Design Manager
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IF you're going to do double BAB, you're going to have to have the second set of BAB used for something other then hitting stuff.
I.e. paying for Expertise, Power Attack, Stalwart, or some increased move or save option.
Just doubling ability to hit? Ugh.
==Aelryinth
You know what though? A unique pool of pseudo BAB that can be spent to negate or soften penalties from things like Deadly Aim, Power Attack, Fighting Defensively, etc. could actually be a kind of interesting mechanic for a new class or archetype.... Like a "Rise to the Challenge" sort of deal.
Issue can be addressed by adding two more skill points per level and give him "Brawlers Cunning", you can call it "Fighter's Cunning"
(can i at least keep this bit?)
Like I recently tried to write system and I realized two things: 1) Such an endeaver is lots of work. 2) The high level martials I envisioned made sense as not magic and could compete with casters, but they stopped resembling the PF/D&D martial. They were more like Hercules or Gilgamesh or Goku.
I fail to see the issue there. affecting the world at large at high levels is to be expected of all adventurers, not reserved only for casters.
Issue can be addressed by adding two more skill points per level and give him "Brawlers Cunning", you can call it "Fighter's Cunning"
a second good save (likely reflex?) or if bravery would eventually buff up saves from things other than fear (to grant a pseudo-good will save progression), would do wonders as well.
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Like I recently tried to write system and I realized two things: 1) Such an endeaver is lots of work. 2) The high level martials I envisioned made sense as not magic and could compete with casters, but they stopped resembling the PF/D&D martial. They were more like Hercules or Gilgamesh or Goku.I fail to see the issue there. affecting the world at large at high levels is to be expected of all adventurers, not reserved only for casters.
That is just the issue. Not everyone would see that as a problem. Plenty of people are OK with levels being an increase in tier. While other prefer levels to be an increase in competency. Pathfinder caters to both and neither.
The issue with a tier based interpretation of levels is that there is no reason for an increase in tier to be expected. Outside of a shonen manga/anime, battle experience doesn't mean your power will increase in tier. In PF it does because levels also mean an increase in competency. Martials mask levels being tiers by not treating them as so. With how martials level it makes sense that they get stronger the more they fight. Because they don't become fundamentally different. They way martials work set the progression pace in PF. One of the reasons I think a lot of people see PF falling apart at high levels is because of how martials fall behind. Once martials are irrelevant, it suddenly makes a lot less sense to be fighting level appropriate foes or to even be in dungeons. Once martials fall to the way-side, the game has to scale in tier with the levels. Before that happens you can just increase the competency of foes and the scale quests. Once "hitting it with a sword" is a silly tactic, "combat" becomes something that begins far before initiative is ever rolled. Heroic struggles shift to dramatic chess matches between demi-gods.
The issue I see with addressing this is that you can't without losing a large section of your player-base. If you move PF more towards levels as competency by reining in the "out of control" magic, then you'll lose everyone who prefers levels as tiers. Like-wise, if you make martials treat levels as tiers, then suddenly the whole game is too "weaboo" for everyone who views levels as an increase in competence.
An interesting question to ask yourself is "What level was the fellowship of the ring?" and that will really tell you where your view of levels is. If the fellowship was 4-6, you see levels as tiers. If Aragorn was level 20 then you see levels as an increase in competency. The more you fall inbetween those two extremes, the more you view levels as both or neither.
PF ends up with mass appeal, because it is trying to please everyone. This causes problems, but there is really no way to fix it without the game losing what a lot of people like about it.
EDIT: Although you can mask the issue a bit. Make life easier for the martials. Increase skill points, trim feat trees, make resisting magic easier, up DPR for less optimal tactics to increase diversity. 3.5 to PF already did a lot of this. They gave fighters bravery so they could fight dragons and liches. They consolidated skills and reworked cross-class skills, effectively giving everyone more skill points. They gave everyone more feats, effectively making chains shorter (but then they extended chains...). They turned save or die to save or tons of damage, so martials could actually tank it. You can actually TWF for higher DPR (barely) than a two hander after enough investment.
All you will ever do though is obscure the issue.
Seconded for the suggestion that adding pounce would assist them.
I'm also going to have to suggest a combination of Monk and Druid abilities could supplement them well. Perhaps a Ki-Pool like mechanic that grants the warrior enhanced mobility/detection such as climb speeds, slow fall, blind-sense, and making weapons count as something else for bypassing DR. This could be expended in other ways such as bonuses to saves or temporary Spell Resistance. As the fighter's problems emerge in the late-game, these abilities can start being unlocked later than in other such classes.
A key thing to consider with fighters in their difference from other classes is that besides HP, they have no personal resources to expend (unless you count equipment in a sunder-happy encounter). So they effectively have nothing to go "I really needs to be able to do X, even if it does cost me something." Almost every other class has this in some way, shape or form: Barbarians have rage (and the powers unlocked by it), Casters have spells, Alchemists get bombs, etc. Coincidentally another class that I see a lot of complaining about--the rogue--is also a class that lacks expendable resources for adaptability. Sneak attacks don't run out, and then they have their HP, and along with an ungodly number of skill points. With rogues the high skill-point count at least gives them a use outside of "I hit the thing" because they can do things that make encounters easier (talk the party out of a APL+5 CR fight, disable the trap in the middle of the room that people keep having to go around).
Seconded for the suggestion that adding pounce would assist them.Isn't that basically what pummeling charge is? (give or take)
A lot of people feel like Pummeling style and it's feat chain were probably meant for unarmed combat only. For now though, you're right.
I don't really like anyone having a guaranteed ignore on save or lose or save or whatever cause then the challenge is gone. Without the challenge, why even run encounters?Because of course the challenge shouldn't be for the caster to find a way to use spells against strong defences, it has to be for the others to find a way to defend against their awesomeness.
And to the OP: Part of the problem is that the community can not agree on how extraordinary a fighter can be without breaking immersion. If you allow him to do truely fantastic things it will be looked as anime, hidden magic, not realistic, and so on.You can't even stab someone with a sword and make them bleed unless it's a magic sword, much less other things that are perfectly possible. Do you think anything that detracts from the superiority of magic in every area would ever be considered acceptable?
It works for me but I have been in enough of these discussions to know the "realism" card will be thrown at some point. I dont mind magic weapons however. I was speaking of special abilities that gave more options.
Seconded for the suggestion that adding pounce would assist them.
I'm also going to have to suggest a combination of Monk and Druid abilities could supplement them well. Perhaps a Ki-Pool like mechanic that grants the warrior enhanced mobility/detection such as climb speeds, slow fall, blind-sense, and making weapons count as something else for bypassing DR. This could be expended in other ways such as bonuses to saves or temporary Spell Resistance. As the fighter's problems emerge in the late-game, these abilities can start being unlocked later than in other such classes.
A key thing to consider with fighters in their difference from other classes is that besides HP, they have no personal resources to expend (unless you count equipment in a sunder-happy encounter). So they effectively have nothing to go "I really needs to be able to do X, even if it does cost me something." Almost every other class has this in some way, shape or form: Barbarians have rage (and the powers unlocked by it), Casters have spells, Alchemists get bombs, etc. Coincidentally another class that I see a lot of complaining about--the rogue--is also a class that lacks expendable resources for adaptability. Sneak attacks don't run out, and then they have their HP, and along with an ungodly number of skill points. With rogues the high skill-point count at least gives them a use outside of "I hit the thing" because they can do things that make encounters easier (talk the party out of a APL+5 CR fight, disable the trap in the middle of the room that people keep having to go around).
I wonder how a fighter would fair if we gave them some panache like abilities key'ed off of con, and rogue some based off of dex.
Fighter's main stat is str, you'd have to base it off Str. Con is a secondary stat.
==Aelryinth
If I was designing the Fighter class for Pathfinder 2.0 here are the things I would include:
No magic-like abilities. Keep them as 'realistic' as possible.
No limited uses per day features. Keep it simple.
These are the things that make a fighter a Fighter as distinct from the other martial classes. They are simple to learn for new players, and they can be used to make down to earth character concepts.
Within these restrictions, they should be as balanced as possible with the other classes. This may mean they have better saving throws than everyone else, lots of skill points, d12 hit dice, etc. They should be good at moving around the map, and should have easy access to feats like Precise Shot that allow you to ignore annoying game mechanics.
There should also be martial classes with cool abilities along the lines of Sorcerer bloodlines that allow them to sunder spells or fly, but these are not Fighters.
How I home-brew "the great martial fix":
- no full attacks. Martials may make all of their iterative attacks on either end of a move, or interspersed with incremental moves if they have Spring Attack.
- shields grant bonuses to touch AC (why on earth shouldn't they...honestly, if I'm trying to touch you and you get your shield in the way, I've failed, right?), and double base AC bonus vs ranged attacks (shields were, historically, most useful against arrows). This makes shields more relevant, and more realistic, and helps address the imbalance of overpowered archery and ranged touch attacks being auto-hits after a certain level.
- stacking bleed effects (because realism) and bleed effects which automatically impose the fatigued condition once bleed/round exceeds 5 (same reason)
- status effects (including bleed, staggered, prone, etc.) on critical hits or hits which inflict more than 25% of a target's HP in damage (randomly generated by damage type)
- feats that grant scaling AC bonuses:
- Dodge: grants Dodge bonus to AC of 1 + 1/[8 - DEX mod] levels
- Armor Mastery: adds 1 + 1/6 levels to AC while wearing a certain class of armor [eg. light, med, heavy] and not denied DEX bonus to AC
- Shield Mastery: Adds 1 + 1/7 levels to base shield AC bonus when wielding a shield or buckler
- base 4 + INT skills points, minimum, for all classes
- "free stuff" for the fighter that makes him more of an all-rounder in combat (specifically, free exotic weapon proficiency with all weapons in his Weapon Training groups, and a free "improved" combat feat like improved sunder every 4 levels)
...that about does it. Martials are still not as powerful as casters at the high levels even with these changes, but their potential tactics and effects are more diverse, and they're generally more fun to play and relevant for longer.
In what was probably the most blatant display of hypocrisy I've seen online, someone who brought up the most massive objections to the idea that balance should be a consideration in RPGs objected to allowing normal weapons to cause effects (bleeding, maiming, dazing, and others) on the grounds that "it would be too powerful because casters have to use a spell to do that."It works for me but I have been in enough of these discussions to know the "realism" card will be thrown at some point. I dont mind magic weapons however. I was speaking of special abilities that gave more options.I don't really like anyone having a guaranteed ignore on save or lose or save or whatever cause then the challenge is gone. Without the challenge, why even run encounters?Because of course the challenge shouldn't be for the caster to find a way to use spells against strong defences, it has to be for the others to find a way to defend against their awesomeness.
And to the OP: Part of the problem is that the community can not agree on how extraordinary a fighter can be without breaking immersion. If you allow him to do truely fantastic things it will be looked as anime, hidden magic, not realistic, and so on.You can't even stab someone with a sword and make them bleed unless it's a magic sword, much less other things that are perfectly possible. Do you think anything that detracts from the superiority of magic in every area would ever be considered acceptable?
See what I mean.. :)
How I home-brew "the great martial fix":
- no full attacks. Martials may make all of their iterative attacks on either end of a move, or interspersed with incremental moves if they have Spring Attack.
- shields grant bonuses to touch AC (why on earth shouldn't they...honestly, if I'm trying to touch you and you get your shield in the way, I've failed, right?), and double base AC bonus vs ranged attacks (shields were, historically, most useful against arrows). This makes shields more relevant, and more realistic, and helps address the imbalance of overpowered archery and ranged touch attacks being auto-hits after a certain level.
- stacking bleed effects (because realism) and bleed effects which automatically impose the fatigued condition once bleed/round exceeds 5 (same reason)
- status effects (including bleed, staggered, prone, etc.) on critical hits or hits which inflict more than 25% of a target's HP in damage (randomly generated by damage type)
- feats that grant scaling AC bonuses:
- Dodge: grants Dodge bonus to AC of 1 + 1/[8 - DEX mod] levels
- Armor Mastery: adds 1 + 1/6 levels to AC while wearing a certain class of armor [eg. light, med, heavy] and not denied DEX bonus to AC
- Shield Mastery: Adds 1 + 1/7 levels to base shield AC bonus when wielding a shield or buckler- base 4 + INT skills points, minimum, for all classes
- "free stuff" for the fighter that makes him more of an all-rounder in combat (specifically, free exotic weapon proficiency with all weapons in his Weapon Training groups, and a free "improved" combat feat like improved sunder every 4 levels)
...that about does it. Martials are still not as powerful as casters at the high levels even with these changes, but their potential tactics and effects are more diverse, and they're generally more fun to play and relevant for longer.
They're awesome ideas, I really like them. Especially the Improved feat ideas and exotic weapon proficiencies. Just a question, who counts as martials for these ideas? Is it everyone with full BAB?
I think the easiest solution is to allow fighters and monks to move and full attack.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?324035-Pathfinder-Grit-Fighte r-PEACH-please
Found this on another forum, thought it was really cool and I like the variety of deeds. Thoughts? Hell, would keeping armour and weapon mastery along with this grit pool be OP?
Only had to get as far as "would fighter be best" before I knew the answer, NO!
The way the system is set up the fighter will never be truly best at anything. Theoretically it is possible for him to have highest damage output but I doubt even this.
I think the Fighter capstone ability does actually make their DPR stupidly high, possibly even the best barring 'shenanigans'. Let's give credit where credit is due.
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I think the Fighter capstone ability does actually make their DPR stupidly high, possibly even the best barring 'shenanigans'. Let's give credit where credit is due.Only had to get as far as "would fighter be best" before I knew the answer, NO!
The way the system is set up the fighter will never be truly best at anything. Theoretically it is possible for him to have highest damage output but I doubt even this.
Willing to give credit where credit is due, but DPR isn't a thing it is possible to be best at within a Pathfinder game, since it's a derived, indirect attribute with no actual gameplay role. It's not like being best at saving throws, for example.
"Best at dealing damage" is a thing it is possible to be within a Pathfinder game, but for "best at dealing damage" - at 20th level more than ever - DPR is only one of a host of relevant factors.
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?324035-Pathfinder-Grit-Fighte r-PEACH-please
Found this on another forum, thought it was really cool and I like the variety of deeds. Thoughts? Hell, would keeping armour and weapon mastery along with this grit pool be OP?
hmm i made this and this(most up to date) a few days ago
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Honestly I think every class is fine and I know people that love rogue and fighter and monk. They don't play to beat the game and optimize, they play to experience the story.
Which has nothing to do with a class. Class is a game mechanic. It has nothing to do with a story beyond what it lets you mechanically do in game that facilitates the story you want to tell. The only reason to pick Fighter or not pick Fighter is for mechanical reasons (because it sure as heck isn't the fluff).
It's the journey, not the destination. Easy wins just feel like suck.
You're right. Easy wins do feel kind of sucky. The bad guys agree with you. It's really boring to have spent your afternoon watching the heroes scaling each level of your tower, anxiously and excitedly watching as they overthrow each of your diabolical traps and slowly proving themselves worthy of facing you and your elite at the top floor; this is the moment you've been waiting for; this is SHOW TIME!
...CRAP. Nevermind, false alarm, it's a fighter. *casts wall of thorns* GG.
IF you're going to do double BAB, you're going to have to have the second set of BAB used for something other then hitting stuff.
I.e. paying for Expertise, Power Attack, Stalwart, or some increased move or save option.
Just doubling ability to hit? Ugh.
==Aelryinth
No no, the intent was BAB and all the bonuses that go along with them.
Level 2 Power attack is at -2. Level 6 its -4. Dazing assault at level 11 would be DC 32 exct.
Probably the best reason to never do something like this, ever.
*casts wall of thorns*
I had to look it up because I don't play Druids.
That should have an [evil] descriptor. Like, wow.
*casts wall of thorns*I had to look it up because I don't play Druids.
That should have an [evil] descriptor. Like, wow.
Why so? Because of how much of an evil "I win" button it is? :P
Why so? Because of how much of an evil "I win" button it is? :P*casts wall of thorns*I had to look it up because I don't play Druids.
That should have an [evil] descriptor. Like, wow.
Yes. ;_;
Seriously, 10 minutes to cut through 5 feet. Full-round actions to move through it at all. They may as well just tell you it's pointless.
Why so? Because of how much of an evil "I win" button it is? :P*casts wall of thorns*I had to look it up because I don't play Druids.
That should have an [evil] descriptor. Like, wow.
Yes. ;_;
Seriously, 10 minutes to cut through 5 feet. Full-round actions to move through it at all. They may as well just tell you it's pointless.
Oh but it gets better. It specifically allows druids and rangers to move through it unimpeded (an exception to the usual woodland stride not allowing you to move through magical growth) which means that you shan't escape Mr. Bear, but Mr. Bear can escape you!
Oh, and the fact the plant growth spell interacts with it in very specific (and cruel) ways, such as increasing all the DCs by 5, and making it thicker. XD
not sure how that's all that threatening actually--by the time level 5 spells roll around i'd be surprised if the fighter didnt have at or close to AC25 before dex/dodge bonuses.
seems like he could force through it in a single round with only 5 damage or so, unless you stack it very densely in a narrow passage or something.
of course it does tie him up quite nicely while you rain spells on him and/or the rest of the party
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not sure how that's all that threatening actually--by the time level 5 spells roll around i'd be surprised if the fighter didnt have at or close to AC25 before dex/dodge bonuses.
seems like he could force through it in a single round with only 5 damage or so, unless you stack it very densely in a narrow passage or something.
of course it does tie him up quite nicely while you rain spells on him and/or the rest of the party
It's not the damage that's important. It's the fact it's more or less full lockdown. It's a shapeable spell which you can drop onto people, and curl it around if you want. You can happily box someone inside of it, and you're right, the wall offers you no protection at all (no cover, no concealment, nada).
It's a wicked spell indeed. It can end entire encounters very easily, and greatly tip the scales in most others.
The simple fact is the Fighter just doesn't do anything during the fight. It's a full-round action to TRY to force your way through it, which is a Strength-check against a very difficult DC) to move through it a tiny bit, but the spell covers an absolutely massive amount of area.
Though this is just a wicked spell all around. I've seen it used to wreck flying creatures, aquatic creatures, land creatures, and pretty much anything that has no problems teleporting through it or ignoring it via incorporeality or something.
I suppose something like resilient sphere would work just as well for a Fighter though, since the Fighter has the worst saving throws of all the core martials, which translates to: "Make a bad save against a good DC or sit out the portion of the game that is the only place you might contribute something meaningful from your class".
not sure how that's all that threatening actually--by the time level 5 spells roll around i'd be surprised if the fighter didnt have at or close to AC25 before dex/dodge bonuses.
seems like he could force through it in a single round with only 5 damage or so, unless you stack it very densely in a narrow passage or something.
of course it does tie him up quite nicely while you rain spells on him and/or the rest of the party
One 10-ft. cube/level, spell first comes online at level 9. That means 90 sq. ft. of terrain he needs to make full-round actions to move through. This also requires strength checks which he might not exceed by enough to plow all the way through on one try. It's really all in the control aspect of it. No one except you or another druid/ranger can move as they please.
As someone once explained, the game can be chopped up into several categories, like lets say:
Social
Exploration
DPR
Control
Recovery
Non-AC Defenses
These are S, E, D, C, R, and N. Assuming that 0 is the minimum proficiency necessary to perform a function adequately, the most you can have in any given field and still have a balanced game is +3, so a Ranger might look like this:
S +0, E +2, DPR +2, Control +0 to +1, Recovery +0 to +1, N +1
Total net score: 6 to 7So a pretty good spread divided evenly between the various game functions, with an emphasis on Exploration and DPR. Recovery and Control will vary based on spells prepared.
The Fighter looks more like this:
S -1, E- -1, DPR +3, Control -3 to +0, Recovery -3, N -3 to -1
Total net score: -7 to -9Note that the Fighter can shift his Non-AC defenses up to a -1 (maybe even a 0) by spending feats, but doing so likely means he loses his spot as top DPR and drops to a +2. So, sure, the Fighter has a +3 in DPR, which is better than the Ranger, but he pays for it by being terrible in everything else. And the Ranger still has a +2, meaning he is two substantial steps above the minimum amount necessary to meaningfully contribute. For many enemies, there will be no functional difference between a +2 and a +3 because if trhey have 12 hit points, it doesn't matter if the Ranger is dealing 15 and the Fighter is dealing 18, the creature was defeated by both characters in the same amount of time and with the same expenditure of time and resource.
**EDIT**
I probably should have included "Armor Class" as one of the relevant factors, in which case the Fighter has A +2 and the Ranger has A +1, shifting out totals to 7 to 8 for the Ranger and -6 to -8 for the Fighter.
Eh, depends on the build for a lot of that. For control and non-AC defense, a good reach build could do a lot.
Besides the fact that your standard polearm turns you into a 25' circle of pain (ie- anything that tries to get around you to eat the wizard's kidneys get smacked), you can further how you control this using lunge.
Lunge gives +5 reach during your turn (and ends when your turn ends), and as such get underestimated in terms of importance for reach since it does help with AoO's. But it is in fact perfect- an enemy usually ends up 10' away when you hit it. They only have to take a 5' step (which means no AoO) and they can full attack. But with lunge, enemies end up 15' feet away, and they both draw an AoO and likely lose their full attack. You can fight against an enemy, getting full attacks without going into the usual 'A wails on B, B wails on A, wash rince repeat until we see who does more DPR'.
Also, when you include your own 5' step, lunge allows you to full attack anything within a 45' circle... which is always nice for a melee character. With that, I would hardly even need all these 'give everyone pounce' demands I always see on these threads....
Now, a lot of that stuff is available to pretty much everyone.... but fighters can grab that, and then grab a couple of other tricks along the way (I am now in love with ACG's riving strike, which is basically a 1 turn evil eye hex against spells; debuffing with a -2 to saves is always sweet). I also love the new mutagenic warrior, which gives you freakin' wings for long enough per day from the get go that you can do it every fight. You still need a wizard for long term stuff...but stabbing wyverns 100 feet in the air without any help still makes me warm inside. Plus it has extra strength boosts similar to rage...but hey, we all agree that DPR is not so much the problem here. I'm not saying no though, even if I would have traded armor training away for just the wings...
Anyway, I can certainly agree that fighters could use more skill points and better class skills (which would get themsomewhere out of the red with your point system), but I can be happy with what I can build. Saves...a bit troublesome, but you are just not trying hard enough if you can't make a character that makes the uninvested wizard look bad when your main resource is 'tons of feats'. So it is more of a resource sink that has to be dealt with than anything...
