Author Topic: The Role of the Fighter in a Party  (Read 72535 times)

Offline X-Codes

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #180 on: November 18, 2011, 05:48:59 PM »
^^
Get the whole party in on the Searching too. While you take 10, they randomly add 0-6 to your bonus, depending on Int.

All that makes for low per-trap cost in a dungeon crawl yeah, since its a skill check you basically automake. Just scan for traps at chokepoints(why the heck would a module designer place traps where nobody's going to step? If its going to be in regular use there'd be ways to arm and disarm them as well), and systematically dismantle them.

I was always under the impression that in order to aid another, the aider has to actually be capable of attempting the skill himself (in this case, "have trapfinding").  If it's a high DC trap, the party Wizard can't aid another on your Search check anymore than a riding dog animal companion could aid his druid at diplomacy.
Doesn't matter, took 10. (The Rogue, that is, and he finds those Search DC 37 traps on a 10 every time.)

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #181 on: November 21, 2011, 05:00:51 PM »
I was always under the impression that in order to aid another, the aider has to actually be capable of attempting the skill himself (in this case, "have trapfinding").  If it's a high DC trap, the party Wizard can't aid another on your Search check anymore than a riding dog animal companion could aid his druid at diplomacy.

d20srd
Untrained
An untrained Knowledge check is simply an Intelligence check. Without actual training, you know only common knowledge (DC 10 or lower).


So luckily for an untrained K check,
that dc 10 can get you the Aid Another, but you still have to roll it.

iirc - this approach can happen for all Trained skills.
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Offline StreamOfTheSky

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #182 on: November 21, 2011, 09:50:21 PM »
I think it's an even greater difference than just that of "trained only" skills (and not all of them HAVE untrained uses, only some of them do, like knowledge).

A dog just plain can not make diplomacy checks.  It's not an issue of not having a rank in the skill, it's just simply impossible.  I thought it was the same deal with Trapfinding.  Cause hell, a class that comes with search and a high int-basis (like...Archmage) could easily get a higher bonus on search than a rogue and max out ranks...and it still wouldn't matter...can't find those high DC traps with search.

And if you cannot possibly find the traps, how on earth are you aiding the rogue in his attempt to do so?

Offline veekie

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #183 on: November 22, 2011, 12:11:54 AM »
Its one of the slightly ambiguous areas. Search is not a Trained-Only skill, so anyone can roll it for Aid Another. Only rogues can use Search to find traps, however, his party members are only rolling Aid Another to help him search rather than trying to find the traps themselves. Finally, not all traps require Trapfinding to detect.

In the scenario, it basically would mean a systematic directed search, the specialist tells the others what to look out for, and if they see anything funky, they direct his attention to it.
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Offline Basket Burner

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #184 on: November 22, 2011, 07:32:08 AM »
I think that it's a moot point given how useless skills are.

Offline Shadowhunter

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #185 on: November 24, 2011, 12:02:43 PM »
Very late to the "party" and maybe it's a nitpick, but oh well.

I would just like to point out that if one goes with "text trumphs table" (which I assume that most of us do since it's the rule) then Brutal Strike is really bad. The short text in the feat summary table says "daze" but the actual feat says "sickened" and sickened isn't a particularly impressive de-buff.

Offline Basket Burner

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #186 on: November 24, 2011, 12:16:19 PM »
Very late to the "party" and maybe it's a nitpick, but oh well.

I would just like to point out that if one goes with "text trumphs table" (which I assume that most of us do since it's the rule) then Brutal Strike is really bad. The short text in the feat summary table says "daze" but the actual feat says "sickened" and sickened isn't a particularly impressive de-buff.

The real problem with that feat it it is 10 + Power Attack damage and you can only try once a round.

So not only is it a minor debuff, it's one that doesn't work 95% of the time because the DC is only 14 or so. You can't just hit over and over and hope they roll a 1 because once a round. You can't PA harder to raise the DC because then they'll just die by damage, rendering the point and the feat moot.

Offline lans

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #187 on: November 24, 2011, 12:54:59 PM »
Actually you can just PA, at 6th you can PA for 12, resulting in a 22 DC and only about 50 or so damage. Leap Attack would make this a DC of 34 and 60ish damage.
Several CR7s have around a 100hp.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2011, 12:58:03 PM by lans »

Offline Basket Burner

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #188 on: November 24, 2011, 12:58:21 PM »
Actually you can just PA, at 6th you can PA for 12, resulting in a 22 DC and only about 50 or so damage. Leap Attack would make this a DC of 34 and 60ish damage.

That raises the question of why you are spending a feat to leave things alive but with a minor debuff when you can instead spend a feat to make them dead.

As I said. Low PA = low DC. High PA = who cares about the minor debuff.

If it were 10 + damage, that would be different as well.

Offline lans

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #189 on: November 24, 2011, 01:07:18 PM »
If you got a feat that can make up 40pts of damage I'm all ears.
Maybe TWF with armor spikes, adds... lets see about 20 damage.

Offline Basket Burner

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #190 on: November 24, 2011, 02:10:44 PM »
If you got a feat that can make up 40pts of damage I'm all ears.
Maybe TWF with armor spikes, adds... lets see about 20 damage.

Well, I hear Pounce helps. Do that 62 twice. The point is PA for large numbers = inflict dead status effect, which trumps most others.

Any of the fixes I mentioned would make Brutal Strike worth using but RAW it's terrible.

Offline Halinn

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #191 on: November 24, 2011, 02:17:46 PM »
If you got a feat that can make up 40pts of damage I'm all ears.
Maybe TWF with armor spikes, adds... lets see about 20 damage.

Well, I hear Pounce helps. Do that 62 twice. The point is PA for large numbers = inflict dead status effect, which trumps most others.

Any of the fixes I mentioned would make Brutal Strike worth using but RAW it's terrible.

Yeah, but dead status effects allows them to become ghosts, which will trump most builds ;)

Offline Basket Burner

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #192 on: November 24, 2011, 02:33:10 PM »
Not very often, no. Both in the sense of most dead do not become ghosts, and most ghosts do not become better than their living counterparts. That's build dependent.

Offline cjosephs1s

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #193 on: November 24, 2011, 07:49:10 PM »
Also coming late to the party so I didnt' read all 10 pages of posts. 

But why all the hate for fighters?  From what I"ve read most people seem to think they are absolutly useless and those couple of pages should be just torn out of the PHB.  I've seen stuff about not doing much damage but fighters can do a lot of damage.  with 5 attacks per round from Speed or haste its very easy to kill lots of monsters thrown at you in the second round even if you only get one attack on the first.  Yeah you can build a crappy one but If you're going to build a good fighter that does damage its easy to hit for 40 or 50 points of damage per attack with no problems.  at 5 attacks per round that's 200 -250 points of damage not counting crits or AoO which can push this number over 1000 points of damage per round.  I've yet to see a caster have any spell that can do that much damage.  Yes even against undead, constructs, plants and oozes with a few pieces of relatively cheap gear.  And the fighter has feats leftover for controlling the area he is in or gaining some DR for staying power. 


Are fighters the greatest thing since sliced bread and the wheel?  no but give em some credit at least. 

Offline skydragonknight

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #194 on: November 24, 2011, 08:18:05 PM »
The power level of a Fighter is strongly tied to character level. At lower levels they are fine, but a lot of their damage output assumes certain conditions (often being able to charge). Whereas caster gain not only more power with levels, but far more options; a well-built caster can get around nearly any obstacle, even if he needs to rest and change his spells first to do so. Fighters also have strong gear dependency, needing to spend most of their wealth on better +s in order have competitive attack and defense values against equal CR enemies. And then there is the lack of non-combat options, while casters have spells that can not only solve non-combat problems, but bypass large sections of plot.

But a Fighter still has better damage, you say? Though this is usually true, it isn't the sole metric of combat ability. A caster usually has multiple spells of a type we refer to as 'battlefield control' that can change the rules of the battlefield like Entangle or Black Tentacles or Solid Fog enabling a "Divide and Conquer" style of gameplay severely lowering the enemy threat levels. They also have 'Save or Lose' spells ranging from spells that flat out kill an enemy  to those that hinder him to the point where he can do nothing. And finally there is buffs, able to increase a casters' capabilities without the necessity of gear, thus enabling the caster to purchase items that expand their versatility even further.

Many of us love the concept of the Fighter, but don't like how they were implemented in the system relative to other classes (Especially those with Vancian casting).
« Last Edit: November 24, 2011, 08:19:51 PM by skydragonknight »
Hmm.

Offline Sinfire Titan

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #195 on: November 24, 2011, 08:26:03 PM »
Many of us love the concept of the Fighter, but don't like how they were implemented in the system relative to other classes (Especially those with Vancian casting).

There's a concept behind the Fighter class? All I see is an index card that says "Here's a bunch of bonus feats, good luck."
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Offline skydragonknight

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #196 on: November 24, 2011, 09:05:09 PM »
There's a concept behind the Fighter class? All I see is an index card that says "Here's a bunch of bonus feats, good luck."
Hmm.

Offline veekie

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #197 on: November 24, 2011, 10:45:47 PM »
Additionally, for damage output, unless hes one of a few builds hitting Pounce or Ubercharging up, the Fighter does not actually have straight damage without full attacks. A lot of the problems lessen when you assume a dungeon crawl, though never too greatly.
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Offline Sinfire Titan

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #198 on: November 25, 2011, 01:19:23 AM »
There's a concept behind the Fighter class? All I see is an index card that says "Here's a bunch of bonus feats, good luck."


The concept was stupid. Stupid enough to work.
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Offline zugschef

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Re: The Role of the Fighter in a Party
« Reply #199 on: November 25, 2011, 04:37:03 AM »
fighter, cleric, sorcerer and wizard are all horribly designed classes if you take the general approach of 3.5 into account...

they are all generic classes in a system which is based on classes and NOT a generic approach. totally weird.