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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 7:50PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Dec 12, 2011
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This is an open question in response to Mike Mearls recent article on the concept of the fighter. I may be misreading it but I am pretty annoyed with the flavor that Mike has envisioned. Mike, Iron Heroes was an awesome book but you really need to move on. It is 2012. My grieviences with Mike's article are layed out below.
1) When and how did you decide that the fighter is the Lord of all Battles without equal? What is it about the fighter that makes him innately superior to all other "fighter" subclasses such as paladin, ranger, barbarian? Why play a different fighting class if they cannot stand up to a fighter in meele?
2) How can you look to the past and say that fighters are the toughest characters from a straight hit point perspective? They have always been equal to paladins and slighty inferior to barbarians and slightly better than rangers.
3) Figthers did always and should always have the best armor available. That is a given that was only recently broken with 4rth edition. This should be returned to fighters as soon as possible.
4) Fighters in any edition could not easily shake off magical effects untill they were very high level. Go back to Basic D&D and you will see how hard it was for fighters to save vs spells, especially at the low levels. Fighters should not be able to resist every spell thrown at them and keep on chugging as if it were nothing. ALL CLASSES need a weakness and that INCLUDES fighters. Non-combat abilities are no longer felt to equalize against combat abilites so ergo no single class should rule combat in all forms.
5) Your focus on fighters appears to be very biased. Especially since recent polls put fighters 3rd on prefered classes to play. The ranking I saw placed wizards first, rogues second and fighters 3rd. I don't see where this gives you any mandate to make fighters the "King of Combat" since ranger and paladin were right behind fighter and only differed by 1 & 2% less of a score respectively.
I feel that fighters should be very good at meele. I do not feel that they should be better than the other fighting classes. They should just focus on combat in a different way. They should not also be unafraid of magical combat. Leave magical combat to those that acutally cast spells.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 8:06PM
#2
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1) When and how did you decide that the fighter is the Lord of all Battles without equal? What is it about the fighter that makes him innately superior to all other "fighter" subclasses such as paladin, ranger, barbarian? Why play a different fighting class if they cannot stand up to a fighter in meele?
Fighters are the good baseline. They're always good at melee. Fighters set the bar for everyone else.
Barbarians might be better when raging or at least dealing better damage, but that's a spike and the rest of the time the fighter might be better. Paladins might be better when facing evil foes, smiting evil, or otherwise casting spells and/or using buffs. Rangers might be better at damage but be squishier, with far fewer hit points and lower defences.
2) How can you look to the past and say that fighters are the toughest characters from a straight hit point perspective? They have always been equal to paladins and slighty inferior to barbarians and slightly better than rangers.
Barbarians have always had more hp but lower AC, so they've taken less of a pounding. They were meat shields not tanks. Paladins are iffy, but they are less specialized than fighters.
3) Figthers did always and should always have the best armor available. That is a given that was only recently broken with 4rth edition. This should be returned to fighters as soon as possible.
Agreed.
4) Fighters in any edition could not easily shake off magical effects untill they were very high level. Go back to Basic D&D and you will see how hard it was for fighters to save vs spells, especially at the low levels. Fighters should not be able to resist every spell thrown at them and keep on chugging as if it were nothing. ALL CLASSES need a weakness and that INCLUDES fighters. Non-combat abilities are no longer felt to equalize against combat abilites so ergo no single class should rule combat in all forms.
Weaknesses are tricky. It's too easy for an adventure to stack monsters strong against one type of class making that player feel ineffective. It alsp depends on the type of magic. Fighters should be tough, so spells that can be resisted through brute strength or physical fortitude should be more easily resisted.
5) Your focus on fighters appears to be very biased. Especially since recent polls put fighters 3rd on prefered classes to play. The ranking I saw placed wizards first, rogues second and fighters 3rd. I don't see where this gives you any mandate to make fighters the "King of Combat" since ranger and paladin were right behind fighter and only differed by 1 & 2% less of a score respectively.
Fighters are the canary. They've been done wrong in the past, being made too weak in earlier editons and too much like spellcasters in early 4e. They're a good measuring stick to guage the edition, and see if it can make fighters fun yet balanced.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 8:18PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 25, 2007
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I'm going to make a wild guess it is because fighters fight, all the other class fight + do other things. You are basically saying a hybrid should be just as good at a specialist at their specialty. To use their combat, explore, social set up, fighters are like 80, 10, 10 the ranger and barb are more 60,30,10 and the paladin 60,10,30.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 8:20PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2012
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I'm going to make a wild guess it is because fighters fight, all the other class fight + do other things. You are basically saying a hybrid should be just as good at a specialist at their specialty. To use their combat, explore, social set up, fighters are like 80, 10, 10 the ranger and barb are more 60,30,10 and the paladin 60,10,30.
I'm really hoping that isn't the case or there is atleast an alternative in the book, because that sounds dreadfully bad.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 8:31PM
#5
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If a fighter doesn't get to be the best straight-up melee combatant, then what's its "hook"? What might tempt you to play the class in preference to the others? That's another open question.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 8:33PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2010
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The one question I have is why we can't have more than one "best" in the design. Sure, a Fighter might be a high damage dealer, but so should a Rogue.
D&D Next = D&D: Quantum Edition
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 8:35PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Oct 26, 2004
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I agree that mearls doesn't convey a comforting message for barbarians, paladins, or their supporters, and I've gotten troubling vibes from the pally already (we may be going back to the days where Paladins are jack useless against anyone who isn't a baby eating sociopath, and even a few of those are exempt).
On the other hand this could be bad for fighters, if they have the highest static numbers, and no special abilities, they may be going back to basic attack-basic attack-basic attack.
Really this could suck all around.
Unless We're going to a system where by paladins and such are fighters plus, variant class, themes, advanced classes, etc. The fighter is a basic framework on which barbarian or ranger might be hung.
Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 8:50PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2012
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If a fighter doesn't get to be the best straight-up melee combatant, then what's its "hook"? What might tempt you to play the class in preference to the others? That's another open question.
Personally, because it might be the class I want to play. Maybe that's how I want my character to fight. I mean that with no snark at all. If all the classes can compete on equal footing in a combat situation then it becomes less about "Which is the best" and more about "Which conveys the character I want to play".
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 8:52PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jun 17, 2010
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it becomes less about "Which is the best" and more about "Which conveys the character I want to play".
*this*
D&D Next = D&D: Quantum Edition
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1 year ago ::
Apr 30, 2012 - 8:54PM
#10
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Date Joined:
Aug 25, 2007
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I'm going to make a wild guess it is because fighters fight, all the other class fight + do other things. You are basically saying a hybrid should be just as good at a specialist at their specialty. To use their combat, explore, social set up, fighters are like 80, 10, 10 the ranger and barb are more 60,30,10 and the paladin 60,10,30.
I'm really hoping that isn't the case or there is atleast an alternative in the book, because that sounds dreadfully bad.
1.. They already said you could swing things around a bit.
2. That kind of comes with a class based system. Certain classes are better at things than other classes. You wan absolute freedom to make your barbarian the best fighter in the universe play a classless game and slap the term barbarian on him when describing him. You want a game where your abilities are somewhat pre-defined play a class based system. While you can shift things around a bit and remain a class based system, if you can totally shift things around it no longer is a class system, you are playing a classless system with fancy title son the characters.
3. What sounds dreadfully bad is a morass of sameness that comes with making every class just as good at everything as every other class. Even if it is done in somewhat different ways.
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