength bonus, weapon specialty feats, certain prestige classes the die rolled becomes less important. Add a barbarian level, an enlarge spell and boots of speed and I would put a fighter against a wizard at almost every level.

I also find it funny that CoDzilla (Clerics and Druids) are considered over powered if you listen to the boards yet most games I play people almost never choose them first.

 

[Darklone]

I also find it funny that CoDzilla (Clerics and Druids) are considered over powered if you listen to the boards yet most games I play people almost never choose them first.

Last 12 PCs:
Halfelf cleric, Gnome bbn1/cleric, elf druid archer, elf wizard, halfling druid, dwarf fighter, dwarf fighter rogue, human monk, hobgoblin archer (rgr/sco), gnome cleric, bronze dragon, human barbarian, human swashbuckler/rogue.

Can't say we don't have many druids nor clerics. But since most of them are not maxxed builds, the fighters are very very necessary and most often really cool. And the few fighters who think they are a bit boring outside of combat usually take 3 or 5 rogue levels and go the skillmonkey and social swashbuckler route.

About damage... abovementioned hobgoblin scout/ranger routinely dishes out more than 100 points of damage... without limits, in melee and at range even against pretty high ACs. Nothing the spellcasters can compete with.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Nothing is wrong with the fighter.

QFT.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

I am glad to see I'm not the only one who thanks the fighter works fine as is.

 

[Deekin]

My problem with the fighter?

It's BORING.

It has two main actions during combat. Charge, or full attack.

Sure, you can have feats that vary how well those work, but that's pretty much all they do.

 

[Zelc]

Feats don't scale, a great deal of planning is required, and spells are better in general. At level 1, the Druid's riding dog animal companion is on par with a Fighter, and comes with a free Druid to boot (the fighter comes out ahead at level 2, but the riding dog still comes packaged with the free Druid). At level 10, a wildshaped Druid buffed with a Bite of the X spell will outdamage a Fighter in melee. Clerics with their good buffs can stand toe to toe with a Fighter in melee while slinging powerful spells. At level 20, spells will totally overshadow whatever melee power the Fighter can come up with.

That's not to say a Fighter build, especially an optimized one that can pull off extremely powerful charges or control the battlefield with a reach weapon, can't pull its weight in a party. But the Fighter is generally a weak class.

Plus, Fighters are boring to play. I charge. I attack. I full attack. I full attack again.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

See i keep hearing the boring part.Seems to me plays like that don't think hey what can I do.
Lets see charge,bull rush trip,disarm,sunder, just to name a few. The fighter should always be thinking what can I do not gee I guess I full attack cant do anything else.

 

[Woas]

I move away from the enemy. I fireball. I fireball. I fireball. I shoot a crossbow.
All the classes are boring.


I always thought of fighters as a mobile weapons platforms. Clerics and druids may have a lot of buffs they can dump on themselves to eventually push them above and beyond what a fighter could do. But just imagine what a fighter could do if the cleric and druid players weren't so selfish and boosted the fighter.

crow81 is correct. Fighters are fine.