Advanced Class Guide Preview: Brawler

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

The monk is a disciplined martial artist who spends years of practice to perfect his body and mind. A lawful paragon, the monk has strange and mysterious ki powers. But sometimes you don't want to play Bruce Lee. Sometimes you want to be Chuck Norris. No rules, no discipline, just a headbutt, a kick in the face, and a sucker punch. Bloody, ugly, but effective. If that's what you want, the Advanced Class Guide has the class you've been waiting for.

From the very first playtest version, the Brawler has also possessed some key features. She had full base attack bonus and rocked the monk's unarmed strike damage. She kept all her abilities in light armor (so appropriately, she is brutal in brawling armor). And she had a unique key feature all her own, martial maneuvers, now with a new name in the final version that better carries the awesomeness of the ability—martial flexibility. Martial flexibility is the brawler's answer for the disciplined abilities that the monk learns from all those years of study and perfection. With her flexible mind and intuitive grasp of close-quarters combat, the brawler has seen pretty much every trick in the book throughout her many bar brawls, arena fights, and adventuring combats. Martial flexibility allows her to spontaneously gain access to just the right combat feat (or later feats!) for her situation. Did someone splash ale in your eyes? Gain Blind-Fight. A spellcaster giving you the blues? Try Disruptive and Spellbreaker, maybe with an added dash of Step-Up. Giant enemy archer? Just take Deflect Arrows and they can kiss their Manyshot goodbye (after which you hit their weak point for massive damage).


Illustration by Ramon Puasa Jr

During the playtest, we were all out on the forums bringing back our data, which revealed a few things. Mainly, we all discovered that martial flexibility was awesome, but the brawler could use some more tricks that she could rely on consistently and that are unique to her. Have you ever wished you could hit that weakling wizard right beneath the jaw in just the right spot to knock him out in one hit? As of the second playtest version, the brawler gained the ability to dish out an instant knockout blow starting at level 13 with a devastating DC based on the brawler's Str or Dex score (your choice!). Furthermore, she gained the ability to use Awesome Blow without being size Large, eventually gaining the ability to dropkick the tarrasque 10 feet, knocking it prone, despite being size Medium.

As of the end of the playtest, the brawler was already awesome, and she seemed to have found a good place, but there were still a few observations from playtesters that led to some tweaks for the final version. First of all, the final brawler can deal increased damage with the close weapon group (growing at a slightly reduced rate from her unarmed damage), letting her brawl with everything at her disposal. Second, the knockout ability appearing at level 13 and then growing to 3 uses per day at level 16 seemed rather late and sudden. So the final version? She can start her instant knockout attacks at level 4! And just wait until you see the frankly mind-boggling feat novas you can pull off with her new capstone!

If standard brawler flavor isn't enough, brawler has some of the most evocative archetypes in the book. Instead of using unarmed strikes, the Exemplar can inspire allies like a bard and teach them teamwork feats. If you want a brawler like Bane who is at her best due to chemical enhancements, the Mutagenic Mauler has your back. And the Shield Champion throws her shield like Captain America. I mean look at that Shield Champion. It seems like she's about to punch you in the face right after the shield hits you and leaves you reeling. How cool is that? And that's only the first half of the archetypes in the book!

So to recap, the brawler is the monk's rowdy cousin, more interested in kicking ass than contemplating koans. The brawler is the Chuck Norris base class, and she's not afraid to get her hands dirty. Are you?

Mark Seifter
Designer

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Tags: Brawler Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ramon Puasa Jr
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Ventnor wrote:
Blackvial wrote:
Insain Dragoon wrote:
Also hopefully the Barwler realized how to use a shield for blocking.
a shield isn't for blocking, its for bashing things over the head until they either submit or die of massive head trauma
"Block arrows with my bludgeoning disc? Why would I do that? It's called a bludgeoning disc for a reason, silly!"

See, everyone forgets that bludgeoning discs function much like shuriken... The brawler just uses huge sized bludgeoning discs is all.

[Edit] If it helps, picture Batman's Batarangs... except if Batman were a Cloud Giant.


Albatoonoe wrote:
Prince of Knives wrote:

I'm not looking to be 'the best'. Alchemist, Inquisitor, Magus, Paladin, and to a lesser extent Cavalier and Barbarian all make wonderful balance points. At the end of the day your archer fighter still isn't participating unless something needs to be brutally murdered. What if you need to make an impression at a royal ball to garner allies? Track a villain through sewers? Infiltrate a prison? How are you doing anything but leech resources from the rest of your party while they give you the capabilities to not hinder their efforts?

Fighter doesn't need a comparison to another class to be bad, he just needs to be checked against the stuff adventurers do.

How can a fighter not do those things? A human fighter gets at least 2 skill points per minimum. They can put that in any skill and participate just as well outside of combat. I don't see how any of that stuff is a function of class features and not skill levels.

Um REALLY? The fighter needs high str, Dex, Con, and Wis to make up for his crappy will save... He won't have much left for int... so skills is a joke for him...


Well, a brawler can always take the Regional Recluse trait and pick up light shield proficiency.


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Multiclass, Pick it up because it does have a good amount of feats. The shield thing isn't a huge problem to circumvent but I still think it should just be built in to the base class.


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Insain Dragoon wrote:
Also hopefully the Barwler realized how to use a shield for blocking.

What's a shield? I only have my smashing board.


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Fighters don't need high dex. Their unique armor training allows them to move fast in heavy armor, which means they can just focus on that. Fighters get enough feats to easily pick up all the Will save boosting feats. (Another subtle class feature: rather than having to focus on combat feats, they can use their HD based feats to round out their edges. Iron Will and Improved Iron Will is a serious investment for most classes. It's chump change for the fighter.) This mitigates their reliance upon a decent Wisdom, and means at most they'll just need 12 or so. And then get a headband, because what else is there for that slot for fighters? :)

There, done. Two "necessary" abilities are now just nice to have. It's not like people were going to say you need 16 Wis to start off, so perhaps, just perhaps!, fighters can use their 1 Feat Per Level to get feats to help them out.

Gasp!


The problem with a Fighter not having high Dex is that you're basically making one of his 3 (well, 4 if you count Bravery I guess) class features pretty much worthless (Armor Training is only really good if you have a high Dex).

And Iron Will honestly doesn't shore up a poor Will save as much as everyone makes it out to. It evens it out a bit, makes it less crippling, but it doesn't change the fact that his Will save is still pretty shitty.

The free re-roll is nice...if you only fail one Will save a day.

That's the main problem there, you end up spending resources on shoring up your weaknesses, poorly, when pretty much every other class in the game gets class features that enhance their strengths.


Cheapy wrote:

Fighters don't need high dex. Their unique armor training allows them to move fast in heavy armor, which means they can just focus on that. Fighters get enough feats to easily pick up all the Will save boosting feats. (Another subtle class feature: rather than having to focus on combat feats, they can use their HD based feats to round out their edges. Iron Will and Improved Iron Will is a serious investment for most classes. It's chump change for the fighter.) This mitigates their reliance upon a decent Wisdom, and means at most they'll just need 12 or so. And then get a headband, because what else is there for that slot for fighters? :)

There, done. Two "necessary" abilities are now just nice to have. It's not like people were going to say you need 16 Wis to start off, so perhaps, just perhaps!, fighters can use their 1 Feat Per Level to get feats to help them out.

Gasp!

Just saying...

If you've used Iron Will and Improved Iron Will, you're down to being three feats more than a Ranger's bonus feats without getting into the fact that the Ranger gets to ignore prerequisites. Secondly, ultimately you get about a +8/+9 and one reroll a day by 10th level. Which is about a 50% or worse chance to save against a creature of appropriate CR. Which is pretty damn important since a saving throw at those levels will kill you.

The whole high dex argument is based around the Fighter using one of the only class features he gets, but if you ignore one of the few features the Fighter has, more power to you since it makes these comparisons a lot easier.


the best part of that fight was when bruce lee ripped out chucks chest hair


Nah, the best part is that cat's obviously fake meow.

Silver Crusade

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Lemmy wrote:
Fighter Stuff:
Albatoonoe wrote:

Eh, maxed perception is overrated. And that's 2 skill points with a negative modifier. In reality, I'll probably have a 13 int for feats, and if I really need them, putting my favored class bonus into skill points. That nets me 5 points a level. And in reality, you only need one spotter and face, so that leaves those two potentially open to do whatever. This isn't jumping through hoops. This is just simply being.

And, on another note, this is a role playing game. Mechanics aren't the only way to contribute. You can arrange strategies and plans. Another helping hand allows you to do more, regardless of skills. And hell, you can offer another interesting character to the table. I've never had to sit and twiddle my thumbs outside of combat.

I think the point you're missing is that the Fighter class doesn't do any of that. It doesn't give you any tool to work out of combat.

No one is saying that Fighters are completely useless out of combat, just that they are far less effective than any other class in the game (save for Commoners and Warriors) whenever "hit stuff with a pointy stick" is not a viable option.

All that you mentioned can be done much more easily and for greater effect with any other class. I know Fighters can be skilled and contribute out of combat (I've built effective social Fighters myself).

That doesn't change the fact that they need considerably more resources and a lot of extra effort just to be almost as good as any other class doing the same.

tl;dr: Are Fighters useless out of combat? No. Are they less useful than any other class (save for Warriors and Commoners)? Yes, they sure are.

To close out my participation in the Fighter discussion (don't want to keep this thread off topic), would just like to say a quick thanks for this clear and non-hostile statement of the case, Lemmy. Your assessment is sound, though as I've indicated, I still enjoy playing a Fighter. It works well enough for me! Those shortcomings don't, in my experience, make the class unplayable or unenjoyable. And I think that is important to register in face of some of the internet-hate here. :-)

P.S.:
Also, I don't want to pursue this line—again, closing out—, but I'm not sure it's correct when you say that "no one is saying that Fighters are completely useless out of combat." It looked to me like folks were saying exactly that! But we'll accept your less-hyperbolic statement of the case. :-)


Shield? Oh, you mean Embo's hat.

Grand Lodge

A class, and even a prestige class, that fights well with one of my favorite weapons, the shield?

I say, thank you.

The shield is a weapon, and I am glad it is getting more love.

Liberty's Edge

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Welp, looks like I'm gonna have to change my Fighter to a Shield Champion, since he's an Andoren :P "You know, the last time I was in Cheliax, and I saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing."


Any news on next week preview?


Zark wrote:
Any news on next week preview?

It's a secret


Blackvial wrote:
Zark wrote:
Any news on next week preview?
It's a secret

I think you mean...


Ventnor wrote:
Blackvial wrote:
Zark wrote:
Any news on next week preview?
It's a secret
I think you mean...

I was going for more of a Slayer's route


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Blackvial wrote:
Ventnor wrote:
Blackvial wrote:
Zark wrote:
Any news on next week preview?
It's a secret
I think you mean...
I was going for more of a Slayer's route

I'm helping!


Zark wrote:
Any news on next week preview?

all puns aside i am hoping for the slayer

Designer

Blackvial wrote:
Zark wrote:
Any news on next week preview?
all puns aside i am hoping for the slayer

I'm really hoping for either the hunter, the shaman, or the slayer. I bet it's going to be one of those!


I'm betting on the class they didn't playtest. The one that designers decided to keep secret to build extra anticipation.

Snark, Snark, Snark


Wouldn't it be cool if stuff like that actually happened sometimes.


Weapon and Armor Proficiency

A brawler is proficient with all simple weapons plus the handaxe, short sword, and weapons from the close fighter weapon group. She is proficient with light armor, but not with shields.

Umm so the Brawler can use Monk Weapons in its flurry but its not naturally proficient in Monk Weapons. So... you have to waste feats to get a Shuriken or something like that right?


There's quite a bit of overlap between the monk and the close group, so you gain proficiency with a number of weapons with the monk special feature. That said: If it's not a simple weapon, a handaxe, a shortsword or in the close fighter weapon group you'd need to spend a feat to gain proficiency.

If it's a throwing weapon you're looking for, perhaps the wushu dart will do the trick?

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