Making Fighters more Interesting

Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby Calinero » December 3rd, 2010, 3:33 am

So, I've got a friend who generally only plays magic-using characters. While part of it is that he likes the idea of wizards and magicians, one of his most common complaints is that warriors and fighters are typically quite mechanically boring. When it comes down to it, what they typically do is hit someone with a sword (or other weapon), and a lot of their abilities translate into bonuses to how well or how hard they hit with those swords.

While you could add a lot of effects to these abilities to make them more interesting, you then run the risk of going too far like 4e, where a lot of the classes feel as though they all have the same sets of abilities with different fluff attached.

So. How would you make the abilities of a Fighter more interesting?
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby Zankaru Zelladonii » December 3rd, 2010, 3:35 am

Weapon-based spells?
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby Phht » December 3rd, 2010, 4:00 am

I'm confused. How the heck are the warriors the "boring" ones? I can distill magic users down to the same level of mechanical boringness, just swap "sword" for "spell". Magic users are all about the "Press Button, Receive Bacon" design. They stand in one spot, cast spells, get XP. At least the warriors/fighters/whatever have to actually run up to their opponent and take damage while stabbing the opponent with their weapon.
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby Zankaru Zelladonii » December 3rd, 2010, 4:26 am

There is a vast difference in variety.

Warrior
Hit them until they stop moving with *insert weapon*

Wizard
Blow them up
Make them kill each other
Levitate them and use their body as a weapon
Feed them to eldritch horror
Suck out their soul and put it in a jar
etc, etc.
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby gman391 » December 3rd, 2010, 4:37 am

I guess the best way to vary 'how' they hit and the effects.

For example a great hammer user needs space and strength to use his weapon to smash somebody. But he's not going to try for to cut or anything. He might bash your face in with the head though. And be great at taking down armored opponents. Opponents that are faster than him? Are a little trickier.

In comparison a knife user is going to get up close and slice, slice. He's going to excel at taking down unarmored opponents. Armored guys? Well that's what stabbing the eyeballs are found.

Just an idea.
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby Phht » December 3rd, 2010, 7:16 am

Wizard
Blow them up
Make them kill each other
Levitate them and use their body as a weapon
Feed them to eldritch horror
Suck out their soul and put it in a jar
etc, etc.
But the entire list of things a wizard can do boils down to "hit them until they stop moving", with the only difference being 'how' they hit them, as gman puts it. Warriors don't get innate variety of stuff to do like magic users do with their spells. They have to pick feats that open up the variety. Sunder, Trip, Power Attack, etc. So maybe the player hates the idea of having to pick his abilities from feats instead of predetermined spell lists so all they have to do is pick spells and cast them?

--

As to varying 'how' the attacks hit... that's not the GM's issue unless the guy crits/fumbles the attack (or maybe kills the target). If someone just goes "I attack the <enemy>." and rolls, it's not the GM's fault that it's blah descriptively and seems boring. It's not the GM's job to narrate the actions of a player character. Otherwise it'd be an NPC. So if a player doesn't bother making his actions anything other than bland/boring, it's not the class's fault.

Called shots to arms or legs to give penalties to the target are a good idea (such as daggers to eyeballs against armored opponents), but it's not the GM that decides when a characters does called shots, except when describing crit/fumble(/kill?) results. Throwing mechanics changes in so it doesn't seem "mechanically boring" is a bad idea. Make them use feats that open up mechanics for use/better use instead of considering adding stuff to make it less "boring".

"I hit the ogre."
versus
"I swing my maul over my head and sweep it down to strike the ogre's knee."

"I use my move action to move behind the ogre, then use my five foot step up to the ogre and attack."
versus
"I use my move to swing myself into position behind the ogre, then use my five foot step to dart in from behind the ogre and try to hamstring it with my dagger."

The second versions provide more description and 'varies' how the attack is done. It also means the GM could provide damage bonuses and cause additional effects to the ogre, such as penalties or it being 'knocked down.' But the GM can't do that unless the player bothers to give him something to work with, which a "prepackaged" spell innately does but non-magic melee/ranged combat doesn't.
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby Dervon » December 3rd, 2010, 8:13 am

Phht, his friend said "mechanically boring". Purely based on what the hand-book shows, a comparison between the mechanical capabilities of a Fighter and, say, a Wizard is a no-contest. In the end, casters also have a whole range of utility spells that can be very mechanically complex. Remember, if the idea here is "mechanical rules as per the hand-book, minus player input", then what's to be said? And once you factor player input, both groups can benefit to an equal degree, hence casters preserving an "out-of-the-handbook" advantage, of sorts.

The difference is also breadth of utility. As you said, there is a pre-packaged deal with spells, PLUS player creativity. With auto-attacks, there is ONLY player creativity. Additionally, casters rarely have to build towards their utility. Wizards get a bazillion spells, clerics get the full divine list, etc. A fighter needs to use up his feat-slots to obtain some degree of variety (though, of course, the whole point of gaining all those delicious extra feat slots is using them, 'natch).

There is a reason a prevalent 3.5 meme was "caster-edition", just saying...

...

As to how we can spice it up?

Book of Weeaboo Fightan' Magik? :secret_laugh:

To be honest, ToB is pretty sweet, IMHO.
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby MrRigger2 » December 3rd, 2010, 11:35 am

Yeah, Dervon's last comment is probably the way to go. Tome of Battle introduced 3 new base classes, the Crusader, Swordsage, and Warblade. All three use Maneuvers and Stances, which are great. You should definitely have them take a look at it. It takes a lot of flack because people say "It just gives melee characters magic", which I have to disagree with. If you want a melee character with magic in 3.5, just play a cleric or druid. WIth the right spells, you can pull it off with a wizard, but that's not a great idea. But anyway, Tome of Battle allows the characters enough options that no two characters have to be the same (a Spiked Chain Tripper is a Spiked Chain Tripper, but you can make quite a few different Warblade builds with much the same concept). It also helps that Tome of Battle is the most multiclass friendly book you'll find. The three base classes introduced advance Initiator Level at a 1:1 ratio, but any other class advance Initiator level at a 1:2 ratio. It's pretty sweet.

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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby Kodra » December 3rd, 2010, 11:52 am

So, Burning Wheel, a system I like for it's storytelling rewards system, actually has a really interesting melee combat system that is a little too obtuse in my opinion.

Still, it accounts for type of strike, stance, range, reach in melee and incorporates alot of strategic elements to a fight.

It's also unrepentently lethal in it's depiction of violence. I would only recommend that game if you enjoy long sessions of very little combat.
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby Satori » December 17th, 2010, 7:52 pm

Not play the unholy abominations that are core D&D 3.5 or pathfinder?

Seriously, 4E keeps it pretty even between the various types, and using the late era 3.5 splatbooks for classes also does the trick decently well. School casters, Invocation users, Binders, Meldshapers, Martial adepts, Psionics.

A lot of these are warrior archetypes.

Psychic Warrior, Ardent/Slayer, Beguiler/Swiftblade, Totemist, Incarnate(/Iron Soul Forgemaster), Binder, Warblade, Crusader, Swordsage, Wildshape Mystic Ranger.

All good sword and claw types with decent powers to back 'em.
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby XanderTarbert » January 13th, 2011, 2:17 am

Your question at the end, how would I make fighter more interesting is kinda hard to answer. If you don't like playing a melee type, there's no magic fun switch you can flip. For me fighters are my bread and butter for DnD. As a pure class, they're kinda boring stat wise. What you need to really do is look at the combat feats for the class's flavor.

I've found Pathfinder (what my group calls three and-three-quarters DnD) to be a great system for fighters. They feel more like the Badass Normals I tend to envision.

Utility-wise, outside of combat you're boned. Fighters are made for combat. Period. Very poor in skills, both in points and choices. Best bet would be paladin for the best mix from the core classes. Also check out Duskblades. Not much out of combat spells, but damn scary in melee.
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby viridian » January 19th, 2011, 12:10 am

It also depends on campaign/play style as well.

If you want fighters to be interesting - make tactical combat interesting. That means using miniatures or MapTools so everyone is plotting out positions and keep track of Attacks of Opportunity, movement, and placement. (As opposed to just saying, "you see 12 orcs down the road, what do you all do?" and rolling initiative.) Fighters are tanks, and if you aren't keeping track of that stuff, you are robbing your tanks of most of their play value.

There's nothing like a group of first level adventurers going at it hammer and tongs with twice their collective body mass in goblins to make you appreciate the melee guys.

Keeping track of exact placements also means keeping the casters honest too. They can't hose around area effect spells nearly as easy when you can see exactly who would get caught on the edges.

This is why in most of my games I've found a direct relationship between how precisely we lay out the encounters and how proportionally big a role in the combat the melee types tend to play.
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby Dechstreme » April 16th, 2011, 11:02 am

A gaming grid and figures always make things better. My last campaign we had a basic grid, but custom made Clay Figurines made by one of our players. It really does help a lot.
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby Satori » August 2nd, 2011, 4:49 am

It also depends on campaign/play style as well.

If you want fighters to be interesting - make tactical combat interesting.
Except since fighter suck at tactical combat, this just makes the game more frustrating for them. Seriously, fighters get nothing. no powers, not even skills. More detailed tactical combat means they are doubly screwed by not having tumble or balance as class skills, in addition to lacking any magical way of negating terrain obstacles.

Tactical combat is more fun for Rogues or other classes that get tangible benefits from tactics (like say flanking).

Making fighters interesting is done by ripping the name off of Warblade or Psionic Warrior and renaming it Fighter.

Seriously, the whole point of Warblade is that it's a fighter replacement.
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Re: Making Fighters more Interesting

Unread postby jgkitarel » October 1st, 2011, 1:58 pm

And where does it say Fighters suck at tactical combat? These guys are second only to Rogues when it comes to fighting dirty in close combat and have access to just about any combat related skill or feat which is not class restricted, provided they have the stats. This is a class which is pragmatic when played right and will stab an enemy in the back if he turns away to run, or give him a kick in the balls before slapping him around. If you want a class that believes in fighting fair, play a Paladin.

I think you are looking at how players often play them, rather than just how much flexibility the rules allow. Also, players tend to go for the easiest route, which means pure hack and slash. How about giving them some training with a bow so that they can pepper the enemy with a few shots at a distance before going in to cut them to ribbons. Or perhaps you have a grim defender type who can't be intimidated or forced back (stack as much in to will and fortitude saves as practicable), which means that they are a clear threat that has to be eliminated before you can take care of those pesky wizards and rangers, all the while getting stabbed in the back by rogues.

You have to be creative with what you have (and hope that you rolled some good stats, or min-maxed them to take advantage of how you want them to be played). Look at what you can do with each stat build and be creative.

One of the reasons for using miniatures, is it allows the fighter to maneuver aopponents into each others line of fire, which comes in handy when dealing with spellcasters or rangers. Also, having a representation of terrain gives the player an idea of what he can do to maneuver the enemy in a way to ruin his day. Nothing like forcing them to come at you one or two at a time while your friends perforate, zap, snipe, freeze, pin, or fry them from a higher vantage which gives them a clear line of sight.
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