Some Basic Questions on 3e

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A level one Fighter fighting a level one Wizard is not an appropriate encounter for either character.

A party of four level one characters versus an apprentice (1st level) Wizard is appropriate since it's EL 1.

The Fighter can charge the Wizard, and attempt to grapple him. The attack bonus on that would, on average, be +5 (+1 Fighter, +2 Str, +2 charge). He could also time his attacks and fire with his ranged weapon (1d8 longbow > a 1d4+1 hp Wizard). Color Spray (and some other 1st-level arcane spells) has a short range. Sleep is dangerous, sure, but it just entails the Fighter making a Will save and even then, a Fort save for the CDG.

A better example is when a party is in a dungeon fighting a pair of orcs. Look up the example encounter in the Combat section of the PHB. The Wizard gets knocked down to negative HP in the surprise round. The Fighter hacks away the orcs.

It's not really a matter of if a Fighter can beat a Wizard but rather what a Fighter can do compared to a Wizard. And a Wizard's choices are fairly limited at early levels; you can only cast Sleep and Magic Missile so many times before having to rest; there's no limit to how many attack rolls a Fighter can make (and always healing spells to give him the gas again).

[ February 21, 2004, 04:53: Message edited by: Oaz ]

 

Maybe so, but then, a barbarian, a paladin and a ranger is each of their own much better than the fighter any given level, and on higher levels, all classes are.

 

I'm not really going to argue which is better. That's subject to personal preference all the way. However, fighters tend to be more powerful than paladins, rangers or barbarians of a given level when it comes to plain melee or archery. Fighters don't need high wisdom (paladins, rangers), or charisma (paladins). They can put everything in STR, DEX and CON if they so desire. Plus, they have more feats. Granted, on higher levels the difference may not be so big in special circumstances (10 feats more in fighter won't really beat special class features of other warriors if they're fighting on their own ground), but on lower levels it means the fighter has power attack, dodge and expertise feat chains much, much earlier, including the might whirlwind.

Fighter vs Barbarian basically means feats, specialisation, all armour allowance (DEX bonus doesn't make up for the difference) and conscious attention vs rage.

Fighter vs Ranger means more feats, specialisation etc vs free dual-wielding if in light armour. What about casting? Nothing really. Very few slots, very low levels, nothing really useful to cast. Besides, casting in combat against a melee specialist? Just how much Conentration skill does your ranger have? No specialisation even in damned bow (where's the logic?). Even if the fighter is of a hated race of the ranger, it still doesn't beat bonuses from specialisation.

Fighter vs Paladin. Now, if the fighter happens to be evil, protection from evil works. Smite evil helps a bit. In one strike. Specialisation helps in all. Also Greater Specialisation from 3.5 follows this pattern to the greater advantage of the fighter. Lay hands and healing magic - useful if your concentration check succeeds. If you fail, you lose an action, a spell and a few HPs as a result of the fighter's free action of an attack of oppurtunity. You don't get all that if your fighter enemy isn't evil. You can get some short-lasting advantage when given time to cast spells before combat.

Final notes:

1. Realism. Fighters don't have Supernatural Abilities. Fighters aren't spellcaster. Just what, in all realism, do they have in exchange? Increased weapon training and perhaps tactics is the only thing that comes to my mind. Is that bad for them? Well, they could always have spent more points on mental stats instead of minmaxing to get abysmal physique (pun intended). Read the whole thing at Maddox

2. Why not take the prestige class? After all, aren't fighters meant to follow them at some point actually to start to differ from one another?

3. Fighters can always take levels in other classes much in the same way as other classes take the (in)famour four fighter levels.

 

Paladin 20: Awesome.

Barbarian 20: Awesome.

Ranger 20 (3.5): Not bad.

Fighter 25: gets his ass kicked in combat by all the above even with Epic feats.

Fighter (evil) VS Paladin: Special Mount + Spirited Charge + Smite Evil + Heavy Lance = Death by Massive Damage for Fighter.

Fighter (good/neutral) VS Paladin: Fighter shoots Paladin's mount with a longbow. Fails to kill it because of its uber AC and HP. Paladin shoots Fighter's warhorse with a crossbow. Warhorse dies. Next turn. Spirited Charge over and over again until the Fighter dies.

Fighter VS Barbarian. Fighter attempts trip. Fails because the Barbarian's strength is 30 with greater rage. Drops weapon. Barbarian runs up to Fighter and chops him into bits with greataxe.

Fighter VS Ranger: Fighter puts 4 arrows into Ranger. Ranger puts 4 arrows into Fighter. Ranger's animal companion tears Fighter into bite-sized chunks. YUM!

The Fighter is greatly inferior outside of combat as well with his sucky class skills.

Therefore, the Fighter is the only core class that sucks when without multi-classing.

Edit: Whirlwind is a very nice feat, but it's not powerful enough to be classified 'mighty'.

Which is upsetting, since the Fighter is my favorite D&D class of all time.

 

You get more versatility with a Fighter. The Fighter can cover a whole bunch of character concepts: the wanderering mercenary, the expert archer, the LN knight, etc., etc.

In my opinion, this is also why the Cleric is so powerful (which is a bit off topic, I'm sorry). The game designers gave it a lot of advantages (e.g. spontaeneous casting, buff spells), but then again, there's not that many people who want to play a Cleric (in 2E, the Cleric winded up being a walking first aid kit, which is why they inplemented spontaneous casting in 3E).

But still, if it bothers everyone so much that Fighters "suck", then I just think it's time to either get Sword & Fist, or better, yet, Complete Warrior (the book for any character who deals in attack rolls instead of skills or magic).

By the way, a bad way to compare classes is to pit one against another in a tournament. Run an adventure with the classes you are preparing, and examine which classes are getting more shares of the action and which aren't (taking down the ogres, bypassing the traps, taking down the "boss" with AC 25, DR 20/+2, but no SR, etc.).