Inspired by the Fighter unchained thread, I've created what I think is a fairly interesting take on a redesigned, more flexible and powerful fighter.
Thoughts?
Not to be overly harsh, but the once per day power in Expertise is a big turn off.
Actually there are a lot of per day powers. If it was like a stamina pool or something sure, but individual abilities being per day... Idk doesn't work for me. Good try though. Looks better than what I can manage.
Expertise scales up to 3 times per day, and the on-use ability bonus grows to be pretty extreme (eventually turning into +20 to attack and damage). The main point of the Expertise bonus is to give a static bonus to attack and damage representing the fighter's skill. The on-use ability is to represent the fighter going all out on one attack, which tires him briefly, hence the Expertise bonus resetting to 0 until his next turn.
There's not really a whole lot of per day abilities: Expertise, Aim for the Heart, Parry, Deflect Rays, and Mastery. That doesn't seem excessive to me. A stamina pool is an interesting idea though; I might see what that would do to the ideas.
So one big problem with fighters is that their main class feature is bonus feats which are not very good. Rather than a complete class redesign what about making alientude's martial techniques and Marcus's advanced martial training abilities into fighter only feats?
Changing martial techniques to fighter-only feats would be kind of difficult, as most of the techniques are dependent on expertise. I guess you could change the bonus to something like "1/4 fighter level (rounded up)," but that would be awkward.
I also think the fighter needs more than just combat feats, hence the various abilities I gave it - versatility, indomitable, etc. And of course, they flat out need 4 + Int skills.
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I don't really like the idea of having five different things you're only allowed to do once per day. It's immersion-breaking; why couldn't you try this or that mundane thing more than once per day?
Wouldn't it be better to have a pool mechanic, like Ki or Grit, that you can spend? It could be "Focus" or "Stamina" or something like that. Obviously, the flavor of the name should fit its practical uses. How it recharges also affects behavior - Grit encourages killing blows for example.
As a fighter class on it's own, it does pretty well (better than the current fighter).
However, for myself (and as I see, others), the mechanic of "uses per day" doesn't feel quite so martial-y. There's the thematic factor (why could I use it before, but not now), and there's also the gameplay feel.
Uses-per-day and point pools have a distinct feel to them. It's an endurance or supernatural mechanic, such that when you are out of uses or points, you are "tired" or "depleted of power" and need to rest or recharge.
When it comes to the feel of the Fighter class, I think of a guy who's able to do what he does all day long. Barring a supernatural ability here or there (and I don't want the class' defining features to be supernatural), his abilities shouldn't be limited to uses per day or points per day.
As alternatives, you can look at limiting the effects of abilities (the usual option we see in the books for non-magical effects), or better yet, give the ability more stringent set-up requirements (similar to Sneak Attack).
So make a death attack require the person be stunned first, etc. And make sure the fighter has a reliable way to stun an opponent on his own.
Or let the fighter have a lot of different "always on" options, but tie it to preparing his equipment, or spending time training it, so the limiting factor is only being able to do a few of these things at the same time.
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Regarding other factors:
I like what you did with versatility, however it would be nice to eventually let the fighter get more than one feat at a time on the fly. Unless you intend to change how feats work in general (such as the conversation on condensing feat trees), it'd be a good idea to eventually let him get two and three feats at a time. This lets him, on the fly, get a whole feat tree at higher levels. Pulling archery out of his butt getting right up to Manyshot helps.
Also, while Indomitable is kind of neat (Evasion for Fortitude), it just gives more to what he's already good at. Something to help against being stopped (stunned, charmed, dominated, staggered, etc) would be nicer, if you aren't outright going for a higher Will save.
The idea I had was one where it's an "always on" thing, but he has to eat action economy (a round of action) to activate it. But otherwise it's an immunity to a specific condition (like those I listed above). So instead of having high will saves, he just ignores the effects of the condition.
He's been staggered... but he's so bad-ass, he just keeps going, shrugging it off.
The balancing factor? If he gets hit with more than one condition, he needs to decide which he's going to shrug off. And it'll take time to switch between them (time he's not laying beat downs).
Definitely needs 4+int skills but I think next time I GM I'll use some of these ideas for fighter only feats. Kind of like the generic classes from unearthed arcana.
Take 2 on the redesigned Fighter. This time, he's got a stamina pool and training points - combining ideas from the Gunslinger and a Summoner's eidolon.