The reason fighters can't have nice things.

[K]

The only model that hasn't met huge resistance has always been the magic item model.

Are you kidding?

While all of the other systems have their fair share of detractors and adherents, practically no one likes the Christmas Tree effect.

The Christmas Tree effect is where you have to fill all your slots with small magic items that have an overall decent effect. Now that annoys people.

Basically, magic item ownership tends to cap out at about three items before it annoys the shit out of people. However, you can have more than one effect coming out of a single item and people seem fine with that.

Give people a choice, and they tend to go Thundercats on stuff where the Sword of Thundara is a divination device, a laser blaster, grants strength, and powers up various other people's powers on top of being a switchblade. And he has a shield that is a grappling device. And he has natural enhanced Strength. That's three, where one is inherent.

-----------------------

Low-magic settings are really a product of three things:

1. Making adventures that make sense with DnD magic at play is super hard. I mean, mazes are pointless once you get Dimension Door, so people who want mazes often think the easiest path to just to cut out magic rather than making every maze immune to transport magic, and wall-smashing magic, and divination magic, and all the other ways that DnD has for maze problem solving.

2. Fighting guys blow when compared to magic, so when people want fighters to mean anything they take out the magic.

3. They actually want to play low-level setting, but do it for many levels..... so rather than admit the LotR caps out at level 4 or 5, they just extend it all the way to 20.

[Sashi]

In 3E I give fighters (and other mundanes) nice things by treating the GP in the wealth-by-level table as a point-buy system of item acquisition.

In 4E every time a character levels up, they get one item of that new level.

In both cases I use the Tome "8 items or less" rule on magic items. And all the items gained in this way aren't "real" in the sense that they can be lost, traded, or sold. I also allow players to treat any items gained this way as learned abilities or newly gained supernatural powers (that cape of the mountbank can be a cape or you learning how to teleport, I don't care) is it any weirder than taking a PrC that starts turning you into a dragon?



This has a number of positive effects:
-There is no longer a "magic mart" who's presence I have to explain and economy I have to figure out.
-Players are more interested in cultivating political power and relationships with NPC's, because a tip on the location of a powerful magic item is totally more likely to increase a character's power than chipping the rubies out of a statue's eyes.
-Players actually like all the items they have.
-Players don't seem to care about the number of items they have as long as they aren't digging them out of the manticore's kitty litter.

[Shazbot79]

I say fuck it...

Either embrace outlandish superheroics for Fighting types AND casters, or nerf casters so they are in-line with the fighting types.

Personally, I have no problem with the idea of a superheroic fantasy game...as long as the implementation is better than what we've seen so far (Exalted).

[Username17]

Honestly, once you drop the word "Superhero" people seem to shut up about the Fighters not being allowed to have nice things. No one bitches when Wonderwoman flies around under her own power, compels truthful replies from captured opponents, and gets helpful premonitions. It's just shit Wonderwoman does. Because she's awesome.

The meme where Fighters can't have nice things is unique to a certain type of fantasy. Where I remind you: the stories it is based on include "sorcerers" as being the higher tier characters. You are never expected to have a group including Maleficent and Prince Erik as co-equal protagonists. The very idea is ridiculous.

When people make actual fantasy stories where people who have real magic power and people who are warriors are on the same team, they either chump the wizards (you get to be... Willow), or they go Superhero on the whole deal from the get-go. There's no meaningful conflict there, save that people are trying to add characters from different storytelling conventions into the same game and story.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm not sure whose butt you're pulling that number out of, as you most certainly do not need half a dozen superpowers to fight a mid-tier dragon or demon (assuming normalized numbers).

Yes, you do.

Here. Just opening the Manual of the Planes to a random page and pulling out a Narzugon, CR 9, putting him on the low end of mid-level when paired with a mount that his description says that he's supposed to get. Assuming that you have no geographic or tactical advantages, here's what you need to take on one of these bad boys to sword it to death:

1) Some sort of magical sword to get past their damage reduction.

2) Protection against their gaze attack, unless you want to eat a phantasmal killer every round.

3) Some way to reach up to where they are, because they fucking ride Nightmares,

4) Some sort of way to protect yourself against their mind control abilities.

5) Some way to stop it from teleporting without error or at least catch up with it.

6) Some way to stop it from summoning another narzugon or another 1d3 erinyes unless you're feeling lucky with the dice.

7) If the Narzugon is attacking you at night (which they WILL because they can fucking teleport without error) you will need some way to see in the dark because they can and you can't.

Give people a choice, and they tend to go Thundercats on stuff where the Sword of Thundara is a divination device, a laser blaster, grants strength, and powers up various other people's powers on top of being a switchblade.

And that's exactly my point. You have to give characters Green Lantern Rings or Iron Man suits to keep 'mundane' characters up to speed after a certain period in time.

Either way, it makes the fact that they were a rogue or a barbarian a year ago completely pointless. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing mind, I'm just tired of people giving themselves overpowered equipment and then pretending it's their own abilities that make them the badass--not the equipment.

[virgil]

I'm not sure how protected a Narzugon is from the dark if he's riding a Nightmare, what with the flaming hooves and breath. And he must be letting his lance rust away if you can never reach him. Here a few examples of concepts that need no more than three items...


Example 1: Blind Archer w/Magic Bow of Entanglement/Burning/something, a Narzugon doesn't have Concentration so it's going to be unable to reliably use any of its special abilities

Example 2: Flask Rogue, who is stealthing as a matter of course, so he's going to have the surprise and kill it before it even knows what happened

Example 3: Magic Spear w/Tower Shield of Impervious Mind, it doesn't take super powers to have a decent Spot/Listen, and it's debatable as to whether setting against a charge and hiding behind a tower shield at the same time count as a true super power.

[ubernoob]

A blind archer needs some sort of superpower to exist as a concept. The magic shield and magic tower shield also represent super powers.

Flask rogues, I don't think need debating though.

[erik]

Flask rogues, I don't think need debating though.

Because they auto-lose?

Narzugon are Immune to fire and have 20 Acid Resistance.

Flasking won't work so good there.



My Living Greyhawk Halfling 1 Fighter/X Druid Spirited Charger mounted on a Dire Bat animal companion would have no problems handling that mofo. Bat can close his eyes and use blindsight and a Druid has a decent enough Will save to not care about a DC 18 Phantasmal Killer. And fuck DR, I power attacked straight through that crap all the time. With only 55 hp on a Narzugon it can have "DR 50/lol-NO" and I wouldn't have cared.

Of course my halfling thought he was a super hero so maybe that isn't the best example.

[TheFlatline]

The meme where Fighters can't have nice things is unique to a certain type of fantasy. Where I remind you: the stories it is based on include "sorcerers" as being the higher tier characters. You are never expected to have a group including Maleficent and Prince Erik as co-equal protagonists. The very idea is ridiculous.

That sort of fantasy also usually has sorcery take time if it's utter bullshit (okay, not with sleeping beauty, but whatever.)

Also, I wanna know what the fuck happened to the Prince's magic sword & shield after he kills Maleficent. Do the fairies take them back? Do they get hung on the wall? Does he sell it at the magic item shop to get a +5 dancing frost burst longsword?

See, what I don't quite get with the D&D paradigm is why you get to blow off unbelievably powerful castle-rending spells as a full round action. I'll accept the concept of the 5-minute workday, and agree that limited resources aren't as limiting as they are intended to be for a spell caster.

To me that seems to reflect that you should slow D&D magic down somewhat. Spells that get off in one round (or as a standard action) should have combat effectiveness on par with a fighter of a comparable level. The big-ass spells of insta-death and arcane raping however should take a little longer than a full round action to pull off.

This would effect two things. One, it would make counterspelling a viable tactic again (I don't think I've ever seen a single counterspell in all my years of 3.x) since you have *time* to get the effing dispel magic off, and it would give fighters a purpose again: Protect the mage from getting geeked while he does his spell of infinite doom. Give the fighter tank/aggro generating abilities, and he's suddenly a very important part of the team again.

[virgil]

Oh, I wasn't saying those weren't super powers, but that those things cover what's needed to have a good chance against a Narzugon; which gives you about three distinct powers at the outside. This is far below the BS claim of half a dozen.

Obviously some concepts require more super powers than others to get their combat on, though the wizard needs the most.

But it doesn't change the fact that in European fantasy RPGs, it's not uncommon for even newcomers to not accept their mundanes with super powers unless it's under the Magic Item model. Most importantly, the Christmas Tree Effect is only an extreme version where magic gear starts replacing the mundane activities; & isn't a certainty outside of scenarios that are theoretical at best.

[Username17]

Flask rogues, I don't think need debating though.

Because they auto-lose?

Narzugon are Immune to fire and have 20 Acid Resistance.

Flasking won't work so good there.

A level 9 flasker will also have alchemist frost and holy water, so they will be fine.

But the real point here is that the flasker is by definition a weird game-mechanical edge case. His only actual ability is to upgrade any damage he does to a large and level appropriate amount of damage. And even then, only if he can get to be in an advantageous situation. The holy water virtually guarantees that he can do a bullshit tiny amount of damage against the fiend with every attack (since it negates all his resistances and bypasses all armor). The Ring of Blink guarantees that he gets his combat advantage on with every attack. But the bottom line is that of the three powers he needs to even threaten the Narzugon, only on of them is not built for him by the spellcasters.

And even then we're being kind of generous. Let's recall that to pull this off you need to get into Phantasmal Killer range (DC 18), and it can drop a Hold Person on you from outside Sneak Attack Range. We're basically assuming that the Rogue can sneak up on it, but without some kind of magical intervention, the Rogue's stealth bonuses are in the +16-+18 range, and the Narzugon's perception bonuses are +14.

-Username17

[virgil]

I was trying to imply earlier that the 'standard' bonuses, be it stealth or Will save or AC, don't count as distinct powers when increased. You could just give the class chassis bigger bonuses, similar to how PF fighters got Weapon Training, so they wouldn't need the boring gear that only keeps them on the RNG; which makes the required magic gear more noticeable, as they cover the stuff that makes it so a fighter can still play the game.

[8headeddragon]

Ah this old topic. We have known for a long time what is going on, but it tends to take a long time pinpointing what exactly can be done about it due to the strong feelings on the subject.

The fighter is often expected to be 'natural' in capabilities whereas the wizard is unquestioningly accepted to be supernatural in nature. When difficulties scale high enough that being 'natural' is not enough to compete whereas supernatural snowballs in massive ways comes the disagreements that leave it just about unsolvable.

We have the camp that wants fighters to be superheroes but in a way that counts as 'natural' somehow, we have the camp that thinks fighters should stay natural but carry supernatural things, we have the camp that wants to make fighters turn supernatural when shit gets real, and lastly we have the terribly deluded lot that wants a worn out DMF to somehow keep doing what they did at low levels but still be meaningful.

Wording it as 'give everyone magic' makes us feel bad, but I have to say I'm of the crowd that strongly believes the fighter should start getting supernatural in one form or another as the levels go up. Call it some sort of ancestral spirit, call it ki, make it flat out magic that they're learning/absorbing, but accept the fact that a kung-fu master that can mow down a ton of guys will need to do something out of this world if he intends to fight Godzilla.

The setting idea sounds like a hell of a lot of work but doesn't seem to be a bad idea. Perhaps the Fighter needs a Tome style run down of different models for handling ascension? Something like:

Pippi Longstocking
A really strong warrior can lift elephants, and it's just sort of something that happens if they survive long enough.

Zodiac Braves
Knowing the power and relevance of magic on the battlefield, a fighter worth his salt learns FFT style sword skills that hit a bunch of guys and have a little bit of battlefield control mixed in, and they tend to teleport if really desperate.

Merry Christmas
DMFs need their easter egg. Maybe in this model there are a ton of fighter-only uses for weapons and armor? I'm sure this has been done before and would make them roundabout UMD monkeys (or for that matter, empower the actual UMD characters)

One way or another, we're at the point where it's a matter of satisfying all kinds.[/b]

[K]

The problem is that "natural" fighters have always been boned by a simulationist grid map and system. Without that, you could just have a non-magical fighter have an ability called Daring Plan where some game effect happens and you can handwave whatever ropes and pulleys are needed to make it work (like maybe the guy goes all cinematic and grabs a griffon as it flies by and that takes him to the other side of the battle so he can do a death from above on the goblin lord, and all in a single round).

I mean, non-magical heroes can fight next to virtual gods without anyone balking.... I mean, look at Batman. His one "power" is that all of his abilities always look like a combination of luck, skill, daring, and intellect and he plays in the same world with a guy who can be hit in the face with an asteroid by being the guy smart enough to not be exactly where asteroids are being tossed.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Oh, I wasn't saying those weren't super powers, but that those things cover what's needed to have a good chance against a Narzugon; which gives you about three distinct powers at the outside. This is far below the BS claim of half a dozen.

That's because you stealth-buffed your example characters by blurring the line between mechanics and fiction. And stealth-nerfed the Narzugon by giving him dumb tactics--seriously, outsiders have martial weapon proficiency for free, not to mention the produce flame ability. The flask rogue and the tower shield fighter would get their asses handed to them.

Moreover, I noticed that you really didn't mention that your characters would ALSO need some kind of mind-shielding and strength-enhancing ability--even though D&D is very backhanded about it, having shit like cloaks of resistance and bracers of ogre might or even sufficient level-based bonuses you get to your fortitude save are supernatural abilities even if the game doesn't say so.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I mean, non-magical heroes can fight next to virtual gods without anyone balking.... I mean, look at Batman.

Batman is an extremely bad example, K and is in fact an example of why the Badass Normal trope is such bullshit after a certain point.

[TheFlatline]

The problem is that "natural" fighters have always been boned by a simulationist grid map and system. Without that, you could just have a non-magical fighter have an ability called Daring Plan where some game effect happens and you can handwave whatever ropes and pulleys are needed to make it work (like maybe the guy goes all cinematic and grabs a griffon as it flies by and that takes him to the other side of the battle so he can do a death from above on the goblin lord, and all in a single round).

I mean, non-magical heroes can fight next to virtual gods without anyone balking.... I mean, look at Batman. His one "power" is that all of his abilities always look like a combination of luck, skill, daring, and intellect and he plays in the same world with a guy who can be hit in the face with an asteroid by being the guy smart enough to not be exactly where asteroids are being tossed.

Good point. That's one of the things I liked (in concept) about the Iron Heroes campaign setting. Every character could do shit like that. There are examples of the archer shooting ten or twelve arrows into... something... turning it into a makeshift ladder that the fighter could climb and use to jump onto the back of the raging cyclops and stab him a bunch where it *really* hurts. That's some badass shit. It's really too bad the system is unplayable mechanically, because the concepts are so exciting.

Perhaps giving a catch-all to the fighter might work... "That's impossible!" once a day every 5 levels. You auto-succeed at any one stunt. You climb up a sheer cliff in one round and can make a leaping attack on the nightmare as he swoops by. You manage to outrun the dragon's breath weapon and dive into the water (What? There wasn't water? Well there is now, just deep and big enough for one dude to dive into) as flames billow overhead. You wedge the giant stone door that's closing as part of a trap, and manage to keep it from closing for a round or two.

You don't even bother saying that this is a supernatural ability. The ability comes from being a badass fighter.

Though you'd have to have a section dealing with stunts for the GM so that he doesn't auto-shitcan all the fighter's good ideas.

[TheFlatline]

I mean, non-magical heroes can fight next to virtual gods without anyone balking.... I mean, look at Batman.

Batman is an extremely bad example, K and is in fact an example of why the Badass Normal trope is such bullshit after a certain point.

I just happen to have a can of bat-cliche-repellent on my utility belt here that will get me out of this situation!!!

[Lago PARANOIA]

We have the camp that wants fighters to be superheroes but in a way that counts as 'natural' somehow,

Classic mythology or, if you want a more contemporary example, One Piece uses this to great success.

we have the camp that thinks fighters should stay natural but carry supernatural things,

Which I don't have a problem with, except for the fact that people use it as an excuse not to admit that their character concept is obsolete and use sit to limit their potential and usefulness.

lastly we have the terribly deluded lot that wants a worn out DMF to somehow keep doing what they did at low levels but still be meaningful.

They should play a different game then rather than sticking their dicks into high-level play. If you want to play Punisher when the group is playing Bunnies and Burrows or if you want to play Infantry Squad when the rest of the group is playing Humongous Mecha you get looked upon with contempt. Hell, if you want to play a 1st-level commoner in a Conan the Barbarian game you would, too. Why is this not true for wanting to do this in high-level D&D?

Well, that question is rhetorical. People have already given reasons that pretty much boil down to bullshit characters like Batman and Prince Erik hammering this expectation into characters for several decades and finding out too late that their fiction has woefully unprepared them for building a story without crutches.

Fortunately for us, this viewpoint seems to be breaking down. One Piece is a bigger thing than even Dragonball at this point and that story is one big pile of 'if you want to do infinite double jumps by doing enough squats, you can!' I can't tell you how pleased I was when in Teen Titans Robin punches out and fucking suplexes a 30-foot tall stone golem and the response from the audience was not a grognardesque 'OMFG he's a Batman character and they'd never do such a thing!' but a 'OMFG Robin is sooooo cool!'

Wording it as 'give everyone magic' makes us feel bad,

Anyone who says this should be mocked as being stupid. Magic is a synonym for supernatural but is also in speculative fiction a specific flavor of supernatural phlebtonium, alongside ki / psionics / ripple / whatever the author pulled out of their ass. Hell, in some stories there's no such thing as non-supernatural; shapeshifting into a giant man or lassoing a tornado is a 'just because' thing that even Little Timmy can do with no explanation.

[Prak]

If you want to play Punisher when the group is playing Bunnies and Burrows

I just want to point out that playing a rabbit whose family was killed by foxes, and thus had decided to wage a one bunny war on all fox kind would be awesome.

[FatR]

I mean, non-magical heroes can fight next to virtual gods without anyone balking.... I mean, look at Batman.

Batman is an extremely bad example, K and is in fact an example of why the Badass Normal trope is such bullshit after a certain point.

Yeah. My knowledge of Batman-as-Justice-League-member is limited to DCAU, but really, once goddamn Darkseid grabs and throws you, and you don't end up as a red splat, you should just stop pretending being normal.

[Juton]

I mean, non-magical heroes can fight next to virtual gods without anyone balking.... I mean, look at Batman.

Batman is an extremely bad example, K and is in fact an example of why the Badass Normal trope is such bullshit after a certain point.

Yeah. My knowledge of Batman-as-Justice-League-member is limited to DCAU, but really, once goddamn Darkseid grabs and throws you, and you don't end up as a red splat, you should just stop pretending being normal.

Exactly. Perry White, Lois Lane, Alfred, Jimmy Olsen are all examples of normals in the DC universe. The Batman has a reasonable chance of taking out any metahuman, he's not a normal, regardless of what any trope says.

In D&D terms strength and constitution are the easiest stats to measure, we know the upper limits of human ability. Dexterity and the 3 mental stats have no upper bound, so you can write in any stats you want and claim that character is a normal human. You can take advantage of that and make a system where Fighters can get nearly limitless Dex/Int/Wis/Cha or you can say that this Fighter breaks all the conventions, and because of some inner latent talent has a strength naturally in the 40's that he unlocked through training.

[Prak]

Yeah, but Batman as an example of the badass normal trope has so much traction that if the comics actually explicitly say he has powers, people will baw. Despite the fact that they've been implying he's super special for decades.

I mean, seriously, he has Superhuman intellect to begin with.
Then he uses this intellect to be a gadgeteer, put together crazy complicated schemes and gambits, that work nigh-flawlessly, and learn pretty much anything he needs to know in about a week.
He's also used this super-intellect to learn I don't know how many forms of martial arts, and several only tangentially related fields of science (biology, chemistry, physics, genetics, robotics, quantum physics, medicine, etc.)
But go further, and he's learned things that, in any other character, would be considered superpowers, like meditation and focus to the point that he can slow his heart to appear dead, he can do psychic battle with sorcerers and hypnotists, he's implanted hypnotic triggers in himself (meaning he's actually managed to HYPNOTIZE HIMSELF), Create a mental barrier against psychic influence and all kinds of other crazy crap.
His willpower is so strong, and he's so creative, that if he's ever given a power ring, he's pretty much the most dangerous being in existence.

Batman CLEARLY has superpowers. But they're not "Fly, laser beams, and super strength" powers.

[Maj]

Batman CLEARLY has superpowers. But they're not "Fly, laser beams, and super strength" powers.

I can't help but be reminded of A Spell for Chameleon where the main character's talent doesn't show up until he's taken out of context, so to speak.

Batman doesn't seem to have any powers, but once you actually start looking and doing some comparisons, you see the subtle.

[Princess]

No one bitches when Wonderwoman flies around under her own power, compels truthful replies from captured opponents, and gets helpful premonitions. It's just shit Wonderwoman does. Because she's awesome.

No, that's because she is mary sue.
By the way she is some sort of demigod or have blessings of five gods, whatsoever. Still her bio with super-beautiful (by the modern standards despite she is from ancient greece, what a coincidence) super strength, super agility super-whatever else, makes me sick.
If I want my non-spellcaster to be awesome is not equal "I want my character to be wet-dreams beautiful genius strategist with super-str-dex-con, immortality and no flaws except for inability to have children, what a tragedy, she never need this".