Which is why I've been avoiding them
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.
Which is why I've been avoiding them
I feel that if you include Paragons then the issue of Fighters not being Fightery is compounded.
For instance, I am positive that a Celestial Spellsword Steelsoul is a better tank than any Fighter with a Fighter Paragon.
I wouldn't assign tank to Fighter. I would assign DPS.
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.
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.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
This isn't a problem with fighters. This is a problem with Weakness.
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.
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.
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.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
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.
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.
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.
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.