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When RPGs let you put points into stats, warrior classes invariably have to pump STR and CON.
This is something that D&D actually kind of got right in some ways, because both Dexterity and Intelligence could contribute to a good Fighter. Intelligence provided a threshold for learning some Feats, and Dexterity contributed to AC and could become a Fighter's primary offensive stat with the right feat. On the other hand, it's also the reason vidya RPGs nearly invariably have Strength and Constitution as the only viable stats for warrior-type classes.
I mean, it would be super-cool if more games used a setup where there were equivalent benefits to whatever your high stats might be.
This applies to rogue and mage archetypes, too, but they seem to have a greater degree of diversity in their roles. In fact, warriors scarcely get to be good damage-dealers these days -- it's always tank duty. Because, you know, a warrior's role is to intentionally take hits in combat. Swordslingers are pretty much the ultimate buttmonkey of fantasy games right now.
Some of you might think this makes me mad.
This post inspired by wanting to play Dragon Age again, and realising that if I played a warrior, I would have to take a stupidly narrow character build based entirely on meeting good gear equip requirements rather than developing my character's tangible skills. But I totally want to have a man-to-man showdown with Loghain again so...
Comments
>expecting realism in video games
Ah, this reminds me that I made the first page of a character sheet that TES TRPG we talked about awhile ago, but never posted it...I'll have to do that.
I want to see a game where pumping INT for a warrior gives them abilities to screw with spellcasters or something.
Yeah, this is pretty true for Dragon Age; I pumped literally nothing but Strength on my character, and it worked a lot better than I had expected.
Also, Full Metal Alchemist. At least with Major Armstrong.
But having an aspect of spellcasting based off each stat would certainly be a thing. Strength would be a good one for measuring the amount of raw power one can control. Dexterity for how mobile they can be while casting. Constitution for how well they resist the adverse effects of spells. Intelligence for how advanced (but not powerful, that's Strength) a spell can be and so on.
This is pretty much the same issue. Dexterity and Cunning are the designated rogue stats, so pumping them was a surefire way to end up with a good build.
Actually, it would be interesting if you made a setting where people fought indirectly, using magic. But then you might still have a "force" stat to measure one's persistence/strength of mind when pushing against an opposing magical power, or something.
Actually, I didn't even use Dex for combat- I used it for lockpicking, where it made sense, although I think it was also my to-hit modifier, so that may be a lie.
In the end, I used my Cunning modifier to deal damage~
Does that mean you used your wits in battle?
And I hope your character class was Linguist.
You are a very horrible person >
It means something, I forget what it said.
I'm toying with these ideas for my shitty D&D homebrew. Out of the four specializations for Fighters, only one is the STR-CON classic, with the others being STR-INT, STR-CHA and STR-DEX respectively.
I'd prefer a more orientally-inspired system where instead of thinking "FIGHTER SWING BIG SWORD, DURR", we actually have a variety of different weapon-wielding styles for each type of weapon. So you have styles of shortsword wielding, maybe some of which use a shield, and none (or all but one) of which involve merely swinging as hard as you can at the enemy.
Riddle of Steel is a system which has already tried stuff like this and made it awesome.
You roll a number of dice less than or equal to your Combat Pool (CP) for an attack or defense, but there are two rounds before your CP refreshes, so you can have be careful with how you use it. Some abilities have an activation cost, where they provide some kind of benefit in return for spending some of your CP (typically one or two dice in cost, although some cost as much as five to begin with and others have a cost detemined by the player).
Your CP is defined by two things:
- Your proficiencies (if you're using a longswod and your longsword proficiency is 7, that contributes 7 dice to your CP).
- Your attributes. There's a derived attribute called "reflex", which is your baseline CP. It's taken by averaging the physical attribute agility with the mental attribute wit, rounding down. So if you have 6 agility and 7 wit, that's (6+7)/2 = 6.5, or 6 with rounding.
So in the example above, the combatant would have a total CP of 13 between their reflex and proficiency, at least if they were using a longsword.
Same. Like, one style to hit really damned hard, one to break/bypass defenses, one to augment physical damage with magic, and one for tanky stuff.
Well, not all weapons would have styles that did everything. For example, you probably wouldn't have a shortsword style that aims for a great defense. Unless it involved swinging the shortsword quickly enough that you're using it to deflect projectiles, and even so, such a skill would probably cost a lot of experience (or similar) points, because it'd be very difficult to pull off. So if you want to tank and absorb blows, you want a different build.
In Dark Souls, a warrior needs more than those stats. There are 3 options on picking your main damage stat:
Some weapons scale better with DEX, some with STR so it depends on your choice of weapons. Some scale very badly with stats, so you have to rely on upgrading to increase your damage (but they usually have other good effects).
Aside from that, there are many other stats you can put your points in:
In the end, there's only 2 stats out of 8 that a warrior doesn't get much benefit from. Even then, its recommended that you put a few points into them for some core spells such as shields and stuff.
I'd think a shortsword is exactly what you want there, because the other hand would have a big-ass shield you'd use to actually tank and absorb blows.
I really don't like stats as an abstraction of combat honestly, I much prefer set-ups like Deus Ex where talents and idea builds take focus.
Actually, Zoe, Faith and Intelligence are very important damage scaling stats. Faith for Faith Knight builds, which are warrior-types that use Faith to empower their miracles and damage alike. Since even basic weapons can reach a B scaling, it's a pretty good deal. It was even better in Demon's Souls, where Faith weapons gave you passive regeneration in addition to all their other benefits.
Intelligence is for mage characters with magical weapons. Again, it's a major damage scaler.
In fact, I'd say they're better than Strength or Dexterity in those games because they provide significant additional benefits.
> Even then, its recommended that you put a few points into them for some core spells such as shields and stuff.
That presumes the system allows fighters to actually have spells in the first place.
^He was specifically talking about Dark Souls.
Oh okay.
Wait, I knew that. I was just complaining about how fighters have zip for magical ability in D&D.
Multiclassing is a thing.
Hey youre right Madass, completely overlooked that.
They also make the games far easier. <_<
The Faith Knight build was pretty hardcore in Demon's Souls because of the regeneration, which could stack. If you had a shield with regen, the regen ring and a Faith weapon, you were getting something like 8 health back a second. Defensive play styles became incredibly powerful underneath it, second only to Luck builds using the Blueblood sword.
Dark Souls balanced things out a bit better, but your Faith or Intelligence build can still deal incredibly heavy damage while providing the benefit of Miracles or Spells. I do miss the regneration that comes from Faith weapons, though...
@INUH: It's also horribly inconvenient. I like it if melee characters can still learn magic but they're just somewhat hampered at it.
For what it's worth, I remember being annoyed when FuSoYa left my party in FFIV and Kain rejoined. I was like, game, you broke up the one time my entire full party of five endgame-tier characters all had magic.
Well, yeah, it is inconvenient. It makes sense that if you've been learning to swordfight all your life, taking a break from that to learn magic for a bit instead will make you weaker than someone who's just focusing on one.
And I think there are classes designed to do both...
I don't really think fighter classes necessarily need to be able to use magic. If it's a party-based game, then there's really no need since one of the other characters in the party would probably be way better at it anyway. If it's a single-character game, then fighters having magic would make a bit more sense, but usually games give you ways around having to use magic anyway (plentiful healing items and such), so as long as fighters still have a variety of abilities available to them beyond just attacking, then it shouldn't be too bad if they can't use magic.
^^^ Would you really want to fight Zeromus without being able to avoid Big Bang?