I'm posing this as a serious question - not a rhetorical snark.
I spent a few hours yesterday trying to build a really great alternate fighter - someone who does something other than simply deliver and take punishment.
A fighter who can disarm or sunder the weapons of his opponents, a fighter who is a master at feinting and fakery (a fencer)...how about a submission wrestler?
I could do it with the feats as written, but the builds were all clearly inferior to the obvious bulk up and smash design.
I'd like to see some thoughts/designs for other fighter looks that really work.
I'm thinking of house-ruling some of these weird fighting feats to make them a little tougher, a little more apealing.
Otherwise, I feel like a lot of cool feats and game mechanics will rarely get used.
-Marsh
I would like to see 3rd tier feats for alot of the combat manuevers to make them better options later on. Things like trip, grapple, sunder and disarm get very hard later on. I'd like to see some feats to improve them further.
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For my pre hyspanic homebrew setting I gave fighters a favored maneuver bonus that replaced (and scaled like) their bravery. Every time their bravery would increase by 1 they also choose a new favorite maneuver (which starts with a bonus of 1 and increases when a new one is chosen a la favored enemy).
So far it has worked pretty well.
The problem with feats being his only class features is that feats are, by design, minor benefits campared to most actual class features. I've given the fighter a "fighter talent" on every odd level; from 11th - 19th, instead of a regular talent, he can select an advanced talent. This has allowed me to insert a bunch of things that fighters can actually do better than other classes, for once.
I've also shortened some of the combat feat chains, and tried to make sure that all combat feats scale with BAB.
Of the PF fighters I have seen run the players seemed to be having fun with them. In one game there are two fighters; one specilized on max damage and the other on two weapon fighting. Both are much more effective than my rogue at hurting things. I built my rogue as a finesse fighter and have found it less effective. Improved feign does not provide enough to overcome the defense of the defender. So it is normally a wasted move action for me. The great sword weilding fighter just calmly mows through monsters and the dual weilder just plays blender on anything within reach.
To answer you quest it depends on what a person finds interesting. Someone who just wants to do lots of damage to a monster will find the PF fighter fairly satisfying. If what you really want is a swashbuckler then going the spring attack - vital strike route may work. I have a converted bard using this with arcane strike and it has been pretty good for me.
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Yes, but those who enjoy them enjoy them, and roleplaying can make up. Generally they have one combat trick they do over and over again; their goal is relatively simple (meat-shield as best they can, lock up critical targets).
But they're built for it. And unlike 3.5, it sucks if nobody wants to play one; they do make things easier, and especially after level 10 nothing can truly compare to their management ability.
I personally would never play one because they are same-action-every-turn characters. But that's my style. I could see a line of feats set up to not make combat maneuvers suck for them (though they explained in an article why they didn't make Combat feats too terribly appealing; anyone who played 3.5 and seen the grapple/trip monkeys can understand).
Right now I'm just sad that shield-bashing is a more effective weapon than a sword in this game :(.
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I think fighters need a few feats to give them different things to do other than trip x 20. Make special attacks better. It'll be cool to see a fighter able to disarm giants.
At the same time, barbarians should be improved in a few special attack ways as well, like out-wrestling a giant. That'd be epic and fun to play.
Both of the prime melee classes can use some help in this arena. Paladins are certainly more interesting to play than before, due to having more cool things to do.
The greater versions of each combat tree should be stronger to help this out.
Feats are supposed to be what defines a character and system-wise makes him or her different from other characters of the same class, moreso than attributes. One would therefore think that each Fighter would be completely unique and cool (especially if 3.5 feats are being allowed, in which case feats are by no means "minor". Certain feats were extraordinarily powerful).
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I'm posing this as a serious question - not a rhetorical snark.
I could do it with the feats as written, but the builds were all clearly inferior to the obvious bulk up and smash design.
I'd like to see some thoughts/designs for other fighter looks that really work.
I'm thinking of house-ruling some of these weird fighting feats to make them a little tougher, a little more apealing.
One of the reasons we're all into Pathfinder is because it's 3.5 compatible. Aren't there all kinds of feats in the various 3.5 books (Complete Warrior & PHB2, for example) that can bring your ideas to life?
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For my pre hyspanic homebrew setting I gave fighters a favored maneuver bonus that replaced (and scaled like) their bravery. Every time their bravery would increase by 1 they also choose a new favorite maneuver (which starts with a bonus of 1 and increases when a new one is chosen a la favored enemy).
So far it has worked pretty well.
Are you aware that the current fighter ability of weapon training (the one that give a bonus to a group of weapons and you choose new groups as you level up)gives that bonus the CMB roll for maneuvers performed with those weapons? Does your favored maneuver bonus stack with this?
I also would like to see a tier three for the maneuver feats. But I don't want feats add a greater effect or chance for succeeding at the maneuvers. (I think it should be almost impossible trip gigantic monsters for instance). But rather I would like to see these tier three feats add rider effects to the maneuvers regardless of the success of the maneuver.
For example something like:
Master Trip
Prerequisites:Improved trip, Greater Trip, Fighter level 10
You gain a +2 bonus to CMB rolls to trip opponents. In addition, after you attempt a trip maneuver on an opponent you may immediately make an attack of opportunity (regardless of whether or not the trip maneuver succeeds). If the opportunity attack deals damage to that opponent it takes a -2 penalty to AC until the start of your next turn. This attack of opportunity replaces the one granted by improved trip (meaning you are only granted one attack of opportunity per trip).
By adding riders to the feats it becomes more practical to attempt to use the feats against monsters you will likely fail against. The line of reasoning moves from "meh I won't succeed at tripping that giant, and doing so is likely a waste of my turn" to "Hmm, I probably won't succeed at tripping that giant, but I have a god chance of tagging him with at AoO and giving him a penalty to AC for a round, and I do manage to trip him, well that's just icing"
I am not saying the feat I proposed is balanced. It was just a concept that popped into my mind. If I were going to actually implement them in my game, I would take a harder look at balance and make sure that the riders were not out of whack for the level I was giving them. I would also limit the feats to fighters (and maybe monks for some of the maneuvers).
love,
malkav
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I am aware of it, and still think that a fighter with an extra +5 to trip is unlikely to break the game at higher levels. Also I like the idea of a fighter being good at some things even when he´s not using his favored weapon. And (in just my opinion) it fits well wth the idea of a master of combat.