Fighter

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This particular thread attempts to continue the conversation begun at 210. The removal of the Death Knight and Thief backgrounds before 0.7, and current discussion concerning the potential removal of the Paladin background taking place at The Shining One (TSO), lend it additional emphasis.

Please refer to 2867 for another, current Mantis report relevant to this issue.

E. Grasland's work, found at http://r1gm.free.fr/Crawl/crawlSS_052_start.txt, can be referred to for extremely useful data during this discussion, though note that this was composed for 0.5.2.

Additionally, the Chaosforge wiki has an excellent writeup on how AC and EV currently work that may be referenced as well, at http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=AC_nerf.

“When DCSS allowed every race to take every class, it significantly shrank class-space. (Before, which races could take them was a major source of class differentiation.) Class space has been overcrowded ever since. So if a class seems weak, default response should be to get rid of it… I think getting rid of either Fighters or Gladiators is equally good, but the game doesn't have room for both. (Especially since the addition of Arcane Marksmen pushes Hunters in the direction of melee.)… Class X (sic) exists is not a sufficient argument that class X ought to exist. not every Crawl playstyle needs its own class. In fact one of the best things about Crawl, is how unimportant classes are for character development. The only reason you have different classes, is to offer different starting points for early-game development. So there is no reason to have separate classes for heavy-armor vs. light-armor fighters, or for fighters that also use thrown weapons, vs. ones that don't. it is trivially easy for the player to pick any of those paths given a generic starting package.” lemuel 210

I really like the distinction made by Lemuel. It is true that player can switch to a lot of playstyles in early game (throwing, ranged weapons, melee). The only “classes” which are necessary are those which are hard to create in early game. I think god worshippers fit the description — Ecumenical Temple is between D:4 and D:7. This is especially the case for spellcasters, because some of the books are very rare and Spc can be slow to build up. Ring mails are common, and Dodging doesn't require anything at all. b0rsuk

I have a similar, but slightly different, take on backgrounds (the current terminology for classes): backgrounds should be (1) thematically well-defined (so that what you get is not too far from what you expect), (2) different enough from each other, and (3) useful. The last point is crucial: a background should give you something that helps you survive on D:1 and D:2. In this regard, most caster backgrounds are good, as are hunters and some religious backgrounds (Elyvilon, Trog, Lugonu but TSO not so much). Gladiator is good because the nets are very useful early on: they often allow an escape where you wouldn't have got away otherwise. Fighters are not that good, although the defense of mail plus shield is noticeable. (Note that the workings of EV penalties have been completely redone for 0.7.) Altogether, it would be possible to remove the Fighter and stick with the gladiator (I agree that this in the more interesting choice than vice versa) but I'd feel a bit uneasy about having no AC approach to the game. One option would be: remove the Fighter for now, wait a bit, and come up with a knight-from-the-books background later (e.g. +1 scale mail, helmet/cap, buckler, weapon chosen among the “knightly” weapons (long sword, axe, mace) fitting best aptitude-wise). — dpeg 2010-07-02 17:17

“Right now the distinction between fighters and gladiators is a tad dubious.” dis_astranagant 1754108

“For what it's worth, I think we should get rid of the plain Fighters and keep the nicely differentiated Monk, Berserker, Gladiator, Knights and Crusader.” jpeg 210

“Once the distinction between light and heavy armours is removed, which I understand is going to happen, Gladiators will be in need of an overhaul or outright removal anyway.” maiermrk 2809226

”[Differentiate] the classes based on race. Certain fighters could be more like gladiators. This removes the problem of having too many similar classes, while retaining the differentiation.” tgw 210

“Fighers, Gladiators, and Monks - following a suggestion of dpeg, create one Fighter class with a choice of dodging/armour and weapon, including None. You will get a shield, unless you chose EV-unarmed (shields hinder as much as armour, non-stackingly) or your chosen weapon is two-handed for your race (KoFi[trident]). (That bit about shields is sorear, not dpeg)” sorear 1955145

“Fighter is the only heavy armour class among [Monk, Berserker, Gladiator, Knights and Crusader].” tgw 210

“I think we probably ought to keep armour fighters separate from dodging 
fighters (gladiators).” xyblor 1955145

“I've never had a problem with Fi and Gl not being differentiated enough though, the light armour / heavy armour distinction is ok for example. Recent change from ring mail → leather armour as the starting armour for Gladiators was a necessary one in this light… Gladiators are quite fine now.” evktalo 1754108

“I'm not too sure about deleting the class entirely, but I think changing their skills and/or starting equipment around might be useful. Particuarly unarmed combat, which seems to be at odds to some extent with shields.” danei 210

“I oppose both a merger of the two backgrounds and the removal of either of them. The main issue I see for them right now (0.6) is that heavy armour is very weak, and if I understand the Armour formulae correctly, the Armour skill the fighter starts with does approximately nothing at low levels. All things being equal, a gladiator has better damage output and better survival early in the game, even before factoring in the throwing nets and even if they choose a hand axe/mace instead of a trident. This may simply be a heavy armour issue and not a background issue, but if I'm going to come up with changes to the backgrounds themselves that might help:

Gladiators have 4 AC/8 EV at the start, and Fighters have 5 of each. Fighters are also less accurate and slower, due to wearing scale mail. It seems counter to their purpose that they should want to pick up the first robe or leather armour that they can find, but that is currently the best option in most cases (aside from heavy-armour-exclusive races). I propose that they should start with a helm, like gladiators do. Maybe even gloves, too. Or alternatively, the scale mail they start in should be enchanted to +1 or +2, both to encourage its use and to provide a little extra protection.” — danei 2010-06-06 23:22

I think we should keep Fighters but disallow them for the races that can't wear scale mail (Dr, Sp, Tr, Og). And get rid of the claws option for ghouls, it's too similar to Mo. Maybe Gladiators should be allowed to start with a falchion, since there will probably be no more Paladins. If you want to further differentiate Fi and Gl, maybe get rid of the shield. The distinction could be Fi=scale mail+shield, Gl=good weapon+helmet. Maybe even upgrade mace to ankus for all races of Gl not just ogres. — xyblor 2010-06-30 19:56

I really like the idea Components for Backgrounds. As I said on that page, it completely removes the issue because suddenly players would be simply unable to select both heavy armour and Ogre components. Rather than coming up with a version of each class for every race, place some basic restrictions which make sense and let players build anything. b0rsuk

Even so, we want a good set of templates anyway, which is why the discussion about Gl and Fi is useful. — dpeg 2010-07-02 17:17

If Gl becomes the background whose major asset is that it starts with a heavy weapon (e.g. sabre, falchion, trident, ankus, or war axe), then it would make sense to take away those weapons from all the other backgrounds. As far as I know, this includes the trident for some Mf backgrounds and ankus for some Og backgrounds. Otherwise Gl won't have much appeal to those races. It would be nice if Mf had to decide between a trident and the book of war chants, because right now MfCr is a no-brainer compared to MfGl. — xyblor 2010-07-31 22:54