Whats wrong with the 3E fighter?

[Victim]

The performance of a fighter often depends on how much his teammates buff him or set him up, rather than it's own merits. It's not a particularly self contained class.

 

[Cor Azer]

I don't think that fighters are boring per say... my issue with them is more so that their class design niche is eroded by almost everything non-core.

People like feats... fighters get a lot of feats, and if you stay core, they're pretty much the kings of that.

But, in my experience, so many non-core base and prestige classes offer bonus feats as well as other non-feat abilities that the fighter's class design niche is too crowded, and thus, they look boring.

They may not play boring, particularly if you have creative players, but the class design is boring.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

Ok in my STAP game the fighter is not min/maxed and never get buffs and he is often death incarnate.Only person that deals as much is the shifter ranger/were touched master/ druid
and that's just ugly. so the fighter seems to be fine in that group

 

[Nifft]

I don't think that fighters are boring per say... my issue with them is more so that their class design niche is eroded by almost everything non-core.

People often say this.

Those people haven't seen the power of a fully operation Cleric, Druid or Barbarian.

Fighters never had a niche.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Cor Azer]

People often say this.

Those people haven't seen the power of a fully operation Cleric, Druid or Barbarian.

Fighters never had a niche.

Cheers, -- N

I said class design niche - as in "I get tons of feats" - as opposed to group niche - "I fight the best". I've seen a few CoDzillas; I'm well aware of how they can outperform a fighter. They still don't get as many feats though, if that's what you want.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Fighters are only good in combat and most of the caster classes, particularly CoDzillas and wizards, are better at it than they are. With a round or two to buff, CoDzilla will have a strength of 40 and the wizard will be flying and (improved) invisible.

If you take feats from the splats you can build an ubercharger that will outdamage casters but that's not a good thing. Ubercharger's damage is both crazy nuts and weirdly situational but everything else is sane so you have a really peculiar, lopsided PC. It ain't right.

 

[Psion]

Not enough skill points; needs SOMETHING to do outside of combat.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

Not enough skill points; needs SOMETHING to do outside of combat.

Kinda glad you pointed this one out all I keep hearing is I cant do anything but attack .Skill points are an easy fix 4 skill points . In my gmae no class has less then two.But it is nice to see something besides oh Icant keep up with a cleric and all I can do is full attack.

 

[Wik]

So, Hunter - you post asking why people think fighters are weak, and then you keep posting to defend it.

I've played through STAP, and I can tell you from experience that at 10th level, those fighters get replaced by "better" characters. What's funny, is you keep suggesting "fixes". Well, isn't a fix sort of admitting there's a problem?

You didn't ask "What's wrong with the 3e fighter you've dreamt up to replace the RAW 3e fighter". Many of us have "fixes" for the fighter. Hell, wotc built a whole book to fix the fighter, and it seems to sell fairly well.

In short, while the fighter can deal damage, he is generally out-damaged by other characters even at mid levels. The few assets he has (hit points, AC) become less and less important as he progresses (100 hp at level 8 isn't all that great, when you're up against poison attacks and save or die effects that neatly bypass HP). And he does become a one-trick pony.

While he CAN sunder, disarm, etc... as you point out, in many cases that isn't feasible. Sunder means destroying potentially valuable gear (and how many players want to do that?), while Disarm is risking dealing no damage at all to prevent an opponent from attacking you - whereas a straight attack can potentially critical, thus killing the opponent (and thereby preventing the opponent from attacking you...)

Not to mention that you're pigeonholed into using the same weapon every encounter, due to the fact that you've probably (wisely) invested in weapon focus feats, and because the wealth by level guidelines mean you'll probably only have one or two "good" weapons on you.

Really, if I was going to play a character, I might a dip into fighter, but I wouldn't stay in the class. In the long run, Ranger, Barbarian, or Paladin are all more enjoyable roles.

 

[Nifft]

I said class design niche - as in "I get tons of feats" - as opposed to group niche - "I fight the best".

Er, okay, so what is the point of "tons of feats" if they don't actually help you accomplish "fight"?

That's like saying the Bard is way ahead of the pack because nobody else can do Bardic Music. While technically true, it's just begging the real question.

Cheers, -- N