How fighters got shafted

[jrients]

As I read the original three books the ability to wield magic swords is a class ability of fighters. I'm looking to use the Thief, Ranger, Bard, and Paladin in an upcoming campaign, but I feel like I'm shorting the Fighting Men with this proliferation of classes able to wield magic swords. Not letting those classes wield magic swords seems nonsensical. Clearly Sir Galahad, the Gray Mouser and Aragorn would wield an enchanted blade if one were available for their use.

Any advice or suggestion on how to offset this affront to the dignity of the lowly Fighter? Right now the only obvious solution is to forgo the later classes.

[coffee]

Are you using the ability modifiers from Greyhawk? You could limit the exceptional strength (18/xx) to fighters only, if you wanted to.

Or you could allow it for the sub-classes of fighters; that puts them ahead of the Thief and Bard.

As far as the Ranger and Paladin, they have restrictions as well as benefits, so they should be okay.

And anyway, nobody HAS to play a fighter if they don't want to.

[calithena]

If you have rangers and paladins, they should pretty clearly be able to use magic swords. You could deny them to thieves if you really wanted, but the thief has it hard enough already IMO.

You could give fighters a +1 to hit in all situations or something, make them the clear 'go-to' combatant class.

[doc]

IIRC there is a small note in the OD&D fighter rules that states (for whatever reason) that fighters can see invisible faeries. I take this to mean that fighters, by dint of their "ready for anything" attitude, have a type of "sixth sense" and can detect things that others might not be able to pick up on. This might include invisible creatures, ambushes, lies, etc. If you want to beef up the fighting man a bit, you might think about adding some sort of rule to reflect this sort of thing.

Doc

[makofan]

Under the Pixies entry on pg 16 of Monsters and Treasure, it talks about their invisibilty "although certain monsters such as dragons and high level fighters will be aware of their presence"

[foster1941]

In another thread, someone mentioned having a house-rule that intelligent swords prefer to be owned by fighters, rather than thieves, and will act accordingly. That's a pretty brilliant solution, IMO because it creates fun roleplaying situation, reinforces the archetypal notion of thieves as somewhat hapless meddlers with magic -- they can try to use it, but they can never really master it (analogous to the failure chance for thieves using scrolls) -- and addresses the balance issue all in one.

(While this idea could be handled strictly through role-playing, those looking for a mechanical representation might have, say, a sword's Ego score count double (or x1.5 if double is too much) when wielded by a thief rather than a fighter.)

[philotomy]

foster1941 said:

In another thread, someone mentioned having a house-rule that intelligent swords prefer to be owned by fighters, rather than thieves, and will act accordingly.

Not sure if that was my post or not, but that's how I handle it (see my musing on magic swords). I like your idea on modifying the sword's Ego, if a mechanical consequence is desired.

WRT Paladins and Rangers, I'd definitely allow them to use magic swords. I'm not sure if I'd give Fighters any additional powers or bonuses, though. If you think that Rangers and Paladins have too many advantages compared to the Fighting Man, you might considering adjusting their XP requirements.

[foster1941]

philotomy said:

Not sure if that was my post or not, but that's how I handle it (see my musing on magic swords).

Yup, that's what I was thinking of (from the musing: "In my OD&D game, magic swords tend to prefer Fighting Men over Thieves, so while Thieves can technically wield a magic sword, the thief is likely to have "difficulties" with his weapon")

[crimhthanthegreat]

When I use Greyhawk Supplement I, it is the only time I use Paladins, Rangers, Bards and sometimes Thieves. When I use just the 3 LBB's then I only run Fighting-Men, Clerics and Magic-Users so it is not an issue then.

All of these classes can use magic swords, but as others have posted the swords don't like Thieves and very few have any fondness for Bards unless they come a few particular locations (which makes them rare). In addition, while a Fighting-Man can use nearly (99.9%) any magic sword not all magic swords are suitable for Paladins or Rangers, especially Paladins. I only allow Exceptional Strength for Fighting-Men, Paladins and Rangers and Paladins and Rangers have restrictions as well as steeper experience requirements than do Fighting-Men. When I don't use thieves, some of the thieving abilities get spread out among the other classes to a certain extent.

[Deleted]

I agree with calithena & coffee; if you're using exceptional strength, you could limit it to fighters only, or you could give them a + to hit or damage; on the other hand, you might also expand the damage potential a wee bit for fighters (maybe something like a re-roll for them as opposed to a standard roll for the sub-types). This might help them shine a bit.

[tgamemaster1975]

I pretty much do what foster, philotomy and Crimhthan do. I don\'t really feel fighters got shafted, since paladins and rangers are rare and magic swords don\'t like thieves, and bards are really rare.

[coffee]

Another little gem from Greyhawk is that Fighting-Men (which I would take to include Paladins) are the ONLY class that gets to use high dexterity to modify their armor class. Not thieves, not magic-users, not clerics.

This goes a long way to not shaft the fighters.

[foster1941]

Many of the additions from Greyhawk -- strength to hit & damage bonuses and exceptional strength, Dex AC bonus, paladins, the revised HD charts, and variable damage & AC adjustments by weapon type -- were meant to strengthen fighters in comparison to magic-users, and Gygax freely admitted this at the time in SR/TD articles, but the problem is that 3 of those changes only benefit fighters with high stats, and 2 of them (exceptional strength and the paladin) only benefit fighters with really high stats (18 strength, 17+ charisma). While a paladin (lay on hands, cure disease, immune to disease, +2 on all saving throws) with Str 18/76 (+3 to hit, +4 damage) and Dex 16 (-2 AC) is easily on a power level equal to, or exceeding, a magic-user, that's small consolation to a fighter with Str 15 (+1 to hit), Dex 13, Cha 16 (which is particularly galling since pre-Supp I those would be considered exceptionally good stats!). And thus the spectre of stat-inflation first rears its ugly head -- in order to remain competitive post-Supp I a fighter pretty much needs an 18 strength (and preferably 1 or 2 more stats in the 16-18 range as well).

[coffee]

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I'm going to use just the 3LB for the players (and judicious cherry-picking from other sources for me).

[Finarvyn]

jrients, you've hit upon a classic problem in game balance -- as more subclasses get introduced, those subclasses tend to have a focus that is more cool than the original. They have special abilities or other things that make them more interesting, so why play a "basic" class anymore?

To a certain extent, this happened to the Magic-user as well in 2E. Characters could be "specialist" wizards with a focus on fireballs or something like that (okay, it was schools they focus on, not one spell) but had to give up something else. Well, if you don't like casting those "something else" spells anyway, where's the drawback? Suddenly, there's a loophole and you can be better than the "general" magic user.

It also happens with race, if the GM removes level restrictions. Why play humans?

Same thing with Rangers and Paladins. What's the drawback? With Paladins you at least have the limit as to how many magical and monitary treasures you can keep, but often players find ways around that. You get the benefits without losing much, so why play a "basic" fighter any more?

I like some of the suggestions posted here already. Giving a bonus level to the "basic human fighter" is a quick and easy fix. ;D