When you cite a literary figure as a "Fighter"

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:35 am

you become something level appropriate like "Incredible Hulk" or "Demon Samurai."

So, exactly what I've been saying then?

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:37 am

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:42 am

Well, I like the idea of a Fighter being a base class that goes only for 7 levels until you have to add a PrC such as 'Magic Fighter.'

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:47 am

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:55 am

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of 'Exalted Knight,' 'Master of the Infernal Weapons,' 'Warrior Artificer,' 'Elemental Warrior' for Fighter.

Barbarian I got things like 'Dark Marauder' (Currently working on it), 'Primal Conduit', 'Demon of the Raging Abyss', and 'Elemental Berserker'.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:57 am

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:08 am

Well, Exalted Knight was more along that lines of... well, Exalted.

But yeah, that's the thing. Being a Fighter is great for low level campaigns. You start a low level campaign, go Fighter. Everything is fine. Somehow, the campaign last longers as good campaigns are won't to do. At least, the same characters are being used in a new campaign or whatever. Your poor Fighter? No longer viable. Well fuck.

Do you abandon the character? Not if you have a particular attachment to him.
Do you just, I don't know, multiclass? You could. Hell, I could look into that. I'm not sure how viable that is.
How 'bout rewriting the character so he was a paladin this whole time? Wait, huh?
How about adding a prestige class with an attached supernatural power source and cool SU's and EX's out the wazoo? Like become a Fighter + Fire Elemental Powers centered around hitting people with my sword? Sounds cool!

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:54 am

This is a stupid idea/definition for a fighter. It looks like the manifestation what I thought people here were against. I think by coming up with a definition for fighter that explicitly ties them into the realm of "human limits" (thereby tying it to human's or races that are very close to human) you've actually found a way to make the idea of fighter worse by giving it racial restrictions. What I mean by this is that from what you've outlined here nothing with supernatural abilities can be considered a fighter. A warforged (as crappy as the race is) can't be a fighter because it has immunities that break the human limit. A changeling who's only power is being able to look like someone else can't be a fighter because its supernatural.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 12:11 pm

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 2:48 pm

ubernoob wrote:You do realize that "race" means the same thing in D&D as "species" does in star trek, right?

And, as a result, it might be better to say that a fighter the way you're defining it stays within the baseline limits for that particular character's race.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 4:31 pm

It should be noted that Dune is only the more modern series of books that I first read where characters did stuff like that. Advancing from noble son, to voice-trained, and shield-experienced fighter, practicing on combat droids that will kill anyone* if they don't stop fighting it. Etc. etc.

(there's never been a human in a Dune book that could solo a combat droid, even Alia, with thousands of male and female 'other' memories of her ancestors can't get a combat droid past like... 6 or 7 (out of 10) and win; Paul steps in and throws a dagger from a dozen or so feet away to try and shut the droid off, and succeeds)

But, here's the thing, lots of other books have stuff like that. The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth is seriousl about "a guy", who gets a super-magical sword, and a suit of armour to fight a much more powerful fighter.

The main villain isn't a wizard, he's a fighter. One who lifts his head off of his shoulders when his neck is about to be chopped in half. One that wears a suit of armour that only a sword made of arbitrarium can possibly injure him. Who carries a sword that can knock armour off of your body, by cutting it, and having it peel off of you.

Seriously, that's some crazy magical powers right there. Niether character is powerful because of 'magic', or 'infused' or 'outside' power. They're powerful because they fight well, fight difficult creatures, and well, almost no one else has to do that......

Meaning that the D&D fighter is more powerful, than the other classes; but levels up in a much more difficult fashion. They don't usually seem to know a lot about their enemies. However, are able to still somehow defeat them. Giant monster, intelligent spell-caster*,

*

Seriously, I'm going to use the X-Men episode where Wolverine was the focus. I feel that he's a fighter, when looked at by D&D, a fighter, or barbarian; maybe a half-troll since he can regen slowly in battle. He also has some magic item, like being armed with 'Adamantine' claws (not Adamantium; meaning that they're still steel coloured, and actually unbreakable, truly an Arbitrarium), and not being able to have his skeleton damaged, ever.

He fights some Samurai guy in Japan, and the guy can basically Dimension Door as a free action, also, this fight uses facing. Wolverine figures out that the Samurai always tries to attack him from behind, so then attacks behind him.

Fighters need to seriously have powers that negate spell caster abilities, but are based on spot, or sense motive, or concentration, or persuasion. Which, probably isn't that hard to do.

Notice Details: A Fighter needs to be aware of their surroundings

If you make a spot check higher than a creature's caster level, when they cast a spell again, you may act as if a creature's spell did not affect you, moving to the edge of a fireball, being aware when a Time Stop goes off. Etc.

--------

Seriously, that's the ability that many fighters seem to have. Everything from Manga like Gantz, to Conan the Barbarian, to Flash Gordon, and everything in between. The heroes can defeat the enemy, but often they need to learn their weakness first.

Also, people need to realize that they can have Gantz levels of violence and PC death, and the game can still be awesome in terms of power scale. There's no need to have 'low' powered death, 'high' powered death is also interesting, and games like CoC and Paranoia are interesting because of their high PC death or insanity rates.

For some older series, what about Cuchullain?

He isn't able to warp-spasm into a monster at the early stages of his stories. He goes from killing a giant dog (dire wolf? advanced dog?) to being able to survive all-day figthing. To getting his Warp Spasm.

Seriously... it's Gutsnake, and Righteous Might and Divine Power active at the same time. Possibly a Permanent lesser Vigour (or just Permanent Vigour). Then there's a pair of Permanent Geas on him. One where he can't say no to an offered meal, and one where he can't eat dog, his namesake. The side effects of breaking either Geas means that he takes a large ability score penalty, and is weaker, and can't move/walk/stand. He dies, strapped by a belt, to a rock, with dozens of enemy bodies around him.

His Warp-spasm is pretty disgusting. Some of his organs half out of his body (eye dangles out of the socket, lung flaps outside of the mouth), and the other half greatly swelled up (lungs), or deeply sunken in (eye). He's several feet taller, stronger, and basically fights a whole army because some of his friends, and army buddies, are killed in battle.

Or Hercules?

Do we have to design a different class each time we want guys like that?

Hercules has an ability that is often seen in other stories as well

Steal Ability: After killing a creature, the Fighter copies an ability that a creature that it fought had, and that the Fighter could logically gain. The Fighter may only copy one ability from any one race of creatures, but may exchange them in the future, or with a different creature of the same race. Subtypes of creatures, such as say, different dragons, are different.

Creature's Favour: After defeating an enemy creature, the Fighter may choose to instead spare their life. In exchange for doing so, the creature must give the Fighter something of value. This is often following the character, and using their abilities; or the fighter carrying an item that does the same.

Either 1 to 3 Wishes every day from a rescued Noble Djinni; or being able to Teleport to a Nymph's pool and get yourself healed completely/reincarnated, so long as it's out of combat time; or even have them follow you. Evil creatures can also be used with this power. Usually it's a captured, imprisoned, etc. creature, and they use their spells, or special abilities when the character tells the creature what to do.

Belkar and the Hueceva's head are a good example of this. Lots of stories have things like this in them. Everything from various knights that join Arthur's table after being beaten by him. To Ekindu who follows Gilgamesh, to nearly every story where one character beats some other character, and now they work together.

Yes, it is more arbitrary, but that's often what Fighters in most stories are like.

A Fighter should be able to steal a Troglodyte's Stench Glands, and it's not a big deal. They can steal a Catoblepas' eyes, and make an item that shoot Catoblepas eye-beams. So, fighters get more powerful, by taking risks, and killing enemies that have useful abilities or items. One Fighter could kill a Cryohydra, and take it's breath weapon by drinking it's blood. An other could bath in it's blood and gain fast healing equal to what the creature had.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 6:30 pm

JE, Can you ever not post a giant as text wall that has nothing to do with what's going on at all?

Paul is not a fighter, because he does none fighter shit, like summon monsters, and control teleportation, and his offspring are giant worms. That's not fighter shit.

And not, fighters are not stronger than other classes.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 7:11 pm

One that wears a suit of armour that only a sword made of arbitrarium can possibly injure him. Who carries a sword that can knock armour off of your body, by cutting it, and having it peel off of you.

That sounds like he has magical items to me.

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 8:30 pm

Judging__Eagle wrote: *

Seriously, I'm going to use the X-Men episode where Wolverine was the focus. I feel that he's a fighter, when looked at by D&D, a fighter, or barbarian; maybe a half-troll since he can regen slowly in battle. He also has some magic item, like being armed with 'Adamantine' claws (not Adamantium; meaning that they're still steel coloured, and actually unbreakable, truly an Arbitrarium), and not being able to have his skeleton damaged, ever.

He fights some Samurai guy in Japan, and the guy can basically Dimension Door as a free action, also, this fight uses facing. Wolverine figures out that the Samurai always tries to attack him from behind, so then attacks behind him.

Fighters need to seriously have powers that negate spell caster abilities, but are based on spot, or sense motive, or concentration, or persuasion. Which, probably isn't that hard to do.

Notice Details: A Fighter needs to be aware of their surroundings

If you make a spot check higher than a creature's caster level, when they cast a spell again, you may act as if a creature's spell did not affect you, moving to the edge of a fireball, being aware when a Time Stop goes off. Etc.

--------

Seriously, that's the ability that many fighters seem to have. Everything from Manga like Gantz, to Conan the Barbarian, to Flash Gordon, and everything in between. The heroes can defeat the enemy, but often they need to learn their weakness first.

Also, people need to realize that they can have Gantz levels of violence and PC death, and the game can still be awesome in terms of power scale. There's no need to have 'low' powered death, 'high' powered death is also interesting, and games like CoC and Paranoia are interesting because of their high PC death or insanity rates.

The rest of what you said didn't make much sense but this did. Give Fighters the power ignore things like invisibility and shit while still remaining dude with a sword ISN'T a bad idea.

Seriously, you could throw that in to the first 7 levels of Fighters or later. My idea for a PrC is one where you still advance in your previous class. However, that doesn't change that a Fighter needs something more at some point. He needs to become something more like Exalted Champion of the Eternal Flame or some shit, busting out some SUs and EXs and SLAs and shit.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 8:49 pm

Why would you even have that Fighter in a world with Wizard?

-Crissa

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 9:39 pm

Because a valient swordsman is a staple of fantasy anything.

And it works at low levels.

What I'm saying is once you get to high-levels, Fighter needs an upgrade. Something Fighter exclusive. Something awesome. Like 'Armed Disciple of Lords of the Black Pits'.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:06 pm

Kaelik wrote:JE, Can you ever not post a giant as text wall that has nothing to do with what's going on at all?

Paul is not a fighter, because he does none fighter shit, like summon monsters, and control teleportation, and his offspring are giant worms. That's not fighter shit.

And not, fighters are not stronger than other classes.

But he started as a fighter, it wasn't like he went through any sort of official bene gesserit training when he used the voice on mother mohaim; he just used an ability that his mother had shown him; the person who actually was a witch, was able to mind control him.

Later, and after having an encounter with mother mohaim, he uses the voice again; this time getting something else accomplished.

Later still he fights a Freman in hand to hand, without using the Voice. He kills the Freman warrior in the duel; and doesn't use any special abilities; meaning that he can solo a creature that can kill Sardaukar soldiers at a rate of 7 for 3 casualties; when Sardaukar are considered so powerful than 2 legions "auto-win" against any single planet's armies.

I guess fighting a CR 8 'fighter' and killing them without getting injured with just knives has nothing to do with being a fighter at all.

I'm assuming that Sardaukar are CR 6 creatures, always. Most members of armies are CR 1/2 to CR 2 Warriors of levels 1-4 in Warrior.

Fremen are probably at a CR of 8 in order to have a casualty ratio of 3 Freman dead to 7 Sardaukar dead. This event is from the 1st book, where 10 Sardaukar attack a Freman Sietch to assassinate Paul; they lost 7 of their own team before it's obvious that they need to surrender.

Against any other forces, the Sardaukar would have probably steamrollered through the Sietch and killed everyone.

So, in terms of just melee fighting ability; without magic or mind control the tiers looks like:

CR 1/2-2 Warriors
CR 6 Sardaukar [Note: Spess Mehrines are in this tier; as are Imperial Assassins; and Sisters of Battle]
CR 8 Freman [A veteran Sergeant, Scout, Assault Marine]
CR 8+ Paul; Spess Mehrn Chaplains; Stone Golems, etc.

PR, yes, yes he does have some magical items.

But then again, so do many characters in the setting. Magic items are how a PC gains power above and beyond what monsters get naturally.

Taking trophies from monsters, and turning them into items is a long running staple in stories. From a crocodile dragon's spine made into a sword; to a monster's fang or tooth carved into a knife or sword; to wearing the Nemean lion's hide as a cloak; to dipping your arrows in Hydra Blood to permanently poison them, or bathing in a Dragon's blood to gain a measure of their invulnerability/defense (or say, their Natural armour score).

In 'stories', a common Fighter power is to witness other's power, and then learn/earn it for themselves, or find a way to negate it.

Maybe something like a laundry list of monster powers, similar to the magic of blue classes Frank wrote up.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:07 pm

Crissa wrote:Why would you even have that Fighter in a world with Wizard?

-Crissa

Because wizards typically aren't D&D wizards.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:09 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:
Crissa wrote:Why would you even have that Fighter in a world with Wizard?

-Crissa
Because wizards typically aren't D&D wizards.

I think this hits the hammer on the head.

Wizard is seriously... a prestige class in most settings, and everyone becomes one if they plan on getting very powerful.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:30 pm

Judging__Eagle wrote:But he started as a fighter, it wasn't like he went through any sort of official bene gesserit training when he used the voice on mother mohaim; he just used an ability that his mother had shown him; the person who actually was a witch, was able to mind control him.

Later, and after having an encounter with mother mohaim, he uses the voice again; this time getting something else accomplished.

Later still he fights a Freman in hand to hand, without using the Voice. He kills the Freman warrior in the duel; and doesn't use any special abilities; meaning that he can solo a creature that can kill Sardaukar soldiers at a rate of 7 for 3 casualties; when Sardaukar are considered so powerful than 2 legions "auto-win" against any single planet's armies.

1) He has latent racial magics. You know what that is? It's a fucking outsider.

2) You can also beat it in hand to hand combat by being higher level.

No he's not a fighter, he starts of by being magic, and then becomes more magic. He doesn't use the voice by training his sword throwing skills till he can control the universe, he has magic.

And no, Wizard is not a PrC in any universe you dumb shit.

All those weak frail Sorcerers that Conan fucks up didn't start out as fighters, they started out as weak ass Wizards and got to be stronger Wizards.

JE. I am officially banning you from talking about who is what in any fictionalized universe, because you are so fucking crazy that you think everything is a fighter.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:32 pm

ubernoob wrote:
MGuy wrote:This is a stupid idea/definition for a fighter. It looks like the manifestation what I thought people here were against. I think by coming up with a definition for fighter that explicitly ties them into the realm of "human limits" (thereby tying it to human's or races that are very close to human) you've actually found a way to make the idea of fighter worse by giving it racial restrictions. What I mean by this is that from what you've outlined here nothing with supernatural abilities can be considered a fighter. A warforged (as crappy as the race is) can't be a fighter because it has immunities that break the human limit. A changeling who's only power is being able to look like someone else can't be a fighter because its supernatural.
You do realize that "race" means the same thing in D&D as "species" does in star trek, right?

God, you're retarded.

And yeah, I didn't decide what people expect when they see the word "Fighter." I'm just explaining to someone retarded why when you veer outside of that preconception you need to change the name or else people get butthurt.

Further edit: And the fact that you don't understand that people are totally ok with racial abilities that are not human on something not labeled as human makes you even more retarded. Seriously, you are quite possibly the most retarded poster still posting at TGD.

What the fuck are you talking about?! "Fighter" is a class. IF you're going to give "fighter" a definition at the very least you could limit it to what to expect out of a CLASS not give it a stupid racial requirement.
So that you don't mix up what i'm saying again let me break down into easy steps.

1) Fighter is a class. ANY race would be expected to be a fighter because of this. So posting a definition for a class that says if you're not human you're not expected to be one is retarded.

2) If this is a definition for what people expect then again there shouldn't be a racial prerequisite. People who haven't played the game before who play a fighter would just from the name expect a class that could fight well and not be strapped down with a racial prereq. People Who've played the game for a while KNOW there isn't a racial prereq to being a fighter and KNOW that you don't have to be human to be one. People would be MORE butthurt to have to be human to be the crappiest class.

And lastly your further edit doesn't have jack shit to do with what I was saying. I said the fact that you in YOUR definition you added a racial perquisite to being a fighter thereby eliminating any race with supernatural or "beyond human limitation" features from being seen as a fighter is retarded . I never said anything about people not being ok with supernatural abilities and I don't know where you were reading to get that idea. So before you start calling people retarded learn to fuckign read or at the very least some 3rd grade reading comprehension.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 12:18 am

God_of_Awesome · Post by **God_of_Awesome** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 12:39 am

I do like JE's suggestion of carving out Hydra spines to make super weapons and shit.

But how bout changing the Fighter class to the ambigious Adventurer class or... something. Something ambigious that says 'Doesn't necesarily cast spells right of the bat but is willing to utilize anything.' Handyman, Improve Guy. Or just Fighter. Whatever.

The idea of a Fighter walking around with the carapace exoskeleton of the giant spider he slew is appealing.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 1:01 am

I read it. My comments are not strawman and have everything to do with the original post. The fact of the matter is I don't agree with your original post for reasons I've already outlined. Calling a disagreement strawman does not prove that your reading comprehension has improved.