Fighter Class Types in NWN

[hamakto]

Please correct me if I missed something on the forums (I tried to catch things up). But as I understand it if you make a GWF, and you later want to go Sword and Board style (due to some loot or trades).

You are sorta out of luck for your character.

Or am I missing something in the game setup? This narrow pidgeon-holeing of characters and their feat trees could very well be a disaster.

Having everything defined for a fighter based on a weapon (equipment) choice that is locked in at 1st level is... well... difficult to equate to DnD.

Ham

[quorforged]

Yeah, so far it looks like Great Weapon Fighter and Guardian Fighter are completely different classes, no more related than a Cleric and a Wizard.

It's definitely not an ideal way to do it. Really given the current mechanics, the two Fighters should be renamed (say, to "Slayer" and "Guardian"), and not called "Fighter" at all, but that's not really an option given the weight of PnP tradition.

Of course, I'd rather they dropped the current mechanics, and made GWF and Guardian just different default builds for Fighter, with others possible with customization. But that would probably require an overhaul that they're not willing to do.

[zenzee]

Having everything defined for a fighter based on a weapon (equipment) choice that is locked in at 1st level is... well... difficult to equate to DnD.

Ham

Never played D&D 3.x or 4e? The Table Top game system pushes you (as a Fighter) to pick a weapon and stick with it for all 20-30 levels. This is pure 3-4e D&D.

[denkasaeba]

That is to be said. Maybe you can choose a very tanky paragon path for your GWF and being able to easily off-tank. Or some defensive feats.

I think it's more than black (tank) and white (gwf pure dps): there are many shades of grey (no, not 30). What we don't know is whether those shades will be viable.

[iamtruthseeker]

I'll confirm, treat them as separate classes except for certain Non Weapon skills.

[tornio]

Looks promising!

[adamantium1]

Never played D&D 3.x or 4e? The Table Top game system pushes you (as a Fighter) to pick a weapon and stick with it for all 20-30 levels. This is pure 3-4e D&D.

I played 3.5 for many years and still do and you most certainly can do both sword and board and use a great weapon. In fact you could also have a crossbow, javeling, bow etc as well. You can specialize in multiple weapons as well if you so desired.

As for 4e i really can't say since i played it once and hated every moment of it. Its quite frankly a different game from AD&D, 2, 3 and 3.5.

[quorforged]

I played 3.5 for many years and still do and you most certainly can do both sword and board and use a great weapon. In fact you could also have a crossbow, javeling, bow etc as well. You can specialize in multiple weapons as well if you so desired.

You can do all sorts of things. But you just end up being even more gimped on an already severely gimped class. The mechanics of the fighter in 3.5 strongly encourage specialization.

[denkasaeba]

As for 4e i really can't say since i played it once and hated every moment of it. Its quite frankly a different game from AD&D, 2, 3 and 3.5.

As 3.5 is different from ad&d and 2nd edition.

[lawfulstupid]

You can do all sorts of things. But you just end up being even more gimped on an already severely gimped class. The mechanics of the fighter in 3.5 strongly encourage specialization.

I'll second (third?) this notion. The weapon focus feats were just too indispensable for a fighter not to take without hamstringing them. And that means picking one kind of weapon and sticking with it so you get all those weapon focus bonuses.

I've made peace with being pigeon-holed. It's going to happen regardless of how many bad builds that the devs throw in there.