Sorcerers vs. Fighters in 3.x DnD and Pathfinder

I have had enough of people telling me that fighters in 3.x are useless, especially with the many changes in pathfinder that further refine balance from 3.5. I’m going to compare a very simplistic fighter build and a very simplistic sorcerer build. Both of them are built for damage dealing, and I’ll compare how much damage they do per turn. I already know that from levels 1-5 the fighter does more damage, hands down. 6-10 it’s about the same, unless the party funnels a little bit of extra money into the fighters weapon. Meaningful tactical differences are that the mage does more damage whenever they can hit at least 3 targets, about the same if the mage can hit 2 targets, and less if they can hit only one.

What I’ll prove is that the fighter does more damage when taking a full attack action, and less damage when only using a standard action to attack. As such, at high levels the fighter remains highly immobile but highly damaging, and the mage is powerful at range and still has the option of a move action. This tends to fit with a common perception of the fighter as a very defensive character, as their roll will be to rapidly kill anything that gets close enough to the party to hurt the spellcasters. However, the way they fulfill this defensive roll is by being really good at doing a lot of damage, while also being too slow to effectively attack enemies that are not yet within 10 feet.

To be clear, there are many other ways to play spellcasters and fighters than these. I consider many of the other ways far more fun.

Sorcerer Build

As everyone who likes to play spellcasters knows, the spell school to use for dealing damage is evocation. Here are the spells, organized by sorcerer level (not spell level):

Sorcerer Level	Spell
12	Chain Lightning: 12d6, ref half.
14	Delayed Blast Fireball. 14D6, reflex half. HOWEVER, Empowered Cone of Cold with Heighten Spell feat is better: 21d6, ref half.
16	Empowered, Heightened Chain Lightning: 25d6, reflex half.
18	Mazimized and Heightened Chain Lightning: 108 damage, reflex half. It’s better than meteor swarm for damage, but not area of effect.

The Sorcerer will require particular feats to benefit this spell list: Spell Focus (Evocation), Greater Spell Focus (Evocation). empowered spell, heightened spell, and (before level 18) maximized spell.

High intelligence helps increase save DC, which means enemies are less likely to reduce the damage I will thus assume the character started the game with 20 intelligence, and put every stat increase into intelligence.

Finally, the spellcaster will need an intelligence boosting hat. Headband of vast intelligence +6 is easily affordable by level 12, and the other mental stat boosting hats won’t increase intelligence more than that.

Sorcerer Damage Per Turn

All of these sells are reflex saves for half, and use six sided dice for damage. I’ll treat each dice as 3.5 points of damage, and then use half of that value for a failed save. Then I’ll multiply the value of a failed save by the percentage chance of succeeding at the saving throw, add it to the value of half the damage multiplied by the percentage chance of failing the saving throw. That will give us the most likely amount of damage per turn.

To determine the enemies save bonuses, I just used the average of all monsters in the Bestiary (the first one) of that CR. Then I used an average. I think this is the part where a small sample size will introduce the greatest possibility of error. Especially given the results of level 18, which make no sense. Of course, all the level 18 monsters are absolutely gigantic, and large monsters have low dex and more HP to compensate.

CR	Reflex Saving Throws	Average	Rounded Average
12	10, 9, 7, 8, 5, 13	8.6	9
14	13, 15, 9, 10, 12, 9	11.3	11
16	13, 13, 17, 11	13.5	14
18	13, 13, 12	12.6	13

Sorcerer Level	Save DC	Damage
12	27	(42*0.85)+ (21*0.15)= 36 damage
14	28	(49*0.8)+(24.5*0.2) =44 damage
16	30	(87.5*0.75)+(43.75*0.25) =76.56 damage
18	31	(108*0.85)+(54*0.15) =99.9 damage

Fighter

A fighter build intended to maximize damage will require feats to maximize their attack rolls, and maximized strength (ie. 20). At high level, equipment will matter a lot. Of course, normally a fighter with maximized strength would want to use a 2-handed weapon. I’m not going to do this, in part just to drive my point home, and in part because the barbarian’s non-damage related powers are (in my opinion) even better with 2 handed weapons. This is about fighters, so I’m not worried about that.

The required feats are:

Weapon Focus (lvl 1)

Greater Weapon Focus (lvl 8)

Weapon Specialization (lvl 4)

Greater Weapon Specialization (lvl 12)

Critical Focus (lvl 9)

It is very important to remember that the fighter gets Weapon Training. This will provide +2 to attack and damage during the fighters periods at levels 12, +3 to attack and damage during levels 14 and 16, and +4 during level 18.

I’m going to place about 25% of the fighters wealth or less into their weapon. Many people would want to place more. I’ll also buy the belt of Gaint Strength +6 with all of these builds, which costs some 36 000. It is a substantial investment at level 12, but still only amounts to about a third of the character’s wealth at that point.

PC Level	Wealth	Weapon
12	108 000	Longsword +4
14	185 000	Keen Longsword +4
16	315 000	Keen Longsword +5
18	530 000	Keen Longsword +5 of Flaming Burst

Fighter Damage per Turn

Calculating the fighter’s damage per turn is a lot more work than the sorcerers. First, I’ll calculate the damage per hit, discounting critical hits, and multiply by the liklyhood of it happening for each hit. Then I’ll calculate how much more damage occurs on a confirmed critical hit, and multiply that by the likelyhood of it happening on each of the individual attacks. Then add it all together.

I will use the average AC across all monsters in the bestiary of the same CR, just as I did for determining reflex save values. I’ll treat each d6 as 3.5, each d8 as 4.5, and each d10 as 5.5.

CR	AC	Average	Rounded Average
12	29, 27, 23, 26, 27, 25	26.16	26
14	29, 29, 29, 29, 29 27	28.6	29
16	38, 38, 35, 32	35.75	36
18	37, 37, 32	35.3	35

Likelihood to hit

If you are critiquing my numbers, don’t forget to count the +4 to confirm critical hits from critical focus.

PC Level	Attack Bonus Base + str + feat + enhancement + weapon training)	Chance to Hit With Each Attack	Chance for Additional Critical Damage with Each Attack (chance of falling in threat range * chance of hitting again)
12	12+9+2+4+2= +29	100% / 95% / 70%	10% / 10% / 9%
14	14+9+2+4+3= +32	100% / 95% / 70%	20% / 20% / 18%
16	16+10+2+5+3= +36	100% / 75%/ 50% / 25%	20% / 19% /14% / 9%
18	18+10+2+5+4= +39	100% / 100% / 75% / 50%	20% / 20% / 19% / 14%

 

Now for damage:

PC Level	Damage per Hit (base + str + feat + enhancement + weapon training + elemental damage)	Number of Hits (sum of chances to hit)	Damage, not including critical hits
12	4.5+9+4+4+2= 23.5 damage	2.65	62.28
14	4.5+9+4+4+3= 24.5 damage	2.65	64.93
16	4.5+9+4+5+3= 25.5 damage	2.5	63.75
18	4.5+9+4+5+4+3.5=30 damage	3.25	97.5

 

Please note that, before, even counting critical hits, the fighter does more damage until level 16, and at level 18 does only 2.4 points of damage less.

 

Now, we do damage for critical hits, using the same technique. Because I’m only doing the additional damage from critical hits, it’s okay that the threat rolls overlap with the rolls that hit for normal damage. Since the d10 damage from the elemental burst weapon replaces the d6 damage from the normal damage roll, I included it as the difference between the average d10 result and d6 result: 2.

 

PC Level	Damage per Crit (base + str + feat + enhancement + weapon training + elemental damage)	Sum of Critical Hits	Additional Crit Damage
12	4.5+9+4+4+2= 23.5 damage	0.29	6.82
14	4.5+9+4+4+3= 24.5 damage	0.58	14.21
16	4.5+9+4+5+3= 25.5 damage	0.62	15.81
18	4.5+9+4+5+4+2=28.5 damage	0.73	20.81

 

Now we add all the damage up:

PC Level	Normal Damage / full attack	Crit Damage / full Attack	Total Damage / full attack
12	62.28	6.82	69.1
14	64.93	14.21	79.14
16	63.75	15.81	79.31
18	97.5	20.81	118.56

Conclusion:

At most levels, the fighter can do much more damage to a single target than a sorcerer can. The notable exception is at level 16, where the difference is quite small. For wizards, this will begin at level 15. I do not know if it lasts through level 17, but it clearly ends by level 18. I think it would mostly depend on how long it takes the fighter to get a better weapon.

At most levels, sorcerers and wizards need to hit two targets to equal or surpass the fighter in damage. Fighters, for their part, only do this much damage if they don’t need to move more than a five foot step. When a fighter must move and attack they do as much damage as a single hit is worth, which is never close to the amount that a sorcerer could do in that turn. I feel that this is a very balanced combination, although it does make mobility a key element of game balance. This means that it is only balanced if you play with a battle grid.

Speaking strategically, it makes the fighter the biggest threat to the most dangerous monster, and an even bigger threat to any adjacent monster. As such, it makes very little strategic sense for those monsters to ignore the fighter in favour of the squishy sorcerer. As such, they’ll either be constantly running away from the fighter, or attempting to gang up on the fighter. It’s a plausible form of “aggro control” that doesn’t use any threat control powers. When the monsters are far away and using ranged powers, they can safely target the mage and other squishy members of the party. In so doing, they can safely kill the Mage without being killed by the fighter.

From the point of view of concept execution, this makes the fighter the best to stand toe-to-toe with a giant monster. The fighter does the most damage and can take the most damage. In fights like these wizards are better off buffing the fighter than damaging the dragon. Once again, this fits heroic fantasy fiction quite nicely. The heroic knight fights the dragon with the help of their supernatural allies; the heroic knight does not cower while the supernatural allies attack the dragon!

Level	Sorcerer	Fighter	Difference
12	36	69.1	33.1
14	44	79.14	35.14
16	76.56	79.31	2.75
18	99.9	118.56	18.66

So the next time someone tells you “fighters are useless,” just refer them here. Unless you find an error in my math. That would be emberassing. If anyone good at statistics wants to check this for errors, please go ahead. Something feels a little off to me about how I handled critical hit damage, although crits are actually irrelevant to my argument at all levels except 16. That makes me wonder how the math would look without the Critical Focus feat, and just taking bonus elemental damage earlier instead. It would probably be more effective. But I’m done with math for tonight, if anyone else wants to figure that out, go ahead.