@Baka-Mastermind Definitely somewhat better. Here's the deal, in gaming there's always someone who likes something and someone who doesn't like something. Therefore it pays in objective vs subjective terms to not state questions as "why is X bad, why does it suck, why are you a terrible person for liking it," et al. and instead ask about pros and cons in more objective terms.
"It seems like this class has several large weaknesses as written, what are the pros and cons of this class in play?" for example, asks the exact same thing without risking offense.
@Lord_Gareth And that's what a question should elicit. Not 'why is this bad' but 'how does this class play.' "It's mechanically weak but hilarious, I've done it" is then a super answer.
@mxyzplk In this particular case the reason it's weaker (but not actually weak as such) is because the versatility it ends up giving you is not A. worth the pre-reqs and then B. actually all that helpful.
Bad questions: "Why do Fighters create unrealistic stereotypes of strong, capable persons?" "Fighters are no longer necessary, why are they tolerated?" "Fighters: The end of fun as we know it?"
@BESW That's fine, I'm wondering about comedy. Specifically, the sub-genre of comedy that includes things like Mr. Bean or Ron Stoppable - where the protagonists experience crisis and triumph, but are also decidedly incompetent, succeeding through comedic efforts rather than traditional skills.
The campaign only ends when you establish a world council where every dungeon faction and civilized world faction can have a neutral ground to arbitrate issues!
@MadMAxJr First, that was glorious. Secondly, and more seriously, that's not my complaint. I mean, do you know how many roles the PHB claims the Fighter can fill that they cannot?
@MadMAxJr Aaaah. See, I'm concerned about 'roles' in the sense of fantasy archetypes and characterization. I complain not because Fighter is a bad Sword Guy (though he is), but because Fighter is a bad City Watch member, a bad King, a bad Knight - in essence, actually, if you pick a role that Fighter should theoretically fill, it can't fill it. Fighters even make crappy soldiers
Due to an extensive marketing campaign by the orcs about fighter alternatives, fighter replacements, and fighter outsourcing, this campaign can't afford to allow PC Fighters. We regret this change and hope you are willing to try another class until the economy improves.
Hey that's great that you want to go fight evil, really. We just can't afford that right now.
Golems man. Better than a flesh man for all that work.
Fate Core has a key bit of GM advice called the Pillars: You should always give the PCs opportunities for competence, proactivity, and drama.
Two of my favorite genres, neo-noir and black comedy, have several common leading roles:
The hero who does everything right (Marge Gunderson in Fargo).
...
@Lord_Gareth But yes, I can see why you would say that. Fighters are an attempt to make a generic template of 'armored combat man'. Many systems try to work around this by offering customization options, prestige classes, and numerous ways to try to shoehorn it into a role. But if you feel the default 'core' part of the fighter is ill-suited for certain combatant roles, then you may have a valid question.
@MadMAxJr Thing is, a lot of the PrCs that 3.5 introduced to refine a concept towards something had pre-reqs that Fighters had trouble meeting, further reinforcing the idea that Fighter is not capable of representing a competent character.
@Lord_Gareth A valid thought, but not one I've really questioned. The ultimate workaround for that is a system that lets you scratchbuild without 'class' framework.
@Lord_Gareth If martial feats had been less underwhelming and actually represented a significant source of useful choices, do you think that alone could have made the fighter at least viable in your eyes?
But you reminded me of all the knife-fights I've gotten into over Fighter and now I'm having to throttle the urge to Q&A about it the way I did about running monsters up to their potential. And this is not helped by the bit where my Q&A on the monster thing got like thirty freakin' upvotes.
While I like flexible systems that can cater to that (and are often point based) I do not trust my newer players with that open-endedness. Pathfinder has been a happy compromise so far. It's not perfect, but it's allowed our mixed degree of player experience to have fun together.
@BESW Not for what I have in mind, because my complaints are about representing a concept. Fighters can kill crap, if one tries hard enough. But, like...the city watch thing, right? Fighters lack Spot, Listen, Sense Motive, or Knowledge (Local). A ruler? No Diplomacy, Gather Information, or Sense Motive. The weak skill list gets paired with a lack of class features that let them bring such roles to life.
As a counter-example, I can easily create a Rogue who represents a special forces operative, or build a member of the City Watch as a Ranger
A system that lets you truely build to taste (Hero, BESM, other classless systems), requires full cooperation from the DM and the players at chargen to make something fun, interesting, and ultimately will not slaughter game balance.
Some groups are comfortable with handling out-of-combat challenges entirely with roleplaying, but for those groups that don't - or players that are uncomfortable with it - the lack of supporting skills and features is a huge problem
My impression is that the idea was that fighters should be one of the most customizable classes in the game, because they're made of choices without any specific class feature set--however, because of limits in other parts of the build (skills) and the overall meh of martial feats, that falls flat on its face.
Getting worse, when they try to model NPCs like Obould Many-Arrows or other such who are supposed to be competent, dynamic leaders as Fighters they run into problems of not backing up their statements with facts.
@BESW Not really. Fighters are not very versatile and it's true that part of the problem with that is that there's only so many martial feats worth taking. However, the biggest part of the problem is that feats =/= class features, ever
@BESW A lot of people toy with that down the line. I encourage you to explore it, but warn you that it's probably doomed to failure. The biggest problem, the absolute hugest problem ever, is that feats are not changeable. To 'fix' Fighter feats, you need to offer them the versatility to deal with their chosen profession (to wit: adventuring)
@Lord_Gareth I'm thinking about the 4e multiclass feat concept, and how bards can take as many as they want while everyone else is limited to just one.
@BESW Fair enough ^_^ But, yeah, my complaints with Fighter aren't about getting the numbers to work because I can beat the numbers to death pretty easily. It's about getting the mechanics to show the fluff that I'm trying to tell
@Eilleen, we got a new user, here, who's likely using google translate to communicate with us. I think he speaks Spanish and I guess you do too. Would you like to ask him to write the questions (separately) in Spanish and then translate them for him? I hope I'm not asking too much.
If we play Conan we'll end up historicizing it a bunch anyway, to the point that it's not Conan. Because my wife doesn't really do fantasy genre fiction per se.
@Zachiel I found their web page. Looks pretty interesting with the emphasis on shared world-building in a short-story-ish context. I'm curious how it compares to, say, Doomed Pilgrim.
In this game you play the legendary Cimmerian barbarian, Conan, and your
objective is simple. Kill everything. No, not every living thing.
Everything. The walls of the room only escape Conan's mighty wrath
because they "are already dead. Conan suspects that he killed them in an
earlier episode."
Fate Core has a key bit of GM advice called the Pillars: You should always give the PCs opportunities for competence, proactivity, and drama.
Two of my favorite genres, neo-noir and black comedy, have several common leading roles:
The hero who does everything right (Marge Gunderson in Fargo).
...
