The Fighter's Schtick

[tzor]

I had mentioned in the thread on bad threads that in my opinion the fighter was poor in part because he had no unique feature. Every class has some element of the fighter but the fighter has no element of every other class. I had briefly argued that this wasn't always the case for the fighter class. Every class needs a unique gimmick. So the question is, what is the fighter's schtick?

I've misplaced my 1E PHB so I will go to my 2E PHB for the moment. In 2E the fighter's schitck was weapon specialization. The advantage of specialization was: Melee weapons: +1 to hit, +2 to damage; bows/crossbows point blank range +2 to hit and "if the character has an arrow knocked and drawn, or a bolt loaded and cocked, and has his target in sight, he can fire at the beginning of the round before any initiative rolls are made." Fighters who specialized also got more attacks per round. They start with an extra attack every other round (so called 3/2) and at level 7 was able to make 2 attacks every round. At 13th level they were able to make 5 attacks every 2 rounds (one round of two attacks and another round of three attacks).

In looking at this 2E notion we have to consider the general 2E context. Getting multiple attacks per round was a big thing in 2E, in fact the whole notion of two weapon fighting was so big because multiple melee attacks per round was so rare. I once had a dwarven fighter decline becoming a paladin because of the loss of specialization.

But if we go to 3E what is the fighter's schtick? The wizard gets 2 attacks per round at 12th level; the cleric at 8th. Given that the ability to get it at 6th level is merely a slight advantage. (More over the near fighters; rangers & paladins, get their second attack at the same time as the fighter.) So multiple attacks is not a schtick of the 3E fighter.

Specialization is likewise not a schtick of the fighter. It takes two feats (Weapon Focus/Weapon Specialization) to mimic the melee effects of 2E. While fighters get more feats slots a human gets 2 feat slots starting at 1st level. A fighter (human) gets 3 feat slots at 1st level.

A 2nd edition warrior (the name for the super class of fighter, paladin and ranger) got 4 weapon proficiency slots at 1st level so in theory can specialize in two melee weapons at first level! (It took 3 slots to be proficient in bow weapons.)

Strength bonuses. The three fighter types could all use exceptional strength bonuses. Without this an 18 strength only gave +1 to hit and +2 damage, while it was possible for 18/00 to get +3 to hit and +6 damage. But this is not per se a unique fighter schtick.

So what should be the fighter's schtick? At this point in 3E it is not intuitively obvious to a casual observer. Basically in 3E everyone is an amateur fighter of some kind. There is nothing unique to the fighter class. Short of limiting the other classes I can't think of a new schtick that can be given to the fighter. Without a schtick, the fighter will always be inferior or at least feel inferior.

[virgil]

One method is to just give the fighter bigger and better numbers.

Attacks per round, the monk technically has the fighter beat, but their individual damage is noticeably less than the 2HF unless they give up the extra ttacks.

Weapon damage, the fighter does very well, except that iconically the barbarian holds this position with a higher potential strength (with rage) and preference for the 2HF approach.

Armor class is theoretically the fighter's domain, as he can put on the best non-magical armor, and then follow it up with a plethora of magic like everyone else; thus having the highest potential AC. The problem is that the cleric is in the same position with its proficiencies, and probably better with self-buffs.

This all turns out for some to believe that the fighter's current schtick is to be a jack-of-all-trades with non-magical fighting tactics, hence the plethora of feats so they can specialize in two (maybe three) styles to choose from in any fight.

However, the jack-of-all-trades suffers in D&D, especially when the assumed method of obtaining such (feats) is less than ideal when it's the sole source of reaching their peak.

Even if we assume their schtick is jack-of-all-trades, it's not a terribly broad range to be a jack-of, non-magical combat. Any attempts to raise a fighter's numbers in one of the non-magical combat forms I've listed will result in them stepping on the proverbial niche that their competitors are expected to hold, which encourages us to raise the bar for them. This isn't necessarily bad, as it would still place them below the bar of casters, but messing with the fighter requires a cascade effect of house-ruling.

[shirak]

The problem, I believe, is not what the fighter's schtick is. The vast majority of people know what a fighter is supposed to do: he fights! The problem is, what does fighting entail?

In the Chinese mythos, you have the warriors running around in armor armed with swords and then you have the actual fighters doing Kung-Fu acrobatics. The Fighter fights vastly better than the warrior (or anyone else for that matter) because he has Kung-Fu.

In the Christian influenced Middle Ages themed mythos of D&D, the warriors run around in armor armed with swords and the Fighters are doing the same thing! Really, there is no distinguishing feature between Fighter and Warrior and as Frank proved a higher level Warrior owns a Fighter. The Kung-Fu Fighter equivalents are the guys that are one with nature (Ranger), blessed by the gods(Paladin) or psychopathic savages (Barbarian).

The question is, do we really need a Fighter? I'd rather have a single Fighter with selectable Class Features rather than a dozen empowered Fighters running around. And to me, that's what a Fighter is: the guy who is good at fighting because he can learn from others and apply the lessons to fighting.

So my Fighter would be more like ancient heroes. A guy who is so awesome at fighting that he has proceeded to another level of ability. His prowess with the sword is Heroic: dreamed by mortals, feared by enemies and really, really magical/divine/psionic/whatever in nature.

[Fwib]

The Munchkin Players Handbook fighter gets 1 more BAB than his class levels and iterates his attacks every 4 extra BAB rather than every 5.

I don't see any mention of multiclassing, but I'm sure that if there was, it would say: use the best plusses.

[MrWaeseL]

Here's an easy way of making the fighter a viable "fighter": Go through the Monster Manual, and select which monsters the fighter should do well against (Bruisers? Spellcasters? Puzzle monsters? etc), totalling roughly 1/4 of all monsters. Then decide upon abilities to make it work. Presto! Instant class worthwhile to take along on adventurers and able to hold his own. This method is more on the core rogue than core wizard power level, though.

1183585405[/unixtime]]One method is to just give the fighter bigger and better numbers.

This is a very bad idea, because it pushes non-fighter fighting classes off the RNG, which creates a whole host of new problems. Bigger numbers are almost never a good balance solution.

[tzor]

The problem with saying "the fighter fights," is that everyone fights. Even the wizard pokes people with the dagger. One has to say more than the fighter fights.

Perhaps a better question is "what is the warrior's schtick," and apply that to the fighter. So for this I turn to Wiki for some simple, probably incorrect definition.

A warrior is a person habitually engaged in warfare. In tribal societies engaging in endemic warfare, warriors often form a caste or class of their own. In feudalism, the vassals essentially form a military or warrior class, even if in actual warfare, peasants may be called to fight as well. In some societies, warfare may be so central that the entire people (or, more often large parts of the male population) may be considered warriors, for example in the Iron Age Germanic tribes or the Medieval Rajputs.

OK let me see where I am going with this. Everyone fights to some degree, but a true fighter/warrior someone who is experienced and level headed on the field of combat. So what combat related things can we give the fighter that are potentially very useful and something that other classes might be jealous of.

• AOO Advoidance? The ability not to draw attacks of opportunity.
  
  
• Command ally? The ability to boost an ally up to the fighter's current initiative count through the power of command.

It's not that he has to be better. Anyone can become a fighter, wizards do it through spells, druids turn into a fighter type animal, etc. You need to have something that no one else can easily take or duplicate without taking levels in fighter. Then the fighter will have his Schtick.

[Neeek]

1183592894[/unixtime]]

OK let me see where I am going with this. Everyone fights to some degree, but a true fighter/warrior someone who is experienced and level headed on the field of combat. So what combat related things can we give the fighter that are potentially very useful and something that other classes might be jealous of.

How about just granting the fighter more actions, that can be used as readied action in response to various events? That should do a pretty good job of recreating good judgment and quick reactions on the battlefield.

[technomancer]

I like that, allow them to have X readied actions at any given time, for things like Charges (hey look, damage multiplier from my spear!), for spellcasting attempts, or even movement. I wouldn't allow readied actions for "if they're in of me range, I hit them." That's just a lame way of getting extra attacks.

[Judging__Eagle]

Doesn't the RoW fighter already have the Foil Action ability?

Or are we looking for other options to use on a fighter?

[technomancer]

I assumed this was about Core fighters, since RoW fighter already have a pretty good deal. Plus, allowing free readied actions is a bit more flexible than Foil Action, because you can do more than just stop the spellcaster from casting spells, you can trip, grapple, shoot, tanglefoot, or otherwise annoy him.

[Endovior]

What about Book of Nine Swords kind of stuff?

Ignoring some of the other junk present, Warblades seem pretty decent... if the system was polished a little, you could basically have a spells/maneuvers dichotomy between the magic/nonmagic classes. Assuming you balanced the one against the other, that's all you'd need.

[Captain_Bleach]

Tome of Battle is a step in the right direction, and I enjoy several aspects of the combat system. Any effort to bridge the massive gap between non-full casters and full casters are welcome by me, unless they really, really, screw up.

[shirak]

1184273906[/unixtime]]Tome of Battle is a step in the right direction, and I enjoy several aspects of the combat system. Any effort to bridge the massive gap between non-full casters and full casters are welcome by me, unless they really, really, screw up.

No, it bloody well isn't. Apart from the fact that the book is made of crap, the actual Fighter fix, the Warblade, is nowhere near level appropriate. Bridging the gap is wrong. The whole point is to make the gap not be there! Until and unless WotC realizes that their very design philosophy is in the wrong, we'll keep having problems.

Btw, I hated the flavor of the book a lot more than the mechanics and the crunch was too damn specific to the fluff. In the remote case that I ever use this I'll have to rewrite more than half the book but it still annoys me.

[Captain_Bleach]

I can understand your anger, as WotC promises equality between non-casters and casters, but how would one effectively get rid of the "gap?"

[shirak]

1184276466[/unixtime]]I can understand your anger, as WotC promises equality between non-casters and casters, but how would one effectively get rid of the "gap?"

That's a very long discussion. Basically, there's Frank and Keith's way of giving the Fighter a lot of Ex problem-solving abilities and then there's the Wuxia way of making awesome warriors magical. I much prefer a mix of the two as I like Ancient Greek mythology and I want to be able to model both Odysseus and Achilles.

In any case, Fighters need to be able to produce spell-equivalent effects at the appropriate level. Any solutions that does not meet this simple criterion fails on basic principles.

[Captain_Bleach]

Just so you know, I absolutely LOVE the Races of War Fighter, although one of my players does not agree with K and Frank's opinion that "Fighters are often handed to beginning players in order to help them learn the ropes. This is a cruel practice that dates back to when the Fighter was explicitly a weak class that players were forced to play to the (quit proximate) death if for whatever reason they didn't roll well enough on their stats to play a real character."
~Quoted from Races of War

[RandomCasualty]

1184280434[/unixtime]]Just so you know, I absolutely LOVE the Races of War Fighter, although one of my players does not agree with K and Frank's opinion that "Fighters are often handed to beginning players in order to help them learn the ropes. This is a cruel practice that dates back to when the Fighter was explicitly a weak class that players were forced to play to the (quit proximate) death if for whatever reason they didn't roll well enough on their stats to play a real character."
~Quoted from Races of War

If anything I always found the cleric was the class to be handed off, at least in 2nd/1st edition.

"Yeah, um... we have a bunch of fighters and wizards who actually do stuff... now just be a cleric and prepare all cure light wounds and then heal us when we need it."

[tzor]

My first character in 1E was a cleric. I always thought they were good characters at low levels because unlike wizards they weren't a one spell pony.

[shirak]

1184280689[/unixtime]]If anything I always found the cleric was the class to be handed off, at least in 2nd/1st edition.

I wouldn't know. My first character under 2nd Edition was a psychometabolism-focused psionicist. Known as town-slayer because of the turn to fog and drain everybody you touch trick.

[MrWaeseL]

I've been playing wow again lately, and I noticed how fighters and wizards there have about the same number of tricks. They might not be equal in power, but someone who would want the fighter to use 'non-magic spells' should look into it.

[Judging__Eagle]

1184502639[/unixtime]]I've been playing wow again lately, and I noticed how fighters and wizards there have about the same number of tricks. They might not be equal in power, but someone who would want the fighter to use 'non-magic spells' should look into it.

It should be noted that games like WoW have other interesting features, such as:

1. Monsters don't do cool shit. Ever.

There are no demons that teleport when surrounded or fly out your reach or dragons that you have to fly in order to fight.

2. Fighters are only good b/c they can taunt.

If WoW fighters couldn't direct enemies at themselves, then they would be unable to used as a character.

In D&D monsters can, as it stands, walk around from a useless fighter and go after the cleric or wizard.

In WoW, the crappy geared fighter can still compete if they know how to use their AoE attack to maintain aggro (so that healing on him won't pull his non-targeted enemies to go after the healer) and then armour breaking, sheild bashing etc. to generate tons of aggro so that the wizard, shadow priest, hunter and rogue can attack with impunity.

3. WoW (and most MMOs) are not cool, at all.

Seriously, at level 30 I can't ride a flying dragon, flying horse or whatever.

I can't kill 30 level 10 guys at once and I'll never get abilities that simply win battles b/c I'm able to use my powers in a creative manner.

Most MMOs are just number scaling, which is boring, since it's the same game all the way through.

[MrWaeseL]

yeah MMO's suck ass in that regard, but the wow warrior is a lot more interesting than the D&D fighter, and gets cool out of combat stuff as well. Wow is far from perfect but D&D could pick up some clues from it.

[Nerem]

WoW's main problem is that its, well, an MMORPG. You can only go so far with them. Though WoW actually does having flying horses and stuff, its just level 40, not 30. It works on a different level scale then D&D totally, so level 70 in WoW is like level 20 D&D.

But Warriors are much more fun then D&D fighters, because they have multiple schticks they can use. Wanna be the Tank? Wanna be the melee smasher that ruins the enemy? Or do you want to be the guy who can crit someone over and over and over and apply massive amounts of damage with many many attacks? A Warrior has a LOT of useful options in WoW.

[CalibronXXX]

1184533445[/unixtime]]But Warriors are much more fun then D&D fighters, because they have multiple schticks they can use. Wanna be the Tank? Wanna be the melee smasher that ruins the enemy? Or do you want to be the guy who can crit someone over and over and over and apply massive amounts of damage with many many attacks? A Warrior has a LOT of useful options in WoW.

That doesn't sound like multiple schticks at all; it sounds more like the "Hitting things and getting them to hit you back" schtick.

I don't have a lot of experience with WoW, but I know the Everquest Necromancer had a lot of schticks, especially at mid to high levels. I've been told that the WoW Warlock plays somewhat similar to the EQ Necromancer, but not as objectively awesome against level appropriate threats.

[Falgund]

In WoW, depending on role, warriors have the following shticks (in groups):
* Tank Warrior:
- Keep all the mobs focused on self
- Reduce the received damage as much a possible
- Keep one buff on the group/maybe some debuffs on the mobs
- Occasionally counter/reflect a mob spell

* DPS Warrior:
- Do as much damage as possible in melee without having the mobs focus on self
- Keep one buff on the group/maybe some debuffs on the mobs
- Occasionally counter a mob spell

Characters can (and should) specialize in one of those 2 roles, but can still assume the other one (with less results, of course).


Warlocks have the following shticks:
- Do as much damage as possible in ranged without having the mobs focus on self, using mainly damage debuff, sometimes zone spells
- Keep one debuff on the mobs
- Use the demon pet as needed (often: sacrifice it/keep it in the correct place, and then forget it, or steal its mana when needed)
- Convert your life to mana
- Occasionally Fear/Banish some mobs


I think the class having the most shticks is either the paladin or the druid, having 3 or 4 different roles (Tank, Melee DPS and Healer for the Paladin, Tank, Melee DPS, Healer and Ranged DPS for the Druid), and having unique buff/debuff mechanic (Paladin have and aura that buff their group, can put targeted buff on any character, and can buff its weapon and release it as a debuff on the mob, refreshing the debuff by hitting the mob).