[Brainstorm] Fighters

[Vibius]

Sincerely I fail to see how modifying fighters or armor so they get a bit more of AC will make them more interesting, more powerful sure, but that is something totally different.

Adding the tree of feats weapon-specialization, great weapons focus... would
get the same result (or even better) and it would be more fun if acquiring such feats involved interesting quests.

And perhaps they could be given 3-4 extra feats upon joining the fighter guild.

[Selveem]

I still don't quite agree with those that think heavy armor is fine as is. I ask you, why have it in the game if it's not good to use?

Perhaps one thought is to have a AC bonus for JUST the fighters (Wouldn't want clerics getting even tougher) of they use heavy armor on the legs/arms/chest.. Thoughts?

Not to go against you, Grafghur, but you can't prove this anymore than I can. All we can tell is by experience. Experience tells us code, in combat, definitely does _not_ favor heavy armor.

Part of the problem of this MUD (and this has been the long-time reoccuring theme) is that players are left in the dark. You can't say 'heavy armor doesn't work because it is only adding this amount of bonus to AC and yet light armor is giving all of this!' because the numbers aren't visible.

Sure, we can say 'dodge isn't working with heavy armor because I never see it happen,' but unless we actually _see_: [(dodge roll = this)-penalty for wearing heavy armor]-opposed roll...
We can't compare it to light armor or medium armor.

No more than we can say 'well armor isn't working because on Selveem my AC is 'poor' with 18 dex, a light load, standing, and wearing nothing except a single piece of "light" armor that increases wisdom by 1 to bring his wisdom to 18.' All we can do is take the assurances of otheres that 'the code is working fine.'

Well, that's all well and good until you hear of another player with those same stats, the same race, and same modifiers (standing, light load) has over 3 full adjectives above you. The only difference being class. Selveem being a fighter and the other being a ranger.

These are things that hamper our abilities as players to be able to report issues properly. That's besides the point and I apologize for getting side-tracked.

My next suggestion of the day would be to add 'spiked' armor to the game. Allow grappler characters to pin versus opposed strength checks and the like. Each round doing damage to the person they've pinned via the spikes and attacks with small weapons (such as brawling or daggers).

This would add something new to the game we don't have.

[Grafghur]

Sincerely I fail to see how modifying fighters or armor so they get a bit more of AC will make them more interesting, more powerful sure, but that is something totally different.

It's not the only solution but part of it. If you're going through the effort to code heavy armor in the game and make it part of quest rewards etc... yet not have it used by anyone then yes, I would say it should be looked at.

Not to go against you, Grafghur, but you can't prove this anymore than I can.

Well, I'm glad you mentioned this, I have in fact noticed a difference between putting heavy and light armor. Try this against mobs, with and without heavy. The results always favored not having heavy. Feel free to test this yourself. Granted your char should have high Dex (but then again, with the way the system is currently, Dex is one of the most important stats)

I don't know what the mechanics of the game are, but I can tell you that the only reason my chars use heavy armor is because it's part of their RP and/or it's supplicated armor.

[Selveem]

I don't know what the mechanics of the game are, but I can tell you that the only reason my chars use heavy armor is because it's part of their RP and/or it's supplicated armor.

Completely what I was saying actually. The results differ from how the code is advertised, however what I was saying is that we have no solid evidence to prove it. Heavy armor _is_ in fact detrimental from what I've seen, too. Not just now, but in the past when dodge was changed so that it never worked with heavy armor.

Selveem is in the same boat. I refuse to wear light armor that _should_ be more beneficial to him because I couldn't possibly imagine Selveem wearing it. That sounds moronic and a bastardization of his character.

Also, in response to the glory/stat point refund, I would like to caution not just about the constitution, but also that people have already benefitted from the int bonuses, wisdom bonuses, and charisma bonuses to acquire quests they've done and some of the equipment they regularly use. Also, the bulk of people who had trained high int no longer need to do so as they likely already have their skills/spells GMed.

[Kirkus]

I would say, find a way to make fighting/combat more interesting and that is your answer. Answer this question and you could be on the right track... When you read a science fiction/fantasy novel who's main character is a fighter what makes the combat cool?

Here's my point in all those subjective questions. Combat as it is, is boring to watch.... more to come later... Im stuck at work.

[Hrosskell]

My thoughts on heavy armor and fighters, in general:

Fighters are built to be damage-dealers, from the very beginnings. They can wield the big weapons, they get the hit roll, they get the feats. However, they are not made ONLY to wear heavy armor. No where does it state that the fighter class is LIMITED to heavy armor - they have a choice. Fighters are like humans in the sense that they are flexible: how they do their damage, and how they avoid it, is their choice. I don't think "just fixing" heavy armor is appropriate, and I don't think cutting their damage-dealing abilities is appropriate, either.

What is appropriate to me, at least, is allowing them to choose. Fighters can be the most flexible class in DnD, in the sense that they can choose how much damage they want to deal and how they want to specialize in it, as well as how much damage they can avoid and how they want to specialize in that. I think that the fighter feats (their main feature) should be added in, and I think they should be added in great detail. We did it for wizards, so why not fighters? Armor branches, weapon branches, physical disciplines, all seem like they should come into play. I think that instead of what we have right now - all fighters wearing the same armor, same weapons, because there is a limited selection of magical gear that is plate and a rash of longswords - we should open things up a bit, to make it even and customisable, but still GOOD.

Aside from gear, a fighter has his skills. Neither of those seem to be holding up right now; why? I can't say, because like others, I don't know the mechanics. But I definitely know that my old-as-hell warrior should be able to go toe-to-toe with others in melee combat, and he can't even do that right now.

Note: As an after-thought, I think I missed something. I don't want fighters to be invincible AND super-damage dealing. I think that it'd be nice if you could decide to be a heavy-hitter who is somewhat vulnerable (those Tempurians out there), or maybe someone who can't do much more than sink damage (which would work for my Helmite and his RP), or someone who is balanced enough at both to go toe-to-toe with either (poor old Hrosskell).

[Hrosskell]

Dex is currently one of the determining factors of whether you get off your attacks and whether they hit, no? That doesn't seem to comply with the BAB theory, at all.

[Vibius]

When you attack someone in D&D you use your attack bonus which is the addition of the following parameters: BAB + STR bonus or DEX Bonus (if the character has the weapon finesse feat and it's higher than the STR BONUS) + Weapon bonus (if available) + race/size bonus (if available).

So (at least in D&D) dexterity affects your chance to hit as long you have the weapon finesse feat and you have higher dexterity than strength.

[Horace]

plus positional bonus - flank, prone , yadda yadda

[Raona]

Keeping in mind that, at least according to the helpfile, that weapon finesse

only works with light weapons.

and thus (I think?!?) doesn't have nearly the potential to deal out damage that a strength-focused attack with a more substantial weapon might.

[Kirkus]

Why not add an apprenticship system like the other classes have. It wouldn't have to me mandatory but it would be there to teach advanced weapon forms. How I see it, any peasant can pick up a weapon and eventually figure out how to hurt someone with it. But a skilled swordsman for instance would handle that weapon differently.

So I say lets treat our skills and feats and what not more like a wizard does his or her spells. Lets no longer settle for just typing 'kill goblin' and sitting back and spacing out till the screen stops moving.

[Dranso]

I see that fighters are always lacking in battle when they face off with wizards PC/NPC. In my thinking, a fighter should always be able to beat a wizard. They have more HP, they hit harder, and they are usually faster. I think the problem is, when fighters go out and get all their good magical armour that gives them good resistances to stuff or makes them immune to something, they aren't really immune to it. So if a fighter is immune to fire and the wizard is constantly casting flame arrow, the wizard will still blow away the fitghter for some reason...

[Horace]

The game, even in table top, doesn't balance that way. The classes just have two different functions. A fighter is a near tireless warrior who will always be consistent as long as he's standing...a wizard starts off with the potential to be as powerful as the spells he is willing to lose, and consistently loses function throughout the "day". This is why I don't think there is a problem with the fighter class...because against lower level npc's or one on one with one their own level - they serve their purpose.

In tabletop this works well because you can see this balance whenever the DM chooses to overrun the party for whatever reason. In game, you will never see that sort of loss of function in a PvP venue...you will see it, however, when all the casters hold up the party for 25 minutes down in undermountain because they need to be a sissy bookworm.

Without changing the role of the fighter, the only way to make it balanced, imo, is to significantly lengthen the time it takes to memorize spells. And give wizards/priests some other way to gain experience besides killing.

The fighter is the infantry of the party, what he brings to the table will always be the same. The pure casters are the bombers, who can deal out enormous amounts of damage but can become useless and have to leave.

[Hrosskell]

Completely agree with a lot of the points you have, Horace, however, the fighter CAN'T do his job right now. When the players of fighters are saying, "We can't do what we are supposed to", then you have to realize that we CAN'T do what we are supposed to. We can't hit most things like we used to be able to. We can get hit by things that didn't used to. Our skills are triggering fine, but they're not DOING anything when they do. I do not see any point in changing anything BUT the way the fighters are working right now. Wizards, clerics, rangers, thieves - they're all doing fine and dandy, but something got messed up along the way, and fighters aren't doing so fine or dandy.

I also don't wish to see anything more uniform than it is now. As it stands, there are very few effective routes a fighter can go, when realistically, he should have the most options. He gets ELEVEN bonus feats in DnD. A stunning 11, that should let him master quite a few options by the time he hits level 20, or our equivalent level 50. So, if following a master makes it uniform, or if the feat-trees make it uniform, I say no to those - but if taking a master or a feat-tree lets you pick what weapons, what styles (any weapon combination can be made into a style, they're gone into detail in some source book that I know someone can cite [hopefully Kregor, you seem to be my man on this one]), and what defenses and offenses you have, then I say go for it. It'll offer great RP to the class, as well as some code benefit.

Edited to include: The names of those source books would be Sword and Fist (3E), as well as Tome of Battle (3.5) and Complete Warrior (3.5). Asked an old friend, but I don't really have any of those.

[Velius]

To help out the fighters...

I'd advise giving them extra feats. Why? Fighters are the SHOULD be the best at what they do, and what they do is fight.

You can say "Why shouldn't wizards get extra feats? They are the best at what they do!", but then again they are the ONLY ones that do what they do. No one else can cast spells. Priests, no one else can pray. Thieves, they get most of the fighter skills and more.

Fighters, everyone else knows how to fight, why do we need you? A WIZARD can take more hits than you, a priest can take more hits then you, so why do we need you?

Fixing heavy armor won't fix the fighter class, though I do agree it should be fixed. All it'd do is spark a little bit of life in the class, and give the priests more power. (I'd like to see heavy armor fixed, but fixing heavy armor won't save the class).

[Kregor]

Feat trees are, in fact, being discussed, and those will make a difference in the way a fighter can tailor themselves.

Yes, fighters should have the fighter bonus feats to train those feats with, and I am also an advocate that we should give the bonus feats retroactively to the existing fighters for them to take advantage of the trees when they do arrive.

I think, this is the best way, the RIGHT way, to "fix" what people perceive is wrong with the fighters. I don't think taping on things like damage reduction to heavy armor, overpowered non-d20 "skills" like Enhanced Damage was, and the like, are the solution. The solution is to bring in the elements of d20 combat and classes that DO give you the upside with the downsides.

There are feats that allow you to get a higher DEX bonus in heavy armor.

There are feats that allow you to do additional damage with your weapon of choice, hit easier with your weapon of choice, etc.

There are feats that give you abilities that otherwise you wouldn't have. Some of them may not SEEM to have a relevant treatment for the MUD, but then it just takes a little thought.

And this, should bring us back onto the original topic of the discussion, and not digress into petty gripes about what's broken, to the original direction of:

How to make fighters more interesting to play?

Considerations:

• A few possible options: make heavy armour useful (perhaps the real problem here is the free availability of the glory -> stat point exchange?), add feats? ...
  
• The goal is to enable fighters to do special "fighter things" while in a group, i.e., to provide the group with benefits that a fighter-less group wouldn't have.
• The goal is NOT to balance classes. We are using D&D. It's a group-based game, not a PvP game. Players can PvP 1-on-1, but that's not the focus of the game and it's not part of the main goals.

[Velius]

I think, this is the best way, the RIGHT way, to "fix" what people perceive is wrong with the fighters. I don't think taping on things like damage reduction to heavy armor, overpowered non-d20 "skills" like Enhanced Damage was, and the like, are the solution. The solution is to bring in the elements of d20 combat and classes that DO give you the upside with the downsides.

I agree full-heartedly Kregor.

[Kregor]

[Feat Suggestion]Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack

Spring Attack initially seems like an unlikely feat for the MUD, since we lack tactical movement. However, I have been thinking of a way that it could be used for fighters that would specifically benefit a group situation:

Rescue is normally a hit or miss deal, and it would take a LOT of actively rescuing others to get it up to a really high skill level. In MUD terms, we could treat Spring Attack as the ability to leap in front of others while still focusing on the heat of combat, hence, you are able to rescue others without penalty, and with automatic success. Auto success I don't think is too unreasonable a benefit, since it has two feats as a prerequisite. Fighters would likely be the few taking the feat, since other classes would lack the bonus feats to buy their way up the tree.

This, of course, would be the last prerequisite to open up for Whirlwind Attack, which could essentially be the return of a reworked Hitall. The two feats could work hand in hand, firstly, revamping the Hitall code to only attack mobs/characters that are actively fighting the fighter (which would also remove the nasty consequence hitall had of not being grouped with the fighter when you walk into his whirl). Hence, the fighter sets up his whirlwind by first, rescuing the members of the party, then once he has the opponents all gathered and actively fighting him, they're set up to all be cleaved by his whirlwind once a round.

[Selveem]

And this, should bring us back onto the original topic of the discussion, and not digress into petty gripes about what's broken

Please be less offensive and more patient. Especially when there is a good cause for the griping, thus defining it as reasonable instead of petty. A lot of people were envisioning this to work out far differently for fighters. While it was never promised to 'fix' a lot of problems fighters were experiencing, some of us thought fighters'd be included. The changes, unfortunately, have been detrimental. I know this was not intended. I don't fault any coders. That doesn't make it _any_ less important to fix AND it means that we all get to do our part to help. That's what makes us a community, right?

I love, love the idea of feat trees. Whirlwind has limited use here, but when you CAN use it it would be very fun to have. Maybe not powerful, but fun nonetheless. Unfortunately, though, AC needs to be fixed for this to really work. A warrior tanking 5+ mobs in an area designed for those of his caliber generally will find this extremely detrimental to his health and labor-intensive on the poor Cleric of the party. You will find that the intelligent players of said parties would still rather have a wizard or priest tank with stoneskin and an offensive shield as it's far more efficient.

Selveem is far more offensive than defensive. He would take feats, as mentioned previously and accurately by Hrosskell for offense. He was trained by Orcs before anyone else and is a Tempurian, not Helmite; makes sense right?

But it's the feat trees that will make fighters versatile. Thus a Helmite may be favored over a Tempurian in some cases and in other cases the Tempurian over the Helmite.

I don't know if the extra 11 feats fighters are supposed to get are going to help until the other feats are coded, but it's definitely a step in the right direction, in my opinion. I do, however, feel that weapon focus needs to be adjusted to not add damage, but only hitroll.

Perhaps, also, for a limited time after these changes are made people can pay a certain amount of platinum to have their feats reset. So, those who took weapon focus because it gave a bonus to hit _and_ damage can correct what they may then feel is a mistake.

Also, I would like to suggest that the addition of code to allow those with high enough wisdom to determine what _type_ of armor something is. I suggested this on another thread (http://www.gallwey.com/fk/board/viewtop ... highlight=) but it's becoming far more relevant for different classes to understand what they're wearing. Full plate's bonuses are different from half-plate armor and this is a consideration people should be able to see to determine what their character would be wearing.

I would also recommend the addition of trip as a feat (provoking attacks of opportunity for the attempt without 'improved trip as well as the attack of opportunity for picking yourself up off the floor. Attacks of opportunity for picking up weapons after disarmed. Prone should be an affect on you that adds required penalties and should force you to be unable to stand for one full round. You should also be knocked prone when bashed. The attacker should not be affected (unless alternative rule of critical miss).

I actually would like to see automatic healing disabled, but think of the affect on our new players and low level characters. Those braving Howling Peaks and the like. However, this would make priests far more important instead of priests clamoring for "RP opportunities" that are granted via returning the dead to life.

Lastly, I would suggest the addition (though I don't know how to code it) of being unable to close in on people using melee weapons with reach such as halberds, lances, greatswords, etc. Or, provoke an attack of opportunity for attempting to close in on said person. This would prevent mobs from demolishing a party with touch attacks if they've a fighter using a reach melee weapon.

[Caelyvar]

I have spent most of this morning reading this thread ((lord knows I wasnt going to be WORKING, because that would never happen))

And I really do think there are two things that need to be done to help fighters become, not only better at what they do, but more interesting.

from what I have seen in playing my fighter is that most fighters have the SAME feats, we all have power attack on through to great cleave, etc. I believe wholeheartedly in more feats and more feat points.

Here is an idea, you do give out greater feat points, then do, as Kregor stated "Feat tree's" Where yeah you have these extra feats, but if you want to be a specialist in one tree you have to focus all those points into THAT tree. Or you can have one point in many tree's or any combination there of. To give some variety so that we arent all concentrating on the same area.

the other thing that needs fixing is this heavy armour problem. My fighter spent a good amount of time saving up for a really nice breastplate at a shop, it was almost 200 plat so I thought it would be a better investment over her basically +1 leather armour that she was wearing. So finally I just broke down and bought the nice breastplate.

Within two combats it was in "Good" condition and cost me 60 plat to fix and honestly I was more beat up than if I had just stayed with my leather.

I am just using this as an example, but really, I think an awesome quality heavy breastplate should do a little more damage reduction than +1 leather armour.

I find the armour system broken in a couple of ways, and would really like heavy armour fixed so that a fighter is able to wear heavy armour and not have it be a waste.