Can high SR equal useful fighters?

[RobG]

In other words: Give casters high SR, like level+15 to 20. A spell, a class feature, whatever..

Eliminate cheap ways to bypass SR and now you need fighters again, to kill casters.

Counter-intuitive maybe, but would it work?

[Username17]

In other words: Give casters high SR, like level+15 to 20. A spell, a class feature, whatever..

Eliminate cheap ways to bypass SR and now you need fighters again, to kill casters.

Counter-intuitive maybe, but would it work?

If we're talking about 3rd edition D&D or anything like it, not really.

First of all: whether or not specific characters can beat other specific characters in a slap fight has little overall bearing on the usefulness of characters. Rogues can kill Wizards in arena matches fairly reliably, but the Rogue class only bearing eeks by as a mediocre character class. Most enemies are actually monsters out of the monster manual, so what individual classes can and cannot do in various specific matchups is lost in the statistical noise of all the basilisks and dragons and owlbears you have to fight.

Secondly: whether or not specific enemies have large SR has little overall impact into how good casters are. Certainly golems have an actual infinity SR that cannot be overcome, and that doesn't make spellcasters fail to be the star players even in those encounters. There are too many ways to be useful with a tool as widely applicable as D&D magic that don't involve successfully hitting an opponent with a killing spell for even personal immunity to be much of an impediment to wizardly dominance.

-Username17

[Grek]

The basic problem with fighters isn't that they're bad at killing people, it's that anything a fighter does, a caster does better. It just rankles more in combat, since that's what fighters are nominally good at. There's still healing, politics, travel, information gathering, communication, castle building, planeswalking, leading armies and all sorts of other things that a that a caster can do better than any real life human can and fighter cannot meaningfully do at all.

[RobG]

Not really saying it would bring fighters up to wizard level. Wizards would be more powerful with the buff anyway, I'm just saying it might give the fighter something to do. Even if he's just the wizards pet bulldog he can thrown at another wizard instead of a spell.

It's better than shining his boots.

[shadzar]

what does SR stand for?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Here's the thing, though: In action-adventure fiction, 'perfect counter' characters who can't do much of anything but perfect counter are by and large the most boring characters in the cast. SR still doesn't do anything. It doesn't rescue princesses or find interdimensional castles or cure zombie apocalypses or feed armies or anything like that. All it does is let you take a turn in combat situations.

Seriously. How does selective magic immunity make the fighter more interesting of a character? How does it advance the plot in ways that they couldn't before? Hell, does selective magic immunity even make the fighter more interesting in a narrow slice of combat?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Double post.

[Grek]

what does SR stand for?

Spell Resistance. It's basically Armour Class against spells instead of swords. Except, since it's a counter for wizards, and WoTC has a hard-on for spellcasters, lots of spells aren't effected by spell resistance.

[radthemad4]

+1 Lago

[Username17]

For people who are familiar with AD&D, it's literally exactly the same thing as Magic Resistance except with the following improvements:

• It's expressed as a target number against which you roll a level check, meaning that the conversions for casting spells against creatures with magic resistance when you are higher or lower than level 10 is already done for you and no longer a secret rule that some people don't know about.
• It has been made explicit in the spell list itself whether and how resistance applies to different spells, so arguments about what if anything happens when creatures with magic resistance come into contact with spells that have indirect effects like walls and summons are a thing of the past.

That's it. It's just AD&D magic resistance with the system cleaned up and normalized so that it's easier to use and brooks less argument.

-Username17

[Mistborn]

It may be sort of hypocritical from me to suggest this but maybe we should make a "Why Fighters are bad FAQ" or something because these threads are sort of played out at this point

[RobbyPants]

In other words: Give casters high SR, like level+15 to 20. A spell, a class feature, whatever..

Eliminate cheap ways to bypass SR and now you need fighters again, to kill casters.

Counter-intuitive maybe, but would it work?

Pretty much half of the Conjuration school completely bypasses SR, and those are already some of the more useful crowd control spells.

[GâtFromKI]

In other words: Give casters high SR, like level+15 to 20. A spell, a class feature, whatever..

Eliminate cheap ways to bypass SR and now you need fighters again, to kill casters.

Counter-intuitive maybe, but would it work?

Being immune to magic doesn't mean that you can kill a caster. It means actually the contrary: since you can't fly, see invisible things, fight ethereal creatures, etc, you can't do anything against a semi-competent caster.

[echoVanguard]

For people who are familiar with AD&D, it's literally exactly the same thing as Magic Resistance except ... with the system cleaned up and normalized so that it's easier to use and brooks less argument.

-Username17

This is not 100% true; 2E Magic Resistance had a few more ways it could be used offensively that 3.X SR does not have. For example, a fighter with high MR could actually offensively push his way through walls of force and other magical obstacles that a 3.X fighter with high SR can do absolutely nothing against.

echo

[shadzar]

what does SR stand for?

Spell Resistance. It's basically Armour Class against spells instead of swords. Except, since it's a counter for wizards, and WoTC has a hard-on for spellcasters, lots of spells aren't effected by spell resistance.

well why not just undo the damage WotC did to fighters and re-neuter the wizard and cleric?

get rid of item creation where cheap magic exists, get rid of magic mart and WBL, and make wizards more dependent on saving their spells for the right time rather than being railguns.

[GâtFromKI]

well why not just undo the damage WotC did to fighters and re-neuter the wizard and cleric?

get rid of item creation where cheap magic exists, get rid of magic mart and WBL, and make wizards more dependent on saving their spells for the right time rather than being railguns.

I don't think you understand how AD&D 2 and D&D3 work.

Magicmart is an advantage of the fighter over the wizard. The doesn't need it, he has spells; in 2e, a high-level fighter is unable to participate to any adventure without DM's pity, while the wizard can do what he wants.

Have you tried to fight a high-level dragon in AD&D? With a fighter, the fight looks like this: "the dragon uses his breath while flying, 150 damage on your 100 HP. if you save, the dragon do it again, lol". In the other hand, the cleric and the wizard has some means to fly, to ignore fire damages, to insta-kill the dragon...

In 2e, fighters and rogue are a piece of shit at high level. The 3e magicmark allow them to buy some magical power. It isn't enough to keep up, but at least, it's better than nothing.

[shadzar]

right, it seems YOU do not understand 2e and 3.x

lets look at the wizards in a little comparison.

3.x:
wizard can pick any spell when he DINGS.
2e:
wizard is lucky to FIND a spell to learn, and luckier still if he can actually learn it when he finds it due to either its level, or his % chance to learn spell


3.x:
wizard can make any magic item he wants for some XP so he has exponential power
2e:
wizard gets magic items IF they are found, jsut like everyone else.

3.x:
wizard can buy any old magic items he wants thanks to Magic Mart to save him some XP.
2e:
wizard wants fresh and new magic items has to risk life to make them himself and sit out the game while doing so.

oh the fighter?

3.x:
can buy anything at Magic Mart, but the wizard is already outclassing him by 3rd level in EVERY way since he also has access to Magic Mart, as well as freely make magic items as above. (since WBL gives more use to the wizard with magic items in his possession)
2e:
MOST treasure found is armor and weapons that a wizard cannot even use, so it is ALL for the fighter.

you cannot say that the wizard didn't get touched by the golden penis of WotC in 3.x unless you are stupid. they went out of their way so their namesake class (Wizards otC) looked all fancy in their attempt to remove level limits, power up the spells, unify levels and XP...which pretty much kicked the fighter in the balls, castrated him, then kicked his balls around while he watched, then made him swallow them.

i am guessing you played 2e, IF you played it, with all those checks and balances for the wizard turned off?

maybe you should read both editions and come back when you actually have something useful to say. the wizard being WEAK in 2e is where the idea of the 5mwd came from, because he couldnt just manufacture 300 wands and had to wait for his spells. higher level wizards it could take 2 days to memorize all his spells. 3.x the wizard just gets shit freely every day.

Remember that memorizing a spell requires a good night’s sleep and 10 minutes of prayer or study per level of the spell; a 20th-level wizard requires 18 hours of study time to memorize a full complement of spells. By contrast, it only takes 37 minutes for the same wizard to cast every spell in memory.

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

i am not sure that is right with the 18 hours, but will go with it for now as i don't feel like doing the math, but if you have bonus spells, well that is just more and more time it takes to memorize them.

8 hours rest + 18 hours = 26 hours

oh, and IF either of those is interrupted, then it doesnt work and you have to start all over.

how long does it take in 3.x to get all the wizards spells back?

3.5 PHB pg 178
8 hours of rest, not even sleep...just rest
"to prepare all her spells, the process takes 1 hour"

so no matter what level the wizard is, it takes uninterrupted rest of 8 hours, and then just a single fucking hour for level 1 or level 30 wizard to have a full loadout of spells.



maybe only 15 minutes to prepare the days spells. OH and they can break it up! you can prepare spells multiple times during the day until your limit is reached so you don't have to use the full hour to begin with and can cherry-pick one you want later in the day with only 15 minutes prep time.

yeah, is is that bastard overpowered 2e wizard that must prepare ALL his spells at once or lose any unprepared slots that may take a whole day that makes the fighter sooooo useless. so sorry for picking on the poor 3.x wizard that gets like quadratic functionality in comparison to the linear 2e wizard.

[GâtFromKI]

you cannot say that the wizard didn't get touched by the golden penis of WotC in 3.x unless you are stupid. they went out of their way so their namesake class (Wizards otC) looked all fancy in their attempt to remove level limits, power up the spells, unify levels and XP...which pretty much kicked the fighter in the balls, castrated him, then kicked his balls around while he watched, then made him swallow them.

Are you stupid or something? Aren't you able to compare two numbers properly? Did you even read the rules?

In 2e, the fighter is the slowest class to level up from level 7 to level 14. And at level 14, he can't do anything useful (except maybe sending his first-level followers to their death), so who cares if the wizard has a slower xp progression from level 16? What is the point in making wizard the slowest class after it won D&D?

MOST treasure found is armor and weapons that a wizard cannot even use, so it is ALL for the fighter.

A figther can use a stinky +3 sword and not a wizard, so what? a stinky +3 sword doesn't allow you to contribute to the actual adventure: it doesn't allow you to go to the cloud castle, it doesn't allow you to fly, to go in Hell, to survive in the acid plane, to see ethereal things, to teleport to the adventure... It's just a stinky useless sword that replace your +2 stinky sword.

wizard is lucky to FIND a spell to learn, and luckier still if he can actually learn it when he finds it due to either its level, or his % chance to learn spell

The fighter is better than a wizard without spell, so what? In 3e also: if you deprive the wizard of his spells, it's the worse class in the game. Anyway, in 2e some casters don't rely on the DM for their spells, and have a better xp progression than fighters (like any class anyway).

yeah, is is that bastard overpowered 2e wizard that must prepare ALL his spells at once or lose any unprepared slots that may take a whole day that makes the fighter sooooo useless.

Are you stupid?

Do you really think that a 2e fighter can do any adventure alone?

The time it takes to prepare spells doesn't have any importance, because the fighter must wait for the wizard anyway; if he doesn't, he dies.

maybe you should read both editions and come back when you actually have something useful to say.

I don't think I have anything to learn from someone who thinks that 2e xp tables advantage fighters and disadvantages wizards.

[shadzar]

hey dumbass, try this. start a new thread and compare all 4.

PHB only, fighter and PHB only wizard for both 2e and 3.5

this chart of the 4 should give the damage output of each, since that is the main problem being asked here in regards to SR since it bypasses armor with oh ANY magic used.

so damage per attack for each of the 4 per leve.

lets see you prove the 3.x fighter is somehow BETTER than a proper 2e fighter, and somehow that the 2e wizard is MORE powerful than a 3.5 wizard.

come on try it, i dare you!

or just try to prove that the fighter from 3.5 is anywhere CLOSE to the 3.5 wizard like the 2e fighter is to the 2e wizard in regards to damage.

quadratic wizard linear fighter is a concept FOR 3.5 in how it exists...not prior. thus all the "why the fighter can't have nice things" types of threads since 2000, because the fighter was castrated and the wizard was given steroids, meth, and crack in 3.5.

[RobbyPants]

You see, Shadzar's favorite edition isn't actually 2E; it's a half-remembered game based on 2E that he calls 2E. When shadzar brings up something from 2nd edition, don't make the mistake that anything actually written in the PHB, DMG, or MONSEREOIUSS MANEIAL has any bearing on how he feels or what he believes about the game.

[shadzar]

In 2e, the fighter is the slowest class to level up from level 7 to level 14.

fighter:
level 7: 64,000
level 14: 1,500,000

wizard:
level 7: 60,000
level 14: 1,500,000

yeah, learn some math skills

4000<0:false

so the fighter is slower to level, but the wizard has to get 4000 more XP to meet the same level.



maybe you should leave the video game nonsense alone and grab a real PHB, because barbarian isnt even a PHB class. there are Athas classes called barbarian, fighter kits, and a few other settings have their own barbarian... being BG i would assume this is the FR variant.. so i am NOT going to take a video game anything as proof of 2nd edition. you are as dumb as fucking Frank Trollman, trying to claim some obscure adventure model is the defining thing for 2nd, when it is EXTRA shit with NEW RULES, just for that thing. thus why every paladin isnt one of Charlemagne's.

[OgreBattle]

If the AD&D fighter isn't hurling darts or shooting 20 arrows in 1 round, he's doing it wrong or he has the hammer/gauntlet/belt combo. I like the arcade brawler feeling of the AD&D fighter, you just pew pew stuff to death. 3e diluted fighter with too many roleplaying handicaps that get in the way of rolling big buckets of damage.

[deaddmwalking]

It seems like a lot of people missed the OP body and conflated it with the title.

The suggestion is not to give SR to Fighters to make them matter more - the suggestion is to give SR to Wizards. The intention is that if Wizards can't hurt other Wizards through 'magic', stabbing wizards becomes the thing to do. So wizards in a duel would gank each other with daggers, and a Fighter would try to slash an enemy wizard down while his Wizard liege stood around being mostly ineffective (or was forced to spend time buffing the Fighter instead of himself).

Besides the fact that the idea is pretty much unworkable (it makes just as much sense for the Wizard to buff himself and stab the enemy wizard as it does for him to buff the Fighter and let him do it), there are lots of spells that would bypass the enemy wizard's SR - and while it wouldn't likely make Fighters suck any more (since so few of their attacks are negated by SR) it would actually make wizards noticeably BETTER because they're getting more stuff. The Fighters are going to spend just as much time being dominated as before - but Wizards won't have to worry about fireballs anymore.

[JigokuBosatsu]

I think someone should write an actual MonSeriouss Manual. In the tone of a petulant French waiter.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I think someone should write an actual MonSeriouss Manual. In the tone of a petulant French waiter.

The narrator should be called, "Monsieur Manuel", or something