# Fighters -must- wear heavy armor



## Derren (Feb 13, 2008)

While everyone is happy about spell less ranger, a other information from Mearls gets overlooked.
Fighters are expected to wear heavy armor.

Apart from the thematical restriction it also says a bit about how armor will be balanced in 4E (no more Dex - AC balance like in 3E).


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## vagabundo (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> While everyone is happy about spell less ranger, a other information from Mearls gets overlooked.
> Fighters are expected to wear heavy armor.
> 
> Apart from the thematical restriction it also says a bit about how armor will be balanced in 4E (no more Dex - AC balance like in 3E).




He also said it was easy to house rule this away, if you wish.

In my games all the fighter immediately go for the heaviest armour they can and pump their stat bonus's into strength or constitution. I don't see any change here.

We don't know anything about the dex-ac balance, he didn't mention it, and any inference is a leap to far IMO.


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## FireLance (Feb 13, 2008)

It certainly looks like if you want to play a lightly armored fighter, you should play a rogue or a ranger.

This is starting to remind me of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed split between the warmain and the unfettered.


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## nightspaladin (Feb 13, 2008)

There was no balance in 3.x. If your Fighter wanted to max out their AC, they wore Mithril Full plate to maximize the dex bonus and Armor bonus. There was only one or two choices that mattered. Everything else was inferior stat wise.


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Feb 13, 2008)

Yyyyup.

Take into account that armor itself is the only source of permanent-enchant AC bonus in 4e, and I'm thinking that 4e AC is now plotted out as a balancing factor by armor type. Defenders, who need high AC, wear heavy armor. Strikers and leaders, who wade into melee to varying degrees, wear light to medium armor. And wizards (and possibly some strikers, like warlocks) wear cloth armor.

I'm thinking that if you want to play a light-armored melee warrior, ranger and/or rogue might be a better approach than fighter in 4e. Remember, those two carved up the swashbuckler and took his stuff.

I have a bit of trouble deciding how I feel about this. On the one hand, it seems weird to say, "My character carves through enemies with an axe in each hand. Clearly Ranger is the class for him!" But on the other hand, it makes sense that they'd want to parse out the martial-defender from the martial-striker, and the fast-and-dodgy fighter builds are definitely more "striker" than "defender."


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## Derren (Feb 13, 2008)

vagabundo said:
			
		

> He also said it was easy to house rule this away, if you wish.




That doesn't really mean anything. You can houserule away everything.







> We don't know anything about the dex-ac balance, he didn't mention it, and any inference is a leap to far IMO.




He does imply that people with light armor will have less AC than people in heavy armor. In 3E this wasn't always teh case depending on the Dex.


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## Gloombunny (Feb 13, 2008)

"expected to" and "must" are not the same thing at all.

Fighters in 3.5 are expected to wear heavy armor too.


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## Khuxan (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> That doesn't really mean anything. You can houserule away everything.




In 3.5 it was not easy to houserule away a fighter's heavy armor. Now it is. That's an improvement.

In most games, however, niche-protection means the fighter SHOULD wear heavy armor - if fighter is generic enough to cover any class that fought, we might as well adopt a True20-like system. 



			
				Derren said:
			
		

> He does imply that people with light armor will have less AC than people in heavy armor. In 3E this wasn't always teh case depending on the Dex.




No. He implies that fighters with light armor will have less AC than fighters with heavy armor. That seems pretty reasonable to me.


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## TwinBahamut (Feb 13, 2008)

I think it is perfectly fine that a Fighter is expected to wear heavy armor. Heavily armored warriors and lightly armored warriors fall under very different archetypes and stereotypically use very different fighting styles. This expectation is nothing other than a statement of how they are not trying to shoe-horn every possible weapon-user into the same class like they did in 3E. Now, Fighters are heavily armored melee specialists by definition, and if you want something else you need to alter the fighter or look for a different class.


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## vagabundo (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> That doesn't really mean anything. You can houserule away everything.




Of course, but the import bit is the _easily_.



> He does imply that people with light armor will have less AC than people in heavy armor. In 3E this wasn't always teh case depending on the Dex.




Without seeing how the system works we cannot comment really. There maybe still ways to build a lightly armoured fighter that is worth a damn, but it wont be the norm. Again, unless there is a significant preview article we will not know until release.


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## Noinarap (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> While everyone is happy about spell less ranger, a other information from Mearls gets overlooked.
> Fighters are expected to wear heavy armor.
> 
> Apart from the thematical restriction it also says a bit about how armor will be balanced in 4E (no more Dex - AC balance like in 3E).




Right, you could easily go armorless and ditch the full plate + heavy shield combo by having a dex of 30. The full plate + shield combo was affordable by 3rd level, by the way. I'm not sure what it takes to get a dex of 30. More than 3rd level though.

A high-level 3e fighter with dex 16, mithral full plate +2 and a heavy shield +2 has an AC of 27. To do this unarmored requires a dex of 44.

A lightly armored, shieldless fighter in a mithril breastplate +2 would need a dex of 30 to achieve AC 27. Well, he would need that if his max dex bonus wasn't +5, making a dex higher than 20 useless. He could of course get a shield, but that may not fit the theme you want.

At this point, I'm not sure what dex-AC balance you are referencing.


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## Umbran (Feb 13, 2008)

vagabundo said:
			
		

> Without seeing how the system works we cannot comment really. There maybe still ways to build a lightly armoured fighter that is worth a damn, but it wont be the norm. Again, unless there is a significant preview article we will not know until release.




More's the question - is there a _need_ to build a lightly armored fighter?  If the game has sufficient ways to build a lightly armored combatant to fill people's desire for the cool swashbuckly roles, the lightly-armored fighter becomes largely a moot point.


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## Lanefan (Feb 13, 2008)

Umbran said:
			
		

> More's the question - is there a _need_ to build a lightly armored fighter?  If the game has sufficient ways to build a lightly armored combatant to fill people's desire for the cool swashbuckly roles, the lightly-armored fighter becomes largely a moot point.



The one light-fighter type that'll get hosed here is the specialist archer, if Dex. doesn't help AC any more.

Lanefan


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## Noinarap (Feb 13, 2008)

Lanefan said:
			
		

> The one light-fighter type that'll get hosed here is the specialist archer, if Dex. doesn't help AC any more.
> 
> Lanefan




Why wouldn't dex help AC? All Mearls told us was that fighters were assumed to have heavy armor. See my earlier post for why this is not new. Dex can do what it has always done and still not be enough to make up for no armor.

The "specialist archer" is probably the ranger, btw.


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## Spatula (Feb 13, 2008)

Khuxan said:
			
		

> In 3.5 it was not easy to houserule away a fighter's heavy armor. Now it is. That's an improvement.



Eh what?  Heavy armor certainly isn't required (of anyone) in 3e.  Armor is the best AC boost for the buck, especially at low levels, but I just finished off a campaign that went from 1st to 19th level, and no one wore anything heavier than a chain shirt.  Ever.  Unless you boost AC to ridiculous levels (40+) it's almost meaningless in high-level play, and other forms of avoiding or absorbing damage become more important.



			
				Derren said:
			
		

> That doesn't really mean anything. You can houserule away everything.



True, but some tasks are easier than others.  Mearls' comment says to me that the ever-present "math" of 4e expects the "tank" to have a high armor class, and expects that to come from wearing heavy armor.  If you wanted a game where heavy armor didn't exist (a jungle or desert campaign), you can tack the difference onto the fighter's AC, for example, and that's a quick and easy fix.  Or just ramp up the AC values of those armors that do exist to match those of heavy armor in the default game.



			
				Derren said:
			
		

> He does imply that people with light armor will have less AC than people in heavy armor. In 3E this wasn't always teh case depending on the Dex.



The 3e Dex monkeys were only made possible by the magic item stacking abuse that 4e it trying to tone down.  So I would guess that "light armor, high Dex"-based characters won't be able to compete on pure AC terms anymore, given the probable lack of extra AC from non-armor sources (+dex gloves, amulet of natural armor, etc.).


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## vagabundo (Feb 13, 2008)

Umbran said:
			
		

> More's the question - is there a _need_ to build a lightly armored fighter?  If the game has sufficient ways to build a lightly armored combatant to fill people's desire for the cool swashbuckly roles, the lightly-armored fighter becomes largely a moot point.




I agree, unless there is some mechanical benefit and difference from other martial classes, why bother with a lightly armoured fighter. If that role is better served by other classes. I think the tighter focus on core concepts, for each class, will benefit 4e in the long run. 

Although, to some people, the name of the class matters when they are creating the concept (not directed at you derran).


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## Derren (Feb 13, 2008)

vagabundo said:
			
		

> I agree, unless there is some mechanical benefit and difference from other martial classes, why bother with a lightly armoured fighter. If that role is better served by other classes. I think the tighter focus on core concepts, for each class, will benefit 4e in the long run.
> 
> Although, to some people, the name of the class matters when they are creating the concept (not directed at you derran).




Its the same as with the ranger. In 3E you could make a rogue/fighter multiclass and call him ranger if you wanted a nonmagical one but as you see on the reaction to Mearls nonmagical Ranger this was not enough.

So in 4E it looks that while nonmagical rangers can finally be rangers, every lightly armored fighter has to be a rogue.
And imo its quite funny that Mearls informs us that the ranger looses its magic theme but in the same posts also says that fighters are expected to wear heavy armor and that you should (have to?) houserule if you don't want them to.


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## xechnao (Feb 13, 2008)

New fighter feat:

Not-heavy armored fighter feat (or pick a name that you may like better): when a fighter uses combat expertise, if lightly armored he may enjoy double his dexterity bonus to AC up to a maximum extra bonus of +10 due to this feat.

Prequisites: combat expertise, agile, armed* 
*A fighter that does not carry a melee weapon that can parry and/or a buckler shield he may not use this feat.


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## JahellTheBard (Feb 13, 2008)

You can house-rule anything, but giving a fighter in light armor the same ac as someone wearing heavy armor seems to me a stupid thing ... unbalancing at least ... if you want to play a  light armor fighter, you must learn how to use your mobility to avoid attacks,  and take your risk, not just cry for an house-rule free gift from your master, just because 'it is possible'.

Use of house-ruling is not easy for a master ... you must try to keep balance between all your players, otherwise someone will be unhappy ...


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## Raduin711 (Feb 13, 2008)

Perhaps there are light-armor defender classes coming down the pike.  Perhaps the fighter class is simply designed for heavy armor.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> Its the same as with the ranger. In 3E you could make a rogue/fighter multiclass and call him ranger if you wanted a nonmagical one but as you see on the reaction to Mearls nonmagical Ranger this was not enough.
> 
> So in 4E it looks that while nonmagical rangers can finally be rangers, every lightly armored fighter has to be a rogue.
> And imo its quite funny that Mearls informs us that the ranger looses its magic theme but in the same posts also says that fighters are expected to wear heavy armor and that you should (have to?) houserule if you don't want them to.



Where's the funny? What if someone liked Rangers with spells? Now he has to houserule that. 
The new Ranger isn't any more flexible than the old...

And why is bad to play a Rogue or Ranger if you want to play a lightly armored character? The Rogue & Ranger class obviously excel at fighting lightly armored - why need a third class that can do that, too 
Or do you just think that any one that is fighting with a melee weapon should be a Fighter, regardless of the rest of his equipment?


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## Dausuul (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> He does imply that people with light armor will have less AC than people in heavy armor. In 3E this wasn't always teh case depending on the Dex.




He implies that FIGHTERS with light armor will have less AC than fighters in heavy armor.

Anyway, when was the last time you had a 3E character whose Dex was so high that his/her AC would not be improved by wearing full plate?  You need a Dexterity of 28 for that.  With mithral plate, you need a 32.  If you started with a base 18 Dex, played an elf, put all your stat bonuses into Dexterity, and spent all your gold on +Dex items (_+6 gloves of dexterity_ and a _+3 manual of quickness in action_)... you'd _still_ be 14th level before you got your Dex up to 32, having horribly gimped your character in the process.

Mearls was talking about "what the game assumes."  3.5E assumes fighters in heavy armor, too.  Other classes have built-in reasons to wear lighter gear, but fighters are a "heavy tank" class by design.


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## Jack99 (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> He does imply that people with light armor will have less AC than people in heavy armor. In 3E this wasn't always teh case depending on the Dex.




3.5 core rules
You would need a 26 dex for it to be better for you to switch. I don't know how many 26 dex fighters you see, but while it is possible, AC is generally a poor choice for fighters, especially if it comes at the expense of damage or HP's.

And please note that when you have 26 dex, the better choice isn't a lighter armor, it's no armor at all (or rather, bracers of armor). Below 26 dex, the heavier armor (meaning fullplate will always beat the others) is always the better choice, if we only compare AC.

EDIT: Ninja'ed by Dausuul! Must type quicker.


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## Sitara (Feb 13, 2008)

Rangers come with the woodland baggage. Furthermore what if you want a fighter who wears light armorand yet also uses the fighter maneuvers, 2 handed sword instead of dual weild, etc?


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## MaelStorm (Feb 13, 2008)

The character classes in the PH will probably be very modular: to create a light armored fighter you take a striker class (like rogue or ranger) and you simply imports the feats/powers/talents from the fighter. It shouldn't be that difficult IMO. Treat it as a defender for the attack and as a striker for the armor.

Maybe you will have useful guidelines in the DMG regarding what you can and can't do with the classes in the PH.


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## Derren (Feb 13, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> Where's the funny? What if someone liked Rangers with spells? Now he has to houserule that.
> The new Ranger isn't any more flexible than the old...
> 
> And why is bad to play a Rogue or Ranger if you want to play a lightly armored character? The Rogue & Ranger class obviously excel at fighting lightly armored - why need a third class that can do that, too
> Or do you just think that any one that is fighting with a melee weapon should be a Fighter, regardless of the rest of his equipment?




Why is it bad to play a fighter/rogue multiclass when you want to play a nonmagical ranger (in 3E)?
I just think its funny that people cheer because rangers are made more open but in the same post it is revealed that fighters are made more confined.[/quote]



> Anyway, when was the last time you had a 3E character whose Dex was so high that his/her AC would not be improved by wearing full plate? You need a Dexterity of 28 for that. With mithral plate, you need a 32. If you started with a base 18 Dex, played an elf, put all your stat bonuses into Dexterity, and spent all your gold on +Dex items (+6 gloves of dexterity and a +3 manual of quickness in action)... you'd still be 14th level before you got your Dex up to 32, having horribly gimped your character in the process.




Wow, so in your game only heavy armor exists? Why do all people who argue against "lightly armored fighters must be houseruled" somehow think the fighter must reach the AC of a heavy armored one when being naked? 
Unless you go into extreme Dex and mithral territory the maximum dexterity of full plate is just 1 AC higher than most other Armor/Dex combinations (Padded armor reaches the same AC with high Dex, medium armor sucks as usual).
So in the end a 18 Dex chainshirt fighter had the same AC than a 10 Dex fullplate fighter  and was faster. In 4E it seems that the chainshirt fighter is at least not expected to work.


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## small pumpkin man (Feb 13, 2008)

Wasn't there a tidbit somewhere that said Fighters would be able to get the equivalent of a higher max dex bonus in heavy armour? or am I confusing them with something else?


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## Scholar & Brutalman (Feb 13, 2008)

small pumpkin man said:
			
		

> Wasn't there a tidbit somewhere that said Fighters would be able to get the equivalent of a higher max dex bonus in heavy armour? or am I confusing them with something else?




Races and Classes, p60.


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## hong (Feb 13, 2008)

Sitara said:
			
		

> Rangers come with the woodland baggage. Furthermore what if you want a fighter who wears light armorand yet also uses the fighter maneuvers, 2 handed sword instead of dual weild, etc?



 As baggage goes, woodland is pretty minimal. Don't forget there's also the rogue.


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## Dausuul (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> Wow, so in your game only heavy armor exists? Why do all people who argue against "lightly armored fighters must be houseruled" somehow think the fighter must reach the AC of a heavy armored one when being naked?
> Unless you go into extreme Dex and mithral territory the maximum dexterity of full plate is just 1 AC higher than most other Armor/Dex combinations (Padded armor reaches the same AC with high Dex, medium armor sucks as usual).
> So in the end a 18 Dex chainshirt fighter had the same AC than a 10 Dex fullplate fighter  and was faster. In 4E it seems that the chainshirt fighter is at least not expected to work.




I'll concede that you don't have to have a Dex as high as I originally argued... but putting an 18 into Dex is going to take away from the investments in Str and Con that are vital to a fighter's success.

Face it, 3E assumes heavy armor on a fighter just as much as 4E presumably will.  3E fighters are expected to put their best stat in Strength and their second-best in Constitution, and rely on armor to give them AC.

Now, with careful stat tweaking, you can make a chainshirt fighter more or less viable, if not quite as effective as the full-plate fellow... but who's to say you can't do that in 4E too?  4E could well use the exact same armor rules as 3E, and Mearls's statement would still make perfect sense.  The fighter is built on the _assumption_ that he's using heavy armor.  If you don't wear heavy armor, the system makes no guarantees that the math will work out.


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## Derren (Feb 13, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> Face it, 3E assumes heavy armor on a fighter just as much as 4E presumably will.  3E fighters are expected to put their best stat in Strength and their second-best in Constitution, and rely on armor to give them AC.




I don't see it that way. Non of the 3E fighters class abilities (Ha!) or fighter feats requires the fighter to use heavy armor. Feats like Weapon Finesse on the other hand make sure that a Dex focused fighter does not suck (much more than a Str focused one). The difference between a 3E full plate fighter and a chain shirt fighter are about 20 HP (or 1-2 points of damage) vs 10 ft more speed.


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## Derren (Feb 13, 2008)

double post


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## vagabundo (Feb 13, 2008)

In 3.5e not getting into the best suit of armor you could afford would mean you were subpar, usually.

I would prefer that the classes be a little more focused. If fighters are assumed to want the best armour they can get and you want a mobile fighter type, then we need a new class for that. Or a feat/power combo that would allow it. For me fighters always want amour and usually a shield, it is only the oddballs that don't. 

Again, this is a personal preference. I like that this is spelt out in the class.


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## Jack99 (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> I just think its funny that people cheer because rangers are made more open but in the same post it is revealed that fighters are made more confined.




Maybe it isn't funny, because they aren't more confined. Quite the opposite. In 3.5, if you had good dex, you were more or less forced to wear light armor in order to get the best AC possible. In 4e, you can wear any armor that fits your Vision(tm) of your character. You can still wear light armor and have a high dex mobile fighter, but he won't have as good as AC the high armored one. That isn't confining, imo. It's having to make a choice, whereas the benefits of light armor far outweighed those of wearing heavy armor in 3.5.



			
				Derren said:
			
		

> So in the end a 18 Dex chainshirt fighter had the same AC than a 10 Dex fullplate fighter  and was faster. In 4E it seems that the chainshirt fighter is at least not expected to work.




You are comparing apples and oranges. You need to give them the same dex if you want to compare.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> Wow, so in your game only heavy armor exists?



In my games, heavy armor usually exists, and is worn by most Fighters (and Clerics). During the night, most Fighters in our campaigns rely on a light armor (no penalties for sleeping in that), and off course at lower levels, they rarely have heavy armor.
Barbarians, Rogues and Rangers usually use lighter armor, but I think I have seen some Barbarians wearing Mithral Full Plate to get the max AC...



> Why do all people who argue against "lightly armored fighters must be houseruled" somehow think the fighter must reach the AC of a heavy armored one when being naked?



Well, that's the only thing that Mearls addressed - if Fighters are not wearing heavy armor, you might need a house rule granting them an AC Bonus. He doesn't say that any of their other abilities/powers require heavy armor, but they need a high AC to be effective in their Defending role.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 13, 2008)

Khuxan said:
			
		

> In 3.5 it was not easy to houserule away a fighter's heavy armor. Now it is. That's an improvement.



Here's the quote: "The one stumbling block is that the game expects fighters to wear heavy armor, but you could get around that by building a simple house rule (a fighter in light armor gets a flat bonus to AC to make up the gap)."

How is that ANY harder to do in BECMI, 1E, 2E, or 3E?  In any D&D game, if you want to say "fighters in light armor are also good," you can just give them a flat AC bonus in lighter armor.  Simple.  Easy.  In fact, 2E _did _ have this with the Swashbuckler kit.  So I don't see "You can house-rule a flat bonus" as some visionary innovation.

In 3E, you could have easily invented a feat "light armor training" that gives +1 or +2 AC in light armor.  What 3E did instead was to offer advantages for the lightly armored fighter such as Spring Attack, faster movement, and Tumble (yes, even as a cross-class skill).  You could build a fighter who, while not as able to withstand direct attacks, was very good at reducing the number of attacks he would take.  Which, IMO, is how a lightly-armored fighter should work.

Now, I concede that mithral fullplate was a colossal mistake, and was compounded by 3E's horrendous advice of "If it's under the town's price limit, you should be able to buy it."  Still, everything in the DMG is included in the campaign at the DM's discretion, so it was a mistake easily fixed.


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## Wolfspider (Feb 13, 2008)

It seems to me that house rules are now built into the system, as odd as that may sound....


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## Haffrung Helleyes (Feb 13, 2008)

This seems like a good change to me.

In 3.5, fighters don't wear heavy armor because the hit to your mobility and possibly your max dex bonus usually makes it a bad choice, and the difference between a chain shirt and plate is only 4AC.  True, heavy armor can have DR, but the amount is very small and doesn't scale with level.  DR 2/- doesn't matter much when the monster smacks you for 60 damage.

I ran Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil with a tactically minded, fighter-heavy group, and they all came to the conclusion that staying in light armor was their best option, for this reason.

I would like to see the 4E rules make heavy armor the best choice for someone who is sufficiently strong and sufficiently trained in its use.  After all, if we look at what soldiers who were wealthy and well trained did historically, well, they wore the heaviest armor they could afford, generally.

Ken


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## Aristotle (Feb 13, 2008)

This doesn't seem like such a big deal to me. While I have always wanted to do a swords and sandals homebrew setting, where a shield was your primary and sometimes only armor, most generic games I've played in has seen the Fighters drooling over increasingly bulkier armors.

If you want to play a lightly armored skirmisher... you want to play a ranger. Everything points to them getting two weapon fighting, and the fighters not having it available (at least for now), and it sounds to me like this edition might see the ranger as a much better archer than a fighter ever could be. A change from 3E where a fighter could load up on ranged feats and outclass a ranger with a bow. You no longer have the spells and odd divine flavor getting in the way either.

I'm thinking of the fighter as the infantry, front line, warriors and the rangers as the special forces, strike and run, warriors. Rogues, I think, will come off more as the combat capable spy.


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## shilsen (Feb 13, 2008)

Wolfspider said:
			
		

> It seems to me that house rules are now built into the system, as odd as that may sound....



 Or, depending on perspective, more variants and options are provided with the system.

Which, for me, is a damn good approach to have.


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## FireLance (Feb 13, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> Where's the funny? What if someone liked Rangers with spells? Now he has to houserule that.
> The new Ranger isn't any more flexible than the old...



It seems to me that if someone wanted rangers with spells, all he has to do is to multiclass into a spellcasting class or use one of the class training feats.

I think the class design philosophy in 4e is to avoid overlaps in abilities between classes. So, instead of giving you a fighter class, a cleric class, and a class that is halfway between a fighter and a cleric, they just give you a fighter class and a cleric class and allow you to mix and match levels and class abilities as you think fit.  

On the other hand, if a class covers too broad and varied an archetype, it gets broken up. So, instead of a generic fighter class, you get a tank class, a swashbuckler class, and an archer class, and you tailor your individual fighting characters according to what proportion of each type of abilities you want.


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## A'koss (Feb 13, 2008)

JFEI, jonrog1 (a playtester) did hint in an earlier thread that there would be "swashbuckler" style fighters in 4e.



			
				jonrog1 said:
			
		

> I'm not going to give out any comparative details.  i thought all the classes my group played not only played well, but had extraordinarily distinctive play styles.  I will say that while the Paladin was super shiny, the Fighter for me had the lock on fun and useful "techniques" (I refuse to call them powers.  But that's me).  I can totally see how you'll not only be able to customize your Fighter, but how once you've made your choices you will have the tactics available to you that are immediately useful.  **A dig-in-and-anchor fighter is going to be different from a swashbuckler at level one, and effective as an anchor Fighter at level one.*



(* emphasis mine)


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## hong (Feb 13, 2008)

Becmi J'fei, eladrin paladin of Bahamut and bane of Vecna.


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## FireLance (Feb 13, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> Becmi J'fei, eladrin paladin of Bahamut and bane of Vecna.



I would have gone with halfling since it looks like they might get a Charisma bonus. Besides, the name sounds better when spoken with a Jamaican accent.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Feb 13, 2008)

Umbran said:
			
		

> More's the question - is there a _need_ to build a lightly armored fighter?  If the game has sufficient ways to build a lightly armored combatant to fill people's desire for the cool swashbuckly roles, the lightly-armored fighter becomes largely a moot point.



This is just another reminded that in 4E classes do not key to archetypes, but instead key to functional roles.  You could have two "soldiers," one of which is trained to fight in heavy armour and plod forward like a turtle with a greatsword, and one of which is trained as a harrier that outmanoeuvres enemies and gets around defensive lines, possibly switching between bow and sword as necessary.

In 3E, both could be fighters because in 3E the fighter was designed to take on all sorts of different "fighty" archetypes.  In 4E, these combat roles are divided up into separate classes.  So the two "soldiers" might be a fighter and a ranger or a fighter and a rogue.


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## TwoSix (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> And imo its quite funny that Mearls informs us that the ranger looses its magic theme but in the same posts also says that fighters are expected to wear heavy armor and that you should (have to?) houserule if you don't want them to.




In 3e, fighter was the class to use to add martial ability to any character build.  In 4e, fighter is the class that lets you be a heavily armored holder of the line.  The 4e fighter is less flexible, in a concept sense, than the 3e one.  Whether or not that appeals to you depends on whether you like 4e's concept of niche protection and role definition.  But for many of the 4e classes, especially the ones based on the more generic 3e class like fighter and rogue, it's not possible to make an apples-to-apples comparison, since the design goals are so different.  3e classes were meant as tools to make your preferred character _build_.  4e classes are much more defining of the character as a whole.


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## Lonely Tylenol (Feb 13, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> Here's the quote: "The one stumbling block is that the game expects fighters to wear heavy armor, but you could get around that by building a simple house rule (a fighter in light armor gets a flat bonus to AC to make up the gap)."
> 
> How is that ANY harder to do in BECMI, 1E, 2E, or 3E?  In any D&D game, if you want to say "fighters in light armor are also good," you can just give them a flat AC bonus in lighter armor.  Simple.  Easy.  In fact, 2E _did _ have this with the Swashbuckler kit.  So I don't see "You can house-rule a flat bonus" as some visionary innovation.



A good place to start is the rules in Unearthed Arcana, under Defense Bonus.


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## Derren (Feb 13, 2008)

TwoSix said:
			
		

> In 3e, fighter was the class to use to add martial ability to any character build.  In 4e, fighter is the class that lets you be a heavily armored holder of the line.  The 4e fighter is less flexible, in a concept sense, than the 3e one.  Whether or not that appeals to you depends on whether you like 4e's concept of niche protection and role definition.  But for many of the 4e classes, especially the ones based on the more generic 3e class like fighter and rogue, it's not possible to make an apples-to-apples comparison, since the design goals are so different.  3e classes were meant as tools to make your preferred character _build_.  4e classes are much more defining of the character as a whole.




Personally I don't really care if the fighter can wear light armor or if this role is covered by a different class.
But considering how many people were outraged by 3E rangers having spells and did not accept a fighter(or barbarian)/rogue multiclass as spell less ranger substitute I imagine there are some people who do care.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 13, 2008)

FireLance said:
			
		

> It seems to me that if someone wanted rangers with spells, all he has to do is to multiclass into a spellcasting class or use one of the class training feats.



I am not actually interested in a spellcasting Ranger. I just wanted to point out that the "funny" contradiction didn't exist.



> Personally I don't really care if the fighter can wear light armor or if this role is covered by a different class.
> But considering how many people were outraged by 3E rangers having spells and did not accept a fighter(or barbarian)/rogue multiclass as spell less ranger substitute I imagine there are some people who do care.



Here's the difference between 3E and 4E, as far as I can see it:
Well, all 3 Ranger approaches end up with giving you abilities you don't care about when thinking of a Ranger, or even don't give you the abilities associated with a Ranger. Fighter/Rogue: Where's Survival/Tracking?
Barbarian/Rogue why do I need Rage to become a Ranger? 
In fact, the only part that seems to work here is the Rogue part of the multiclass, because stealth and detection skills and even sneak attack can actually fit to a Ranger/Hunter). 
For 4E, the abilities so far indicated for both Ranger and Rogue seem to fit well for a lightly armored fighter. (This might turn out totally wrong once we've seen the details, but I don't expect that...)


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## Cadfan (Feb 13, 2008)

I'm one of the more outspoken advocates for swashbuckling characters, and I have to say that this doesn't bother me.  If the differences between the best light armor and the best heavy armor are as big as they were in 3e (+4 AC, plus possibly a shield), then I completely understand why a class that CAN use heavy armor has to be balanced as if it DOES use heavy armor.  

I know that a high dex fighter can match a high armor fighter in 3e, but it requires an 18 dex and a chain shirt to get an armor class one point lower than you can get with a 12 dex and full plate.  That's a significant trade off, and it makes the lightly armored fighter much less viable.  You have to balance based on the good choices, not the bad ones.

That being said, this is part of the reason I want more martial classes.  I love my lightly armored brawlers.


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## John Q. Mayhem (Feb 13, 2008)

If the previously-mentioned "Cleric Training" and "Wizard Training" type feats work the way I think they do, it should be very easy to add the ranger's minor magical ability back in. You can even go back to the arcane and divine spells of yore!


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## TwoSix (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> Personally I don't really care if the fighter can wear light armor or if this role is covered by a different class.
> But considering how many people were outraged by 3E rangers having spells and did not accept a fighter(or barbarian)/rogue multiclass as spell less ranger substitute I imagine there are some people who do care.




Which is somewhat ironic.  In 3e, classes were supposed to be a grab-bag of abilities, that you mixed and matched in order to make the character build you want.  In 4e, classes are much more defining, so if the ranger class isn't what you want now, you have a bigger case for raising a stink about it.


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## MaelStorm (Feb 13, 2008)

John Q. Mayhem said:
			
		

> If the previously-mentioned "Cleric Training" and "Wizard Training" type feats work the way I think they do, it should be very easy to add the ranger's minor magical ability back in. You can even go back to the arcane and divine spells of yore!




The strong point of 4E should be its flexibility in character conception. _Tweaking the system a little bit_ to quote Mearl.

I am used to system like GURPS. So I really don't mind (or care) about the change as much as 3.5 players.


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## Thornir Alekeg (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> Why is it bad to play a fighter/rogue multiclass when you want to play a nonmagical ranger (in 3E)?
> I just think its funny that people cheer because rangers are made more open but in the same post it is revealed that fighters are made more confined.



I don't think Rangers were made more open.  How does removing their magic abilities make them more open?  I think people are cheering because the magic aspect of the Ranger never quite made sense when people thought of Ranger types in fantasy literature.  

I know Dr. Awkward already mentioned this: People need to recall that 4e is built around the idea that Classes have an expected Role and the game is designed and balanced around this idea of roles.  The fighter class is a Defender.  The lightly armored, mobile melee combatant is not a Defender, but a Striker.  As long as you can fulfill the concept of the character, how much does it matter whether you call it a Fighter or a Ranger?

in 3e, people wanted to use the fighter to create many different styles of fighters because they got the bonus feats that allowed them to do so.  We do not know how the Fighter is going to end up structred in 4e.  My guess is that their abilities will be designed to make them fill a more standard concept, rather than the multitude of variations on the same concept that could be done in 3e.  Is that better or worse for the game?  I would not try to judge until we see the entirety of the rules. 

One more thing people need to keep in mind when discussing 4e making things more confined: 







			
				Mike Mearls said:
			
		

> Since many of the elements of character progression are unified, you could run classless D&D by allowing players to select maneuvers and spells from any class they want, mingling the two together, or start everyone with access to all heroic abilities and grant access to divine and arcane via feats.



  It seems like that would be the ultimate in opening the game up if that is really what people desire - it just isn't the base assumption of the game.


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## GreatLemur (Feb 13, 2008)

Khuxan said:
			
		

> InIn most games, however, niche-protection means the fighter SHOULD wear heavy armor - if fighter is generic enough to cover any class that fought, we might as well adopt a True20-like system.



And indeed, I might.


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## John Q. Mayhem (Feb 13, 2008)

I can make just about any character concept I want using 3.5; I know a lot more about D&D than anyone I game with. I'm hoping that 4E will make it easier for more casual players to make exactly the character they want. I'd like to play D&D more, but at the moment the ease-of-use of Savage Worlds has made it the system du jour 'round here.


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## keterys (Feb 13, 2008)

The important thing to realize is that Dex bonuses in 4e will not be as high as they were in 3e. Let's pretend for a moment that chain shirt and full plate are the same, for a moment. +4 AC, 4 max dex. +8 ac, +1 max dex. Assuming Dex of less than 30 (+10 to cancel out the +9 from full plate), the fighter is better off with the full plate. Dex of 30 is impossible. Hell, the fighter most likely has no better than Dex 14. 

But let's make him Dexy McFighter and give him an 18. Let's also assume he's willing to take the 1 AC hit for the improved maneuverability (which I suspect will not be as big a deal in 4e - one of the playtests talked about the rest of the party being unable to keep up with the fighter who ran off to do battle). Okay, so he just loses 1 AC for not being in heavy armor. Not too bad.

Except R&C also said fighters get improved Max Dex. Well, let's call that an extra +2 Max Dex. Now he's giving up 3 AC to wear light armor.

That seems a pretty dubious decision to make in a system where the math is as close as it is in 4e. Certainly the decision to make yourself 3 worse than another fighter, just for looks, isn't a really logical one. So if the DM strips out heavy armor... he should give fighters something.

Sounds reasonable.


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## Mercule (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> While everyone is happy about spell less ranger, a other information from Mearls gets overlooked.
> Fighters are expected to wear heavy armor.




I didn't overlook it.  I just recognized it as the non-change that it is.  Fighters have been expected to wear heavy armor since 1974.


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## drothgery (Feb 13, 2008)

Spatula said:
			
		

> Eh what?  Heavy armor certainly isn't required (of anyone) in 3e.  Armor is the best AC boost for the buck, especially at low levels, but I just finished off a campaign that went from 1st to 19th level, and no one wore anything heavier than a chain shirt.  Ever.  Unless you boost AC to ridiculous levels (40+) it's almost meaningless in high-level play, and other forms of avoiding or absorbing damage become more important.




That was a kind of odd game, though.
- The party tank was a fighter/barbarian, and so took a lot of penalties for wearing heavy armor (and wasn't run by the kind of player who'd flip through rulebooks and end up with mithral full plate and an animated shield)
- The party cleric had taken a Vow of Poverty
- My warmage had the highest AC in the party from the time he showed up in the game (at level 13 or 14) to the end (by wearing a mithral breastplate and carrying a shield), mostly because I needed the cloak slot for a _cloak of charisma_ and so couldn't use it for a _cloak of displacement_ (custom magic items and Magic Item Compendium alt rules nonwithstanding)


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## Gloombunny (Feb 13, 2008)

I suspect that 4e will support lightly-armored swashbuckly warriors better than 3.5 can, by either multiclassing fighter with rogue or ranger or just building the character as a rogue or ranger in the first place.  Now, such a character will play differently than a standard fighter - more mobility, less defense - but that strikes me as a good thing.  A guy tromping across the field in full plate and a guy darting around in a chain shirt _should_ play differently.

You will likely have problems playing a stay-in-one-place-and-guard-the-casters classic meatshieldy kind of warrior without heavy armor.  That doesn't mean it's impossible, just suboptimal compared to a heavily-armored fighter.  And I just can't see that as such a horrible thing.


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## FireLance (Feb 13, 2008)

TwoSix said:
			
		

> Which is somewhat ironic.  In 3e, classes were supposed to be a grab-bag of abilities, that you mixed and matched in order to make the character build you want.  In 4e, classes are much more defining, so if the ranger class isn't what you want now, you have a bigger case for raising a stink about it.



Actually, I would say that the multiclassing rules in 3e discouraged taking too many classes. I suspect that most base classes were designed around the idea that characters were not expected to have more than one or two main ones, and thus needed to have a grab bag of abilities to portray all the variants on the theme. If you wanted to have a ranger with spellcasting ability, the spellcasting ability had to be built into the ranger class or a related prestige class.

If characters in 4e can multiclass more easily, then if what you want for your character isn't provided by the ranger class, you can take a feat or a level in another class that provides what you want. In 4e, the answer to "my character wants this ability" is not "this ability should be part of my character's main class" but "my character takes a level in a class that grants him this ability".


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## Irda Ranger (Feb 13, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> I didn't overlook it.  I just recognized it as the non-change that it is.  Fighters have been expected to wear heavy armor since 1974.



QFT.  If you don't want to be the guy in the heavy armor, up front, holding the line - _don't play a Figther_.  That's what they do.  That's what they're best at.

We know that the Rogue is now a dex-based Martial-powered class that can hold it's own in combat (one playtest report explained that the Rogue even stepped into the Defender role long enough to win the fight when the Fighter went down for the count).  I'm thinking that if you want to play the swashbuckler or ninja guy, play a Rogue.  Likewise, if you want to do the ol' Legolas skit, play a Ranger.


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## Doug McCrae (Feb 13, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> Fighters have been expected to wear heavy armor since 1974.



QFT.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 13, 2008)

Mercule said:
			
		

> Fighters have been expected to wear heavy armor since 1974.



Except for barbarians and rangers (which were fighter sub-classes in 1E), many of the 2E kits, fighter/wizards, fighter/thieves, and 3E fighters with Spring Attack.  I think earlier editions gave a penalty to longbow use in heavy armor, not sure there. 

D&D has generally tried to support the lightly-armored fighter archetype, although I admit that my favorite system (BECMI) falls short here.  3E made light armor a very competitive option (that extra 10' of movement is huge).


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## Wolfspider (Feb 13, 2008)

shilsen said:
			
		

> Or, depending on perspective, more variants and options are provided with the system.




A system that expects fighters to wear heavy armor?


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## Doug McCrae (Feb 13, 2008)

Rangers in 1e could wear any armor. I remember an old White Dwarf characterising the class as 'a tank that can track'. Barbarians, fighter/wizards and fighter/thieves aren't fighters.

D&D supported the lightly armored 'fighter' archetype with classes other than the fighter such as thief/rogue, swashbuckler, duelist PrC, etc.


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## UngeheuerLich (Feb 13, 2008)

I don´t know if it was already mentioned, but i think the fighter is better in heavy armor because of the trait mentioned in R&C which allows a fighter to retain some of his DEX bonus if he wears heavy armor.

In 3.5 this could translate to: 
If a fighter wears heavy armor, he may add +2 to his max dex modifier.

Now, the best choice for a Fighter would be a full plate (AC wise)


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 13, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> Barbarians, fighter/wizards and fighter/thieves aren't fighters.



When the barbarian was a fighter sub-class, that made it a fighter.  I'd read that as "Here's one particular type of fighter, called the barbarian."  Multiclass characters that include "fighter" as one class are fighters in my view.  They're ALSO something else, but they don't stop being fighters (think of it as being a double major in college).



			
				Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> D&D supported the lightly armored 'fighter' archetype with classes other than the fighter such as thief/rogue, swashbuckler, duelist PrC, etc.



The 2E swashbuckler was a kit, and in fact I played one using the fighter class as the base.  Swashbuckler bonus of +2 AC in light armor, single-weapon style specialization taken twice for another +2 AC when using just a sabre.  So that character was "swashbuckler" as one possible build of "fighter."

I have never been a fan of adding new base classes when existing classes would suffice, and I always maintained that 3.5 was just fine for making a swashbuckler with X levels of Ftr and maybe 2 levels of Rog -- but, still, primarily fighter.  The lightly-armored polearm-fighter was also a neat build even with just the core rules; use Spring Attack and AOOs to get 2-for-1 attacks against an opponent.


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## Raduin711 (Feb 13, 2008)

I am thinking in 4th, the penalty for wearing armor is lessened, if there is any penalty at all.  Considering what they have said about wizards and armor, and now what they have said about fighters, I think the issue isn't balancing Dex with your Armor, it is getting that heavy armor proficiency in the first place.


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## Mallus (Feb 13, 2008)

So if I want to create a heavily-armored fighter in 4e, I take levels of "fighter" and if I want to create a lightly-armored fighter, I take levels of "rogue" or "ranger". 

Classes are ability packages. Got it. Seems easy enough...


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## GoodKingJayIII (Feb 13, 2008)

vagabundo said:
			
		

> In 3.5e not getting into the best suit of armor you could afford would mean you were subpar, usually.
> 
> I would prefer that the classes be a little more focused. If fighters are assumed to want the best armour they can get and you want a mobile fighter type, then we need a new class for that. Or a feat/power combo that would allow it. For me fighters always want amour and usually a shield, it is only the oddballs that don't.
> 
> Again, this is a personal preference. I like that this is spelt out in the class.




You summed up my feelings on the matter.  In a class-based system, we don't need to muddy class definitions and niches.  A player that wants a lightly armored warrior may be more interested in the rogue, ranger, or some combination with a splash of fighter multiclass.


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## Thornir Alekeg (Feb 13, 2008)

Mallus said:
			
		

> So if I want to create a heavily-armored fighter in 4e, I take levels of "fighter" and if I want to create a lightly-armored fighter, I take levels of "rogue" or "ranger".



 I think my edits below might be a little more accurate: 

So if I want to create *an optimal* heavily-armored fighter in 4e, I take levels of "fighter" and if I want to create *an optimal* lightly-armored fighter, I take levels of "rogue" or "ranger".


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## Mallus (Feb 13, 2008)

Thornir Alekeg said:
			
		

> I think my edits below might be a little more accurate:



Yes they are. Thanks.


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## Dausuul (Feb 13, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> When the barbarian was a fighter sub-class, that made it a fighter.  I'd read that as "Here's one particular type of fighter, called the barbarian."




Ranger and Paladin weren't Fighter sub-classes in 2E.  They, along with Fighter, were Warrior sub-classes.

Barbarian wasn't even _in_ the 2E Player's Handbook, though I'm sure there was a barbarian kit in some splatbook or other.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 13, 2008)

Dausuul said:
			
		

> Ranger and Paladin weren't Fighter sub-classes in 2E.  They, along with Fighter, were Warrior sub-classes.
> 
> Barbarian wasn't even _in_ the 2E Player's Handbook, though I'm sure there was a barbarian kit in some splatbook or other.



You are correct about 2E.  However, Ranger, Barbarian, and Paladin were introduced as _fighter_ subclasses in 1E.


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## Kahuna Burger (Feb 13, 2008)

The concern I have with saying that it's ok for fighters to be heavy armored or bust and you can just play a rogue or ranger if you want light armor is the news about fighter weapon skills. The implication of that was that if you want to do cool things with a weapon, as opposed to just hitting things with it, you want to be a fighter. But doing interesting things with your weapon as opposed to just hitting things is what I would want a swashbuckler to do. So there is a potential concern there.

If the access to specialized weapon abilities can be spread around the other classes, that's one thing, but these two schticks (one exclusive) to the same class seem weird to me.


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## pawsplay (Feb 13, 2008)

I've seen plenty of 3.5 fighters that went with lighter defenses, concentrated on mobility, and focused on damage dealing. Just as an example, having a Dex of 18 and wearing simply bracers or light armor causes only the smallest lag in AC while freeing up thousands of gp for weapons or other defenses. One of the scariest things I've even seen in one of my games was a Fighter 6/Scout 2 armed with two dwarven waraxes. With Spring Attack, he practically didn't need AC in the first place. At 8th level, he was still wearing studded leather +2.


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## kennew142 (Feb 13, 2008)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> The concern I have with saying that it's ok for fighters to be heavy armored or bust and you can just play a rogue or ranger if you want light armor is the news about fighter weapon skills. The implication of that was that if you want to do cool things with a weapon, as opposed to just hitting things with it, you want to be a fighter. But doing interesting things with your weapon as opposed to just hitting things is what I would want a swashbuckler to do. So there is a potential concern there.
> 
> If the access to specialized weapon abilities can be spread around the other classes, that's one thing, but these two schticks (one exclusive) to the same class seem weird to me.




I believe that the class training feats are designed to handle this situation (i.e. allowing classes to pick up each other's the talents/powers). It would also seem likely that all martial strikers will have access to talents/powers that let them do cool things with their weapons.


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## UngeheuerLich (Feb 13, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> I've seen plenty of 3.5 fighters that went with lighter defenses, concentrated on mobility, and focused on damage dealing. Just as an example, having a Dex of 18 and wearing simply bracers or light armor causes only the smallest lag in AC while freeing up thousands of gp for weapons or other defenses. One of the scariest things I've even seen in one of my games was a Fighter 6/Scout 2 armed with two dwarven waraxes. With Spring Attack, he practically didn't need AC in the first place. At 8th level, he was still wearing studded leather +2.




My brother went for halfling fighter/master thrower. With dex 20 the best armor he could wear was leather. He also did the hiding, sneaking and climbing things... ^^

Is his armor subpar? only a little bit. Is he doing damage? yes. Is he a typical fighter? no.
Will that be possible in 4e? i really think so. I would imagine him to be a fighter with ranger training.


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## Banshee16 (Feb 13, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> That doesn't really mean anything. You can houserule away everything.
> 
> He does imply that people with light armor will have less AC than people in heavy armor. In 3E this wasn't always teh case depending on the Dex.




I don't mind this *unless* there is no statistical benefit to being able to dodge, weave etc.  I understand that plate armour isn't as debilitating as some stories (and older editions of the game) suggest.....but I still think someone dressed in clothes is going to move faster and be more nimble than someone in plate.

And if you're more nimble, there should be some kind of mechanical way to address the fact that, yes, you can be hit more easily....*if you're standing where the guy was aiming at when he started his attack".  Fencers move very quickly, and footwork and positioning, and not being where the attack ends when it actually gets there are more important than blocking.

Banshee


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## Mercule (Feb 13, 2008)

Kahuna Burger said:
			
		

> The implication of that was that if you want to do cool things with a weapon, as opposed to just hitting things with it, you want to be a fighter. But doing interesting things with your weapon as opposed to just hitting things is what I would want a swashbuckler to do. So there is a potential concern there.




Keeping in mind that we all have only limited information to base any assumption on:

I think it depends what kind of "interesting things" you want to do with your weapon.  If you want to grin while you shrug off an attack, while running your opponent through with your greatsword, that would seem to be the kind of interesting that a fighter is designed for.  If you want to deftly slide inside your foe's reach, carve your initials on his spleen, then slide out again without being touched, that's the rogue's brand of interesting.  Finally, sending and arrow through seven orcs' faces without stepping out of cover is ranger-interesting.

Anyway, that's how I understand the division of duties in 4e.  We'll see in June, and I'm not going to get too worried until then.


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## Lord Zack (Feb 13, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> Where's the funny? What if someone liked Rangers with spells? Now he has to houserule that.
> The new Ranger isn't any more flexible than the old...
> 
> And why is bad to play a Rogue or Ranger if you want to play a lightly armored character? The Rogue & Ranger class obviously excel at fighting lightly armored - why need a third class that can do that, too
> Or do you just think that any one that is fighting with a melee weapon should be a Fighter, regardless of the rest of his equipment?




Actually, no he doesn't due to Training Feats.

And if I at least talk about a lightly armored fighter, I mean someone of the Defender role. Therefore a Fighter or Rogue won't be able to do what I want, except maybe through multiclassing of some kind.


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## Voss (Feb 13, 2008)

Irda Ranger said:
			
		

> QFT.  If you don't want to be the guy in the heavy armor, up front, holding the line - _don't play a Figther_.  That's what they do.  That's what they're best at.
> 
> We know that the Rogue is now a dex-based Martial-powered class that can hold it's own in combat (one playtest report explained that the Rogue even stepped into the Defender role long enough to win the fight when the Fighter went down for the count).  I'm thinking that if you want to play the swashbuckler or ninja guy, play a Rogue.  Likewise, if you want to do the ol' Legolas skit, play a Ranger.




And if you want to play a fighting guy without the other baggage of a rogue or ranger and still don't want heavy armor? Say you want to be strength focused rather than dex focused, for example. Or follow a cultural trope that doesn't involving buckling swashes or running around the woods with animals, yet not wearing full plate?  (Vikings, Celtic warriors [naked man with a two handed sword- dacian falx, late roman republic period] and Spartans seem appropriate here). The 4e response seems to be 'go do something biologically impossible to yourself'.


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## Cadfan (Feb 13, 2008)

The lightly armored fighter who uses a weapon in one hand and nothing in the other, while functioning as a defender, is a strong, popular archetype.  If its not possible out of the box, popular opinion will demand it.

That's just how it is, like it or not.

Look at 3e.  Try to count up the PRCs and feats that were created to try to patch the fact that this archetype just wasn't workable using fighter or rogue.  You've got the Duelist, a number of weird PRCs in splat books, feats like Einhander, about a million different feats designed to create a "parry" option...  Eventually an entire base class was created, and THAT needed patched, because it wasn't strong enough.  The demand was there, and WOTC tried at length to satisfy it.  They'll end up doing the same thing again, most likely.  

Hopefully they'll skip to the end and just create the character class right away.  A character who uses a weapon in one hand, with the other hand empty, and who uses light armor instead of the heaviest available, has forgone a great deal of power right at the start.  He COULD be using a two handed weapon and plate, but he's not.  That means he needs something to compensate, and THAT means he needs his own class.


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## Remathilis (Feb 13, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> Except for barbarians and rangers (which were fighter sub-classes in 1E), many of the 2E kits, fighter/wizards, fighter/thieves, and 3E fighters with Spring Attack.  I think earlier editions gave a penalty to longbow use in heavy armor, not sure there.




Barbarians could wear any armor and use shields. (UA 13). If they wore armor that was "bulkt or fairly bulky" they lost their special AC bonus (+2 per dex point over 14, UA 18). This essentially meant that while a barbarian with a high dex in light armor did better than a fighter with a high dex in light armor, both wearing the same bulky armor had identical ACs. Ergo, unless you had a high dex or a reason to wear lighter armor, you were not "penalized" for wearing heavier armor.

By the same token, rangers in 1e had NO penalty for wearing full plate or fighting with a shield. 2e rangers lost access to their twf ability in armor heavier than st. leather, but 1e rangers did not.

1e fighter/mages and BECMI elves suffered no penalties to casting spells in armor, ergo they could wear full plate (but not shields) and still cast spells. 2e fighter/mages did suffer the penalty to spellcasting in armor (as a single-classed mage) and thus had to rely on their magic to protect them (as a single-classed mage does).

1e fighter/thieves could also wear any armor, but (as per the thief class) if they wore armor heavier than leather, they lost access to their thief skills. UA and 2e fighter/thieves instead penalized thieves to their percentiles based on armor worn.


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## Voss (Feb 13, 2008)

Actually, 1e fighter/mages couldn't cast in armour. mage/anythings couldn't cast in armor.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 13, 2008)

Voss said:
			
		

> Spartans seem appropriate here



It was my understanding that the Spartans wore heavy armor.  I could be wrong.


			
				Cadfan said:
			
		

> The lightly armored fighter who uses a weapon in one hand and nothing in the other, while functioning as a defender, is a strong, popular archetype. If its not possible out of the box, popular opinion will demand it.



The Duelist was there "out of the box" in the core rules.  Works pretty well, too.  

Wearing light armor and not using a shield sounds like a poor defensive approach against medieval weaponry.  It makes sense if you're on a boat, or trying to avoid drawing attention, or in an environment where you have to Climb, Balance, Tumble, Jump, or Swim.  But I think it's best that it remain strong in those circumstances, and not be an all-around equal choice to, you know, actually preparing yourself for combat.


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## Storminator (Feb 13, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> In 3E, you could have easily invented a feat "light armor training" that gives +1 or +2 AC in light armor.  What 3E did instead was to offer advantages for the lightly armored fighter such as Spring Attack, faster movement, and Tumble (yes, even as a cross-class skill).  You could build a fighter who, while not as able to withstand direct attacks, was very good at reducing the number of attacks he would take.  Which, IMO, is how a lightly-armored fighter should work.




I think that's how a lightly armored _character_ should work. As I understand it, the point of a fighter is to draw attacks that are directed towards other characters. In short, he goes out of his way to not avoid attacks. 

And that is why it assumes he has heavy armor/high AC.

PS


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## Voss (Feb 13, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> It was my understanding that the Spartans wore heavy armor.  I could be wrong.




Possibly.  I just tossed them in at the end because I knew a significant number of people were enthralled by the Movie of Garbage.  There are pretty good odds that someone wants to play out a scene from 300, which involved, uh, scanty armour.


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## pawsplay (Feb 13, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> It was my understanding that the Spartans wore heavy armor.  I could be wrong.




The armor worn by Spartans and Athenians of the time is described in 3.5 as a bronze breastplate.


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## sinecure (Feb 13, 2008)

Haven't fighters been better in heavier armors since the beginning of D&D?  I don't see this as a problem. It's practically a tradition. Especially if adding back in d20's max stack system works just as well.  

By max stack I mean the armor /shield bonuses + dexterity bonus maximums to AC.


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## pawsplay (Feb 13, 2008)

sinecure said:
			
		

> Isn't Fighters in heavy armor something that's been indicative of D&D since it began?  I don't see this as a problem.  Especially if adding back in d20's max stack system works just as well.
> 
> By max stack I mean the armor /shield bonuses + dexterity bonus maximums to AC.




Actually, under Basic D&D you could expect to spend a lot of time in chain armor. "Plate mail" was a nice idea, but it was expensive to buy and hard to find in magical form. And magical "full plate?" Forget about it. Plus, Str scores tended to be modest, and encumbrace can do you in.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 13, 2008)

Storminator said:
			
		

> I think that's how a lightly armored _character_ should work. As I understand it, the point of a fighter is to draw attacks that are directed towards other characters. In short, he goes out of his way to not avoid attacks.
> 
> And that is why it assumes he has heavy armor/high AC.



Yeah, I can see that from the 4E point of view with its focus on roles.

Myself, I am used to 2E's approach, where the fighter class is just a set of abilities that can be used to model dozens of archetypes.  "The questing knight, the conquering overlord, the king's champion, the elite foot soldier, the hardened mercenary, and the bandit king..."  The fighter was also the best class to use for an archer because of weapon specialization's effect on ROF.  Then there were the kits that fighters could take: swashbuckler, gladiator, samurai, barbarian, and many more.  While I certainly understood that some types of fighters would be in the thick of things trying to draw attacks, others would work more at avoiding attacks.  

Starting in BECMI, I probably did have a pretty limited view of what the fighter class was.  Then 2E showed me "The fighter class is ALL of these things, not just the tank."  3E kept that going, with its very flexible multiclassing system and the benefits to playing a mobile, tactical fighter.


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## Primal (Feb 13, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> Where's the funny? What if someone liked Rangers with spells? Now he has to houserule that.
> The new Ranger isn't any more flexible than the old...
> 
> And why is bad to play a Rogue or Ranger if you want to play a lightly armored character? The Rogue & Ranger class obviously excel at fighting lightly armored - why need a third class that can do that, too
> Or do you just think that any one that is fighting with a melee weapon should be a Fighter, regardless of the rest of his equipment?




I think he might refer to being able to create a lightly-armored melee combatant with better BAB and better access to Feats/Weapon Tricks/Combat Talents. If you can build a Rogue who has all the "Fighter Goodness" (including the same BAB) then I think most fans of the Dex-based fighters will be satisfied. 

It's also important to consider that Rogue might have Class Abilities that do not fit your own concept of a light-armored melee combatant, so it's understandable if some people think the class actually matters.


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## Irda Ranger (Feb 13, 2008)

Voss said:
			
		

> And if you want to play a fighting guy without the other baggage of a rogue or ranger and still don't want heavy armor? Say you want to be strength focused rather than dex focused, for example. ... The 4e response seems to be 'go do something biologically impossible to yourself'.



More like "Go play GURPS."

Look, there are limits to how flexible a class can be before it becomes a classless, point-buy system disguised as a class.  They're supposed to be archetypes.  The Fighter class is the heavy armor, toe to toe, "Come get some!" Archetype.  You can't dilute that without making the whole class system pointless.

And relax, man.  They're presenting the most popular Archetypes in the PHB1, but you know that eventually 4E will have just as much splat at 3E did.  It's inevitable.  There'll be dozens more base classes than anyone could ever possibly need by the time 5E comes around and gives you a new reason to get all self righteous.





			
				Cadfan said:
			
		

> The lightly armored fighter who uses a weapon in one hand and nothing in the other, while functioning as a defender, is a strong, popular archetype. If its not possible out of the box, popular opinion will demand it.
> 
> That's just how it is, like it or not.



I'm not sure that "a weapon in one hand, and no armor or shield to speak of" really combines well with "while functioning as a defender."  I mean, "realistically" of course.  From a gamist point of view you can do anything you want; but I can't help but think that if I've got a rapier and some dude with chainmail, a broadsword and a large roundshield is bearing down on me, that I've got a chance in hell (assuming equal skill at arms, of course).  My best bet is to use my mobility to get the heck out of the way and never, ever let him close with me in a "toe to toe" manner.

Personally I think that people are going to see the Rogue and realize that with the proper Feat/Talent choices and/or multi-class dabbling that it meets all reasonable Swashbuckling needs.


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## Darth Cyric (Feb 13, 2008)

Now let's not kid ourselves. Fighters (pure Fighters) that were Dexterity-based were completely ineffective in 3.x. Their damage levels were very non-threatening. Most of your Spring Attack-type light Fighters had levels in another class, such as Rogue, Scout or Duelist.

You HAD to multiclass to be an effective light-armored warrior in 3.x. At worst, 4e will be no different.

But wait! 4e has Class Training feats, which will let you pick up some of a class' abilities without actually multiclassing, and you don't lose a step in your single class, should you wish to stay so.

And since characters are probably going to get a lot more feats in 4e, what this means is that pure Fighters who want to be light-armored warriors can take some Rogue Training or Ranger Training feats.

Also keep in mind that Fighters have all the weapon-based tricks in their power lists, so you can bet he'll be able to do some things with a rapier that a pure Rogue or Ranger won't do (unless conversely THOSE classes take Fighter training feats).

So, in conclusion:

3e light "fighters": Fighter/Rogues, Fighter/Scouts, Swashbucklers (again, different class), builds revolving around the Duelist prestige class.

4e light "fighters": Fighters taking Rogue or Ranger Training Feats, or conversely, Rogues and Rangers who take Fighter Training feats.


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## Cadfan (Feb 13, 2008)

Darth Cyric said:
			
		

> And since characters are probably going to get a lot more feats in 4e, what this means is that pure Fighters who want to be light-armored warriors can take some Rogue Training or Ranger Training feats.



I hope, desperately, that 4e avoids the trap that doomed 3e duelist types, the trap you describe right here- forcing swashbucklers and duelists to pay for the right to be suboptimal.

"Don't worry!  You can play a duelist in 3e!  Just play a fighter, wear light armor, put ability score points in dexterity, and then use Weapon Finesse!"

"But those ability score points have to come from somewhere, and that somewhere probably going to be strength.  Doesn't that mean that I'm giving up strength bonus damage and attack bonus in order to have the same armor class that a regular fighter gets for the cost of good armor?  And then on top of that, I'm spending a feat to get the attack bonus back, but not the damage?  So in the end, I've got the same AC, the same attack bonus, lower bonus damage, a smaller weapon, and one fewer feat?"

"...Yes."


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## cignus_pfaccari (Feb 13, 2008)

Voss said:
			
		

> Possibly.  I just tossed them in at the end because I knew a significant number of people were enthralled by the Movie of Garbage.  There are pretty good odds that someone wants to play out a scene from 300, which involved, uh, scanty armour.




If it's a setting conceit, as it was in _300_, then the DM can add something in (like, say, an AC modifier) so you can have loincloth-wearing fighters holding the line and still be able to fulfill their party role.

Brad


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## Cthulhudrew (Feb 13, 2008)

ZombieRoboNinja said:
			
		

> I have a bit of trouble deciding how I feel about this.




One thing that strikes me is that it seems a bit out of place with the purported Points-Of-Light notion. In a real world context, heavy armor is rare and exceedingly expensive- the noblemen could afford it and wear it, the rank and file couldn't. I wouldn't think a POL setting- where civilization is clustered in small groups, and (presumably) trade and commerce would be similarly confined- that things would be any different.

Of course, this is fantasy, so I suppose trying to make RW comparisons is kind of silly. 

(*cough* Halflings too weak for their size in the RW *cough*)

Sorry, had to get that out. I'm done.


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## Lackhand (Feb 13, 2008)

PCs are rockstars. I mean, they have glowing swords and stuff. So, yeah -- I'd say that they count as among the few that have access to heavy armor 

It's also possible that there are a few more fantastic types of heavyish armor -- hides, mostly -- which fill the same slot, but leave ferrous armors as still desirable.

But, yeah, I agree with your point: Armor should be rare. So should Fighters be.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 13, 2008)

Darth Cyric said:
			
		

> Now let's not kid ourselves. Fighters (pure Fighters) that were Dexterity-based were completely ineffective in 3.x. Their damage levels were very non-threatening. Most of your Spring Attack-type light Fighters had levels in another class, such as Rogue, Scout or Duelist.



Were they really completely ineffective?  The rapier-wielder, maybe.  But it looked to me like 3.5's system would have allowed the Spring-Attack polearm-using fighter to be very effective and a great deal of fun to play.  Moving around, getting AOOs, trading attacks 2-for-1, doing almost as much damage per hit as the tank, and being mobile enough to get to the enemy caster or help out an ally when needed.  Rogue levels would be nice for Evasion, but not necessary for offense.  

The Scout obviously adds some power to this build, but it seems pretty solid and fun just using core.


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## Irda Ranger (Feb 13, 2008)

Cthulhudrew said:
			
		

> One thing that strikes me is that it seems a bit out of place with the purported Points-Of-Light notion. In a real world context, heavy armor is rare and exceedingly expensive- the noblemen could afford it and wear it, the rank and file couldn't. I wouldn't think a POL setting- where civilization is clustered in small groups, and (presumably) trade and commerce would be similarly confined- that things would be any different.
> 
> Of course, this is fantasy, so I suppose trying to make RW comparisons is kind of silly.



Armor usually survives its wearer (other than the occasional hole needing patching). Since D&D-world seems to be stuck in a certain level of technological development for tens of thousands of years, I bet the used armor market is pretty brisk.  

This is similar to how only Viking chiefs have chain mail in the beginning, but the pool of available armor grew faster than the population of warriors, and only a few centuries later all the Vikings had (inherited) chainmail.


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## Lord Zack (Feb 13, 2008)

For the record there's already a lightly armored Defender- the Swordmage. The Swordmage will use it's powers to get a higher AC. Why couldn't a fighter do the same?


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## FitzTheRuke (Feb 14, 2008)

A number of people on this thread seem to be complaining that you can't make a lightly armoured, smaller weaponed. nothing-in-the-off hand fighter as good or better than a heavy armoured, large weaponed, heavy shielded fighter, at the same level of skill.

YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO.

A "light" fighter quite simply needs to be MORE SKILLED at what he does to defeat a "heavy" fighter. (IE higher level) or he needs to be very lucky (IE roll way better) or he needs to use his superior mobility to RUN AWAY (higher movement rate.)

That isn't to say that they can't be worthwhile characters, they just have a different shtick (role) and can't equally replace a heavy fighter in its niche (defender), at least not optimally.

This is coming from someone with 10 years experience in a light weapon martial art. (I also LOVE swashbuckling fighter-rogue characters.)

Fitz


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## pawsplay (Feb 14, 2008)

Darth Cyric said:
			
		

> Now let's not kid ourselves. Fighters (pure Fighters) that were Dexterity-based were completely ineffective in 3.x. Their damage levels were very non-threatening. Most of your Spring Attack-type light Fighters had levels in another class, such as Rogue, Scout or Duelist.




Only because it was effective. Most rogues and scouts had levels in other classes, too. Lightly armored fighters can be extremely effective without multiclassing, but why not put some whipped cream on that sundae?

If I were building a Duelist, I'd probably go Fighter 8/Rogue 2/Duelist. I wouldn't be in any hurry to get into Duelist, and my first eight levels would be all fighter. 

There seems to an assumption you would neglect Str. If you place Dex first and Str second, getting hit can certainly be third.


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## hong (Feb 14, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> Only because it was effective. Most rogues and scouts had levels in other classes, too. Lightly armored fighters can be extremely effective without multiclassing, but why not put some whipped cream on that sundae?




You misspelled chocolate and peanut butter. Hope this helps!


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## pawsplay (Feb 14, 2008)

FitzTheRuke said:
			
		

> A number of people on this thread seem to be complaining that you can't make a lightly armoured, smaller weaponed. nothing-in-the-off hand fighter as good or better than a heavy armoured, large weaponed, heavy shielded fighter, at the same level of skill.
> 
> YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO.
> 
> ...




I have a fair amount of experience with armored combat and I'm not sure I agree. I guy in a shirt can literally run circles around a guy in plate armor with a shield. The reason you always want armor is because in a battlefield, you are surrounded by constant, highly unpredictable hazards. One on one... it depends on a lot. 

Just as an example, take a guy in a leather shirt and a helmet with a halberd, and put him up against a guy in chainmail, shield, and longsword. As long as the guy with the halberd fights conservatively and keeps his distance, I would imagine he actually has the advantage. 

The thing is, most RPG players don't like really realistic views of encumbrance and fatigue. Look at Ars Magica 4th edition, which people threw a fit about, despite its rather _generous_ notions of how long you can fight without exhaustion. That is a huge balancing factor on battlefield armor.


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## pawsplay (Feb 14, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> You misspelled chocolate and peanut butter. Hope this helps!





HOOOOOOONG!!!


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## hong (Feb 14, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> HOOOOOOONG!!!



 Are you saying that in a Shatnerian voice? I hope you're not saying that in a Shatnerian voice.


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## pawsplay (Feb 14, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> Are you saying that in a Shatnerian voice? I hope you're not saying that in a Shatnerian voice.




What... if... I ... am? What does that mean to your superior Vulcan logic?


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## fnwc (Feb 14, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> Were they really completely ineffective?  The rapier-wielder, maybe.  But it looked to me like 3.5's system would have allowed the Spring-Attack polearm-using fighter to be very effective and a great deal of fun to play.  Moving around, getting AOOs, trading attacks 2-for-1, doing almost as much damage per hit as the tank, and being mobile enough to get to the enemy caster or help out an ally when needed.



I wouldn't call light fighters ineffective, but they usually fulfill a role that isn't that of a typical heavy fighter. In my experience, light fighters can often do some interesting things and generally have better mobility. However, they sacrifice the ability to tank well and deal a large amount of damage comparable to a heavy armor fighter.

I think one of the best damaging light fighter builds involves the Dervish PrC.

There's nothing wrong with light(ly armored) fighters; they're different and play differently than armored fighters, but they fulfill a different role. The problem is that if you only have a single fighter in the group, often they have to play a heavy fighter in order to provide the tank that most parties need.


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## FitzTheRuke (Feb 14, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> I have a fair amount of experience with armored combat and I'm not sure I agree. I guy in a shirt can literally run circles around a guy in plate armor with a shield.




This is my point exaclty, though. He can make a good striker "run circles around him" but not a good defender.

Also, remember, I was talking equal skill level. If you assume that your halberdier isn't an idiot and is going to try to keep his distance, then you must assume that the sword & sheild guy is also not an idiot, and is going to bide his time for a good block & lunge.  They both have their advantages & disadvantages it's true, but that's what I meant by the difference in role.

Fitz


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## Cadfan (Feb 14, 2008)

FitzTheRuke said:
			
		

> A number of people on this thread seem to be complaining that you can't make a lightly armoured, smaller weaponed. nothing-in-the-off hand fighter as good or better than a heavy armoured, large weaponed, heavy shielded fighter, at the same level of skill.
> 
> YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO.
> 
> ...



No one expects the guy without the armor using the one handed weapon to be equal to teh armored guy with the two handed wepaon when it comes to standing in one spot and trading bone shattering blows.  Even looking at it purely from a gamist perspective, the fact that the swashbuckler archetype involves improved mobility, agility, and social skills _requires _ that there be some trade off.

But in 3e, until Tome of Battle, lightly armored fighters were really, really, really horrible.  The game made them pay for the right to use crappy choices, making those choices doubly crappy.  I'd like to not go backwards on this issue.

We'll find out what's available.  I'll probably like what I'm given- I'll probably love the rogue, I'll probably love the ranger.  But look at what those archetypes offer.  The rogue is sneaky and backstabby.  The ranger fights with two weapons.  Yes, those are lightly armored melee characters, but they STILL leave behind the non sneaky, one weaponed archetype.

If a sort of roguish acrobat/fighter that doesn't club people from behind is possible, it may turn out that a separate swashbuckler class is unnecessary.  But it may have to be a significant departure from the high damage / glass jaw ideal that I've come to expect from the rogue.  At this point its all speculation, but I'd hate to lose a character archetype I waited for for so long.


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## Darth Cyric (Feb 14, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> But it looked to me like 3.5's system would have allowed the Spring-Attack polearm-using fighter to be very effective and a great deal of fun to play.



That's not a light fighter, though. You only need a 13 DEX for Spring Attack. The rest goes into STR. You can have a heavily-armored Spring Attacker, or at worst medium armor.


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## FitzTheRuke (Feb 14, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> No one expects the guy without the armor using the one handed weapon to be equal to teh armored guy with the two handed wepaon when it comes to standing in one spot and trading bone shattering blows.




That is what people are asking for if they want a swashbuckling FIGHTER DEFENDER. (Of course, a parry-monkey could pull that off, but it would either require a new class, which as far as we know is not in the FIRST PHB, but could very well be on its way, OR a unique talent tree for the fighter, which could easily be in the martial book, so what's everyone worried about?)

In other words - why would you assume that the designers don't want a Swashbuckler? You've got to bet that if WE want to play one (and I've already stated: It's MY FAVORITE ARCHETYPE TOO.) then the designers probably KNOW that, (and some of them likely love to play one too) and it's on it's way, one way or the other.

So worrying that the Fighter is EXPECTED (but not REQUIRED) to wear heavy armour equates to there being NO swash-buckly options seems a bit premature.

Fitz


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 14, 2008)

Darth Cyric said:
			
		

> That's not a light fighter, though. You only need a 13 DEX for Spring Attack. The rest goes into STR. You can have a heavily-armored Spring Attacker, or at worst medium armor.



The Dex is nice for AOOs if you have the spring-attacking polearm-fighter.  And if you're wearing armor light enough for Spring Attack, you really want a high Dex, right?

As to Medium vs. Light armor... I've found base move to be _extremely_ important in the games I've played.  That extra 10' from wearing light armor becomes an extra 20' when Hasted, and an extra 40' if you need to charge or do a double move.  MarauderX's game, which I've played to 20th level, does feature some stand-still-and-full-attack sequences, but also a great deal of movement.  Battles typically involve huge rooms (150' square or larger), 5-6 PCs, and 10-12 enemies including multiple casters spread out around the room.  A fighter using a reach weapon and AOOs will really benefit from a higher movement rate, to position himself to control the battlefield as the enemies move around.


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## Gloombunny (Feb 14, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> I've seen plenty of 3.5 fighters that went with lighter defenses, concentrated on mobility, and focused on damage dealing. Just as an example, having a Dex of 18 and wearing simply bracers or light armor causes only the smallest lag in AC while freeing up thousands of gp for weapons or other defenses.



Wait, what?  That doesn't make any sense.  Enhancement bonuses cost the same whether they're on a chain shirt or full plate, and bracers cost the same as an equivalent enhancement bonus, just without the armor.  A +2 chain shirt is about three times the cost of ordinary full plate and still provides less AC.  You only save money by wearing lighter armor if it's not magical at all, and then your AC lag is going to be rather more than "smallest".


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## Remathilis (Feb 14, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> I hope, desperately, that 4e avoids the trap that doomed 3e duelist types, the trap you describe right here- forcing swashbucklers and duelists to pay for the right to be suboptimal.




QFT.

The big problem with lightly-armored dex fighters is the pure feat and resource drain that came with it. While Mr. Nimble is investing in weapon finesse, dodge and mobility, and dumbing good gold after bad on bracers, amulets and rings, Tank the Crusher has full plate, power attack, and cleave on tap and ready to go. 

Of course, Mr. Nimble would be doing fine if there wasn't a semi-viable alternative: the rogue. Ah, how we forget the rogue. Sure, his hp and bab are weaker, but his sneak attack deals Sooo much more damage than any light-armor fighter build can. He's great at hit-n-runs, twf, and archery (depending on your mood) and did I mention he has uncanny dodge, evasion, and (the god of all nimble-dodge atks) defensive roll? Oh, and he has tumble to avoid those pesky AoOs.

In all honesty, the nimble fighter loses on two fronts: he's not as good a damage dealer as a heavy-armored fighter or a lightly-armored rogue. If your losing on two fronts, throw in the towel and go with a winner...


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## Incenjucar (Feb 14, 2008)

You could always just give fighters a "dodge" ability which is negated by physical armor.

That way you can choose whether to be strong against touch attacks or defense when immobile, and how much of either, no further modifications required.

Just gotta make sure they don't have any loopholes that allow them to get both at once.


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## Voss (Feb 14, 2008)

Cthulhudrew said:
			
		

> One thing that strikes me is that it seems a bit out of place with the purported Points-Of-Light notion. In a real world context, heavy armor is rare and exceedingly expensive- the noblemen could afford it and wear it, the rank and file couldn't. I wouldn't think a POL setting- where civilization is clustered in small groups, and (presumably) trade and commerce would be similarly confined- that things would be any different.




I agree, actually.  In my own setting, banded and splint armors are going to be the limit (maybe some 'combined armors', the way the Conan RPG did them). And they are going to be rare (along with the breastplate) and hard to find outside of certain cultures (dwarves, the two empires, and maybe, oddly, the hobgoblins).  Most of the cultures barely have towns.  Chain is really the limit of their capability.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 14, 2008)

Remathilis said:
			
		

> In all honesty, the nimble fighter loses on two fronts: he's not as good a damage dealer as a heavy-armored fighter or a lightly-armored rogue. If your losing on two fronts, throw in the towel and go with a winner...



Could I see the numbers you used to arrive at this conclusion?  Spring-Attacking rogue vs. Spring-Attacking fighter?  By my reckoning (25-pt buy, core only, no magic), they are back-and-forth on damage, generally very close over most levels, IF the rogue can Sneak Attack and IF the fighter uses PA so his attack bonus matches the rogue's.  It would be a more complicated situation to compare them against a range of ACs (say, ECL+8 to ECL+20), but that might give a better answer than forcing the fighter to PA for the difference every time.


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## pawsplay (Feb 14, 2008)

Gloombunny said:
			
		

> Wait, what?  That doesn't make any sense.  Enhancement bonuses cost the same whether they're on a chain shirt or full plate, and bracers cost the same as an equivalent enhancement bonus, just without the armor.  A +2 chain shirt is about three times the cost of ordinary full plate and still provides less AC.  You only save money by wearing lighter armor if it's not magical at all, and then your AC lag is going to be rather more than "smallest".




You're assuming armor bonus is always a net gain. With max Dex, not true. A +2 chain shirt is actually one point better than plate armor if you have 18 Dex. Bracers are nearly as good as cloth or leather and provide protection against incorporeal attacks.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 14, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> You're assuming armor bonus is always a net gain. With max Dex, not true. A +2 chain shirt is actually one point better than plate armor if you have 18 Dex. Bracers are nearly as good as cloth or leather and provide protection against incorporeal attacks.



The question is - what did you invest (and lose somewhere else) in getting a Dex of 18?

Our group regularly plays with 25 point buys, and any "lightly armored fighter" builds always seems inferior to the standard full plate wearing fighter. Even if you get a similar AC, you will then lack in the damage or the to-hit department...


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## Gloombunny (Feb 14, 2008)

Oops... I was going to say something about high Dexterity in there, but I guess I forgot it.  The thing is that having a really high Dexterity is going to detract from your other attributes, such as Strength, and compensating for that loss is going to cost a lot more than compensating for a mediocre Dex by wearing heavy armor.

Saying that you can save money for more weapon enhancements isn't very exciting when you're already behind on attack and damage rolls because the other guy has more Strength.


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## Derren (Feb 14, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> The question is - what did you invest (and lose somewhere else) in getting a Dex of 18?
> 
> Our group regularly plays with 25 point buys, and any "lightly armored fighter" builds always seems inferior to the standard full plate wearing fighter. Even if you get a similar AC, you will then lack in the damage or the to-hit department...




Lets compare Dex to Str....

Str:
- Adds to melee attacks
- Adds to melee and throwing damage
- Increases carrying capacity
- Adds to Jump, Climb and Swim

Dex:
- Adds to ranged attacks
- Adds to initiative
- Adds to reflex saving throws
- Adds to AC/Flat footed AC
- Adds to Balance, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Ride, Slight of Hand, Tumble and Use Rope

So its quite easy to see why Dex as a stat is more valuable than Str. The only thing Str has going for it is the increased melee damage. The attack bonus can be covered by weapon finesse.


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## Lord Ernie (Feb 14, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> Lets compare Dex to Str....
> 
> Str:
> - Adds to melee attacks
> ...




You comparison is flawed, since it's too general, and fails to list dex's limitations. We're comparing Str and Dex for Fighters here, melee fighters at that, not in general. With that in mind, let's look at your dex advantages again.

Dex:
- Adds to ranged attacks -> Unrelevant to a melee fighter
- Adds to initiative -> Minor relevance, but not really critically important.
- Adds to reflex saving throws -> With the fighter's low dex save, won't make a difference except at low levels.
- Adds to AC/Flat footed AC -> False. Flat footed = no dex, for starters. Touch AC, yes. For the AC issue, we have heavy armor.
- Adds to Balance, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Ride, Slight of Hand, Tumble and Use Rope -> none of these except for Ride are fighter skills, and having minor bonuses here won't help at all.

And then we have Strength:

Str:
- Adds to melee attacks -> No feat required. Good.
- Adds to melee and throwing damage -> Together with melee attack of prime importance for a melee fighter. Outstrips 90% of the Dex advantages with ease.
- Increases carrying capacity -> Good, since we're making a fighter, and if we're not gonna super boost dex, we need heavy armor.
- Adds to Jump, Climb and Swim -> All three class skills. The Strength bonus will actually matter.

So, without a feat that adds some way of boosting damage for dex-based fighters, Str is clearly superior.


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## Noinarap (Feb 14, 2008)

Voss said:
			
		

> And if you want to play a fighting guy without the other baggage of a rogue or ranger and still don't want heavy armor? Say you want to be strength focused rather than dex focused, for example. Or follow a cultural trope that doesn't involving buckling swashes or running around the woods with animals, yet not wearing full plate?  (Vikings, Celtic warriors [naked man with a two handed sword- dacian falx, late roman republic period] and Spartans seem appropriate here). The 4e response seems to be 'go do something biologically impossible to yourself'.



Playing a barbarian when the rules for one come out is not biologically impossible.


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## Talislan (Feb 14, 2008)

Ideal world:

Heavy armour fighter harder to damage when hit (has more protection), Light armour fighter harder to hit in the first place (has greater mobility).

Damage delivery potential should be equal in both cases if both are of an equivalent ability with their chosen weapons. Lighter weapons that do less damage should hit faster and more often. Larger 'Heavy Weapons' should be slower but cause more damage per average hit.

How to balance that in game mechanics:

Str?/Dex?: to hit (dependent on weapon type rather than 'weapon finess' maybe?)
Dex?/speed?/AG?: to avoid being hit
Strength?/speed?: to damage (or multi-wound)
HP?Con?DR?: to prevent damage
Armour: increase ability to take damage, lower ability to avoid being hit

I don't know what the answer is for D&D never mind 4e (as some of these things may be viewed as 'un-D&D' in nature) but I am looking forward to what ever they come up with this time. If it boils down to having to play a stereotype while they spend more time making sure new stereotypes balance in game then that is fine by me. For now.

I should also state that this is all just - IMHO - and I am not saying that any other way of playing is badwrongfun.


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## Jack99 (Feb 14, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> Lets compare Dex to Str....
> 
> [snipped]
> 
> So its quite easy to see why Dex as a stat is more valuable than Str. The only thing Str has going for it is the increased melee damage. The attack bonus can be covered by weapon finesse.




Derren, you need to a few miles swing north and bring me some of that german beer that you have been drinking.   

Dex is nowhere as valuable to a figher as strength is. A fighter can only do very few things, one of which is dealing damage, to kill or keep monsters on him. A DEX fighter will rarely be able to hold them locked down/kill them, since if he won't do any (significant) damage; I mean, why on earth would a monster bother with trying to kill him?


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## Lord Zack (Feb 14, 2008)

Of course this applies only so much to 4e (how much I don't know exactly, I haven't seen the whole rules), since powers will increase damage. And rapier powers will probably be designed specifically around Dex (though if I played a light defender I'd probably use sword and board).


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## Derren (Feb 14, 2008)

Jack99 said:
			
		

> Derren, you need to a few miles swing north and bring me some of that german beer that you have been drinking.
> 
> Dex is nowhere as valuable to a figher as strength is. A fighter can only do very few things, one of which is dealing damage, to kill or keep monsters on him. A DEX fighter will rarely be able to hold them locked down/kill them, since if he won't do any (significant) damage; I mean, why on earth would a monster bother with trying to kill him?




Why would monsters bother to kill 20 ft slow Str fighters? Walk around them, kill the wizards and then kite them to death....


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 14, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> Why would monsters bother to kill 20 ft slow Str fighters? Walk around them, kill the wizards and then kite them to death....



Why kill the Wizard if the Fighter deals similar amount of damage per round, and stands in front of you?And if he can take an AoO if you try to get past him? How do you even get to the stupid wizard that likes flying around, outside your reach? And what do you do after you killed the Wizard? Do you think the Fighter will just go home disappointed? Okay, if you want to give up your lair, fine... But then why don't you just run? 

Why should a monster bother to kill a lightly amored fighter this deals little damage and is running away from you all the time? Why not just jump a more "squishy" target that is actually a threat? Maybe it's really worth trying to jump up to that nasty Wizard and catch him?

The best solution off course is to deal massive amounts of damage, being fast, and being hard to hit at the same time, but that's hardly achievable in 3E. Speed for a Fighter is only useful for catching up to an opponent, not for moving away from him (unless he's retreating). If he is not near his opponent, the opponent has the best chances to pick targets as he likes it, which is probably what you don't like. 

That off course is only true if you're using a Fighter in a Defender role. That's very often expected, but not a given, in 3E.


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## Stogoe (Feb 14, 2008)

> And if you want to play a fighting guy without the other baggage of a rogue or ranger




What baggage?  The Rogue's 'lightly armored, mobile striker' baggage?  Or the Ranger's 'lightly armored archer/TWF-er' baggage?


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## Steely Dan (Feb 14, 2008)

I know other people have already pointed this out – if you want to play a lightly armoured, dextrous warrior, play a rogue.  

And the barbarian (primal defender?) might be another lightly armoured option.


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## Jack99 (Feb 14, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> Why would monsters bother to kill 20 ft slow Str fighters? Walk around them, kill the wizards and then kite them to death....




kite them to death? what is this, Everquest?

Mustrum_Ridcully answered your question fairly well, so I am just going to say this;

The monster will "bother" with the hard-hitting - 20' moving fighter because he might actually pose the semblance of a threat, while the dancing queen in tight shorts and wielding a rapier is just as dangerous as window-dressing.

Cheers,


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## Aenghus (Feb 14, 2008)

I do expect the 4e fighter to be mainly Str-based powers-wise, from the little info out at this point. Some powers seem to use other attribs, but by and large the fighter stereotype is the heavily armoured Str-based fighter.

Conversely, I expect the rogue to have a number of Dex-based combat powers, so that high Dex can contribute to damage, something that didn't happen in 3e mostly and made low-Str, high-Dex combatants weak comparatively speaking.


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## ruleslawyer (Feb 14, 2008)

arg.


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## DaveyJones (Feb 14, 2008)

hong said:
			
		

> Are you saying that in a Shatnerian voice? I hope you're not saying that in a Shatnerian voice.



i think i just shat nerd 
iykwimaityd



i like my heavy armored tanks to be fighter types too


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## ruleslawyer (Feb 14, 2008)

Steely Dan said:
			
		

> I know other people have already pointed this out – if you want to play a lightly armoured, dextrous warrior, play a rogue.



This.

Just like if you want to play an archer, play a ranger.

This is true in 3e to a strong extent as well. It is grossly inefficient to run a combatant who uses Dexterity to maximum advantage (including light armor, finesse weapons, and skills) as a fighter; rogue is a much better way to build a swashbuckling type. In 4e, it appears that the rogue will kill the swashbuckler and take his stuff, which means that "fighter" now connotes medieval-style armored knight (or hoplite, or samurai, or whatever). But that's no different from 3e, where to play a Dex fighter you either needed to play a rogue or the swashbuckler niche class (which is no longer needed in 4e).


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## Derren (Feb 14, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
			
		

> Why kill the Wizard if the Fighter deals similar amount of damage per round, and stands in front of you?And if he can take an AoO if you try to get past him? How do you even get to the stupid wizard that likes flying around, outside your reach? And what do you do after you killed the Wizard? Do you think the Fighter will just go home disappointed? Okay, if you want to give up your lair, fine... But then why don't you just run?
> 
> Why should a monster bother to kill a lightly amored fighter this deals little damage and is running away from you all the time? Why not just jump a more "squishy" target that is actually a threat? Maybe it's really worth trying to jump up to that nasty Wizard and catch him?
> 
> ...




When the monster can't reach the flying wizard then the fighter is just blocking the way and not needed. Sorry that I look at examples where the fighter would actually be useful.

Second, why has the lightly armored fighter always have to run away?
Third, why should a monster bother with a slow ass moving fighter? No matter how much damage the fighter deals, when the fighter is too slow to reach it he isn't a threat.
Look at the geometry discussion, with the 1-1-1 rule its already rather easy to walk around protecting fighters to reach the wizards unless the fighters always stand within 5ft of the wizard which makes them very boring to play.
So what would a smart monster do? lure the fighter away, walk around him to the wizard, kill the wizard while the slow moving fighter is moving close and then use ranged attacks to kill the fighter while staying out of his range (= kiting which was used very successfully in real life by mounted archers for example).
In comparisation, a lightly armored fighter, while hitting for a bit less damage is still able to catch the monster  so he is the bigger threat.

Just because a class is a defender doesn't mean that the enemies will attack him automatically.


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## Mad Mac (Feb 14, 2008)

Hmmm...I agree that Dex Fighters have never been very good. I should note that Races and Classes states that Chain Mail is sometimes attractive to Elf and Halfling Fighters, so there is probably at least some incentive for High Dex fighters to wear lighter armor. 

  Rogue sounds like it is going to be very Swashbuckler friendly though, especially with the skill paths. You've basically got Sneaky Rogues, Backflippy Rogues, and Talky Rogues. If you focus more on the non-sneaky paths, you should be able to make a pretty good swashbuckler. And if you want to mix in some defender, than take fighter training or whatever.


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## Set (Feb 14, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> Just because a class is a defender doesn't mean that the enemies will attack him automatically.




I suspect that 4E defenders will have a 'taunt' mechanic similar to the Knight.  They couldn't perform their role without some way of forcing enemies to strike them instead of the squishies.

Since 3.0 came out, none of our Fighters have used anything heavier than a Chain Shirt (and usually upgrade to a magical Mithril Chain Shirt at first opportunity).  Mobility trumps AC, in our games as few characters enjoy sucking up Full Attacks from dragons, etc. when they can avoid it...

We did have a character who wore Mithral Full-Plate, but he was a Warlock with Fell Flight and Battle Caster.


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## Derren (Feb 14, 2008)

Set said:
			
		

> I suspect that 4E defenders will have a 'taunt' mechanic similar to the Knight.  They couldn't perform their role without some way of forcing enemies to strike them instead of the squishies.




That would anger quite a lot of people.
The taunt mechanic we have seen so far "Attack me or suffer bad effects" is still acceptable. The problem is that you still need to be in range to use such abilities.
You would need MMO style taunts and a lot of people don't want to have that in D&D.


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## RigaMortus2 (Feb 14, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> While everyone is happy about spell less ranger, a other information from Mearls gets overlooked.
> Fighters are expected to wear heavy armor.
> 
> Apart from the thematical restriction it also says a bit about how armor will be balanced in 4E (no more Dex - AC balance like in 3E).




Why in your subject heading do you say Fighters *must* wear heavy armor, then in your description you say they are _expected_ to wear heavy armor?  You do realize they don't mean the same thing, don't you?


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 14, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> When the monster can't reach the flying wizard then the fighter is just blocking the way and not needed. Sorry that I look at examples where the fighter would actually be useful.



Well, if the monster is able to pick off the fighter with ranged attacks (as you imply below), then he could do the same for a flying wizard. Furthermore, the flying wizard is just one of several arguments that stands against ignoring the Fighter, and it might not always apply. 



> Second, why has the lightly armored fighter always have to run away?
> Third, why should a monster bother with a slow ass moving fighter? No matter how much damage the fighter deals, when the fighter is too slow to reach it he isn't a threat.



I'm assuming the monster isn't just randomly wandering and has decided to pick of some adventures, but is actually there because it defended the place, or because it wanted something else from the place. (If not defending, plundering might be it)




> Look at the geometry discussion, with the 1-1-1 rule its already rather easy to walk around protecting fighters to reach the wizards unless the fighters always stand within 5ft of the wizard which makes them very boring to play.



The effects of the 1-1-1 rule can easily be replicated with a monster just having a 10 ft (or so) faster speed (and be void if it was 10 ft slower). 



> So what would a smart monster do? lure the fighter away, walk around him to the wizard, kill the wizard while the slow moving fighter is moving close and then use ranged attacks to kill the fighter while staying out of his range (= kiting which was used very successfully in real life by mounted archers for example).
> In comparisation, a lightly armored fighter, while hitting for a bit less damage is still able to catch the monster  so he is the bigger threat.
> 
> Just because a class is a defender doesn't mean that the enemies will attack him automatically.



And that's the wrong assumption. The defender must "motivate" the monster to attack him, not someone else. And then he must be able to survive the monsters attacks, too. 
The lightly armored fighter can't protect the wizard if the monster doesn't care for him. A good defender doesn't ensure just that the monster is killed in the end, but that none of his allies is killed while doing so. 

Again, as I said, it would be great if you could have all 3 things - lots of damage, speed and good armor class. But that's not possible with limited resources. You have to pick your priorities, and this is informed on what you want to do - which role you take. 

I suspect the 4E fighters will have abilities that address his shortcomings (faster speed in heavy armor, better Dex bonus to AC and so on), but this enforces his reliance on heavy armor.


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## Cadfan (Feb 14, 2008)

ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> In 4e, it appears that the rogue will kill the swashbuckler and take his stuff,...



If this is true, I will be happy.  My fear is that the rogue did _not_ kill the swashbuckler and take his stuff, that rather the rogue is what I will be _told_ to play because the swashbuckler isn't there.

The 3e swashbuckler, while a heavily flawed class, got some things very right.

Flaws:

1: Giving abilities that removed flaws in the rules-implementation of the swashbuckler archetype, and assuming that this counted as giving the class its ability for that level.  Weapon Finesse and Insightful Strike, while both abilities that I think definitely needed to be included, fall into this category.  The flaw in the way the rules treat swashbucklers is that dexterity is key for the archetype, but dexterity does not naturally increase attack bonus or damage.  That means that this flaw must be fixed to make a swashbuckler possible.  Weapon Finesse and Insightful Strike both remedy this problem, but all this accomplishes is bringing the Swashbuckler back up to par.  Unfortunately, paying two class abilities between levels 1 and 3 in order to meet par for level 1 is not good, because now you're two levels behind.  A lot of what is wrong with the swashbuckler could be met by giving out two early bonus feats to make up for this.

2: Important abilities are received too late.  Past level 14, the swashbuckler is a solid critical hit machine.  With Improved Critical and a rapier, you can receive a slow but relatively reliable stream of critical hits that slowly weaken your foe.  But you have to make it to level 14 for this to work, and that involves traveling through a long list of very weak levels.

3: Too many abilities are just a hair on the weak side.  Often they can be fixed with feats, but you have no surplus of feats.

4: Slippery Mind lets you fail your save twice.  Grr.  Pet peeve of mine.

Successes:

1: Intelligence to damage was a quick way to increase the damage of a dexterity based fighter, while also allowing the character class to focus on its other schtick- skills.

2: The dodge bonus.  The flaw with the feat "dodge" is that its so much bookkeeping for a single +1 to ac.  A class ability that helps raise that is nice.  Noting a single opponent per round and receiving +3 ac versus that opponent is actually worthwhile, and is an archetype-appropriate way to increase armor class.  Unfortunately this ability is not strong enough out of the gate- one of the lessons that seems to have been learned in Book of Nine Swords is that abilities like +X to AC (unlike +X to damage) inherently scale: +4 to AC is just as valuable at level 1 as it is at level 20.  This means there's no reason to start a character with +1 and slowly raise him to +4; you can start at +4 right away.  But that set aside, the idea was a very good one.

3: Special effects on critical hits.  Fits the archetype, fits the traditional weapon choice, and is quite useful.

4: Taking 10 on certain skill checks.  This makes them reliable, and means that you will use them in combat more often- letting you do more cool acrobatics than you otherwise might.

Editted to add: I should have addressed bucklers.  I don't consider this a flaw or success in the swashbuckler, but they're something that needed addressed.  I can't figure out whether the designers expected swashbucklers to use bucklers even though they're non proficient, since a masterwork buckler has no penalty for non proficiency, or whether the designers assumed that swashbucklers would not be using bucklers.  This comes up with every class that has a free hand and no shield proficiecy, and needed to be resolved.  A buckler is a cheap source of a few extra points of AC at medium to high levels, and needs to be more explicitly included or excluded from a class.


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## FireLance (Feb 14, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> That would anger quite a lot of people.
> The taunt mechanic we have seen so far "Attack me or suffer bad effects" is still acceptable. The problem is that you still need to be in range to use such abilities.
> You would need MMO style taunts and a lot of people don't want to have that in D&D.



It might be a case of fitting the ability to the right archetype. I believe there is conceptual space for a defender that gets opponents to attack him by insulting or taunting them, and then using some other ability to avoid the attacks. I think most people would find it acceptable if it was an Arcane, Psionic or Shadow defender using magic to cloud an opponent's mind and interfere with his better judgement. However, it might even be possible for it to be Martial abilities that rely on the character's skill at reading his opponent well enough to know which buttons to push.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 14, 2008)

ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> It is grossly inefficient to run a combatant who uses Dexterity to maximum advantage (including light armor, finesse weapons, and skills) as a fighter; rogue is a much better way to build a swashbuckling type.



I agree that a Dex-first build isn't best for a fighter in the 3E rules.  You want that Str bonus to damage and the ability to Power Attack, and if you want to be doing acrobatics, it helps to have the skill ranks.

But it isn't necessary for the swashbuckling type to be a viable fighter build in order for "agile, mobile, lightly armored combatant" to be a viable fighter build.  Because the swashbuckler is only one type of lightly-armored fighter.  Spring Attack is very useful for a fighter using a greatsword or polearm, not exactly finesse weapons.  In that case, you'd likely want Dex as your second-highest stat, behind Str, and I think you'd prefer light armor over medium for the higher movement rate.  You *might* take Tumble and Balance cross-class until you have a +10 or so in each one, though it's not really necessary.


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## Derren (Feb 14, 2008)

FireLance said:
			
		

> It might be a case of fitting the ability to the right archetype. I believe there is conceptual space for a defender that gets opponents to attack him by insulting or taunting them, and then using some other ability to avoid the attacks. I think most people would find it acceptable if it was an Arcane, Psionic or Shadow defender using magic to cloud an opponent's mind and interfere with his better judgement. However, it might even be possible for it to be Martial abilities that rely on the character's skill at reading his opponent well enough to know which buttons to push.




I don't think so. The paladins "can't get a line of effect to anyone except me" smite is already on the border of what many people are willing to accept as a taunt mechanic. Anything more explicit which de facto dictates what the monster has to do will upset quite a lot of them as being to "WoWish" etc. And I would agree with them. No defender should be able to controll the actions the enemies take, especially not with a martial power source.


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## UngeheuerLich (Feb 14, 2008)

Derren said:
			
		

> I don't think so. The paladins "can't get a line of effect to anyone except me" smite is already on the border of what many people are willing to accept as a taunt mechanic. Anything more explicit which de facto dictates what the monster has to do will upset quite a lot of them as being to "WoWish" etc. And I would agree with them. No defender should be able to controll the actions the enemies take, especially not with a martial power source.




yes derren, but it is only marginally stronger than lesser confusion... a 1st level? 3.5 bard spell IIRC. And we speak of a Paladin (divine defender) 27 1/encounter talent that lasts a round.

If "taunts" are kept on that line powerwise it will be quite fine.


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## Simon Marks (Feb 14, 2008)

But the Paladin's Smite is 'Divinely Powered' which makes it a lot more palatable than the Knights 'non-magical' taunt mechanic.


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## Voss (Feb 14, 2008)

Noinarap said:
			
		

> Playing a barbarian when the rules for one come out is not biologically impossible.




Which is fine if, when the rules come out, you want to play a berserker thats called a barbarian.  And from the hints they dropped about what the 4e barbarian will look like, it will be even weirder, biting and scratching at people in a frenzy.


@Stogoe and Steely Dan- there is a definite design space and deference between the full plate fighter, the light/medium armor fighter I'm talking about and a rogue, ranger or just light armoured dextrous warrior.   Lets have a use for the medium armor category beyond slapping 'mithril' on something else.

And Stogoe, do you really believe that the 4e classes will *just* be an array of combat powers?  No fluff, flavor, theme or anything of the sort?   That baggage.  I have a hard time believing it won't exist at all.

 And if it doesn't, well, there isn't much point in a class system at all.   Just use the shared progression, include HPs in it and, say, pick three power trees and use feats to open up more power trees.  Everybody is a generic adventurer that can be defined anyway they please.


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## Mercule (Feb 14, 2008)

Voss said:
			
		

> @Stogoe and Steely Dan- there is a definite design space and deference between the full plate fighter, the light/medium armor fighter I'm talking about and a rogue, ranger or just light armoured dextrous warrior.




This is how I felt about swashbucklers in 3e.  The rogue or fighter/rogue just didn't seem to work right.  I'm a bit more sanguine about what I'm hearing about 4e because it sounds like they really did consider adding a swashbuckler archetype. Apparently, it was decided it didn't merit a separate class and the rogue and ranger each got a few toys to help them fill aspects of that archetype.

In 3.5, I found the Swordsage (ToB) to be a better swashbuckler than most any other option.  If you avoid the supernatural maneuvers, the flavor is pretty darn good.  If I could spend a feat (or two) or dip into fighter for a level to get a better BAB, it'd be almost perfect and a fair trade.  I'm expecting some of the 4e rogue's "martial powers" to be inherited from the swordsage.  Plus, it sounds like cross-training feats and/or multi-classing in 4e will allow the feat/dip for BAB option, along with some of the fighter's selection of powers, which sounds more than satisfactory to me.

Of course, if any of my assumptions about 4e don't pan out, then I stand to be disappointed.  But, I'm basing them on the best info I have, which seems fair enough.


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## Lord Zack (Feb 14, 2008)

I do think that there should be a martial striker that's based around weapon choice like the fighter. If that should be some kind of modification of the Fighter or a new class or possibly the Ranger, I'm not sure. But I think from what I've heard the Rogue is tied to skill choice more than
weapon choice. However I also want to be able to  play a martial defender that doesn't rely on armor and works similarly to the fighter. I don't think, I know that this will be possible. Why? Because the Swordmage is a defender that doesn't need armor. That's proof that the concept is viable.


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## Remathilis (Feb 14, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> Could I see the numbers you used to arrive at this conclusion?  Spring-Attacking rogue vs. Spring-Attacking fighter?  By my reckoning (25-pt buy, core only, no magic), they are back-and-forth on damage, generally very close over most levels, IF the rogue can Sneak Attack and IF the fighter uses PA so his attack bonus matches the rogue's.  It would be a more complicated situation to compare them against a range of ACs (say, ECL+8 to ECL+20), but that might give a better answer than forcing the fighter to PA for the difference every time.




Lets do that.

10th level half-elf rogue. rapier, chain shirt, no magic. 13 str, 17 dex, 12 con. Dodge, Mobility, Spring Atk, Weapon Finesse. 
AC: 17. Hp: 47. To Hit: +10, 1d6+1 +5d6 SA (assuming spring atk into a flank) 

10th level half-elf fighter. rapier, chain shirt. 14 str, 16 dex, 14 con. Dodge, Mobility, Spring Atk, Wpn Focus, Wpn finesse, power atk, cleave, wpn spec, imp. wpn focus. 
AC: 17. Hp: 79  To hit: +15, 1d6+5. 

10th level half-elf fighter. Greatsword, plate mail. 16 str, 12 dex, 14 con. Power atk, cleave, grt cleave, wpn focus, wpn spec, imp wpn focus, imp sunder, iron will
AC; 19. Hp: 79. To hit: +15/+10, 2d6+6

Since they are underpowered without magic, lets let them fight a CR 7 monster. Here is an ogre, 4th level barbarian (CR 7, MM) AC 17, hp 111, +18 to hit, 2d8+16. (raging)

The rogue can hit him on a 7 or better (5 or better if he's going into a flank). His average damage is 22. (range: 7-37). He will get rocked on any roll the ogre makes, and take 25 hp damage (or two blows and he's down). The trick to his damage is that the ogre will probably focus on the guy whose setting the rogue up for flank. 

The LA fighter hits on a 2 or better, and can power attack for 10 (his max) to hit on a 12 or better. Assuming his dice are lucky and he power atks max, he hits for 18 damage. (range 16-21). Thats higher low end damage, but lower on average and on max damage. He has the same chance of being hit as the rogue, and can survive three such blows before dropping. 

The HA fighter also hits on a 2 or better with his primary and a 7 on his secondary. He's not so comfortable with a full PA, so he power attacks for 1/2 (+5) which yields him +10 due to 2handed style. He must roll a 7 and a 12. (equal to the rogue on first, LA on second). If he lands both blows (and let say he does) he does 46 damage per round. (or between 8-56 depending on 1 or 2 hits and dice roll). His AC is only slightly better than the LA or rogue (2 points, ogre misses on 1-2) and he can take the same amount of hits as the LA (three). 

Assuming the rogue's flanker misses every round (and thus adds nothing to the math) the rogue will down the ogre in @ 5 rounds. The LA will do it @ round 6, and the HA will do it in @ 3 rounds.

Now, there are two caveats to this math.

1.) The rogue MUST have a partner to do this. Otherwise, his damage drops to only 4 per round average. Similarly, the foes must be crit-able (or otherwise not immune to SA). If he has high-enough bluff, he can try to feint every other round (making the ogre ff) and this his damage becomes 22 every 2 rounds, or 11/round (and he will kill the ogre on round 10 exactly). 
2.) No where in the combat does anyone hit, or confirm a critical. A crit does little for the rogue (only adding an average of +4 to damage) but greatly helps the LA (+18) and the HA (+21). This is due to the fact extra dice are never doubled, but extra bonuses are, so the PA does double duty, but the SA is static. 

So, the LA beats the rogue primarily if he is alone, facing a non-SA foe, or facing a critable foe and critting alot. He cannot come close to the HA fighter standing there tanking, and the rogue beats his average damage output in typical party scenarios. 

Therefore, I'm going to conclude that barring those corner-case scenarios (alone, no-SA, or a lot of crits) the rogue does slightly better damage than a full PA Lightly armored fighter of the same level. Neither hold a candle to the typical plate-tank fighter. So I'm forced to conclude the LA is neither as useful as the rogue nor the HA in typical combat scenarios under the guidelines given.


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## Lord Zack (Feb 14, 2008)

Nice math. Not that it'll matter when 4e comes out.


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## pawsplay (Feb 14, 2008)

Remathilis said:
			
		

> The LA fighter hits on a 2 or better, and can power attack for 10 (his max) to hit on a 12 or better. Assuming his dice are lucky and he power atks max, he hits for 18 damage. (range 16-21). Thats higher low end damage, but lower on average and on max damage. He has the same chance of being hit as the rogue, and can survive three such blows before dropping.




Either the LA fighter gets a second attack, or he gets to spring attack away and endure only a single attack from the ogre.


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## Cadfan (Feb 14, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> Either the LA fighter gets a second attack, or he gets to spring attack away and endure only a single attack from the ogre.



At level 10, this is true of all 3 characters.


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## Remathilis (Feb 14, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> Either the LA fighter gets a second attack, or he gets to spring attack away and endure only a single attack from the ogre.




True. Since Brother MacLaren was comparing the Spring Attacking Rogue to Spring Attacking LA Fighter, I only assumed the fighter would get one attack (and thus only need to dodge one attack) per round. If the LA stood his ground and full-attacked, he'd get a second attack at +0 (17 on the dice) but his per round damage would go up to 36. However, the second attack would miss more often than not (15% chance of connecting) so it would not statistically be useful to use it while full PAing. 

If he went 1/2 pa like HA did (+5) his total to hit would be 7 (same as rogue) and 12 (as his full PA hit) and his damage would be 26 and he'd lose the benefit of all his mobility feats. 

If the rogue (feeling brave) called in his second attack, he'd get a +5 atk (12 or better, as the full PA LA) and his total damage would rise to 44 (almost equal to the HA fighter, and clearly superior to the LA fighter's 2 atks). 

And My AC calcs are a bit off. The rogue and the LA would have an 18 vs. the ogre (dodge) and a 22 vs. his AoOs, meaning the ogre still auto hits (sans 1) for normal and needs a 4 or better to connect for his AoO.


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## Mercule (Feb 14, 2008)

While it isn't quite as definitive as the above math, I'll say that my experience in RtToEE (as we cycled through characters) is that a fighter/rogue/duelist teamed with a rogue/acrobat can take down most things a lot quicker than a barbarian teamed with a cleric.  

In fact, the barbarian's player retired the character (who existed concurrent with the acrobat/duelist) because he almost never did a meaningful amount of damage, by comparison to the lighter combatants.  Of course, that to aware the meat shield for the softer types.


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## Doug McCrae (Feb 14, 2008)

Has anyone tried out a spring attacking fighter in an actual game situation? I ask because I think it's only viable in one-on-one duels, not a typical D&D combat. In a group, when the SAer jumps back, he leaves his team-mates to be full attacked. So all he's doing is reducing the amount of damage he deals. In a team it's vital all members maximise their damage. It looks like the SAer is a lightweight.

We had an ogre barb/fighter in a previous game with spring attack. I played a twf full attacking rogue-type. The ogre only ever used SA for closing, as a substitute for tumble. If he had ever done a 'hit and run' move it would have completly screwed me over. He would no longer threaten and my PC would get the monster's full attack.

The only way I can see it working is if the SAer isn't a fighter but a scout, a class which is almost built around spring attack.


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## Remathilis (Feb 14, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> Has anyone tried out a spring attacking fighter in an actual game situation? I ask because I think it's only viable in one-on-one duels, not a typical D&D combat. In a group, when the SAer jumps back, he leaves his team-mates to be full attacked. So all he's doing is reducing the amount of damage he deals. In a team it's vital all members maximise their damage. It looks like the SAer is a lightweight.
> 
> We had an ogre barb/fighter in a previous game with spring attack. I played a twf full attacking rogue-type. The ogre only ever used SA for closing, as a substitute for tumble. If he had ever done a 'hit and run' move it would have completely screwed me over. He would no longer threaten and my PC would get the monster's full attack.
> 
> The only way I can see it working is if the SAer isn't a fighter but a scout, a class which is almost built around spring attack.




There are ways to build a Spring-Attacker thats useful (scouts, the rapid blitz from PH2, dual-strike) but generally speaking, the best build for an Spring Atker is a rogue who can hit with his one good atk (his secondary and tertiary rarely hit at high level) and deliver his xd6 SA damage while the fighter tanks for him.


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## ruleslawyer (Feb 14, 2008)

Or a fighter or barbarian with a reach weapon. But that is *not* a Dex-based fighter build, beyond requiring the minimum 13.

In fact IMO, pretty much the only melee build in core capable of using all those fighter feats is something like a spiked chain wielder with Combat Reflexes, Imp Trip, Spring Attack, and WWA.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 15, 2008)

Here's my version of the math.  I've actually included the chances to hit and to crit against typical enemy AC.  And I've given everybody the same flanking buddy that the Spring-Attacking rogue has.  Feel free to correct me on specifics here. 

I've used Remathilis' stats as a starting point.  But, when I think of a Spring-Attacking fighter in 3.5, I envision one using a two-handed weapon for powerful attacks.  NOT a swashbuckler.  A different image of a lightly-armored fighter.  Definitely a "striker" in 4E parlance.  So let's give him a greatsword instead of a rapier and swap out Weapon Finesse for Improved Crit (giving that to the HA Ftr too).  Because he's planning to avoid full attacks, he'll take the HA Ftr stats and swap the Con and Dex.  And let's take a more typical CR 7 monster, the hill giant, with AC 20 (MM monster design guidelines suggest AC should be CR+13 or so).  

10th level half-elf rogue. rapier, chain shirt, no magic. 13 str, 17 dex, 12 con. Dodge, Mobility, Spring Atk, Weapon Finesse. 
AC: 17 (18 vs. 1 target). Hp: 47. To Hit: +12, 1d6+1 +5d6 SA (assuming spring atk into a flank) 
Note that through level 8 (so over a majority of the lifetime of most campaigns) he's either not Spring-Attacking or not using Weapon Finesse.

10th level half-elf fighter. Greatsword, chain shirt. 16 str, 14 dex, 12 con. Dodge, Mobility, Spring Atk, Wpn Focus, Improved Crit, power atk, cleave, wpn spec, imp. wpn focus. 
AC: 16 (17 vs. 1 target). Hp: 69  To hit: +17, 2d6+6.  He can start Spring Attacking at level 4.  Getting to do your cool stuff sooner in the campaign is a huge bonus.  (An alternative build would swap out Cleave for Combat Reflexes and use a reach weapon.)

10th level half-elf fighter. Greatsword, fullplate. 16 str, 12 dex, 14 con. Power atk, cleave, grt cleave, wpn focus, wpn spec, imp wpn focus, imp crit, iron will
AC; 19. Hp: 79. To hit: +17/+12, 2d6+6

Against the Hill Giant, here's how the math works out:
Rog hits on an 8 or better (65% of the time).  85% of his hits are non-crits for 22, and 15% are crits for 26.5.  Average damage per hit is 22.675, and average damage per round is 14.7.

SA Ftr hits on a 3 or better (90% of the time).  80% of his hits are non-crits for 13, and 20% are crits for 26.  Average damage is 15.6 per hit.  If he Power Attacks for 5 (so he has the same chance to hit as the rogue), he hits 65% of the time for an average 27.6 damage.  Average damage per round is 17.94.

Even when the rogue can Sneak Attack, the fighter STILL does more damage.

HA Ftr hits on a 3 or better (90% of the time) with his primary and on an 8 or better (65% of the time) with his secondary.  He also does 15.6 per hit (no PA) or 27.6 (PA for 5).  Factoring in the chances to hit, he does better to use PA, and dishes out 28.98 per round.

Now, the HA fighter is taking full attacks from the hill giant, whereas the other two aren't.  And the HA fighter might take an AOO in closing, where the other two don't.  He does more damage, but he also takes more, and his AC isn't that much better.

Anyway, that's why I envision the lightly-armored mobile fighter as viable in 3.5.  I imagine he'd be a lot of fun to play, and I've found mobility to be very important as a tactical option.  Sometimes you want to end your turn close enough to another PC to benefit from a spell, or you want to make a fighting retreat back to a choke point, or draw the enemy into a particular spot, or draw out the fight for a while.  SA lets you do this.



			
				ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> Or a fighter or barbarian with a reach weapon. But that is *not* a Dex-based fighter build, beyond requiring the minimum 13.



Light armor has been the issue here, not "Dex-based."  Dex comes into it because if you are wearing light armor you want a higher Dex for AC (and it's useful for gaining more AOOs with Combat Reflexes, and retaining access to Spring Attack when Enlarged).  Light armor is useful for the higher movement rate.  In the 3.5 games I've played and run, a high base movement rate is essential.


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## Cadfan (Feb 15, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> But, when I think of a Spring-Attacking fighter in 3.5, I envision one using a two-handed weapon for powerful attacks.  NOT a swashbuckler.



Its worth noting at this point that the spring attacking greatsword wielder is almost pure D&Dism.

Those of us who are enthusiastic about "lightly armored fighters" are NOT typically using that as a label for "fighter in light armor."  In fact, we usually say "swashbuckler."  This shouldn't be surprising- if all everyone wanted was a guy who fought and wore light armor, we'd just play barbarians.  They meet that criteria.  But they do NOT meet the character archetype.

A major form of armed combat in real world history was fighting with a sword, and no other weapon.  Just a sword.  Books have been written about characters who do this.  Movies have been made about characters who do this.  Clubs exist for people who want to do this.  Its in the freaking Olympics, _in multiple forms_.  

D&D should support this as a character archetype.  Not doing so is failure.  And no, trying to pawn off a rogue throat slitter or an illogically bouncy guy with a greatsword _does not count._


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 15, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> Has anyone tried out a spring attacking fighter in an actual game situation? I ask because I think it's only viable in one-on-one duels, not a typical D&D combat. In a group, when the SAer jumps back, he leaves his team-mates to be full attacked.



What we've had in MarauderX's game are huge multi-combatant fights either outdoors or in very large chambers.  Often with casters spread out so they can't all be Silenced at once, and rarely with any really defensible choke-points.  The casters are usually airborne, the bard-barian is often Leap-Attacking, the TWF rogue looks to get full attacks where possible (often with a summoned creature providing the flank), and the shadowdancer does sometimes use Spring Attack when he's not firing his bow.  A spring attacking fighter would work great with this group's style; a heavy tank really wouldn't, because there is rarely a front line to defend.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 15, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Its worth noting at this point that the spring attacking greatsword wielder is almost pure D&Dism.



Yes, well, I'm playing D&D.  As to archetypes, I imagine a lightly-armored greatsword wielder to be something like a Scot with a claymore, or certain characters from medieval Japan imagery (Kikuchiyo from The Seven Samurai, or various characters I think I've seen in anime and wuxia).



			
				Cadfan said:
			
		

> Those of us who are enthusiastic about "lightly armored fighters" are NOT typically using that as a label for "fighter in light armor."  In fact, we usually say "swashbuckler."  This shouldn't be surprising- if all everyone wanted was a guy who fought and wore light armor, we'd just play barbarians.  They meet that criteria.  But they do NOT meet the character archetype.



I've been responding all along to the assertion that D&D has always and only supported the heavy-armored fighter archetype with the fighter class since 1974.  This is simply not true.  Various editions have supported various lightly-armored fighter archetypes.  The swashbuckler in 3E was supported by the duelist class, and I admit that it isn't a great fit for the fighter class.  This does NOT mean that it has never been supported by D&D -- in fact, it was a great kit in 2E -- and it does NOT mean that there are no effective lightly-armored fighter archetypes possible in 3.5.

And really, why _wouldn't _ a swashbuckler want a buckler to swash?  (Yes, I know it is swashing bucklers, not buckling swashes.)  Why wouldn't a duelist with a rapier want either a main-gauche or a buckler in his other hand?  What's the drawback?  What's the disadvantage?


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## Cadfan (Feb 15, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> Yes, well, I'm playing D&D.  As to archetypes, I imagine a lightly-armored greatsword wielder to be something like a Scot with a claymore, or certain characters from medieval Japan imagery (Kikuchiyo from The Seven Samurai, or various characters I think I've seen in anime and wuxia).



Did the Scots fight by running forwards 15 feet, swinging their claymore, then running sideways 15 feet, before repeating the process?

The lightly armored guy with a big sword is fine.  Its just 1) a D&Dism that we relegate that guy to bunny-hopping, and 2) in no way related to a swashbuckler archetype.


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## pawsplay (Feb 15, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> Has anyone tried out a spring attacking fighter in an actual game situation? I ask because I think it's only viable in one-on-one duels, not a typical D&D combat.




As I noted above, in my campaign, a spring attacking dwarf was an absolute monster. Ogres, goblins, hydras, you name it.


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## Cadfan (Feb 15, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> And really, why _wouldn't _ a swashbuckler want a buckler to swash?  (Yes, I know it is swashing bucklers, not buckling swashes.)  Why wouldn't a duelist with a rapier want either a main-gauche or a buckler in his other hand?  What's the drawback?  What's the disadvantage?



Its different fighting styles.  I don't think you're going to get very far by arguing that Inigo Montoya is a stupid character because he didn't wield a gauch, or that Zorro shouldn't be supported by D&D, or that the Three Musketeers aren't "in genre" for this game.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 15, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Did the Scots fight by running forwards 15 feet, swinging their claymore, then running sideways 15 feet, before repeating the process?



I'd give a lightly armored fighter a greatsword and think it worked thematically because I can envision several historical and legendary archetypes that resemble that.  Light armor and greatswords aren't incompatible.
I'd then give my lightly armored fighter Spring Attack because it's useful and fun. 

I'd envision my character moving quickly.  Move up, hack at the giant, then move out of his reach before he can react. 

You use your phrases of "illogically bouncy" and "bunny hopping" and "running sideways," you make ANY character sound utterly moronic for using this feat, greatsword or no.  I guess Spring Attack was a horrible name for a feat, since it made some readers think that the PCs are literally bouncing about.


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## TwinBahamut (Feb 15, 2008)

On the swashing of bucklers...

In classical staging of the fights scenes of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, there are two types of combatant. First, there are the common men of the two households, such as the louts who get into a street brawl at the beginning of the play. These guys would carry bucklers, and use cutting swords (a line used by the fighters to each other is "remember thy swashing blow" as a reference to cutting slices). Meanwhile, the nobles would all fight with either just rapiers, or maybe a rapier and a main gauche, and use a totally different style.

As such, the Shakespearian swashbucklers, as in the people who used bucklers and swashed, were not the rapier fighters, they were the common grunts. Thus, using the name to indicate that swashbucklers under the modern sense (which includes rapier-users like Romeo) should carry bucklers is not necessarily logical.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 15, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> Its different fighting styles.  I don't think you're going to get very far by arguing that Inigo Montoya is a stupid character because he didn't wield a gauch, or that Zorro shouldn't be supported by D&D, or that the Three Musketeers aren't "in genre" for this game.



Pfah.  Inigo Montoya use a gauch?  That's the thing about being a level-12 PC in a world of mooks.  You can take the sub-optimal route and do just fine (until you run into the level-13 PC).  You can even duel people left-handed if you want.
I do recall Zorro using two swords in one of the recent movies.

Now, in terms of actual benefits to NOT using a gauch or buckler, you do present a narrower profile if only using one arm and facing your opponent side-on.  The 2E Single-Weapon Style Specialization would seem to be a good rule here (+1 AC, or +2 if you double-specialize in the style).


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## ruleslawyer (Feb 15, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> Light armor has been the issue here, not "Dex-based."  Dex comes into it because if you are wearing light armor you want a higher Dex for AC (and it's useful for gaining more AOOs with Combat Reflexes, and retaining access to Spring Attack when Enlarged).  Light armor is useful for the higher movement rate.  In the 3.5 games I've played and run, a high base movement rate is essential.



By the time you're at the level where you get Spring Attack in 3e, you can also afford mithril armor. That changes the definition of "light" substantially. You really aren't going to be wearing anything lighter than a mithril breastplate... and there's no need to. No impact on base speed, and no impact on Dexterity unless it's higher than 20... which was my point regarding Dex: Namely, that neither Dex nor Spring Attack are a way to even the odds between light and heavy armor when it comes to fighters. My point was that D&D _fighters_ are going to wear heavy armor in every edition. 

(Also, gaining AoOs with Combat Reflexes has *nothing* to do with wearing armor. Please note that the RAW state that "Max Dex Bonus" means "the maximum Dexterity bonus *to AC* that this type of armor allows.")


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 15, 2008)

ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> My point was that D&D _fighters_ are going to wear heavy armor in every edition.



Okay, granted that mithral breastplate is the best armor for a Spring Attacking fighter.  How is that heavy armor?  It's technically light armor, it looks like medium armor, and it's just +1 AC better than a chain shirt (for an additional 4,000 gp).  Given that a fighter can get Spring Attack by 4th level, that's a pretty big cost.



			
				ruleslawyer said:
			
		

> (Also, gaining AoOs with Combat Reflexes has *nothing* to do with wearing armor.)



You misunderstood what I said.  Let me try to fix it.
You said that a spring-attacking polearm fighter only needed a 13 Dex.
I said that such a PC would want a higher Dex because he'd like to wear lighter armor (for the movement) and for the increased AOOs.  The Dex gives the increased AOOs, not the lighter armor.

"Dex comes into it because if you are wearing light armor you want a higher Dex for AC (and it's *the higher Dex is* useful for gaining more AOOs with Combat Reflexes, and retaining access to Spring Attack when Enlarged). Light armor is useful for the higher movement rate. "


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## John Q. Mayhem (Feb 15, 2008)

Cadfan said:
			
		

> D&D should support this as a character archetype.  Not doing so is failure.  And no, trying to pawn off a rogue throat slitter or an illogically bouncy guy with a greatsword _does not count._




Pretending that all sneak attack is backstab-style, "throat slitting" is silly. It can also represent feints (explicitly) and such. Besides, we don't know how it's going to work out in 4E; we don't know if rogues, as strikers, will require flankers or a separate feinting mechanic to work their damagelicious mojo.


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## Doug McCrae (Feb 15, 2008)

I agree that movement rate is important for melee guys. 20 is too low. (Not that 30 is enough for fleeing as most monsters are faster. IMX you can't run until you get dimension door.) How about a level of barbarian and mithral full plate? That counts as medium armor so he can still spring attack, but with a move of 30. But now the SAer isn't exactly lightly armored, in fact he has the strongest armor in the game this side of adamantine.


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## Incenjucar (Feb 15, 2008)

I'm hoping they give fighters the ability to shrug off armor-based impairment to some degree.


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## Aage (Feb 15, 2008)

Incenjucar said:
			
		

> I'm hoping they give fighters the ability to shrug off armor-based impairment to some degree.




I don't have my book with me, but I think this is mentioned in Races and Classes...


I actually believe that the thing is that fighters aren't expected to have high dexterity, and thus heavy armour is the way to go... If that is the case, you could go with a light armour fighter, but perhaps you'd have to pick most of your powers from other classes (rogue; ranger) because you lack strength, which makes it inefficient to take fighter powers. Or you could take high str and dex, but then you'd probably lack another important fighter ability (Con?)


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## Remathilis (Feb 15, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> Here's my version of the math.  I've actually included the chances to hit and to crit against typical enemy AC.  And I've given everybody the same flanking buddy that the Spring-Attacking rogue has.  Feel free to correct me on specifics here.




I had thought to go through and discuss, but I can sum it here. 

Most of the people so far in this thread have equated "lightly armored" with "swashbuckler" and thus assumed a one-handed, dex-based fighter. Ergo, I made a fighter who didn't need str: his to hit came from feats and dex, his dmg from PA. You built a str fighter who only gets one attack per round in exchange for only getting hit once. Both are a viable option, but my argument (a dex-based fighter is subpar to a dex-based rogue) and yours (a str-based fighter with mobility is superior to a dex-based rogue) ended up being null: you've proven a fighter is a better fighter than a rogue unless he's sub-optimally built. And he's still doing less damage than the HA fighter. And in a world where there is no magical items, Spring Atk is a godsend, but in a world of +2 adamantine full plate, all bets are off.

Oh, and the LA tops his damage (PA+5) at 28, the rogue maxes out at 37. But thats the nature of comparing statistical pluses to random pluses. The rogue also probably invested in tumble (13 ranks, +3 dex, what AoO?) and can take opportunist (-2 str damage reduces the giant's to hit/dmg by -1/-1.5 per hit, which reduces his chances of getting hit and being killed, but I digress).


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 15, 2008)

Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> I agree that movement rate is important for melee guys. 20 is too low. (Not that 30 is enough for fleeing as most monsters are faster. IMX you can't run until you get dimension door.) How about a level of barbarian and mithral full plate? That counts as medium armor so he can still spring attack, but with a move of 30. But now the SAer isn't exactly lightly armored, in fact he has the strongest armor in the game this side of adamantine.



In general, a higher movement rate is better -- not for running away, but for moving around in a spread-out battle with many combatants (which has been the norm in my experience).  Coming to the aid of allies, running down enemy casters, and so on. 

Now, I do think that mithral fullplate is far too good.  It isn't a problem of the game not providing a niche for the light-armored fighter; the game provides that, and then introduces one particular item to open up the niche to heavily-armored PCs.  It's like how Knock makes Open Locks less useful, or how a Ring of Evasion gives one of the biggest benefits of the rogue class to any PC, or how Divine Power lets the cleric surpass the fighter.  A few simple excisions would solve a lot of problems without really disrupting the game's balance.


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## Brother MacLaren (Feb 15, 2008)

Remathilis said:
			
		

> You built a str fighter who only gets one attack per round in exchange for only getting hit once. Both are a viable option



Exactly.  I've been responding all along to the assertion that 3.5 only supports heavy-armored fighters.  It is my point of view that light-armored fighters also work pretty well, largely due to Spring Attack.  You don't NEED to add rogue levels to make the light-armored fighter a viable alternative to the heavy-armored fighter -- but fighter vs. fighter was the initial point of comparison.  

Then you brought the rogue in as a point of comparison: "Sure, his [the rogue's] hp and bab are weaker, but his sneak attack deals Sooo much more damage than *any* light-armor fighter build can. He's great at hit-n-runs, twf, and archery (depending on your mood)" (emphasis added)
Not the swashbuckler.  ANY light-armor fighter build.  Those were your words.  And, as an archer, the fighter remains better than the rogue because of his better BAB, longbow proficiency, and higher Str.

Back to Ftr-vs-Ftr.  The SA fighter has several advantages over the HA fighter.  His greater mobility makes it easier to come to the aid of an ally, to move the enemy around the battlefield, and to deal with enemies with reach or with enemies who have a greater number of attacks than he does (such as TWF opponents).  His touch AC is a bit higher (and that is a big deal).  He's also got some disadvantages.  If he needs to, he can stand still and full-attack, but his AC won't be as good (and his HP might not be as good either, since he put more points into Dex).


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## Elder-Basilisk (Feb 15, 2008)

Since this has devolved into "how does it work in 3.x?" territory, I'll ad my two cents:

A lightly armored fighter works just fine in 3.x. A strength-free fighter who doesn't use sneak attack, on the other hand, does not.

Core D&D 3.5 actually has five armor types that are potentially optimal for martial characters and two more that come close enough to be competitive through the first ten to fifteen levels:
Mithral fullplate--good for a heavily armored fighter who wants the highest armor class the game has to offer to a non-dex monkey who doesn't put extraordinary effort into class-based or magical defenses.

Adamantine fullplate--DR 3/- is actually a lot closer to the effectiveness of 2 points of AC than a lot of people realize. And it also comes with a substantial savings in attribute points, gold, and item slots since an adamantine fullplate wearer can max his AC with a 12 dex and spend the ability points somewhere else or buy cheaper gloves of dexterity, or, if he has a 12 dex naturally, eschew gloves of dexterity altogether.

mithral breastplate--A tie for the best light armor. One point of armor check doesn't hurt too much and only needing a 20 dex to max it out enables either a lower starting dex or a lower gold investment than the mithral chain shirt.

mithral chain shirt--a tie for the best light armor. A 22 dex is required to max it out though so some characters will prefer the mithral breastplate--especially at the levels where dex enhancing items are a lot pricier than the approximately 4000gp difference between the armors.

Celestial Armor is also worth mentioning for lightly armored fighters but is only worth it for real dex monkeys.

Ordinary fullplate is and, to a lesser degree, ordinary chain shirts, however are competitive with the more exotic armors at least for warrior types and at least until level 10+ or so. A cleric, paladin, or fighter with a 10 base dex, for instance is far better off spending his 10,000gp on +3 fullplate than mithral fullplate than ordinary mithral fullplate. Said character doesn't have enough dex to benefit from the higher max dex of the mithral fullplate and buying gloves of dex to get him there is not an efficient use of his resources. (Mithral fullplate and +4 gloves of dex=more money and lower armor class than ordinary +5 fullplate). Likewise, any lightly armored warrior without an 18+ dex doesn't really benefit very much from wearing a mithral chain shirt over an ordinary one. At levels 1-10, that's a lot of lightly armored warriors.

The important thing to realize, however, is that when you're talking about the attainable armor class, for a lightly armored character or a heavily armored character, there is only a one point difference.
Mithral fullplate: +8 armor, +3 dex=+11 AC
Mithral breastplate: +5 armor, +5 dex=+10 AC
Mithral chain shirt: +4 armor, +6 dex=+10AC

When you take into account the fact that a lot of characters don't max out the dex bonus of their amor, you're still only talking one or two points of armor class difference since the mithral fullplate guy will often not max his max dex out either.

(Oddly it also works this way at lower levels with ordinary armors:
fullplate=+8 armor, +1 dex=+9 AC
chain shirt=+4 armor, +4 dex=+8 AC
though the difference will be a little more pronounced since it is easy for a lot of characters to max the dex bonus of ordinary fullplate but lightly armored fighters will typically only have 3 points of dex or so.

So, defensively, light armor is not really very much worse than heavy armor. It is worse, but not so much worse as to render it a suboptimal choice if other considerations (movement, evasion, etc) argue for it. The heavy armor/light armor discussion is certainly not resolved in favor of heavy armor in 3rd edition games.

Offensively, is where it is important to distinguish between a lightly armored fighter type and a dex-based fighter type. A lightly amored fighter will probably have a slightly lower strength than the heavily armored one--all other things being equal. But it doesn't need to be crippling. The difference between a 16 strength and an 18 strength is noticable but it's the difference between effective and super-effective rather than between being awesome and being pathetic. If the lightly armored character advances strength with magic and/or ability points and possibly exploits other kinds of damage (divine might for a paladin or multiclass for example) the lightly armored character can be in the zone offensively with the heavily armored character.

In 3.x, it's the character without sneak attack who tries to accomplish all that without strength that doesn't generally work out.



			
				Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> Exactly.  I've been responding all along to the assertion that 3.5 only supports heavy-armored fighters.  It is my point of view that light-armored fighters also work pretty well, largely due to Spring Attack.  You don't NEED to add rogue levels to make the light-armored fighter a viable alternative to the heavy-armored fighter -- but fighter vs. fighter was the initial point of comparison.
> 
> Then you brought the rogue in as a point of comparison: "Sure, his [the rogue's] hp and bab are weaker, but his sneak attack deals Sooo much more damage than *any* light-armor fighter build can. He's great at hit-n-runs, twf, and archery (depending on your mood)" (emphasis added)
> Not the swashbuckler.  ANY light-armor fighter build.  Those were your words.  And, as an archer, the fighter remains better than the rogue because of his better BAB, longbow proficiency, and higher Str.
> ...


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## Remathilis (Feb 15, 2008)

Brother MacLaren said:
			
		

> Then you brought the rogue in as a point of comparison: "Sure, his [the rogue's] hp and bab are weaker, but his sneak attack deals Sooo much more damage than *any* light-armor fighter build can. He's great at hit-n-runs, twf, and archery (depending on your mood)" (emphasis added)
> Not the swashbuckler.  ANY light-armor fighter build.  Those were your words.  And, as an archer, the fighter remains better than the rogue because of his better BAB, longbow proficiency, and higher Str.




Semantics game. I already conceded we mixed signals on the definition of an LAF. Apples to oranges. 

The big issue here is 2-handed power attack vs. sneak attack. The former is easily abusive in a one-attack scenario like spring attack (and looks much worse when employing multiple attacks) and has the dubious honor of a.) being static vs. random damage and b.) doubling on a crit. Both of those flaws (or features) make the spring-attacking-lightly-armored-greatsword-wielder more of a rules-glitch than an intended consequence (going back to 3.0 when PA was strictly 1:1, the numbers don't favor the LA so much)

I could still maintain the rogue has an edge in twf and archery (assuming proper builds and feats not in core) but I'll leave that math to someone else. Suffice to say I'm more happy about rogue's becoming the de-facto Lightly-armed & armored combatant in 4e and giving fighters the plate-and-tank role.


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## fnwc (Feb 16, 2008)

John Q. Mayhem said:
			
		

> Pretending that all sneak attack is backstab-style, "throat slitting" is silly. It can also represent feints (explicitly) and such. Besides, we don't know how it's going to work out in 4E; we don't know if rogues, as strikers, will require flankers or a separate feinting mechanic to work their damagelicious mojo.



AFAIK, flanking is no longer required, so I don't think the term 'backstab' will apply anymore. Now a rogue will need something called 'combat advantage' to be able to sneak attack, which is apparently easier to achieve than flanking. I believe that combat advantage can be reached without the help of another ally.

Also, immunities are largely going away, and this includes sneak attack immunity. Apparently in 4th a rogue will be able to sneak attack most Golems, Undead, etc. This blow seems more of a 'hit the monster in a vulnerable spot' rather than a 'hit the monster while he's not looking' type of action.

I'm not sure it's called sneak attack anymore.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Feb 16, 2008)

fnwc said:
			
		

> AFAIK, flanking is no longer required, so I don't think the term 'backstab' will apply anymore. Now a rogue will need something called 'combat advantage' to be able to sneak attack, which is apparently easier to achieve than flanking. I believe that combat advantage can be reached without the help of another ally.
> 
> Also, immunities are largely going away, and this includes sneak attack immunity. Apparently in 4th a rogue will be able to sneak attack most Golems, Undead, etc. This blow seems more of a 'hit the monster in a vulnerable spot' rather than a 'hit the monster while he's not looking' type of action.
> 
> I'm not sure it's called sneak attack anymore.



I think Combat Advantage is just a term to describe something that was covered under multiple terms in 3.x. Flat-Footed, Flanked and so on. It might still cover a little bit more than the standard 3.x conditions that allow you to sneak attack.


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