If DnD were a PvP only skirmish game (point buy in), would anyone ever pick a fighter...

So you're using 2e?

If DnD were a skirmish game (again), it would be 4e (again), which WAS balanced and Martials were just as viable as any other character

>Fighter walks in with a superior Initiative
>Smacks wizard in the face
>Wizard flies up 15ft, withdraw action.
>Fighter is annoyed, shifts to ranged weapon
>Wizard casts Summon Monster IV
>Fighter fires bow, full attack, smug
>Wizard uses Abrupt Jaunt, takes no damage
>Wizard finishes Summon, drops Dire Wolf on Fighter
>Fighter engaged on equal terms, grappled by DW
>Wizard lazily alternates between Save-or-Suck spells and defence
>Fighter dies

You can't cast another spell in the middle of casting another

The problem is that you dumbasses assume that maxed level combat is what people would play. The thing is D&D really starts to break down at around level 10 because everyone is just absurdly powerfull.

Spellcasters have a hard time killing on the initial strike. My last winning PvP build was a rogue.

>Explaining this to 3.5ED&Drones
Do not attempt user, they're born retarded.
Same reason they'd use 3.5 or 5e for skirmish instead of 4e or another system like a normal non brain damaged adult.

>casting a spell while already casting a spell
Doesn’t work like that buddy.

>Spellcasters have a hard time killing on the initial strike.
Not really. And even if they do for some reason, then they can easily set up for a round 2 nuke.

>Cast spell while casting another
But that's wrong.

At lvl 1 a fighter stands a much better chance of winning, if only because he's got like double the health of most mages. A lvl1 finesse fighter would wreck because he could stack dex to the sky for accuracy, initiative, AC, and reflex. He's better than a rogue in most editions for PVP because at lvl1 he's got more going on.

>attack from undetectable stealth with rogue (doesn’t show up on any form of sense and can hide in plain sight, is hiding in the wizard’s shadow)
>perform underhanded sneak full attack because I’m a Bandit rogue who can full attack out of a surprise round
>also have enormous bonus to initiative during surprise rounds
>perform around 390 damage at level 9

Welp

During round 2 you’ve already died. If PvP doesn’t secure a kill in the first round you’ve failed your build.

when will 3.pf go in the same pit as Nechronica

False.

>>Fighter walks in with a superior Initiative
>>Smacks wizard in the face
>>Wizard tries to cast flight, eats an AoO for more damage
>>Fails concentration check, still firmly on the ground
>>Fighter smashes wizard again now in single digit hitpoints
>>Wizard already blew highest level spell slot
>>Panics and tries to cast Summon Monster II for a celesital badger
>>Eats another AoO and is dropped into negatives

You’ve never played PvP above level 3 have you? If you don’t secure the kill in either the surprise round/first round your build isn’t worth the paper you wrote it on.

>If DnD were a PvP only skirmish game (point buy in), would anyone ever pick a fighter? Why would anyone pick anything other than a spellcaster?

>play elf rogue
>20cha
>persuasion expertise
>stealth expertise
>Reliable Talent feature

>run away
>convince the town guard to attack your opponent
>hide in the countryside forever with Assassin's assume disguise feature
>live a meaningful and peaceful life
>outlive your opponent by hundreds of years

But that's wrong though, at any level.

1. When did the Wizard cast Fly? Withdraw is a full-round action, so unless it's Quickened you can't do it in the same round.
2. Between the initial face-smack and the ranged attack against the Wizard before the summon, the Wizard should be pretty low.
3. Cannot Abrupt Jaunt while already casting a spell. Wizard eats the full attack to the face, probably dies.
4. Why does the Fighter not just immediately grapple the Wizard?

If they start close to each other, Wizard doesn't get to buff ahead of time, and combat is occurring at low to medium levels, Fighter wins the 1v1.

So you're shit at PvP, got it.

Plenty of PvP builds can reliably deal enough damage to insta-kill round one. If your build cannot, you will lose more often than you will win. Save-or-dies are not as reliable as other forms of alpha-strike.

>PvP only skirmish game (point buy in)

If I'm understanding this correctly, you mean a game where players are given a set pool of points, and have to make a build that fits the given points budget.

In that case, you would pick a fighter, because point-costs would be balanced such that wizards couldn't just carry around a shitload of utility AND combat spells at the same time. They would either have to be all-damage, all-utility, or a compromise between both.

Oh, and the Wizard needs to make an concentration check to finish the summon, based on having eaten multiple arrows to the face while trying to cast.

I think they meant point-buy for stats, as opposed to rolling. Doing point-buy for class levels, feats and gear could be interesting, though.

Most of those builds are spellcasters.

Incorrect, the one that does it the best is a rogue multiclass.

This entire thread is shit

i love this

Source?

Ah. So, normal D&D, but you're making characters specifically to fight other player-characters.

The way it was phrased in the OP made me imagine something more akin to 40K or XCOM:EU's multiplayer mode.

First, let's set some ground rules- Level 6, no magic items. As it's what's been discussed so far, they start adjacent in an otherwise empty arena. Neither has any prep time, neither is specifically built to beat the other.

If Fighter wins init, he may be able to insta-kill the Wizard, or grapple.

If Wizard wins init (some options could magically boost init, like Divination specialist, and Wizards don't necessarily have init much worse than non-Dex fighters), then their first priority is getting distance. Can cast defensively, with a lvl 1 spell being DC 17, with a bonus to the roll of +6 (CL) +5 (Int)=+11, for a 75% success rate. This could be used to try a Charm or other save-or-fight-over, but the further chance of the save means the Wizard might be a sitting duck for a second turn, in which they would surely die. Better to use your 75% chance to cast something like Vanish, which if successful would then let you move action away in a random direction without AoO. If invisibility is successful, Fighter likely has no recourse but wild guessing. Wizard can then Fly to a safe distance, put on Mirror Image, and start dropping persistent threats (summons, flaming sphere, etc.) once he's in a safe position.

Essentially, it gets down to whether or not the Wizard can escape the initial lockdown.

Rogue, other sneak-attackers, or something like a crit-fishing Magus would be more reliable.

Charm is not save-or-fight over. If you take any hostile action towards the fighter the charm immediately ends, and they just perceive what you've done in a good light. If a fight was about to start they still know what happened and you cast a spell on them.

>cast wish
>"I win"

>crit-fishing is reliable
Come on now.

>wishing that you win
Of you're fucked. You realize that non-standard wishes try and fuck you over and become monkey's paw wishes, right? Hope you like winning the beauty pageant while the fighter is bashing your skull in.

Depends on the edition mate. 2nd and back casters were so fragile they needed warriors more than the warriors needed them.

3.x if they have every splat than they have contingency and greater contingency and more poorly designed spells but in 5th edition fighter does some of the best damage second perhaps to the assassin.

My dwarf fighter was the party bruiser. He attached to the highest threat and beat it to death quite quickly.

Casters have better methods of disabling groups but even that is not what it was due to concentration spells. Buff or disable or do decent reliable damage and cast spells. Set and forget spells of high caliber are relatively rare in that edition.

4th do whatever the fuck you want. They nerfed orb wizards so you can still CC something into oblivion but not permenantly.

There are also so many classes, fighter or other materials included, you would be hard pressed to pick the best one.

Fighter was stronk in 4th and was ostensiably better at being a battlefield presence than any other edition.

To explain:
>Undetectability from:
>Dampen Presence (Beats Blindsense/Blindsight)
>Deodorizing agent (Beats Scent)
>Boots of the Soft Step (Beats Tremor Sense)
>Iron Circlet of Guarded Souls (Beats any Divination Spells)

>Hiding in Wizard's Shadow:
>Shadowdancer 1st level

>Super Sneak Attack
>Underhanded (Maximizes Sneak Attack Damage)
>Bandit Archetype (Lets you full attack in surprise round)
>Two Weapon Fighting (A couple more attacks)
>Haste Boots (One more attack)
>Agile Weapons (More Damage)
>Gloves of Murder (More Damage)
>Attacking against flatfooted touch AC with revolvers
>Full attack comes out to: 15d6+136

You pop out of the wizard's shadow and murder him in the surprise round.

>Fighter
>Superior initiative
Dude, a Wizard can easily get +20 on initiative checks, not eve a nat20 will make that fighter go first

This to be honest, my current Wizard in PF has, without optimization, +14 to Ini. Our Fighter has +5. So far he has never started before me.

Ironically level 6-7 is probably the last level a fighter can reliabily say he can win against a Wizard.

Depend's on edition.

In adnd the warrior breathes heavily of the mage and he dies. There aren't enough spell slots for buffs to be reliable, but saves are almost impossible for warriors. It us 100% who wins initiative and how far apart they are.

In 3.X the wizard wins unless the person playing them is retarded. Nerveskitter or the equivalent guarantees first initiative and abrupt jaunt means meaningful damage is unlikely. With initiative the wizard can either go the secure route and buff up to invalidate the fighter, or can cast two save or suck spells targeting will. Even this assumes they start next to each other and had no prep time before.

I haven't played enough 4e to say, though the classes seem fairly balanced to me, wizard might win by virtue of having more status effects that meaningfully impact the fighter or more ranged abilites.

In 5e the fighter wins in he can grab iniative thanks to action surge an until level 8 or so reliably one-shot the wizard. 5e wizard can still wall of stone or cloud the fighter, but can't quicken spells and has access to fewer quick answers, would probably have to rely on controlling the fighter until he built up the action economy to kill him with summon or lower level damage spells.

Which edition?

>Acid pit
>Black tendrils
>long etc
Srly, since I picked Acid Pit every combat is boring as fuck

Assuming the fighter hits all the attacks vs a wizard that can cast Shield (even if we assume he's naked save for Mage Armor and only has like 16 DEX) is pretty damn generous.

In any edition but 4th, the big drawback of wizards is resource management (every other drawback they can magic away), 5e recommends 6 (!) encounters a day to properly drain their spells. In a single encounter, therefore, casting classes would be rid of their one weakness. This phenomena is known as "5 minute workday" in normal campaigns.

>laughing dire tortoise.jpg

A 4e wizard is built to disable large groups but doesn't deal high damage. They would struggle to actually finish a fight and could only really delay the foe and pick away at them. They're meant as support.

Fighter would do averagely, being a high damage defender. They can endure damage and disables well but can't really nova strike, so it's a question of how long they can stay in the fight. The longer it goes on the better their odds.

A striker would likely win any pvp by virtue of being distinctly design to kill things and almost always having the best initiative. I would say ranger specifically, but their damage comes from multiattacking, which they might not be able to fully deliver if they trigger someone's get-out-of-dodge immediate reactions. Perhaps some nova striking rogue or barbarian would do best.

Sure, but the wizard has 5 or 6 hit points per level and a fighter has 5 attacks doin d10+3 or 4 damage and 4 superiority dice do d8 that he can use after hitting.

The ranger more or less wins PvP because every class has a secondary role. The Ranger is Primary Striker, Secondary Also Fucking Striker.

I dunno, there's a lot of immediate reactions that can shut down further attacks by disabling the attacker or simply getting out of range. Ranger needs their multiattacks to finish the job and might end up cockblocked every other round.

And I would argue ranger is a decent secondary controller, it just doesn't come into play without feat support and/or higher level powers.

>Game start!
>Spellcaster lies down to sleep for 8 hours to ready spells.
>Fighter stabs them in the dick.

>5 attacks
Are you assuming Polearm Master? because fighter has 4 attacks at best if not (8 with action surge)

That's an awful generous interpretation of "divination spells such asclairaudience/clairvoyance,locate object, anddetectspells."

Also how do you stop people from, you know, seeing you? You have to start the fight within 10 feet of an area of dim light and still need to beat the other guys perception check....

Archer ranger has a good bit of secondary controller but melee ranger is a lot purer in the strikering.

But yeah, a Monk would likely be a real annoyance for a melee ranger. Defender-tier AC, whacking the usually rather mediocre ref NAD of the melee ranger and they have shit like Water Gives Way to tell him to go sit in the corner for the rest of the turn.

Yes, I am. Alternatively crossbow expert for +2 to hit and use sharpshooter for +10 to damage.

>Also how do you stop people from, you know, seeing you? You have to start the fight within 10 feet of an area of dim light and still need to beat the other guys perception check....
The dim light in question is the shadow of the person your fighting. Also if there is another individual around you are always within 10 feet of dim light because they produce some sort of shadow. As well if there is literally any objects around their shadows are dim light. Unless this is a flat featureless plane you're fine.

And that is true. The circlet of guarded souls does not beat Discern Location, but that's essentially all it doesn't beat.

>The dim light in question is the shadow of the person your fighting

People don't make a full 5ft cube of dim light unless there is some WEIRD lighting going on.

Again, within 5 feet. So if you meet in a corridor or on a road, or anywhere other than a crowded and busy place the chances are slim.

Also the way that light works in dnd, and area within the radius of a light sources not blocked by full cover is considered illuminated by it. So while you can just to someone's shadow during the day, you cannot stealth within it.

Also the ability doesn't work on a plane without a sun, or against ethereal targets, or against anyone flying, or he'll even someone with the sPell continual flame cast on their hat.

And remember that moving while observed even with the ability to stealth in plain sight still requires a second check.

Apologies for grammar/spelling, phoneposting.

>People don't make a full 5ft cube of dim light unless there is some WEIRD lighting going on.
Nothing requires you to have a 5 foot cube of dim light, merely that you are within 10 feet of some area of dim light.

By raw if either you or your opponent has a backpack or closed bag of any kind it is filled with dim light which qualifies.

>Again, within 5 feet. So if you meet in a corridor or on a road, or anywhere other than a crowded and busy place the chances are slim.
Your average room, road, etc. contain areas of dim light because everything casts shadows. A crowded area is filled with shadows because people carry closed bags.

>Also the way that light works in dnd, and area within the radius of a light sources not blocked by full cover is considered illuminated by it. So while you can just to someone's shadow during the day, you cannot stealth within it.
Incorrect, this has been FaQ'd for pathfinder that shadows exists as dim light specifically for this exact ability.

>Also the ability doesn't work on a plane without a sun, or against ethereal targets, or against anyone flying, or he'll even someone with the sPell continual flame cast on their hat.
It does because darkness counts as dimlight for the ability, this has been FaQd. For Ethereal targets I'll give you that. However is the PvP starts with the enemy as already being ethereal I'll have to add some conditions on my end. For someone flying it is countered by simply being able to stand on air yourself, there are many ways t do this. For continual flame that person is now casting numerous shadows on and around themselves. As I said it has been FaQ'd that shadows work.

>Nothing requires you to have a 5 foot cube of dim light, merely that you are within 10 feet of some area of dim light.

Dim light is an actual mechanical term, I don't recall people having 20% miss chances by being in other people's shadows.

Mind linking the faq, srd doesn't mention it on either shadow dancer or light conditions.

Here is the relevant quote from James Jacobs
>James Jacobs wrote:
>The wording for those two is different because the categorization of lighting in Pathfinder was a relatively late to the game refinement, and we weren't able to standardize every mention of illumination in the game. >The assassin's a good example.
>In any case, the intent is the same: dim light = shadow. So both of these abilities should work exactly the same, even though the words chosen aren't identical.

This is on a comment on the wording between the Shadowdancer's and Assassin's HiPS ability. All you need is a shadow of any kind, which is dim light, which is the same thing for this ability.

In 5e Druids would be the top fighters at PvP to the shock of all other classes followed by rouge for the 'muh stealth and backstabs'

A Circle of the Moon Druid can Wild Shape an unlimited number of times, getting a big ol' HP soak every time they do so. They can also cast spells in Wild Shape form past level 16, so they can be really nasty on the field. The biggest threat is that most animal/elemental forms have less than 100 Hit Points, so they need to get a caster opponent to burn that 9th level slot to prevent Power Word: Kill before relying on it.
A Wild Shape form gives them strong showing in combat, Wild Shaping gains you a much bigger soak of HP than healing then most anything unless they are using their best spellslots to do so and importantly at level 20 druids can do it an unlimited amount of times where others are tied to their spell slots. High Wisdom gives same great control/charm spell saves and picking high lvl Wild Shapes would give a great Dex (the other really common saving throw)

Tl:dr Druids have basically infinite health regen at peak levels plus they are full casters even when in Wild Shape so they can cast spells while flying or actually outrun the melee characters unlike chucklefuck over here.

Here is the JJ quote Here is a link to the thread and JJ's comment:
paizo.com/threads/rzs2kkoe&page=1?Why-is-the-Assassin-better-at-Hide-in-Plain

I think you're looking at it backwards. He's saying that references to shadows should have instead been to dim light since they were not able to standardise all lighting references.

In later copies of the PFCRB they both read Shadow. Read on in the thread, a poster by the name of Gambit mentions this.

...by that logic, a shadowdancer basically has no restrictions on it because he's always within 10ft of a shadow. Worst comes to worst he opens his jaw and he's got a shadow on the inside of his mouth.

The shadow in his mouth would be his own shadow, but otherwise, yes, shadows are everywhere.

woudl that be a problem? Teleportation Wizard can already do that but better.

If you assume 4-5 attacks for the fighter, you should assume the wizard has simulacra and is possibly polymorphed into a Balor.

See the hiroshima reference, there's no dm under the sun who would let you use one blade of grass or the interior of someone's sleeve as a shadow.

I agree. However plenty will let you use the shadow cast by a tree, the shadow cast by a person, the shadows cast by a city in general, etc. Also the shadows inside closed containers are fair game.

You're what, retarded?

A fighter can have 5 attacks at level 6.

Spellcasters also have a lot more options for disabling the enemy to set up for round 2 or avoiding melee range (or even ranged range) attacks than any melee class.

>lvl 6
>no magic items
D&D is balanced around players having a certain number of magic items (its part of the reason you shouldnt play it).

Okay, stereotypic magic items. Big Six stat boosters, flaming longsword, that sort of thing.

>n 5th edition fighter does some of the best damage second perhaps to the assassin.
In all the editions the fighter deals the best damage: the issue is shit like Celerity

Diviner, I presume

Or fly, or 18283572255 other buffs people stated or will name

>Smacks wizard in the face
Here the wizard is probably dead.
Now, the issue is that in many D&D editions the fighter does not reach that step

Not even, conjurer, I already told you, I wasn't optimizing for going first
Imp Ini (+4), Familiar (+4), Trait (+2), 18 Dex.

I could have been a diviner and have another +4, or pick one of the billion magic items that give you initiative and possibly go over 20.

Nechronica doesn't deserve that.

how many feet do you have, that you can wear two pair of boots simultaneously.

You forgot to grab Skill Focus: Stealth+Hellcat Stealth so you can stealth in normal or bright light even when someone's staring straight at you.

You can have one pair of boots with both effects, if you multiply the cost of the cheaper by 1.5. Or get self-haste from somewhere else.

C O N T I N G E N C Y

To be fair, picking the init familiar, the init feat, an init trait and a high dex sounds an awful lot like "optimizing to go first" even if it wasn't your intent at the time. Going first is very good, and it makes sense to make each of those decisions (though only the dex if you have stats to spare, usually dex is around 14). The only non-item thing you could do to further increase your init as a straight wizard is to be a Diviner, you have the rest of the optimized package.