The Fighter (A.K.A. What do you mean he hit me 4 times for 39 points each AND I have to roll fort save vs bitch slap?)

I've been seeing a lot of stuff about how the fighter is a worthless class. How that it isn't powerful because it can't cast spells and doesn't get a lot of skill points. That after 5th level fighters are useless.

For all of that I have to say... Have you even played a fighter past 5th level?

I really enjoy playing all the classes, but fighters have always been a favorite since my first real character was a fighter. Well, he ended up being a fighter magic-user at the end of it, but it was his fighter abilities that carried him through his adventuring career for the most part and the magic-user was added mainly for flavor rather than power. Anyway, fighters can be powerful in their own right. In fact, I don't believe that a single class is really any more powerful than the others. Each class has its pros and cons. And I'm not talking about all the other classes out of the other books, I'm talking core books.

The examples that I always see being given are a single 20th Level Fighter with no magic items goes up against a full powered 20th Level wizard, sorcerer, or other spellcaster. Yup, that is pretty much the only example ever given, just in different flavors.

A 20th level Fighter with no magic items attacking a fully equipped 20th level anything is a pretty poor example. A 20th level rogue with no items wouldn't fair any better. Neither would a Paladin, Barbarian, Cleric, Wizard, Sorcerer, Ranger, Druid, Bard, or Monk.... Okay, the monk might be able to do more while being nekkid but not much....Okay, so the monk would be able to stand up to most things... Fine, remove the monk from the list.. Anyway..

The point of the fighter isn't to be a blasting character. They aren't supposed to be the “gesture and a load of low level enemies just die”. They don't channel the divine power of their gods, they aren't a living embodiment of rage, they don't seek perfection of the body, and they aren't in touch with nature. Fighters are experts in martial combat. Play to that strength.

My example of a high level fighter, straight class.
Elric Kaliburn: Fighter, 20th level (I think) Specialization: Full Blade sword. Main Stat: Str 20
Items: Alchemical Full Blade (+2, Adamantine, Silver, Cold Iron) Could strike anything. - Non-Magical sword, Full plate of speed (+2 with haste for 10 rounds), Helm of Brilliance, Amulet of natural armor + 6, belt of Giant Str +6, Dancing Shield (large) +2, Boots of striding and springing, ring of water walking, ring of overland flight, cloak of protection +3, and a couple of other magical items that I can't remember at the moment.
Armor Class: 33 (dex +2), Hit points: In the 200+ range (good con and I rolled really lucky)
Feats: Weapon focus and specialization: Full Blade, improved sunder, cleave, power attack, great cleave, mobility, point blank shot, precise shot, dodge, lighting reflexes, iron will, eyes in the back of your head (from the fighters handbook), a combat reflexes, improved critical: Full Blade, and defensive sweep(a very broken feat from the ph2 or complete adventurer. What? I ran out of feats that I wanted for him and everyone else was using the other source books. This one feat was so broken I was accused of taking nothing but broken feats for all of the feats for this character).

Elric was a fighter. Pure and simple. His to hits were 32/27/22/17, and damage was 20-39 points meaning average damage was 28 points per hit with a critical being between 40-78 damage with 56 points on average meaning medium creatures have to roll fort save vs death. If Elric were to just hit and do average damage with each of his hits it would be 112 average, with the range of damage being 80-156 for non-spell damage. Only Meteor Swarm comes close to that damage and that's only once or twice when you look at Elric being able to dish it out EVERY round. Not to mention Elric's love of sundering weapons and cleaving into the soft wielders of the weapons.

Yes, a force cage would stop him in his tracks, but that is why he is with a group of adventurers. He's not alone. That is what the adventuring group is for. Elric was a contributing member of the group and extremely valuable in combat. He was one of the group’s 2 major damage dealers. The other being Calixto, the ranger.  That's another thing that is forgotten in these debates, an adventuring party. Everyone has a place, no one can do everything. The spell casters support the big damage dealers and help take out the lesser folks while the tanks bee-line for the big bad guy.

Try this one, who would win if they were in a null magic area, the 20th Level Fighter or 20th level Wizard? Neither! Cause the great big ancient red dragon stomped them into oblivion. HA!

Encumbrance and Equipment (A.K.A. Why wagons are handy in D&D.)

For a long time I've played in and run games where the players didn't have to worry about encumbrance with their equipment. Usually due to having magical bags to store the stuff in or having easy access to transports. However, in this new D&D campaign I'm starting, encumbrance is an issue. Players are not only having to watch how much they are carrying, but where they are carrying it (I need to be able to determine what pickpockets can get their hands on, hee hee).

Back long ago when I was playing AD&D, I had to worry about encumbrance and the weight of my character's equipment. After struggling with it for a little while, I realized that I could use a wagon! So from that moment, when my characters started getting enough loot/equipment they went and got a wagon. We almost always had hirelings that would watch the party's camp so I just gave them a bit extra gold and they watched my wagon as well. It caught on with other members of the group and soon everyone had wagons and boy did it get interesting. The best time was when the group had about 10 wagons, most of them were covered or enclosed and they all had magic on them in some form or another. We would circle them around our campsite, set up the watch, then put a cover over the whole thing with a hole in the center of the cover for the smoke to go out, and then activate the magics to make it secure. The group was about 15th level when doing this. We called it our portable canvas tower. Then the group would leave their hirelings and followers there at the camp and trudge into the dungeon, if we needed anything that was at camp, our mage would teleport back to it, grab the stuff and port back, it was easy.

Then someone ticked off a demon.

But that is another story. This is about the encumbrance and equipment.

Treasure has a weight, all treasure, and equipment has weight, so what happens when you combine both? Things get heavy, characters start to slow down. No more are the characters going to be carrying around 1000s of gold pieces at at time. Now, I'm not doing this to be mean (Though part of me is getting a bit of a sadistic kick out of it), but I wanted to do a "back to basics" game, even though it is in 3.5 D&D. So I wanted to count encumbrance again, get people to think about how they are going to accomplish these tasks they set out to do. And having to keep track of what your character is carrying is part of that. You have to plan more to get through. In all honesty, I think that the players will get more out of it since they are going to have to put more into it. And this is where a wagon would come in very handy.

Recently, I've found groups(not just members of my group, others that I have talked to as well) scoffing at the idea of having a wagon coming along with the group. This boggled my mind until I realized that no one was used to encumbrance. At the time it was easy to transport thousands of gold pieces and treasure, but not this time. This stuff can get heavy so it's time to figure out how you get the treasure back to town to sell it off. My suggestion? Get a wagon and a bunch of sacks. Big ones if you are lucky enough. Oh yeah, a horse to pull the wagon. I've seen groups forget to get a horse for their wagon. But remember, someone needs to watch the wagon while the characters are in the dungeon otherwise things might go missing.

Never underestimate the usefulness of a wagon.