Whats wrong with the 3E fighter?

[Zelc]

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

If all your Wizard is doing is shooting out Fireballs from levels 1-20, I think you're not playing your Wizard to its fullest extent.

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.

Indeed, just imagine what the Fighter could do if the Cleric buffed him with Divine Favor, Divine Power, and Righteous Might, and the Druid used the Bite of the Werebear spell on the Fighter instead of selfishly using it on himself.

Oh wait, those really good buff spells have Range: Personal .

 

[DragonLancer]

The only problem I have with the Fighter, and its not really all that much of a problem, is that once a straight Fighter hits about 9th-10th level the class becomes all but pointless. The problem is that by the time you reach that level you have all the combat based feats that you will ever want most of the time. The extra feats you get in levels after that don't really matter. Everytime I've played a Fighter or a member of of my group has, we have always gone for a second class after that point in levels, because the character becomes more useful.

Thats my view anyway.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Yeah, this is to laugh.

Fighters have no role out of combat due to their poor skill selection and points and lack of spells or abilities that might be useful (charms, divinations, etc.). They are heavily equipment-dependent to do things that other classes can do themselves (hide, fly, defend against attacks that bypass hp and/or AC, etc.). Their special abilities (bull rush, disarm, sunder, trip) only work against similar-size humanoid opponents, and one of those (sunder) bones the PCs as much as the opposition in many cases. Charging and putting out pure damage is great and all, but the barbarian does that better than the fighter anyway, and once people are flying and using battlefield control spells, charging becomes situation-dependent to the point of impossibility.

The major putative advantages of the fighter are 1) lots of feats and 2) being able to reliably put out the same damage all the time. The former is not so good because feats don't tend to scale well (as has been pointed out abovethread) and the latter is not so good because a) the fighter has his own limited resource (hit points) to manage and b) the fighter has to stop when everyone else does anyway.

 

[roguerouge]

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

... uh, if fighters are fine, why did you change them, again? And how? And how did you change the others?

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

Well I didn't mean to come off as defensives I really would like the impute on why people think they are weak.I do post some defense but thats after its boring and I cant do anything.That is a matter of taste and really doesn't show what you think is wrong. as someone pointed out any class can be boring if you let it.In a core only game or one in which I use unmodified classes I leave the fighter as is.As for the skill point fix well I do that to all classes with less then 4 skill points so I really don't think thats just a fighter issue.I was just glad to see a different complaint . Now everyone runs there game different I have never had the codzillia issue some have .We have a rule that any no none core feat/spell/magic item unless it is discussed .Its an upfront rule and no ones feelings have ever been hurt.AS for my changes well theres a lot and I don't want to distract to much from the 3e fighter discussion.On another note we never fully went 3.5 we pretty much are 3e with 3.5 classes and some later books.

 

[Set]

The 'problem' with Fighters is that they don't appeal to the kewl kids.

Just as the Rogue doesn't appeal to me.

That doesn't mean that the Fighter needs to be re-vamped to appeal to them, nor does it mean that the Rogue needs to be changed to appeal to me. Different classes that appeal to different styles of play and different sorts of player is a *strength,* not a weakness.

 

[Wiseblood]

I've played more fighters in 3e than anything else. Same with previous editions .
I've never had problems with playing the class. I also rarely do the "carefully plan feat selection and build character" paradigm. (except perhaps as intillectual excercise) When I build a character it is shaped by the campaign I play in. (and sometimes using meta-gaming I build it for a particular DM's style)

The fighter has enough flexibility for me to pick a gimmick if I want such a thing. I then still have enough character resources (feats) to select ones that will be vastly more useful in the campaign. I do not tie myself to some preordained list of the best feats. As an added plus no one level as a fighter is that much better that I can't live without it. So if I decide that multiclassing is the next logical step for the character it isn't a painful decision.

 

[Voadam]

In my 17th level game the straight fighter (archer build) is flat out the most powerful in combat.

The druid can turn into a giant bear and grapple well.

The paladin can tank and smite evil (particularly with his artefact holy sword).

The archmage arcane trickster can zap well.

The cleric fighter with a two handed artefact Hammer does the most melee damage.

The eldritch knight(me) is probably the best all around for covering bases when solo (followed by the druid, cleric, and paladin).

But the straight fighter kills things dead with more damage in a round than anybody else, period.

Everybody flies, everybody has gobs of defenses, and the archer has lower ac than anybody but the archmage.

Its been this way since he joined the party about 10th level or so.

Rapid shot, multishot, magic str comp bow, magic archer bracers, specialization, good dex and str with boosters, leads to him doing huge damage outputs with tons of full attacks while others charge in to close.

 

[SomebodyInteresting]

Okay, I love love LOVE the Fighter class, but I don't think I could stand to play a Nillafighter for ten to twenty levels. The fighter is a class that I exploit, exploit, exploit for those feats feats feats. I hate to sound like a powergamer when I say that, but if I have a character that's gonna dual-wield, I pick fighter. If I have a character that wants Whirlwind attack or Spring attack for a prestige class, I choose fighter. If I want a character that has arcane spell ability without multiclassing caster (/gimp) I take 7(iirc) levels of assassin for that 3rd level arcane capability. The beauty of a fighter isn't solely in what it does by itself; if you play a straight fighter you're probably using a very specialized build and nerfing your options. Fighters are around because those prestige classes that need 9 feats can be taken at 6th level, and I love that.

That being said, there are a LOT of fun fun builds that a fighter does well, especially at low levels. Like reach weapons? Use that whip dagger plus boots of levitation! Like rolling a bunch of dice? Falchion,imp crit, and watch the d4s pile up! Like bullrush, disarm, sunder, and trip? Roll a fighter (or just pick a monk, get quickdraw, and cheese sourcebooks for specialty monk weapons like sais)! The class needn't be a big fat yawnfest! It's a gateway class. Fighter is the marijuana of D&D classes.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

It's a gateway class. Fighter is the marijuana of D&D classes.

That man made me laugh I needed that.