Something Different
As those of you I've told about this blog, and those of you who are likely to have stumbled upon this blog, know I play pen and paper role playing games (yes, Dungeons and Dragons).
One of the biggest arguments in the community of role-players is, what class is the most powerful at twentieth level? I freely admit that the comparison is mostly between the Cleric class and the Wizard class, with clerics edging out the wizards by their physical combat ability. The problem I have with most of these rankings is that they start by listing the Fighter class at the bottom of the pile. The base assumption of most people who engage in this exercise is that the humble and relatively straightforward fighter is the weakest character available at twentieth level.
I disagree. The fighter is the most versatile and potentially useful physical combatant in the game. They have access to more (and a few better) combat abilities than any other character class. If you ask most of the theorists whether a Fighter or a Bard, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, or Rogue would win a fight, then they will quickly give victory to the Fighter; and if they don't they usually have some special qualification or circumstance that allows the other classes to use their abilities to the maximum while denying the Fighter a chance to respond. I call these circumstances "Tactics" and expect all characters to use them as best they can, especially a fighter who has spent his entire life training how to kill things.
Now we come to the more contested areas, namely the fighter versus the Barbarian. For those not aware, the barbarian is a class that gets really angry several times a day, making them stronger and tougher than normal. This increased power means a better chance of hitting opponents, seriously wounding opponents, surviving an opponent's blows, all at the price of a more reckless (and less protective) defense. Many argue that the inherent toughness of barbarians, combined with their ability to shrug off small amounts of damage from every hit, more than makes up for any advantages a fighter may have from his many combat tricks. I say that a barbarian's seeming invulnerability actually make him more susceptible to bad tactics. Because he seems like a mountain of damage absorption, he rushes into a fight without thinking and without planning. Too late he learns that the fighter he thought to smash was ready and waiting for him. The fighter easily dodges/parries/absorbs with his armor the mighty opening strike of the barbarian and instantly responds by severing the haft of the raging warrior's greataxe. The canny fighter proceeds to cut huge chunks off of the anger driven warrior. Unarmed, the fierce warrior now has two options, flight or death. If he was smart enough to have a back up weapon that isn't too small and flimsy too fit his strengths, then the barbarian may still be able to hit and hurt his clever opponent. However, it's likely that he will be murdered brutally, barring unusual luck.
And if you don't believe me, I'll build a twentieth level fighter that is guaranteed to kill any barbarian build that uses the same source books (your choice) at minimum 50% of the time.
So, we've eliminated all the other martial characters as being unable to stand against an intelligently built and played fighter, and all that's left are primary spell casters. Such a conflict would be decided by spells prepared and still available to cast versus how quickly the fighter could bring his most dangerous attacks to bear. The odds are in the spell-caster's favor (unless it's the end of a very difficult and busy day) so I easily admit that these classes are more powerful than a fighter at twentieth level.
If you disagree with me, tell me and we can begin this debate for real.
One of the biggest arguments in the community of role-players is, what class is the most powerful at twentieth level? I freely admit that the comparison is mostly between the Cleric class and the Wizard class, with clerics edging out the wizards by their physical combat ability. The problem I have with most of these rankings is that they start by listing the Fighter class at the bottom of the pile. The base assumption of most people who engage in this exercise is that the humble and relatively straightforward fighter is the weakest character available at twentieth level.
I disagree. The fighter is the most versatile and potentially useful physical combatant in the game. They have access to more (and a few better) combat abilities than any other character class. If you ask most of the theorists whether a Fighter or a Bard, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, or Rogue would win a fight, then they will quickly give victory to the Fighter; and if they don't they usually have some special qualification or circumstance that allows the other classes to use their abilities to the maximum while denying the Fighter a chance to respond. I call these circumstances "Tactics" and expect all characters to use them as best they can, especially a fighter who has spent his entire life training how to kill things.
Now we come to the more contested areas, namely the fighter versus the Barbarian. For those not aware, the barbarian is a class that gets really angry several times a day, making them stronger and tougher than normal. This increased power means a better chance of hitting opponents, seriously wounding opponents, surviving an opponent's blows, all at the price of a more reckless (and less protective) defense. Many argue that the inherent toughness of barbarians, combined with their ability to shrug off small amounts of damage from every hit, more than makes up for any advantages a fighter may have from his many combat tricks. I say that a barbarian's seeming invulnerability actually make him more susceptible to bad tactics. Because he seems like a mountain of damage absorption, he rushes into a fight without thinking and without planning. Too late he learns that the fighter he thought to smash was ready and waiting for him. The fighter easily dodges/parries/absorbs with his armor the mighty opening strike of the barbarian and instantly responds by severing the haft of the raging warrior's greataxe. The canny fighter proceeds to cut huge chunks off of the anger driven warrior. Unarmed, the fierce warrior now has two options, flight or death. If he was smart enough to have a back up weapon that isn't too small and flimsy too fit his strengths, then the barbarian may still be able to hit and hurt his clever opponent. However, it's likely that he will be murdered brutally, barring unusual luck.
And if you don't believe me, I'll build a twentieth level fighter that is guaranteed to kill any barbarian build that uses the same source books (your choice) at minimum 50% of the time.
So, we've eliminated all the other martial characters as being unable to stand against an intelligently built and played fighter, and all that's left are primary spell casters. Such a conflict would be decided by spells prepared and still available to cast versus how quickly the fighter could bring his most dangerous attacks to bear. The odds are in the spell-caster's favor (unless it's the end of a very difficult and busy day) so I easily admit that these classes are more powerful than a fighter at twentieth level.
If you disagree with me, tell me and we can begin this debate for real.
posted by Gunrock - DGH | 10:47 PM
1 Comments:
Great essay. I have to admit, I've always thought the best way to maximize a strategy is to multiclass. I'll take a sorcerer10/rogue10 against a wizard20 any day. Same goes for fighter.
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