Tactician (Fighter)
Tacticians are the masterminds of battles, old and new. Melding knowledge of hard fought wars long past with the practical application of his instincts and training, the tactician confounds enemies and aids allies.
Class Skills: Climb, Craft, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Knowledge (History), Knowledge (Engineering), Profession, Ride, Survival, Swim. These replace the standard fighter class skills.
Fear Me (Ex): At 5th level, when an enemy combatant within line of sight of the tactician falls on the battlefield, a tactician may make a Knowledge (history) check versus DC 15 to turn the circumstances to his advantage. On a successful check, the tactician adds a +1 circumstance bonus to an Intimidate check in an effort to demoralize his foe. This check must be made before the end of the tactician’s next turn, or the bonus is lost. The bonus increases by +1 every four levels after 5th. This ability replaces weapon training 1.
Change of Plans (Ex): Beginning at 9th level, when an enemy combatant threatens a critical hit on the tactician or an ally within his line of sight, the tactician may make a Knowledge (history) check versus DC 20 to alter his battle plan. On a successful check, the tactician gains a +1 circumstance bonus to any combat maneuver versus that foe. The combat maneuver must be attempted before the end of the tactician’s next turn, or the bonus is lost. This bonus increases by +1 every four levels beyond 9th. This ability replaces weapon training 2.
Rapid Recall (Ex): At 13th level, a tactician may make a Knowledge (history) check versus DC 25 to counter a combat maneuver targeted at him. On a successful check, the tactician gains a +1 insight bonus to his CMD against that maneuver. Rapid recall must be declared before the CMB results are revealed. This bonus increases by +1 every four levels beyond 13th. This ability replaces weapon training 3.
Intercept (Su): At 17th level, the tactician has thoroughly integrated his knowledge of history and tactics into his combat style. As an immediate action, when a foe attacks an ally adjacent to the tactician, the tactician may make an attack roll to intercept the foe’s weapon. If the tactician wins the opposed roll, he successfully intercepts the attack and negates the damage. In addition, he may immediately attempt to disarm the opponent or sunder his weapon per the combat maneuver rules. If the tactician fails, the foe’s attack is resolved normally. The tactician may only do this if the attacker is within reach of the tactician's weapon and if the tactician has not acted that round. This ability replaces weapon training 4.

A tactical fighter is certainly an iconic variant of the class, so you've already got the theme covered. The downside of doing something so ubiquitous in the readers' mind, however, is living up to expectations. Let's see how you fared:

You chose appropriate class skills, though I'd almost be inclined to remove the physical ones (Climb and Swim) from there altogether, in favor of Diplomacy and Knowledge (geography or nobility), focusing on the tactician's smarts and tact rather than his physical prowess to get him out of situations.

Fear me has a clear role in this sort of character, but you've got some messy mechanics in it. Does the enemy combatant have to have line of sight on the fighter or vice-versa? How is "falling in battle" defined within the rules? Being knocked prone, unconscious, dead?

Change of plans makes sense mechanically, but I'm not quite clear on what those mechanics are supposed to represent from a story perspective.

In general, I'm also not completely sold on the idea of needing to make Knowledge checks for many of the archetype's class features to work. Sure, it's a class skill and one assumes a tactician won't dump Intelligence, but the bonuses you're replacing with these new abilities are static bonuses that have no chance of failure. Now there will be some occasions in which a tactician won't be able to do the very special, unique things that define him as being such. The focus on history rather than raw Intelligence checks also seems strange to me, as not every situation has a historical comparison.

I'm also sad not to see any teamwork feats here. The APG provided a whole slew of very tactical feats to allow for highly coordinated attacks and defenses among well-prepared parties. Inquisitors and Cavaliers have class features based around these feats, and I think a tactician should as well.

All things considered, I wanted this to be much more than it was, and while the theme is there, I don't feel the execution lived up to a tactician's true potential. Thus, I DO NOT RECOMMEND this archetype for advancement. The voters may feel otherwise, however, and I wish you the best of luck in this and future rounds.

A very good choice for the core idea of an archetype. Tacticians have a major place on the battlefields across any campaign setting. Basing it on the fighter class is a little unusual to me. Yes, fighters could certainly be seen as archetypes. And, there's plenty of fighter feats and class abilities to raid for swap-outs with an archetype's new powers. Even so, I would have preferred to see this as more of a cavalier archetype, which already gets free teamwork feats and even has a class ability called "Master Tactician" that I think you could have extrapolated from to jazz up your core idea.

Sadly, that's not what we've got here. Instead, you're relying almost exclusively on a single skill (Knowledge: history) to prop up your definition of what it means to use tactics in combat. So, although the idea is somewhat innovative, I think the mechanics let us down. There are other pre-existing archetype abilities I think you could have mined to better represent your ideas. As mentioned earlier (and by Mark), teamwork feats really should have come to the forefront here. The Aid Another action could have found some fertile ground. The Shield Ally ability from the Phalanx Soldier archetype or the Flexible Flanker ability from the Polearm Master could have made for good mechanical effects to study on how to define a tactical bonus for your friends.

At any rate, I think your core idea is sound. Mechanically, it's just not potent or innovative enough across the spectrum of Tactician abilities you're offering up.

As such, I DO NOT RECOMMEND this archetype design to advance, but perhaps the voters will feel otherwise. Your opportunity to continue in the competition rests in their hands now. Good luck.

Total Points: 2 Points
Recommendation: Not recommended for advancement

Comments In Detail

Name & Theme (1 point)
The archetype is tactical in nature so the description matches the mechanics.

Mechanics (0 points)
You have presented 4 mechanics across 20 levels of a character. None of them do more than add a tiny bonus which will pale in comparison to the other bonuses in play most of the time.

The fourth mechanic is listed as Supernatural, but the description says it is due to mastering history and tactics and no part of the effect requires anything supernatural to happen. It should have been another Extraordinary ability.

Awesomeness (0 points)
This archetype is a modest (at best) addition to the game and is not Superstar.

Template (1 point)
You followed the template well.

Context (0 points)
Why bother with this archetype? Power Gamers who love to smash things will find this too cerebral to bother with, and Tacticians will find much more interesting things to do with Rogues, Paladins and Rangers. This is an archetype in search of someone (anyone) to play it.

Making this a fighter archetype is an interesting choice, as the cavalier is really set up to be the tactician characters, what with giving allies teamwork feats with his tactician ability.

Fear Me: This is an interesting ability, and part of me imagines the character calling out events from historical battles in the middle of combat, explaining how his foes are making the same mistakes as the armies of SoAndSo in the Battle of ImportantPlace. You're giving up a strong combat ability (extra atk and damage) for a relatively weak one (demoralizing) that requires you to spend an standard action instead of fighting.

Change of Plans: As with the prev ability, this is an interesting mechanic.

Rapid Recall: And this, too. It really gives a smart, learned fighter a way to reflect that knowledge in his defense mechanics.

Intercept: Another neat ability with a neat mechanic.
This shouldn't have the "if the tactician has not acted that round," because rounds are relative time. Compare
Case #1: tactician going at initiative 20 and an enemy going one tick later at initiative 19.
Case #2: tactician going last in the round at initiative 1 and the enemy going first in the next round at initiative 20.
In Case #1, the tactician can't use this ability. In Case #2, the tactician CAN use this ability. Even though in both cases the two creatures are just one tick apart in the initiative. Also, the requirement of the immediate action takes care of any X/round limitations (by definition you only get one per round).
This ability also needs to address what happens if the attacker is incorporeal (the tactician probably can't block that). And it should only work on the attacker's melee attacks (otherwise you can block arrows, rays, etc.). And it needs to say if you have to invoke this ability before you know if the attacker's attack would hit.

I like this archetype. It's simple, rewards smart fighters, and doesn't break any rules. I'm not sure it's exciting enough to get a lot of people to take it, but it's solid design. This isn't the only way you could manage this archetype (aid another is a key ability, as Neil said), and it does reward maxing out a single skill, but I like that it's new and gives fighters another reason to spend skill ranks on a mental skill.

Mark pointed out that this doesn't rely on teamwork feats at all, and I was going to agree with that, but I checked the APG and most teamwork feats are also combat feats, and fighters have plenty of bonus combat feats, so I like the approach of creating new abilities and allowing the player to select whatever teamwork feats they want with the class's bonus combat feats. (Wow, that's a long sentence!) I don't think this is an A-level archetype, but it is solid, and I'd like to see what else you come up with.

RECOMMENDATION: I DO recommend this archetype design for advancement in the competition.

Tactician (Fighter)

Tacticians are the masterminds of battles, old and new. Melding knowledge of hard fought wars long past with the practical application of his instincts and training, the tactician confounds enemies and aids allies.

Disclaimer:

Would you want this person sitting next to you as a guest at a formal evening dress dinner party?
Oooh, yes. If he's well dressed, that is. This is one of those martial men who looks good in formal dinner wear, I'd wager, and with a husky voice too. He probably has some quite fascinating anecdotes about how he was in the middle of a life-and-death-struggle with an ice behemoth when he recalled General Oddlygrand's techniques against the winter horde, flung a handful of rock salt in its face, and neatly decapitated the beast.

How effective a flower-picker does this person seem likely to be?
Umm, probably not too good if it came to doing it in person. But very capable of organising a group of others to go and fetch whatever flowers a succubus happens to need. :)

Could you hire one person like this to do a better job than one other trained mercenary and/or to do the jobs of two (or more) other trained mercenaries?
Oh yes. He practically oozes military efficiency. He could lead a mercenary band for me, any day. He's almost as good as a paladin, and likely comes without most of their more bothersome ethical/moral baggage.

Other comments?
Swordsmanship perhaps slightly lacking, and short on detail of how he organises and directs large bodies of men (and women) in war, but still... there seem to be far too few dashing military officers of any description around these days, and a succubus sometimes has to settle for what's available.

Desirability:
Why yes, sirrah, you may escort me to the ball.

Further Disclaimer:
Ask A RPGSupersuccubus (with half an eye on Lord Orcus) would like to clarify that mortal voters should probably rely on more than just her own (impeccable) assessments in making up their minds on how to vote. Thank You.

Thank you for the feedback. It is greatly appreciated. I look forward to reading the community's comments.

The concepts and names of your abilities are interesting, but the effects are too weak compared to the ability you're trading out, weapon training. Part of the trick of designing an archetype is finding a good balance in that trade - stronger abilities for stronger abilities, weaker abilities for weaker abilities, if you're trading straight across, or a delicate balance of one or more abilities of varying strength (so you might get an unfavorable trade-in value at one level but a juicier one later on.

The obvious trap in designing an archetype is making new abilities that are so much better than what you would normally get that everyone will want them.

The less obvious trap is making new abilities that are less good than what you would normally get to the point that no one would want them.

If your concept and flavor are strong and unique enough, you can get away with weaker abilities on the basis of the archetype being cool. Unfortunately, your concept is fairly generic and your abilities, while each has an interesting premise, don't deliver mechanically.

Congrats on making it into the contest, and best of luck!

I love the idea of a knowledge based fighter, but I'm on the fence on this implementation. Many of the abilities feel a little underpowered to me. I also feel like the writing suffers from awkward rules terminology. Put me down as a maybe at this point - it has the virtue of being an archetype I might want to play.

I like the general idea of a master tactician, but this does not implement it very well.

The abilities don't seem very desirable.

I think the Intercept ability awkwardly introduces the attack rolls as opposing rolls.

So many abilities introducing their own subsystems (and replacing standard Combat Maneuvers).
So many little checks with fixed DCs.

All the woes of 3.5 compressed. Well, most of skill-based woes of 3.5 anyway.

Verdict: NOT recommended.

Regards,
Ruemere

Roy would aprove of this class. I approve of the concept (being an old hand at Battletech) but I don't feel it's well executed Tactically I'm afraid you went a bridge too far. Sorry Marie, but definately keep going.

What you have is a Technician fighter who analyzes a foe or group of foes and the rips them part with the most historically and tactically superior counters. It almost feels Iike you are suffering from the word count limit and are missing the party buff aspects (such as granting temporary teamwork feats).

Sense Motive would have been an intersting skill to use instead to "read" an opponent and counter. Knowledge history makes more sense if you are directing larger engagements with many people (see Bard inspire courage as example).

I have nothing against the concept of a "logical" fighter. It has some support in combat expertise and the portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the most recent Hollywood movie was a compelling visual.

One of the archetype builds I was considering was a tactician fighter as well. I'm glad I opted against that now, I'd feel foolish. I am glad to see someone made one though.

I'm also sad not to see any teamwork feats here. The APG provided a whole slew of very tactical feats to allow for highly coordinated attacks and defenses among well-prepared parties. Inquisitors and Cavaliers have class features based around these feats, and I think a tactician should as well.

I agree. Fighters strike me as the only class that can actually afford to take a few tactical feats and still be dangerous on their own as well. However they don't have anyway to implement these feats if no one else has them. I would have liked to have seen this archetype gain solo tactics (as the inquisitor) and tactician (as the cavalier). That would have made this fighter a force to reckon with.

Still, bully for the idea. I really think there is a niche for this concept but there are some balance and flavor issues that need to be addressed.

Marie, I thought your Verdant Vine was pretty creative and a fun way to play with battlefield control. This round, you've got another controller-type in the form of a tactical fighter. Right away with the name, you get your reader thinking that you might be playing around with the new tactical feats. I'm trying not to read comments before I post my own thoughts but I slipped up on this one and understand that you didn't work any of the ideas behind tactical feats into this archetype. Hopefully that won't be a misstep.

Fear Me (Ex): At 5th level, when an enemy combatant within line of sight of the tactician falls on the battlefield...

Change of Plans (Ex): Beginning at 9th level, when an enemy combatant threatens a critical hit on the tactician...
Rapid Recall (Ex): At 13th level, a tactician may make a Knowledge (history) check versus DC 25 to counter a combat maneuver targeted at him...

I'm going to comment on all three of these because my thoughts on this archetype encompass all of them. All of the abilities of this class are reactive. Somebody else has to do something for you to gain a bonus. As the fighter with this archetype, it doesn't feel like you could ever make use of "the best defense is a good offense" maxim. You're trying to gain a tactical advantage, and so you're true to the soul of this archetype... but waiting for your opponent to give you an opportunity to be cool is giving your opponent too much advantage. However, with that said I think the mechanical benefits you DO receive are sound, and not unbalancing in any particular way. They do offer some interesting opportunities when and if you get to use them.

Intercept (Su): At 17th level, the tactician has thoroughly integrated his knowledge of history and tactics into his combat style. As an immediate action, when a foe attacks an ally adjacent to the tactician, the tactician may make an attack roll to intercept the foe’s weapon. If the tactician wins the opposed roll, he successfully intercepts the attack and negates the damage. In addition, he may immediately attempt to disarm the opponent or sunder his weapon per the combat maneuver rules. If the tactician fails, the foe’s attack is resolved normally. The tactician may only do this if the attacker is within reach of the tactician's weapon and if the tactician has not acted that round. This ability replaces weapon training 4.

This is the crowning ability of the archetype, and although it's also a reactive one it fits in nicely and doesn't feel overpowered. You can only do it once per round, after all. Couple things... you need to note whether the disarm or sunder attempt provokes an attack of opportunity (they shouldn't) and you don't need to state that the tactician can't have acted yet that turn. Immediate actions happen off of his turn, so it's a moot point.

Marie, you've gone after a needed archetype for a fighter. For recognizing that, and for setting up some interesting defensive tricks I give you some props. I agree with some others that an archetype like this should have made use of tactical feats in some way... whether it's augmenting them, giving bonus feats, acting as if he had the feat when adjacent to someone who HAS taken it... who knows. That's a missed opportunity. All in all I think this is a mid-tier entry and it may end up getting my vote for being mechanically clean and for going after something I think the game needs.

This is mechanically interesting. At first I was a little unsure on the use of knowledge (history) but I really like the angle you went with it. That said, there's not much going on here. A DC 25 check for a measly +1 to something is really, really pointless. Your other abilities seem pretty underpowered too. An excellent idea with great potential that fell short of really doing anything awesome.

Name and concept: Sounds promising, though unspecific. I can think of a few directions this might go.
Archetype mechanics, expression of the concept: Class Skills: Swaps history for dungeoneering. Clearly, the tactician needs history - perhaps to the extent that he has less choice of other skills.
Fear Me: Could have had stronger justification to use history here. It starts off quite a bit weaker than weapon training, when it doesn't even guarantee +1 to Intimidate, but increases at higher levels, so he's more likely to make an enemy shaken. That's still not doing any damage though. I would really be keen, at this point, to find some way to demoralise an opponent as less than a standard action.
Change of Plans: OK, an increasing bonus to combat maneuvers, which let's say the tactician wasn't intending to use anyway. It won't come into play as often as Fear Me, not to mention weapon training.
Rapid Recall: This has less levels to stack, so it's that much less valuable than the lower-level abilities (perhaps should have started at a higher bonus). It's useful on every maneuver against the tactician, though. It might not have been necessary to emphasise "Rapid Recall must be declared before.." since there doesn't seem to be any cost to use it.
Intercept: This only mentions history in the descriptive text - because the tactician has integrated it so well that he doesn't need to check! - and is otherwise a rather interesting parry/response mechanic. The second-to-last sentence could have been clearer - "the tactician has not acted this round" is particularly odd and perhaps should just have been handled by making this ability an immediate action.
I'm left thinking the first three abilities take longer to become valuable than weapon training and Change of Plans is clearly worse.
Wider relationships: I'd really like to see something for an intelligent fighter, whether helping himself (as here) or his allies.
This is quite a different focus than the verdant vine, except for a possible shared idea of hampering opponents.

I suspect the mechanics are too fiddly and the abilities it gets are unlikely to make up for the loss of +1 to hit and damage. It could work, though.

Why bother with this archetype? Power Gamers who love to smash things will find this too cerebral to bother with, and Tacticians will find much more interesting things to do with Rogues, Paladins and Rangers. This is an archetype in search of someone (anyone) to play it.

Wow. I can't believe anyone actually thinks this. The "general" or intelligent, tactics-savvy fighter is a potent archetype that has found ample traction in other d20 games, in 4e D&D, and in Pathfinder itself.

Tactician (Fighter)

Disclaimer: My ranking scheme for this round consists of given marks form 0 to 4 in the following three categories:

Conceptual Mojo (CM): 3, Ah, a fighter archetype that isn't a combat style. Refreshing. And a good , flavorful concept to boot. But it could impede on cavalier territory. (Or at least cavalier archetype)

Mechanical Mojo (MM): 1, Knowledge(history) checks as a means to get simple,short term combat bonuses? Thats not how I imagined a tactican.

Mechanical Execution (ME): 1, Those Knowledge checks are almost superfluous, since a fighter with maxed ranks and skill focus ( no brainers with the archetype will almost always hit the DC ( 15 vs at least +11 , 20 vs. at least +15 ( or +19 at level 10), 25 vs. at least +22) and thats assuming an Int of 10. Then the granted abilities are way weaker than weapon training and not really worth the effort. I would have loved to see abilities that worked together, or needed time to set up (like a succession of maneuvers that grant each other bonuses), or teamwork oriented abilities.

Final note: Great concept, but fails on delivering fitting or well thought through mechanics.

Total Score: 3.316

I love the idea of tactician fighters, but the implementation is lacking, and hits one of my pet peeves, to boot - I really don't like unnecessary extra rolling. As Azmahel pointed out, the Knowledge checks are almost superfluous. Perhaps more importantly, the bonuses are small enough that there is little risk of them being overpowered, so why do we need to randomize whether or not they come into play? Getting +1 to intimidate the turn after an enemy falls in combat isn't the kind of thing that needs more stipulations to balance. In fact, I'm almost certain that the reason you included the rolls is simply because you wanted Knowledge(History) to be important, but it ends up just clunking up the gameplay of a fairly simple and straightforward class for no reason.

This is another concept that I love--the intelligent, learned fighter--but I'm afraid the execution fell a bit short. You make Know: history checks on the battlefield in order to... be a little scarier? Gain bonuses to a CMB? The knowledge felt somewhat disconnected to the plusses, which are rather small in comparison to what was lost and are, as others have said, purely reactionary. A tactical fighter should take control of the battlefield, luring his enemies into making unwise decisions and working with allies for crushing victory.

I felt somewhat uninspired by the abilities of this class, and the flavor and mechanics felt rather disconnected. As such, I'm afraid you don't have my vote.

Looking at the name, I suspect you have chosen too wide a concept. Basically people will want it to do too much because everyone has a different concept of what a tactician is.

Fear Me: A +1 bonus on an Intimidate check is weak compared to +1 to attack rolls and damage, it takes a feat and half (and four levels of fighter) to get that, it takes about half a feat to get the skill bonus you are giving.

Change of Plans and Rapid Recall are similar but give slightly better bonuses.

Intercept is the ability that I want to see more of in this archetype, funky tricks that can tactically mess with the opposition. An archetype based on immediate interrupting actions could have been good, it would have been hard to balance but that would have been the challenge.

Again, my concept of a tactician is different from yours, and from other people’s as well I’m guessing. Good luck in the voting.

Marie, I was stoked to see a couple of females in the second round, and when I saw your tactician I had high hopes.

Unfortunately, I think this is a big wiff. You have a tactician - someone who understands the battlefield, mass combat, history of warfare, etc, but then doesn't have any abilities tied to that stuff. Everything presented is based on single combat and I think that's a fail. Why not do something with teamwork feats? Maybe the ability to ignore or simulate terrain? How about a class feature involving mass combat? Not only that, but is this an archetype more suited for the cavalier? How would you distinguish it?

A few single combat abilities, some of them not very special, does not really seem like a tactician to me. I wish you luck in voting. If I were to give you advice in future rounds, it would be to consider bigger ideas.

It's OK, but there isn't much here either in mechanics or flavor. The litany of in-combat Knowledge checks would probably get pretty tiresome.

Thank you for the additional comments, everyone; they are greatly appreciated. I'll give a brief run-down of my thoughts while designing the tactician after voting is over.

Tactician (Fighter)

The Tactician seems like a good idea, but I'm not sure that this archetype succeeds in the expectations of that name.

I really expected to see some cool "tactical" abilities to this archetype. Instead it seems most of these are just general bonuSes gained by making a Knowledge History check during combat.

The Intercept doesn't seem very tactical either, but rather a form of protection offered to nearby allies.

Just my thoughts,
Ken

I really wanted to like this one. To me a tactician is all about the smarts not the phyisical skills. The tactician is the person calling the shots and thusly needed skills like Diplomacy, and a few more knowledge skills.

Would I want to play this character...No!

I liked this archetype. I'm a little biased because I'm getting my Masters in Organizational Leadership, but I think the fighter that master's people is the one unexplored niche. I wanted to take a stab at something similiar but the Saboteur ate up all my time! All and all, I enjoyed this one.

This was a great idea for an archetype, but as written, the mathematics make it suck.

For example, fear me as about a 5% chance of being useful, but only when an opponent is slain.

Change of plans is similarly useful.

Rapid Recall is even less likely to be useful.

But the spirit of the archetype is cool.

I promised to explain the process by which the tactician (tried) to come to life.

I spent a great deal of time after submitting the verdant vine brainstorming various ideas for all the core classes; we didn't get the APG until just before Superstar started, so I wasn't comfortable going after one of the classes in there. I finally decided on a charioteer for the fighter class. I got a skeletal framework up the weekend before the Top 32 were announced.

I really, truly did not expect to make it at all for reasons I've specified prior to making it into the Top 32, so I didn't flesh out the framework until after Round 2 started. I was having a hard time getting it under word count, and asked my husband to read it to see if I was missing something that was clunky, could be re-worded, what have you. I knew I had to do something else when the first words out of his mouth were "Why wouldn't I just play a mounted fighter?"

The tactician was born at that point. I asked myself "What does a tactician do?" Well, a tactician is an intelligent fighter that uses specialized training in tactics, wars past, etc to control the battlefield. I looked up knowledges in the corebook and found history was the most appropriate to those requirements and replaced Knowledge (dungeoneering) with Knowledge (history). A tactician would still target walls, buildings, etc, so Knowledge (architecture) stayed. A tactician is still a fighter, so the rest of the skills stayed.

When deciding what to replace, I chose to replace weapon training because there are plenty of feats that can give bonuses and other cool abilities to weapons (keeping weapons interesting), and the various abilities I was coming up with were designed to take place in combat in an offensive manner.

I took all the feedback from my wondrous item submission and applied it to my archetype. Be specific, watch your capitalization, follow the template, etc. I think I did that far better in Round 2 than I did in Round 1. I had a low level power that would have granted a bonus to attack and damage, but it sounded like a watered down Death Attack. I tried to utilize aid another, but couldn't get it to work well.

I was actively trying to avoid anything that smacked of 4e's warlord, the cavalier, etc. I also wanted to leave the tactician as flexible as possible regarding feats, weapons, etc. A smart fighter is not for everyone, and I didn't want to shoe horn anyone into "my style" of play.

I thank everyone for their feedback. I am taking it all and applying the lessons learned to my villain. My goal, simply, is to do my best while constantly improving. You make this possible. I hope my explanation answers some questions, although it may not answer all.

I finally decided on a charioteer for the fighter class.

I wouldn't have minded a Charioteer archetype at all, as long as you had answered the "why not a mounted character?" question with cool abilities that only the charioteer could do.

I wouldn't have minded a Charioteer archetype at all, as long as you had answered the "why not a mounted character?" question with cool abilities that only the charioteer could do.

Thank you. At least I know it was a decent idea. :)

I wasn't coming up with anything that didn't play off the mounted feats, and I was struggling with the word count.

Thank you for the insight into your design Marie.

The smart, tactical fighter is the Fighter variant that has always been a glaring omission, in my view.

Hannibal Barca, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan. All fantastic tacticians and fighters.

I want my Pathfinder Fighter to be capable of being more than just a beat-stick. I want my Fighter to benefit from being cunning and calculating if I choose it.