Certainly. I feel like a good number of folks who have been contributing here are all on mostly the same page. We're just all communicating it a tad differently.
Experiences of a Fighter in 2.0
- Thread starter Graham Wolsey
- Start date
Certainly. I feel like a good number of folks who have been contributing here are all on mostly the same page. We're just all communicating it a tad differently.
mikestrauss
Squire
See that makes sense to me. Because if I had to assign combat roles to the various classes, I wouldn't assign tank to Fighter. I would assign DPS.
At an equal number of XP, it deals the best consistent damage of any class, period. Some classes can briefly burst higher (celestial scholar, for instance), but only by using limited resources. Even the static damage ability (wands) of the celestial scholar is a limited resource.
Sure, fighters have high health and good armor, but I just see that as a feature that supports their DPS ability (DPS that drops to only modest damage isn't really consistent damage).
The fact that enemies so often feel the need to resort to using limited resource abilities to remove fighters from the field pretty much proves my point. A fighter is a THREAT, which is why it is so common for enemies to take exceptional measures to remove them from the fighter.
Comparatively, I have always thought that the earth templar best defines the tank role for our game. The class has good health and armor (not fighter or scout level, but still solid), can memorize defensive spells and healing, and presents enough of a threat with melee damage that the character can't simply be ignored.
Every character is played differently, but in my experience, having watched some truly exceptional templar players over the years, nearly every single one has been a tank build, while the best fighter players almost universally focus on DPS builds. I honestly think that people focus too hard on the shields and high health and get caught up in the mindset that fighters are tanks, when the rules really suggest that isn't true.
-MS
Mike Strauss, what have your playtest experiences been like regarding Fighters and their "DPS Role" in 2.0?
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Avaran
Baron
Absolutely true for the current rules. Fighters are the single worst class at 'tanking' outside of incoming weapon-based attacked (that aren't Spellstrikes) and easily the best damage by a significant margin.
Again, true for the current rules.
But...
In 2.0, Fighters will remain the worst 'tanks', and their damage will be laughable. Celestial will do it better, more consistently, and with less risk. And if/when Celestial runs out of spells and Wand charges, they can - as you yourself have pointed out in other threads - just pick up a Longsword and do damage because everyone does that; sure, it will be 40% as effective as a Fighter who spent 54 build to swing 5's and it may take a little longer to kill things, but not appreciably longer given the relatively tiny Constant Damage™ difference.
You talk about them being a threat? Hit them with a single Weakness spell and you can pretty much ignore them. That single Weakness spell negates - at a minimum - 54 Fighter build (3 weapon profs), and you'd need an additional 23 build just to hit for 1 damage (four profs, 6 damage).
Weakness is a third level spell. For a Scholar, that's 7 build not counting pre-reqs. That is an utterly laughable resource trade - it's so efficient it's absurd. And that's 10 minutes of that Fighter being a non-entity.
You forget, Fighters won't have magic items to prop them up, and as such, these 'exceptional measures' you talk about just won't exist in 2.0.
And that's not taking into account Disarm, which is laughably cheap, and other cheap Fighter-killing effects.
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mikestrauss
Squire
I've seen this Weakness argument come up a number of times and it simply doesn't hold water. This isn't a problem with fighters. This is a problem with Weakness. In the current rules, Weakness negates 45 build (+the cost of the weapon skill) for a one-handed fighter. The difference between 45 and 54 is relatively negligible. Either way you have a 3rd level spell that is one of the most efficient spells in the game. It always has been. It is vaguely obfuscated by Shatter being at the same level (which is also ridiculously efficient).
But, more to the point, I find the argument mostly meaningless because it basically assumes that there are an unlimited number of earth casters on the bad guy side in every battle. I've done scaling for weekends. In fact, I believe I can say, with absolute certainty, that I have more experience scaling weekends at Alliance/NERO than all but about 5-10 other people in the entire Alliance. I have both done tons of scaling and studied others who scaled battles (you only learn by watching others). I know how few Weakness spells are in a battle compared to the number of PCs the spell would be valuable against for the average battle. Simply put, in the vast majority of battles, the average fighter simply shouldn't be subject to any form of disabling attack, simply because the antagonist resources aren't that high. If the antagonist resources really are that close to infinite, that speaks problems with scaling, not the rules.
-MS
P.S. - I am basically ignoring carrier effects in the above analysis because fighters are best designed to shrug off carrier effects due to high armor maximums. And before anyone mentions shatter, again it is a limited resource effect that simply won't be present in a majority of carrier effect battles.
But, more to the point, I find the argument mostly meaningless because it basically assumes that there are an unlimited number of earth casters on the bad guy side in every battle. I've done scaling for weekends. In fact, I believe I can say, with absolute certainty, that I have more experience scaling weekends at Alliance/NERO than all but about 5-10 other people in the entire Alliance. I have both done tons of scaling and studied others who scaled battles (you only learn by watching others). I know how few Weakness spells are in a battle compared to the number of PCs the spell would be valuable against for the average battle. Simply put, in the vast majority of battles, the average fighter simply shouldn't be subject to any form of disabling attack, simply because the antagonist resources aren't that high. If the antagonist resources really are that close to infinite, that speaks problems with scaling, not the rules.
-MS
P.S. - I am basically ignoring carrier effects in the above analysis because fighters are best designed to shrug off carrier effects due to high armor maximums. And before anyone mentions shatter, again it is a limited resource effect that simply won't be present in a majority of carrier effect battles.
What? Were are you playing that this is the case? I play a fighter in Seattle/Oregon, and of the times I have been dropped they were probably 90%+ the result of disabling spells/elemental/poisons. Heck, at Regionals I had one monster throw around 20 Magic Deaths at me.
How many events have you scaled in the proposed [0.9] rules?
Experience in old systems is well and good. What I'm curious about is experience in this version of the rules, especially regarding Fighters and exponentially downscaling profs.
Experience in old systems is well and good. What I'm curious about is experience in this version of the rules, especially regarding Fighters and exponentially downscaling profs.
Avaran
Baron
It's a problem with the melee nerf (not just for Fighters, but for everyone), and it's a problem for Weakness. In the current rules, I swing for 20's, if I get hit by Weakness, I'm still mostly hitting for 20's (19's). My damage isn't notably affected. And I think that is how things should work - lower level spells like Weakness should lose effectiveness (to the point of being useless) the higher level the opponent gets. That is how all of the numerically based spells work too (damage spells, healing spells); a Cure Light is really effective for a low level character, but useless with a high level character.
Go ahead and add "on the East Coast" (or wherever it is you play) to all of this. And frankly, I find this section condescending. Every chapter has its own flavor, as does every region. I guarantee you that we fight, play, scale, and generally play differently out here than you do and what you're used to. Doesn't mean one way or the other is better, and it doesn't mean you can dismiss these concerns out of hand because YOU don't/wouldn't do things that way. When I was head of plot, I used Weakness quite a bit, and for many encounters/fights, 60% of my casters were Earth. I actually liked to mix things up and keep my players in their toes; that trend has continued in my the chapter I staffed and the chapter I play in.
Undead tend to be extremely Carrier/Effect heavy. I've been through several Undead-based campaigns. In my experience (and not necessarily with Undead), disabling attacks and effects are actually pretty common, in part because damage tends to not be important (especially at high levels). This problem is exacerbated by higher PC body and higher armor totals.
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mikestrauss
Squire
That is two different statements. I said that in most battles, fighters won't face disabling effects. You said that most of the time you have been dropped it is by disabling effects. Both statements can be 100% true with no contradiction. Your statement only contradicts mine if you are being dropped in the vast majority of battles you participate in. I find that unlikely, but I will admit I have never seen a Seattle/Oregon game. It is possible that your game plays on the knife's edge where most PCs are disabled by the end of most battles. It is also possible that you are the kind of character that is targeted first and foremost in every battle. But that is more of an exception than the rule.
-MS
Saephis
Squire
That's perhaps a bit more combative a reply than is necessary, Adam.
However, the sentiment (I suspect) is that:
First, everyone needs to keep tones in mind on the forums. Text makes everything angrier.
Second, while playing and running games in one region may be good-and-well for that area, this is a large and varied game, with different regions experiencing different things, likewise over time. I've still got pre-split rulebooks on my bookshelf, for reference largely (They even rock that 'old book' smell now), and trying to reference "Well, a decade ago, game was like X" isn't actually helpful in most cases. We're talking about current-to-new.
However, the sentiment (I suspect) is that:
First, everyone needs to keep tones in mind on the forums. Text makes everything angrier.
Second, while playing and running games in one region may be good-and-well for that area, this is a large and varied game, with different regions experiencing different things, likewise over time. I've still got pre-split rulebooks on my bookshelf, for reference largely (They even rock that 'old book' smell now), and trying to reference "Well, a decade ago, game was like X" isn't actually helpful in most cases. We're talking about current-to-new.
Avaran
Baron
You're right, Brad. Thank-you for calling me out on this. I'll learn to reign myself in at some point. =P
@mikestrauss My apologies.
@mikestrauss My apologies.
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Do you see the irony in your statements?
You are suggesting that for balance you rarely include casters in your battles because they are so much more deadly than Fighters because damage doesn't drop people.
You are suggesting that for balance you rarely include casters in your battles because they are so much more deadly than Fighters because damage doesn't drop people.
You are correct that I should be more clear. In Seattle/Oregon, it has been my experience that more than the average number of disables on an npc (in Seattle/Oregon) is somewhere around 5. My experience is that somewhere around 10-20% have none, 60% have 2-10, and 5-10% have 40+ (these usually being either things with large numbers and disabling carriers, or things with spell columns). It sounds like from the comments that others have made is that this is not standard on the East Coast, but I just wanted to clarify just how different things are out here.
I feel like this thread is getting distracted talking about enemy balancing that feels kinda beside the point to me. The problem from my perspective is that no matter the opponent fighters in the current playtest rules pure fighters are immediately outclassed by mages. without costly magic items to back us up (which i'm annoyed we need in the current rules but that's another rant) fighters have absolutely no way to defend against a mage other than hoping they miss their incants. for those saying a fighter just has to survive one spell then carve through the casters HP I want you to think of the higher level casters around you I've known casters who can get off 3 incants in 3 seconds especially with shortened incants from what I assume is high magic? don't know only ever played a warrior but i'm hitting that wall where being a warrior has stopped being fun as skills wise my character has no where left to grow and nothing to look forward too.
mikestrauss
Squire
No. I don't see the irony. Casters are poorly balanced when they only appear for a single encounter. That is the natural consequence of having a class that is based on per-day resources but, when inserted as a NPC, is effectively able to use those as per-encounter resources. There is a reason I have been pushing for Alliance to switch to a per-encounter resource style for the past decade (or more). But the problem of how daily abilities interact with single encounters on NPCs, and the shackles that places on those responsible for scaling encounters, shouldn't factor in to the balance between PC classes when looked at over a full 24 hour period of time (as is the design theory behind the balance of these classes).
-MS
P.S. - Yep, this means that casters are overpowered in one-shot modules that are run outside of a weekend. It is a known conundrum.
And yet you support a shift from static damage on fighters in the form of weapon proficencies to a focus on per day abilities such as critical attacks, slays, eviscerates , shatters, disarms, and stun limbs.
How is this consistent?
This just happened to me at our event two weekends ago. My Friday night was dedicated to running guest plot, so I was only able to go on modules on Saturday. All three of the modules I went on were loaded with takeout effects, whether it was through spells from endlessly spawning casters, supernatural abilities like Magic Sleep, or entire waves of monsters with debilitating Necromancy or Command carriers.
A week before that, I was in another chapter, and had to use Cloaks in every fight I was in aside from one, due to double tapped spells or debilitating carriers.
Earlier this year I was visiting a third chapter, and burned a ludicrous number of Cloaks for the same reason. Then, while NPC'ing, I was provided with cards that had several Spellstrike: Prisons on them.
At the three day Regional game in May, I was on just a single module that did not have debilitating effects. All others I went on had takeouts on them.
Suffice to say, there are very few modules I go on, in any chapter I have visited, that do not have debilitating effects. In my experience, debilitating effects are the overwhelming majority of what I encounter, and it is a rare surprise when they're not there. As a fighter, we are the only class wherein there is no ability in our native skill tree to survive any of these effects.
and I don't feel like this is going to change in 2.0 either yes there will be less cloaks out there since we won't have magic items and one would hope that would mean less of these effects being sent out but......it also leaves fighters as once again defenseless and dependant on those scholars people keep bringing up as having limited resources for any protection from those effects. In my experience not a lot of casters take extra protectives for others when they could take damage spells. regardless of that it would be nice if to some degree fighters were able to protect themselves.