The reason why fighters will never have nice things.

Novembermike · Post by **Novembermike** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 6:31 am

souran wrote: There is a historical context for all these weapons, fighting styles, and methods. Fighitng methods are not developed in a vaccum they are develped because they have the ability to be repeatedly effective against something.

Nah, most fighting systems tend to be pretty similar as long as the weapons are similar. Germans have Vom Tag and the Japanese have Jodan no Kamae, but it's really the same thing. Similarly, a knight would take the centurian's mail and spatha and be almost perfectly at home. Most of the skills are going to transfer over pretty quickly.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 6:39 am

K wrote:You can give people abilities that feel like skill and are powerful. Every action movie ever written has ample inspiration for what these things look like, and the abilities are as powerful as you write them to be.

20th Level Fighter.

People never cared that Book of Nine Swords powered up the fighter.... they didn't like the flavor. If you learned from the data that was being presented, you would have learned that almost every power-up to the fighting classes has been embraced except for the ones with anime flavor.

Actually, yeah, pretty much. Bo9S was like some crap cheapo candy you find for 50 cents that is sweet, but doesn't actually taste like much. Bland, super-saccharine crap.

Oh, it was also a pain in the ass to make a character beyond first level. Anytime you make a class which can trade lower level abilities for higher level abilities needs a table saying precisely what levels of abilities they can have at what class levels.

When people think of DnD, they don't think "where is my anime goodness?" They think, "I want something like the 1000+ fantasy books in the fantasy section of the bookstore/library."

Actually some do. So, there should be some support for that, but I'm not saying all of it needs to be animu, just that there are people who'll want to be Vash, or whoever.

CapnTthePirateG wrote:And the damn dragon still drops a rock on your head. Sure, you can take the fighter and have him fight well, maybe even be good at hacking things, but that really doesn't solve the rest of the problems. What the hell does the fighter from the 1000+ fantasy books do when the artificer, sky wizard, and necromancer get on the jetpack, cloud, and dragon zombie in an attempt to head off the army of dragons raised by Baron von Kittykiller before they reach Sky City? How does he compete with a mage's teleport, plane shift, or shadow walk? Most of the warriors in fantasy literature live under the magic>you law, and we wouldn't be having this discussion if we actually liked that.

(I actually think typing your name killed some brain cells here... I want them back, please)
Well, lets see, what does Wolverine do when Rogue, Jean and Storm take off and he's not around the Blackbird? Oh, right, someone fucking carries him, and everyone just understands, that's the way shit works. When Superman, Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl take off, some one fucking carries the Flash. Yes, it's kind of dumb, but it's the way it works. Alternatively, the Fighter in the 1000+ fantasy novels generally hops on his flying mount, and he should be able to do that around the same time a Wizard is shouting "Up, up and away!" because the Wizard is doing that around fifth, six level, and Pegasus is seriously fucking CR 3. That means the Fighter said "Oi! Where's a fella get a flying horse around here?" and someone pointed him to an area known for flying horses, where he tackled one and showed it who's boss. Alternatively, he gets carried for a couple levels before pulling a Perseus, slaying Medusa, and being rewarded with a flying horse.

Chamomile wrote:Then D&D is not for them. Granted, I haven't read all 1,000+ of those books, but of the ones I've read, none of them have featured slaying giants like they're ill-mannered children. Actually, none of them I can think of featured giants at all, except in the sense of "unusually tall person." But really, anything that went further than orc-level was a big deal.

The Odyssey.

K · Post by K » Mon Jun 13, 2011 7:16 am

Novembermike wrote:
souran wrote: There is a historical context for all these weapons, fighting styles, and methods. Fighitng methods are not developed in a vaccum they are develped because they have the ability to be repeatedly effective against something.
Nah, most fighting systems tend to be pretty similar as long as the weapons are similar. Germans have Vom Tag and the Japanese have Jodan no Kamae, but it's really the same thing. Similarly, a knight would take the centurian's mail and spatha and be almost perfectly at home. Most of the skills are going to transfer over pretty quickly.

I've decided to abandon this conversation, but I wanted to point out that there is a great documentary show on Netflix called Deadliest Warrior. Every episode pretty neatly points out how similar and dissimilar warriors from various places would match up.

It's actually pretty surprising how little weapons and fighting styles matter.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 8:32 am

Well, its good to see people throughing out their SCA, Arma, fencing, kendo, mma, and fight book credentials.

If you can find a better source of information to ground realism in, I'd love to see it. Being that people who actually fought lethal combat with edged weapons and plate armor aren't terribly common anymore, we kind of have to make do with what we've got. I'll admit it's not ideal, but there are some basic combat principles that never change.

The Odyssey.

Alright, it's been a few years since I read the Odyssey, but are you referring to the Cyclopes? The ones that tore through Odysseus' men like tissue paper, as opposed to the other way around, and which they then had to deceive in order to escape? I don't see how that argues against my point.

I wanted to point out that there is a great documentary show on Netflix called Deadliest Warrior.

Seriously? A freakin' Spike TV documentary is your source on this? That might be entertaining, sure, but that's because it's entertainment.

K · Post by K » Mon Jun 13, 2011 9:03 am

Chamomile wrote:
I wanted to point out that there is a great documentary show on Netflix called Deadliest Warrior.
Seriously? A freakin' Spike TV documentary is your source on this? That might be entertaining, sure, but that's because it's entertainment.

Source for what? What the fuck are you talking about?

I just mentioned it because it has people using actual weapons against actual armor and scientifically testing the various limits on both. It's a pretty good example of why various weapon and style fans are full of shit because they all tend to be pretty comparable.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 9:16 am

Chamomile wrote:
The Odyssey.
Alright, it's been a few years since I read the Odyssey, but are you referring to the Cyclopes? The ones that tore through Odysseus' men like tissue paper, as opposed to the other way around, and which they then had to deceive in order to escape? I don't see how that argues against my point.

It's an actual giant that shows up in fantasy.

K · Post by K » Mon Jun 13, 2011 9:20 am

Prak_Anima wrote:
Chamomile wrote:
The Odyssey.
Alright, it's been a few years since I read the Odyssey, but are you referring to the Cyclopes? The ones that tore through Odysseus' men like tissue paper, as opposed to the other way around, and which they then had to deceive in order to escape? I don't see how that argues against my point.
It's an actual giant that shows up in fantasy.

Ok, so despite wanting to be out of this I'm pulled in again.

The Crystal Shard by RA Salvatore. It's probably the best-selling DnD novel written and it's set in the Forgotten Realms. Giants die by the scores from two warriors.

Seriously, you guys fail at DnD.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 9:35 am

Source for what?

For this:

It's actually pretty surprising how little weapons and fighting styles matter.

The Crystal Shard by RA Salvatore. It's probably the best-selling DnD novel written and it's set in the Forgotten Realms.

But that's recursive. The Crystal Shard mimics D&D-style fighting because it is D&D. It can't possibly be D&D's source material, because D&D is its source material. I haven't read the scene, but it must have entailed one of three things, or else a combination of them. Either Drizz't and company are protected by plot armor which stopped any of them from ever suffering a single blow from one of the giants (which would have certainly incapacitated or killed any real person), they're capable of anime-level superpowers that allows them to cut (not stab, but cut) through giants with skin like steel, or they're all carrying magical weapons and there are literally a thousand other people who could do the exact same things they did if they had those weapons.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 9:51 am

I cannot be blamed if Forgotten Realms sucks so hard that I cannot be arsed to care about it's books.

K · Post by K » Mon Jun 13, 2011 10:24 am

Chamomile wrote:
Source for what?
For this:

It's actually pretty surprising how little weapons and fighting styles matter.

The Crystal Shard by RA Salvatore. It's probably the best-selling DnD novel written and it's set in the Forgotten Realms.
But that's recursive. The Crystal Shard mimics D&D-style fighting because it is D&D. It can't possibly be D&D's source material, because D&D is its source material. I haven't read the scene, but it must have entailed one of three things, or else a combination of them. Either Drizz't and company are protected by plot armor which stopped any of them from ever suffering a single blow from one of the giants (which would have certainly incapacitated or killed any real person), they're capable of anime-level superpowers that allows them to cut (not stab, but cut) through giants with skin like steel, or they're all carrying magical weapons and there are literally a thousand other people who could do the exact same things they did if they had those weapons.

All that matters is that it's a wildly popular fantasy novel written in the 80s during 1e that spawned a nonmagical character with nonmagic weapons that killed giants and dragons and is so popular that he has been statted in 1e, 2e, 3e, and 4e in different sourcebooks.

That's what people want. It was popular because it gave people believable and good fight scenes. They use very little plot or magic, and mostly rely on the skill of the characters.

If your entire exposure to fantasy has been some anime you watched, then I have to say that you should not be playing DnD. Go play Exalted because the DnD players are in the bookstore.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 10:53 am

K wrote:
All that matters is that it's a wildly popular fantasy novel written in the 80s during 1e that spawned a nonmagical character with nonmagic weapons that killed giants and dragons and is so popular that he has been statted in 1e, 2e, 3e, and 4e in different sourcebooks.

That's what people want. It was popular because it gave people believable and good fight scenes. They use very little plot or magic, and mostly rely on the skill of the characters.

No, they don't. If they don't have some magical way of tanking a blow from a giant, then they're relying on plot armor. The concept of regularly cutting down ten-foot plus giants, even assuming they don't have supernaturally awesome skin, is absurd. It could happen once or twice, but it will never, ever be a casual thing for a non-magical warrior. No amount of skill will give you a 100% chance of avoiding every single attack from dozens of enemies, and a single attack from an opponent with that severe a strength advantage over your frail, mortal body (STR 25 was the weakest giant I could find in the 3.5 MM, most of them have 30+) will cripple you. Period. They're protected by plot armor, untouchable only because they're the main characters.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 10:53 am

K wrote: The presence of some magic does not make anime. The defaulting of everyone to a spellcaster is what does.

Is Spiderman defaulted to spellcaster because he can spam SoL ranged attacks and control battlefield to some extent?

Note, that if your answer is "Yes", that I'm perfectly happy with defaulting everyone to spellcaster, as non-spellcasters apparently must be distinguished by not being allowed to do anything cool or interesting anyway. And so will be everyone else, save for grognards who aren't going to be satisfied in any case. And if your answer is "No", neither are the vast majority of anime characters.

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 11:06 am

Also note: If "Vital Force" is unacceptable due to excessive grognard whining, the other solution is to cut the pretenses and use catch-all magitech/steampunk gadgeteers.

At least that solves the problems with Magic Item dependency and abilities to affect the plot.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 11:15 am

K wrote: "Not-magic" that you can get by doing push-ups solves that problem.
You can give people abilities that feel like skill and are powerful. Every action movie ever written has ample inspiration for what these things look like, and the abilities are as powerful as you write them to be.

So... tell us please how a vanilla action hero can beat Thor (the recent movie version) at his full power and fighting seriously? I mean, he's not even particularly strong, as far as high-end characters go.

K wrote: You can just say that skilled fighters can out-fient every giant ever born so that their steel-hard skin is no protection when the giant over-commits to a swing and ends up ramming it's own eye into the fighter's blade. People can actually imagine how that works because 99% of the combat is abstracted anyway.

But they are more likely to imagine how that can't work. Particularly as now SFX actually are advanced enough to show how terrifying a Large combatant will actually be on the battlefield.

K wrote: People never cared that Book of Nine Swords powered up the fighter.... they didn't like the flavor. If you learned from the data that was being presented, you would have learned that almost every power-up to the fighting classes has been embraced except for the ones with anime flavor.

Do you actually have any data to back this up? Because BoNS certainly is the most talked-about supplement in history of 3.5.

K wrote: When people think of DnD, they don't think "where is my anime goodness?" They think, "I want something like the 1000+ fantasy books in the fantasy section of the bookstore/library."

And in most, probably even the vast majority of these books fighters - at least those who aren't secretly demigods, or gain some sort of mystical uberhax because they are main characters, or something - suck ass compared to wizards. Which is not a problem in a book, where everything happens according to the plot, and in fact the author can make his work easier by making the hero underpowered, but is a problem in RPGs, where fighters and wizards are supposed to adventure side by side.

That's before considering the fact, that DnD sits far at the upper end of fantasy power scale. And settings above it usually are uplifted there by virtue of a couple characters geting access to outright reality-warping or world-busting.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 11:34 am

K wrote: All that matters is that it's a wildly popular fantasy novel written in the 80s during 1e that spawned a nonmagical character with nonmagic weapons that killed giants and dragons and is so popular that he has been statted in 1e, 2e, 3e, and 4e in different sourcebooks.

Drizzt actually had at least three, maybe four quite powerful magic items (my memory kind of fails me if his armor survived sunlight, or only blades). At the time when normal characters weren't guaranteed to have one.

Doesn't change the fact that Salvatore is a hack writer who only got anywhere because of DnD's popularity, instead of lending his popularity to DnD. He's less bad than most of TSR/Wizards stable of hack writers, but a good fantasy author he isn't.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 12:50 pm

Drizzt is a lame ass munchkin mary sue that made every fan boy in the world want to suck Drow Cock.

Using Drizzt as an example is just shameful, and you should feel deep deep shame for having done it.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 1:10 pm

This whole discussion has turned a bit ridiculous, especially the "who would win?" parts, and I regret that I helped turn us that direction. Especially because it's so utterly irrelevant to the question at hand.

The actual topic is inherently unanswerable, because it inherently incorporates a No True Scotsman paradox. Essentially, every time someone suggests a nice thing that fighters could have, someone else steps on it, because "grognards" would complain if fighters had that nice thing. (you could also call that begging the question or agumentum ad grognard, and be right, but that's beside the point.)

If we continue defining a "fighter" as someone who doesn't get nice things, then this thread will continue circling with the same lack of result.

Midnight_v · Post by **Midnight_v** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 1:18 pm

Gx1080 wrote:Also note: If "Vital Force" is unacceptable due to excessive grognard whining, the other solution is to cut the pretenses and use catch-all magitech/steampunk gadgeteers.

At least that solves the problems with Magic Item dependency and abilities to affect the plot.

This, and pretty much fuck them. Thats shita actually ending, the only people who actually "Baw baw" about the fucking normal man who can't do push ups and kill giants, are 40 fucking plus years old. New people who play have NO such hang ups pretty much as mentioned earlier the fucking kids who were playing yugi etc don't even blink because they grew up with cloud and sepiroth looming. Fuck I grew up with them and I'm 31. So its time to fucking give in already. Its so counter productive.

A bunch of people don't want your poxy Ki magic that comes from push-ups because it's fucking lame. They don't want to be superhuman because they can't relate to that, but they like having a few magic items that don't overshadow them because they are like tools.

Omfg. Well a "bunch of people" might go suck a barrel of cocks. . . that doesn't mean we shuold donate. Further saying shit like "Its lame" doesn't help, being a bitch for wizards, or a body used to port an intelligent sword (that may well secretly be a sorcerer) is just as fucking lame.

Now the thing about it is the people who "Hate that fuckin japanofile influence

" actually still buy the book (to bitch about it apparently like someone who wants to know the detail of thier wifes sordid affair), meanwhile they DON'T buy the book of where there are classes actually dedicated to being a magic item bitch. The people who don't mind the anime blend probably just as many as/or more than the chronic bitch party, actually buy the Tob.
Compare the weapons of legacy sales to the ToB sales.

As far as the magic items that don't overshadow the player, that shits pretty much made up, the second I put on an iron man suit I'm the fucking Iron man, and Excalibur is just as fucking important in the story as Arthur if not more.
....
Excalibur is just as important to the story as arthur, if not more.
Fuck your theory about magic items that don't outshine the player, you're making that shit up.

Whats the name of Sepiroths sword? Masamune right? Yeah, but it didn't fucking matter to the story.

People who want to play the way you suggest are a dying breed.

Novembermike · Post by **Novembermike** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 1:53 pm

FatR wrote: So... tell us please how a vanilla action hero can beat Thor (the recent movie version) at his full power and fighting seriously? I mean, he's not even particularly strong, as far as high-end characters go.

There's your problem. Comic book Thor is pretty much off the charts on the DnD power level system. You're talking about, at minimum, an epic level character. By the time you hit this level the fighter should really be getting to the supernatural Demigod status where he can do things like fly, teleport or answer the prayers of his followers.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 2:13 pm

A fighter is someone who uses Martial Abilities to get shit done.
Thor is a Fighter, Hulk is a Barbarian, Juggernaut, Captain America, Jason Stratham in any movie.

Hawkeye, Batman, Green Archer, John McClane are Rogues.

High Level D&D Fighters in my mind:
Strong as all get out
Incredibly skilled
nearly impervious to blows because of their armor
can take a serious beating
A giant store of tricks to effect the battle field
Magical weapons that allow them to get to use their skills against demons, vampires, etc.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 2:23 pm

Novembermike wrote: There's your problem. Comic book Thor is pretty much off the charts on the DnD power level system. You're talking about, at minimum, an epic level character.

Because I haven't read every obscure wankfest comic book out there, I've specifically limited him to the movie version. Only someone like you can think that he's an epic level character there. Level 13 is more like that. He's also nothing special without his hammer, but I'm bringing him just as an example of what a lower tier of high-level threats might be like.

Novembermike wrote:By the time you hit this level the fighter should really be getting to the supernatural Demigod status where he can do things like fly, teleport or answer the prayers of his followers.

Or do you, per chance, mean level 9, where epic actually starts in DnD? Then, yes.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 2:36 pm

He's also nothing special without his hammer

Nitpick: He beat up a half-dozen or so SHIELD agents without the hammer. I'd say he's a solid level 3 or 4 without it.

Novembermike · Post by **Novembermike** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 2:43 pm

FatR wrote: Because I haven't read every obscure wankfest comic book out there, I've specifically limited him to the movie version. Only someone like you can think that he's an epic level character there. Level 13 is more like that. He's also nothing special without his hammer, but I'm bringing him just as an example of what a lower tier of high-level threats might be like.

Or do you, per chance, mean level 9, where epic actually starts in DnD? Then, yes.

Even in the movie he's ridiculous. He takes blows that would pulp any mid tier (level 10-20) 3.X character without any lasting harm, he has really fast flight and powerful ranged attacks at will and IIRC he's shown to be fairly resistant to magic. He would turn any non-optimized DnD character under epic levels into a pulp within seconds.

Novembermike · Post by **Novembermike** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 2:47 pm

Chamomile wrote: Nitpick: He beat up a half-dozen or so SHIELD agents without the hammer. I'd say he's a solid level 3 or 4 without it.

SHIELD guys are supposed to be more of a top level fighting force, so I'd say they're closer to level 5-8 and he's more of a 10th level fighter even without his god powers. It doesn't translate particularly well though since DnD tends to be poor at emulating anything that isn't DnD.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 3:00 pm

If they're not "better than anyone who really lived" they shouldn't be higher than 5th level.