Forest Guardian Press

Fighter: Nuances (PFRPG) PDF

Forest Guardian Press

(based on 6 ratings)

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Fighter: Nuances offers more than 30 flavorful mechanic options for the Fighter Base Class to extend the range and scope of the Fighter Base Class both in combat and generally; it also includes a new archetype - the Mystic Fighter, as well as advice on, alternative uses for and approaches to the options contained herein.

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(based on 6 ratings)

Great, besides a few stumbling blocks.

Rynjin — Feb 25, 2015, 09:04 pm

I like this product, though it has some hiccups and less than stellar choices tossed in.

The overall idea is GREAT. It gives Fighters something they've lacked since day 1: Unique, interesting, and useful class features. The Fighter's entire class is +1's. +1 Feat, +1 hit, +1 damage, +1 saves vs Fear, +1 max Dex bonus in armor...oh and a -1 ACP thrown in there to throw off the pattern I guess.

Some of the ideas are simple things I've tossed around for use in my own games already (Adaptive Feat Training, Adaptive Weapon Training, and Greater Bravery are the big ones there), and I like those.

Others give better, stronger options than I'd thought of, and really like however. Fantastical Warrior being the best of the bunch (and Forest Guardian obviously thought so too...otherwise they wouldn't have made it a resource pool usable with so many other nuances. =)). Being able to nab some SLAs usable as a Swift a few times a day makes for a lot of extra utility in combat, and some out of it.

I do have a few minor gripes, however. Content wise the main ones are with Maneuver Specialist and the ones that require 20th level.

Maneuver Training's main sin is that it's BORING: It is simply a Bonus Combat Feat with no prerequisites, limited to a list of Maneuver Feats. Given that Compensative Specialization was printed in the same book to overcome the main drawbacks of nabbing Maneuver Feats anyway, it seems a lackluster option, though potentially useful.

Of greater concern (not really the right word but let's roll with it), with the exception of Without limits, which is a true, and very powerful capstone ability, none of the other 20th level Nuance benefits are really worth it.

Ultimate Warrior gives an Endure Elements effect (already available from Fantastical Warrior, and it lasts 24 hours anyway so it being permanent is a dubious benefit. Toss in that it's 50 gp for a potion of it and well...) and the effect of a Ring of Sustenance, along with another minor benefit. Essentially what I'm saying is an ability that requires 20th level should not be so easily replaced by a little over 2500 gold pieces. To put it in perspective, you're spending 10% of your available Nuances, for a benefit easily obtained by spending .003% of your total Wealth By Level at 20th...additionally compounded by most games ending at 20th (or more commonly, before) so waiting that long for it is unwise.

Ultimate Weapon Master is better, but is essentially just the other half of the coin that the Feat Martial Mastery (available at 16th) represents. It's useful unlike Ultimate Warrior, but barely.

Ultimate Veteran is a benefit that is wholly worthless for the majority of games. Aging is not something that generally comes into play, especially for martial characters like the Fighter (some benefit can be gleaned from being older on a caster), and is very similar to a Monk ability gained at 17th (which is often traded out for more useful abilities with the Monk Archetype equivalent to the Nuance system anyway).

But those are minor mechanical gripes in an otherwise solid book.

Final note, some of the abilities in the later"A Touch of Magic" section are oddly worded. It is written like an archetype, but doesn't make any sense that way. The archetype "replaces" abilities that are already ala carte (EX: Mystical Warrior "replaces Fantastical Warrior). It can be easily assumed that the intent is that the archetype "Removes the ability to select fantastical Warrior" or some other such wording, but the way it's written is clunky and bothered me on reading it.

However, I'm a person who can speak on the negatives much more easily than I can on the positives. Make no mistake: This is a good book. 95% of the options provided will make any Fighter player happy they have the option to take them, and the other 5% (with the exception of Ultimate Warrior) are at least not "trap" options. No option provided really makes you worse off for taking them, in other words, and provide good, balanced (on the Fighter chassis, and to a slightly lesser extent on classes with the ability to take Fighter Feats) alternatives to the boring "Bonus Feats are most of my class features" paradigm the Fighter has. 4/5, would likely rate it 9/10 on a 10 point scale.

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Product Discussion (17)

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Liz Courts Webstore Gninja Minion

Feb 20, 2015, 07:48 pm

Now available!

Forest Guardian Press

Feb 20, 2015, 07:54 pm

Thanks Liz!!! I really need to do something about those preview images - if you click on it you see it in all its (oversized) glory...

Looking forward to more releases with author/designer Christos Gurd and other freelancers...

christos gurd

Feb 20, 2015, 09:30 pm

mwahahahahaha

Forest Guardian Press

Feb 25, 2015, 11:19 pm

Thanks for the great review Rynjin!!!

And yes, I prodded Christos a bunch of times about the concept of "option replacements" in the archetype - it didn't make a lot of sense to me to replace what were already options with more options, instead of just adding more options. Christos had an answer for that, but I can't remember what it was...

Rynjin

Feb 26, 2015, 12:26 am

Yar. It's the kind of odd thing that's hard to word properly. I don't think any Paizo released archetype has ever actually done that before, the closest being the ones that go "You gain X, this replaces the Y you would normally receive at Z level".

I probably would have just listed it as something along the lines of "The <Insert Archetype name here> adds <Insert New Nuance Names here> to the list of Nuances it may select, but loses the ability to select <Standard Nuance names here>".

christos gurd

Feb 26, 2015, 01:11 am

my logic behind the nuance replacements was they fit much the same role as the nuances they replace, getting a blackblade instead of being able to forge magical weapons for example. It was more to function as an alternate fighter than a simple archetype though, hence why its in the alternate rules section. I do see your point about ultimate warrior though, and i may errata in some nice boosting for that. Ultimate soldier and veteran were more to make interesting and memorable npcs, seeing that soldier disapoints...yeah i can do something about that.

christos gurd

Feb 26, 2015, 12:27 pm

oh and i forgot to say, my reasoning behind the combat maneuver nuances was that it doesn't make sense that the fighter should have to pick up combat combat expertise when they are already combat experts.

Adam B. 135

Mar 3, 2015, 10:48 pm

Reviewed! Thank you for the awesome product!

christos gurd

Mar 4, 2015, 02:03 am

Adam B. 135 wrote:

Reviewed! Thank you for the awesome product!

and thank you for the awesome review, stay tuned for errata!

christos gurd

Mar 5, 2015, 05:50 pm

1 person marked this as a favorite.

ok so pending errata
1. add to Maneuver Specialist the following line

Quote:

If you have the fantastical warrior nuance you may expend a use while performing a combat maneuver to ignore that enemy’s immunity to that maneuver for one turn

2.Add to Ultimate Soldier

Quote:

Whenever you are subject to a constitution based check you may always treat the result of your roll as 20.

3.Add to Ultimate Veteran

Quote:

You gain an insight bonus on knowledge checks to identify enemies in battle equal to 10 + your wisdom or intelligence modifier, whichever is higher.

thanks for all the feedback from everyone

christos gurd

Apr 19, 2015, 12:44 pm

1 person marked this as a favorite.

special thanks to malwing for the five star review! Also note that nuances 2 is being written, and will incorporate rules for meshing with the stamina system detailed in Pathfinder Unchained!

Adam B. 135

Apr 19, 2015, 02:23 pm

How exciting! I look forward to it! That errata is looking pretty good too.

Oceanshieldwolf

Apr 23, 2015, 07:46 am

Thanks for the kind review Malwing. Christos has definitely taken your review to heart! He's working on F:N 2 as we speak.

As for the Intelligence based Nuances, I'm very happy to see more of these. Broadening the scope of the Fighter was definitely one of Christos' design goals.

Malwing

Apr 23, 2015, 11:08 am

Oceanshieldwolf wrote:

Thanks for the kind review Malwing. Christos has definitely taken your review to heart! He's working on F:N 2 as we speak.

As for the Intelligence based Nuances, I'm very happy to see more of these. Broadening the scope of the Fighter was definitely one of Christos' design goals.

A while ago I did a thought exercise as to how I'd divide class lines and what I'd make them do. After some thought I wanted to make fighter's need INT as a secondary stat, to differenciate them from Barbarians. They'd use 'techniques' and 'stances' and 'tactics' because my logic at the time was that Wizard and Fighters were opposite ends of the caster/martial spectrum and are probably the most iconic classes so I feel like they should be related. One should be a scholar of magic and one a scholar of war, directly contrasting with Barbarian/Sorcerer which are less scholarly and more ruled by passions and blood. Long story short: I've always felt compelled to have some sort of meaning to a mental stat with fighters so I feel good to have the incentive that's not annoying like Combat Expertise.

christos gurd

Apr 23, 2015, 06:11 pm