Thread 3866484

How do you make a pure fighter (no MP) interesting in an RPG?

Hit things.

Give them abilities to affect the tactical situation. Grappling, tripping, disarming, pushing, pulling, stunning, etc. then you can also make hitting things more interesting, like sweep attacks or conditional crits.

It's really a dearth of imagination on the part of developers, or obnoxious devotion to making casters the stars of the show, if all fighters can do every round is hit thing. Every single study of combat in history involves maneuvers to put opponents in disadvantageous positions rather than just trying to whack them harder, and this was especially true when armor got really good and having a dominant position to be able to deliver a killing blow was imperative.

leap hundreds of feat in a single bound, climb cliffs faster and better than a mountain goat, holding breath underwater for hours while swimming and fighting. any sort of epic feats of toughness and strength are viable.

>>3866586
>superhero capeshit
That's literally magic, anon. It's literally magic even in those stories.

>>3866484 (OP)
odd techniques and perhaps fighting game inspired combos.

>>3866597
it's a just game bro, chill out. it's all for fun.

>>3866484 (OP)
Notice how this isnt a problem for action and tactical rpgs?

anyway give them a horse

>>3866484 (OP)
I'd like an RPG that has somewhat forced party composition of like 4 fighters and 1 mage, with the mage being vastly more tactically critical for anything than any of the fighters. But the fighters have complicated rules for blocking and interception that make them as interesting as a unit of 4 for facilitating and protecting the mage as the mage itself.

>>3866484 (OP)
Make it a tactical game where tanking, strength, size and hand-to-hand melee abilities have tactical significance. Emphasize the group-level tactical decisions more than first-person gimmicks.

>>3866698
I'd do the opposite, were I to ever replay Dragon's Dogma, I would do so with a martial main character, and three custom sorceress pawns to sit in the back and spam triple meteors and shit

>>3866484 (OP)
In a world with magic, if you want to fight strong threats you also need magic, period. What lots of fantasy series do for non-magical classes like the "fighter" is having him use a legendary sword he got after being blessed by the goddess, alongside a magical bow he got as a reward from saving a village of elves, an invisibility cape he got from the corpse of a wizard he killed, a ring he got from fulfilling a prophecy and so on. At this point your fighter is another flavor of a spellsword except without MP.

>>3866830
>In a world with magic, if you want to fight strong threats you also need magic, period
Wrong.

Equipment and superior combat ability. If you just tack on special abilities, then you're making them casters that don't use MP. Base a fighter's variance on their equipment, which dictates fighting style, and you don't need special abilities to add flavor. Tactics and strategy comes from positioning and fighting style (equipment). Magical equipment further enhances this idea. You need to let fighters use everything well enough, though. No gatekeeping basic equipment use. Fighters shine when they are low micro blenders or juggernauts, buffed up by the team and their magical equipment. Leave the micro intensive stuff to thieves and casters or you'll end up with players getting burnt out by too much micromanagement.

>>3866830
>In a world with magic, if you want to fight strong threats you also need magic, period.
No, you hire an assassin or a bounty hunter, aka someone who can stealth and use poison or traps.

Give them the ability to pin down enemy mages and force their tongues into the mouths of those mages to prevent spellcasting

>>3866830
>in a world with magic
Interesting start
>You need magic, period
False, when the caster is out of spells (vancian) or MP (most good games), suddenly you can just fuck him in front of his friends.

>>3866906
And make all enemy mages females

>>3866912
Well, if they're high enough level they basically become an infinite fount of magic, so that doesn't work anymore.

>>3866484 (OP)
By role-playing.

>>3866906
>Give them the ability to pin down enemy mages and force their tongues into the mouths of those mages to prevent spellcasting
Interesting start
>>3866914
>And make all enemy mages females
Ruined it

>>3866484 (OP)
D&D "solved" this with Battle Master.

>>3866484 (OP)
Might and magic dark messiah solved this ages ago. Make combat fun and engaging simple as.

>>3866914
Women are not rational enough to be trusted with magic.

>>3866698
Its an SRPG but Langrisser has individual generals, some of whom are mages, and from there you can deploy simple units like warriors around them so you kind of create the dynamic you are describing.

what's even the difference between magic and non-magic attacks in most games?
one you're pushing a button "cast" a "spell" that does 10 damage
the other you're pushing a button to "throw" a "punch" that does 10 damage.

>>3866570
SPBP

>>3867020
>video "games" reduced to button presses
Whatever will we do?!?!

>>3866914
Wrong. Men are the incarnation of fire and air, the incorporeal spirits. Women are the incarnation of water and earth, the physical, the corporeal.

>>3867120
Women are meant for healing: water and earth are healing elements.
Fire and air are killing elements, and are suitable to men.
A woman should only be using healing magic channeled through the infinite love and wisdom of Allah.

>>3867402
>Allah
Stopped reading here. Opinion discarded.

>>3867406
>you stopped reading at the end
Thank you.

>>3867077
I don't think you understood, or perhaps I just worded it wrong.
In a lot of rpgs the only difference between an attack and magical attack is a name or animation. It's only magic because the game tells you it's magic.
If you want a pure fighter character, how do you want to actually convey that when most rpgs have utterly barebones combat mechanics to begin with?

>>3866484 (OP)
The Dark EYe (basically german D&D) did this thing were warriors and soldiers were separate classes cuz it included negative traits. A soldier is disciplined and thus less prone to act violently out of the blue like a warrior would, who'd be essentially a thug. You'd have to give strong RP reasons to make you choose one over the other (all crpg versions of TDE suck becuase of it)

>>3867445
>In a lot of rpgs the only difference between an attack and magical attack is a name or animation.
Name three.
In any of the RPGs I can think of, there are numerous differences.
>Damage type (fire, holy, blunt, slashing, etc)
>Resource cost (Mana, etc)
>Effect radius

>>3867470
since all these distinctions actually exist, what's op's issue?
sounds like pure fighters with interesting mechanics are already a thing

>>3867477
I responded to an incorrect claim about there being no objective differences between melee and magic.
FagOP is complaining about melee characters specifically not having enough choice.

>>3867623
>FagOP is complaining
That's quite the projection.

>>3867631
Wrong, it's a purely objective assessment.
OP did not bother thinking for more than two seconds about the topic before posting the low-effort bait. It's an old tale, predating the spread of AI. But OP, cocksucker he may be, is at least not completely braindead like 3867477, who fails to understand the most basic shit and posts anyway. This typical of /vrpg/, which has always been infested by people with severe mental handicaps.

>>3867020
physical defense and magical defense
Next question please

Fighters are cunningly brutal, and hit you when you’re looking.
Mages are brutally cunning, and hit you when you’re not looking.

>>3867721
If it was objectively true, then you would be able to point to the exact words used that establish complaint, but you haven't even done that and you can't.

>>3866570
You underestimate the importance of positioning and equipment usage. Positioning is inherently vital.

>>3867758
>>3867997
Can you retards try posting on-topic?

>>3868253
>posts off-topic about others posting off-topic
Based retard.

>>3866484 (OP)
If the setting's grounded? Be yourself.
If it's magical, you use magic.
>Actually, a fighter with the strength to swing a greatsword like it was a butter knife is NOT magic!
lol

>>3868260
This is just fantasy shit, so I am going to accept it if someone calls me a faggot, but fighters can be useful a lot sooner than spellcasters since swords never run out of uses in most RPGs.

>>3868274
>but fighters can be useful a lot sooner than spellcasters since swords never run out of uses in most RPGs.
Well that depends on the dev.
Some will give warriors totally-not-mana or stuff like rage. Other as you say will go venetian and have the mage become a walking pile of bones after some spellcasts while the warrior is all good to go.

>>3868419
>Some will give warriors totally-not-mana or stuff like rage.
Stamina actually makes some sense. Rage building and similar is mostly just a gamey gimmick.