Playing the Same Game

[Username17]

So there are classes that can't play the game that other people are playing. If you don't have a Rogue the table has to hold its head and think "Damn! How are we going to get by with no rogue?" If there's no healer, you need to contort your whole battle plan to where noone does anything stupid and gets hurt unnecessarily because healing is difficult. If you don't have an arcane spellcaster you... run... from a lot of enemies.

But let's face it: If you don't have a Fighter, or a Knight, or a Monk, or a Bard, do you even care? The Rogue does more damage than the Fighter was going to anyway, and the difference in hit points isn't even noticeable in the face of the health you get from different Con bonuses. In fact, if the Wizard can figure out how to get +8 Con from his magic, and he can, he has more hit points than the fighter before he casts false life. Then he casts false life.

Many classes just don't have a role in an adventuring party distinct from the porters once the game passes the 6th level threshold and monsters start showing up that are "magical". At first level, you could be an Expert for all I care. The differences in attributes are bigger than the maximum spread of BAB, and simple weapons are plenty to have a good chance of dropping an Orcish Warrior in mid stride. But when your opposition is Phase Spiders or Closet Trolls or Dragons, being a body with a weapon just doesn't cut it anymore. You need to be able to pull crazy stuff or you just don't even matter.

Characters don't numerically keep up with the monsters, but even if they did, the fact is that if you aren't pulling some tactical shenanigans to the table at mid-level means that you don't matter. After all, the monsters are bringing tactical shenanigans to the table. In addition to being numerically better than you.

That being said, what do people actually want from these characters? Every character must do something interesting tactically, they must do zomething interesting out of combat, and they must be playing the same game that everyone else is at 10th level.

Fighters

The Problem: Fighters began in D&D as a punishment for not rolling well enough to get into a real class and they've never really shaken that stigma.

Solution: Fighter need to step up to the plate and be given actual dragon slaying abilities. Any Fighting style that a Fighter chooses must be as tactically dominating as a web + stinking cloud combo by 6th level and as interesting to use as a Wall of Uttercold strategy at level 9.

Furthermore, Fighters need to be de-stigmatized out of combat, there should be a reason that Fighters get to marry the princess and live happily ever after. As is, that really is the Rogue or Druid's job, which is craptastical.

Bards
"You're a Bard, use your eye lasers!"

Problem: The 3rd edition Bard is a reaction to the 2nd edition bard, which cast lower level spells han the Wizard but gained chaaracter levels faster. The old Bard was a character who had to rely on fireballs while the Magic User was throwing around prismatic spray - but he partially made up for that because his fireballs were way bigger than the Evokers could come up with. The Bard's list has been cut back to have less "flashy" spells, and at the same time they no longer shoot up levels like a ball under water - the net result is that their spells suck and they aren't good with the spells they have and noone cares what they do.

Solution: Bards need a place to hang their hat. Whatever magic they use, they should be good with it. Like the Beguiler. Possibly they should just go away altogether now that we have Beguilers, but I think that people want Music Magic enough that Bards should be kept in some capacity.

Knights and Samurai

A devoted and honorable warrior with some sort of chivalric code who runs around with archetypical armor and weaponry. Totally awesome. So why does it suck so badly?

Problem: Specific warriors have always been hampered by the (truthful) accusation that they were "better than fighters". Originally that was by design, but lately they've been reigned back in until they aren't. That's not even cool.

Solution: Every fighting style needs to be good. Samurai and Knights can be "preselected" fighting styles that can be given to novice players so that they don't have to worry themselves over much about character creation. But they still need to be good both on and off the field.

Swashbucklers

Problem: Light Armor and Light Weapons make Jack a dull boy. The fact is that in D&D wearing heavier armor and using bigger weapons has no particular downside, especially at high levels. Running around with an epee and shiny pants just isn't a rewarded life choice, and if you hang enough abilities on a character to make them even play the same game as the guy with greaves on they look totally overpowered to a small-minded viewpoint.

Solution: Fighting Styles for Shiny Pants! In D&D, wearing heavy armor makes you harder to hit, so wearing lighter armor makes you easier to hit. The guy who runs around in shiny pants is inherently playing american football without a helmet and he's in for a short life - that has to stop. The Fighting Styles of the shiny pants contingent need to be so crazy good that they are the equal of the steel battalion after the buck heads get boosted until they matter and the bnasic (and huge) numeric discrepency for not wearing a cup is taken into account.

[Crissa]

This could be applied to sidekicks, monsterous humanoids, etc, as well.

But how does everyone get to the table?

Simple things - like find traps, tracking (and you forgot the Ranger, but I guess he's a shiny pant dude), and other 'simple' class features should be feats... And feats should be handed out like candy, to everyone who isn't getting good class features.

-Crissa

[Username17]

Here's the ulterior motive:

So K and I are going to be doing Tome of Trees, Book of Gears, Tome of Tiamat, Tome of Virtue, and Races of War. And in those tirades, we're going to redo a lot of base classes.

Dungeonomicon gets the Monk, the Assassin, the Jester, and the Thief Acrobat
Tome of Trees gets the Bard and the Ranger.
Book of Gears gets the Artificer
Tome of Virtue gets the Paladin
Races of War gets the Fighter, the Knight, the Samurai, and the Ninja.
Tome of Tiamat gets the Elementalist.

Some other classes need a redo, and their location isn't obvious: the Swashbuckler, the Warlock, the Shaman, and the Shugenja all have traction, but suffer from poor writing. We may or may not get to those, and I don't know where they'd go.

Now, many of those are pretty self explanatory. The Paladin is just a Full BAB Warmage with a spell list that basically only has Divination & Abjuration effects on it. He's supposed to be totally convincing and be able to banish demons in addition to having a magically augmented fighting style. Once you get over the idea that getting a full attack bonus is worth anything at all, making a balanced Paladin is something where the work practically does itself.

But a lot of these classes have actually never had anything good to do. The Fighter has never been playable in a high level environment. He's always been the guy with the class feature "fights like a cohort of the other party members". Fighters have been stuck with a character concept where they are supposed to be essentially lower level than the other party members, and that's not cool. But it's also nowhere to work from. If Fighters are going to do anything awesome, they can't just get numeric bonuses to what they already do because what they do is structurally inadequate. Being "better with a sword" just isn't enough when the druid can ride around on a Dire Tiger.

So I put the question to all of you:

When someone says that they are playing "a Knight", what do you want to be able to count on them to provide to a 10th level party. When you say "We've got a Knight, so we have *blank*, *blank*, and *blank*." What fills those blanks? When you say "We've got a Knight, so we could use someone who *blank* or *blank*." what is in those blanks? Right now having a Knight basically is just like having an animal companion, there are a fewextra hit points and some damage output in the party, but no structural weaknesses of the party are filled.

So abilities/non-abilities for:

Bard:
Fighter:
Knight:
Samurai:
Swashbuckler:

Anyone care to fill those blanks? What do people want those classes to provide when dealing with the following EL 10 challenges:

A hallway filled with magical runes.
A Fire Giant
A Young Blue Dragon
A Bebilith
A Vrock
A tag team of Mind Flayers
An Evil Necromancer
6 Trolls
A horde of Shadows.

Right now they provide as close to nothing as makes no odds against any of those, what should they be doing? In which of those encounters should people be saying "Boy, I'm glad we had a Bard." In which of those encounters should people say "Good thing you're a Samurai, eh?"

-Username17

[Save_versus_Stupid]

I agree with your points entirely frank.

The problem isn't so much with the fact that fighters have always been every other class' beotch, but that every other class does their job better than they ever could without GM intervention.

Clerics and wizards *shouldn't* be able to snap their fingers and replace fighters, and the thief mechanic was implemented poorly into 3rd.

I think the issue is basically the entire combat system. A base attack bonus is irelevant at a point when every character has some tactical shenanigans to pull out of their ass, or the ability to force a save/die. A handful of feats (more if someone actually weathers the storm and plays a fighter past 4th level ugh) and some weapons just don't cut it.

I'm in the school that non magical classes need equivalents. It's been a general concession in D&D for a very long time now that everyone acomplishes the job the same way. There is no actual mystique between playing arcane or divine or whoever else you roll up. You're throwing numbers at monsters who have higher numbers. There is no actual distinction between someone using a rapier, or a long sword, chain shirt or plate mail. You just choose what focuses on your character concept and crunches better.

To wind up, every class should be able to compete with magical classes, because they win D&D.

Now frank, do you mean balancing the game without killing a large portion of magic? Or bringing the mook classes up?

[DP]

The thing that a party needs rogues for is finding traps. The thing about this is it's a made up need. Archtypical fantasy doesn't have a whole load of traps to find and there is no good reason why only the rogue could handle them if it did. So traps take a class that is otherwise not so much different from the fighter (except for traps and use magic skills don't really do much a wizard can do better) so the task is then to make up a mechanic that a fighter can do and no one else can.

I think the way to do this is pick some things like diplomacy, or feats of strength, or athletic feats, or using technology, or breaching magic, or interagation, or seduction and you make the class arbitraliy better and make the other classes worse. Then you make adventures with encounters that this ability solves. Like traps.

Here is what I did to "fix" fighters first I tried to make them as good at fighting as rogues and to do this I gave them +1d6 damage every 4 levels. Next I give them this bs ability called breach magic that is used for disabling certain magical traps and locks and can also act as a powerful targeted dispell, better than anyone else can get. The point is that I gave the fighter somthing taht made him special even if he is special in a stupid way.

[Draco_Argentum]

The bard is some guy who does enchantment magic by singing. At least thats my take on it. He can be like an enchanter who sings. Enchanters are good right now so how about taking bardic music and letting him maintain that as a free action and as a standard action he can weave a spell into his music. Then make up a spell list that suits the theme. Probably should be sorcer progression, not the crappy bard progression. Oh and get rid of that stupid extra HD song, thats a dumb mechanic.

The others are all "guy who fights with weapons" and therefore one class. Part of the problem is that the concept is meant to do its thing without supernatural stuff. That makes coming up with stuff harder.

That knight ability that makes squares he threatens difficult terrain isn't too bad, as long as someone who isn't using the crap knight's code gets it.

Another thing that might work is the combat focus mechanic from PHB2. The actual feats are balls but the concept dosen't scream overt Su ability. It needs real abilities when focused, like gain 5ft more reach or move and full attack.

One thing to note is that the basic combat rules favour standard actions and therefore casters. If your radness comes from standard actions you get to move and do your thing. Fighters don't get that luxury.

[RandomCasualty]

Fighters

Honestly the samurai problem is only a symptom of the fighter problem. The fact that we think we need separate classes to represent a knight or a samurai or a swashbuckler only proves how lacking the fighter is in terms of versatility. And we haven't even got into dealing with non-combat versatility yet.

First, I think the rogue class should be done away with entirely, and the fighter given the rogue's skill points and skill list. Sneak attacking should be some kind of feat tree and that's it.

Another main problem with fighters is the blatant removal of fighter combat options at high level. The higher in level you get, the more creatures and NPCs become immune to crap that fighters do. For instance, you can't trip someone using magical flight, or can't grapple someone who uses freedom of movement. It's not about taking penalties, you just can't do it. Period. That pretty much makes a fighter boring to play, since you have to do crap like "full attack".

Fighters need to have abilities like wizards that force their opponents to make saves of various kinds and allow different sorts of tactical options. I don't think many people would mind a swing that forces the opponent to reflex save to avoid it as opposed to a normal attack roll, or a swashbuckler being able to force an opponent to miss if he fails a will save or reflex save. Right now fighters tend to be boring becuase they play only half the game. Attack Rolls, AC, hp damage, and fort saves. That's about all they do. And you can only provoke fort saves if you have certain feats! Otherwise you're limited to hp damage.

The other part of being a fighter is the gradual phasing out of terrain that 3rd likes to do when you get higher in level. Fighters love terrain, whether it's taking cover from arrows behind a big rock, or leaping over a chasm or whatever. They've got spells to deal with terrain specifically and terrain makes tactical combats fun. After all, swashbucklers want to swing on ropes and drop chandeliers on people.

Unfortunately stuff like magical flight, improved precise shot and teleportation tend to phase out terrain, making it far less useful and profound. So now you've got fighters simply being full attack machines and not actually interacting with the battle. As opposed to having feats like improved precise shot which negate terrain, we should allow fighters to interact more with their terrain.

It'd be kinda cool to have a bludgeon fighter have a special attack that causes a low cavernous celing to collapse on a foe when he strikes it with his mace or warhammer. Burying the guy under rock on a failed reflex save and creating a 15' cloud of dust that lasts a few rounds. If we allow fighters to do cool cinematic stuff, then they become much more fun to play again.

[PhoneLobster]

One thing I really want to see fixed is AC and naked fighters.

Well, maybe not NAKED, but you know, unarmoured swashbucklers, light armour agile dudes, unarmoured archers, of course barbarians in loin cloths, and even amazons in chainmail bikinis.

Its definitely a key ability that has to be on the list, potentially for a swashbuckler class.

However considering its wide appeal accross various archetypes (archers, barbarians, swashbucklers, pirates, even wizards or bards) I would rather see it done as some sort of rule change or ability available widely if not accross the board.

It would be great if my hypothetical Barbarian could just decide (possibly at some sort of expense) to wear a loin cloth and a damn good oiling and call that a defensive plan just as easily as my hypothetical Ranger could decide to run around in a fluffy blouse and some tight leather pants and call THAT a defense strategy.

I'm all for somehow giving out big fat Dodge bonuses within spitting distance of actual heavy armour bonuses.

But there are PLENTY of other defense bonuses one way or another you could give out to an unarmoured fighter, hell remember they are also giving up a slot or more where funky magic items go as well, so its reasonable to give out additional unarmoured defense bonuses like Spell Resistance, Critical/Sneak attack resistance, etc...

Maybe you should be able to burn off armour proficiencies at character creation to get this sort of stuff on basically anyone I just don't know, d20 is just too much for me these days.

[Crissa]

1150842587[/unixtime]]...
Anyone care to fill those blanks? What do people want those classes to provide when dealing with the following EL 10 challenges:

A hallway filled with magical runes.
A Fire Giant
A Young Blue Dragon
A Bebilith
A Vrock
A tag team of Mind Flayers
An Evil Necromancer
6 Trolls
A horde of Shadows.

Right now they provide as close to nothing as makes no odds against any of those, what should they be doing? In which of those encounters should people be saying "Boy, I'm glad we had a Bard." In which of those encounters should people say "Good thing you're a Samurai, eh?"

-Username17

Hmmm....

Here's my list of solutions:

Bard:
Detects them magically with a tune. (Elfstones of Shanara?)
Spell, parlay.
Fighter:
Has lots of hp to withstand the damage. (Parn)
Has resistance to elemental, magical effects.
Knight:
Has lots of armor to withstand the damage. (Parn as well)
Mounted combat to be on equal footing.
Samurai:
Has a sword maneuver or 'connection or underlings' to destroy the runes. (Inuyasha)
May choose between knight or swashbuckler solution for this encounter.
Swashbuckler:
Dances past them via some sort of fleet of foot maneuver. (Think Dungeons and Dragons movie)
Uses his expertise to deny a giant's reach.

...Wait, I don't even know what some of these guys are!

Okay, the reason I think we have 'Knight' and 'Samurai' is because most people don't know how to build 'Fighter' into these guys. I think 'Fighter' should have more options - and maybe able to do the same things, this isn't a fault. But Knight and Samurai will have things like 'flavorful weapon lists' and 'specific paths' like mounted combat, UMD vs named weapons and armor, and easier (labeled) access to paths like Monks should.

I think Fighters should be able to just have DR and +X with their gear, because they are fighters.

Rangers, Swashbucklers - we should make it plain that Swashbucklers are Rangers in D&D terms. They fight with light weapons, have Dex as their main stat, and use a ranged weapon at long (not short) range. Sure, one also has tracking and the other one has sailing, but that shouldn't be mechanically different.

I think Swashbucklers should be able to just have dual wield and dodge bonuses based off of their class level (as long as they're not wearing rigid armor).

Now Bards... Bards I see as being the magical rogue. They use weird weapons - like glowing stones, slings, songs, words - as well as spells and magical doodads. I usually make my sorcerers like this - they have UMD, are the party translator, and cast both healing and damage spells. Singing should be an option, not a requirement. If I want my method to be senshi maneuvers instead of singing, or not opt to have Inspiration, those should be viable paths.

They should be able to con, talk, and get out of the way when things go sour. There's nothing worse than when Face takes the fireball and dies the first round.

-Crissa

[Crissa]

Huh, ya know something...

...I think that gear should work depending upon who's got it, not depending upon what gear a person has.

Sure, the full plate +1 is shiny and new - but it shouldn't work for a Swashbuckler, and when a Fighter or Knight dons the armor, that's when their class abilities kick in.

So a swashbuckler in a tin can is not much better off than a peasant in a tin can... Kinda like proficiencies, but not quite?

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

Bards

As for the bard, the bard is just a crappy concept. The bard is supposed to be some kind of jack of all trades. Whcih is a crappy base concept how D&D is set up to begin with. The best that can be done is to make it look like the duskblade but with beguiler style spells instead of combat spells.

But seriously, bards are kinda... eh. The character role that tries to do everything just can't be made all that good.

Lightly armored Fighters

Swashbucklers are hosed pretty much by the fact that every fighting style is inferior to two handed weapon and power attack.

[Modesitt]

Bard: The Bard could be a dedicated magical buffer/debuffer. I'm thinking along the lines of 'The Bard sings. Enemies all get -4 to strength, everyone in the party gets +4 strength'.

Fighter: Give the fighter Spell Resistance and other ways to resist magic. He also needs some good way to draw aggro onto him. Maybe the ability to redirect spells to himself or to other people?

Knight: He needs a low-level way to force enemies to attack him and not the weaker members of the party.

Samurai: I'm thinking we should make the Samurai the classical basher. The Samurai is just really good at killing in a hurry, ranging from quickly cutting down enemies in the first round to save or dies. Maybe melee AoE attacks?

Swashbuckler: He gets a big pile of disarm and trip bonuses. He also gets bigger bonuses from cover, concealment, higher ground, and other circumstantial factors. He should also get abilities that discourage enemies from acting against him rather than make it harder to do so, such as the ability to make AoO's when he normally could not, force enemies to automatically miss an attack, or forcing enemies to attack themselves.

[Neeek]

These aren't party role concepts so much as flavor concepts, but:

Bard: Musician who makes everyone else better and is really, really good with illusions.

Fighter: Bruiser/shock trooper infantry type. Brutal, soldier type.

Knight: Mounted warrior type

Samurai: Don't have an opinion, but use of bows, and a two-handed style of fighting seems necessary

Swashbuckler: Duelist/fencer type. Avoids hits more than allowing armor to deflect. Fights using a sword or a sword and a defensive dirk. Likes to swing from things.

[Save_versus_Stupid]

Let me preface this by saying i'm a veteran of strategy games of about 18+ years now. So pardon my emphasis on mechanics ripped from them

Also note, I think you need to place the emphasis on class functions that CANNOT be decreased or made less effective in the face of other things. Two swashbucklers fighting should be an extraordinary combat of blocks, counter attacks, parries and flashy moves. Two fighters should be blowing holes in the ground and nearby terrain, locking weapons and pulling out all the stops. None of this pansy "I swing my longsword twice, I roll a 10+6 and a 12 +1.


Fighter

Needs superhuman powers. Dimension gate effects, damage reduction for no reason, either massive HP or Over the top damage. Fighting styles would be interesting as well. You could have one for the generic two handed sword, the oft ignored sword and board, ranged weapon, reach weapon, spiked chain user, grappler etc. You need to tweak him in a way where his BAB gives him something no other class can do, like a scaling modifier to something relevant. Or perhaps invent a whole new AC/BAB interaction system in place for fighters only. They are masters of war supposedly, right? Just something to keep other classes from mimicing them with no effort. I would also like to see "battlefield" control stuff. Fighters are supposed to be gods on the battlefield with only a sword and their armor, so how about some class abilities or feats that restrict movement around them? No more bullshit tumbling through their surrounding spaces. Something like a threaten check to stop movement around, through or near them? That could possibly be a knight ability, but it should be available to fighters too.

-Destructive combat ability
-Fighter only combat styles
-Superhuman tricks, mimic casters
-BAB means something special exclusively for fighters.
-Battlefield control stuff, threaten based. "You, STAY", as a large greatsword slams into the ground before the monster. -Morale damage based on how effective/destructive they are in the particular battle (bards could actually help keep your party from freaking out in the face of a berserk warrior, nuts!)
-Melee AoE attacks that don't require retarded feat chains
-Random increases in BAB and HP, for no reason.

Bard

Aura buffs/debuffs. Bards have always been "general" type characters, that I see in other strategy games. Inducing use of the bard would require a stronger morale system than the one that is barely used in this game, or giving them access to bard only spells that do something divine and arcane casters can't do (difficult to imagine I know). More versatility maybe? Maybe you could invent some tempo stealing/adding stuff like a song of time that steals turns or adds them. Meta party help like that is always useful in strategy games, and I havent seen it represented in D&D so far. basically, some sort of "untap" mechanisim would be something a bard could add to a 10th level challenge. Double the effectiveness of the most useful party member against the current enemy. Auras = song in my mind. In most of the games i've played, the versatile "everything" classes can always do everything ok, but then something only they can do.

-Static Auras
-Active Auras
-Metagame stuff like "untapping" "tempo advantage/disadvantage"
-More useful magic, or exclusive magic

Swashbuckler

I think this is tough. They need to be technical fighters, with the ability to *actually* consistently dodge, disarm, trip and all the cool stuff that makes people frusterated because they are being out finessed. Like the rogue, a perfect swashbuckler should be another flavor of fighter with the emphasis on tech over raw beats. They should embody the ability to keep monsters busy who are much, *much* stronger busy or neutralized. They should also fall to masses of enemies, because that's where you want raw power, not flashy tech.

-Innate static "dodge" bonus, that cannot be ignored
-Combat tech increase
-Class functions that hold down monsters and penalize brute -strength over finese.
-Perhaps they treat all monsters as using their dexterity to hit them? Or the worst of the two between strength and dexterity. That may sound ridiculous, but if we're looking at *real* reasons to play non wizards, they need to *really* impact the fvcking game, and not just fart around with melee attacks.
- Power attack is less effective against them. Maybe if a monster/character power attacks, they gain an increase in damage but lose twice the spent BAB?

Knight

A tank that can't tank? Bullshit. They need to have active "hate" drawing auras. A commanding presence that says "if I don't drop this guy, he's going to make me pay quicker than his teamates.

-Damage reduction
-More hitpoints
-Hate draw, threaten based checks
-Static block %, shield required
-Parry feats
-Good saves
-The threaten space around his hex I mentioned in the fighter.
-Bonus damage/efficiency if you attack without flanking or from the front/charging the front. No actual front arc in D&D but you're a smart guy. You can figure this out.
-Minor morale/command stuff. Don't step on the bard, but by definition these classes all leak over on each other

Samurai

Let's rip off FF, shall we? Anime rpgs nail the samurai correctly. He's a calm, centered and ready to cleave mountains with his inner focus.

-Focus based powers manifesting through his katana/katanas.
-Fear auras
-Combat Tech stuff, somewhere between a fighter and a swashbuckler/rogue.
-Save or die techniques
-Unshakeable morale
-Ki based powers. Wave slashes, thousand slashes, precise cuts, mystic parries - the whole nine.

That should be good for now, thoughts?

[Username17]

My view of the Knight and Samurai is that they are essentially supposed to be for beginning players. That is, that unlike a Fighter which has a significant number of options and may require research and planning to construct, a Knight or Samurai should pretty much come pre-made with its relvent fighting style and effectiveness built-in. These classes should be handable to your kid brother and playable in a decent fashion.

I'm fine with a Swashbuckler being an "advanced" character concept where you are required to pull crazy maneuvers every round to get the full potential of your character. Possibly more entertaining than the Samurai in actual play, but requiring of more investment in personal rules knowledge to make the character function.

For example, I consider the Rogue to be a Basic Class (that is, I'm not sure that you can make a mistake in Rogue character creation so severe that your character isn't decent). I consider the Sorcerer to be an Expert Class (that is, it takes a tremendous amount of planning to make a Sorcerer who is any good at all and every spell is its own crazy world of world of unique rules you have to know if you want the class to work).

In this model, I would like the Samurai and Knight to be as simple as the Rogue and the Swashbuckler to be about as hard to play as the Wizard (though not as hard to play as the Sorcerer, that's ridiculous).

-Username17

[User3]

My Idea of the fighter-type is that he hits you with a weapon, is very good at it, and you fall down in a spray of vital fluid and most likely die.
In 3.x everyone is better at making you die than the fighter, and that makes me sad.
(ok, the monk and the bard may suck harder, but the bard has some other stuff he can sort of do, and the monk can grapple the wizard and get owned, damn monks suck)

Some things that my group has tried to make the fighter-type more interesting.

-Allow them to attack worst to best or best to worst. With an easy way to throw alchemical junk like tanglefoot bags this is big. If you are attacking at +12, +7, +2 only the +12 hits the guy you care about, but if you can choose +2, +7, +12 and use the +2 and +7 for touch attacks that make the bad guy blind and tangled you may be able to power attack with the +12 or whatever and rip him a new one. Most of the alchemical stuff is overpriced but your Wizard buddy could fabricate you some cheap...

-fighter-rogues get full BAB, for each level of fighter you can take a level of rogue with +1 BAB. (You could do it for any class, except maybe Cleric/Druid who don't need it and are in all ways better than fighter anyway)

-giving the fighter the equivalent of Sneak attack damage only non-lethal and all the time, that makes you drop targets fast but they aren’t dead, just down. Then you need a “kills constructs” feat and/or a “kills undead” feat, but regenerating creatures are a pain. All the non-lethal/subdual damage almost makes combat healing a viable choice, it’s now 2 for one.

-A fighter should be cutting your parts off until you are harmless and going on to the next target while you bleed out twitching and screaming in a messy pile of limbs and viscera, but 3.x hit points just can’t handle lopping off your arms at the elbow. Letting the fighter inflict a -2 to Str or Dex based actions could be ok, “your smashing blow crushed his elbow, looks like he can’t hit you as hard…”
Giving one of the “hits you with pointy/knobby things” classes the power to inflict status effects like [sickened], [nauseated], [blind], etc. would be nice.

[Username17]

D&D supports the following Fighting styles:

1. Sword & Shield AC whoring - this goes obsolete when AC stops mattering around level 12.
   
2. Reach Fighting (chain trip or glaive attack multiplication damage) - this goes obsolete when monsters stop caring about their positions around level 10.
   
3. Charge Damage (usually lance-based, but can be done with a greatsword) - this requires the DM to houserule 3.5 to work at all, and can potentially remain cometitive through level 20 but doesn't generally work inside at any level.
   
4. Archery - this is no longer able to maintain reasonable damage output at about level 9.

It should probably also support:

1. Running around with a foil and shiny pants.
   
2. Punching and grappling.
   
3. Sword and Shield attrition combat (I inflict more damage than I take)
   
4. Disarming and Subdoing opponents.

What combat styles do people want to see out of the different fighting classes (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, Knight, Swashbuckler, samurai, Monk)? What monsters would you expect those fighting styles to do well against in a story (mechanics aside)?

-Username17

[Neeek]

1150909502[/unixtime]]

1. Sword & Shield AC whoring - this goes obsolete when AC stops mattering around level 12.
   
2. Reach Fighting (chain trip or glaive attack multiplication damage) - this goes obsolete when monsters stop caring about their positions around level 10.
   
3. Charge Damage (usually lance-based, but can be done with a greatsword) - this requires the DM to houserule 3.5 to work at all, and can potentially remain cometitive through level 20 but doesn't generally work inside at any level.
   
4. Archery - this is no longer able to maintain reasonable damage output at about level 9.
   
5. Running around with a foil and shiny pants.
   
6. Punching and grappling.
   
7. Sword and Shield attrition combat (I inflict more damage than I take)
   
8. Disarming and Subdoing opponents.

Reworked your list a little.
Here's the classes I can see doing each:
1. Fighter/Paladin/Knight
2. Fighter/Monk
3. Paladin/Knight/Samurai(maybe)
4. Ranger/Samurai/Fighter(as secondary at best thing)
5. Swashbuckler/Paladin(maybe)
6. Monk/Barbarian/Fighter/Swashbuckler(maybe)
7. Fighter/Barbarian
8. Monk/Swashbuckler/Ranger(maybe)

[RandomCasualty]

1150909502[/unixtime]]
What combat styles do people want to see out of the different fighting classes (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, Knight, Swashbuckler, samurai, Monk)? What monsters would you expect those fighting styles to do well against in a story (mechanics aside)?

I still generally uphold that samurais, knights and fighters tend to fight more or less the same in my mind. A samurai can have a variety of styles (single katana two handed, katana and wakasashi, or great bow), a knight also has a variety of styles (mounted lance, two handed weapon, sword and shield) and fighters can wield pretty mcuh anything.

Now, there are a few wierd things you don't generally associate with things, for instance you probably don't see a knight using a long bow, but all in all, I think all three of those are simulateable by the fighter class, since they're all pretty broad concepts that need choices. Now I suppose we could try to do it like ranger fighting styles, where you get to be the dual wield samurai or the two hander katana samurai, but honestly I don't really see the point. I'd prefer to see samurai represented by a variety of feat choices from the fighter class. The way I see it, the more fighting classes you make, the more fighters get hosed, because you're placing combat abilities away from feats and putting them into class abilities, which the fighter can't access.

I've even always thought that barbarians shouldn't even be a class, given right now they're a collection of 3 abilities: Rage, uncanny dodge, and improved uncanny dodge. Just make those feats and you no longer need the barbarian class (which sucked the big one anyway).

The onyl reason we really need the ranger and paladin classes is because they get spell progression, which generally is an ability we can't give out in terms of feats. The monk and swashbuckler may require their own separate classes because we expect them to work in exotic ways.

Style Breakdown

Two handed style: Good against big creatures or heavily armored humanoids. Weak against fast moving agile stuff.

Mounted Charger: Very similar to greatsword wielder, except more powerful. The charger also has the disadvatnage that he requires open terrain to set up his charges. So the charger seems to reign supreme in open terrain and sucks in tight quarters, where he can't make use of his charges. Mounted should also be countered by reach weapons.

Swashbuckling:: Great against opponents close to his size, particularly if they're using greatswords, reach weapons or other big slow attacks. While he can dodge their attacks, tends to be relatively useless against big armored creatures like dragons, as his weapon can't penetrate their armor to deal enough damage.

Reach Weapons: Counters mounted combat, does well against greatswords. Sucks badly versus swashbuckling and agile monsters. Good against monsters that have special attacks that swallow or grapple you, as reach weapons help keep them at a safe distance (note that this would require special mechanics to implement). Also reach weapons should suck hard if you get flanked.

Sword and Shield: The generic style, neither good nor poor at anything in particular. Quite defensive oriented, though it tends to falter against creatures using mental attacks that the shield cannot block. Sword and shield is also the best style against archery and ranged attackers since the shield can block arrows to some degree. So if you're going to be the slow moving guy in full plate, S&S gives you a decent chance of getting close to an archer to hurt him.

Unarmed: Essentially a more specialized version of swashbuckling, being even better at exploiting weaknesses and even worse at fighting heavily armored people and big creatures.

[User3]

1. Sword & Shield AC whoring -
(Paladin/Knight, fighter (although I think Barbarians and rangers should be viable using shields))
2. Reach Fighting (chain trip or glaive attack multiplication damage) -
(samurai, fighter, monk, barbarian with effort)
3. Charge Damage (usually lance-based, but can be done with a greatsword) -
(Paladin/knight, fighter, barbarian)
4. Archery -
(Ranger, fighter, samurai, barbarian)


It should probably also support:
1. Running around with a foil and shiny pants.
(Swashbuckler, bard, rogue, ranger)
2. Punching and grappling.
(Barbarian, monk, fighter)
3. Sword and Shield attrition combat (I inflict more damage than I take)
(Paladin/Knight, fighter)
4. Disarming and Subduing opponents.
(monk, Paladin/Knight, rogue, fighter)


Fighter – king of weapons, maybe exotics. Gets armor/shields, and a life outside of combat.

Barbadian - “don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me angry…” Gets ANGRY and smashes things in his way. Light armor, big weapons, bows, shields optional.

Paladin/knight - lords of armor, good at mounted combat, mostly use the known effective set of weapons (sword (long/bastard, with shield)/mace/lance/axe/greatsword) that all there buddies use. (Ok, a knight is a paladin that traded god juju for uh, clue me?) (add the caviler to this group?)

Samurai - bastard sword (katana), spear/glaive/naginata, bow, greatsword, not likely to use shields, may use heavy armor. (TWF if it doesn't suck)

Ranger - bow and/or TWF if they don’t suck. Light armor, tumble, and light shields. Looks kinda like a woods rogue that got ripped off trading skills and SA for BAB and hit points.

Bard - sings, casts magic stuff, rapier and shiny pants/light armor/light shield type, a rogue that got ripped off trading skills and SA for music and crappy magic.

Swashbuckler - “foil and shiny pants” guy, a rogue that traded skills and SA for uh, wit? (no clue, never seen this work, needs light armor, finesse, buckler, and action points or some way to do suicidal moves in combat and make them work and look cool )

Monk - the naked guy that beats the crap out of you, but should be able to use simple weapons, “monk weapons” if they didn’t suck more than the simple ones, and any weapon they are proficient with by feat or other class/prestige class. Should be kings of grapple, I’d like them to be more like Jedi than the doormats they are now. Should be able to use light armor and light shields at a small penalty. No clue how to do a soft form like Aikido other than grapple, need a way to be VERY hard to hit while they make you fall down. “Aikido is like dancing, but when your partner keeps falling down…”, should be able to provoke AOO’s and not get hit and in general be a pain in the ass to fight. Maybe the ultimate in attrition combat.

The really sad part is that if multi-classing worked you could cut the list down to Fighter, Rogue and Cleric and mix to taste, the rest is just feats and maybe a few 5 level prestige classes that you take at level 3-4 or substitution levels.

[User3]

A hallway filled with magical runes.
-rogue, but it's slow, a Wizard/cleric, a paladin, with faith to protect him - but he might get cooked, a barbarian but it's messy.

A Fire Giant
-a mounted paladin/knight outside, fighter or barbarian inside

A Young Blue Dragon
-uh, assuming the dragon is smart and doesn’t get lanced then the fighter or barbarian should do the most damage but the paladin should take less damage from the dragon.

A Bebilith
- The Paladin/knight are gonna be pissed about their armor, I think the barbarian may walk away with this one, a DC24 str check it get out of the web is no big deal and the barbarian is as fast, the DR10/good may be a problem if you get sent to the abyss unprepared or find this thing in a closet. This thing goes down to ranged touch attacks and will saves, the casers should own it.

A Vrock
- wow, if the flavor text didn’t say they were tactically suicidal these things would own you if you couldn’t fly. The fighter, paladin/knight or Barbarian should blow through the 115 hp fast. The casters can own its mind pretty easy unless they get stunned and full attacked. The Vrock thinks monks are tasty but run fast.

A tag team of Mind Flayers
- ick, the fighter, barbarian, rogue and ranger go down to the mind blast, but the cleric, paladin and wizard should be able to handle the brain suckers. The monk tried to grapple and was eaten.

An Evil Necromancer
- once the cleric and the paladin smash the undead horde then the fighter cuts the Necro to evil sashimi unless he fails his will save…

6 Trolls
- well, only fire or acid kills those, so the fighter smacks them down and the wizard or rogue GDG’s them with a wand of acid splash? The fighter or rogue can CDG them ok with acid I guess. (The berserk scorching ray sorcerer will eat them)

A horde of Shadows.
- The cleric. The paladin shouldn’t have a problem, the fighter/barbarian/knight/etc. should be able to win, unless this is some odd no gear prison break deal. The wizard may just own, or be useless, depending on spell load.
Heck, a party of cats with 2 Celestial Brilliance (Book of exalted deeds pg 94) spells up wins against almost any number of shadows, and those things last 1 day/level, so the cleric or wizard could win this one last Wednesday.

[Draco_Argentum]

1150877760[/unixtime]]My view of the Knight and Samurai is that they are essentially supposed to be for beginning players. That is, that unlike a Fighter which has a significant number of options and may require research and planning to construct, a Knight or Samurai should pretty much come pre-made with its relvent fighting style and effectiveness built-in. These classes should be handable to your kid brother and playable in a decent fashion.

Fair enough. What if they were just a list of preselected packages of fighter abilities? That way beginners wouldn't have to choose their class abilities but we'd still only have one class.

Extra classes runs a bigger balence risk. It would also mean that people trying to use the fighter class would have less abilities to choose from since the knight and samurai soaked some up.

1. Fighter Anything with lots of damage that is shieldable.
2. Fighter Should help against reach monsters and stuff with nasty penalties for being adjacent.
3. Fighter/Knight/Samurai This style just works unless you can't get into melee. Making your horsie fly isn't hard. As long as you aren't indoors you're good.
4. Fighter/Samurai This is a farily generic style again. Except for the few anti arrow monsters you're good to go.
5. Swashbucklers/Fighters This is like an AC whore S&B character with a different means of not getting hit. Just as long as light armour is balenced.
6. Fighter Should be good for locking down large or smaller humanoids. Good in a game where slaughtering everything isn't an option. Should be an option to shut down an enemy wizard.
7. Roll this into AC whore. Unless you do damage mega AC is no good cause noone will attack you.
8. All classes Wizards get the option to not kill someone but still take them out of the fight. The others need it too.


About aggro control. This is a lameass metagame mechanic that covers for the melee guys not being real threats. If the fighter's attacks were as dangerous as wail of the banshee they'd get targetted.

[dbb]

I think of a Monk as a very specific kind of Swashbuckler, actually. Well, sort of. There are basically two kinds of Monk concept based on the source material:

1> The Martial Arts Master. This is a guy who fights unarmored (or very lightly armored) with either bare hands or some sort of bizarre exotic weapon. Conceptually, like the the Swashbuckler, they both have mobility as an important part of their fighting style rather than armor, and they both know some sort of secret techniques or fancy tricks (disarms, joint locks, Dim Mak -- whatever). Assuming "bare hands" can somehow be made into a weapon type that is not complete ass, I see no need for a separate class here.

2> The Ki Power Battery. This is the Fist of the North Star/Dragon Ball Z-esque guy. This isn't a Swashbuckler; this is a Warlock or Sorcerer who has lots of Touch or Ranged Touch spells and happens to use Fist Fighting as a special effect for them. Again, I'm not sure I see a need for a separate class here; these guys could just be, well, Sorcerers.

Of course, there are historical reasons for keeping Monks as a separate class, but I'm not sure we wouldn't be wiser to fold them into existing classes and not have to worry as much about finding a niche for them to fill.

--d.

[Username17]

The main characters in Soul Caliber only have one weapon style, and they can simply cycle through different magical versions of approximately the same thing.

The characters in the Strategy game of Soul Caliber have 5 different weapon styles they can command and can switch between them by putting one weapon down and picking up another weapon.

Which is the model people want for their Fighters? If a Ranger selects "Two Weapon Fighting" as his fighting style (and we kick it in the nuts until that's a good life choice), should he be able to pick up another Fighting style down the road? If so, should that be a "weak and shitty" fighting style, or a real one?

In short, when someone is playing a "fighter", does theat mean that they are playing "Nightmare" (where they always have a big two handed thing from day one, whether it's an oar or the Complete Soul Caliber); or does it mean that they are a "Pirate" (which means that they can switch off between Rapier, Chinese Sword, 2-handed Sword, Soul of Ivy, and Soul of Cervantes)?

-Username17

[Neeek]

Well, the "one-style" idea fits the vast majority of fictional warrior-types, but the "variable style" type is way more interesting and fun.