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One of the biggest complaints I have with 3.5 is the lack of things for fighters to do. The combat maneuvers introduced in the later 3.5 supplements helped, and I think that the ideas Wizards put forth in Tome of Battle are also good ideas. I'm also excited about what I've heard on how weapons will work in 4th Edition.
I think that it's essential that the Pathfinder RPG have increased combat things for fighter types to do. I'd like to see a combination of skill-based things (which players love to do, but the rules don't really account for, like tumbling around, climbing things, jumping, etc.) and maneuvers (yes, spells for fighters!).
Looking at the new Fighter progression in the Alpha release, while I'm happy that Fighters are finally getting SOMETHING at every level, I don't feel like +# bonuses are exciting and sexy enough.
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I like the changes to the fighter base class. They make sense for fighters of many different varieties with different weapons and armor. I'm still uncertain as to the usefulness of the new combat feats, though. I'm looking especially hard at the attacks that require a special feat attack from the previous round, a sort of 'combo attack' tree. In my experience, PCs rarely hit with three consecutive round attacks. I'm very pleased that my wife is also enthusiastic about playtesting these rules in our weekly game. I'll post my first impressions of an actual 3rd level game next Monday!
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Some specialized feat trees for weapon groups would be cool but I would hate to see maneuvers brought in. That's one of the reasons I couldn't get into 4E.
Ultimately, I just want to be able to make interesting decisions during a combat that aren't just five foot stepping for a flank and how much to power attack with.
Expanding the rules for using skills in combat in a useful, fun way I think would be a great step in the right direction, along with some new, cool combat feats.
I like the addition of the armor and weapon bonuses in the Fighter tree, but I'd like something a little more flavorful than a flat bonus. Maybe some things I can choose between (like the rogues) at some of the levels.
Anyways, these are just some ideas off the top of my head. I just want playing a fighter to be as fun as playing a spellcaster.
Director of Games
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One too want fighters to have a host of options to play with, I want to avoid making the class too complicated. It is important to have a few classes that are simple to play, either for beginners or casual gamers. The fighter should fill this role.
On the flip-side, I did make sure to add a host of combat feats for them to use, giving them some spice to their general tactics.
Those things said, is it enough? Let me know.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
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One too want fighters to have a host of options to play with, I want to avoid making the class too complicated. It is important to have a few classes that are simple to play, either for beginners or casual gamers. The fighter should fill this role.
On the flip-side, I did make sure to add a host of combat feats for them to use, giving them some spice to their general tactics.
Those things said, is it enough? Let me know.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
That's a really good point. As an experienced D&D player, I, of course, don't think about such silly necessities as making the game accessible! ;) I think, though, that at the later levels (when the player would be more accustomed to the system and rules), it would be nice for Fighters to get a "transcendent" ability, like the high level domain powers of the Clerics (I'm really excited about the Cleric domain powers and Wizard school powers, as a side note!).
I guess, what I'm asking for, is something that Fighters can do that the other martial characters cannot. Barbarians Rage and run fast, Paladins have their holy abilities, but it always feels a little disappointing for Fighters to just have more feats.
Maybe giving them some sort of weapon mastery based ability (though I also wouldn't want to shoehorn Fighters into specializing with a weapon or type of weapons) along the lines of the damage type breakdowns of the Critical Hit Deck.
But I'll definitely have to try it out, otherwise it's all theorycrafting!
One too want fighters to have a host of options to play with, I want to avoid making the class too complicated. It is important to have a few classes that are simple to play, either for beginners or casual gamers. The fighter should fill this role.
I've found that almost all of the generic "hero" (fast, strong, etc.) talent trees from D20 Modern make great fighter abilities, and allow for anything from a super-basic to "pimped-out-customized" character. I love what you've already done with the Fighter, but adding the D20 trees as "variant class features" might be an attractive option (and they're OGL, so no problem with use).
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One too want fighters to have a host of options to play with, I want to avoid making the class too complicated. It is important to have a few classes that are simple to play, either for beginners or casual gamers. The fighter should fill this role.
On the flip-side, I did make sure to add a host of combat feats for them to use, giving them some spice to their general tactics.
Those things said, is it enough? Let me know.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead DesignerThat's a really good point. As an experienced D&D player, I, of course, don't think about such silly necessities as making the game accessible! ;) I think, though, that at the later levels (when the player would be more accustomed to the system and rules), it would be nice for Fighters to get a "transcendent" ability, like the high level domain powers of the Clerics (I'm really excited about the Cleric domain powers and Wizard school powers, as a side note!).
I guess, what I'm asking for, is something that Fighters can do that the other martial characters cannot. Barbarians Rage and run fast, Paladins have their holy abilities, but it always feels a little disappointing for Fighters to just have more feats.
Maybe giving them some sort of weapon mastery based ability (though I also wouldn't want to shoehorn Fighters into specializing with a weapon or type of weapons) along the lines of the damage type breakdowns of the Critical Hit Deck.
But I'll definitely have to try it out, otherwise it's all theorycrafting!
Personally, I like the new fighter, it makes sense, and still allows me to play a non-magicked character.
There need to be those classes that have to rely on magic, those that use some, and those classes which rely on their own talents. To me, a Fighter should be the latter. Sure, there's no reason they can't carry dozens of potions and magic weapons, but you have to keep in mind, this is a character type that is trained not to rely on powers or spells, but themselves.
Fighter is also one of those classes which is as complicated or as simple as you personally want it to be. The Fighter can pidgeon-hole himself into a very small niche that is only usefull in a handfull of circumstances(Spiked-Chain wielding/Combat Reflexes/Trip specialist, anyone?), or can pick and choose feats that make him flexible and his capabilities widely applicable to many scenarios.
In a way, when you compare Paladins and Barbarians to Fighters, its almost like looking at the fore-mentioned niche-Fighters.
One too want fighters to have a host of options to play with, I want to avoid making the class too complicated. It is important to have a few classes that are simple to play, either for beginners or casual gamers. The fighter should fill this role.
On the flip-side, I did make sure to add a host of combat feats for them to use, giving them some spice to their general tactics.
Those things said, is it enough? Let me know.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Have you considered adding tiered traits to the Fighter, like Fantasy Flight Games did with their Defender and Wildlander classes for Midnight Second Edition? They are designated as open content, and can be perused at the Darkness Fall site (which lists all the open game content from the Midnight line of products).
Much of the criticism I've read about the Fighter revolves around the fact that they lag behind in power level at high levels of play, and maybe tiered traits could be used to compensate that, by providing combat styles or further bonuses to maneuvers and certain attacks.
We started playtesting the new rules last night and a person who had taken a prestige class (Dread Commando)to make the fighter he wanted actually re-created the character as a fighter dropping the Dread Commando levels. He could now get the abilities he was looking for from feats available to the fighter with the increased number of feats for all characters. He was estatic and I allowed the revamping of the character (Fighter/Rogue/Dread Commando to Fighter/Rogue)
The fighter now does what they are supposed to do REALLY well, soak up damage and deal damage out (Dual weilding bastard swords with just the -2 penalty on both weapons due to feats allowing 1 handed weapons to be used in the off hand, his next feat will be; and I don't remember what it is, one that removes the -2 penalty for the weapons) to the point, now I have to re-adjust my DMing style to make up for the increased abilities of ALL players enough to challenge a party.
It seems the fighter rogue is dealing an average of 60+ points (sometimes 90+) per full combat round with 5 attacks. Dual weilding and the improved Dual weilding.
So far your plan to bring back the draw of using the core classes is working. The benifits are just way too good to give up to multi-classing or even to branch out to prestige classes unless a player is developing something for the story and not power-gaming.
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One too want fighters to have a host of options to play with, I want to avoid making the class too complicated. It is important to have a few classes that are simple to play, either for beginners or casual gamers. The fighter should fill this role.
On the flip-side, I did make sure to add a host of combat feats for them to use, giving them some spice to their general tactics.
Those things said, is it enough? Let me know.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
I feel that fighters do need scaling complexity as well as increasing damage and toughness in order to retain their viability at later levels. It's not damage that's killing them, it's the level of options and customizability that every other class has that they lack. When you're a high-level wizard, you can approach every encounter with something different to do. When you're a high-level fighter, your options are "hit it until it drops (sometimes with minor special effects) and move to the next target."
There are old fighters and there are bold fighters, but there are no old, bold fighters. Or to put it another way, at some point there should be diminishing returns to wading into the thick of combat sword-a-swinging. Maybe the answer lies not in making the fighter better at swinging that sword, but instead better at managing the combat, or choosing their battles. That is, give the fighter class more tactical advantages: movement options, ranged attacks, troops to command, etc.
I'm also not sure if it's a bad thing for people to multi-class out of (or into) fighter. Fighter-types need to learn new tricks as they go along in order to survive in a fantasy world: Conan becomes a thief and a pirate and a king; Fafhrd and the Mouse were fighter/thieves at least (and maybe bard/barbarians or sorceror/wizards to start), etc.
As an aside, it would also help if that shield or suit of armor were actually good for something.
Lump
I would like to see the fighter becoming more of a Warlord in the higher levels. With automatic followers, cohorts, etc. like in the old days...
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Reading what people say about fighters always intrigues me. I have never understood why people think fighters are so gimped. In my 20 years of DMing i have seen some amazing things with fighters. They are as complicated or as simple as you want them to be. Yes, you can argue that it all boils down to "hit it till it stops moving" but then you can say that wizards "hit it with spells till it stops moving" also. Its not that simple.
Take this example.
Want a dual wielding combat monster? Fighters can do it faster than rangers if they pick feats early.
Want a turtle that is nearly impossible to hit? Fighters can do that with a shield, feats, and high con/dex.
Want a leader who commands troops? Fighters with leadership can command a host of followers into battle.
These are but a few of the options i've seen used.
Its all in how you use the feats they are given. Yes, they don't top out at the amazing power of wizards, but they start out way stronger. More powerful to start, less powerful in the end. I would like to see if you can make them scale better, but simply put, they are not near the "lack of thinking" class that i keep hearing complaints about.
This isn't meant as a troll, its ment to inspire creativity. Just cause your a fighter doesn't mean you need a 20 str. Dex, Con, Cha, these are all great stats for a fighter. You'd be surprised how complex you can get. ;)
One too want fighters to have a host of options to play with, I want to avoid making the class too complicated. It is important to have a few classes that are simple to play, either for beginners or casual gamers. The fighter should fill this role.
On the flip-side, I did make sure to add a host of combat feats for them to use, giving them some spice to their general tactics.
Those things said, is it enough? Let me know.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
You hit the nail on the head here. The fighter is the class I hand out to new players who are trying to learn the game. It's simple and requires very little bookkeeping, but also has an expansive set of options through the bonus feats should the player want to get a wider set of abilities. Making the fighter overly complicated is taking away one of my most beloved portals through which to lead beginners.