-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Why do some folks think fighters are useless?
- Thread starter Lord Pendragon
- Start date
KnowTheToe
First Post
The fighter is only weak because the game is designed for a team and the DM usually designes his games to fit all of the players. The players are allowed to rest often, revitalizing the wizard. Harry the PCs with tons of encounters and restless nights and watch the wizard die and look all sucky and the fighters will shine. High level spells take time to memorize every day and sometimes there just is not enough time. Sorcerers avoid this. DMs may also give magic users access to too many spells or too powerful of spells.
Fighters are a great class, but I also admit that I have never ever played past 12th level and do not plan on it. I enjoy the mid levels the most.
Fighters are a great class, but I also admit that I have never ever played past 12th level and do not plan on it. I enjoy the mid levels the most.
green slime
First Post
Yep. Not very observant, are you?
Whenever I make a fighter, I put two highest results into intelligence and dexterity. I'd like an intelligent, highly skilled fighter who is good at weapon finesse, Combat Expertise, dodging blows, and being mobile. I may even add Whirlwind Attack. I like my fighters to be flashy and be all over the place and do lots of action stunts.Henry said:
for that, I take feats into account. Take a stunt that combines mobility with cleave: "I dodge the blow, but I swipe at his stomach, opening it and making his intestines spill out!"
Or Jump with Whirlwind attack and weapon specialization: "I jump up, whirling around like a top, holding my sword out! And I land on the second floor."
Combine a Jump Check with a Whirlwind Attack, and Great Cleave: As above but add, "I kill two orcs, one before me and one behind me in one fluid motion! All the while I'm saying, 'I am the Wind God. With the mighty Sword of Kings, I am unstoppable. You are naught but chattel before me!' "
How about Quick Draw combined with Cleave? "In one motion, I draw my sword and attack my two opponents! Splitting open their arms and spilling their blood!"
How about combining Jump with Power Attack? "I make a running leap at 30 ft. and fly, combining the momentum of my jump into a massive blow to my opponent's head!"
Fighters are very effective. It's just that people don't realize their potential.
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
I'm running a low-level game right now with an AU Greenbond, a Giant Fighter (giant from AU, fighter from D&D), a Centaur, and an AU Akashic.
The greenbond and the akashic have, unfortunately, been relegated primarily to support positions: it's now a running joke that the akashic's main duty is holding the lantern, and the greenbond spends all her time healing.
The centaur can whip out some impressive damage.
But it's the fighter who's mopping things up: he's taken the combat expertise path and wields a spiked chain (I know, I know--but the player has been good for years, and is letting his hair down
), and is just a ridiculous killing machine.
Part of what's made it fun for him, I think, is that I'm very generous with combat stunts. I'll let him wrap his chain around his fist in order to punch someone, and do the same damage as normal; I'll let him spend an action die to throw someone across the room (changing their position). If he can describe it, I'll probably let it work.
I know that fighters can fall into the trap of hackhackhack; allowing combat stunts, encouraging them, is the way I'm trying to avoid that trap.
Daniel
The greenbond and the akashic have, unfortunately, been relegated primarily to support positions: it's now a running joke that the akashic's main duty is holding the lantern, and the greenbond spends all her time healing.
The centaur can whip out some impressive damage.
But it's the fighter who's mopping things up: he's taken the combat expertise path and wields a spiked chain (I know, I know--but the player has been good for years, and is letting his hair down
), and is just a ridiculous killing machine.Part of what's made it fun for him, I think, is that I'm very generous with combat stunts. I'll let him wrap his chain around his fist in order to punch someone, and do the same damage as normal; I'll let him spend an action die to throw someone across the room (changing their position). If he can describe it, I'll probably let it work.
I know that fighters can fall into the trap of hackhackhack; allowing combat stunts, encouraging them, is the way I'm trying to avoid that trap.
Daniel
Gort
Explorer
I agree with Agamemnon. The trouble with fighters is that outside of hitting things with a weapon, they have no powers. In a campaign where all characters are evil, we all scheme and plot for our own power, sometimes against one another. The fighter I play is a powerful character on the battlefield. However, OFF it, he's just another guy. I can't send messages to minions on the other side of the world to do my bidding, I can't simply fly/teleport to the other side of the world to tell them to do it personally. I can't create illusions to fool people, I can't defend against divination spells to prevent my secrets being found out.
Hell, I KNOW that the cleric in the game has taken an item that's very precious to me and just buried it in a box with a spell that stops all divinations cast on it. I'm wracking my brains on how to find it, but the fact that I'm a fighter with no useful non-combat powers is not helping at all.
Also, fighter skills are dreadful. Climb, jump and swim. Intimidate. All of these things I have maxed out, simply because they're class skills. Hell, I even have profession(general), even though the chances of a profession(general) check coming up and actually affecting anything are very small. I have ranks in profession(surgeon) because I once cut something out of someone's back that was making them ill. Why don't fighters have heal as a class skill? It makes sense for one of the classes that sees the most frontline combat to have a decent way of healing his wounds.
Yeah, so I think the fighter is fine as far as battle prowess goes, but every other class can fight as well as do a lot of noncombat stuff, so it can feel very one-dimensional.
Hell, I KNOW that the cleric in the game has taken an item that's very precious to me and just buried it in a box with a spell that stops all divinations cast on it. I'm wracking my brains on how to find it, but the fact that I'm a fighter with no useful non-combat powers is not helping at all.
Also, fighter skills are dreadful. Climb, jump and swim. Intimidate. All of these things I have maxed out, simply because they're class skills. Hell, I even have profession(general), even though the chances of a profession(general) check coming up and actually affecting anything are very small. I have ranks in profession(surgeon) because I once cut something out of someone's back that was making them ill. Why don't fighters have heal as a class skill? It makes sense for one of the classes that sees the most frontline combat to have a decent way of healing his wounds.
Yeah, so I think the fighter is fine as far as battle prowess goes, but every other class can fight as well as do a lot of noncombat stuff, so it can feel very one-dimensional.
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
Fighters have two problems that I see.
First off, a heavy fighter is more powerful than a light fighter, but is less interesting to play. By the time people in Europe started writing fighting manuals, the time of the heavy fighter was over. This is why you can find stuff on Capo Ferro at a modern-day fencing school (or in Princess Bride, the book) but very little about how a knight would fight.
Japanese fighting manuals were available, and so there's lots of semi-realistic samurai movies to draw for inspiration. That's one reason why samurai are so popular in DnD (and even D20 Modern).
Besides, dodging is cooler than "his sword slides off my armor" anyday.
I'm hoping the Book of Iron Might will make the heavy fighter interesting again, and do something about the light fighter to balance them without giving them some crazy bonus or forcing multiple stat dependencies on them.
Second, there are very few high-level feat trees, so past 12th-level (when you can get Greater Weapon Specialization) there's little point of continuing, and by the time you reached that level, you will probably have taken two or even three other feat trees already. Even the mighty Whirlwind Attack can be taken at just 6th-level. (Picture if your DM said that sorcerers are unchanged, except that he's getting rid of all spells of 7th-level and above, and you can't research new spells either.) I think Spycraft had two feats that exceeded BAB +12 (both were BAB +18); I don't think WotC has released anything with BAB exceeding +12 (feats, I mean). Complete Warrior gave in to prestimyopia and, instead of having lots of feats for fighting characters, just had reams and reams of prestige classes instead.
Meanwhile, barbarians and, to a lesser extent, paladins still get stuff that scales with their level.
I suppose third, there's the usual clash of fighters vs spellcasters. IME fighters do more damage, but then again spellcasters are really good with the save-or-suffer stuff rather than the direct-damage stuff. But when it comes to fighters vs spellcasters, although I've seen a fighter dispose of a wizard in only one or two rounds, a mage's defenses are usually all-or-nothing.
Wizards have low hit points and there's virtually no way to change this vulnerability. There's also nothing better than mage armor in the core rules, so mages usually have low AC. So, if a fighter finds a mage on the battlefield, they can just ready an action to cut them open. (I'm a big fan of casting on the defensive.)
However, a wizard can just turn invisible and fly, and now the fighter can't locate them with Blind-Fight. They can use a potion of see invisibility but since nondetection lasts 1 hour/level it's almost pointless. (Plus, that poiton has a cost not too far from the material component of nondetection.) Once in the air, the wizard takes advantage of the fighter's low saves, trapping them in an Otiluke's resilient sphere or paralyzing them with hold monster or something like that.
A wizard caught without preparation (but not surprised) can just dimension door or teleport, so they'll nearly always be ready for the fighter.
First off, a heavy fighter is more powerful than a light fighter, but is less interesting to play. By the time people in Europe started writing fighting manuals, the time of the heavy fighter was over. This is why you can find stuff on Capo Ferro at a modern-day fencing school (or in Princess Bride, the book) but very little about how a knight would fight.
Japanese fighting manuals were available, and so there's lots of semi-realistic samurai movies to draw for inspiration. That's one reason why samurai are so popular in DnD (and even D20 Modern).
Besides, dodging is cooler than "his sword slides off my armor" anyday.
I'm hoping the Book of Iron Might will make the heavy fighter interesting again, and do something about the light fighter to balance them without giving them some crazy bonus or forcing multiple stat dependencies on them.
Second, there are very few high-level feat trees, so past 12th-level (when you can get Greater Weapon Specialization) there's little point of continuing, and by the time you reached that level, you will probably have taken two or even three other feat trees already. Even the mighty Whirlwind Attack can be taken at just 6th-level. (Picture if your DM said that sorcerers are unchanged, except that he's getting rid of all spells of 7th-level and above, and you can't research new spells either.) I think Spycraft had two feats that exceeded BAB +12 (both were BAB +18); I don't think WotC has released anything with BAB exceeding +12 (feats, I mean). Complete Warrior gave in to prestimyopia and, instead of having lots of feats for fighting characters, just had reams and reams of prestige classes instead.
Meanwhile, barbarians and, to a lesser extent, paladins still get stuff that scales with their level.
I suppose third, there's the usual clash of fighters vs spellcasters. IME fighters do more damage, but then again spellcasters are really good with the save-or-suffer stuff rather than the direct-damage stuff. But when it comes to fighters vs spellcasters, although I've seen a fighter dispose of a wizard in only one or two rounds, a mage's defenses are usually all-or-nothing.
Wizards have low hit points and there's virtually no way to change this vulnerability. There's also nothing better than mage armor in the core rules, so mages usually have low AC. So, if a fighter finds a mage on the battlefield, they can just ready an action to cut them open. (I'm a big fan of casting on the defensive.)
However, a wizard can just turn invisible and fly, and now the fighter can't locate them with Blind-Fight. They can use a potion of see invisibility but since nondetection lasts 1 hour/level it's almost pointless. (Plus, that poiton has a cost not too far from the material component of nondetection.) Once in the air, the wizard takes advantage of the fighter's low saves, trapping them in an Otiluke's resilient sphere or paralyzing them with hold monster or something like that.
A wizard caught without preparation (but not surprised) can just dimension door or teleport, so they'll nearly always be ready for the fighter.
Last edited:
Similar Threads
