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5 years ago ::
Dec 04, 2008 - 5:11AM
#1
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I glanced into the "Why the fighter isn't liked" thread, and it seemed the first page was all agreement that the fighter is simply flawed, and that it's not worth taking past level 4.
Since the members of this board have more experience in a player's role than I do, I was wondering what these flaws were? I'm a bit of a fighter fan, which is a blatant bias because I am a fan of Western Martial Arts. I'm in the process of trying to add a class to my setting (which has probably been done before, I'll post on it later) which is similar to the fighter, so I had kept comparing the fighter to this new class. If the fighter class is flawed, perhaps I can fix it up instead? Keep in mind, I only use the 3 core books (which means PHB 1, DMG 1 and MM 1) with "Arms and Equipment Guide", though I am trying to get more.
So what are these flaws that make the class bad?
M.
HEMA and History Student.
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5 years ago ::
Dec 04, 2008 - 5:44AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Jun 14, 2006
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From what I understand: 1-Dead levels:Levels where nothing new is gained as far as abilities go. 2-Feats don't scale well vs. other classes abilities. 3-Lack of skill points hurts their usefulness outside of combat. Now, for the pros: 1-Quick and easy. They are a great introductory class to play while your learning, as you don't have a lot to deal with. 2-An excellent 1,2 or 4 level dip. Like, Chapotle Ranch dip awesome dip. ... Now I'm hungry 
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5 years ago ::
Dec 04, 2008 - 5:48AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Oct 18, 2007
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I myself don't think the fighter or most of the classes have any real flaws except the people who play them. 75% of the fighter fixes are more for powergamers, they don't really want to fix any flaws, just make them stronger, which they think will fix it. Every class has good points and bad points but players just want good point and couldn't be bothered in work around the bad points, so they houserule to remove the flaws.
The main flaw that I can see is no special class abilities just feats.
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5 years ago ::
Dec 04, 2008 - 6:10AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Apr 23, 2006
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Flaws... flaws... well, there are tons of flaws with the Fighter class itself, but there are lots more flaws with the inherent assumptions made by the system itself, and with how the system was designed in order to intentionally favor spellcasters over nonspellcasters.
The biggest flaws with the Fighter class:
1) Feats do not equal class features.
2) Fighters do not fight things all that well, nor are they even capable of fighting creatures of appropriate CR after about 7th/8th level.
3) An extension of #2, Fighters are not versatile in play. Feat chains are expensive, and you don't get enough feats to diversify your combat tactics. Therefore you are expected to specialize and maybe, just maybe, buy gear to diversify your options, but... well, see #4.
4) Fighters are the most gear dependant class in the game. If you are a Fighter you need to wear highly magical heavy armor and a carry at least one highly magical weapon. You need these to keep your raw AC and to hit bonuses competitive with monsters of your CR (unless you are going the Weapon Focus tree and eating 6 of your 11 bonus feats). Of course you need more than just armor and a weapon to fight, since you can't see or hear your foes without magic (you don't have Spot or Listen, and Wisdom is a dump stat), you can't hit flying foes unless you use a bow, and even then... iffy, you can't defeat illusions or resist mind-afflicting effects because your Will save is pathetically bad, and you have no inherent magical resiliency in a world where nearly everything from CR 10 and above wields powerful magics.
Flaws in the game system that make Fighters even worse than before:
1) Spells rule, Fighters drool. Spells dominate the game, and monsters get them, and they can use all of them in a fight, because they're only going to be a around for one fight. Many monsters have powerful magical effects like constant invisibility and Mirror Image at will that you as a Fighter have no way to defeat, but your Wizard buddy does, and your Cleric buddy does. You have to spend wealth whereas they can just cast a low level spell to be effective. They can spend their wealth on things like... Pearls of Power, or Candles of Invocation...
2) Feat chains blow. Not only are half of them ineffective, they just don't offer anything that helps the Fighter with their problems - item dependency, combat versatility, or magical defense. Top it off with the fact that almost anyone else can pick up one or two of these chains, and that the Fighter only gets feats as class features, and they still take up large chunks of these "class features" and we have a problem.
3) The game assumes that every party will have a Wizard and a Cleric, and that these characters win. The game assumes that the Fighter hits stuff, and the Wizard/Cleric buffs him when they feel like it, or outright destroys monsters because they can, and, in fact, that the Fighter is there at least half the time, just to make sure the Wizard doesn't get killed before it can win the game. Fighters are nothing more than hapless spellcaster cohorts beyond 6th-ish level.
4) Wealth by level is a joke. A commoner with 10th level PC wealth can defeat most challenges if properly equipped with the right items. No, that doesn't mean he runs and attacks the Fire Giant with a Flaming Pitchfork. It means he drops some Dust of Sneezing and Choking while being immune to stunning, or he Gates in a Solar that Gates in other Solars with a single Candle of Invocation. Maybe instead he buys some cross class ranks in Use Magic Device (or just 1), gains the Magic Device Attunement feat, and uses some high level scrolls for fun. Magic items are needed to even operate in mid to high level play, and yet they are so imbalanced that they easily break the game from low level on. *Applause*
I'm sure there's more I can rant about, but I'm out for now.
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5 years ago ::
Dec 04, 2008 - 6:12AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Oct 24, 2005
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I’d say the problem with the fighter is that the power of the class is determined almost entirely by the player’s decisions when making the character. If the player consistently selects feats that are not good for his character, that fighter will suck. If the player consistently selects feats that are excellent for his character, that fighter will be decent.
I think a well designed class needs to be acceptably playable even given a long string of bad choices on the part of the player. Set class features can’t be screwed up by a player, so that would help.
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5 years ago ::
Dec 04, 2008 - 6:20AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Apr 16, 2005
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One party I was in was saved single-handedly by the fighter and his improved sunder feat. Stupid Kraken...
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5 years ago ::
Dec 04, 2008 - 7:11AM
#7
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Campaigns I've been leading have not gone past 6th level yet, so I hadn't noticed these though in truth I sort of knew some things would be a problem. I noticed from the monk that players become super human around level 7 or 8, and compared to the monk the fighter doesn't have anything on him.
What are some methods you guys have used to improve the fighter? Feats are nice, but as you said they don't equate class features. I am, as I said, a tad biased towards fighers because of my love of weapon arts, and originally I had attempted to emulate certain schools of weapon arts in my campaign. The only one I actually did was with the buckler -- in DnD, the "buckler" is some tiny piece of junk that straps to the arm. In reality, it is a small center-gripped defensive item capable of powerful usage. My first foray into WMA was with sword and buckler, but the most I got around to equating it to was if the player took the buckler and "two weapon fighting", the buckler could then be used to add +1 to your attack roll. This has been changed in my new arc, with the buckler automatically adding +1, with possibly some other effect, at the cost of having almost no bonus to AC.
So what are some other tips?
M.
HEMA and History Student.
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5 years ago ::
Dec 04, 2008 - 7:15AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Jun 14, 2006
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.
What are some methods you guys have used to improve the fighter?
M.
Here ya go! I haven't used it yet. Someone else posted the link to it, I just cut and pasted.
http://geocities.com/loneflame1023/d20/fighter.html
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5 years ago ::
Dec 04, 2008 - 7:23AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Apr 23, 2006
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Campaigns I've been leading have not gone past 6th level yet, so I hadn't noticed these though in truth I sort of knew some things would be a problem. I noticed from the monk that players become super human around level 7 or 8, and compared to the monk the fighter doesn't have anything on him.
Well, yes, player characters pretty much become superhuman at around 7th level, or at least they are supposed to. And you're right, Fighters pretty much don't ever get super-human. But... Fighters are still pretty much always better warriors than Monks. Monks can do some strange things that Fighters can't, but Monks aren't exactly a strong class.
So what are some other tips?
M.
Well, since you asked, specifically about combat styles, there is a class called the Warblade in a book called The Tome of Battle. It fills the same role of tactical, mundane warrior that the Fighter does, but it does it with style, and it actual power. Now, it has some of the same problems that a normal Fighter has, but two of the biggest things it does have over the normal Fighter is mobility and versatility in combat.
There are also HUNDREDS, literally, of Fighter fixes all over the internet. Take your pick, but most of them fail to address any (let alone all) of the concerns I brought up. You also might want to check my sig for the Warrior's Way link. The Warlord class found there is my fix for the Fighter and it does address all of my concerns (at least I think it does and I hope it does, but I still haven't playtested it very much, or gotten much solid feedback).
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5 years ago ::
Dec 04, 2008 - 7:58AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Sep 11, 2008
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From what I understand:
1-Dead levels:Levels where nothing new is gained as far as abilities go.
2-Feats don't scale well vs. other classes abilities.
3-Lack of skill points hurts their usefulness outside of combat.
Now, for the pros:
1-Quick and easy. They are a great introductory class to play while your learning, as you don't have a lot to deal with.
2-An excellent 1,2 or 4 level dip. Like, Chapotle Ranch dip awesome dip.
... Now I'm hungry
The beginner melee class is the Barbarian. Fighters are more like GURPS customization - very hard to get right, and gives you very little even if you do. So it's a whole lot of advanced level effort to get nothing but advanced level Fail.
BK has already taken the liberty of casting Dispel Lies on the poster I was going to use it on and by pointing out that Monks are even worse than Fighters, as pathetic as that is.
I'm also ignoring the bit about Improved Break Own Stuff, because that's just garbage.
Under the current criteria, it is impossible to 'fix' the Fighter. To fix them, you would have to both make feats worth a damn, and make enough such feats to fill up a Fighter and provide for a variety of options. At this point you've revamped a large part of the entire system, which doesn't qualify as 'core' anymore. Therefore you might as well save yourself the effort by adding Tome of Battle which also doesn't qualify as 'core' anymore, but does allow you to just take the Warblade and name it Fighter since it fits exactly the same concept, but actually works.
Most of the 'fighter fixes' demonstrate a lack of understanding of the flaws pointed out by BK. So again, see ToB.
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