This archetype gives the fighter a lot of additional power due to mutagen and, more importantly, versatility thanks to discoveries (the ability to fly among them), what you trade off is Armor Training which is an ability you can skip thanks to the appropriate equipment and special materials.
Is there something I'm not seeing or is this basically a straight upgrade to fighter allowing him to (almost) compete with barbarian in term of melee power (although I tend to believe an archery based mutation fighter would be even more effective since flight sinergizes better with light armor and high dex)?
Most powerful is very questionable.
But, I do agree that Mutation warrior is better than than the standard base fighter.
It is really good. A few other archetypes do give it a run for it's money in terms of power though (like Lore Warden and Eldritch Guardian). Rage powers, better saves and better skills still make the Barbarian the better choice for your typical two handing beater, but at least the fighter is worth considering for something a little more exotic when you toss in powerful archetypes like Mutation Warrior (possibly alongside Eldritch Guardian and Martial Master).
The (2?) that give high-level pounce are also really good. Those archetypes aren't very good before then, however.
It's probably the best low-level archetype, I'd think.
It is really good. A few other archetypes do give it a run for it's money in terms of power though (like Lore Warden and Eldritch Guardian). Rage powers, better saves and better skills still make the Barbarian the better choice for your typical two handing beater, but at least the fighter is worth considering for something a little more exotic when you toss in powerful archetypes like Mutation Warrior (possibly alongside Eldritch Guardian and Martial Master).
Mmmmh... Lore Warden, despite being nice thanks to the int based skills increase is even SADder than your usual fighter, as you have to compensate for the lack of good armor with higher dex and int becomes an important option too.
Eldritch guardian has a better skillset, something useful instead of bravery (or what bravery should have been from the beginning) and access to a familiar but I don't find the archetype to be particularly compelling, even if it's probably stright up better than normal fighter as you keep weapon training and armor training (you lose 2 feats and bravery for something better).
Mutation warrior gives you options, flight and a huge increase to stats that actually stacks with other forms of stat buffing (being an alchemical bonus). Seems to me that makes mutation warrior the clear winner in terms of power.
Edit: yep, barb rage powers (especially thanks to pounce and better saves) make it a better option still, and Viking is basically a board and sword fighter mixed with barb, I seeviking as admitting barb is straight up better than fighter, so just copy his stuff and give it to fighter though...
Eldritch guardian has a better skillset, something useful instead of bravery (or what bravery should have been from the beginning) and access to a familiar but I don't find the archetype to be particularly compelling, even if it's probably stright up better than normal fighter as you keep weapon training and armor training (you lose 2 feats and bravery for something better).
It's pretty good in a number of ways. First, you can share your combat teamwork feats with your familiar allowing you to reliably pull off combos that normally require multiple players. Chief amongst these is Coordinated Charge, which you can use as a pseudo pounce, by having your familiar charge, which triggers your charge, leaving you at the enemy with a full attack action to go. Second, there are tricky builds, such as a Dirty Tricks build, where you and your familiar stack the tricks on an enemy faster than most characters can do so. Third, there is the simple versatility of having a familiar for purposes of scouting and fetching.
Edit: And I may have missed it in all of the text, but you can actually take Eldritch Guardian and Mutation Warrior at the same time.
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Eldritch guardian has a better skillset, something useful instead of bravery (or what bravery should have been from the beginning) and access to a familiar but I don't find the archetype to be particularly compelling, even if it's probably stright up better than normal fighter as you keep weapon training and armor training (you lose 2 feats and bravery for something better).
It's pretty good in a number of ways. First, you can share your combat teamwork feats with your familiar allowing you to reliably pull off combos that normally require multiple players. Chief amongst these is Coordinated Charge, which you can use as a pseudo pounce, by having your familiar charge, which triggers your charge, leaving you at the enemy with a full attack action to go. Second, there are tricky builds, such as a Dirty Tricks build, where you and your familiar stack the tricks on an enemy faster than most characters can do so. Third, there is the simple versatility of having a familiar for purposes of scouting and fetching.
Edit: And I may have missed it in all of the text, but you can actually take Eldritch Guardian and Mutation Warrior at the same time.
You can also stack Martial Master onto the archetype pyramid to bump the versatility up even more. Of course, at this point you literally aren't playing a fighter anymore since every single class ability has been swapped out, but its a great "fighter" nonetheless.
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I really hate to lose weapon training. Duelists Gloves are just too nice.
Cyber Soldier and Trenchfighter are both really good.
Yeah, combining mutagenic warrior and eldritch guardian fighter is one of the stronger combos you can do as a fighter. It gives you enough that you should generally keep up with other classes.
Combined boosts of weapon training and mutagen gives you great damage and attack boosts- you might as well count everything up to the 3rd iterative as a 'sure thing'.
Coordinated charge gives you a pseudo pounce so you can keep up that damage with full attacks.
Sharing feats with familiar can make you REALLY broken- you really get into the guardian against the 'eldritch' when you and your familiar are double teaming the enemy wizard with dirty tricks. With the shared feats, you are basically doubling your action economy, and thus you could completely cripple the enemy in a single round. Dirty trick master allows you to give the nauseated condition in 2 dirty tricks; that removes the standard action, which means they cannot remove the dirty trick, cast anything other than quickened spells, or attack.
And with flight and the extra bit of boost against the 'kill your friends' spells, you also avoid some of the common short comings of fighters.
Sidenote- another broken combo with familiar- disheartening display. It is part of the dazzling display feat line. It basically just lets you keep increasing fear levels step after step until the other side is cowering in a corner. So with a familiar, you can baton twirl your way into making everyone in 30' run from you in a single round. Yes, very cheesy. It just shows how some feats were written under the idea that only one person in a party would be using them, so they break if you tag team. And fighters are good at grabbing feats like this.
You can also stack Martial Master onto the archetype pyramid to bump the versatility up even more. Of course, at this point you literally aren't playing a fighter anymore since every single class ability has been swapped out, but its a great "fighter" nonetheless.Eldritch Martial Mutation "fighter" definitely doesn't even remotely resemble the original class at that point. Which is fine really, since the fighter is a horrible class in my opinion.
It adds some much-needed versatility and variety to the "I FULL ATTACK" machine. Hell, I consider Eldritch guardian to be the bare minimum to play a fighter, since all you're trading out is a couple of bonus feats and one of the most useless class features in the game for a familiar, and a class feature that helps shore up a pretty important save.
For what it's worth: I love the fighter as a class and I happen to think it was marginalized mainly because of power creep and an internal imballance of the D&D 3.00+ system
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Advanced Weapon Training from the new Weapon Master's Handbook is the shot in the arm the fighter needed. It plus the Weapon Mastery feats do a lot to help improve the Fighter's ability to specialize in 1-2 weapons. I would say any archetype that keeps Weapon Training is much more valuable now because of these. (Eldritch Guardian+Mutation Warrior with these options sounds like amazing fun.)
It's probably one of the strongest ones... But that isn't saying much, considering 90% of all archetypes, specially Fighter and Rogue archetypes, suck balls.
Advanced Weapon Training from the new Weapon Master's Handbook is the shot in the arm the fighter needed. It plus the Weapon Mastery feats do a lot to help improve the Fighter's ability to specialize in 1-2 weapons. I would say any archetype that keeps Weapon Training is much more valuable now because of these. (Eldritch Guardian+Mutation Warrior with these options sounds like amazing fun.)
What kind of benefits does that bring? Cause that archetype combo is already letting you get +32 on attacks from bab+class features+class feature specific item+the two weapon focus feats. Does it have neat tricks?
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Advanced Weapon Training from the new Weapon Master's Handbook is the shot in the arm the fighter needed. It plus the Weapon Mastery feats do a lot to help improve the Fighter's ability to specialize in 1-2 weapons. I would say any archetype that keeps Weapon Training is much more valuable now because of these. (Eldritch Guardian+Mutation Warrior with these options sounds like amazing fun.)What kind of benefits does that bring? Cause that archetype combo is already letting you get +32 on attacks from bab+class features+class feature specific item+the two weapon focus feats. Does it have neat tricks?
yes, you can do things such as : replacing skill ranks with your Bab depending on your weapon training group, or slash boulders out of the air among others.
Fair enough. Honestly, I was just expecting some bonuses to maneuvers or something. So that ended up as a pleasant surprise.