The Mundane Melee fighter can go fuck himself.

[Mistborn]

I'm Lord Mistborn you may remember me from previous threads in which we have discussed fighters, and their lack of place in a D&D like game. However despite the paucity of their arguments memes from the pro-fighter camp still hold sway even in the Den. We have even respected posters like K ranting about how we can't have attack eagles because that would make the mundane melee fighter feel small in the pants. This is unacceptable.

The reality is that low mobility and melee attacks are a losing combination and rewriting the game in order to make mundane melee characters not suck involves shitting on other archetypes to an unacceptable degree. Even if before you talk about magical types you have to acknowledge that "archery" is a thing and players are totally going to want to have and people want "uses a bow" be a major part of their character. That means archery has to be good enough that when "charge and stab with swords" and "hang back and shoot with bow" are both on the table it has to be viable for character to chose the latter. That means however their are going to be situations where "bows" are viable options and swords aren't far more often than the other way around and you can't fix this disparity without shitting all over Legolas and Robin Hood. and let's talk about magic for a second because while there are wizards that can tote be part of the same adventures as mundane melee guys there are also "mighty wizards" who can't and they're not just a fixture of the fantasy genera they're heavily integrated into D&D's mythology. What the pro-fighter side is essentially saying is "huge swaths of the fantasy genera should't be represented in game because I crave Conan cock", and that's terrible.

So basically what I'm saying is... fuck the fighter, seriously fuck that guy.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Nonsense.

The fighter is a perfectly viable class for mook-level NPCs.

[Previn]

Annnnnnnnd... he's on ignore now.

[Schleiermacher]

Oh, fuck off. We've danced this dance before and it never results in anything productive. It never will. Just stop beating the dead horse.

Or, since you will never do that because this dead horse is in fact your special pet hobby horse, at the very least use one of the variety of actually good arguments, instead of bullshit self-contradictory ones like this:

Even if before you talk about magical types you have to acknowledge that "archery" is a thing and players are totally going to want to have and people want "uses a bow" be a major part of their character. That means archery has to be good enough that when "charge and stab with swords" and "hang back and shoot with bow" are both on the table it has to be viable for character to chose the latter.

If there are going to be situations where bows are a viable attack form and swords aren't, more often than the latter (which is true) why would you need to make bows a comparable option to swords when swords are on the table for them to be a viable alternative?

Answer: You don't. Obviously. You humongous idiot.

[Mistborn]

If there are going to be situations where bows are a viable attack form and swords aren't, more often than the latter (which is true) why would you need to make bows a comparable option to swords when swords are on the table for them to be a viable alternative?

Because people seriously want to play as Legolas/Robin Hood and have "uses a bow" as major part of their characters identity.

[Schleiermacher]

Yes, and the inherent advantages of using a ranged weapon are enough that it does not actually have to be an equally effective method of attack to melee, or even close, in order to be balanced.

[TheFlatline]

If there are going to be situations where bows are a viable attack form and swords aren't, more often than the latter (which is true) why would you need to make bows a comparable option to swords when swords are on the table for them to be a viable alternative?

Because people seriously want to play as Legolas/Robin Hood and have "uses a bow" as major part of their characters identity.

Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".

Agincourt *should* have been a total disaster for the English. All they *had* were archers. And in a normal battlefield where you didn't have to slog through a mile of knee-deep mud, the battle would have been a disaster, because the archers would get a few volleys in and then get slaughtered by the cavalry and foot soldiers.

Truth is, most archery was fired in volleys at ranges of hundreds of yards. And it's actually kind of hard to hit anything at that range. That's why we had volleys of arrows. Even hitting a moving target at anything like 50 feet is kind of a feat. And if you do, the guy next to your target runs you through with a sword and that's the end of it. This shit with Legolas is so unrealistic that it's basically Anime levels of bullshit. So if you're setting "Shooting with a bow" at super anime mythic legend as a *starting* point, and setting melee fighters at "more or less realistic" as the pinnacle, you are smoking crack and need to set the pipe down.

[TheFlatline]

Yes, and the inherent advantages of using a ranged weapon are enough that it does not actually have to be an equally effective method of attack to melee, or even close, in order to be balanced.

Remember, it wasn't bows & arrows that killed off the melee/foot soldier: it was a gun that could be loaded fast enough to be effective, because it takes 8 weeks to train someone to use a rifle and years to train someone to use a sword and a lifetime to be really effective with a bow. And even then bayonet charges were a thing for 200 years after the gun replaced the sword.

[Schleiermacher]

I'd like to add that although his name's become a byword for archery, Robin Hood used a longsword or quarterstaff in close quarters anyway, rather than hopping around and pulling Green Arrow stunts. Legolas used a dagger. (I refuse to accept Movie Legolas as something we should strive to emulate.)

[JonSetanta]

Just give them more feats and get on with it.

There are plenty of "fixes". Pick one. Use Tome Fighter. I don't care.

[JonSetanta]

Although actually someone mentioned Kenpachi of Bleach in one of the other threads and that gave me an idea.

Rather than assume Kenpachi is doing shinigami things such as displaying his "combat aura" or walking on air as part of the universal reiatsu properties of being in the spirit world, they could be high level Fighter abilities....
Although at that point you might as well play Tome Fighter 1/Tome Monk X.

[TheFlatline]

I'd like to add that although his name's become a byword for archery, Robin Hood used a longsword or quarterstaff in close quarters anyway, rather than hopping around and pulling Green Arrow stunts. Legolas used a dagger. (I refuse to accept Movie Legolas as something we should strive to emulate.)

It's also a null fucking issue because you have a character class that can port minor deities in to fight on your behalf multiple times a day. Even if "use a bow" is still a Thing for you by that level, it's like being BMX Bandit vs Angel Summoner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw

Anything *not* angel summoning is bullshit. The problem with the D&D fighter is not that he sucks per se, but that anything that *isn't* slinging angels and bolts of pure creation is going to suck.

[Mistborn]

Even hitting a moving target at anything like 50 feet is kind of a feat. And if you do, the guy next to your target runs you through with a sword and that's the end of it.

Yet somehow that never happen to archer heroes in fiction. You can shout REALISARM all you want it doesn't change the fact you're sucking barrels of Conan cock and you're argument is generally shitty. I don't thing it's very realistic for some dude wearing pajamas to punch a bunch of armed men to death but D&D gives you the option of being that guy starting from level 1. The demand for "historically accurate medieval weapon simulator" is basically nill so if you're going to let people play "magic man" and "weeaboo fightan master" from level 1 you have no excuse to not let people play Legolas.

[codeGlaze]

...why did I click on this?

./facepalm

[Schleiermacher]

LM, your logic is completely ridiculous. You're basically working backwards from your conclusion in order to say that melee fighters by definition have to be rock-bottom shit.

You can let people play archers and melee fighters from level 1 if you just don't make archery an obviously better choice than melee weapons. All we are saying is that you have all the justification you would ever need for making them balanced.

[Voss]

...why did I click on this?

./facepalm

Your subconscious clearly wants to wallow in shit for a while.

[Mistborn]

LM, your logic is completely ridiculous. You're basically working backwards from your conclusion in order to say that melee fighters by definition have to be rock-bottom shit.

You can let people play archers and melee fighters from level 1 if you just don't make archery an obviously better choice than melee weapons. All we are saying is that you have all the justification you would ever need for making them balanced.

You do realize we've had the "we must shit all over archers because other wise the mundane melee fighter will feel small in the pants" There is no "archer problem" there is dumbass melee fighter problem. If you can't deal with the fact that your enemies are on the other side of a cliff/river/flying you suck end of story. Shitting on arches doesn't even solve the melee/ranged problem for reasons that are well known.

In fact, setting archery to low damage not only fails to address the problem of melee character pant content inadequacy in any meaningful way, it also creates a new problem: lack of melee/archery synergy for mixed parties. If one character is engaging the enemy in melee combat, he is both taking damage and dealing damage. If he had a friend who is also in melee, they would be splitting enemy damage somehow and they'd be doing twice as much damage. The result would be that the party of two melee bruisers is more than twice as much as a "party" of a single melee bruiser. But now consider adding a ranged party member to the melee bruiser. By being out of melee, the archer is not taking off any heat from the first melee bruiser, all he is contributing is damage. So if the ranged attacker character is contributing only as much damage as the melee bruiser is, he is a drain on party resources compared with adding another melee bruiser instead. If, Darwin forbid, he is is contributing less damage and he isn't pulling any melee hate, he's a complete fail character.

Melee characters don't even have to suck, Champions is a real game where melee characters are extremely awesome.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".

The D&D wizard is a work of fiction that has a completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a book".

[Doom]

Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".

The D&D wizard is a work of fiction that has a completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a book".

Indeed, that is some total BS book-using there.

[Wiseman]

Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".

The D&D wizard is a work of fiction that has a completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a book".

Sigged!

[shau]

Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".

The D&D wizard is a work of fiction that has a completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a book".

Well, I was going to write something, but I am not going to be able to top that.

[NineInchNall]

Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".

The D&D wizard is a work of fiction that has a completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a book".

No, no, no. Don't you see? It's okay for wizards to do crazy stuff with their books because it's realistic for magic to do crazy stuff in a fantasy world. It's not okay for fighters to do crazy stuff with their swords because it's unrealistic for swords to do crazy stuff in real life New York City.

[tussock]

The point was ...

Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".

The D&D wizard is a work of fiction that has a completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a book".

The Hulk and Superman are comic book heroes who have a completely unrealistic expectation of "punches things".

... like that. If you accept that bows can work against high-CR monsters, just let melee work against high-CR monsters too. There are a great many ways to achieve this, so pick one and stop complaining about theoretical people's complaints that don't actually exist.

[TheFlatline]

Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".

The D&D wizard is a work of fiction that has a completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a book".

Nicely put.

But missing the point. Put Legolas or Robin Hood against a character who can summon archangels and demons or can disintegrate an opponent or fireball them from outside the effective range of a bow or whatever and see who wins.

You're still dealing with Angel Summoner vs BMX Bandit. So unless your arrows decapitate or you can shoot someone from 7 leagues away you're still on the "Mundane" power arc compared to the Wizard and to a lesser extent the Cleric or any magic user in general.

The funny thing here is that we're arguing that melee users are intrinsically shit, yet as soon as we abandon the D&D bullshit tropes and go to, say, Star Wars, suddenly Melee users (the Jedi) are fucking 8 kinds of badass and on a different power level than everyone else.

This isn't an inherent problem with melee users, this is an inherent issue with the tropes of D&D.

[darkmaster]

Are we really going to do this AGAIN? Well let's get this out of the way. Yes mundane fighters suck. But this guy can jump like the goddamned hulk and his super power is "knows muay thai" in high fantasy martial arts should=super powers. End of story. There is no reason not to.