D&D 3E/3.5 Why be a 3.5 fighter?

[StreamOfTheSky]

I believe it may help the OP if you elucidate on how fighters are "friggin' awesome".

I love this thread, wish the OP would finish it.

 

[Dandu]

Eh, that place...

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Well, none of them over there found it funny apparently, so screw 'em. Still an awesome guide to fighters.

 

[Dandu]

If I get it correctly, the fighter is supposed to be the party leader.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

It's a clever twist on the whole "player abilities versus character abilities" thing. The gist of it is, in order to succeed as a fighter, you would clearly be a hypercompetent tactical genius and incredibly resourceful, therefore the most valuable member of the party. *Shrug* I thought it was hilarious...

 

[Dandu]

I personally had issues with the writing style. Felt it needed to be more polished in order to be funny.

Edit:
Regarding

6. Adding one level in rogue, sorcerer, or cleric can overcome almost all of the "I don't know what to do besides attack" complaints you could ever have. UMD or wand use can make a big difference, and wands do not suffer arcane spell failure. In a high ability score buy game, you may be able to build up UMD as a cross-class skill as a single-classed fighter, although in that case Skill focus makes sense as well.

This is for you, pawsplay. Read it and weep.

 

[Nifft]

Oh-kay.

Back to the 3.5e Fighter.

IMHO the Fighter is a great dip class. If you're dippy enough to take it -- HA HA, that was a joke! -- but seriously, one or two or four levels of Fighter can add value to many characters of other classes.

For a Rogue, nabbing four levels of Fighter gives him three extra Feats, a bunch of extra HP, and he has +16 BAB at 20th level. Since Rogues profit so well from the TWF feat tree, this is often a great trade-off even counting all the lost skill points.

Fighter is a fine way to get the +4 BAB a Changeling needs to qualify for Warshaper. Shame about the skill points, he'll probably want to go Ranger 3 / Fighter 1.

- - -

For an Eldritch Knight, unfortunately, the Fighter is a poor choice. Taking one level of Ranger, preferably as your 1st character level, gives you fewer armor proficiencies (who cares), same weapon proficiencies, two fewer HP (ouch), +16 skill points from a much better skill list (WOO HOO) and you can use wands of Cure Light Wounds (ZOMG!!!). Yeah, your free feat is not very useful, but the skill points are awesome, and the spell list access could save your whole party. Taking one level of BARBARIAN, though: you get +2 HP over the Fighter, +8 skill points (from a better list), you can rage 1/day (which might save your life at very low levels), but most importantly you get +10 ft speed which means you can run away from melee that much more swiftly.

Barbarian 1 / Bard X is a fun archery build which briefly turns into a fun melee build (1/day for Con+3 rounds).

Anyway. Fighter is a great place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there.

Cheers, -- N

 

[grizzo]

i want to the top;ic focused on straight class progression not multiclassing. Any WOTC 3.5 book is fair game execpt 9 swords.

 

[Nifft]

i want to the top;ic focused on straight class progression not multiclassing. Any WOTC 3.5 book is fair game execpt 9 swords.

That's unfortunate. Fighter isn't the only class which benefits from multi-classing, and the flexibility of the multi-classing rules are a place where 3.5e shines relative to other editions.

If you prefer single-class characters, 3.5e may not be the right game at all...

Cheers, -- N

 

[Dandu]

A well designed class should be able to stand on its own.