Unchained Fighter design PEACH


Homebrew and House Rules

Shadow Lodge

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So I've been working on some updates and redesigns for some of the core classes and was wanting to get some feedback on some of the redesigns and right now I want to talk about the fighter. One of the backbone classes of the game the fighter always feels like it gets left behind by the time you reach 5th as the complexity of combat increases but the fighter himself never really gets a chance to catch up. With these updates I'm hoping to bolster them up a little and give the class a bit of that complexity and more options while on the field.

Check out the link here and let me know what you think and I'll answer any questions and explain design decisions below.

Edit: Anything that is not mentioned is left unchanged from the original work.


You've given fighters more options in combat, which i feel isn't quite what the fighter needs. A fighter needs more options out of combat, with skills and other ways to affect the story. What you made is interesting, but i don't think it hits the nail on the head of the issue. Why do you think the fighter gets left behind?

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I agree with Sir Charles. It doesn't really fix any of the fighter's main issues. All you did was make them better at combat in fairly uninteresting ways when the fighter is already good at combat in fairly uninteresting ways.


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Just give them a feat every level, or 2 feats every level. 2 feats every other level is a head scratcher.

Your armor training is paper intensive. Just have the bonus grant DR and you're done.
armor training is a ONE LEVEL ability. Levels 7, 11, and 15 have NOTHING. The insanity of a +1 scaling of a low level ability counting as a class feature doesn't apply to spellcasters or even barbs, why is it applying to fighters?
Furthermore, change the +dex limit to a simple dodge bonus, so it always applies. Monks don't need a high dex to qualify for their class AC bonus, why do fighters?

Insert automatic AAT options there.

Your WT starts at 5. The fighter once again is the only melee class without a damage bonus at level 1.

Parry, as armor, paper intensive. Drop it. just give +1 Weapon groups and +1 to WT as a scaling bonus, and find something else to put in there at 9, 13, and 17. Find another way of soaking damage then having the fighter bleed gold for fixing his gear.

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Where are your movement options?
Skill points? Skill bonuses?
Out of combat options?
Recovery/healing options?
Any warlord/marshal options?
Leadership options?
Are your capstones equivalent to 9th level spells?
Defenses and immunities?
Do you have a feats update or rewrite?

These are the main fighter problems.

Shadow Lodge

Sir Charles the Bold wrote:
You've given fighters more options in combat, which i feel isn't quite what the fighter needs. A fighter needs more options out of combat, with skills and other ways to affect the story. What you made is interesting, but i don't think it hits the nail on the head of the issue. Why do you think the fighter gets left behind?

Honestly, the biggest issue with the fighter is how quickly other classes (martial & magical) begin to outstrip the fighter as you move along the level progression path. Barbarians get rage powers, wizards hit the arcane spell bump around 5th and their battlefield utility explodes, and the improvements to paladins smite let them completely dominate in a lot of encounters and their spellcasting helps supplement that in any case where smite isn't really usable.

Meanwhile, the fighter just kind of chugs along. The vast majority of builds get pigeonholed by deep feat trees that soak up all of your feat slots to pay out really late compared to the wait for casters or other martials like ranger or Barbarians who start paying out rage powers, favored enemies, favored terrains, even ranger combat styles let you get into powers you want quickly without having to invest down a tree.

And all of this doesn't make any sense. The fighter is the professional soldier, the all day muscle, the clock in killer. This is the dude who wakes up sharpens his blade, checks his armor straps, and then goes out and stabs people and gets stabbed for people for his daily bread. Barbarians fight cause they have to do everything, rangers hunt and try to avoid being hunted, paladins are the educated hands of their faith, but the fighter is a professional soldier solely. With all that in mind it's a damn shame they don't compete.

So my goal was to try and bump that back up, give the fighter more umph on the battlefield. So to start I looked at what all of those classes really get on a mechanical level and what those abilities bring to the table during combat. In the end the biggest thing is versatility. Rage powers, spells, smites, favored enemy, all of them give a character utility on the battlefield beyond just flat dmg output and have some sort of control vector to entice the player to use them. The fighter doesn't really have a lot of ways to get that level of battlefield complexity on it's own barring feats which in and of itself isn't really unique, everyone gets feats and getting slightly more very specific feats isn't even unique to them. What they need is some way to pull that way more if bonus feats has been designated their thing and some more powers that they can make their own.

Now the extra feat and stipulation help there. With 2 feats every other level a fighter can start to develop a fighting "style" long before every other class. A Human fighter at 2nd is now sitting on 4 feats from their class alone and another 2 character to do with as they want, giving them a lot of upfront space to build complexly. This is especially true for feat heavy builds that usually don't get much play like crossbows, 2 weapon, sword & board with multi focus (think shield feats & weapon feats), slingers, etc. On top of that the tree limiter encourages investing in feats that can be useful to their concept but are outside of those feat trees. Things like lunge, shattering weapon, shield focus, dazzling display, and other lesser used feats become more attractive in your build when you have a free feat slot, your ahead on the feat tree, and something like lunge would really complement your reach build.

Next up the deflection power grants you extra health bars that can potentially double or triple your health easily. A suit of scalemail is sitting on 20 hp and 10 hardness, a greatsword has 10 hp and 10 hardness, and you can totally purchase both on a 1st lvl fighter's salary. Once he's got both your average fighter (+2 Con for math) has doubled his health AND and ignore most poisons, injury diseases, and on hit status conditions since once the damage is on your gear the effects transfer over and are in most cases negated. This also prioritizes sundering into a lot of builds as a way to handle the black hole that is hitting this new fighter.

Finally, the extra feat opens up your character feats that are gained through leveling and lack restrictions for a multitude of other options. Now that the rush burden is better handled by the fighter feats those slots can be used to collect up things like skill focus, eldritch heritage, or whatever non combat feat that fleshes out your concept or increases your out of combat utility if that's what you're aiming for. Also, considering that the character feat doesn't have the same restrictions as the bonus feats it makes it a work around if you really want to rush into a tree.

As for the out of combat stuff I'm honestly not that interested. As stated above, the fighter is a specialist focused on beating the snot out of others for fun and profit. The soldier doesn't do the diplomacy stuff it's why the gods gave him bards, he doesn't pick locks because the specialist does that and in exchange he cuts the orcs on the other side of the door into tinier fractions of orcs, and magic for the most part is the stuff the wizard does to the other wizard and his crew and in exchange he keeps said wizard and his cronies from killing his wizard. Now, this does not mean he is necessarily incompetent in the performance of some of these tasks (traits, skill focus, etc. can get you pretty far) but he also knows that his training is all about the battle field and things directly pertaining to that. Along with that, with the decreased burden of feat selection thanks to the bonus feat increase and the inclusion of item mastery feats to the bonus feat roster the fighter has more room to build in utility than ever before! Compulsion Mastery & Illusion Mastery give you social utility with access to a Con based Suggestion and Minor Image while the Dispel Mastery, Flight Mastery, Telekinetic Mastery, and Vision Mastery feats give tons of exploration utility and responses to magical hindrances they lacked before barring the aid of a caster.

Shadow Lodge

Das Bier wrote:
Just give them a feat every level, or 2 feats every level. 2 feats every other level is a head scratcher.

A feat every level puts your feat count at 30 still staggers your tree progression and discourages grabbing up other feats outside your tree and reduces your combat versatility. 2 feats a level puts that at 50 feats including character and if you wanna talk about complexity try having 25 feats you can all turn on at 10th and you've been playing for maybe 2 months or less. Finally keeping the slot progression keeps the same progression reward drip pace (the rate at which new abilities are acquired per level) near the same and doesn't allow for certain levels to bunch up and dump a ton of abilities into a single level, enticing players to dip or run up to a certain level and then stop progressing in the class.

Das Bier wrote:
Your armor training is paper intensive. Just have the bonus grant DR and you're done.

This really depends on perspective. Barbarians rage, false life, stoneskin, Protection from energy, and protection from arrows all grant extra hp bars in their own right and in the case of the spells, much higher quantities than any item hp of commiserate level. Second, you're already tracking these numbers anyways thanks to sundering and other options for item destruction, this just gives your fighter a way to utilize it specific to the class.

Das Bier wrote:
armor training is a ONE LEVEL ability. Levels 7, 11, and 15 have NOTHING. The insanity of a +1 scaling of a low level ability counting as a class feature doesn't apply to spellcasters or even barbs, why is it applying to fighters?

Yes, but rogues, slayers, and rangers do. The flat scaling is modeled off the ranger's favored terrain and favored enemy with the bonuses being smaller to match the amount of player control the PC has to exploit these bonuses as compared to the ranger. I.e. the bonuses are lower because I as a fighter can choose what armor to wear or weapon to use rather than a ranger who can't always chose his enemy or the environment he has to wander through. Second, a fighter is still getting other buffs from those levels of armor training with penalty reduction, max Dex increases, and utilize his full movement speed in even the heaviest armor. On it's own it might not sound like much but considering this can pull up to a -4 off of a skill its a pretty big buff to skills and out of combat play. But if that doesn't float you're boat with the advent of the new armor training powers you can trade away levels of the ability you don't want for something else that is more suitable to your defensive playstyle.

All of this and we still haven't gotten to the buffs the unchained build adds. I talked about this above but to elaborate, you basically get to double if not triple your health, ignore a ton of status conditions so long as the damage isn't sufficient to destroy your armor (on hit poisons & diseases, touch attacks, on hit status effects, etc.), gain hardness based mitigation (way better than DR), and a whole new variable when you buy gear. Armor training may reduce hardness but it doesn't effect other resistances. Now I can get a red dragon skin shield, divert all that fireball dmg to the shield, and watch the wizard skulk as I just walked out completely unscathed.

Das Bier wrote:
Furthermore, change the +dex limit to a simple dodge bonus, so it always applies. Monks don't need a high dex to qualify for their class AC bonus, why do fighters?

Hmm... not a terrible idea but it lacks scope. The problem with a dodge bonus has more to do with the idea that not all fighters are necessarily nimble. The dwarven fighter bedecked in stone plate or someone who's building say the mountain or a tank through dmg akin to a barbarian isn't really the character who's sitting on a giant dodge bonus or is just bouncing out of the way. He just takes it on the arm or armor because he doesn't give a shit and will either shrug it or beat you down faster than his opponent will. The other big issue is that as you progress up in levels AC bonuses matter less and less as attack bonuses race pass them, damage soars, and the cost to increase AC starts to fall behind the bonus you're getting. Why Barbarian's DR is so awesome and things like DR, concealment, and hardness become so valuable and remain valuable even at early levels and why it's king once you start cresting 10th and definitely by 12th.

Beyond that not an awful idea, I'd just want to play with it more to let it open up to more character concepts that don't want to go more nimble and better accounts for the environment past 1-5th and 5-10th level play.

Das Bier wrote:
Insert automatic AAT options there.

Not sure what shorthand you're using here, guessing advanced armor training but I'd rather wait for confirmation on your end.

Das Bier wrote:
Your WT starts at 5. The fighter once again is the only melee class without a damage bonus at level 1.

Actually, they kind of do from your bonus feats. Weapon focus, power attack, piranha strike, point blank shot, two weapon fighting, and splintering weapon are all just a few options to boost your atk or dmg output as a fighter at first. The problem is that since they are feats that everyone could theoretically take at 1st it usually gets overlooked and with only one and feat taxing one often has to go through one has a tendency to not pick them up. The upside of the increase in feats is it allows fighters to grab up some of these feats if they want while still having room to pick up the feat taxes they need to get to whatever their build needs.

Das Bier wrote:
Parry, as armor, paper intensive. Drop it. just give +1 Weapon groups and +1 to WT as a scaling bonus, and find something else to put in there at 9, 13, and 17. Find another way of soaking damage then having the fighter bleed gold for fixing his gear.

See the armor answer above as well as the swashbuckler who can perform a similar ability at 1st with a limited pool mechanic they have to juggle. The ranger favored enemy argument is more applicable here as well as the weapon groups put even more control in the hands of the player than favored enemy hence the lower atk & dmg output. See the slayer favored target power for another example of this.

As for the fixing, mending is a 0 lvl spell that any divine caster can grab up and immediately endear themselves to the fighter. As for mundane means repairing an item costs 1/5th of its total value and in a pinch an oil of mending will cost you 12.5 gp, slightly more than a single bullet and powder. Also mending.

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Das Bier wrote:
Where are your movement options?

Armor training and item mastery feats (dim door & flight off your magical gear, the latter of which you can get off of your physical stat buff belt) give them the options on their own and allies help buff the rest. Realize that an update needs to allow the class to better exemplify his narrative niche alongside a team, not overwhelm and push out everyone else.

Das Bier wrote:

Skill points? Skill bonuses?

Out of combat options?

Answered in previous response.

Das Bier wrote:
Recovery/healing options?

Explained above with the ability to transfer damage around your gear. It allows the fighter to protect themselves by spreading the damage around their gear rather than themselves, keeping them safe and potentially mitigating some serious status effects. A 3rd level fighter against a wight can choose to throw a slam onto his shield or armor rather than himself, taking nothing and negating the fort save or neg level he would have gotten if it hit him. That's pretty powerful.

Das Bier wrote:

Any warlord/marshal options?

Leadership options?

I've wondered about this a lot and I am interested in the option but still fiddling with how to implement it. If you want to talk about increased complexity issues try having X number sentient goons you or your fighter PC gets to control and move around the field. It's like a summoner with a pile of loyal mortals who aren't so alien they could want to be paid in rocks and only fight underground or be paid in conflagrated children and calling upon them rots your soul. It takes a very special player to run a bunch of intelligent characters together well and not cheese it and that's not something every player wants. Still, there's something here to mull over for a base class sans an archetype.

Das Bier wrote:
Are your capstones equivalent to 9th level spells?

I think this is kind of a false comparison on a couple levels. 1, 9th level spells are something that all casting classes have long before 20th and aren't really capstones. 2, by what 9th level spell you compare it really changes your metric of success. Do you compare it to something like freedom, spell that is very powerful in a specific circumstance, or something like wish, gate, or time stop that have such wide ranging power in their own right that they are nearly impossible to balance against in every instance that one could think up in just 5 mins or so?

Das Bier wrote:
Defenses and immunities?

See multiple damage spreading mitigations mentioned above from armor and weapon training. Again to restate, hardness is like DR but applies to ALL forms of damage not just physical and the training doesn't mitigate resistances on the items or the inherent immunities items have for being items. Pretty awesome to have a black dragon shield to block acid arrow with or a red dragonhide shield to eat a fireball.

Das Bier wrote:
Do you have a feats update or rewrite?

Not really, I try to avoid rewriting feats rather than the class since it means a ton of work on my end for things not every fighter will be seeking to use while a fix to the class is something all of them immediately benefit from. Second, it allows for less updating of preexisting fighters as possible, allowing GM's and players to slot this stuff in with as little fuss as possible.

That said, I have been looking to fiddle with the way combat maneuvers are implemented in combat. Likely pulling them off of attack replacements and putting them in as options after the hit like a wolf's trip or something akin to that. Likely keeping the AoO without the commensurate feat. Stay tuned for more on that.

Das Bier wrote:
These are the main fighter problems.

Thanks for responding! Hope this answers a lot of your questions ^-^.

Shadow Lodge

Bump


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Some more ideas; feel free to grab any/all. My goals were to help the fighter (a) deal with common conditions and keep on coming, (b) control the battlefield, and (c) eventually awe the people around him with his sheer heroic presence. Helping him with gear (d) was a tertiary objective.

UNCHAINED FIGHTER
HD d10; BAB full; skill points: 4+Int mod/level
Good saves: Fort, Ref, Will (Making bravery apply to Will saves has always seemed like an inefficient means of addressing his poor will save.)

1: Combat Expertise, feat aptitude, war master's edge +1
2: Bonus feat, bravery I
3: Mettle, personal weapon +1
4: Bonus feat, stamina I, strong stomach I
5: Battlefield control (10 ft.), war master's edge +2
6: Bonus feat, bravery II, onslaught of blows
7: Combat mobility, personal weapon +2
8: Bonus feat, stamina II
9: Battlefield control (15 ft.), war master's edge +3,
10: Bonus feat, bravery III, tactical commander
11: Personal weapon +3, warlord
12: Bonus feat, strong stomach II
13: Superior battlefield control (20 ft.), war master's edge +4
14: Bonus feat, bravery IV, cheat the fog of war
15: Indomitable will, personal weapon +4
16: Bonus feat, supreme vital strike
17: Battlefield control (25 ft.), war master's edge +5
18: Bonus feat, supreme warlord
19: Personal weapon +5
20: Bonus feat, desperate resolve

Spoiler:
Feat Aptitude (Ex): When selecting a combat feat, the fighter can ignore one of the feat's prerequisites.

War Master's Edge (Ex): Combat is the fighter's stock in trade, and he's better at it than anyone. At 1st level, his training provides a +1 insight bonus to attacks, CMB, damage, initiative checks, and AC/CMD. In addition, his armor check penalty is reduced by 1 and the max Dex AC from armor increases by 1. (i.e., weapon training + armor training + initiative bonus.) The bonus provided by this ability increases as shown in the table.

Bravery (Ex): At 2nd level, the fighter is immune to effects that cause the shaken condition. For more severe fear, the effect is lessened by 1 step (cowering -> panicked -> frightened -> shaken). The severity is reduced by 2 steps at 6th level, by 3 steps at 10th level, and a fighter of 14th level or higher is immune to [fear] effects.

Mettle (Ex): As evasion, but applies to Fort/Will effects.

Personal Weapon (Su): At 3rd level, the fighter selects a single weapon (not type of weapon) at the start of each day. That weapon gains a +1 enhancement bonus when wielded by the fighter. If already +1, the fighter can increase its enhancement bonus by +1 or cause it to gain a +1 equivalent weapon property. The additional enhancement bonus to this weapon improved as shown in the table.

Stamina (Ex): At 4th level, the fighter's endurance training renders him immune to effects that cause the fatigued condition. If he would normally be exhausted, he becomes fatigued instead. At 8th level he is immune to exhaustion.

Strong Stomach (Ex): A fighter is inured to the sight of blood and the stench of corpses on the battlefield. At 4th level he is immune to effects that cause the sickened condition; if nauseated, he is sickened instead. At 12th level he is immune to nausea.

Battlefield Control (Ex): At 5h level, the fighter gains Combat Reflexes as a bonus feat. In addition, he can choose to reduce his movement speed by 5 ft. for one round in order to extend his threatened area by 5 ft. For every 4 levels above 5th, he can trade an additional 5 ft. (up to his maximum movement speed). Enemies who have not seen the fighter use this ability are not necessarily aware of it.

Onslaught of Blows (Ex): A fighter takes no penalty on iterative attacks (thus, a 16th level fighter attacks at +16/+16/+16/+16).

Combat Mobility (Ex): At 7th level, a fighter can take a full move and still full attack. Movement and attacks can be interspaced as the fighter sees fit, but all movement must be taken in 5-ft. increments. This ability also allows the fighter to make a full attack at the end of a charge.

Tactical Commander (Ex): Starting at 10th level, the fighter can spend a move action in order to grant allies who can see and hear him the benefits of his War Master’s Edge, but at only half his normal bonus.

Warlord (Ex): At 11th level, the fighter’s prowess and renown are is such that he can assemble an army eager to serve under him. This requires 1 week and provides personnel as if the fighter had the Leadership feat (if he or she already has the Leadership feat, the effects stack). The newly-assembled army remains until the purpose of assembling is fulfilled, or after 1 month of inactivity in any event.

Superior Battlefield Control (Ex): Starting at 13th level, as a free action the fighter can designate any portion of his threatened area as difficult terrain.

Cheat the Fog of War (Ex): At 14th level, the fighter’s instinctive awareness of tactics and battlefield positioning is unmatched. He can deduce which effects are illusory and which threats are real, even from magically-concealed enemies; this counts as true seeing, but is an extraordinary ability that cannot be dispelled. When faced with a projected image, the fighter can deduce the actual location of the caster.

Indomitable Will (Ex): A fighter of 15th level or higher under an ongoing [mind-affecting] effect may attempt an additional Will save each round to end the effect. If the effect does not normally allow a save, the fighter gains a Will save (DC 25) to end the effect.

Supreme Vital Strike (Ex): Starting at 16th level, as full round action the fighter can make a single melee or ranged weapon attack that deals base damage equal to the normal weapon base damage x his fighter level. Effects like lead blades, etc. follow the normal rules for adding multipliers (e.g., a 16th level fighter with a lead bladed longsword deals a base 17d8 damage with this attack).

Supreme Warlord (Ex): Starting at 18th level, opponents with a CR equal to half the fighter’s level or less must save vs. Will each round (DC 10 + the fighter’s level) spent in combat against him. Failure indicates that they are so awed by his prowess that they throw down their arms and surrender to him; if he or his companions continue to attack them, they flee if possible (a dishonorable fighter can use his battlefield control ability to impede their retreat, allowing them to be slaughtered). If their surrender is accepted, the fighter can spend a move action to recruit them to his side; this change of allegiance lasts for as long as they remain within his presence.

Desperate Resolve (Ex): Starting at 20th level, the fighter no longer automatically fails saves on a natural 1.

Shadow Lodge

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Some more ideas; feel free to grab any/all. My goals were to help the fighter (a) deal with common conditions and keep on coming, (b) control the battlefield, and (c) eventually awe the people around him with his sheer heroic presence. Helping him with gear (d) was a tertiary objective.

Warlord (Ex): At 11th level, the fighter’s prowess and renown are is such that he can assemble an army eager to serve under him. This requires 1 week and provides personnel as if the fighter had the Leadership feat (if he or she already has the Leadership feat, the effects stack). The newly-assembled army remains until the purpose of assembling is fulfilled, or after 1 month of inactivity in any event.

Interesting. I think the Warlord ability is pretty good idea but I still feel like the fighter needs some option to choose instead of just leadership stuff. Also I'd want to limit warlord down to something a bit more focused and less unwieldy than a clod of npcs on leadership. Maybe some combination of pregenerated troop and Mass Combat setup.

Shadow Lodge

Update: I've added another ability to their list for more battlefield utility.

Check it out in the link here

Now, the other thing I kind of want to talk about here quickly is some of the design philosophy going into the construction of the unchained fighter and the principles therein which break down like this.

1.) Give the fighter more to do during combat by granting him more opportunities for complexity: As it stands the fighter struggles to offer much that makes it either stand out or match up to many of the other martial classes in the game often due to a combination of a bonus feat system it shares to some capacity with so many other martial classes that it's unexciting and slightly stymied and a list of unique class abilities that are often unintersting and very uninteractive with the player after initial selection. This mod looks to grant fighters more options on how they play across multiple builds while carving out new niches for unexpected concepts (like say board and mace heavy armored fighters who now can use that insane amount hp on a heavy mace to both damage and soak hits).

2.) To better allow players to craft the professional soldier archetype in many of its forms within the fighter class. A fighter on the surface should be the go to class for martial master of his chosen weapons, forging his own unique combat style throughout his level progression that by 20th has likely been carved into the annals of history and potentially taught to generations of aspiring swordsmen, archers, etc. or the backbone on which nations start devising their military training and tactics (to either use or defend against). Unfortunately, the fighter as it stands sort of putters along, kind of filling space and taking about the same amount of time as any other martial class to fill whatever combat/weapon style or role they seek to fill. This is why the increased feat number is so important as it allows players to get to boons quicker than other martial classses but also encourages them to branch out and pick up other feats and feat trees that complement their core tactics but likely would have been avoided when they were more feat starved.

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