TarkisFlux's page

Then again there's the unspoken alternative. ditch both the Wizard and Sorcerer as they are now and go with an approach similar to that used in the Art Haus d20 versions of Everquest and Wow and the Magister base class of Unearthed Arcana. i.e. you have a Mage type character who prepares a list of spells and uses spell slots to fire them off.

Not that I'm advocating this approach just tossing it the hat to add to the confusion. :)

Hah! As long as we're tossing out crazy, long shot sorc adjustments, here's one:

Sorcerers no longer have a specific class list of spells to select from. Sorcs instead pick spells from any class list to fill in their spells known, and the spells that they know form the entirety of their personal "class list" (to avoid level dipping for spell-completion-item use). Let them cast as spell-likes (and adjust spell-like abilities so you have to spend expensive material components or xp when called for to use them) if you want to, but it also opens the door for them to wear armor. They can UMD items to fill in where they need to, like they do now, but it would be slightly more important. Borrow from Ogre and give them their bloodline determined spell at the same level that wizards are getting a new spell level. Use those bloodline spell boost abilities that are being discussed in the other thread to boost spells that correspond to the theme of the bloodline, a subtle suggestion to keep spell selections along some pre-determined lines.

This is slightly less crazy than it sounds, but still out there so I won't spend much time defending it. It doesn't hurt backwards comp much because every sorc previously made already has a legitimate spell selection (though item selection may suffer slightly if they don't have UMD ranks; solvable with a new arcane bloodline benefit or a feat or whatever if it's an issue). It allows some bloodlines that aren't especially arcane already (like the celestial bloodline) to take spells that would otherwise be excluded. It opens up the new bloodline spell boost thing to apply to non-arcane spell groups, potentially differentiating even more from wizards. It subsumes the non-ogl Favored Soul as well, which is sorta nice from a symmetry standpoint. The downside is that it sorta steps on the bard's casting schtick, since you could make a sorc with the same mix of healing and utility/offense spells if you wanted.

And I'm spent.

*Edit*

It's still better than my OP formula...

Basically, I'm taking your unfactored equation and modifying one part:

(AvDmg*toHit) + (AvDmg*(Multi-1)*toThr*ConfHit)

Yours is very, very close to how things work in DnD, it's just missing edge cases. You need to deal with auto fails, auto succeeds, and the cases where your threat range is bigger than your hit range (the latter is actually somewhat likely with big threat weapons, keen, and imp crit). Basically you need some logic statements or other functions in there.

If you care about these things, here ya go:

AdjHit% = <Minimum(95%, <Maximum(Hit%, 5%)> )>

AvgTotalDmg = (AvgStdDmg*AdjHit%) + ((AvgStdDmg+BaseBurstDmg) * (Mult-1) * <Minimum( AdjHit%, ThreatRng/20)> * <Minimum( AdjHit% + ConfirmBonus/20, 95%)> ) + PrecisionDmg + OtherNotMultipliedOnCritDmg + OtherOnCritDmg

Since it looks like you did it in excel, or a similar spreadsheet program, the above shouldn't be too alien. I tried to make it obvious where the functions were in case you aren't, by sticking them in <>s. So for <maximum( thing1, thing2)> you would use either thing1 or thing2, whichever is bigger. I hope it's clear.

Base burst damage just accounts for weapon properties like flaming burst that add 1d10 * (Mult-1) damage on crit. The base for these weapons is 1d10, I just wanted a dedicated place to put damage that scaled with crit multiplier but wasn't part of the base weapon damage. You could just tag it on at the end instead if you wanted. Standard energy weapons that don't add on crit would be just added on at the end, like precision damage and any other non-multiplier-dependent-on-crit damage. The cases you're worrying about don't look like they include these things, but I'm a fan of completeness.

I did not actually download your file, so I'm sorry if this is unnecessary :-/

What about having a class feature that allows the fighter to ignore the movement penalties of armor worn? Probably shouldn't kick in until level 5 or so to prevent level dipping.

Things off the top of my head to consider:

1) Nullifies the Dwarf's always move 20'no-matter-what, but only if he becomes a fighter

2) Barbarian has his extra movement, so it puts the fighter almost on par with him with moving tactically

3) Ranger doesn't have to worry as he's only proficient with light armor

4) Paladin is a concern, as he would now be the slowest class if he wears heavy armor (which IMHO, he should). He would have to be given compensation.

If it's tied to armor training, it doesn't kick until 3rd level at the earliest, 7th if you make this a second tier armor training ability. I suggested a similar thing back in alpha3, but I was also trying to make the different armor types more meaningful. It's near the bottom of this thread. It was largely ignored there, and I'm sorta glad to see it being picked back up here in similar form.

As to your other points:

1) Dwarf still suffers x3 run in heavy, which could be fixed. Dwarves don't wear lighter armor in general anyway.
2)& 3) Yup, and that's a good thing.
4) Paladin's can get a fancy mount to drag them around, or could get a spell to do the same (though I don't remember if there are any of these in core). The "more awesome than you with the same piece of mundane equipment" seems a decidedly fighter shtick to me, and doesn't really fit the Pally anyway.

-Largely a repost from the Fighter - Weapon Training and General Feedback thread, which isn't getting as much attention-

I think the point of weapon training is to help broaden the fighter's weapon choices, but I've only seen it ignored except when they're denied their primary weapon for whatever reason. If the latter is the intent, then I'd say it's working as intended, but that doesn't match with what I thought the point of it was. The changes suggested here don't do enough to help with that, they just make you more likely to use a different weapon from the same group.

If the point is to broaden the fighter's weapon choices, and make the random piece of loot useful, I suggest the following change to weapon training:

"Weapon Training: At 5th level you may choose a weapon group from the list below. You may apply any weapon specific feat that you know for a weapon in this group to any other weapon in this group. You also gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage with every weapon in this group. Every 4 levels beyond 5th you may select an additional weapon group. The weapons in this group are added to the weapons in the original group, any weapon specific feat that you know for one of them you may use with all of them. The bonus to attack and damage also increases by an additional 1 for each 4 levels over 5th that you have."

I'm tired of fighter's pawning off interesting items because it wasn't the weapon that they took improved critical in. You can add a damage die boost if you like, or CMB, or whatever. Those add-ons would be nice and helpful, but as long as the bonus is less with the later groups they will never use a weapon outside of their first group. You might as well just give them a single group bonus, since they'll only ever use the other groups if you don't give them any other choices.

It would also be nice if weapon training counted as greater weapon focus and greater weapon spec. to qualify you for feats. This ability is better than either of those feats and serves the same mechanical role. Saving two feats to spend on the new feats that we're hearing rumors about would be a nice thing.

I did some playtesting with weapon training in this form back in alpha3, and just posted a suggestion instead of the results. So here's the results and a second plea for change.

The fighter in the group was level 12, had taken weapon focus (greatsword), weapon spec (greatsword), improved critical (greatsword) weapon training (heavy blades) as his first group, and weapon training (axes) as his second. The fighter was wielding a +2 greatsword. In the middle of the adventure they ran across a +1 shocking burst greataxe (random treasure that worked out well). After no one else was interested in using it, the fighter announced that he'd pawn it as soon as he could; even with weapon training it wasn't worth using for him.

I think the point of weapon training is to help broaden the fighter's weapon choices, but I've only seen it ignored except when they're denied their primary weapon for whatever reason. If the latter is the intent, then I'd say it's working as intended, but that doesn't match with what I thought the point of it was.

If the point is to broaden the fighter's weapon choices, and make the random piece of loot useful, I suggest the following change to weapon training:

"Weapon Training: At 5th level you may choose a weapon group from the list below. You may apply any weapon specific feat that you know for a weapon in this group to any other weapon in this group. You also gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage with every weapon in this group. Every 4 levels beyond 5th you may select an additional weapon group. The weapons in this group are added to the weapons in the original group, any weapon specific feat that you know for one of them you may use with all of them. The bonus to attack and damage also increases by an additional 1 for each 4 levels over 5th that you have."

That is a substantial boost to the fighter, because they can use a single weapon feat for a large number of weapons, something no other class can do. It makes trading out inappropriate gear much less painful, because you can bring some of your old tricks over. It also cuts down on the various bonuses that you have to keep track of, since you now just have one number and one potentially large group of things it applies to.

There are potentially some weapon specific feats that you'd want to exclude from that sort of sharing, but I don't think there are any in core. It might also be nice if we could use weapon training in place of greater weapon focus and greater weapon specialization when qualifying for feats, since weapon training is basically doing the same thing while scaling.

As for the rest of the fighter, well, they are pretty much feat dependent still. Feats have been generally less effective than class abilities at mid and high levels, but it sounds like there's something interesting in the chapters ahead that might tweak that...

I think you're right that they're two separate problems, but they're definitely related, and I think your analysis of the first one is right. Which means we either need to make it harder for mages to pump their DC (which was tried going into 3.5) or make it easier to increase saves...

Yeah, they're related, and the intersection is the spellcaster DC formula. To be effective against monsters, you have to blow your biggest spells and optimize a bit, which then puts you well over the save bonuses of most characters of your level. We're in a crappy middle ground right now. Yay. Having thought on it more, I think there's really only two was to resolve it:

1) You can leave things mostly alone, and just drop bloated monster saves where appropriate/necessary. A drop of 1 to each save per 2 cr over 14 (so -1 to 16s, -2 to 18s, etc.) might work, but you're probably better off doing it on the fly. Coupled with the heighten tweaks, that should let you use more of your save spells against high level challenges and help alleviate any feelings of frustration due to monsters. It specifically doesn't address character saves though, so you'll probably want to avoid throwing optimized casters at your players, but any optimized casters in your group can still have fun walking all over the lowly townsfolk.

2) You can revert to the 3.0 DC boosting feats, and boost character saves to bring them into line with "many more HD" monster saves. This lets you bring your DCs up to the monster's level, and by boosting character saves you don't continue to suffer from crap saves. I'd want to boost poor saves to a 1/2 advancement, and good saves to a 3/4 advancement, and drop the good save +2 bonus. Upsides: Saves either progress with top spell level spellcaster abilities or outpace them (before caster stat boosts are included anyway, but that can actually be patched now, and cloaks of resistance aren't required to keep up). Characters don't get wierd save bonuses by multiclassing. Gap between good and poor saves is 5 instead of 6 at level 20. Downside: "save negates" spells drop in usefullness, and mettle and evasion become even more powerful. Also, you have to do more work to fix NPC stat blocks.

#1 is probably easier to implement, but I think #2 has more potential. This probably won't get much support here, but I'd take option 2, and then nerf evasion and mettle down to 1/4 on successes instead of 0. I'd take a look at all the 'save negates' out there, and probably add on a reduced effect on a successful save (nausea, stun, etc. for 1 round or something). Any remaining 'save negates' would be combat ending spells, where the chance of failure is actually a trade off for the chance of ending things with one action. It's a fair bit of work, but if you're going to make successful saves more common, you need to compensate casters so they don't feel cheated, and so they don't just focus on touch and no-saves.

In any event, the reason why your suggestion (and psionics for that matter) solve at least one of these interrelated problems is that they allow for increasing low-level spell DCs without permitting increases to high-level spell DCs.

Yeah, I rather liked it as well. I'll probably start using both in my games. Something like "For every two levels you heighten a spell, you increase any level based die or numeric cap to damage by 5, and add an additional +1 to the DC of the spell. This DC bonus, when added to the spell level cannot increase the save DC above the DC of the highest level spell you can cast." It sorta steps on Empower's toes this way, since this is a much better option for levels 1-4 spells after you exceed the level cap for a spell level by 5 or more, but oh well. Basically, Heighten becomes really really good for bringing your low level spells back into play, and empower remains good at boosting damage of your high end spells.

I've seen some threads discussing how 3.5 was problematic because save DCs are too high versus bad saves. I've seen other threads discussing how 3.5 was problematic because save DCs are too low for any of your lower level spells once you become higher level. Are either of these right? or is the problem something else?

Both of these are problems. The thing is, they're completely different problems that both reference save DCs.

So after reading all the stuff here, I went off and did some math on saves. Since monster stats/abilities can be all over the board, I did it with characters. Let me be clear: I'M DOING AVERAGES HERE and I'm looking at general trends, not any specific cases.

Assumptions:
- Only a caster's highest level spell is used to figure max DCs. For most casters, they get new spell levels every 2 class levels, up to 9th level spells. Avg growth: 0.5 per level, 9 max.
- Spellcasters will always put their bonus stat point into their casting stat, and they will acquire a stat boost item for that stat when they can. This means you'll have a +2 item at 4th level a +4, item at 12th, and a +6 at 20th. This looks to be in rough approximation with the PF wealth by level chart, assuming this item is their highest priority. Avg growth: 0.25 per level.
- Per RAW, Good saves grow by 1 every 2 levels. Average growth: 0.5 per level.
- Per RAW, Poor saves grow by 1 every 3 levels. Average growth: 0.333 per level.
- Most characters will have a 14 (if that high, I think I'm being slightly generous) in the stat that affects their saves, and this will not increase over time (rogues, druids, and clerics are big exceptions of course). Most casters will start with a 16 in their primary casting stat (if that low)

Ok, so even with the caster having a +1 stat mod on you, the +2 bonus from a good save means that you should make your saves more often than you fail them (avg 55% success). You should make your poor saves less often (avg 40% success). The average growth of spell level and good saves is the same, so those keep up. The growth on poor saves doesn't keep up, so your avg success rate starts going down. And as you grow in level, the disparity between your poor save and the spell DC just from the spell level gets worse and worse. Since this starts to really become a problem when the potent spells start rolling in, this is where the suck starts.

Now, let's add in the fact that the caster is pouring resources into boosting his casting stat. A bonus of 1 to his DC every 4 levels drops your success rate by 5% each time. Coupled with the poor save growth disparity and you literally have a poor save success rate down to 5% by level 16, and that only keeps because you always succeed on a 20. You can patch the hole between good saves and caster DC by getting a +1/4 levels cloak of resistence, but the item is pretty much required just to break even. You can't patch the poor save hole at all. Basically, you can't actually get ahead in the saving throw game.

I haven't added in the various spell/ability focus feats available or the save boosting feats, because those can be argued to cancel each other out eventually. If I was going to add them though, I'd say they gave a narrow bonus to the casters due to planning and building, and they really don't need it.

Rogues, divine casters, and maybe even monks are the big exceptions to this, because their primary stat is also tied to a save. Basically, they can boost stats in a way that they keep up with the caster stat based DC increases, so they don't get the same holes in their good saves. As soon as they stop focussing on the stat tied to their good save, things go to crap again.

I went through the MM1 and pulled all of the 16, 18, and 20 cr creatures. The DCs of the majority of their abilities fell around what my save progression above suggests would happen, so I figure this is a fair approximation of the problem. So that's pretty much why your first problem exists, and why most people don't see it in low level games. It's a growth problem, and without sufficient growth it'll never come up.

....

The second problem isn't a growth issue, it's an options issue. Since I'm tired of typing now, here's a repost of something I tossed out to correct it in another thread.

I quite agree that it sucks that half of your spell selection gets reduced to no saves or utility stuff unless you want to blow a high level slot to heighten it's DC to useful land. But I think you'd be better off boosting the abilities of heighten spell to make it a more useful option than going a more global way. Off the top of my head...

Heighten Option 1) Heightened spells are considered spells of the higher level, so the increased damage die cap should apply: i.e a 5th level heightened fireball has a die cap of 15d6 instead of 10d6.

Heighten Option 2) Spells boosted with heighten spell have better than average save DCs for their spell level. Each level a spell is heightened adds an additional 1 (or 1/2 if you want) to the base DC of the spell. The DC of the heightened spell cannot be greater than the DC of the highest level spell you are capable of casting. So if you could cast 7th level spells, you could heighten a fireball to 5th and it would have a DC of 10 + 5 (for spell level) + 2 (for heighten bonus, only +1 if using halves) + ability and misc. 17 + stuff is the highest it could get because you can only cast 7th level spells currently. This has the benefit of allowing you to have more high DC saves without sacrificing your highest level slots.

After reading Mailman's related post (linked above), I went and did the math on saves, and it's already pretty bad... so I have to say that any boost to the mecahnics of spell DCs is a "very very bad idea". It may sorta make sense if you only ever throw monsters against your players and you just want them to hit them with stuff more often, but if you ever throw another full caster against them they're basically screwed. The issue is that saves generally don't grow as quickly as caster's highest level save DCs do, and so characters get screwed worse as you go up in levels and the save disparities increase. Since this is when all the most lethal spells pop up, it's not a pretty picture. Boosting every spell to this highest level or above just doesn't work. Since it sounds like you're only worried about monsters and want your PCs to whomp on team monster more easily, whoever suggested cutting monster saves is probably on the right track. At least then you won't have characters whomping all over other characters any more than they already do.

As to your other point, I quite agree that it sucks that half of your spell selection gets reduced to no saves or utility stuff unless you want to blow a high level slot to heighten it's DC to useful land. But I think you'd be better off boosting the abilities of heighten spell to make it a more useful option than going a more global way. Off the top of my head...

Heighten Option 1) Heightened spells are considered spells of the higher level, so the increased damage die cap should apply: i.e a 5th level heightened fireball has a die cap of 15d6 instead of 10d6.

Heighten Option 2) Spells boosted with heighten spell have better than average save DCs for their spell level. Each level a spell is heightened adds an additional 1 (or 1/2 if you want) to the base DC of the spell. The DC of the heightened spell cannot be greater than the DC of the highest level spell you are capable of casting. So if you could cast 7th level spells, you could heighten a fireball to 5th and it would have a DC of 10 + 5 (for spell level) + 2 (for heighten bonus, only +1 if using halves) + ability and misc. 17 + stuff is the highest it could get because you can only cast 7th level spells currently. This has the benefit of allowing you to have more high DC saves without sacrificing your highest level slots.

Dennis da Ogre formerly 0gre wrote:

Well I'm hoping that a lot of the confusion around the spell casters SLAs and multi classing will be cleared up in the beta. It seems to me that it should get touched on when they update the PrCs but it's not clear if that's happening in the Beta or not.

SLAs are a class feature. Caster PrC's as a rule, do not update ANY class feature other than caster level and spells per day. So as the rules are written now, the answer is no. Which makes a hell of lot of sense given that the design pupose of the SLA's was to encourage people to stay with the class by giving them a bonus to do so.

Now where's that fellow who's going to say that the PrC's are being punished because they don't get a bonus? :)

I won't say that they're being punished per se, but I will say that taking a PrC now actually reduces the available spell slots of a specialist wizard compared to 3.5.

Under 3.5 they got a bonus spell at each spell level, they just had to fill it with a spell from their chosen school. This was a level 1 class feature that applied to their current and future spell advancement, so when they took PrC levels they still got their bonus spell when they got new spell levels (the sorcerer bloodline bonus spells could also be read this way, so they might get their bonus spells even with PrC levels, but it's a bit of a stretch).

Back to specialists... Under Pathfinder the bonus spell slot is replaced by the SLA abilities, but aside from the inflexibility of the slot and the DC differences, it's roughly the same ability. Except that now it doesn't continue to develop if you take a PrC anymore because it's tied specifically to your Wizard level instead of your 'effective Wizard level for purposes of determining Spells per Day'. Net effect is specialist wizards give up their bonus spell slot going forward once they start taking PrC levels.

I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that they're giving up more than they used to if they want a PrC (cause I always though prestige classes didn't have enough of a give/take relationship with the base classes), I'm just pointing it out.

As for defensive fighting - if there is no rule disallowing Combat Expert to be used in conjunction with Fighting Defensive, then there's no reason why this talent wouldn't also be applicable.

I was under the impression that Combat Expertise effectively superceded fighting defensively, and so the two didn’t stack and weren’t useable together.

Mechanically: so that it doesn't stack with full attack options - it is free damage after all (no power attacking - lowering attacks, need for flanks etc - based off a stat that is doubly beneficial due to armor bonus.

Where is the armor bonus from int coming from in this case? I didn’t see it in any of the talents listed.

I'm afraid medium armor will always be marginalized. Its suboptimal all the time - except for barbarians that still want fast movement, and bards that that max out some splat feats to still cast in it.

…

you seem to have a thing for med armor - which may make some of your opinions a bit biased....don't know....

Not going to disagree with you on that. It’s less that I have a thing for medium armor, more that I’m trying to find a nitch for it. I also want to stop seeing every mobility based fighter hunt repeatedly for a suit of mithral breastplate. Also, I’m just not a fan of full plate tanks getting full base move, full charge, but reduced run. Pull the reduced run penalty, sure, but the full base move just conflicts with my view of them.

I dont think it's out of line - consider the Shield Slam feat in Alpha rules

I hadn’t noticed the shield slam feat, and concede the point :-)

I wasn't sure if either were appropriate for 3.5 mechanics. Unfortunately, it's not a very good or popular choice if ones shields are going to continually be broken.

Since it’s only blocking fighter level + shield bonus, and most shields start at hardness 10 and go up with magic / materials, it’s not that bad until higher levels. And any spellslinger with a mending/make whole could fix it right back up. You could also drop a second feat in the chain to drop the damage the shield takes by half.

Finally I am a bit perplexed - you want most of the fighter abilities turned into 'general' talents, and yet you're concerned that having talents to choose means you're not able to choose feats - so I'm a little lost how you would be more satisfied....

I want the bonuses that you added on turned into general talents, because they don’t seem to me like abilities that every fighter should get. I actually go on to say what I’d rather give them in the next paragraph, and that’s both talents and feats, and not the bonuses that they get right now. If they still want those bonuses, they can take them, they just don’t seem so ingrained in the archtypical fighter to me that every fighter should automatically get them, just as I don’t see the Swashbuckler or Juggernaut or Defender as being the archtypical fighter.

Do what you like - I didn't copyright this - its for my own purposes.

Fair enough, but I prefer to ask permission before I appropriate someone else’s work if there’s any chance I might post it in an altered form. Some people don’t like their work critiqued or altered, and I prefer to avoid those fights where I can.

And I’m certainly on the list of people that this has helped. I think the talents idea is a beautiful one, I just disagree on how it should be incorporated. If I wasn’t interested in keeping splat feats alive, I don’t think I’d even pick that nit.

Thanks again, and happy gaming to you as well.

Agreed lots with Brian and Todd.

Really short paragraph of summary from the many other threads on this issue: Jump in accrobatics is a bit odd, but there is no reason to give the generic, iconic fighter the rest of the abilities in it. The cross class penalty has been beaten to death and is no longer an issue; there is nothing preventing them from doing this if they wanted to. Fighters could probably use a couple more skill points, but they certainly don't need any more class skills.

This isn't a particularly thorough review Robert, there's no playtest or optimized builds here. I just wanted to get some impressions up and babble a bit about what you've got. Spoilered in case it gets long ;-)

Fighter Talents - Like I said before, they're basically good. I didn't take a close look over them until now though, since I wanted to wait for a final package. Here's my 2 cp:

More broadly, I'm concerned that there aren't any general talents, every talent that you can take is linked to a specific line. I think specific chains and even groups are all well and good, but some level of cross-specialization would be nice. Also, there are quite a bit more talents for the defender than anyone else. Not necessarilly a bad thing though :-)

And here's the rest of the abilities...

Ugh. That was way longer than I thought it would be. I still might do some builds to see just how things work out, but my feeling here is that they're not getting the right stuff. The other classes got their old abilities, and then had some additional support abilities bolted on. This feels like the class had it's primary ability replaced, and then had some additional static numbers bolted on and a couple of combat options.

I strongly dislike the talents -or- feats structure that you have right now: it limits their access to interesting combat feats unless they want to spend character feats on them or pass up the talents. There may not be a lot of interesting OGL feat choices, but there were interesting splat feats. Since a primary goal is to make this compat with 3.5 splat, I'd rather not see the fighter choose new talents or old combat feats, especially now that they could actually afford to pick up some sub-optimal feats. WS is an interesting example of this from core: you either pass on a talent at 4 to get it, or you use a character feat at 5. Neither of those options sounds good to me, and both sound like a step back from the old fighter. There's plenty of bonuses to offest the this tradeoff, I just don't like them so much.

Anyway, that's what I've got for ya. Hope it's helpful to you in some way ;-).

With your permission, I'd like to take what you've got and rebuild it for personal use. I think I'm still in the boat with Kirth from before: old feat progression, with bonus talents at odd levels, and maybe an extra at 20. I'd strip all of the numerical bonuses from the class and build them into general talents. The old flexibility would remain, but enhanced with talents so you can build something to taste. The class abilities that aren't just number bonuses (aside from bravery) would stay as written, though I might monkey with the levels a bit. I'll even post what I come up with if you're interested.

@Robert

You've got bonus feats at 1 and 3. I don't see any mention of them in your last couple of class feature posts. What are the options there, or are those errors?

Okay, first, thank you for the feedback on your opinion as to the viability of the talents so far. I appreciate the compliments.

On the other aspect: I think I finally see your point. Not sure if I agree with you (yet); but I do see how your logic works and it makes sense.

I'm glad that they came across as compliments, I was starting to wonder if my ranting had gone a bit sour. You've been doing a lot to counter what I've been complaining about, and a lot of it looks good. So even if you don't agree with me, I appreciate that you get where I'm coming from. In the end, it's all about a little love for the poor little fighter. I'm going to hold any further ranting until I have time to go through everything you've put up ;-). Thanks again for everything you've put into this. Here's hoping Paizo is watching.

In response I felt that this was too much in that the fighter would be getting a normally allowed feat at every odd level (1/3/5/7_) that all characters get, AND get bonus feats every even level (just as they get now), but ALSO get the cool talents (which as some have point out - are a lot like feats) at every odd as well - thus 3 feats every two levels.

Anytime you need to bring in the character feats, the feats that EVERYONE gets regardless of race/class/creed as an example of why you're not doing something with a class, I think there's a problem. I don't think the character feats are at all important in this discussion. Since everyone gets them and can do whatever they want with them, they don't actually matter in terms of class balance.

I hate to keep beating the rogue v. fighter horse, but it's the most convenient example at hand... SA dice at epic levels are an epic feat. I'm going to borrow that for a second and bring it down into regular levels. Rogues, right now, get a talent, a character feat, and the equivalent of an epic feat every 2 levels. Plus their other class abilities. That's baiscally the same thing that you thought was too much for the fighter. Rogues don't get to choose and so they don't get the same flexibility, but they already get significantly more. Plus, fighters don't even have a feat chain that stacks 10 deep (like SA does), so they have to take a couple of chains and hope that they can combine them into something useful.

I think the fighter talents you've got right now are about right. They're stronger than most feats, and they stack better. The rogue talents pathfinder added are basically the same thing: they took a lot of old splat feats (many that used to require you to sacrifice SA dice to gain the benefit) and tuned them up a notch, or borrowed class abilities from other prestige classes (kip-up from thief-accrobat for example). So I'd say you've got the right power level here, but you did it at the expense of their other class ability. You're just trading one class ability for a slightly better one, and I don't think that goes far enough.

I haven't ran numbers on the extra abilites that have been added yet, so I don't know if they're enough or not after you take the feats away, but I'd rather see choice than static abilities. I agree with Brian Brus there; the strength of the fighter was in their flexibility, we just need to build it up so that they have good choices. Fighter talents + bonus combat feats + class abilities seems to me roughly equivalent to rogue talents + SA + class abilities, and that's what I'd like to see out of this, rough class equivalence focussed in different areas. If the fighter gets stupid numbers of feats, that's fine; he has to take several groups of them just to remain useful in different scenarios. It's not as if he can stack all of them anyway, and that leaves his character feats alone in case a fighter wanted to focus on something out of combat and actually be useful to the party more than when dice were rolling.

For the record, the reason why I settled on Even levels (as opposed to your odd) is to mirror the mechanic of the rogue and his talents. Since PF characters get a feat at every odd level anyway, and fighter was given the ability to get them at the even levels ALSO, I felt it was more appropriate to place the talents as a replacement for taking a standard combat feat.

I'd take a different tack, continuing the bonus feats on even levels, but giving the fighter a talent on the odd levels -- but the talents would subsume the Pathfinder fighter's extra class features, not replace them. So Armor Training I, II, III, and Armor Mastery would be part of an armor talent tree, and the Paizo fighter is a specific example of a generic fighter. Is that too little to give them?

Hey kirth - I just re-read this: not too little; too MUCH!

You're saying to continue to allow them to get bonus feats at every even level, and get talents at every odd level on TOP of getting the normal PF allowed feats at every odd level! Thats 2 feats AND a talent for every 2 levels of character!

I think you reread it wrong ;-). Right now you're giving the fighter combat talents or combat feats at even levels, along with their standard pathfinder class abilities. I think he was suggesting that you go back to giving just combat feats at even levels. For the combat talents, he suggested that we take what you've already written and then rewrite the weapon / armor training abilities to they mimic the format. Then give the revised talents at odd levels.

That's only 1 feat (not 2) and 1 talent per two levels, and the weapon and armor training are conscious talent choices instead of a bonus on top of those. You could still get the old pathfinder fighter out of this with that plan, but you could also choose a different path for your weapon/armor training, or develop along completely different lines. As someone who is not fond of the current rules for those, the ability to choose something else looks like a good one.

Going back to the rogue comparison that's been tossed around (cause it's fresh in my mind), the feat + talent seems about equivalent to the SA + talent that they get. Depending on how the extra combat options you've been talking about work out, it might still be too much, but that's nothing that can't be fixed. Without the extra combat options though, it's not near enough.

Most of the fighters I see are tin cans with low speed and crap for dex boost to armor. These things do not scream 'good reflex save' to me. I'm sure they'd appreciate it, but it doesn't seem particularly fitting. The few lightly armored fighters I see, like the swashbucklers or the fighter/rogues, already get it anyway.

Also, good reflex saves on top of Bravery? That's a bit much for me to swallow.

There's at least one example of theory vs practice that's still built into the skill system: Survival and Know(Nature). I don't particularly want to see those skills merged, and am very happy with the split.

That said, I don't even see the same split with Know(Arcana/whatever) and Spellcraft. Here are the uses of Spellcraft currently:
1) Spellcraft gets used to ID spells as it's being cast. In most cases you have significantly less than 6 seconds to figure out what they're doing. That strikes me as something you either know or you don't, which sounds like theory, and thus a knowledge check.
2) It's used to Learn/Prepare a spell from a borrowed spell book. There is zero practical ability in this. You have to decipher their notes, and recontruct it in a way that is personal and sensical to you. That's the whole idea behind making every spellbook unique to the wizard who writes it. Then, when you cast the spell, you do it in your personal manner. You're not trying to cast the spell in their fashion, you're trying to understand their fashion so you can cast the spell your way. Sounds like theory, and thus a knowledge check.
3) All the casting while distracted stuff that Concentration was used for previously. That is certainly a practical use.

3.5 had a couple of other uses for Spellcraft that seem to have vanished, but could be assumed to still be here...

4) Drawing a diagram for a magic circle. Definately a practical use, but one that could still be rolled into knowledge easily. Or even just a CL check.
5) Identifying a potion without Detect Magic. This is probably rolled into the appraise ability, and so moot, but it's not clear. If it is still here, I'm on the fence about it being a practical use or not.
6) Decipher a written spell without Detect Magic. Very similar to learn/prepare a spell from a borrowed book. Sounds like theory to me.

So if we want to split the theory from the practice, it looks to me like we'll be moving uses away from Spellcraft. All I've got left are the old concentration uses and some orphaned uses from 3.5. The orphaned ones are minor, and may have already been reassigned; the circle drawing could just as easily be a CL check, but even rolling into the old Concentration skill doesn't sound bad.

I get wanting to keep a split between theory and practice, but I just don't see that split in the way things are written.

Every other level a rogue gains +1d6 sneak attack. You know the progression. Seems like a scalable ability. 1d6, then 2d6, then 3d6, etc. ... But the same result is achieved by declaring each level ability by a separate name and adjusting the descriptions: Sneak Attack (1d6 damage), Improved Sneak Attack (2d6 damage, replaces sneak attack), Greater Sneak Attack (3d6, replaces sneak attack and improved sneak attack), etc. In the latter examples, the latest ability makes previous abilities seem redundant and useless. But the end game effect is exactly the same.

Fighter feats are just that way. The greater/improved feat that comes later does not make earlier feats redundant; it's just that the feat incorporates its scalability within its description. The redundancy is an illusion and players are being suckered by that assumption.

I had a long response to this written up, then it was eaten by the internet, so we're going with the short one now...

I'm not going to disagree with your semantics issue, but I think it misses the point. If you want to do an overall comparison of the classes, I think you'll be able to find that most fighter abilities (like the bonus combat feats) have some equivalent rogue ability (sneak attack). They're different in focus of course, because they're supposed to fill different roles in the party. You won't find anything on the fighter's side even close to the rogue talents though.

Rogue talents enhance existing class features, or add new ones. Fighters can do that right now, sort of, but it costs them one of their bonus combat feats. Asking a fighter to use a bonus feat to enhance an ability from a feat chain (just like the rogue talents enhance their SA or other class abilities), is like asking the rogue to give up a SA advance to get a rogue talent. You get the advance, or the enhancement, but never both. Quite simply, it sucks, and it's a bad design for the class.

That's what this is about at the end of the day, bringing the fighter up to parity with the other classes. Feats, dead or not, just don't acomplish this right now. The abilities above are a step towards parity in that respect. They don't necessarily scale with the class like some of the rogue talents do, but they are broader than the combat feats the fighter has had so far and actually enhance the combat feats a fighter does take. Better yet, they're actually unique to the fighter.

I'm not sure it's the best way to take the fighter (not a fan of Spell-bane at all, and I've already expressed my ideas on some of their other abilities), but I'd play this one over the old one anyday.

Sorcerer bloodline abilities that grant flight indicate a manuverability rating. I thought that was being bumped in favor of the fly skill...

Since most of the other posts here have been about specific spell issues, I'll make a more general request.

The lines between some schools have gotten blury over time, and moving spells moved around between editions hasn't helped (seriously, what is the difference between a evocation based fire effect and a conjuration based fire effect that justifies the annoying difference in results?). I'd like to see the spell schools revisited and defined more clearly. Then I'd like to see spells moved around to fit in with the revised definitions. If a school looks like it's disadvantaged in it's role compared to other schools, then buff some of it's spells to bring it up to par.

For example, transmutations seem to alter the physical properties of an object or person. Enchantments alter the mental state of a person. Under definitions like that, the mental buffs seem like they should be mind-affecting enchantments, not transmutations like they are in 3.5.

Yet in this case it is not random, nor hard to predict. We know that only the sorcerer class can trigger the genes, we know that when the class is taken your genes will be acted upon. We know that no other event will cause the genes to express.

Maybe they just needed to get some experience out in the world before they could access their true heritage... Isn't it possible that the character in your example began manifesting minor signs of his bloodline earlier, which then allowed him to take a level of sorcerer? The signs don't even have to be full fledged powers. Likely, they were minor cosmetic changes that the character hid from the rest of the world, so no one noticed anything different before they got full access to their new powers...

The narative above is different from your interpretation, but the mechanics behind it are the same: character multi-classes into sorcerer some number of levels into their career, and no one got to see it coming. That might sound a bit 'hand-wavy', but it gets around your problem by ignoring the line by line mechanical details and gets back into the actual story of the character. It sounds like something I could work into a minor plot point, or at least use to provide some additional color. It doesn't sound like something nonsensical when looked at that way.

If it bothers you so much from a story / believability standpoint, just require your players give you notice before multiclassing into sorc so you can weave the change into the story. I'd even consider giving them reduced access to the lvl 0 ability before they take the class (case by case basis of course), so it looks like a more fluid transition when they finally do make the change. Or you could just not allow them to use their new abilities until a certain point in the plot has been reached; you seem to feel that this is a big deal so you should make a big deal out of it in the game.

I'm probably in the minority, but I don't really like the new fighter that much. They took the old fighter, and gave him bigger numbers. He's still the same old fighter, just with bigger weapon, armor, and will bonuses. Aside from the will mod (which is much appreciated), I don't see a need for the other bits. I understand the desire to beef him up a bit and maintain back compat, but I think we can do better. Every other class got new options added, or old options retooled so that they were more useful or could be used more often. The key word here is options. I'd much prefer something like that for the fighter.

Specifically:
I don't like the current weapon training bonuses at all. By providing continually increasing benefit, it doesn't provide any reason to branch out into other weapon groups. Worse, it seems to make wielding something else more painful than before because of the increased mods you're giving up. It also has similar problems as the 3.0 ranger's favored enemy ability, where you pick at the start for the max bonus later, even if you're not using your envisioned setup yet. While I'd really like to see weapon group bonuses replaced with weapon group attack options or special abilities, I'm not sure it's reasonable or could be done well. I talk more at length about it here.

I like the armor training ability, but I think it might be a bit overdone. I also think it should provide different bonuses for different armor types (light/medium/heavy) to make the ability more interesting for multi-class fighters. I say more about it here.

As to adding options, Squirrelloid tossed up a prelim fighter rebuild with some extra combat abilities. He thought that a fighter should be more a battlefield tactician than someone who charges and swings (arguably the Barb's territory anyway), and I like his ideas enough to link them in his absence (I do suggest tweaks for them as well, but it's still largely his work). The thread can be found here.

That's fine. If multiclassing is free at your table, there is nothing in the rules that will prevent players from dipping into classes to gain benefits. {...} Cheese can only be stopped by the referee. :-)

This applies to the feat options as well. I totally agree that cheese can only be stopped by the ref, but that's no reason not to expect allowed abuses and plan for them where you can. And since Pathfinder specifically allows free multiclassing and is compatible with 3.5 splat, I tossed them in to illustrate. I do restrict these things in my games, but that's not exactly the point.

Superb suggestion. Consider this added to the rule.

If this is so, what about mods from other skill increasing feats. I get why you want to remove the int bonus/penalty, but why exclude everything else? Why make a special case of skill focus and class skill bonuses?

No, as this would introduce of stronger and weaker weak points, which additionally depend on the attacker's skill and not on the creature's make up. In the system, a hit area is weak or it is not.

I understand your system, which is why I suggested an 'alternate' as opposed to a 'clariication'. I don't think your system is bad, but I do think your 'on' or 'off' system leads to some interesting scenarios that could be avoided. Skeletons, for example, change CR as they change size. Under your proposal, a rogue could lose SA against them just because they grew in size, even though there is no change in the underlying creature. The same is true of Death Knights; drop the template on a creature with a higher base CR and you may have made a creature that your rogue can't SA anymore. That may be acceptable from a balance standpoint, but it just doesn't make sense to me.

As to making a system that depends on the attacker's skill, you've already done that. Yours is just an all of none setup based on the attackers skill, whereas I proposed one that provided benefits for any investure of skill ranks. You don't feel that it's an improvement, and that's fine, but you should understand that your system requires rogues who want to SA enemies around their CR to place ranks in those skills for the rest of their careers. If they don't, they lose the ability to SA creature types that they could before, and that looks like an issue to me.

Sorry Locworks, I'm not a fan, for many of the reasons stated theres.

But between that and Squirrelloid's fighter redesign, I'm starting to think that they just need the weapon training toned down and other options added. So I'll toss a suggestion up here:

----
Weapon Training (ex): At 5th level, and again every 4 levels thereafter, a fighter picks up broad weapons training. This allows the fighter to apply any feat taken for one weapon in the group to all weapons in the group. For example, if a fighter has taken Weapon Focus (Longsword) and Weapon Specialization (Longsword), he could select the weapon group Heavy Blades at this level, and those feats would apply to all weapons in the group. The fighter may instead take Weapon Focus (Weapon Group), Weapon Specialization (Weapon Group), or Exotic Weapon Proficiency as a bonus feat at these levels.

If the weapon group system from Unearthed Arcana is in use, the fighter may instead become proficient in another weapon group, or select from the Weapon Focus (Weapon Group), Weapon Specialization (Weapon Group), or Improved Weapon Focus (Weapon Group) feats.
----

That prevents ridiculous stacking, limits bonuses, but still expands proficiency and skill. It's not the weapon tricks idea I had before, but it's probably more manageable, and leaves those firmly in feats that fighters still have lots and lots of access to.

What if a dwarf wants to wear medium armor and doesn't wanna multiclass?

There's nothing stopping them from doing it, they just don't get as much out out of the deal. But seriously, aside from flavor reasons (which are often sufficient to justify a sub-optimal choice IMO), why would a dwarf fighter ever do this? They don't suffer any movement penalties for any armor choice in 3.Pai, so why would they not select the thickest, heaviest, best defending armor they could get?

And for those dwarf barb/fighters who don't have the movement issue can just take the non-move medium abilities and still get a relevant/useful bonus. This certainly isn't as powerful as the original ability, but I agree with the OP that it could have used a bit of tuning anyway.

I wonder if there's a reason you're excluding the full skill modifier from your formula. I understand and support the reasoning behind limiting SA like this, but I think you're limiting it a bit much...

Skill rank break down: Under current rules and your suggestion, Rogues get knowledge dungeoneering as a class skill. If they want to SA aberation and ooze type targets of a CR of the rogues level+1 or less, they need to put one rank in at 1st level, 1 at 9, and another at every odd level for a total of 7 ranks over 20 levels. The other three relevant knowledge skills (arcana for constructs, nature for plants, religion for undead) aren't class skills, so they don't get the +3 bonus if they train it. They'd have to put 10 ranks into each of these three over their 20 levels to SA creatures of similar CR. Grand total of 37 ranks in seperate skills just to remain effective against higher CR targets. With the new encounter rules, a paranoid rogue would spend 4 or 8 more.

Now, I know that with the skill consolidation, rogues have a couple more ranks to play with, so this isn't awful. Tt does require them to place points in particular places to remain useful as they progress though, and they get on a 'skill rank treadmill' where some of their ranks are spoken for just to maintain their current usefulness. It's also ridiculously easy to minimize, and makes certain options very apealing to save ranks. Grab a level in bard and train some knowledge skills, and you save 3 ranks from each skill because of the +3 bonus. Or take that splat feat (Educated) that lets you treat knowledge skills as class; it wasn't particularly helpful before but it's looking nice now. There's even a feat in Races of Destiny to allow humans to treat EVERY skill as a class skill (it's level 1 only, but that's not really an issue). So if these feats or level swaps can save a rogue 9 ranks in knowledge skills, why not let skill focus (know.something) do the same thing? Why not make this a bit less painful, and apply all skill modifiers except the Int mod bonus? I'd say add the Int mod as well, but

I just don't see a justification for your the limits of your proposal, and think it dserves to be relaxed a bit (my apologies if it's in one of the linked threads above, I haven't purused them thoroughly).

Or, as an alternate, let your ranks (maybe + trained bonus, not sure it's as important here) be the maximum number of SA dice you can apply against any target covered by that skill, regardless of CR. Allow someone elses knowledge of a creature (say, DC = 15+ CR) to increase your cap by 2 dice, this maintains your group dynamic idea that I think is great. This doesn't require them to spend ranks to retain the same ability against higher CR creatures, but it does limit their effectiveness if they get off the skill rank treadmill. Basically, they don't lose their abilities if they stop putting ranks in to those skills, so they can choose to stop at any time without penalty, thought it does stop them from advancing.

I generally agree with the suggestion to tone SA down slightly, but they still should be able to use SA on previously immune foes if they look into it. A talent isn't a bad call, but I'm gonna second Locworks point. Spending the ranks in knowledge skills can continue to give you a benefit even if you stop seeing a creature in combat, since they generally apply to other creature types or areas. It also leaves you free to acquire a more generally useful talent, instead of a fairly specific one. Plus, with the merging of skills that's going on, rogues have a couple extra skills to toy with now, making this a less expensive option on the face...

Actual judgement of such a system witheld pending rules specifics of course, but I'd say it could be made a better system than just using a talent for it :-)

It doesn't say it's against certain enemies, it is with a certain group of weapons. I was comparing the bonus progression with the 3.0 ranger favored enemy progression, which was generally considered inferrior to other, more flexible ideas. I was just suggesting that we move away from that static, and rather bland progression. Sorry if I suggested that there were any similarities besides that.

Apologies if this came up in A1 or A2, started with A3 haven't checked those forums...

I really love the idea of weapon training for fighters, but I don't like how it's being done. Just giving them another flat attack / damage mod that stacks with magic, focus, specialization, etc. seems unnecessary. It’s not like they have difficulty hitting most things all day long already, so I don’t really get the point. Plus, this is like the old ranger favored enemy issue where you picked one at the start for the benefits much later on. I honestly don’t see why we’re giving them multiple groups, it’s not like they’ll ever use anything outside of their first group again. Worse, this doesn't add any new, unique or interesting options for them like the other classes have seen (you can still get some of those in feats, but feats aren't class unique or special because anyone with the right mashup of class abilites can get them).

There's an opportunity here to do something that fighters have been missing for a long time, to give them actual options based on their weapon use, and make those options distinct from other classes. I’d much rather see weapon training give fighters some minot special abilites when using weapons in a weapon group, like CMB modifiers to certain attacks, or be able to use a CMB move as a swift action while carrying, or something someone more creative comes up with (I know they're not OGL, but I want to raid the various Tactical Feats for inspiration). It might even be easy to make benefits that stack with themselves, so fighters who want to focus on a particular group can do so at the expense of versatility.

Just a thought and a hope.

Yeah, this ability isn't a big deal, but it could be improved upon. As is it just gives the fighter more numbers, not more options or more differentiation. It's probably fine for all of the plate wearers out there, but I think there's an opportunity here to improve the ability so that everyone doesn't have to get shiny mithral breast/full plate as soon as possible. Doing slightly different abilities for different armor groups would also make this a more useful ability to multiclass fighters.

So that's what I spent the last hour thinking about, and here's what i would suggest. Three groups, 5 paths, everything stacks, etc. It's a bit more complicated than it was, but the fighter is so straightforward right now that I think he can take it.

Light Armor Mastery Group - Reasoning: Any fighter that is specializing in light armor probably isn’t looking to stay single classed. So the abilities here are designed to sync well with light armor classes (rogue, ranger, even bard) and to help out an arcane fighter. Since I don’t imagine they’d take more than 10 levels of fighter (and thus only ever get two of these anyway), there’s two paths of two upgrades each here. The armor mods they provide are tuned down to reflect both the weaker nature of this armor group in general, and the reduced need to undo armor check or increase max dex. I would never expect all four of these to be taken by a character.

Light Armor Optimization I – increase max Dex by 1, decrease armor check by 1
Light Armor Optimization II – increase armor bonus by 1, increase max Dex by 1
Light Armor Arcane Optimization I – decrease armor check by 1, decrease spell failure 5%
Light Armor Arcane Optimization II – increase max dex by 1, decrease spell failure 5% (yes, I know that there's a feat that does this, but it requires a swift action to use, and sometimes you need those for other things)

Medium Armor Mastery Group - Reasoning: Fighter’s specializing in medium armor are kinda rare, but I could see a fighter/barb doing it. There’s two paths here as well specifically for that reason, but I tried to make it appealing to a fighter in general who was willing to trade a bit of defense for mobility. Again, a bit toned down from the standard to reflect armor stat differences and movement gains.

Medium Armor Movement Optimization I – decrease armor check by 1, decrease speed penalty by half
Medium Armor Movement Optimization II – increase max dex by 1, eliminate speed penalty
Medium Armor Optimization I – increase armor bonus by 1, decrease armor check by 1
Medium Armor Optimization I – increase armor bonus by 1, increase max dex bonus by 1, decrease armor check by 1

Heavy Armor Mastery Group - Reasoning: This is probably where your standard fighter will live, and only clerics or pallys would bother multiclassing for this. I really don’t think that fighters need an additional +4 armor bonus on top of their full plate +4, heavy shield +4, ring of deflection +4, and necklace of nat armor +4 (i have not checked WBL guidelines to see if it's even possible, just using hyperbole), but that’s the direction things were going so I didn’t change it significantly. I think we should draw the line at the dex mod though. An 8 point AC gain for a dextrous fighter in plate (or one with cat’s grace) seems a bit ridiculous, so those got toned down. I also removed the reduced run multiplier. It’s a minor thing at those levels, but it looked like it needed something else.

Heavy Armor Optimization I – increase armor bonus by 1, decrease armor check by 1
Heavy Armor Optimization II – increase armor bonus by 1, increase max dex by 1
Heavy Armor Optimization III – increase armor bonus by 1, decrease armor check by 1, allow full run multiplier (x4 instead of x3, or whatever)
Heavy Armor Optimization IV – increase armor bonus by 1, increase max dex by 1, decrease armor check by 1

Basic, general abilities grow with levels in other classes, but the only class features that do that are specifically called out, and generally shared among the classes that grant the stacking. I could see divorcing caster level from your specific class level and treating it more like a generic stat like BAB or a save, but granting spell progression on top of that seems way off. Spells per day seems like a class ability, and I don't want to see that advance without levels in the primary class. I don't like the idea above to make the primary class abilities of every class advance in some fashion, it'd be easier to work everthing as gestalt at that point.

I think Magic Ratings system in Unearthed Arcana (pretty sure it's OGL even) is already built to handle increasing caster level with secondary classes. Primary casters (people who get spell casting at every level) get +1 CL for each level. Secondary casters (Rangers, pallys, classes that don't get full CL progression or reduced spell advancement, splat classes with lots of Su powers) get +1/2 CL for each level. Non-casters (fighters, rogues, barbs) get +1/4 CL for each level. Add it all up, drop any left over fractions, and you've got your caster level. You can split progression further into arcane / divine CLs (and nature too if you feel like it), but it's not necessary.

Divorcing CL from class levels sets up some odd situations though. The completely ineffective fighter 19/ wizard 1 has been mentioned, as has the 1 level of everything caster, but funny things happen in any build. If you make a 10th level Ranger who decides to take up Wizard, he's hit the damage cap for most of the spells he knows already. His spells don't get more powerful as he levels for a while, he just gets more of them. A ranger 10/ wizard 5 learns fireball and has his damage on them capped already. That's probably a good thing from a balance side of things, as it makes this sort of late career class swap more manageable, but it just feels funny.

They're already playing with an intermediate saving throw progression: see Fighter's Bravery ability. I really hope they just do it, instead of bolting on modifiers for the same result...

Somewhere back in the wall of post, this came up (I copied it at the time, but couldn't find it later, sorry):

when the Barbarian gets to potentially use all his rage powers on the *same feat* the fighter is using

This is not true. Rage powers swift actions in A3 unless specifically called out otherwise (see the Rage Powers paragraph on p14), so you won't see that very often, if ever.

On to some more directed thoughts though...

You've certainly made a fighter who controls the fight, but he also gets a lot more AoOs than before, and can cause others to proc them. I like the control abilities, but less so the AoOs. For what it's worth, I like what you've done here, and here's my opinion on the combat abilities:

Surprise lunge is interesting, and in most mid-large size encounters would give the fighter an extra AoO on many many rounds. Even if he's in combat with somthing else, he could just expand his threat range, let somone trigger it, and use that to move around whatever he was fighting at the time. Since it's only a 5' adjust he doesn't trigger any AoOs for himself, and he can work himself out of flank without too much effort. It might be worth dropping the extra attack to start, calling it "Combat Positioning" or some such and just allowing him the extra move to close with someone in that scenario would make him more mobile without boosting his damage output immediately. Give hime the full lunge later on, possibly after the rapid reactions ability.

Expert Defender looks like a solid idea, but I don't like that it's always on. Is the fighter surprised? Doesn't matter, can't charge him (unless I'm remembering wrong and you don't threaten when surprised, bit late to want to look it up). Maybe make it a benefit of another combat action, like when fighting defensively, full defensive, or using the combat expertise feat to boost your AC.

Parry has issues, but they've been mentioned before; a bit more clarification and detail would help. As an alternate ability, you could allow Parry to provide a +5 bonus to AC (or half class level if you want it to scale) against one attack that just hit you; if the attack would not have hit your new AC it misses you. You don't get the full range of action negation with this, but you don't boost damage either. It also sounds more like a 'parry' to me; you had a pre-emptive strike thing going that might be better at higher levels (and might also be more in line with the debuffer Monk you've mentioned elsewhere, I too am crossing my fingers on that one).

I like rapid reactions. A lot. It comes at a great time as well.

Tactical Genius... could be problematic. An extra immediate action to use on the unmodified Surprise Lunge gives the fighter two 5' moves that don't provoke AoOs, and two extra attacks in a round in any mid-large scale fight. Or two unmodified uses of Parry to screw over two people's rounds. I like the idea behind it, but I suggest limiting it so that you can't use the same immediate action twice in the same round.

Perfect Moment is perfect. Use defense, ready an action, wait for someone to charge you, it gets broken by the ability, and then you unload a full attack on them. Good times. I can see it already: "Wait for it... wait for it... steady... NOW!"

Ranged Parry works if you keep Parry as is (preferably more detailed of course), but I don't care for it. I think this might be a better place for the Surprise Lunge ability, especially if the attack ability is removed from the ability as I suggested originally.

Stunning Combo is great.

Not sure I agree with the boost to Armor Mastery, but I don't see it as a big deal.

Skills... under the new system I'd prefer to see skills decrease rather than increase. This style of fighter might deserve to get Perception, but I'm not convinced. I've said more about it in other threads and don't want to rehash it here.

And I've got nothing more to add. I agree with the direction you're trying to go, and really like what you've done with the place ;-)

Yeah... with the A3 skills mechanic, all you're asking for is an additional +3 for any fighter who takes these skills. All they need to do to get that is take a single dip in ranger or rogue, and make sure to put a rank in those skills when they do it. Then they forever get the +3 to those skills, and can stack it with focus or whatever else they want.

Honestly, under the new system I sort of want to remove class skills from the assorted classes, not add new ones (as has already been suggested). Old cross class skills were a pain to build to useful levels. That's gone here, you just get a bonus to trained skills that are considered core for or integral to your class.

I don't see Stealth or Perception as so integral a part of 'fighter' that they deserve a bonus on them if they train them. Even the guard example that keeps coming up doesn't do it for me: they can already be good at it if they put ranks there, they just won't be exceptional because it's not an integral part of the class. It's like the difference between a front soldier and a sniper. Their training and focus is different, and the sniper is going to be better at seeing details because of their training.

Toss in the ease of making up that deficiency, a single level dip in classes that do focus on Perception and Stealth, and I don't see any compelling reason to agree with your suggestion.

My $0.02...

Dump the Fly skill. Bring back the old manuvering table, and overhaul it if necessary. Nerf PC flight if it's really that big a deal... Then allow accrobatics checks to EXCEED your manuverability limitations, with a seperate check per manuver.

Each row in the chart represents some manuver or movement ability, so anytime someone wants to fly better than their manuverability class (tighter turn, hover, whatever), they roll a acrobatics check. Something like DC 15 for one category improvement, +5 for each additional category. So something with Poor can't hover naturally, but might be able to cover it for a round with a DC 20 check; or they could get the ability of an Average flyer to turn in place with a DC 15 check. Add a +2 penalty for each previous check in the same round to keep things from getting obnoxious...

This would give everyone who takes an item some natural ability to use it, and provide an avenue for people to exceed those limitations. Monsters never need to worry about it, checks are limited to people trying to do more with their flight abilities than was intended (who still get to feel special about it), and that sounds fine to me. Acrobatics works since it's a skill about balance and contortion, and thus not a bad call to help you aim your thrust when trying for something above and beyond...

Has anyone read the 3.5 description of Knowlege (arcana) lately? Hell, we'll just post them all.

Arcana (ancient mysteries, magic traditions, arcane symbols, cryptic phrases, constructs, dragons, magical beasts)

{....}

Dungeoneering (aberrations, caverns, oozes, spelunking)

{....}

Now, the first thing in Knowledge (arcana) is ancient mysteries. Why isn't that in history? The first thing in history is royalty. Why isn't that in knowledge (nobility & royalty)? Knowledge (arcana) is the weak skill. It should be removed from the game. Spellcraft should still identify spells, and Concentration should still be used to cast defensively. The arcana symbols get moved to Spellcraft and everything else gets ported to History.

(bits removed to save space)

Dumping K.Arcana doesn't seem a particularly good idea. The other use that 3.5 added for knowledge skills was being able to learn weaknesses or traits of creatures you came across, if you had ranks in a knowledge skill that represented them. K.Arcana gives info on magical beasts, constructs, and dragons, and is at least as strong as K.Dungeoneering with respect to creature knowledge. If K.Arcana is weak, why not dump K.Dungeoneering as well then?

I rather like the mechanic as is, and wouldn't drop K.Arcana without moving those creature categories elsewhere. That starts to sound like a Knowledge skill cleanup/redo though, and I don't know that we need one.

The 3.Pai.A3 book also indicates in the K.Arcana skill description that you can use the skill to ID a spell that has just been cast on you, but you need spellcraft to ID it as it's being cast. I'm not really happy with that line, and would rather see the two uses merged. Since I don't think it makes sense to dump K.Arcana for other reasons, it makes more sense to me to dump spellcraft and split it's applications up by magic style.

Only problem I see with rolling Spellcraft into Knowledge Arcana, etc, is that the bard ends up knowing more about magic than the full caster types, seeing as the bard has all knowledge as class skills, and gets bonuses to the checks. Not something I like.

Aside from the knowledge bonus, the bard (and every other caster) can already do this by, simply because everything's rolled into Spellcraft (except with Psionics, cause that's way more special than the minor differences between Arcane and Divine magic). Splitting divine and arcane (and maybe even nature) spellcraft checks up into 3 skills might make it harder for the bard to know everything about all the caster types, since he'd have to spend his skill ranks on several skills instead of one to keep up.

@DeadDMWalking: One more emailing of those racial gestalts please ^_^

tarkis13_at_gmail_dot_com

First post, just found Pathfinder, great stuff, blah blah blah....

The ommission of Concentration was one of the first things I noticed when I was looking over skills. Disciple of Sakura's idea to roll the Spellcraft skill into the various knowledges (arcane, religion, psionics, and nature) while retaining Concentration is exactly what I would suggest (if I hadn't been beaten to it ^_^); the idea that spell casters could ID spells from different traditions (that they couldn't counter anyway) based on a single skill has always rubbed me the wrong way anyway.

Aside from the "lose spell while casting" checks, spellcraft is currently used to prepare from someone else's spellbook, learn from scrolls, or ID a spell as it is being cast. The first and second of those only applies to Wizards (except in very rare, specialty circumstances), so moving from one int based skill to another doesn't actually hurt anyone. The last use just allows clerics, druids, and psionics (and paladins and rangers) to make more use of a knowledge skill they're probably taking anyway. It sounds more sensical and flavorful to me to roll them that way (and not particularly more complicated), than to roll concentration into spellcraft.

It's an interesting idea to turn spellcraft into a class ability, but I don't really see the point/utility. It's one more thing to keep track of, and the line is already hard to find sometimes.

And since cross class skills aren't the pita that they used to be, Pathos's idea to add some utility to the Concentration skill is a good one. No idea what to suggest there, but i think it deserves some more thought ^_^.