Fighter ability bonuses

[rogatny]

It has long been my understanding and practice that the extraordinary strength ability bonus and the added hit points for a 17 or 18 constitution was intended to be for the fighter AND its sub-classes. That is the fighter, paladin, and ranger (and the barbarian, if you're into that sort of thing).

However, there isn't much textual support for that in the PHB reading. It just says "fighter" in the Str and Con write up. I know, I know. Subsequent products were replete with paladins and rangers with extraordinary strengths and high hit point totals. True. But from the PHB text alone, one could certainly argue that only the fighter gets the bonuses.

That brings me to my question of what "should" the rule be. Under my long-time understanding of the rules, the fighter has the following advantages over the paladin and/or ranger:
1. Easier to qualify for, the significance of which varies greatly depending on ability generation method used;
2. Quicker advancement than the paladin;
3. Slightly more hit points than the ranger;
4. No "role-playing" restrictions on amount of possessions, alignment, henchmen and hirelings, associations, and etc.;
5. More (not necessarily more powerful or better) followers at name level;
6. The ability (shared by the ranger, but apparently not the paladin) to found a freehold and collect taxes therefrom;
7. Receives multiple attacks sooner than the ranger; and
8. More initial weapon proficiencies.

So the question is, is that enough to offset the many great powers the ranger and paladin get?

I think my answer is, "yes, unless..." or "no, if..." By which I mean, if you run your campaign in such a way that the fighter's advantages are emphasized, those advantages are probably enough.

However, if you let players pick whatever class they want regardless of the rarity of said class implied by the required ability scores, if you don't do experience and training by the book, if you don't enforce the ranger and paladin "role-playing" restrictions, if you play a game which de-emphasizes the importance of henchmen, hirelings, and followers, if you play a game that doesn't have the stronghold "end-game," if you don't use the combat rules that give advantages to characters with multiple attacks or additional weapon proficiencies... If you don't do any of those things, you probably need to give the fighter something else to get someone to play one over a ranger or paladin. And giving the Con and Str bonuses exclusively to the fighter is probably that thing.

I think it's notable that other than the combat rules, all of the rules I listed that advantage the fighter really only come into great effect in a campaign style game. In one-off games, most of those rules simply won't come into play. So maybe whether the ability bonuses are exclusive to the fighter or not should be decided based on what type of game you're playing.

[T. Foster]

Two more advantages of fighters over rangers and paladins:

1. Fighters are available to all races and have a much wider selection of multi-classing opportunities (half-elf or half-orc cleric/fighter, half-elf or elf fighter/magic-user, gnome fighter/illusionist, dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, halfling or half-orc fighter/thief, half-orc fighter/assassin, half-elf cleric/fighter/magic-user, half-elf or elf fighter/magic-user/thief), whereas paladins are human only (no multiclassing) and rangers are only human (no multiclassing) or half-elves (multiclass as cleric/ranger only).

2. Paladins and rangers, as subclasses, are technically "optional" rules, meaning that at least theoretically the DM can simply forbid the players from having characters of those classes.

Of course neither of these are worth much to a human character in a campaign where the DM hasn't forbidden either of the sub-classes. I tend to think #1 (on your list - the stat qualifications) is really the key -- in a game where stats are rolled in order it's hard enough to qualify for either of these classes that it's justified that in those rare cases where they come up that they're better than a standard fighter, and in a game where stats are assigned the qualifications force sub-optimal choices on the players -- a paladin has to burn a 17+ on Charisma and a 13+ (IIRC) on Wisdom, a ranger has to burn a 14+ on Wisdom and a 12+ (IIRC) on Int which, unless the player rolled really well or the DM is really generous means there likely aren't going to be enough other high (15+ rolls) for Str, Dex, and Con, so at least one of those scores is probably going to suffer compared to a standard fighter with the same stat array. Even UA's infamous Method V reflects this, by forcing paladins, for instance, to use their 9d6 roll on Charisma instead of Strength.

Which isn't enough in itself to bring the fighter into "balance" with the paladin and ranger (I think they're still pretty clearly superior), but when combined with all the other factors it helps, and keeps the fighter from being completely outclassed all the time.

[Matthew]

Both paladins and rangers get access to exceptional strength. As far as textual evidence goes you do not need to look much further than the strength spell. I find that the experience progression and attribute based experience bonus is enough to make the fighter attractive over the ranger or paladin, but in practice I generally do not use those subclasses.

[rogatny]

Both paladins and rangers get access to exceptional strength. As far as textual evidence goes you do not need to look much further than the strength spell. I find that the experience progression and attribute based experience bonus is enough to make the fighter attractive over the ranger or paladin, but in practice I generally do not use those subclasses.

Comparing the fighter and ranger xp progressions is interesting. The ranger starts out slightly slower than the fighter, significantly so from about 2nd to 5th level, but then closes the gap and actually gets to 9th level quicker than the fighter. (It would be at the same time, if we assume the fighter has an xp bonus and the ranger doesn't, in which case, the ranger passes the fighter at 10th level.) The fighter then passes the ranger back up at 13th, and remains faster from then on.

Why? Who knows. But I wouldn't point to the experience chart as a place where the fighter has a significant advantage over the ranger, especially if we're assuming that pcs are going into semi-retirement in the 12th to 15th level range.

[Matthew]

Very true. I forgot the experience progression was that way in first edition AD&D (as opposed to OD&D), maybe that is why the attack rate change comes later for rangers and paladins. I typically use a regular progression: 2,250, 4,500, 9,000, 18,000, 36,000, 72,000, 144,000, 275,000, 550,000, 825,000, 1,100,000, which hits twelfth level for the same amount as OD&D, and for fighters: 2,000, 4,000, 8,000, 16,000, 32,000, 64,000, 125,000, 250,000, 500,000, 750,000, 1,000,000, which hits twelfth level for the same amount as AD&D. Not that we often play higher than about ninth level in a campaign game! Might be worth mapping this progression change out between OD&D and AD&D:

OD&D Fighter	OD&D Ranger	AD&D Fighter	AD&D Ranger	AD&D Paladin
2,000	2,500	2,000	2,250	2,750
4,000	5,000	4,000	4,500	5,500
8,000	12,000	8,000	10,000	12,000
16,000	25,000	18,000	20,000	24,000
32,000	50,000	35,000	40,000	45,000
64,000	100,000	70,000	90,000	95,000
120,000	175,000	125,000	150,000	175,000
240,000	275,000	250,000	225,000	350,000
480,000	550,000	500,000	325,000	700,000
720,000	825,000	750,000	650,000	1,050,000
960,000	1,100,000	1,000,000	975,000	1,400,000
1,200,000	1,375,000	1,250,000	1,300,000	1,750,000

Yeah, that is a serious power up for the ranger class with AD&D, quite unlike the paladin class!

[Matthew]

Just thought it might be worth mapping out the experience requirements for the other three classes between OD&D and AD&D; second edition versions have been added for comparison (virtually no difference, unlike the fighter class, just filed off the 2,500 from 22,500 and 42,500 for the magician and thief respectively).

OD&D Magician	AD&D/1e Magician	AD&D/2e Magician
2,500	2,500	2,500
5,000	5,000	5,000
10,000	10,000	10,000
20,000	22,500	20,000
35,000	40,000	40,000
50,000	60,000	60,000
75,000	90,000	90,000
100,000	135,000	135,000
200,000	250,000	250,000
300,000	375,000	375,000
600,000	750,000	750,000
900,000	1,125,000	1,125,000

OD&D Cleric	AD&D/1e Cleric	AD&D/2e Cleric
1,500	1,500	1,500
3,000	3,000	3,000
6,000	6,000	6,000
12,000	13,000	13,000
25,000	27,500	27,500
50,000	55,000	55,000
100,000	110,000	110,000
200,000	225,000	225,000
400,000	450,000	450,000
600,000	675,000	675,000
800,000	900,000	900,000
1,000,000	1,125,000	1,125,000

OD&D Thief	AD&D/1e Thief	AD&D/2e Thief
1,200	1,250	1,250
2,400	2,500	2,500
4,800	5,000	5,000
9,600	10,000	10,000
20,000	20,000	20,000
40,000	42,500	40,000
60,000	70,000	70,000
90,000	110,000	110,000
125,000	160,000	160,000
250,000	220,000	220,000
375,000	440,000	440,000
500,000	660,000	660,000

Interesting to see the magician and cleric both hit level thirteen at the same time (1,125,001), and 125,000 experience points earlier than the fighter (1,250,001), whilst the thief is hitting level fifteen 150,000 earlier (1,100,001).

[genghisdon]

Interesting Matthew. I know rangers kick ass in 1e! Perhaps this knowledge contributed to the incredibly nerfed ranger of 2e?
The 2e ranger might be more palatable with a 1e XP table. Maybe.

[Matthew]

Heh, that seems quite likely now that you mention it. For myself I like to use the following tables:

A	B	C	D	E	F
1,250	1,500	1,750	2,000	2,250	2,500
2,500	3,000	3,500	4,000	4,500	5,000
5,000	6,000	7,000	8,000	9,000	10,000
10,000	12,000	14,000	16,000	18,000	20,000
20,000	24,000	28,000	32,000	36,000	40,000
40,000	48,000	56,000	64,000	72,000	80,000
80,000	96,000	112,000	128,000	144,000	160,000
175,000	200,000	225,000	250,000	275,000	300,000
350,000	400,000	450,000	500,000	550,000	600,000
525,000	600,000	675,000	750,000	825,000	900,000
700,000	800,000	900,000	1,000,000	1,100,000	1,200,000