|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So level 1 through....whenever the latest conventional wisdom...the martial can "tank" and "block" for the more fragile casters.
But at higher levels, AC matters less and the HP gap isn't as relevant.
There has been a lot of talk about giving Martial abilities that are like spells...why not go another way.
Why not give them resistances.
Why not set up feats with high BaB entry requirements (or even class abilities) that make magic less effective against them.
Who are the classic fighter/martial heroes, thematically. Achilles, Sigfried, Cuculain...what do they share.
They have Tick-like Nigh invulnerability.
Why not, instead of trying to boost them to the point they are unrecognizable as martial classes, we instead make them fighters capable of filling the damage soaking of high level play.
Why not give access to viable spell resistance, spell sundering, ridiculously saves and resistances, all accessible based on high BaB and or high levels in pure martial classes.
Thoughts, suggestions, ideas?
|
|
I would actually go bigger. I would say that at a certain level Bravery applies to all saves.
And I would have spell resistance feats fighters can take as fighter feats at high levels, similar to monks.
And I would create feats like "Greater Toughness" with high BaB requirements for entry that make fighters and other martial classes able to be as effective at high levels shaking off attacks as they are at low levels.
If you have a high entry level for these feats and/or abilities, they should reflect the level they are being received at.
|
|
Entry of between 12 and 16 BaB (16 BaB cutting off all the 3/4 classes) I would be fine with feats that allowed spell resistance equal to level +10, Bravery applying to all saves and not just to certain saves, being able to use AC in place of save X number of times a day as an immediate action that consumes the next full round action (basically trading turns)...
Basically I think a high level martial class, particularly the ones who don't get access to magic, should have access to resistances to magic that are equivalent to the resistances they have throughout the rest of the game.
Conceptually, the classic martial heroes were nigh invulnerable. Bring that back and the gap goes away.
I think going for more offense just leads to creep. If you can make them as resistance as other foes at the levels they are fighting...then they can once again fill the role they held at lower levels as tank, defender, bodyguard, etc...
Bravery is pretty awful, and the Samurai's Resolve is pretty cool. It's an ability I think shouldn't be exclusive to the Samurai, really.
one of my suggestions from the fighter thread is replace bravery with immunities to conditions from the paladins mercy list, with a caveat that it doesn't work on conditions caused by class features the fighter possesses (so no fighter dips for rage cycling barbarians).
|
|
one of my suggestions from the fighter thread is replace bravery with immunities to conditions from the paladins mercy list, with a caveat that it doesn't work on conditions caused by class features the fighter possesses (so no fighter dips for rage cycling barbarians).
I think that could also be something to look at. I think we have consensus that the Paladin is ok, because it has hella saves. Even the barbarian has access to substantial save boosting rage powers, although I would be fine with it having more.
I am simply arguing that if Martial classes, at least non-casting martial classes, are going to be expected to stay true to the themes at higher levels, the classic martial hero was nigh-invulnerable.
I don't think we need to add any more offense or fancy tricks if we make them able to stand up effectively to spells cast at them.
And I don't think it would be in any way game breaking to give them superior defenses against magic as high level class feats and features.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I agree with the direction and have been suggesting it for years, but I don't like it as feats--it should just be part of the classes that need it (mostly Fighters).
|
|
I would be fine either way, but feats we can do now and features would require more core changes.
When they redo the whole thing, I hope they make more feats that increase with BaB, but that is a whole other issue.
Adding a feat that let bravery apply to spells and spell like abilities would go a long, long way, IMHO.
|
|
I don't think offense is the problem. I don't think adding a grip mechanic does anything but add complexity to what is a simple class.
Having bravery work against spell like abilities is a bonus, but one that brings them more in line with other classes rather than one that breaks the game.
Even with a full +5 bravery they will still have less than the high save classes in two of the 3 saves, even against spell like abilities.
because for something to be always on, and useful always, it cant be as powerful as those things that have finite resources or 1/day abilities.
That is simply not true, and is exactly the reason there is a disparity in the first place.
No matter how much people laugh at the 15 minute work day, it is a reality at a lot of tables. Just as the slowest person determines the overland travel rate, always on abilities are not stronger than those limited per day, because the most limited person determines the pace.
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Bravery (alternate):
At 3rd level, the fighter learns to retain his martial instincts in the face of terror. He gains a +1 morale bonus to resist fear effects, or any other effects that create the shaken, frightened, or panicked condition. This bonus increases by +1 every three fighter levels after 3rd, to a maximum of +6 at 18th level.
At 6th level, the fighter can pull of incredible feats of endurance. Once per day, he may re-roll any failed saving throw using his full Fortitude bonus, even if the effect is normally resisted using a different saving throw. He may use this ability an additional time per day for every six fighter levels he possesses after 6th, to a maximum of three times per day at 18th level.
At 9th level, the fighter learns to shrug off physical effects that would daunt lesser men. His bravery bonus hereafter applies to resist effects that create the dazed, exhausted, fatigued, nauseated, paralyzed, sickened, staggered, and stunned conditions.
At 15th level, the fighter's tolerance to succumbing to supernatural forces increases. His bravery bonus hereafter applies to resist all magical effects.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
No Gods
prerequisite: Bravery +3
benefit: When you use your bravery class feature to re-roll a failed saving throw against a divine spell, instead the effect is automatically dispelled.
No Masters
prerequisite: Bravery +2
benefit: When you use your bravery class feature to re-roll a failed saving throw against a mind-affecting effect, instead the effect is automatically dispelled.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
so unlimited fireballs are not unbalanced? unlimited save or die spells are not overpowered?
In theory it is. In practice? No, not so much. Higher level spellcasters already pretty much have those anyway.
The issue is that there are other factors--time and action economy, for example. Look at it this way:
Let's say you can cast 5 fireballs (or whatever spell you want here) per day.
If you are not in situations that call for fireballs more than 5 times per day, you effectively already have unlimited fireballs.
Expanding on that, if you use up your 5 fireballs for the day and are concerned that you might need a fireball if you continue on this day, the group has an unpleasant choice:
1) Stop and rest so the caster gets his fireballs back and the group as a whole is stronger in the upcoming fight
2) Push on anyway with suboptimal resources and probably some dead weight to protect
Which will the majority of groups do?
So, the majority of the time, spellcasters already have "effectively unlimited" spells, because they never have to push on beyond their ability to keep casting.
Meanwhile, Fighters and other non-casters have abilities that are always on, but are not nearly as powerful as Fireball (or, you know, some other spell--it's a placeholder spell name). However, they are only getting to use those abilities 5 times, because that's all the spellcaster has until he's out of Fireballs and it's better for the group as a whole to always have a spellcaster able to cast fireball.
Do you still think those always on abilities really need to be weaker?
How often can the GM throw an ambush at the group while they're resting before the PCs start calling shenanigans?
My point is this:
You cannot bring balance to the system with the paradigm that limitless abilities have to be weaker than limited ones. It will never work--there will always be a gap.
In my opinion, the best martial/caster balance in the history of 3rd edition was with the Warlock, Dragonfire Adept, and Binder. Those classes all had unlimited use powers that mimicked spells of a similar level to their acquisition.
However, it was still balanced by action economy and limited choice. People still played Wizards after Warlocks showed up, because a Wizard has a great deal more versatility, which is still something valuable.
the fix isnt in the fighter itself, its in fixing casting itself.
Sure, but I think the fix is making everything limitless, and just making sure the options are comparable. I hate limited per day abilities--they're not really a limitation, they're effectively just a pacing mechanism.
balancing around imbalance leads to more imbalance, and lets be honest, if your homebrewing a fighter, why are you not homebrewing other things to achieve better balance?
Because, in this case, we're not rewriting the game, it's just supposed to be a bandaid fix to reduce the imbalance a little. Really fixing it would be a lot more work and that's not always what someone is looking for.
|
|
No Gods
prerequisite: Bravery +3
benefit: When you use your bravery class feature to re-roll a failed saving throw against a divine spell, instead the effect is automatically dispelled.No Masters
prerequisite: Bravery +2
benefit: When you use your bravery class feature to re-roll a failed saving throw against a mind-affecting effect, instead the effect is automatically dispelled.
No masters maybe, no gods might be a bit much thematically. It isn't like fighters can also be religious.
I think simply making bravery apply to spells and spell like abilities like dwarves with steel soul makes the most sense.
Will that make dwarven fighters have ridiculous save against magic? Yes. And this is a problem thematically how?
The abridged version of what mpl is saying:
When 90% of classes have resources (other than HP) that they can run out of, being resourceless will never be a strength.
The system expects bursts and rests. Some classes are still medium-high strength without their resource, but others are dead weight.
The disparity in power between a caster with spells and a caster without is huge, Pathfinder tried to patch it with those little rays of 1d4+5 damage but let's be honest, those are the worst bloodline/school powers.
And this is bad? The monk also gets spell like abilities and all good saves.
So how about this for one of the fighter feats.
Magical Courage
Fighter level 12th: You add your Bravery bonus on saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities.
You get to pick a plus one to a save of your choice every level/every other level or some such. Or replace armor training with something like that. So you can pick standard armor training bonuses, or such and so improvement to ac, or saves, or whatever?
|
|
ciretose,
first off i agree with this thread's basic premise.
speaking to my proposal, one of the challenges to me is to work with the title 'bravery' as it is. and so, i am keen to the idea that it remains functionally as written when it is first gained at 3rd level, and allowing for it to evolve in some way (for example i proposed at each iteration of +1 bonus). if, right out of the gate, the ability protected against both fear and magic, the title 'bravery' would seem out of place. (ie "against your magic i am brave!"). i dunno.
in the spirit of the discussion occurring parallel, i was hesitant to propose a limited resource (the 1/day Fort override/re-roll) to the fighter, but i wanted to advance the bravery feature at each iteration 6/9/12/15/18, and feeling it was appropriate at 9th and 15th to expand the protective jurisdiction to include physical and magical effects respectively, that left the 6/12/18 open, and it seemed a good fit to introduce a 1/2/3day re-roll of their strongest save covering their weakest saves into those openings. besides, mplindustries makes a very strong case.
further, concerning the proposed 9th level expansions, i intentionally shied away from including ability damage, blindness, curses, deafness, disease, and poison. i felt that these went above and beyond the scope of bravery, and think that protections of these sort are best offered as special feats, for example that use "bravery +X" as a pre-requisite. and, to speak to the protections that are offered, many of these will be produced via magical effects anyhow, so it serves as a round-about way to address the issue of magic vulnerability partially (before fully at 15th level), that in addition to the limited resource re-roll.
anyhow, the feats i proposed are just examples. here is another:
Nine Lives
prerequisite: bravery +5
benefit: When you use your bravery class feature to re-roll a failed saving throw against a death effect, instead the effect is automatically dispelled.
Give them some equivalent to evasion but involving fortitude saving throws?
|
|
Arssanguinus,
that's an idea. in an earlier edition this type of ability was called Mettle, and it was indeed an evasion-like class feature that functioned both for "fortitude partial" and "will partial" saves. one critique i have of it is that, especially compared to evasion, there are relatively few spells that offer partial saves keyed to fortitude or will, as most spells that offer those fort/will saves are sharply polarized over success and failure, with failure tending to have an extreme consequence.
thus, in my view, an outright bonus to fortitude and will saves has a broader protection value than an ability such as Mettle.
one carry-through from earlier editions to pathfinder, if you look at the rogue talents, is Slippery Mind, which allows a re-save 1 round later for a mind-affecting effect. very cool. to me, this is thematically best suited for the rogue, as it represents a sort of wriggling free from magical constraints. one could posit one for fortitude saves, with a crazy name such as Unassailable Temple, which allowed a re-save 1 round later to 'undo' a failed fortitude save: the turned-to-stone fighter suddenly bursts from his own statue which crumples around him... but again, as most death spells deal damage now, just less damage on a successful save, it is quite unprecedented to 'undo' damage taken a round prior and retroactively apply a smaller amount. consequently, such an ability would have a very narrow scope indeed.
essentially, i think the overall system has outgrown Mettle, or a fortitude-based Slippery Mind, and so i find that outright bonuses work better, if being overly simple.
maybe this?:
The Hand That Feeds
prerequisite: Bravery +4, No Masters
benefit: Once per round that you are under a mind-affecting effect, you may attempt another will save against the original DC to temporarily suppress the effect for 1 round. This save is made at the beginning of the round. If you are under multiple effects, you may only choose one to resist each round.
|
|
No Fear
prerequisite: Bravery class feature
benefit: You are immune to all effects that produce the shaken condition. Effects that would cause you to become frightened instead cause you to be shaken, and effects that would cause you to become panicked instead cause you to be frightened. Further, you may apply your bravery bonus to effects that have the emotion descriptor.
When your Bravery class feature reaches +2, you become immune to all effects that produce the frightened condition. Effects that would cause you to become panicked instead cause you to be shaken.
When your Bravery class feature reaches +3, you are totally immune to all fear effects, including all effects that cause the shaken, frightened, and panicked conditions.
Adrenal Bravery Boost
prerequisite: Bravery +2
benefit: You may use your bravery ability to re-roll a failed saving throw using your Fortitude bonus an additional number of times per day equal to your Constitution modifier (minimum 1). You may only use this ability up to once per saving throw.
Lust for Life
prerequisite: Bravery +6
benefit: You are immune to death effects. Hereafter you have SR against spells from the Necromancy school equal to 20 plus your fighter level.
|
How about...
Tough it Out
Prerequisits: Iron Will or Great Fortitude, BaB +10, At least 8 levels on a class with good BaB.
Benefit: When you are affected with spells, spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities and similar effects that allows fortitude or will saves to diminish the effect, if you are successful, you ignore the effect instead. Additionally, if you failed a fortitude or will save, you may reroll it on the beginning of your next turn. You must accept the result of the reroll even if it's lower than the original roll.
This is what I decided to go with. I like the scaling effect. Thanks for all the ideas.
Improved Bravery
Your bravery and resolve harden through experience.
Prerequisites: Must be at least a level 6 fighter with the Bravery ability.
Benefit: At 6th level, the fighter further strengthens his resolve and can apply his Bravery bonus against any effects that create the shaken, frightened, or panicked condition.
At 10th level, the fighter learns to shrug off physical effects that would daunt lesser men. His Bravery bonus hereafter applies to resist effects that create the dazed, exhausted, fatigued, nauseated, paralyzed, sickened, staggered, and stunned conditions.
At 14th level, the fighter's ability to resist supernatural forces increases. His Bravery bonus hereafter applies to resisting all magical effects.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Technotrooper,
i went the 'core only' route. if you wanted to include later books (advanced and ultimate), i would update your Improved Bravery to include resistance to effects with the Emotion descriptor at 6th, and with Pain descriptor at 10th:
Improved Bravery
Your bravery and resolve harden through experience.
Prerequisites: Must be at least a level 6 fighter with the Bravery ability.
Benefit: At 6th level, the fighter further strengthens his resolve and can apply his Bravery bonus against any effects that create the shaken, frightened, or panicked condition, as well as any emotion effect.
At 10th level, the fighter learns to shrug off physical effects that would daunt lesser men. His Bravery bonus hereafter applies to resist effects that create the dazed, exhausted, fatigued, nauseated, paralyzed, sickened, staggered, and stunned conditions, as well as any pain effect.
At 14th level, the fighter's ability to resist supernatural forces increases. His Bravery bonus hereafter applies to resisting all magical effects.
Technotrooper,
i went the 'core only' route. if you wanted to include later books (advanced and ultimate), i would update your Improved Bravery to include resistance to effects with the Emotion descriptor at 6th, and with Pain descriptor at 10th:
** spoiler omitted **
Excellent point. Thanks!
I still would rather see the fighter get a string of full immunities as well as a save bonus. I would rather them get a static bonus against mind affecting effects and have them select an immunity from a condition on the mercies list as I suggested above. I feel like if the fighter could shrug off effects that hinder his fighting he would be a more established character concept. The fighter becomes someone who continues to fight, no matter what, and this drive pushes them past the normal limitations of other warriors (except paladins, to a point).
Bravery (alternate):
** spoiler omitted **
:O So much improvement~! I really like it.
|
|
So just to be clear, do we have consensus that having bravery also work against other saves makes a lot of sense and would move the fighter forward to at least a parity with other martials defensively (Barb gets superstitious, Paladin gets Charisma added, Rangers get spells, Cavaliers...well lets leave them to the side...)