HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

...

Then you aren't allowed to complain that other more fantastical classes do basically everything better than you do. Fighter is basically a grognard trap these days, attracting and then humiliating "muh grim historical fantasy" fags

I think that is fallacious to demand that non-casters must be able to do everything casters do.
But something can be done.
I think that depend LESS from equipments, with more powerful use of skill, would be a start.
After level 12, implement talents that allow to the non-caster to survive in a world of magic. Say, the fighter can parry rays with the sword, reflect spells with specific shields, the rogue becomes undetectable at highest level and so on.
Remove feat chains.
Implement the rituals (incantations) in Unearthed Arcana (they are OGL) but keep them dangerous, but give some problem-solving solution to non-casters.
Promote regions of weird magic in a way that the same situation cannot be always soled with the same spell combo. Wild, dead, impeded schools, taint. I used them (without being obnoxious) with my players and this evened a bit the playing field.
Rework casting times (slower) and mobility in combat (improve it).
Change crafting radically in a way that is skill based and every class is more skilled in crafting his tools (like fighter craft easier swords, but wizard easier wands, say).

If Paizo had the balls for a Pathfinder 2, they could implement this and still keep the 3.X powelevelling and basic elements that many players like (regardless of what Veeky Forums can think).

But both of those are fighters. They both fight. Yes, words have meanings, but sometimes those meanings are incredibly broad and vague. Hell, casters could technically be fighters because, surprise, they get into fights sometimes.

yet another half assed non solution like in the OP-IMG

Not him, but I think that you are both right.
At low level, casting should be difficult and melee realistic.
At 20, I expect quickened spells and I expect a fighter to disarm a giant.
If you allow epic level, I can imagine other 10 level of a monk jumping over a mountain and a wizard calling a meteor (that the monk has a chance to dodge at this point).

Then unironically try not playing D&D. Or stick to the low levels. In a game where casters get as powerful as they do in D&D, the Mundane Fighting Man either stops being mundane or stops being relevant.

Is not. Is a matter of sum of many parts, and a certain concept of what each class should do.
If you make a casting time minimum 1 round instead of 1 standard action, you already changed a lot about how a character is played. All these things would sum up.

But the issue is that realistic, non cinematic, non mythical, non magical fighting men absolutely can't compete or even be relevant in the face of casters in a high fantasy setting (which DnD assumes). They just can't. It's a strongman getting into a footrace with the flash. They're completely out of their element ans their depth, and even if they were competing at the strong man's forte he'd still get his ass kicked

So why ruin a system where it's supposed to be fantastic instead of playing one that fulfills that itch?

there's also the issue that realistic, non cinematic, non mythical, non magical spellcasters AREN'T A FUCKING THING

I actually hate this mans reasoning, give fighters some maneuvers like Tome of Battle or 4th ed D&D so it doesn’t suck to be a non-caster.

The problem is that a lot of fighter players never want to get to that last bit. They want to always and forever be the mere mortal everymilitiaman, fighting through sheer grit and skill, which doesn't work once you get to the point where every other class is doing amazing feats pretty reliably. It's a weird kind of reverse snowflake, anti Mary sueism where they reject being exceptional or special or powerful in any way

They kind of are. We just tend to call them priests and hippies

>mfw people argue that the Fighter can close the gap with Item Mastery feats that let him cast Fly and Dimension Door a couple times a day, and that when he does Paragon Surge-type shenanigans with Advanced Weapon Training and skill ranks it's totally doable and brings them up to the level of the casters
>but when a caster goes to that effort of dumpster diving, min/maxing, and exploiting loopholes it's mere whiteroom theorycraft that no one ever plays or allows at their table

Tome of Battle does not solve significantly the differences. Is just better for those that want
click button --> execute maneuver
compared to combine use of feats and equipment. Which is a completely reasonable request, btw.
Even stuff that gives you more attacks or some shit is just easier to pull, but a basic charger build, not cheesy, will still fuck the target. Damage is not an issue.
Arguably the best to "close the gap" is shit like IHS because makes the warrior un-fucked in an environment full of "fuck you" spells. Or some swift action move.

Casters cast to easily the spells. Concentration, spell recovery, casting time must be reworked.

Who else is tired of the AM BARBARIAN memeing?

At this point I'm convinced most people arguing martials are fine or they want to be knuckle draggers who would be better off playing another system are just casters reeeing about "realism" because they don't want martials to be on par with them. It's a power fantasy and making martials as good would trigger them too much because of real life.

We've had a modern D&D designed so that it didn't, and you autists memed it to death.

I think is a problem of examples, too. I do see your point, but is not always the case. Sometimes is people that want animu moves for 1st level fighters.
I think a decent compromise could be to give at least teh warcraft warrior approach to the fighters. Action economy plus spell deflections that still look martial.
I am a 3tard but two good things the 4th did were (1) the auto-scaling and (2) the modularity.
Classes should be all modular. In this way you can build an high level Fighter that is grit (exceptional movements and will) and spell deflection, or go animu, and everyone is happy.

The reason I liked those systems/books is because they gave you more things to do south waiting for feats, I could block for the wizard/cleric, ignore DR, shove people around the battle, or even do some healing, all as a heavy armored fighter with full Base Attack.

4e had all kinds of problems having nothing to do with martial/caster imbalance.

I wrote posts about fixing the issue so you know what I think but for most people I played with, shit remains very unoptimized and low level, and the positioning is very theater of mind. And items are tailored.
So really for many what happens is fine.
Are they the wise, and us the fools?

What other options do you want a fighting man to have exactly?

More combat options?

He already has a slew of those through feats and combat manoeuvres. You might whine some of those aren't as 'efficient' but that doesn't mean he doesn't have the option, just that you want to power game the most 'efficient' options in combat. Which leads you to spamming power attack or whatever, which leads you to complaining.

More non-combat options?

What exactly can a fighter not do out of combat exactly? It's called roleplaying and creative thinking as well as the extensive skills list. Sure they could get a few more skill points is that what you want?

> Literal magic

I mean they can have that too via magic items or by multi-classing. Most people don't actually want their fighters to be casters though or they'd be playing casters and a lot of players don't like playing weird hybrids either ( except munchkins of course).

I really genuinely don't get what more people want fighters to be able to do they can't already do RAW.

>So really for many what happens is fine.
>Are they the wise, and us the fools?
"The intelligence of the creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it." - Terry Pratchett

True, but that has nothing to do either with the topic at hand nor the memes that killed it.

Which is fine, I'm all for people having their fun. The issue is when they reeeee so hard that any advancement or better of martials gets axed because Hasbro doesn't care how or why, they just want sales and revenue. Look at the 5e play test, martials we're going to get the Battlemasters superiority dice as a base part of the class. Which means people would have more to do on tap instead of being Battlemaster or the meh options, then people reeeed and bitched until it got removed and put into Battlemaster which everyone, until recently, argued was the only fighter worth playing.

That doesn't even touch on the shit they pulled with sorcerer and continue to pull with trying to give anything that makes the sorcerer unique to wizards.

>It's called roleplaying and creative thinking as well as the extensive skills list. Sure they could get a few more skill points is that what you want?
Well, first, I'd like a skill system that doesn't suck.

I loved, absolutely loved the Warblade, I like a lot the swordsage, I hated the Crusader.
They should have done his school a (Su) one. It was an early "4thedition-sim" that I hated. Still easy to fix.

The tank of our gestalt Campaign played Knight//Fighter-Warblade and did fine. Rolled high statstough. For her was more combining mobility maneuvers with feat combos.
Disregarding the knight, for a normal campaign I would always mix Fighter and Warblade, not go full with one.

You can shove people around with fighter feats in 3.x, stuff like mageslayer worked. One could build a fighter that if hit, or you moved, or used a spell, or used a supernatural, or tried to grapple, would have covered you in AOOs.
Is just a pain to build because is one feat at time.

>trying to give anything that makes the sorcerer unique to wizards
Don't forget to shit all over the School of Invention in the current survey.

>Well, first, I'd like a skill system that doesn't suck.

Then write one. The game is literally open source.

I look forward to seeing you fix it.

From what I've gathered, actual mechanics to back up out of combat role playing like almost every caster has, also something to make them competitive at higher levels

Anything a fighter can do that isn't fighting is done better by a wizard.
Wizards are better at fighting anyway.

lmao I did not know that.
I prefer a reworked 3.X because, albeit for some is surprising, I love its preposterous shit like x4 weapons, power attack, SoDs and SoS, etc.
But much stuff should be worked into the BaB for the same reasons you listed.
I cannot fucking believe people opposed that.
Is not the designer, is US.

>If you make a casting time minimum 1 round instead of 1 standard action, you already changed a lot about how a character is played. All these things would sum up.
Summon spells already cost a full round action to cast yet it doesn't stop casters from dropping 1d4+2 meatshields that have Augment Summoning and a celestial/fiend template on top of whatever problem happens to be affecting them.

Hell, even if you made every spell 1 round casts, all that's going to happen is that the mage is going to favor spells that can be cast once and last for most of the day so that they have all their buffs up before they even get into combat at all.

>You might whine some of those aren't as 'efficient' but that doesn't mean he doesn't have the option
It's not about efficiency, it's about viability. Past a certain level threshold, certain combat options just stop working. Period. Tripping dudes gets really fucking hard by mid level, and outright impossible at high level play, even with feats. That's not even getting into the subject of blowing feats, a limited resource, on bullshit that you should be able to do anyway for free.

But you cannot fix that without having fighters, say, open portals or cast divinations.
So you have to accept that one archetype is more versatile and act on that, either limiting some options, making options more dangerous or unreliable, changing the concentration rules, or a mix of this.

The level of the summons is not proportional to their threat.
Summon monsters is more dangerous for the game pacing or because can make rogues feel useless (trap springing).
They go away with a dispel and they are round based.

>He already has a slew of those through feats and combat manoeuvres.
This is actually the problem, really.

At 10th level, a wizard's spellbook contains at least 21 spells of 1st level or higher, and he has three bonus feats.

At 10th level, a fighter has 6 bonus feats, total.

The fighter's rate of acquisition of abilities is laughable compared to that of the wizard. Even a bonus feat at every level wouldn't be able to keep up, and that's not even getting into the fact that most spells are more powerful anyway.

Is true that a GM should mix threats of different nature.
I mean the wizard does not complain he cannot charm mindless enemies.
Of course, this does not deny the more limited and fixed resources of melees. That needs absolutely intervention, but one can intervene without making all different and to some "animu".

What about all the spells that either give ridiculous bonuses to skill checks or just bypass the skill system entirely?

Here's the thing, If I'm summoning 3-6 monsters on your ass per round, eventually you're going to run out of attacks to make vs. the amount of creatures I can reliably summon per turn.

Also, being able to dispel summon monster isn't going to help you unless you yourself are capable of casting magic, which only shows how busted casters are within the context of the game.

Either you have magic or you're operating on planned obsolescence.

Spells are more specific, less spammable than feat uses. So is less idyllic for the wiz.
I agree with the basic premises, 'though.

D&D wizards float in midair and fire blasts of energy at their enemies. They have more in common with Dragon Ball Z protagonists than any magic-users in the western tradition.

If anything, wizards are "animu."

>Spells are more specific, less spammable than feat uses.
>more specific
In what fucking world is "You gain a fly speed" more specific than "You get a +4 bonus on Trip attempts"?

Gestalt is an unpopular option, but I can see its merits.

On the other point I hate feats because I want to do cool shit now, not 8 months and 5 levels later.

>I mean the wizard does not complain he cannot charm mindless enemies.
That's because the wizard does not have to specialize in doing any one thing. He's got options no matter what. Fighters absolutely have to specialize to even be somewhat decent at what they do, and there is no wiggle room within their chosen niche.
If a wizard comes across an enemy he can't charm, he can do any number of things instead.
If a fighter comes across an enemy he can't trip, and he's specialized in tripping dudes, then he gets to do nothing.

If you surround a melee of your same level with summons, he will destroy them unless there is a terrain//reach issue. Summon is powerful but this is the wrong situation.
Also, I can agree with your general point but you shifted the goalpost here. we were not discussing a melee vs caster scenario, but to nerf specific elements of spellcasting in order to level the playing field in the party.
And the party will face threats able to dispel.

You need to stack up a good number of spells before that becomes a safe option, unless the GM is retarded or is playing retards.

There are spells that are very powerful and usable in many situations but is not all of them.

>That's because the wizard does not have to specialize in doing any one thing
they should

The best, number 1 way to reel spellcasters in line would be to remove "wizard" and "sorcer" and replace them with enchantress, necromancer, illusionist, evocator, diviner, conjurer, etc.

If you want to cast enchantments then you should be almost entirely enchantment-based, so if you come across something that needs enchanting then you'd think "oh nice, that thing im good at" rather than thinking that at literally everything

>If you surround a melee of your same level with summons, he will destroy them unless there is a terrain//reach issue.
Really? You think eight enemies, all flanking him, will go down before he does? Up until 16th level, he still only gets three attacks per round. Even if his attacks were enough to take out one creature each, he'd still then have to endure five of their turns before he goes again.

...

>If you surround a melee of your same level with summons, he will destroy them unless there is a terrain//reach issue. Summon is powerful but this is the wrong situation.
Not really. Most low level creatures like wolves or bears have abilities that proc off of a successful attack roll and they have multi-attack, which allows them to make multiple attacks per round as well. So one successful attack and suddenly, the Fighter's facing a potential grapple check or a trip check, which also doesn't trigger an AoO.

Not to mention there are feats that boost the effectiveness of your summonings by increasing their STR/CON, adding templates to their abilities to overcome DR, or even spells that can target multiple creatures at once like Bless.

Finally, you have to consider what bonuses the creatures would have just for surrounding the Fighter in the first place, such as flanking.
>And the party will face threats able to dispel.
Usually those threats will have access to magic.

I agree with you there, but at the same time, there is still an absolute ton of versatility in a wizard's niche compared to a fighter's.

We played a nice one, they came from an epic campaign all powered up, and this time played light stuff.
Knight//Warblade-Fighter
Shadowcaster(!!!)//Void Shugenja
Dragonfire Adept//Dragon Shaman
Bard//Hexblade
Psywarrior//Rogue-assassin (Aoo build with OAdv Kusari-gama)
Ranger-Scout//Beguiler
Occasional Paladin//Cleric. One-shot for a undead campaign actually.

Feats can be bought wisely and used immediately, planning for more synergic uses. You need to integrate them with the weapons. I do not advocate that this should be the only way to play, mind it, and I DO advocate they should scale better.

>People who play fighters don't want to be special I swear

Delusion

Rolled 4, 1, 4, 3, 2, 4, 2 = 20 (7d4)

All right. Let's go 7th level. That gives us access to Summon Undead IV.

Since we get to surround our fighter, that's eight allips. Incorporeal undead. In the spirit of fairness, we'll also give the fighter a +5 sword of undead fuckery, which instantly destroys any undead it hits. It's also a magic weapon, fortunately.

A 7th-level fighter gets two attacks, which, with his +5, we'll say both hit. But, oh, right, incorporeal. 50% miss chance. So only one hit.

Seven allips. They now take their turns, and all touch him for 1d4 Wisdom drain. Let's roll, shall we?

Of course, then you have the problem that Abjurer is useless because it's a support school, Diviner is useless because it's also a support school, Evocation is useless because blasting sucks and their utility spells are too few, and Conjuration and Transmutation are raping the game singlehandedly because they have a thousand different bullshit effects.

>he's specialized in tripping dudes
How many feats do you need to trip dudes? 3?
Is hardly a specialzation mate.
Mind it, I think you should need 1 to learn 2 maneuvers, but let's not transform a discussion in a swarm of overstatements.

Wow, okay, the fighter is drained of 20 points of Wisdom. Fairly certain it's coma time.

That's three feats wasted if you come across an enemy you can't trip. Three of a limited resource that you cannot change unless your GM allows you to use an obscure variant rule.

Combat Reflexes, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip. That not only taxes your stats by forcing you to take a stat that's borderline useless because of Fighter's shitty skill list, but it saddles you with a shitty useless feat on top of that. And when it takes one single feat to unga something to death with two handed Power Attacks and another feat nets you free attacks almost every round, 3 feats is a shitty deal.

Surround a 2h fighter or a barbarian with Great Cleave or sinilar shit and you see what happens. A barbarian in PF could even play the overrun combos and go straight to the source.
Unless you bid the fighter like shit, grapple and trip attempts will make things worse. And if the creature is lower level like that, it will fail. Really, summoning can be OP but this is not the situation guys. Even boosted is not enough.
Sorry but this smells of someone that did not play the game. I agree with most of the observations in the thread but this stinks.
>Usually those threats will have access to magic.
But I am not advocating that this is not the case. The discussion started with "casting time increase will level the field". You are answering to a point you made up.

This
The issue is not making fighters stronger, it's reigning in wizards and high magic bullshit.

You want my fighter to be a grim n gritty real fag? Fine, you don't get to fly, teleport, or shit lightning. Your magic is now 100% more subtle.

Well I mean, how else do you explain them bitching about mages being able to do everything while also violently rejecting everything that would put them at equal footing?

Between Path of War, 4e, and the D&D Next Fighter from the playtests, I can only assume that Fighters are secretly power bottoms who like to be sat upon no matter how much they hate it.

Wizards could cease to exist and Fighters would still be a bad class.

>Summon Undead IV
Is not summon monsters. And you summon ONE allip user.
Do you guys really play this game?

>It was fighters who destroyed all those things

That's asinine. You will keep finding enemies that you can trip. I do agree that 3 feats is too much but you are overstating the problem.
CR is not strictly necessary. And can be used for many, many other things other than tripping. Same CE, but is less useful.
Sorry but this is a shitty argument. Learn to use your fucking feats.

>Unless you bid the fighter like shit, grapple and trip attempts will make things worse. And if the creature is lower level like that, it will fail. Really, summoning can be OP but this is not the situation guys. Even boosted is not enough.
Again, we're talking about 3-6 creatures being summoned per turn vs. one Fighter who can only attack a few times per round. As much as you'd hate to admit it, the Fighter loses based on the fact that if we're looking at three attacks from three separate creatures and the mage can always summon more, he's just going to be overwhelmed sooner rather than later.
>But I am not advocating that this is not the case. The discussion started with "casting time increase will level the field". You are answering to a point you made up.
You're the one who brought up the fact that someone could just dispel summon monster. How are they supposed to dispel anything if they don't have access to magic?

All the fighter has to do is pull out a bow and stay 40+ feet away from the wizard you know.

Or do you not read how those spells work?

If you talk about the example above, that's ONE allip user.
And is enough, say, some ring with protection from evil to fuck attacking summons.
Jesus christ you are a bunch of faggots and noobs. You cannot just play this game properly, you just follow memes.

>You will keep finding enemies that you can trip.
No, you won't.

>It was fighters who destroyed all those things
Unironically yes. I've heard people call Path of War/Book of Nine Swords "Weaboo fighting magic." I've heard people shit on 4e because "everyone is a mage" and "everyone plays the same." I've seen the playtest for D&D Next go from giving Fighters superiority dice that refreshed per round to only refreshing on a short rest and only for one single archtype.

Meanwhile, casters mind their own business because they already have powerful options at their disposal.

>You will keep finding enemies that you can trip.
Not really. Either they have 4 or more legs, have no legs at all, are incorporeal, larger than you, or just plain have access to flight/levitate/etc. and aren't touching the ground at all.

>At 20, I expect quickened spells
That's fine, why would you expect otherwise? Spellcasters can do whatever they think of.

>and I expect a fighter to disarm a giant.
WHOA WHOA WHOA

That's a little unrealistic, don't you think? Giants are much larger than fighters.

In 3.5 you can even trip flyers with bolas.
Not all the high level threats are colossal, since you fill find mobs of enemies and NPCs.

ITT: retards that don't know Protection level 1 spells.

>ITT: retards who play D&D
Fixed your post for clarity

>Combat Reflexes, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip.
This is what I meant above with "you take the feats one at time, use them, and build for combos".
People now want to click and have an effect.

I shouldn't need to tell you why a ring of Protection from Evil will sodomize a Fighter's WBL, and you're an idiot if you're arguing about summons while not knowing that you can use higher rank summon spells to summon several monsters off of a lower tier summon's list at once.

You misunderstand. it's not that we don't want to give fighters options, it's that we want those options to be structured in a different way and feel very different from the spell system used by wizards. We don't want the two classes to work off of the same fundamental system, because then either the fighter feels like a wizard or the wizard feels like a fighter.

Personally I thought there was something to the Mythic system that Paizo had.

I feel like if high-level Fighters should be based on anything Beowulf would be a good option
youtube.com/watch?v=DcqMp_D5pdE

>All the fighter has to do is pull out a bow and stay 40+ feet away from the wizard you know.
Depending on the level we're talking about, the Fighter would still be within Summon Monster's range.
>If you talk about the example above, that's ONE allip user.
Wasn't talking about that example user.
>And is enough, say, some ring with protection from evil to fuck attacking summons.
Okay, that assumes that you have the ring in the first place and the mage decides to fuck you up with an evil aligned creature. Even so, money spent on said ring of protection from evil is money that isn't spent buying better magical weapons, armor, or stat boosts, so you might still be fucked regardless.

Somebody wanna score the thread?

The fastest route to what we want might just be to take a warlock and reflavor it as a fighter.

Now what's the end result of that game logic?

I'll just throw another opinion on the pile: I play martials because I like the idea of having a character that overcomes foes with wits, grit and determination. Basically, that feeling of being the underdog, the valiant hero facing off against foul sorcerers and so on. If the valiant hero is also a sorcerer, I feel like it reduces the valiant-ness a bit.

So you've gone out of your way to pick up three feats and an obscure weapon so you can use another variant rule to MAYBE be useful.
Wow, you sure convinced me.