How do we get rid of the Fighter

[Midnight_v]

Eat a dick.

No. Dicks will not be eaten.

like Frank said the entire reason "Fighter<Wizard" is acknowledged as a thing is because their were arguments on the internet, arguments that were decisively.

I just said that you goddamn muppet.

What we want is to have the same thing happen for "mundane sword-guy can't be viable for all 20 levels".

Hmph. Okay well at least we get a least of demands.

Now how do we make that happen? Answer that motherfucker, otherwise GTFO.

Sure. Okay but this is a stream of thought. so here.
If you actually have a goal like that you have options, and honestly they're pretty fucking apparent options.
Further, to be honest, 4th edition has already started down that path for you, with their tiers of play shit.
So right there someone someone knew that the "Warduke" 20th level boss fighter, was bullshit et all.
So there. First step Target audience.
Actually, no. . . first step delegation of resources. You actually have to utilize the people at your disposal to do different shit. Like literally gather a team of people to get the domino pushed.
Like where as Frank was certainly right about getting people to acknowledge the fighter wizard paradigm, you prolly don't want that to talk 10 years.

So you do an organized internet campaign. Do it on multiple sites with different people staging the arguments. Further, to be clear, the arguments should be staged. Not that you need a ringer in the because "keep the fighter" camp will sustain itself. . . might not hurt to run the table.
You might get some traction doing something reasonable like, I don't know "writing game designers" maybe get SOMEONES ear, who might actually listen about to the issue... after we have got the buzz roaring in a few places.

So back to where I started, Target Audience. . .
Shooting for the "bulk" of D&D players is an odd thing, because they're all over the place... and the RPGNET argument is different, from TGD argument, which it different from Paizo,WOTC, and whoever else.

So... it might help if you have something you're actually trying to push. Like a format...
4th I think got that shit off the ground because they ALL classes multiclass at 10 so it lessened some of the offense for mutherfucking diehards. . . even if the wizard literally went "Wizard, Archmage, planeswalker"

Some of what you have to do is "Not be dicks" when presenting that shit. Talking to people like we talk to each other here makes them WANT to fight whatever where saying... good argument be damned. If Kaelik thinks "I'M" WHINEY fuuuuck, tip of the iceberg outside of our dysfunctional little haven.

Finally, it'd really help I think if you knew what option you wanted to choose to replace the fighter.

If someone played as beowulf level 1-6, then when what do they become after that so they don't have to kill their guy.

[Drolyt]

Now how do we make that happen? Answer that motherfucker, otherwise GTFO.

Not that I necessarily agree with Midnight, but several people have come up with ideas, and the evidence is mounting that nothing will make you happy. But let us recap some suggestions:

1. Leave the flavor as is, but make the mundane sword-guy stronger. This is totally doable, though Frank has explained some of the problems that show up when you have to do something the rules don't spell out.

2. Change the flavor. Many people want anime style charles atlas superpowers (ranging from low level stuff like Rurouni Kenshin to stuff like Naruto/Bleach/Fist of the North Star or even DBZ) but others seem dead set against that. You could also make mundane sword-guys use magic (spellswords basically, but I guess they wouldn't be mundane then) but just as many hate that idea.

3. Force mundane sword-guys to graduate to prestige classes with flavor that works better for high level.

4. Lower the power level of the game. As I've pointed out before a high level D&D spellcaster would do well as a member of the Avengers. If you want mundane sword-guy to compete maybe you shouldn't be playing Superheroes and Dragons.

Pick one or at least explain your objections to all of them. Ideally instead of demanding that other people solve the problem you would come up with some ideas of your own.

[Kaelik]

hell maybe "we" collectively CAN do something push "SOMETHING" on some devs someday, but when you start talking about "How to get rid of the fighter" you have to have things like ... "an alternative" that works better.

This fucking thread was supposed to be about coming up with alternatives. You have only ever posted in this thread to tell everyone that this thread for coming up with alternatives should never exist.

You are the fucking enemy of coming up with alternatives because your stated goal is to sabotage any attempt to come up with alternatives.

Go the fuck away, take your fighter fap team with you, and come back in 20 pages. If there still aren't alternatives, that is the part where you can claim victory.

The part where someone creates a thread saying "hey, help me come up with alternatives" and you show up and say "Fuck this thread, it should never exist, the first thing you need to accept is that the fighter is forever, you have no alternatives." That is the fucking problem.

Its just such a waste.

Then go away and leave us to waste our time coming up with solutions.

Finally, its a tired litany, but neither you nor, lago, nor mystborn, seem to producing anything for any game that supports the situation.
Its just endless critique that does little good to anyone.

Because when someone creates a goddam thread for explicitly and exactly that purpose the fifth post is someone talking about how to make fighters cool and the 9th post is from some fighter fapper sarcastically telling us that we should make threads to come up with ideas for how to make the game better without a fighter. You fucking thread troll shithead.

If Kaelik thinks "I'M" WHINEY fuuuuck, tip of the iceberg outside of our dysfunctional little haven.

I do all the time. And I have found that both the numerous hordes of fighter lovers you claim exist tend to be substantially less numerous, and that people tend to a lot less meaninglessly hostile to me than you. For example, they actually read my arguments and think about them instead of whining about how I kicked their dog five years ago.

A Brief note on alternatives:

I have of course already set out my preferred solution to the "Fighter Problem" and no one seems to ever have any valid criticism for it, so... as far as I can tell, in all future editions of D&D and Fantasy Heartbreakers the solution is there and obvious.

1) There is no class called Fighter.

2) There are lots of classes.

3) Wizards are now Conjurers, Ice Mages, Fire Mages, Beguilers, Elementalists, Dread Necromancers, Transuters.

4) Clerics are now Healers or Paladins, in the sense that they can either be a spellcasting class like Dread Necros who focus on light/healing/buffing other people, or they can be Dread Necros if they want to worship an "evil" god, or they can be Paladins, who self buff and occasionally heal, but mostly beatstick with spells.

4) Rogues are now Rogues. Yay.

5) Druids are now Druids, the nature caster, and Weres, the Shapeshifter brawler.

6) Fighters are now Monks, Blood Warriors, Storm Lords, Paladins, Rangers, Weres, or anything else you want to make that has obvious combat and non-combat abilities and a source of power to scale up. None of those sources of Power are "Martial" or "Fighting Fight" or "Grit" or "Luck" or "Spelling Bee Champion" or anything else stupid and tongue in cheek.

7) Bonus power source: Ancestry. Make a modular class that instead of being a person who uses blood or storm magic to enhance combat, you are descended from some source of power. So you can be a half dragon, or a half demon, or a half celestial, and you get a bunch of powers of lists to represent your ancestry. So if you are the descendant of Red Dragon, you take the powers that make you tough and shoot fire, and if you are descendant of a succubus you get the demon and charm themed ones.

Problems with this alternative:
Some hypothetically huge set of grognards that no one can ever find will hate it: Solution: Those people don't actually exist in very large quantities.

Midnight thinks the time I spent coming up with this idea was a huge waste of time because alternatives are impossible and the grognards, and I don't have any alternatives, and ninjas and masturbation and a bunch of other non complaints: Solution: He needs to stop whining about how impossible it is to make a game without fighters and let people who make thread about making a game without fighters make a game without fighters.

[MGuy]

After that spill over there at therpgnet I'm all for number 1 and number 6. Seriously fuck fighters. I've discovered that not only will grogs shit on any idea that the fighter should be changed to do something (anything) other than be an extra pair of hands but they will then be insulted if ANY OTHER CLASS outfights them. I believe one of them even said that a problem with 3rd edition was that it was POSSIBLE AT ALL to make a rogue that fought as good as (Read: better) than the Fighter. There was a time where I disagreed with Kaelik, where I thought all you had to do was change people's expectations for what a fighter was in a given world. There was a time I thought that if you calmly point out that not only is the fighter already more than mundane but that he needs magic to compete and he's fighting things that can use magic AND fight then you will receive nothing but bitter derision and be called mentally handicapped.

TL: DR: Fuck fighters.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I don't think that was multiple alternatives, I think that was one alternative.

[Kaelik]

I'm all for number 1 and number 6.

To be clear, I mean for all of those to be instituted simultaneously as a Final Solution to Fighters. Obviously some of those don't have that much to do with fighters, like the Wizard one, but some of them, like Druid/Cleric are designed to separate the things that involve punching from the things that don't, so that people don't whine that they wanted to punch, not cast cool battlefield control or summon spells, but still stick them with the out of combat utility that they might otherwise try to avoid if it came in the form of casting.

[Midnight_v]

This fucking thread was supposed to be about coming up with alternatives. You have only ever posted in this thread to tell everyone that this thread for coming up with alternatives should never exist.

God you are such a fucking liar. These alternatives aren't fucking new at all, they've been on the den for years and years and threads and threads. Thats all incidental to you kicking my dog... which is actually pretty ridiculous, funny, but ridiculous.
Since there are already NUMEROUS solutions to this issue, this thread was supposed to be about getting people to accept some of those solutions to the problem.

And I have found that both the numerous hordes of fighter lovers you claim exist tend to be substantially less numerous, and that people tend to a lot less meaninglessly hostile to me than you. For example, they actually read my arguments and think about them instead of whining

Provide 2 links where this has happened ever, or... accept that you're a lying piece of shit.
If people have been receptive to that argument anywhere but here:
Prove it. Google isn't going anywhere, just link me to where you're making someway with some non-denners, and I'll apologize acquiesce
and leave.
Where? Rpgnet? Wotcboards? Paizo? BGs?
None-the-less you're right. Have 20 pages.... fail over time, because you fail, not because Me and my "Fap squad" interrupted your "brilliance".

[Mistborn]

But let us recap some suggestions:

...

Pick one or at least explain your objections to all of them. Ideally instead of demanding that other people solve the problem you would come up with some ideas of your own.

Fine

1. Leave the flavor as is, but make the mundane sword-guy stronger. This is totally doable, though Frank has explained some of the problems that show up when you have to do something the rules don't spell out.

Impossible, also lurk more we've been over this a million times

2. Change the flavor. Many people want anime style charles atlas superpowers (ranging from low level stuff like Rurouni Kenshin to stuff like Naruto/Bleach/Fist of the North Star or even DBZ) but others seem dead set against that. You could also make mundane sword-guys use magic (spellswords basically, but I guess they wouldn't be mundane then) but just as many hate that idea.

3. Force mundane sword-guys to graduate to prestige classes with flavor that works better for high level.

These are essentially the same thing, and yes that is the solution. If you need a power source to get to level 11 in the first place than problem fucking solved.

4. Lower the power level of the game. As I've pointed out before a high level D&D spellcaster would do well as a member of the Avengers. If you want mundane sword-guy to compete maybe you shouldn't be playing Superheroes and Dragons.

Eat a dick. Fantasy games can totally have high powered characters especially ones the frequently assume that at high levels you can go up against gods and win.

[Foxwarrior]

go up against gods and win.

Are you thinking of Stargate, Higurashi, Prometheus (the god), or Jesus when you say this?

[Maxus]

Or Ares or Odin...

[...You Lost Me]

So because this thread is still retarded, I'm interested in starting discussion that doesn't involving Ancestry as a power source:

Namely, how do you make both dragon and half-dragon appropriate power sources for a character without diluting the feeling of dragons. It feels weird if I'm just as powerful as a half-X than I am as an X of any kind.

[Drolyt]

4. Lower the power level of the game. As I've pointed out before a high level D&D spellcaster would do well as a member of the Avengers. If you want mundane sword-guy to compete maybe you shouldn't be playing Superheroes and Dragons.

Eat a dick. Fantasy games can totally have high powered characters especially ones the frequently assume that at high levels you can go up against gods and win.

Why are you so determined to misinterpret what people say? I have no problem with Superheroes and Dragons, I just don't understand why you would even expect mundane sword-guy to be playable there.

So because this thread is still retarded, I'm interested in starting discussion that doesn't involving Ancestry as a power source:

Namely, how do you make both dragon and half-dragon appropriate power sources for a character without diluting the feeling of dragons. It feels weird if I'm just as powerful as a half-X than I am as an X of any kind.

The half-X has an additional power source that allows them to compete with X. It is just like how (in theory) a half-wizard/half-rogue should compete with a wizard. The half-X certainly shouldn't be just as good as X at what X does.

[Avoraciopoctules]

So because this thread is still retarded, I'm interested in starting discussion that doesn't involving Ancestry as a power source:

Namely, how do you make both dragon and half-dragon appropriate power sources for a character without diluting the feeling of dragons. It feels weird if I'm just as powerful as a half-X than I am as an X of any kind.

Give half-dragons a minimum starting level, and full dragons a higher minimum starting level?

[Drolyt]

So because this thread is still retarded, I'm interested in starting discussion that doesn't involving Ancestry as a power source:

Namely, how do you make both dragon and half-dragon appropriate power sources for a character without diluting the feeling of dragons. It feels weird if I'm just as powerful as a half-X than I am as an X of any kind.

Give half-dragons a minimum starting level, and full dragons a higher minimum starting level?

That kind of falls apart if you have both a half-dragon and a dragon in the same party, because then the player playing the dragon just feels like a crappy dragon.

[Wiseman]

Didn't we already determine that LA is a stupid mechanic already?

Honestly you could give the fighter a template like half-dragon or saint and really not care too much about it affecting game balance.

Even though some people might flame at this, you could have it as a class feature.

Form Advancement: At level 11 or whatever, you may gain one template.

[Avoraciopoctules]

That kind of falls apart if you have both a half-dragon and a dragon in the same party, because then the player playing the dragon just feels like a crappy dragon.

Well, if that's your problem, then you need to play a game that specifically allows for characters of different power levels in the same party. Have you tried FATE? Or something else that lets you trade in-character power for narrative imperative?

Or perhaps houseruling Ars Magica?

[Kaelik]

Namely, how do you make both dragon and half-dragon appropriate power sources for a character without diluting the feeling of dragons. It feels weird if I'm just as powerful as a half-X than I am as an X of any kind.

That is a very good point. My theory should be that the classes should be different but equally powerful, and the random difference between half dragons and dragons should just be dealt with as minor cognitive dissonance.

So for example, the Ancestry class where your father was a dragon, you would take the flight ability, and the toughness, and the elemental attacks of the specific type that your dad had. And some other utility that your dad had.

So how would this differ from your dad if he were higher level? 1) Maybe you have slower more maneuverable flight. 2) Maybe you have higher saves, but less natural armor and HP. Maybe you have a significantly lower HP pool, but a small amount of soak in the form of temp HP per round or fast healing. 3) Maybe your attacks are more like Orbs of X instead of a breath attack. 4) To switch to a specific dragon temporarily, blue dragons have Create/Destroy Water, Sound Imitation, Ventriloquism, Hallucinatory Terrain, Veil, Mirage Arcana. So maybe you get cantrips instead of Create Destroy Water, and you get Ventriloquism and some kind of very small area illusion effect at will, but you don't get Sound Imitation or the higher level higher Area illusions.

[Drolyt]

That kind of falls apart if you have both a half-dragon and a dragon in the same party, because then the player playing the dragon just feels like a crappy dragon.

Well, if that's your problem, then you need to play a game that specifically allows for characters of different power levels in the same party.

Or use a better solution than level adjustments?

[Wiseman]

Monsters are meant to be appropriate challenges for a PC of their CR. So perhaps a monster's ECL is equal to it's CR?

[Omegonthesane]

That kind of falls apart if you have both a half-dragon and a dragon in the same party, because then the player playing the dragon just feels like a crappy dragon.

Well, if that's your problem, then you need to play a game that specifically allows for characters of different power levels in the same party.

Or use a better solution than level adjustments?

What do level adjustments have to do with it? A Wizard 12, Dragon 12 and Dragonspawn 6/Cock Master 6 should be able to go on adventures just fine.

[DSMatticus]

Cock Master 6

Cockfriend (Ex): At first level, the Cock Master develops such a profound love of cocks that any cock in his vicinity immediately rises to greet him. Any delicious, flightless avians in his presence have their attitude shifted to helpful.

[Drolyt]

Well, if that's your problem, then you need to play a game that specifically allows for characters of different power levels in the same party.

Or use a better solution than level adjustments?

What do level adjustments have to do with it? A Wizard 12, Dragon 12 and Dragonspawn 6/Cock Master 6 should be able to go on adventures just fine.

How is

Give half-dragons a minimum starting level, and full dragons a higher minimum starting level?

not using level adjustments?

[Omegonthesane]

Or use a better solution than level adjustments?

What do level adjustments have to do with it? A Wizard 12, Dragon 12 and Dragonspawn 6/Cock Master 6 should be able to go on adventures just fine.

How is

Give half-dragons a minimum starting level, and full dragons a higher minimum starting level?

not using level adjustments?

Level adjustments are where you pretend you're N levels higher than you actually are for the purpose of XP and such, leaving you fucked for saves, fucked for HP, fucked for BaB, fucked for HD, and so on, and so forth.

What's being proposed here is that you need to take X levels of a hypothetical base class called Dragon in order to play a dragon that should be a level X threat/contribution just from being a dragon.

[Omegonthesane]

Cock Master 6

Cockfriend (Ex): At first level, the Cock Master develops such a profound love of cocks that any cock in his vicinity immediately rises to greet him. Any delicious, flightless avians in his presence have their attitude shifted to helpful.

I'm surprised it didn't make it into this already made class.

Or this conceptually overlapping one.

[Drolyt]

What's being proposed here is that you need to take X levels of a hypothetical base class called Dragon in order to play a dragon that should be a level X threat/contribution just from being a dragon.

Maybe you are right, but I honestly have no idea how you are getting that from what Avoraciopoctules said.