I spent 3e trying to get my fighter/mage back.

[K]

While I've been doing TNE designs, it brought me back to looking at my 3e time. Something that struck me was that I have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to bring my old 2e fighter/mage back to life.

Back in the bad old days of 2e, I played elves simply because they had the inside track on being a fighter/mage. In 3e, I played humans because they had an extra feat and that led to a higher chance of a getting a fighting and magely character. Sure, I dabbled in rogue skills but that was more because my fighter/mage used to use invisibility and spider climb more than fireball and magic missile, and that was Ok by me.

I've made Sorcerers with complicated AoO attack routines with longspears who Disarmed artifacts with True Strike, dragon Sorcerers with claw attacks, and even just straight up taken a level a fighter so I could carry around a katana. I've taken Expertise and Finesse and mixed it up in close combat with only a bLink to protect me.

So yes, it appears I've had a lifelong affair with fighter/mages regardless of the system.

So my question is this: what have you guys been trying to force the systems to make for you?

[RandomCasualty2]

The concepts I think every fantasy RPG should be able to handle effectively:

-The nonmagical brute fighter.
-The nonmagical agility fighter.
-The archer
-the fighter/mage
-the illusionist
-the blaster wizard
-the necromancer

Those are the bare essentials.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

An unarmed fighter that doesn't have to be lawful and doesn't suck.

I like the idea of playing someone who can beat dragons to death with their bare hands.

[Username17]

I don't think that non-magical should be a schtick. It doesn't make any god damned sense in a fantasy world that has extra magic physics in it. It's like being a "non-physics" character in a modern game. Your character might not understand physics, but you can't not interact with it.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Frank, I think RandomCasualty means that while he doesn't think that using the series Magic (with a capital 'M') should be necessary, people should still have enough phlebtonium to do whatever cool bullshit the story needs.

In other words, I think that he thinks that Rock Lee should be a viable character when you're playing Naruto. Or less fucking depressingly, Roranoa Zoro should be a viable character when you're playing One Piece.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Unless, of course, this is just another clumsy and NOT HAMHANDED attempt to make it so that Gimli is viable in a game of, say, The Homoerotic Adventures of Gilgamesh. In that case, fuck him. I want my weeaboo fightan magic to let knock over buildings and let me fight with holes in my chest for days on end and if I have to give that up so the Faux Action Girl Gimli doesn't feel small in the pants then he needs to get out of my damn game.

[virgil]

Considering the prior discussions RC has argued for, he likely wants 'nonmagical' to mean you can't even equate what they do to spells (no jumping fifty feet, for example).

Myself, I've always tried to get a more standardized illusionist by getting pretty involved in designing tactics with what I had. Another concept I wish was readily doable was the regenerating archetype.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Considering the prior discussions RC has argued for, he likely wants 'nonmagical' to mean you can't even equate what they do to spells (no jumping fifty feet, for example).

Then the only way these cocksuckering crybaby characters are going to get anywhere is by taking away everyone else's cool toys. This is why 4th Edition sucks unless you're playing a miniatures game. The game can't currently even support you summoning a dire badger, burrowing through a dungeon's walls, or throwing up an illusion to make these butthurt schoolgirls 'work'.

How fucking sad is that?

[Psychic Robot]

I've only ever played 3e.

What is a 2e fighter/mage like in comparison? I know that characters could advance as both at the same time, and there were crazy XP charts and whatnot...

[ckafrica]

multiclassed characters were essentially like the gestalt classes from UA only your not just getting the best of both, it's more like you were going up two separate track at the same time. XP was divided by the number of classes, you could have up to 3, as was your hit points, but you leveled when you got enough XP for each class to proceed.

The dumb part was that only some demi-humans could take them and only in certain combinations

[Draco_Argentum]

Fighter/maging and necromancy for me. Neigther of which are done all that well by 3e.

Lago, I've missed your particular brand of hate filled rant, welcome back.

[Cynic]

I've recently found out that what are considered ordinary characters by most people bore me. I need a damned shtick that makes someone look at me like I'm a damned fool to make me want to play the game. That's what the system has to allow for me.


Obviously this isn't possible in most systems because some of my characters have also caused some level of discomfort to my fellow players.

A list of recent characters.

The Mohrg tactical archer who at one point took to eating a chunk off of an npc as a method of intimidation.

The Giant Squid Aladdin archetype fighter who was raised in limbo and plays himself as a mix between the Joker, a lonely child, and a straight man at times.

And the rather droll Drill seargent Bard.
~

So if a system can accomodate such anachronistic or cosmopolitan characters, I'd be game.

Again, I'm fairly sure, that I'm already stretching it with my giant squid. My next character is probably going to be scaled back just to see how I can accommodate something like this internally rather than externally.

[JonSetanta]

I've been trying to PC a better blaster mage, K. I've been trying to play an effective specialist for over a decade.

Warlock and Sorcerer just don't cut it.

It never works out. Thankfully with the creations of this board house rules such as "Lower all Evocations by 1 spell level" and "Add an effect" do help, but then again every DM I've been with for a year now disallows such "obviously overpowered house rules" to "unbalance the game".

Oh, and just like Cynic said, 'regular' characters bore me too.
A DM's girlfriend whined about the "I'm special!" factor but then again she played a changeling rogue with no personality to speak of.
When I sit down to become some one else, I want to BE someone else and not just a cheap knockoff of another person here on Earth.
That's the point of a fantasy game. It's fantasy. Pull out the stops, go ahead and kill things with that feyblooded half-griffon half-troll.

I personally love campaigns full of fantastic abominations passing themselves off as normal.


2e Fighter/Mage sucked balls. It was about the equivalent to 75% of each in 3e (some kind of lesser gestalt maybe) but the HP calculation was wrong. You get HP so low it's unplayable.

[Judging__Eagle]

I want to play characters that have two extreme opposites within the same character.

The fighter who's smarter than the party wizard (2ned Ed., and re-done with various builds using the RoW fighter).

The wizard who's braver about going into grapples and combat than the melee-specced rogue (living greyhawk).

The blood-thirsty barbarian or heavily armoured warrior that blends into shadows and moves as silently as most rogues (RoW Barb and Dung Monk/RoW fighter builds).

A librarian that kills enemies in melee better than the Warforged Fighter/Barbarian/Warforged Juggernaut can (an Archivist in Eberron).

I also try to play characters that can change their shape as necessary.

A spellcaster that uses all sorts of shenanigans to have 24-hour Shapechange; even when Shapechange isn't the best spell to have persistantly (it was also a better character than the Phasm PC that I wanted to play).

Because honestly, I can't stand a character that isn't balanced in their abilities and mental makeup. Being a howling scar-wracked madman that ends fights in seconds at great personal cost is cool, but it's boring if you can't sneak into an enemy fortress and play a sneaking murderer.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

So my question is this: what have you guys been trying to force the systems to make for you?

This is in a 3e Dnd context:

1) A big ugly monster. If I want to play a giant, I want to be a giant. I don't want to have to use polymorph shennanegans or be a druid/MoMF/Warshaper.

2) A caster/leader with interesting level-appropriate minions. Followers, summons, charmed fools, constructs, animated undead, etc, all have traps which push you towards being some combination of: useless, overpowered, cumbersome to manage, and taking too long to resolve in combat.

3) A "non-magical" thrower character. I want a fighter who uses thrown weapons that can be just as scary and interesting as a wizard.

[Koumei]

A librarian that kills enemies in melee better than the Warforged Fighter/Barbarian/Warforged Juggernaut can

"Ook"

Oddly enough, a lot of what I want to do has been covered by the Tomes and other things from here.

-A Pokemaster type character (first covered by Archivist/Fiendbinder, then by the Pokemaster)

-Someone who rides a dragon, that dragon being an enormous fire-breathing brute of a thing, with minimal intellect (various ideas from here, more or less nothing from WotC)

-A Witchblade-style character (Shadow Warrior by Ceilingcat)

-A pro wrestler (first just the attitude put onto a greatsword/table-wielding half dragon ork, "The Urak Guy"*, then actual grappler characters such as Wizards, Dungeonomicon Monks and Sword Sages)

*Do you smell what Urak' is cooking? He later on managed to get a valet/manager: the Nazgal. She looked very wraithlike, and helped distract the enemies or hit them with cheapshots.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

2e Fighter/Mage sucked balls. It was about the equivalent to 75% of each in 3e (some kind of lesser gestalt maybe) but the HP calculation was wrong. You get HP so low it's unplayable.

That was the big problem with the 2e multiclassing system in general (other than the racial restrictions mentioned earlier). That dividing and always rounding down hurt unless you were something like a fighter/cleric.

[Maxus]

I spent 3e arguing with people about whether or not it was possible for a Wizard to learn Divine spells. I remember seeing a method for it, but the location slips my mind...

[Koumei]

The "Extra Spell" feat. I think the consensus is that it adds it to your spells known, but not your class list, so you still can't cast the spell, however a Sorcerer could swindle it due to the word "primarily".

Note that CDiv also has the "You can spend a feat to get limited domain access" option, though you need a good Wis for it, and ToFiends has the better version, where you just get the domain/sphere.

[Username17]

Or you could just read the Wizard spell learning rules. You take a scroll and you decipher it. Then you learn the spell. End of discussion.

You don't need to have a spell on your spell list to decipher a scroll. Indeed, you need to decipher the scroll before you can know whether it is on your spell list or not. And it being on your spell list is a prerequisite for casting off the scroll, but not for learning off the scroll.

-Username17

[Leress]

A "trap-gunner" which is pretty much laying traps around to mess up enemies and then shooting them in the face once they sprung the trap.

[Cynic]

Oh, the one idea I haven't messed with yet, the long-term magic plan thing that Frank had mentioned in one of the forum posts. It reminded me of Farfrd's tribe. I want to play that sort of a spellcaster. I've tried something similar with charged spells and setting up runes and having triggers and such but meh, it's still not the same effect.

Again all this is wanting to play a different system.

[RandomCasualty2]

I don't think that non-magical should be a schtick. It doesn't make any god damned sense in a fantasy world that has extra magic physics in it. It's like being a "non-physics" character in a modern game. Your character might not understand physics, but you can't not interact with it.

It should be more like being a non-matrix character in Shadowrun. You may use a few gadgets that are matrix dependent, like your commlink, but you don't go hacking or getting into matrix combats.

And that should actually work as a concept.

The age old trope "you need a mage to beat a mage" really needs to die, unless we're willing to also adopt "you need a warrior to beat a warrior".

Actually more than anything, it's a request for abilities to interact better with the game's internal physics. Basically no more indestructible walls of force, or any of that bullshit. A cunning warrior needs to be able to discern illusions, hack apart summons, and otherwise counter what a wizard can do in a meaningful way without magic, or at the very least be still reasonably functional if he has to ignore it.

[Bigode]

1) A big ugly monster. If I want to play a giant, I want to be a giant. I don't want to have to use polymorph shennanegans or be a druid/MoMF/Warshaper.

Damn, I need to get around to that ...

3) A "non-magical" thrower character. I want a fighter who uses thrown weapons that can be just as scary and interesting as a wizard.

Already done, right?

-A pro wrestler (first just the attitude put onto a greatsword/table-wielding half dragon ork, "The Urak Guy"*, then actual grappler characters such as Wizards, Dungeonomicon Monks and Sword Sages)

Did you actually manage to make a grappler swordsage worth talking about - if so, how? Also, if you care.

It should be more like being a non-matrix character in Shadowrun. You may use a few gadgets that are matrix dependent, like your commlink, but you don't go hacking or getting into matrix combats.

And that should actually work as a concept.

The age old trope "you need a mage to beat a mage" really needs to die, unless we're willing to also adopt "you need a warrior to beat a warrior".

Actually more than anything, it's a request for abilities to interact better with the game's internal physics. Basically no more indestructible walls of force, or any of that bullshit. A cunning warrior needs to be able to discern illusions, hack apart summons, and otherwise counter what a wizard can do in a meaningful way without magic, or at the very least be still reasonably functional if he has to ignore it.

WTF? If warriors don't take part in "magical combats", then "you need a mage to beat a mage"; if they can counter mages, they do take part in "magical combats" ...

[JonSetanta]

3) A "non-magical" thrower character. I want a fighter who uses thrown weapons that can be just as scary and interesting as a wizard.

Already done, right?

Sure. I made some maneuvers recently to address this lack of build but they'll probably sink back to the last page. That's fine, I have reviews elsewhere.

WTF? If warriors don't take part in "magical combats", then "you need a mage to beat a mage"; if they can counter mages, they do take part in "magical combats" ...

Ehh, not so sure. Definition by negation perhaps. The Warrior Countermage makes for a damned boring battle if pitted against another warrior.
I'd throw in anti-spell abilities as universal options tacked on to the side of a character's main build but the range of options would also vary by archetype.
• Warriors can counter spells targeted at them and also protect allies.
• Roguelikes can counter spells near their own reach and steal them for later use.
• Mages can counter spells at a distance and add them to their own capabilities (either temporarily or permanently)

It wouldn't be an archetype as much as something like a backup weapon.