Or you could just take the Combat Focus and Weapon Mastery/Supremacy feat chains from Player's Handbook II and remain viable the entire time. And once you become EPIC? Forget it. Damage reduction feats, fast healing feats, natural armor feats that ALL count as fighter bonus feats? Sign me up. If you know how to BUILD a fighter, they can excel.
When did they change the name of the game to "Dungeons and Combat Twinks"?>
No need to get smart, Anthraxus. They were complaining about a fighter no longer being good at FIGHTING, (look at the name of the freakin' class!) and I merely suggested one of several of my fixes.
I agree that the fighter is not necessarily an under-powered class, given some planning. I think fighters tend to fall apart because the player chooses feats in a haphazard fashion, without a clear goal in mind for the character's ultimate themes and abilities, when this happens, the fighter (like many classes) seems weak. (I see this as a problem with 3.5, by the way. I don't like the idea that you have to build a character through 20th level before you have played day one.)
As an example, I recently ran the Age of Worms AP, and the two-weapon wielding Fighter was the only PC to survive the entire campaign (1st to 21st level). He was certainly not the weak link in the party.
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When did they change the name of the game to "Dungeons and Combat Twinks"?>
He mentions an effective fighter build and you start hollering "Twink?" Congrats.
In regards to the OP, I have to agree with both Deathedge and Arcesilaus. Unless the player chooses their feats correctly and/or has a clear idea of what they want their PC to do, the fighter class becomes nothing more than a full BAB and a D10 hit die.
-Kurocyn
Fighters quickly become more damaging than a barbarian even, unless they play the broken pounce barbarian, with a Power Attack, Leap Attack, Combat Brute, and Shock Trooper chain. Follow this up with a Weapon focus chain and you got something to be feared. While it might take a barbarian ever single one of his feats level 1-18 just to get the first feat chain done; not even sure if a barbarain can normally.
I get the impression that fighter, when compared to such classes as the cleric and, especially, the wizard, are useless after a certain point.
What level is that? From what I've read, it's as high as 6th to as low as "don't waste your time" (i.e., choose one of the Bo9S:ToB classes instead).
It's not so much they become useless, it's that the Cleric (and the Druid) out perform them (or at elast get close enough that it doesn't matter) as fighters, while still contributing spells, buffs, healing, etc to the party.
So for the Druid, it starts about level 5 with wildshape, and really kicks in at level 8 when large forms become available.
For the Cleric, it's about level 7, when divine power kicks in, which is level 7.
And it is not even really that the fighter can't compare. It's that an unoptimized fighter gets left behind. Combined with optimised fighters becoming a one-trick pony, and the need to plan out your entire build from 1-20, means that the fighter can end up being boring to play. Either you are a one trick pony, doing the same thing over and over again (I trip, I trip, I trip etc), or the Cleric and Druid are almost matching you in melee, while contributing so much more out of melee. Neither of those options really appeal to me, so I don't play fighters.
A smart fighter will both be optimized and buy lots of potions. A fighter can be spelled up to high heaven as well, he just can't do it himself. I've never had a problem finding gold and loot (etc.) enough to arm myself with the best armor and weapons, and several extra nasty potions of various effects.
Also, keep in mind that Tome of Battle maneuvers and stances are fighter bonus feats. A clever fighter build can definitely have more than one "trick".
When did they change the name of the game to "Dungeons and Combat Twinks"?>He mentions an effective fighter build and you start hollering "Twink?" Congrats.
In regards to the OP, I have to agree with both Deathedge and Arcesilaus. Unless the player chooses their feats correctly and/or has a clear idea of what they want their PC to do, the fighter class becomes nothing more than a full BAB and a D10 hit die.
-Kurocyn
I consider the class excellent right through but feel it depends somewhat on a couple of factors. First is what books are in play. Obviously if Tomb of Battle is in play they don't generally compare to the martial classes in that book. If the spell compendium is in play then the casters really have a major leg up and that makes the casters a lot more powerful. Besides these two books however and we get to a situation where most of the books very much add to the fighter class since feats are just so critical for their build and more options help them a lot.
On the second point I very much agree that feat choices are exceptionally important. Its counter intuitive as we think of the fighter as a good class for the newbie and the sorcerer as a class that probably should be taken by an experienced player as the sorcerer must be very careful with their spell choices. In reality however the fighters feat choices are probably even more important then the sorcerers spell choices and they should ideally be planned further ahead to insure that the feats taken are useful to the fighter at all levels of play and compliment each other.
Another significant factor is that its useful if the fighter player has experience at all levels of play. Some feats appear excellent early on but loose much of their omph at higher levels. The whirlwind attack chain and tripping are both very powerful in a lower level game but are unlikely to be used much at higher levels.
Deft Opportunist is another example of a feat like this - +4 to hit on an opportunity attack is great at lower levels but comes up a lot less often when the average opponent has reach, moves around by teleporting and has such a high concentration that they simply can't fail to cast defensively.
Essentially there are a whole slew of feats that would make excellent choices for the fighter player at the moment but players with actual experience at the table at higher levels know will not stand the test of time. Hence fighters should be run by veteran players - or at least the vets should be making the feat choices.