Why do they hold back the cool toys until level 25-30?

[Psychic Robot]

I keep hitting the spacebar. It doesn't work.

[Manxome]

I am sad.

I just reactivated my old Guild Wars account, and I realized that GW is what 4e wishes it could be. It does everything 4e attempts to do, and it does it without failing miserably. The mesmer actually controls combat. He doesn't shoot fireballs while the 4etards jerk-off over how killing minions is battlefield control, he hexes you so that you can't use your abilities without killing yourself.

Not only that, but the Mesmer has at least three recognizably different ways of doing that job (disincentives, interrupts, energy denial), all with substantially different flavor and tactics behind them. And he can do all of them noticably better than any other class in the game.

Guild Wars has an amazing variety of abilities. It also has multiclassing that lets you do interesting and distinctive things with your secondary class while still making your primary class important.

So, yeah, at least in terms of combat, I could probably believe that Guild Wars does everything that 4e tries to do, only good. And it predates 4e by several years.

[Voss]

Honestly, take shock trooper and it only proves the point even more that the 3E character is one dimensional and boring. A shock trooper fighter is effective, but he's a one trick pony. His abilities amount to one big uber charge as his only tactic that he basically tries to spam as much as possible. And he doesn't do anything interesting. It's just "I charge for a big damage number." No knockback, no status conditions, just raw numeric damage.

Yes, if you focus on a feat that I didn't even mention and handwave the rest off as you, personally don't use them, so they don't exist, then yes, the 3e fighter is going to be boring. I was even generous and didn't point out that most of the 4e fighter powers are one use variations of the exact same thing.

I think I'm done. You're living inside your own head, where only your own opinion matters, and any actual evidence is waved off as something irrelevant. It doesn't matter what anyone says to you, because you parse it through your own preconceptions and ignore anything that disagrees with your opinions. And sadly, you can't even explain why you hold those opinions to anyone else. We're apparently just supposed to accept that because you say so, 4e is good, despite all the numeric and factual evidence that its complete shit at being an RPG. Hell, it doesn't even rate when compared to Advanced Heroquest/Warhammer Quest as a fun and interesting board game!

[Tydanosaurus]

And none of this stuff has limitations like "once per encounter" or "once per day" it's all on tap every round with no preamble.

To be fair, the 3.5 Fighter doesn't have to simulate the short tick, medium tick, and long tick recharges of a MMO Tank, or have those simulated recharges correspond to ordinary, nice, and very cool (theoretically) powers. Of course, 4.0 then assigned those recharges almost randomly, but there you go.

AFAICT, rather than balancing things 4.0 just made everything relatively sucky, and anything that looked vaguely abusable became a Daily Power. That really does solve problems doesn't it? Does it really matter if you can kill anything w/ Ray of Buttkicking if it only hits 50% of the time, and you can only use it once a day?

[RandomCasualty2]

You're living inside your own head, where only your own opinion matters, and any actual evidence is waved off as something irrelevant.

Honestly, I feel the same way about you. You seem to be anti 4E and determined to bash it regardless of what the facts may be.

I mean really, what kinds of useful effects can a 3.5 fighter produce? Trip, sunder, disarm. And only one of those is good against monstrous opponents (though even then it doesn't work on opponents two sizes larger than you).

While it's certainly true that a 3.5 fighter has many more ways to shift his numbers around, trade attack for AC, trade AC for damage, or trade attack for damage, as far as really interesting options, you don't have many at all, not in a realistic fighter build anyway. Most of your so called "options" are just about building big numbers. And that's not really an option at all.

It's not really that the 4E fighter is super exciting to play, it's just that compared to the 3.5 fighter, almost anything looks interesting. The 3.5 fighter is dull as a stone, the 4E fighter is at least a multicolored stone. Still kind of boring but at least he can hold your attention for a few minutes.

[virgil]

After some thought, I'm putting the 3E and 4E fighter in roughly the same category of 'interesting abilities'. One can pull off a small number of tricks with endless reapplication, the other can pull of a wider range with the same level of success at an extreme sacrifice in endurance. One represents the worst the system has to offer, the other represents close to everything the system has to offer (one facet among many).

[Bigode]

What the fvck, man? In 3.5, there are classes that are not retarded - how is it not making more classes look like (most of) the rogue/sorcerer the actual solution? Also, Denizens also went over how 4E's a downgrade in terms of options from the fvcking books they admitted to be 4E playtest (the WotC Tomes)! To be specific, if the game looked like those 2 books, only without the craptastical editing (which should be easy, given that I'm talking about basically reprinting errata-ed books), it'd already be a ginormous improvement from 4E.

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

It's not really that the 4E fighter is super exciting to play, it's just that compared to the 3.5 fighter, almost anything looks interesting. The 3.5 fighter is dull as a stone, the 4E fighter is at least a multicolored stone. Still kind of boring but at least he can hold your attention for a few minutes.

RC, you know as well as I did that anyone with the slightest interest in 3E never played 'pure' fighters. The rules might have pretended that people did, but we know better. People either multiclassed or took levels in prestige classes.

Frank's example was intentionally weighted to the conservative end. So I find it profoundly unfair that you're comparing an average/well-made 4E fighter to a crappily made 3E one.

Shit, let's talk blackguard. It's a stupidly-made class that doesn't know what the hell it's supposed to be doing, but here's the idiotic stuff you get as a level 1 paladin/level 10 blackguard

Sneak attack
Poison Use
Dark Blessing
4th level spells
Ability to command undead
Stupid mount
Aura of Despair
Smite Good

All that stuff is stupid and it sucks as far as 3E standards go, but it's at least INTERESTING. How the hell is a 16th level 4E fighter supposed to compete on a flat-out 'hold your interest level' with that?

Knock someone back 3 squares? Inflict a status ailment for one fricking round? Not even a Blackguard would wipe his ass with that shit, but 4E guys are telling us we're supposed to be excited about that bullshit and how much better sword-based classes are now.

[Voss]

You're living inside your own head, where only your own opinion matters, and any actual evidence is waved off as something irrelevant.

Honestly, I feel the same way about you. You seem to be anti 4E and determined to bash it regardless of what the facts may be.

OK, then, what facts make 4e actually good? What actually works? Whats actually vaguely interesting?

It isn't weapons. The numbers there yield a hard result of bastards swords being really good, a couple others being passable and the rest out right sucking.
It certainly isn't ranged weapons, because 4e ranges are a sick, sad joke.

It isn't feats. These are all trivial bonuses that barely have any effect on the math, and less effect on the characters- they actually decided that weapon focus and fucking *dodge* was a balance point to aim for.

It isn't the skill system. The math straight up doesn't work.

It isn't the races. They're each pigeonholed by their stats- they each work for 1 or two classes and suck for everything else. They aren't evocative, they're min/max tools.

It isn't the classes, the powers amount to damage that doesn't scale with hit points and maybe a half-dozen 'special effects' that aren't even very good. Or interesting.

It isn't the magic items. Crit-dependency doesn't make anything interesting, and the math fails all over the place, especially the cost which makes the economy straight up explode.

It isn't the railroading or the lack of the ability to tell any story that doesn't revolve around combat.

It isn't monsters. They aren't interesting either, and they get actively worse as they go up in level. Solos and elites and minions either explode the system or actively make a mockery of it. Once again a basic expression of the dev's complete lack of math skills.

It certainly isn't exception based design, because they took that to an extreme where any sense of consistency and believability is apparently something needs to be hunted down and raped to death.

So really, what the fuck is good about this edition? I'm honestly curious, because there doesn't seem to be any subsystem that isn't totally fucked. There are a few passable ideas here and there (healing that actually scales with total hit points isn't bad. And... um.. hmm. The potential for dex based warrior types. Too bad they're rogues, and the actuality of combat pretty much fails unversally.), but the passable ideas are retreads of older ideas [rituals] and buried under a ton of garbage that makes them unworkable.

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

It isn't feats. These are all trivial bonuses that barely have any effect on the math, and less effect on the characters- they actually decided that weapon focus and fucking *dodge* was a balance point to aim for.

You're fucking me, right?

Weapon focus is way too good of a feat for this game. It gives you an always-on +1 attack bonus with one weapon and anyone can take it.

So really, what the fuck is good about this edition?

Here's what's good about this edition. If you play the game the way they intended you to, then everyone will stay on the RNG for levels 1-30. It's a pretty good design goal, actually and they more or less succeeded at it. There are some notable problems like the warlock being the worst striker class and the worst class in the game for about 16 or so levels and a team of 4 clerics beating the shit out of supposedly 'balanced' class configurations. But yeah.

Yeah. Apparently that's supposed to be the big selling point of the game. They simplified the game so that if you play it the way they want you to, everyone will be able to contribute more or less equally.

[Username17]

What Voss did was to compare a random selection of 4e powers and a rndom selection of 3.5 Core Rules feats and determined indeed that the number of "things" that a Fighter could do in each game system was about equl, as indeed it is. In reality, the kind of character who is going to be really existing with Improved Bullrush is going to be using Shock Trooper, but according to the 4diots, that's an "unfair comparison" because 3.5 has the advantage (such as it is) of having the Complete Warrior and shit while 4e is supposedly only partially complete because it has just the Core Books.

Honestly, take shock trooper and it only proves the point even more that the 3E character is one dimensional and boring. A shock trooper fighter is effective, but he's a one trick pony. His abilities amount to one big uber charge as his only tactic that he basically tries to spam as much as possible. And he doesn't do anything interesting. It's just "I charge for a big damage number." No knockback, no status conditions, just raw numeric damage.

And of course it behooves us to note that most 4e powers aren't really different or interesting. Reckless Strike allows you to, once per battle, give up 2 points of to-hit and get a small damage bonus. Counting that as a "thing" that a character can do is precious close to counting each distinct point of Power Attacking that a Fighter can do in 3rd edition as a "thing.

Honestly while 4Es powers are kind of bland, 3Es fighter powers were much more so. The 4E fighter can stun people, push them, trip them, force them to come toward him, prevent them from escaping, protect his allies and so forth.

The 3E fighter. Well he had basically damage and maybe one status effect. Yeah, seriously. If you were a trip fighter you could trip, if you specialized in sunder, then you could sunder. But you're just not going to have many status effects you can dish out because they require highly specialized builds. Even pushing someone one square without provoking an AoO is a monumental task that requires you burn a feat. Getting to be able to move as part of your attack requires a 3 feat chain, and that won't even let you full attack, only standard.

RC, you are seriously losing this discussion. Badly.

A Shock Trooper character does a lot more than just charge for massive damage. That's something that they do, but it's not all they do. They also push enemies around causing them to fall down and be subjected to bonus attacks. And try to trip people and subject them to bonus attacks. And push people in weird diagonal arcs over the battlefield if that is for some reason important. And they can fight defensively or inaccurately for massive damage. These are all things that they do, all the time, over and over again. And it's all fairly useful as far as D&D Fighter stuff goes. It's what passes for a decent and extremely simple build.

But you aren't winning any converts by dismissing this kind of stuff as unimportant when one of the shiny things that a 4e character gets is Spinning Sweep once a god damn encounter. An attack that does some damage and knocks an enemy prone looks an awful lot like an Improved Trip attack that a Shock Trooper Fighter from 3rd can do at-will. Power Attack isn't a really exciting option, but it's not particularly different from the "Reckless Strike" that the 4e fighter gets once per god damn encounter. Standing there and taking a Full Attack is not inherently that great, but again it is not super different from the "Rain of Blows" that rounds out the last encounter power that our 4e Fighter is blessed to know. For the 4e Dailies, the Fighter gets Brutal Strike (a one-time damage bonus), and Dizzying Strike (a melee attack that ends enemy movement) - which are more than made up for by the fact that the 3rd edition fighter has the Heedless Charge option and can make Improved Trips as opportunity attacks that end movement and do damage. The 4e Fighter can get Cleave to do bullshit tiny damage on an adjacent enemy and the Shock Trooper can Domino Charge two people at a time, the 4e Fighter can Tide of Iron and do some damage and push people around, while the Shock Trooper can directed bullrush and produce the same effect.

And now... we're literally out of 4e attack powers and the Shock Trooper can still Expertise his AC up into turtle world if for some reason that's important. Seriously, power for power a basic 3rd edition Shock Trooper can do everything you can do, and he can do it better. And I'm saying this not because 3rd edition Fighters are good or even "not bad," but because literally every character in 4e is bad. And limited. And uninteresting.

Even the painfully limited and underwhelming options available to the 3rd edition fighter are literally more game shaking, more diverse, and more available than the options given to the 4e Fighter. The options are just color coded and itemized in giant text blocks and printed up as cards to make them look bigger and more impressive. But Having a special Reckless Strike card isn't actually more optionarific than having Power Attack, it's actually less so because you can't mix and match it with Trips and Charges.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

A Shock Trooper character does a lot more than just charge for massive damage. That's something that they do, but it's not all they do. They also push enemies around causing them to fall down and be subjected to bonus attacks. And try to trip people and subject them to bonus attacks. And push people in weird diagonal arcs over the battlefield if that is for some reason important. And they can fight defensively or inaccurately for massive damage. These are all things that they do, all the time, over and over again. And it's all fairly useful as far as D&D Fighter stuff goes. It's what passes for a decent and extremely simple build.

Like I said, I've never really seen anyone actually use improved bull rush. And shock trooper doesn't tend to go well with a trip style build, mostly because improved trip requires expertise, and shock troopers are all about dumping AC pretty much. You're more or less probably going to combine shock trooper with karmic strike and not care one way or the other if you happen to get hit all the time.

And shock trooper is really so awesome that you'd never want to bother bullrushing or some other shit when you could just be charging. The end result really is a one trick pony. Because really, you pick up pounce and you pick up shock trooper and that's all you need. Fuck AC, this is 3.5 and glass cannon is the way to go. If you want a little defense, then you pick up a cloak of displacement.

Honestly, in all the years I've played 3.5 I've never seen a fighter that wasn't a one trick pony. You had spring attack fighters, trip fighters, uberchargers, archers, Expertise AC builds and a few others. But for the most part, you pick one thing and that's what you do. I mean, yeah shock trooper fighters can do other stuff, if you want to waste your round you can bull rush, but it's just not an effective tactic. In all cases, you're best off just ubercharging unless you happen to be in that weird situation where every one of your 6 man party happens to be melee based and they're all surrounding the enemy. Then a bull rush might be remotely useful.

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

Honestly, in all the years I've played 3.5 I've never seen a fighter that wasn't a one trick pony. You had spring attack fighters, trip fighters, uberchargers, archers, Expertise AC builds and a few others. But for the most part, you pick one thing and that's what you do. I mean, yeah shock trooper fighters can do other stuff, if you want to waste your round you can bull rush, but it's just not an effective tactic. In all cases, you're best off just ubercharging unless you happen to be in that weird situation where every one of your 6 man party happens to be melee based and they're all surrounding the enemy. Then a bull rush might be remotely useful.

And this is different from 4E sword-based classes how?

Let's not fuck ourselves. Unless you play a rogue with a light blade, you can't be in melee combat at all. Half the powers on a warlord or ranger's list tend to not be even really usable to them generically unless you gimp your character or are doing something weird (like a Stormwarden Ranger).

[Username17]

Like I said, I've never really seen anyone actually use improved bull rush. And shock trooper doesn't tend to go well with a trip style build, mostly because improved trip requires expertise, and shock troopers are all about dumping AC pretty much.

These two statements go together hand in hand. I'll try to put this in very simple language, since you've obviously never seen someone actually play a Shock Trooper build with any attempt at skill or finesse:

• Shock Trooper Gives you Free Trip Attempts.
  Improved Trip gives you free attacks against tripped enemies.

So yeah. If you haven't seen anyone make use of a bullrush build - the thing that Shock Trooper is literally based upon; and you are telling me with a straight face that Improved Trip does not combo with Shock Trooper; then frankly you are telling me that you have no referential experience on this topic and have not read the relevant abilities any time recently.

I mean, there's lots more to it. Like the fact that Expertise is fucking great for a character who spends a lot of time doing huge damage and having a very poor defense - it means that you can turtle up and still draw fire because enemies have already seen you burst damage and presumably expended a bunch of attacks on you. But the core point here is that your thesis is objectively bullshit and based entirely on an admitted complete lack of personal experience on your part.

-Username17

[Koumei]

Can I just ask why the fuck we're comparing Fighters? I mean, that's just going out of our way to handicap 3E in this comparison, and people who understand how things work don't play fighters in 3E. It's like using an Adept (whoops, that probably has more interesting options) or Expert as a point of comparison.

Try the rogue, or the caster of your choice. I don't even have to pull up examples, because we all know that, with the possible exception of the first couple of levels, the 3E classes will make the 4E ones look small in the pants as far as options, abilities that are actually different from each other, and general use and fun are concerned.

[Voss]

Honestly, in all the years I've played 3.5 I've never seen a fighter that wasn't a one trick pony. You had spring attack fighters, trip fighters, uberchargers, archers, Expertise AC builds and a few others. But for the most part, you pick one thing and that's what you do. I mean, yeah shock trooper fighters can do other stuff

I've got nothing. Partly because unless you stop playing at level four or so, you have too many feats to just do one thing. You have to branch out, just because you have to spend those feats on *something*.

And unless you missed it, having other stuff to do was kind of the point. The 3rd edition fighter, a class seriously scraping the bottom of the pool of the entire fucking edition, seriously has other stuff to do. The 4e fighter *doesn't have* other stuff to do. By round 4, he's shot his load, and largely emptied his options, unless you want to spend more than one daily power in a given encounter, and you don't want to do that unless you're facing a solo monster.

Also...

I've never really seen anyone actually use improved bull rush...
in all the years I've played 3.5 I've never seen a fighter that wasn't a one trick pony

You are not the sum total of D&D experience. Based on those comments alone, I wonder what that experience was.

[Voss]

Can I just ask why the fuck we're comparing Fighters? I mean, that's just going out of our way to handicap 3E in this comparison, and people who understand how things work don't play fighters in 3E. It's like using an Adept (whoops, that probably has more interesting options) or Expert as a point of comparison.

Its to illustrate a point. Actually a couple points.
1- Its to point out that 4e characters really don't have more options, regardless of what class they are.
2- Its to point out that 4e characters are hard pressed to compete with the absolute shit characters of 3rd edition, and thats just fucking sad. That deserves a giant 'FAIL' stamp, on well, pretty much everything.


For exhibit B... I present... the Monk!

No, really, I don't even need to write this up. But the monk seriously has a golf bag full of shit he can do, even if its ineffective. And based on the 4e math, he's pretty much in a similar ball park, effectiveness-wise.

If we use any other classes out of the 3.5 PH (let alone anywhere else), it would just be sad. It isn't even worth doing, because it should seriously shame certain WotC people into slitting open their bellies.

[JonSetanta]

Can I just ask why the fuck we're comparing Fighters? I mean, that's just going out of our way to handicap 3E in this comparison, and people who understand how things work don't play fighters in 3E. It's like using an Adept (whoops, that probably has more interesting options) or Expert as a point of comparison.

This.
The trip/no-trip issue is moot when you bring in paralysis, polymorphing, creating pitfalls beneath a charging character, flat-out terrain control such as Wall of Stone. I could continue for a page with anti-melee countermeasures.

Isn't that what 4e was meant to prevent? Everything was hyped to be 'more balanced' but all I'm seeing is 'differently balanced'.

[Voss]

No, no. It really is pretty balanced.
But everybody got balanced to 'suck'.
And I really mean that... RC is seriously trying (and failing) to prove that 4e characters are just as good as 3rd edition fighters. That isn't something that anyone should have been shooting for, ever.

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

Isn't that what 4e was meant to prevent? Everything was hyped to be 'more balanced' but all I'm seeing is 'differently balanced'.

It's a retarded design goal in that instance.

Why would they balance things around the least interesting class in the game? I mean, take the blackguard example. They can put a lot of bullshit on their character sheet, but it's still on the whole bullshit. You don't give a rat's ass about, say, aura of fear for the most part but it hands out a -2 to saves whenever the fuck you feel like it. That's supposed to be a high-level stance in 4E, I shit you not.

No, seriously. Look at the stormwarden. They have one of the few attack-boosting powers in the game--a stance which gives a +2 to attacks and a -2 to defenses. It doesn't even help out your buddies, like the blackguard's ability.

That's what has us so bitter and hateful. Not only did they balance things towards the worse class in the game (a single-classed fighter) but they also took AWAY toys from said worst class in the game.

I really don't fucking understand why they did that. In 3E, you could just, you know, get the fuck over the incorrect labels and play something else. You gave fighters the finger and everyone else played rogues and clerics and druids and frenzied berserkers and what the fuck ever.

But you can't ignore the bullshit classes in 4E, because all of the classes are bullshit.

If they had a choice between these two options, the designers should've just told the Dumbass Melee Fighter cocksuckers to get the fuck over themselves and that the DMF is just an insupportable archetype past level 5--what, you're going to start crying because an NPC CLASS is marketed incorrectly as a PC class?

[RandomCasualty2]

• Shock Trooper Gives you Free Trip Attempts.
  Improved Trip gives you free attacks against tripped enemies.

Not exactly free. You can make trip attempts after a successful bull rush. Given that bull rushes are basically strength checks and that you're not going to get large bonuses to them, that probably means that you're looking at about a 50/50 chance of tripping at best, given that the monsters will probably be bigger than you, and sometimes stronger than you.

Instead of tripping, I'd much rather just do a full power attack charge. It's more likely to hit and hell, whatever you hit is pretty much fucked anyway.

I just don't see the point of using a bull rush instead of a straight up charge attack. Maybe there's something I'm not seeing, but really the possibility of failing the bullrush just isn't worth it, not when you can do a pounce + shock trooper charge. Now maybe my math is wrong or there's something I'm not seeing, but really, the damage you can inflict on a shocktrooper charge is way superior to any kind of trip mongering you'd want to be doing.

I mean, there's lots more to it. Like the fact that Expertise is fucking great for a character who spends a lot of time doing huge damage and having a very poor defense - it means that you can turtle up and still draw fire because enemies have already seen you burst damage and presumably expended a bunch of attacks on you.

If you take improved expertise maybe and are very high level, but for a character with a weak AC, 5 points really isn't going to do much of anything, except cripple your offenses. The problem is that turtle mode starts on your turn, so you basically have to waste a turn hoping that your enemies attack you. Unlike in 4E, you have no marking ability, so your foes could just decide to completely ignore you and go for the casters, because lets face it, no matter how much damage you happen to be able to do, the wizard is always going to be better than you are. And when you turtle, even your AoOs suffer.

Unless your DM uses some kind of MMO style aggro system, turtling just isn't going to help you much.

I've got nothing. Partly because unless you stop playing at level four or so, you have too many feats to just do one thing. You have to branch out, just because you have to spend those feats on *something*.

This is somewhat true in core, but not when you consider the splatbooks. Really, you never have to stop advancing your specialty except when you're very high in level. This is because there are so many numerical feats and just general purpose support feats that can add to almost any style. Taking karmic strike for instance is a no brainer for any two handed fighter. Often times even taking crap like weapon focus is better than branching out, simply because the main motto of 3.5 is that if you're not focused on one thing, you probably suck, at least for a fighter.

[virgil]

And this shock trooper fighter doesn't have enlarge around, via potion or fellow spellcaster (with or without scroll)? You don't lose charge with the follow-up attack from tripping someone, and power attack only hurts your melee attack rolls, not opposed ability checks (which is now getting a prone bonus after it's all said and done).

[Username17]

Given that bull rushes are basically strength checks and that you're not going to get large bonuses to them, that probably means that you're looking at about a 50/50 chance of tripping at best, given that the monsters will probably be bigger than you, and sometimes stronger than you.

Yes, you've never played a Bullrush build or seen one played, we understand that. It's n opposed check, ties go to the attacker, you don't have to make an attack roll, and you get:

• +2 for being able to move before initiating the rush.
• +4 for having the feat.
• +5 for being enlarged.

So yeah, after your strength build gets an additional +11 on an opposed roll you pretty much just win all the time. Then if you push them into an occupied square you get to make two trip attempts (with your big bonuses) and get a free attack on whoever falls.

It's not the be-all and end-all of everything in 3rd edition D&D by any means, but it is what passes for a decent combat style in 3rd edition and it's still far and away more versatile and effective than anything in 4th edition. Your casual dismissal of it because you've never seen anyone do it is not making you sound like an expert. It's making you look stubborn. A Shock Trooper in 3rd edition can do this stuff as an afterthought at-will. If a 4th edition character got anything half this cool it would be a 20th level Daily power given out by a specific Paragon Path.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

Your casual dismissal of it because you've never seen anyone do it is not making you sound like an expert. It's making you look stubborn.

Well I've played with some pretty good powergamers, a couple who have taken shocktrooper. I've seen the massive damage you dish out with shocktrooper and it just seemed rather pointless to try to bull rush people.

It may also be the case that the party wizards will rarely share spells like enlarge with fighter types, and it isn't really worth bringing along a potion, because in the round it takes you to get it out and drink it, chances are the enemies have already closed with you.

I mean even still with the modifiers you mentioned, it just doesn't seem like you'll get anywhere except against man sized humanoids or smaller, where I can see the tactic being reasonable, but not great. Mostly because your shock trooper ubercharge will likely just kill them outright. And against large stuff like ogres or purple worms, because they've probably got size against you, you may succeed about 50%-75% of the time, which probably still isn't justifiable, because you've got to succeed, then trip them, and then filnally make your attack. And you're doing this for just a +4 to your attack and the possibility you may get two attacks, Also if you've got pounce you're giving up your full attack charge.

About the only time it's useful is when you can be assured to succeed about 100% of the time, and then it's limited by only being good when you've got two enemies lined up one in front of the other. Just strikes me as so highly specialized as far as options go that it's not something you see very often, unless your DM runs a very NPC centric campaign. Of course virtually no DMs I know actually do that, because creating NPCs in 3.5 is a pain in the ass. It's easier to just throw down some giants and get on with your life.

[Username17]

And against large stuff like ogres

What about them? An Ogre, hell, a Troll only has a Bullrush modifier of +10. You're an 8th level Shock Trooper, while enlarged, your Bullrush modifier is +20. This plan doesn't work 11% of the time. It's a lot like missing on a 1 or a 2.

The fact that no one in your group bothered to use this technique because they would rather DO MASSSIVE DAMAGE!!1! is not in any way indicative of its overall effectiveness, and I want you to stop pretending that it is.

-Username17