Well, part of the problem is that the wizard is a 'do everything' class. Yes, Artificers are redundant when you have wizards, but so are Beguilers, Necromancers, Summoners, etc.. If I had my druthers, the split between the classes would be something like:Ravengm wrote: Uniqueness and a wealth of usable options are what sells a character for me (both in personality and in actual mechanics). The Artificer kind of falls short in both categories, since the same idea can be duplicated with a Wizard that takes some crafting feats. Obviously it's not exactly the same, but you can more or less make a character with similar goals and sets of abilities without ever touching the Artificer.
Wizard: Specializes in blasting and quick summons.
Artificer: Specializes in transmutation and conjurations.
Warlock: Specializes in enchantment and illusions.
Diabolist: Necromancy and Divination.
Magus: Assorted elemental effects, emphasis on short-range, buffs, and 'originates from square' effects. Ephemeral, I know.
You could have some overlap like allowing a Warlock to cast a fireball occasionally but for the most part the best and earliest access to a doodad is internal to the class. Artificer I feel is probably the strongest archetype since it had a unique flavor to it even when it was being smothered conceptually by the wizard.
I'm sorry, the terms are confusing. I tried to clarify if with 'Vanilla Action Hero' to differentiate melee fighters like the Fighter from, say, Anime Fighters and Paladins and such.MGuy wrote:. I've said it before that a "fighter" only means something when you attribute a definition to it. Your definition of "fighter" for this discussion seems to specifically be " someone who can only fight" then you go on to make the assertion that fighters can't do anything else and if they are then they aren't a fighter. This of course holds true because you specifically define "fighter" as that.
But basically, when we say 'fighter' we mean 'character who could do anything a preternaturally but not impossibly skilled/athletic human could do'. Which neatly encompasses the rogue, barbarian, knight, slayer, etc. as well. We call them 'Vanilla Action Heroes' because they can be represented by characters in action movies and literature that don't have supernatural effects. Because of flawed human perception writers can fudge these characters around a bit without breaking willing suspension of disbelief. For example, you can establish a VAH as being unable to reliably dodge bullets nor tank them, but you can still fire at Bruce Willis with like a million bullets and have him still come out okay even though we know in real life these characters would've been deader than disco. But when you show Bruce Willis (or Bruce Lee or Val Kilmer or Vin Diesel or etc.) taking a harpoon through the heart and still going at full blast you've left the realm of realistic. In other words, you can show characters doing implausible things but not impossible things. The problem obviously is that in D&D you have to do explicitly impossible things after a certain point or fall behind.
Fighter sort of got used to encompass all of these characters since they're the focus of the attention; they obviously suck even compared to other Vanilla Action Heroes because no one expects them to pick a lock or lead a barbarian tribe. In theory if you inserted a game effect that got the Fighter up to Wizard level you'd boost all of their other barely-more-competent mundane normals, too, so they get the bulk of attention.
I'm saying that the Classical Fighter (and by extension other Vanilla Action Heroes) are defined as characters that don't do magical things. I am also saying that characters that don't do magical things can't get nice things at high level. Therefore Classical Fighters / DMFS / VAHs don't get nice things. In other words, when people say that I am saying a priori that Fighters Are Defined As Not Getting Nice Things, they're not seeing the syllogism.