Alternate Fighter

[thegreyelf]

It's bugged me for YEARS just how bad the fighter is in AD&D 2e. They drop a bunch of things that really made the fighter shine from OD&D through first edition, AND they are easily and quickly outclassed by mages, even if they have magic weapons and armor, even with additional attacks, and even with weapon specialization. To that end, I designed an alternate version of the fighter which brings back some older elements like additional attacks against low hit die apponents (which I beefed up a bit so it remains useful after you are no longer facing single hit die opponents), enhanced defense, and adds an extra bonus: a low level of magic resistance to make them really able to stand up to powerhouse mages.

Here it is. I'm sure a lot of folks will think it overpowered. To my mind (and I've used it in my home games for years) it works well and makes the fighter a worthwhile and attractive class again. Also, forgive the crude text justification. I just threw this together in Word rather than taking the time to do a proper layout in Affinity Publisher.

www.dropbox.com/s/35j5591c57e1jnx/Alternate%20Fighter.pdf?dl=0

[jeffb]

DL'ed for a looksee later,

AFAIC The Fighter has always been underpowered except for the Greyhawk Fighter (and then 1E neutered them again) or the 4E Fighters.

[doublejig2]

Even tanks undergo upgrades, eh!

[jeffb]

So I took a look. It is very similar to what I did with the C&C Fighter and S&W Fighters- extra attacks vs 1 HD, and/or X attacks against foes 1/2 your level, etc.

The problem I as well as my Fighter players (my Son and an Adult buddy) had was as the Fighters got higher level, rolling so many attacks became anti-fun/boring. 10th level fighter, rolling 10 attacks against the goblins became really tiresome, and time consuming. I cannot imagine then trying to juggle the wonkiness of 3/2 attacks in AD&D along with that (whatever edition- that was eliminated from the get go for us BITD)

I really like what was done in Exemplars and Eidolons (Sine Nominee) with the "fray die"- Classes have an auto hit attack to use against low level minion type foes that is simply a roll for amount of HD taken out. I'm not up on exact numbers, but the Fighter would, in addition to his normal attack against foes that posed a real threat, would get say a D4 or D6 to roll against the goblins/kobolds/orcs- and do that many HD worth of damage. 1HD foe? Fighter rolls his D6 fray die, and gets a 4? 4 of those 1HD creatures are toast. This was extremely popular for the mini adventures I ran using E&E several years ago. Wizards and Rogues get it too in E&E, but for OD&D/2E/C&C, I would limit it to fighters.

I prefer rolling minimal attacks and seeing more spectacular results from Fighters (more damage/exploding dice, easier crits/increased threat range, cleave type moves, fray dice, imposing conditions whether mechanical or fictional, etc)

However, if you want to stay away from modern mechanics, then rolling lots of attacks is probably the best way to go about it.

[thegreyelf]

I haven't found "lots of attacks" to be a problem because frankly, in all my years of gaming I have NEVER seen regular instances of 10th level fighters battling hordes of goblins. High level fighters tend to leave goblins, orcs, and kobolds to the low level guys to deal with. That ability actually becomes fairly worthless by 5th or 6th level, which is why I included the bonus attacks for half hit dice creatures, so it remains useful as you level up.

But that being said, even if you have them fighting goblins and kobolds at 10th level, it's much better to let the fighter mow through them with lots of attacks (seriously; once they figure out the goblin is AC 7 or whatever, it takes seconds for them to roll all those attacks), than it is to suffer thorough 40 rounds of combat with everyone making a single attack over and over ad nauseum. I've also never seen a player get bored at the idea of rolling a fistfull of d20s.

When I run OD&D, I use the Chainmail combat, which does see fighters making attacks equal to their level each round. I've never found it to be problematic and indeed, it speeds up combat quite a bit. I have also used the "Troop Type" combat, where hordes of enemies like zombies or skeletons summoned by the high level necromancer get mowed through by the fighter rolling their level in d6's; each 5 or 6 kills one opponent, which is similar to the Fray die you mentioned.

So yeah, the "you automatically kill x HD worth of opponents" is a solid way to handle it if you dislike multiple attacks. In this case, using the AD&D 2e d20 combat system, the fighter makes an attack, and on a success, they kill half or 2/3 their level in hit dice worth of foes.

[Desparil]

For the record, fighters having multiple attacks against opponents with less than 1 HD is still in 2nd Edition, the same as in 1st Edition. It's just that, like many things in the edition, it's presented as a modular option, so it appears in the DMG instead of the PHB. That being said, your modification is pretty similar to what TSR's designers did back in the day with the Heroic Fray rules in Combat & Tactics. I like the idea of the defensive bonus, but personally I prefer to give them the bushi bonuses from Oriental Adventures - an AC improvement of 1 per 5 levels, and a once per day ability to function as if 2 levels higher (including temporary hit points) for 10 minutes. I like these bonuses better since they're ability score-agnostic. I also like to give them more favorable level advancement, most recently by swapping their experience table with clerics. Clerics benefited quite a bit from the expanded spell lists from splatbooks, so they can do with a small nerf IMO.

The real losers in all editions, however, are single-classed thieves. As printed, I find the thief only suitable for multi-class characters once you reach mid to high levels. My current solution is to let single-classed thieves choose abilities approximating either an assassin or a thief-acrobat from 1E, but with no strings attached (in terms of level requirements, dueling for level advancement, etc.) and without requiring any additional experience per level. Multi-classed thieves don't receive this grant, though for convenience I do bundle together their classes into a single pseudo-class akin to the B/X elf, and similarly receiving a "discount" on the total experience required per level*

* The elf in B/X requires 4000 XP to reach 2nd level, whereas to the sum of a fighter and a magic-user separately would be 4500 XP; I assume that this is to compensate for having smaller hit dice than a single-classed fighter and the various other disadvantages and peculiarities of the multi-classed character

[thegreyelf]

I'm actually surprised nobody has come at me for the magic resistance. I thought THAT would be what gets the most pushback!

[Desparil]

I'm ambivalent about the MR, that one I really have to think about before responding to it in detail. I don't necessarily oppose it in principle, and I get why you want to dole it out incrementally, but I feel like magic resistance at such a low level might be inappropriate just because that 5% gets inflated to more like 30% or 40% if you're facing more-or-less level-appropriate foes.

[thegreyelf]

Mar 21, 2023 7:20:47 GMT -6 Desparil said:

I'm ambivalent about the MR, that one I really have to think about before responding to it in detail. I don't necessarily oppose it in principle, and I get why you want to dole it out incrementally, but I feel like magic resistance at such a low level might be inappropriate just because that 5% gets inflated to more like 30% or 40% if you're facing more-or-less level-appropriate foes.

I don't follow you. 5% is 5%, regardless of what the level of your foe might be.

[Desparil]

Mar 21, 2023 7:38:25 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

Mar 21, 2023 7:20:47 GMT -6 Desparil said:

I'm ambivalent about the MR, that one I really have to think about before responding to it in detail. I don't necessarily oppose it in principle, and I get why you want to dole it out incrementally, but I feel like magic resistance at such a low level might be inappropriate just because that 5% gets inflated to more like 30% or 40% if you're facing more-or-less level-appropriate foes.

I don't follow you. 5% is 5%, regardless of what the level of your foe might be.

Nominal magic resistance is against an 11th level caster, +5% for every level below and -5% for every level above. So against a 4th level orc shaman, 5% nominal MR is effective 40% of the time.

[Desparil]

Having thought some more, I might be more inclined to leave behind the baggage of magic resistance, and instead go with something like the benefit from a Scarab of Protection:

The possessor gains a +1 bonus to all saving throws vs. spell. If no save is normally possible, he gets a one in 20 chance of saving, adjusted by any other magical protections that normally give bonuses to saving throws. Thus, this device allows a saving throw vs. spell at base 20 against magic missile attacks, for example. If the target also has a +4 bonus for magical armor and a +1 bonus for a ring of protection, any roll of 15 or better would indicate that the missiles did no damage.

I'd also specify that this works vs. rods, staves, and wands as well; it seems obvious that it should, but the description above unfortunately neglects to address a Wand of Magic Missiles or the like. Could probably extend the bonus to death magic as well, since the Scarab of Protection has a different, charge-based mechanic for protecting from those. Then maybe scale it like the UA barbarian's bonus to saving throws, so it's +1 at 4th level up to +5 at 20th level. This would moderate the effect at lower levels, I think, while also getting around the top-end problem whereby a 20th level fighter being attacked by a 20th level caster has his 50% magic resistance reduce to a paltry 5%.

[thegreyelf]

Mar 21, 2023 20:01:56 GMT -6 Desparil said:

Mar 21, 2023 7:38:25 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

I don't follow you. 5% is 5%, regardless of what the level of your foe might be.

Nominal magic resistance is against an 11th level caster, +5% for every level below and -5% for every level above. So against a 4th level orc shaman, 5% nominal MR is effective 40% of the time.

No, that's magic resistance for monsters in the monster manual. The magic resistance as it is presented in my fighter is 5% per each even level, PERIOD. Casters of HIGHER than 11th level reduce it. Those BELOW 11th level do not. 5% is 5%. There's no way in which 5% becomes 40%. Except, you know, when they go from 35% to 40%.