Tome Fighter and Foil Ability

[Kaelik]

D&D4e Rangers have 'Disruptive Strike', which is an interrupt encounter power that has you apply a large penalty to the opponent's attack.
You make a weapon attack vs the target's AC for it to succeed. It's one of the more iconic 4e powers, and a favorite of mine as it feels flavorful and has a strong in-game effect. Well, at least to me.


Why not just say foil action has to hit the target's AC to disrupt them? Then you have fighters launching an arrow into a dragon's neck right when he's inhaling, and Conan throwing his sword at evil wizards waving their arms.

So instead of foil action, why not just say "Fighters can disrupt any action as if it were a spell" and "No one can concentrate through a fighters attack"?

I don't know, because just arbitrarily declaring that no one can use the concentration skill around fighters is just as dumb as everything else but mechanically more complicated than foil action?

[Cheiromancer]

This explicitly breaks the fluff of actual VAHs people want to play, like Conan, Batman, and Madmartigan.

I agree, but the conclusion I draw is that a Conan game should not have 9th level fighters in it. If you want to hold characters to standards that real world characters could conceivably live up to, you'd probably not want to go much past level 5.

Level 6, after all, is a big jump in power for a tome fighter. He has 5 feats at level 5, and 7 at level 6. If they are all combat feats, that means 10 special abilities at level 5 (the +0 and +1 lines) and 21 at level 6 (all those BAB +6 abilities). He also doubles his base number of attacks, since the iteratives have shown up. If a 5th level fighter is still "mundane" by real-world standards, a 6th level fighter might well count as a supernatural being. Maybe you could have 6th level fighters in Conan's world (instead of multiclassing to rogue or something). But I don't see why 9th level fighters would necessarily have to fit the setting.

Granted, it would be nice to have fluff that would fit a Batman or Conan setting, but the only fluff I've been able to think of falls prey to Captain Hobo syndrome. And of all the magical abilities I can think of, a Jessica Sorrow-style "Unbelief" kind of mechanism is closest to what we recognize as mundane. If anything, it evokes the sense of modern scientific rationalism and skepticism that is antithetical to magic and superstition.

Note that if you go along with this a player wouldn't need a " handwavy 'realistic' way" of explaining why an ability is foiled. It is explicitly like how a character gathers proof that an illusion is unreal by physically interacting with it - say, by throwing a pebble at it.

It's not a great piece of fluff, but I am having trouble thinking of anything better. And I don't want to discard the basic mechanics: it gives a fighter much needed breadth, in that he can finally deal with a problem without stabbing it in the face.

[Kaelik]

And of all the magical abilities I can think of, a Jessica Sorrow-style "Unbelief" kind of mechanism is closest to what we recognize as mundane.

No.

[Omegonthesane]

And of all the magical abilities I can think of, a Jessica Sorrow-style "Unbelief" kind of mechanism is closest to what we recognize as mundane.

No.

While that's positively polite coming out of you, it's also of exactly zero value.

Which is better than shadzar but far below your par.

[Wiseman]

I think the main problem with this is that beyond a certain level, (certainly well before foil action comes online), the "martial" or "mundane" power sources have no business being where they are.

After that point, more than just foil action, anything you do runs the risk of being a captain hobo moment.

How exactly can you describe a fighter being able to do anything resembling posing an honest threat to something like a 30 foot tall dragon using only mundane abilities? How can you describe a fighter being able to survive a swing from those gigantic claws without bleeding out in like five seconds? How do you describe him taking a hit from the breath weapon and actually not ending up as a pile of ashes?

Cleric: My god protects me from harm.

Monk: I channel my Ki/Chi/Qi/Chakra/whatever to endure.

Wizard: I create arcane protections around myself.

Fighter: I'm just... tough like that?

Now you could write it as being the result of his armor's magic protecting him, and his sword hurting the beast, but that runs into another issue I have. The equipment is usable by anyone. So you have guys who have their own internal power sources, and then you have a guy who get's his stuff from his gear. But that gear can be used by the other classes too, so then why bother even having the fighter in the first place? Put his gear on the cleric or paladin and be done with it.

So in summary, I think it's the fighter, or the "mundane" power source that's the problem with this. "Martial Power" can still work but it's got to be like the monk where their fighting styles and techniques are magical.

[Omegonthesane]

I think the main problem with this is that beyond a certain level, (certainly well before foil action comes online), the "martial" or "mundane" power sources have no business being where they are.

After that point, more than just foil action, anything you do runs the risk of being a captain hobo moment.

How exactly can you describe a fighter being able to do anything resembling posing an honest threat to something like a 30 foot tall dragon using only mundane abilities? How can you describe a fighter being able to survive a swing from those gigantic claws without bleeding out in like five seconds? How do you describe him taking a hit from the breath weapon and actually not ending up as a pile of ashes?

Cleric: My god protects me from harm.

Monk: I channel my Ki/Chi/Qi/Chakra/whatever to endure.

Wizard: I create arcane protections around myself.

Fighter: I'm just... tough like that?

Now you could write it as being the result of his armor's magic protecting him, and his sword hurting the beast, but that runs into another issue I have. The equipment is usable by anyone. So you have guys who have their own internal power sources, and then you have a guy who get's his stuff from his gear. But that gear can be used by the other classes too, so then why bother even having the fighter in the first place? Put his gear on the cleric or paladin and be done with it.

So in summary, I think it's the fighter, or the "mundane" power source that's the problem with this. "Martial Power" can still work but it's got to be like the monk where their fighting styles and techniques are magical.

I was going to write a rebuttal about how the mere act of being a post-5th-level character means that as a hero in a world of heroes you have breached the limits of mere puny mortals, but then I noticed you acknowledged monks. I suspect many fluff issues would be solved if we explicitly said Fighters follow and/or discover an ancient tradition of supernatural beating-things-to-a-bloody-pulp prowess that involves wearing and wielding more metal than a Manowar concert instead of baggy flexible clothes.

[Red_Rob]

A naked 9th level fighter with a nonmagical dagger can dig his way out of a stone holding cell, eviscerate all the armed and armored guards, take several sword hits to the face in the process and probably wrestle the captain's pet owlbear into submission to boot. All this stuff about "mundane" and "captain hobo" seems nonsensical. High level characters in D&D act like mythic heroes, not regular Joes. Saying it suddenly breaks your suspension of disbelief because he disrupted a Mind Flayer is a critical imagination failure on your part.

For added shit, on top of no ranged touch, and Captain Hobo, they run into the perennial stupid fucking mundane problem: It doesn't actually require the fighter. If the fighter is literally just reminding people to visualize walls, or talking to the enemy, there is no fucking reason they can't visualize walls later when he isn't around. That narrative dissonance is bad too.

The problem with spells is that they don't actually require a wizard. Anyone can wiggle their fingers and mumble some pig latin, so why can't the Fighter just cast Fly when he needs to? Or, you know, class features are assumed to include special knowledge and training and trying to claim otherwise breaks D&D in half.

[Kaelik]

For added shit, on top of no ranged touch, and Captain Hobo, they run into the perennial stupid fucking mundane problem: It doesn't actually require the fighter. If the fighter is literally just reminding people to visualize walls, or talking to the enemy, there is no fucking reason they can't visualize walls later when he isn't around. That narrative dissonance is bad too.

The problem with spells is that they don't actually require a wizard. Anyone can wiggle their fingers and mumble some pig latin, so why can't the Fighter just cast Fly when he needs to? Or, you know, class features are assumed to include special knowledge and training and trying to claim otherwise breaks D&D in half.

The actual fucking example was the fighter teaching the players how to visualize walls to block Mindflayers. A Wizard casting a spell has not taught anyone how to cast that spell. But the example given is literally that the Fighter gave away all his special information, and so having taught everyone how to do it themselves, he is fucking useless.

That being said, a large part of the problem is that the fighter explicitly doesn't have the information you are claiming he has. He is not allowed to know exactly what action every enemy is taking at every time. He is not allowed to declare that he is interrupting X, where X is an action that the enemy took within 60ft of him, but that had no effect he can determine. He can interrupt X, but he can't know that it is X. So he has to, without knowing what the enemy is doing, still interrupt their action. That is fucking weird.

[Kaelik]

And of all the magical abilities I can think of, a Jessica Sorrow-style "Unbelief" kind of mechanism is closest to what we recognize as mundane.

No.

If you are too stupid to see how complete and universal godlike power over the entire universe and literally being a god who dictates reality is not the closest to what we recognize as mundane when you are explicitly told it isn't, then I'm not sure what I could possibly say that would more usefully explain that dictating reality with your fucking mind is not mundane.

[Red_Rob]

The actual fucking example was the fighter teaching the players how to visualize walls to block Mindflayers. A Wizard casting a spell has not taught anyone how to cast that spell. But the example given is literally that the Fighter gave away all his special information, and so having taught everyone how to do it themselves, he is fucking useless.

No, the example was that with the Fighter present and giving encouragement the party was able to resist the Mind Flayer's attack in the way he had coached them. If the Wizard tries that shit later they just can't do it quite right - the Fighter is integral to the process.

Look, practically any ability worth giving to a D&D character involves a level of skill and ability that is beyond anything that real people can do in the real world. If you don't accept "is just that good" as an explanation then Evasion, Barbarian Fast Healing, Kiai! or practically any "mundane" ability isn't going to fly.

That being said, a large part of the problem is that the fighter explicitly doesn't have the information you are claiming he has. He is not allowed to know exactly what action every enemy is taking at every time. He is not allowed to declare that he is interrupting X, where X is an action that the enemy took within 60ft of him, but that had no effect he can determine. He can interrupt X, but he can't know that it is X. So he has to, without knowing what the enemy is doing, still interrupt their action. That is fucking weird.

"Hmmm. It's up to something, I don't know what but I bet it's not good. If I can... just...."

Yes, it's kind of weird that Tome Fighters can interrupt actions without knowing exactly what they are. But it's weird that a Rogue can dodge an invisible, soundless Fireball or that a Tome Monk can cast a nonlethal Disintegrate. You either make up something that sounds like it could be plausible and move on with your life or you add weird rules exceptions for every little eventuality and the game collapses. Magic gets a free pass on this type of shit all the time, it doesn't seem so much to let the mundane classes have one every once in a while.

[Avoraciopoctules]

The actual fucking example was the fighter teaching the players how to visualize walls to block Mindflayers.

This is gold.
...I actually feel a little bad now. Let me try for a serious response.

That being said, a large part of the problem is that the fighter explicitly doesn't have the information you are claiming he has. He is not allowed to know exactly what action every enemy is taking at every time. He is not allowed to declare that he is interrupting X, where X is an action that the enemy took within 60ft of him, but that had no effect he can determine. He can interrupt X, but he can't know that it is X. So he has to, without knowing what the enemy is doing, still interrupt their action. That is fucking weird.

Personally, the Tome Fighter's flavor text has made it very easy for me to suspend my disbelief. This is the class where the description explicitly encourages the player to memorize every monster statblock and metagame for all they're worth.

The fighter can distinguish between every type of fire-breathing demon chicken there is, and come up with tailor-made tactics for each of them. There are at least half a dozen kinds of mind flayers, and the fighter probably knows the minute differences in each one's subtle cues. In-game, the iconic fighter's knowledge of monsters should put a Monster Manual to shame.

With this kind of flavor, and abilities that mechanically support it, it seems quite plausible that a level 9 fighter could devise ways to counter just about anything.

EDIT:
RedRob is right, the Fighter shouldn't gain arbitrary foreknowledge of what the enemies are going to do, but should be able to counter something without knowing what exactly it is.

[Cheiromancer]

And of all the magical abilities I can think of, a Jessica Sorrow-style "Unbelief" kind of mechanism is closest to what we recognize as mundane.

No.

You're right. The direction of fit is wrong; skepticism is an procedure whereby we figure out what is really out there. It is not like something is magical and skepticism makes it disappear; what happens is that there was never any magic and now we know it. Our minds reflect reality, not the other way around.

Do tome fighters appear in your games? How does Foil Ability get fluffed there?

[Lago PARANOIA]

All this stuff about "mundane" and "captain hobo" seems nonsensical. High level characters in D&D act like mythic heroes, not regular Joes. Saying it suddenly breaks your suspension of disbelief because he disrupted a Mind Flayer is a critical imagination failure on your part.

[*] You're getting 'is' and 'ought' confused. While the emergent properties of the rules do allow you to do that, there's nothing in the fighter class description that says that. Note that a 9th level aristocrat with high strength could do what you outlined.
[*] That scenario you outlined isn't even much past the line of 'mundane'. It's not completely non-supernatural, but, that kind of scenario would be a cakewalk for Spider-Man right after he got bitten. We're talking 9th level, you need step up your game a lot more than that.

Saying it suddenly breaks your suspension of disbelief because he disrupted a Mind Flayer is a critical imagination failure on your part.

It breaks my Suspension of Disbelief because there's no plausible explanation behind why the character can do that. There's no explanation of superpowerful genetics or magical martial arts training or the synthesis of super-science or whatever. Your logic is simply 'people can just DO that in my world, OKAY?!' which is internally consistent and all, but:

[*] Again, it causes the Captain Hobo Problem. Even settings where people do and survive weird shit 'just because' lean on the comedic side. [*] It still breaks the flavor of the Batmans and Madmartigans,
[*] It comes with its own set of flavor problems. For example, there's the issue of extrapolation, which is a huge millstone for 'just because' power sets when they're mixed with explicitly instantiated phlebtonium.

[vagrant]

Which is people want from a fighter, right? At least, that's what I've always conceptually envisioned as a fighter, myself. Not 'dude who swings a sword' because that's idiotic, but the dude that seriously knows every detail and has played out the combat scenario in his head five million times. A non-wizard tactical master.

Or do people just want 'dude who can stab shit in the face slightly better than a caster not using buff spells'? They can go fuck themselves. The Tome Fighter is in fact the fighter I've personally always imagined.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Which is people want from a fighter, right? At least, that's what I've always conceptually envisioned as a fighter, myself. Not 'dude who swings a sword' because that's idiotic, but the dude that seriously knows every detail and has played out the combat scenario in his head five million times. A non-wizard tactical master.

Or do people just want 'dude who can stab shit in the face slightly better than a caster not using buff spells'? They can go fuck themselves. The Tome Fighter is in fact the fighter I've personally always imagined.

I agree with you. My Tome Fighters midlevel and up are almost always portrayed as calculating tacticians willing to grasp at almost any advantage. Fighting straightforward or "fairly" is for Knights and Barbarians.

[Schleiermacher]

Sure. But even the Tome Fighter has the problem that it has hardly any abilities that exist outside the framework of the mechanics. A Sorcerer can throw Fireballs, a Bard can sing supernaturally inspiring songs, and a Rogue can find a weak spot on anything that breathes and some things that don't. These are "real" abilities, ones that can be described in natural language and recognized by people reading a story, or by the characters in-world. But apart from abilities he might get from feats, many of which are also pure mechanics although some of them are "real", a Fighter hardly has any abilities that can be coherently understood in-world. (Pack Mule and Forge Lore are the only ones.) He just happens to be really dangerous on the battlemat, for entirely mechanical reasons. (Combat Focus, Problem Solver, Foil Action...) A fighter can foil an Illithid's mind blast with a handful of sand. A ranger with Favored Enemy: Aberrations and 20 ranks in Knowledge: Dungeoneering can throw sand at the mind flayer all day and accomplish nothing. This is not a recipe for a convincing high-level character, even if it is an effective one.

[Kaelik]

The fighter can distinguish between every type of fire-breathing demon chicken there is, and come up with tailor-made tactics for each of them. There are at least half a dozen kinds of mind flayers, and the fighter probably knows the minute differences in each one's subtle cues. In-game, the iconic fighter's knowledge of monsters should put a Monster Manual to shame.

No, in game the fighter does not have that ability. That ability is given by the fucking knowledge skills, which he has quite arguably less access to than the Wizard.

Again, if you want the fighter to have more knowledge than a fucking Wizard of monsters, you either have to give him an ability that makes his knowledge checks higher, or give him an actual ability to know things. If you don't do either of those two things, then you can't ground the fluff on why he can do it and the Wizard can't based on how he knows the monsters better.

[vagrant]

Actually, I disagree with that. Combat Focus for me is the iconic ability that the Tome Fighter possesses, and I've in fact roleplayed every use of it.

It's really not that hard.

Arilus stood silently, controlling his breathing. He'd watched an ascetic of the Silver Sun once accomplish what he was about to attempt - he didn't have their training, but he'd spent a few months training with them, and he could at least replicate this. He wouldn't be kicking arse with nothing but a bellyful of booze and an empty mug anytime soon - but he didn't need to. All he needed was their nearly preternatural ability to act in the utter darkness the drow had thrown around him, and he'd seen enough of their ways to do that. Slowly, his reliance on the sighted world began to fade, and he could feel the minute disturbances of air and faint vibrations in the stone floor that told him where his foe was to strike next...

Combat focus to grab blindsense. That was an actual post I had to make in my Tome game the other week, and I've managed to write convincing fluff for every single ability my fighter has used.

[Judging__Eagle]

Mundane left ages ago
I can cut a boulder with my pinky finger

"Mundane" was a town that is left once you hit level six. The bulk of current human physical records tend to correlate with the idea that "level 5" is the max for Earth humans. Honestly, I'm fine with that, and it means that you can have an Earth-like world with people who can be pretty tough; but they're not on the scale on a hero about whom Epics will be written about. Napoleon and Cesar aren't Beowulf or Krishna; and that's fine.

Looking at game play, you see similar results of heroic epicness, even at "shockingly" low levels. A 6th level Fighter can have a Greataxe embedded in their torso (~12 damage), a couple of crossbow bolts lodged in their groin (~16), and a poisoned dagger in their sword-arm (~4) (i.e. 30 damage total); and still have enough kick-ass in their can of fullplate to crush the skulls of hydra and zombie alike with just their gauntleted hands.

A 10th level fighter can bore holes into solid granite with their pinky finger; or beat an Elephant to death with a teddy bear on a stick. Anyone arguing for "totally mundane fighters" are screaming into a hurricane for silence. People who want to argue that Fighters aren't Illiad or Cuchulain inspired Iron Age epic warrior characters can pound sand; since they're too stupid to know what to do with a barrel of cocks.

Martial Failure
How do I fight?! Every way that exists!

As for Foil Action; it could just as likely be called "Interrupting Spittle"; and its flavour is just as disgusting, and pragmatic as it sounds. Only a fighter is dirty enough to use a loogie as a means to stop an enemy from doing something, and spitting is just fast enough of an action, that could occur from far enough away, to be a credible "interruption".

Personally though, When I first read the ability in Races of War, I got the impression that the action involved some element of pragmatic/dirty fighting; where dirt/pebbles/sand/dart was thrown not with the intend to injure, but to disrupt.

The other largest problem with the RoW fighter that isn't being talked about is that they need to have their biggest real offensive traits fixed, which is the fact that they get combat feats every other level. Usually enough that any Fighter build can spent half of their bonus feats being unkillable; the other half being a combat monster; and keeping track of everything that they can do makes them about as complicated as a Wizard (which, to be fair, was how the class is described).

Supposedly the feats should be replaced with a Monk/Soulborn/Soldier-like laundry list of powers, that are instead always level appropriate which have a mix of Defense, Offense, and 'Utility'.

That Kaelik gets super offended about someone putting words in their mouth is pretty adorable, seeing as they've done the similar things in the past.

However, their point that making a monster "fail" and not be "interesting" is somewhat valid. Monsters with the [Awesome] Subtype should still feel and resemble "Awesome", and arbitrarily shutting them down is just that, arbitrary.

While the RoW Fighter's "Foil Action" ability is incredibly arbitrary, it does fulfill it's initial design goal: allow a Fighter to somehow survive, and be relevant at levels when monsters who can throw magic-equivalent powers that even the Wizards and Counter-Spelling Specialized Sorcerers can't turn off or shut down start becoming more prevalent.

Kaelik's suggestion that the RoW fighters Knowledge skills, of which they are expected to have a lot of, being used to trigger some sort of equivalent for Foil Action is probably a better one than the Foil Action mechanic itself on narrative flavour alone.

An immediate action, coupled with a Knowledge check of a DC around 10 + CR of target; could be enough to do things like:

-Grant the Fighter's BAB to the Saving throw of a currently used enemy ability for all allies they can communicate with

-Reduce the Movement of a creature by a ratio of 1 per 5 points of Check; or simply stop it from continuing into the range of their "foiling" ability

-Parry an attack; making it fail

Which could be a long list of potentially interrupted actions; and would make a minor entry designed to make a martial character whose largest asset to the party wasn't raw damage, viable long term into a campaign.

To be honest, the original wording of foil action pretty much spelled out how audiences are presented Vanilla Action Heroes (VAHs); they grab some sand, pebble, mud; and they don't force a concentration check. Instead they deflect or disrupt the action so that the target's actions are wasted.

Perhaps a caveat where the target's limited uses of an ability aren't expended would be an important change to Foil Action. So, the Dragon gets a mouthful of sand, but doesn't force them to wait 1d4 rounds to use their Breath Weapon. Also, it means that fighters would have to not only get within Foiling range of enemies, but also remain within such range.

[Kaelik]

JE, unsurprisingly, is still a fucking idiot.

The bulk of current human physical records tend to correlate with the idea that "level 5" is the max for Earth humans.

No, the bulk of human records tend to indicate that you are an idiot. Level 5 is just as arbitrary and pointless a line as level 1 and level 8, both of which can just as easily be argued as the representation of maximum real human and all of which is heavily dependent on when you give people what class abilities, which is the subject under fucking discussion.

A 10th level fighter can bore holes into solid granite with their pinky finger; or beat an Elephant to death with a teddy bear on a stick.

A level 1 fighter can also do both those things. So fucking what. What you just described was how HP is silly and not reality. Welcome to 1975.

That Kaelik gets super offended about someone putting words in their mouth is pretty adorable, seeing as they've done the similar things in the past.

I'm sorry, what? What the fuck did I say that makes you believe I was even regular offended, much less super offended by him putting words in my mouth. My criticism wasn't of him misquoting me, it was the complete failure of misquoting to actually address what I was saying. Analogies by substitution only work if the things being substituted are relevantly similar.

EDIT: But while we are on the subject, name two times I have done that, because I have done that once fucking ever, you shitbag.

[Omegonthesane]

I could see the Tome Fighter getting a class feature along the lines of

Murder Savant: Any self-respecting level <6?> Fighter has an encyclopaedic knowledge of those traits of monsters that are directly relevant to murdering them. When making a Knowledge roll - any Knowledge roll - to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities, he counts as having a minimum number of ranks in the relevant Knowledge skill equal to his character level. This does not stack with actual ranks in Knowledge skills.

And then once that's plugged in maybe tying Foil Action to the abilities it grants.

[codeGlaze]

The Thief and the Cobbler?

CGI, not classic animation

It was Dragon Hunters.
Cute movie.

those were knitting needles.

That's what I meant. I even Googled for the movie with "knitting needles" in the search terms.

Guess my fingers got ahead of my thought process.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Not 'dude who swings a sword' because that's idiotic, but the dude that seriously knows every detail and has played out the combat scenario in his head five million times. A non-wizard tactical master.

No wonder the fighter is doomed to suck so very, very hard. Even the people who hate fighters like me and Kaelik can't fuck up the concept as hard as their so-called fans.

Let me ask you this:
[*] Why exactly should that flavor, especially in a game like D&D, be restricted to a fighter? Why can't, and indeed shouldn't, a 'tactical master' be a barbarian or a monk or a paladin or, hell, a wizard? All of those archetypes are well-supported in fiction as being badass Mary Tzu warlords and personal fighters. Giving the fighter the role of 'tactical master' means shitting on the faces of the Shao Khans and the Raohs and Thulsa Dooms and Darth Vaders and Sun Lis and Ganondorfs and so on.
[*] What ELSE should a fighter do? What does a fighter do to justify their existence over a ranger or a paladin once we get past the 'fights really damn well in close-range squad based combat'?

[John Magnum]

Shao Kahn is a tactical master?

[Avoraciopoctules]

And Ganondorf, a poster child for getting smacked in the glowing weak point such that his attempted combat actions end up being foiled?