Fighters are physical action based combatants so I'd like to see all high level fighters have the option of acquiring special fighter abilities after L10 or L11 comparable to Rogue class special abilities.
L11 or 17+ a special that provides the equivalent of Temporal Acceleration or Timestop 1/day or 1/week as an extraordinary or supernatural special fighter ability option in fantasy land.
Another special I'd like to see is Anti Magic Field as an extraordinary or supernatural special ability option after L11+ usable 1/day or 1/week.
I'd like to see some kind of extraordinary improved healing feat since they are the class that would consistently take the most damage.
I'd like to have the first two generic class bonus feats Sneak Attack +2D6 and Improved Sneak Attack +3D6 along with Evasion or Mettle being fighter class special ability options. The fighter class should pick up something for staying in the class and not PRCing.
That something should not be the rogue's shtick though. If that is what you want from your fighter, then here's what you do, you xerox the rogue class and then glue it into your book right over the fighter class.
No, the fighter should definately get some special stuff, and I like the idea of him being able to set up an antimagic field, but he should infringe upon anyone else's shtik.
I don´t like the idea of the Fighter being able to activate an anti-magic field. It´s just weird. Too Tome of Battle to me.
And something that everybody forget is that the Fighter shouldn´t be alone and he must have other allies who could do such thing, like a Cleric and Wizard.
I believe they should have a high will save (that wouldn´t brake the game at all) and there should exist a feat that would grant pounce. Maybe with pre-requisite Improved Initiative and BAB +11.
I really think fighters should remain simple. No supernatural stuff, no complicated abilities with uses per day or conditional applications. Just sheer martial prowess.
If it is found that the Alpha fighter is still too weak, there should be other things done to him - more HP, better AC and attack bonuses, more damage. Stuff that is straightforward to use. Maybe an extra bonus to combat manoeuvres.
I believe they should have a high will save (that wouldn´t brake the game at all) and there should exist a feat that would grant pounce. Maybe with pre-requisite Improved Initiative and BAB +11.
A feat that requires another feat and a minimum level of 11 whose sole purpose is not to suck when something isn't adjacent to you doesn't sound like a huge thing.
My fix would be to take away iterative attacks, they're mostly a waste of time that forces combat to be a stationary attrition slugfest that's pretty hard to pull off against someone who just doesn't hold still.
A high-level fighter should somehow be able to do anything that it can't do at the moment, that is he should be able to:
- Hit people that tend to be out of reach; a flying/teleporting/invisible opponent is fighter-proof, since there's no damn way in hell somebody with a 20' walking-only movement rate can catch up with opponents that can fly and teleport around, or even just burrow or climb, they're going to be out of range unless the fighter is going ranged, at which point a mere Wind Wall makes him utterly useless anyways, no matter how many pluses he has to hit.
- Hit people that tend to be unhittable; and it's not a matter of reach this time: Ironguard, Mirror Image, Mislead, Gaseous stuff, Incorporeal opponents... There should be a way a fighter can somehow hit or interact with somebody that would usually make him, yet again, useless. Unless he has a caster to help him out, but at this point the caster might as well take care of the threat by himself.
- Force people to not ignore him; let's be honest, even an uber-tripper AoO machine with a Spiked Chain can't do much to prevent a Gargantuan creature from just trampling him and eating the squishies (assuming such squishies need a meatshield in the first place, but we're digressing...), also let's consider that there is no reason for which an ordinary opponent shouldn't just decide to take an AoO and eat the squishies anyways and then gang up on the fighter when everyone else's dead. As things stand now, people keep attacking the fighter for sheer GM fiat.
This needs to change.
If fighters have to be the "hold the front lines" character type, they can't be unable to stop people from just running past them, they can't do their job if they can't hit anything with access to 2nd level spells. In short, they can't be fighters if their fighting can't be of any use.
A good fix would be to give the fighters a particular threat area that prevents people from charging across (like the Knight's class feature that makes the threatened area difficult terrain), they should also eventually develop some kind of "sixth sense" that allows them to detect hostiles within a certain range, some kind of blindsense, so that a 2nd level invisibility doesn't bypass a 20th level fighter on the spot. They should also be able to move better than others in armor, so that they can catch up, somehow, with flying/fast/teleporting opponents.
Heck, I think it'd be cool if they could intercept teleporting opponents, even if this would require magicing-up what has always been a non-magic class until now.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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I believe they should have a high will save (that wouldn´t brake the game at all) and there should exist a feat that would grant pounce. Maybe with pre-requisite Improved Initiative and BAB +11.
Ugh. Anything that grants a sequence plus movement is too twitchy in terms of balance for my tastes, especially since the game has a lot of charge damage-adders (so you'd get the adds on all attacks after the charge if you were granted a sequence). I think PHB2 got the balance better, with feats that allowed the potential for a 2nd or 3rd attack rather than a sequence. A feat to get two attacks after a move is very in keeping for a fighter.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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My problem with this line of thought is that if everyone thinks what the rogue is doing is what the fighter should be doing.
Perhaps is it the rogue who is misplaced in his abilities. Perhaps we should tone down the number of sneak attack dice so that doing melee damage is not the rogues main shtick anymore, and be thinking about what the rogue should really be doing as he seems to have taken the role of the fighter.
On that note, I hope that they keep the rules consistent on letting that which can be snuck be critted. Giving rogues sneak attack on undead with no crits for fighters is a bit of a leg up on the rogues. Plus, anyone who watches zombie movies knows zombies can be critted :)
I really think fighters should remain simple. No supernatural stuff, no complicated abilities with uses per day or conditional applications. Just sheer martial prowess.
If it is found that the Alpha fighter is still too weak, there should be other things done to him - more HP, better AC and attack bonuses, more damage. Stuff that is straightforward to use. Maybe an extra bonus to combat manoeuvres.
1. Fighters are not now and never will be an easy to use class. Putting together a tapestry of feat effects into something vaguely worthwhile is not easy.
2. What are you going to suggest players of Fighters do when the battlefield is being defined by quickened wall of force? Seriously, there comes a time when just getting bigger numbers may not make any difference at all. What is your master plan for the Fighter at that point?
Beowulf is not a 15th level character. Perseus is not a 15th level character. Theseus is not a 15th level character. These people killed monsters that are like CR 7. It's impressive, but it's not CR 15 impressive.
-Frank
I also do not want to see fighters gaining magical abilities (like an anti-magic field effect). But there are several things I'd like to see fighters gain.
I'd like to see the fighter have all good saves. I'd like to see them gain a flurry of blows type of ability with focused weapons. I'd like to see them gain the non-magical ability to heal themselves a certain number of points per day. I know that these step on the monk's toes a bit, but the monk gains mystical abilities that balance this out (and I'm hoping the PF RPG monk will be significantly different anyway).
I'd like to see them gain the ability to dispel or suppress certain magical effects with a weapon attack. The idea being that they are grounded in reality to the point that they can actually cut through magical effects. This would allow them to do things like cut through a wall of force or a blade barrier, banish summoned monsters, perhaps debuff certain magical wards (like shield and mage armor), etc. ignoring many forms of magical battlefield control and protection.
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2. What are you going to suggest players of Fighters do when the battlefield is being defined by quickened wall of force? Seriously, there comes a time when just getting bigger numbers may not make any difference at all. What is your master plan for the Fighter at that point?
This, to my mind, is not a Fighter deficiency. It's an example of an 'all or nothing' spell that needs to be rebalanced.
In a game where Knock or Hold Person are considered 'all or nothing' spells that are to be modified to only give large bonuses, or allow saves every round, a Wall of Force should be a construct with hit points that can be battered down.
It might not be easy to batter them down, but since a Wall of Force blocks line of effect, and therefore almost all spells, even emanations, the Fighter on the wrong side of it has little to fear from the 18th level Wizard (needed to cast a Quickened Wall of Force* in the first place), as he's just bought himself some time to drink potions, rebuff, etc.
*barring games that allow Incantatrixes or other insane metamagic-cost-flouting procedures, for which no amount of Fighter improvements will do, since such games are inherently broken and no comparison would be relevant.
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I'd like to see fighters able to hold back attacks on a full attack to parry opponent blows, (including any ranged touch or touch attack spells), i.e. a high level fighter has 5 attacks, he swings twice, then saves the last three if someone attacks him it becomes contested attack rolls, if the fighters is higher he blocked the attack. (and yes this would be seperate from AC though the fighter would have to contest before the attack roll. and he can block up to three attacks that way. An added bonus is this would give a leg up to two weapon fighters so they don't suck so bad.
Edit: I just thought of a really cool trick for fighters if they had that ability, get a spell storing weapon and use it to absorb enemy spells.
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I'd like to see fighters able to hold back attacks on a full attack to parry opponent blows,
This game does lack any sort of parry (or shield block) mechanics, although I don't have any brilliant ideas of where to put them.
Having them available as a mechanic for Fighters (and perhaps anyone else who purchases a Feat or Shield proficiency or gets Parry as a class ability, like a Swashbuckler or Monk or something), and tweaking the Combat Expertise / Fighting Defensively rules to give a plus to attack rolls for Parrying purposes only (and the usual minus to other attack rolls) could be neat.
Beowulf is not a 15th level character. Perseus is not a 15th level character. Theseus is not a 15th level character. These people killed monsters that are like CR 7. It's impressive, but it's not CR 15 impressive.
Depends on your interpretation, of course. The one you present is certainly viable. On the other hand, one reading of Bewulf has him knocking off a gargantuan red dragon at the end (of course, he ends up biting it as well, but still, that's no CR 7 encounter). Perseus' Medusa was one of only three Gorgons, two of whom were immortal; a case could be made that she's a bit nastier than "a" medusa. Likewise, if Theseus killed a plain old minotaur, then your case is absolutely correct, but the mythology makes the thing more like a half-celestial (half-fiend?) paragon minotaur.
More like the Monster of Legend template.
I like the image of Sauron in the prologue to the LOTR movies bashing low level footsoldiers with his mace and flinging them in the air. It helps that he is large size, though.
I've always pictured fighters as tanks, but I wish they could contribute more at high levels with some sort of area of effect ability. I guess you could do this with whirlwind (melee) or manyshot (ranged) but maybe beef these up a bit.
More like the Monster of Legend template.
Which is insanely undervalued at CR +2; it would be more realistic at maybe +4.
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Not sure, but he should be able to do more than run 20 feats and be an expert fisherman. Perhaps a Kingly Class, or something that augments his fighting damage to something deadlier than 46 damage with a crit. Vorpal ability? Maiming abilities? Something that a real trained fighter knows how to do, much like the ranger does when fighting certain creatures. "Ouch, he knew exactly where to hit us!"
Zux
Umm... that's magical. I could sanction bypassing magical effects, for the same reason you used. But not dispelling. Countermagic is magic. Like I mentioned above, a sort of "finding the chink" in magic would be more his role. Being able to actually dispel stuff should be a prestige class.
Whether its magical or not is entirely dependent on how you describe the action in the game. Defining it as magical is essentially an issue of flavor text. I could just as easily say that all magic is woven out of the fibres of the universe and precisely crafted steel wielded with skill and force of will are capable of cutting those fibres and unraveling the magic at work. There's no more magic involved in that description than is required for the fighter to attack a summoned monster in the first place.
The flurry of blows thing is less of an issue with me than the all high saves and the ability to slice through magic, but it would be nice to add something to the fighter that would help him in his role as a combatant. The all good saves seems to fit to me if you assume that the fighter studies to fight on all fronts with every weapon at his disposal. His mind and body would be his primary weapons. Keep in mind I think the monk needs changing as well so I don't necessarily see this as a problem.
Not sure, but he should be able to do more than run 20 feats and be an expert fisherman. Vorpal ability?
There's an epic-level feat already in 3e that lets you do exactly that.
I'd like to see fighters able to hold back attacks on a full attack to parry opponent blows,This game does lack any sort of parry (or shield block) mechanics, although I don't have any brilliant ideas of where to put them.
Having them available as a mechanic for Fighters (and perhaps anyone else who purchases a Feat or Shield proficiency or gets Parry as a class ability, like a Swashbuckler or Monk or something), and tweaking the Combat Expertise / Fighting Defensively rules to give a plus to attack rolls for Parrying purposes only (and the usual minus to other attack rolls) could be neat.
Allow the fighter to convert Attacks of Opportunity to Parries (Use the AoO to make an "attack", the DC/AC is the opponent's attack), and you have a system right there. Gives a good reason to take Combat Reflexes too, since you could convert more to parries.
I think the some of the game abilities the fighter needs are:
- Ability to reduce/ignore miss chance (Blindfight, Blindsight 5 ft. radius and similar abilities)
- Ability to strike casters at range (some sort of "sniping" ability and ways to get past Wind Wall, Wall of Force and the like).
- Ability to add damage effects (wounding, movement reduction, ability damage, blindness, deafness, stun, paralyze, etc.) in ADDITION to damage.
- Some way to survive or overcome "Save or Screw/Die" spells to get at casters
- Ways to impede/block opponents moves or direct an opponent's attacks at them
- A way to force spellcasters to move into striking range (taunt, call-out or other ability)
Something I've been considering for a fighter "capstone" ability:
Master of the Battlefield: At 20th level, the fighter is the undisputed lord of the battlefield, capable of using a variety of tactics to prevent foes from acting against him. He may choose one opponent within 30 feet to concentrate this ability on. Whenever the selected opponent attempts an action within 30 feet of the fighter, they must perform a Will save, DC 20 + Fighter’s Charisma modifier to be able to complete the action. A foe who successfully saves against this ability is immune to this effect for 24 hours.
This similates the fighter doing something - taunting, throwing pebbles, menacing or otherwise distracting the enemy to disrupt their action. Of course, the 30 ft. range somewhat bothers me as its so easy for wizards to activate invisiblity and the like out of this range.
Finally, when it comes to Rogue vs. Fighter, the big difference is that the Rogue has to set up his sneak attacks, and isn't likely going to be able to take the punishment a fighter can. Damage-wise, they OUGHT to be dishing about the same - the fighter can just do it where the rogue has to set up his shot.
- Ability to strike casters at range (some sort of "sniping" ability and ways to get past Wind Wall, Wall of Force and the like).
As to striking casters it would better to have an ability that increased the DC for concentration(spellcraft) rather then just increasing the damage. Right now a fighter actually has to hit an enemy wizard really hard to get them to disrupt as spell. This means the Wizard also loss a great deal of HP and shortens the fight. By just adding to the DC instead of to damage it makes the fight last longer but still lets the fighter throw out major disruption.
Speaking from an 'oops' rules miss reading my group did for a while. An ability that allows a Fighter to strike a spell casters on his turn and impose a concentration (spellcraft) penalty to the caster would be a good way to give the fighter a method of shutting down spellcasters at higher levels. In my group this played out with the fighter teleporting(love the boots) to within melee range for the opposing spell caster and just cobbling him so hard he couldn't cast spells when his turn came up.
I know this is incorrect but it does have a seed of a Fighter (only) ability (feat).
If you extend that mundane disruption to spell-like abilities that makes a Fighter increasingly useful (without magic) in higher level encounters.
More like the Monster of Legend template.Which is insanely undervalued at CR +2; it would be more realistic at maybe +4.
I agree it can be strong. For your immortal monster types just tack on the Einherjer template along with the Soul Locked template for a little more staying power.
Regarding the OT the fighter class should be able to acquire variant of the following 3 specials after they achieve levels 10 or 11 (L11+ is Legendary according to the Legend Lore spell) to address the current imbalance in the game due to magic:
The option to acquire an Anti magic field usuable 1 day (25,000 gp value based of the Antimagic Torc which isn't an option in all games). Having that ability just makes the Fighter more capable of surviving an encounter with a wizard or other caster particularly low level casters in games that have a lot of BBEG spellcasters.
Technically this ability already exists in game in an improved form with the Ancestral Relic feat but that is not an option in all games while the game is based on the existence of various types of spellcasters.
Dispelling weapon feat. Using a weapon as if dispel magic was cast on it for 1 round a level a day limited to the Dispel Magic +10 cap.
See Invisibility like the personal permanency effect in a low magic campaign where PCs cannot acquire items like that.
These specials would only help a fighter survive a encounter with a BBEG spellcaster using standard auto win tactics that do not require the spellcaster to utilize many of his resources.
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Good grief, no Tome of Battle crap. It's one thing being able to route an entire army; it's another thing to be able to shoot fire blasts and turn invisibile because the fighter's just so awesome with his sword (or somesuch crap). Not only is that stupid, but ToB is needlessly complex and an Exalted-wannabe. Make the fighter hit hard and be hard to hit...but don't make it possible for him to leap 70' into the air, ride around on a pillar of fire, and create a small nuclear explosion in the shape of Tiamat.
Tome of Battle-esque mechanics are one of the reasons that I'm NOT buying 4e.
Did you even read the book? And needlessly complicated? What, do you have the IQ of a wombat or something? Give me one example of anything complicated about it.
EDIT
And on the flavor b*!#%%#&, do what you should do when you don't like the flavor change it.
I have read the book and my group unanimously decided not to use it -- yes, because of the oriental/wuxia flavour and because we didn't like the idea of fighters using magic/spells. And just like Psychic_Robot, my group , too, decided to skip 4E for exactly the same reasons he gave. And whether he and I don't like ToB or 4E should not be your problem, right? You may disagree with our opinions, but it doesn't your opinions any more valid than his or mine. In any case, I think your manner is a bit too hostile for this forum (might be just fine, even friendly, on the WoTC boards, but not here).
As for those flavor changes... you know as well as I do that it's not always that simple. First of all, there's not much you can do about Fireball, is there? Sure, you can change the effect's appearance, but in the end the mechanics are still the same: your action brings forth an area affect that causes fire damage, right? And if we're talking about background "fluff", take a look at how many pages it took Eytan Bernstein to fit those ToB classes into FR. I wouldn't even bother to try that with my homebrew setting, especially as I think those ToB classes have way too much wuxia-type of powers to my taste. If I *really* wanted to get rid of that feel, it might be easier to rewrite the names of all the styles and powers... in fact, I should probably redesign the powers, too, and that would end up being a different book altogether.
Its funny, though. None of the 4e preview material hits anywhere near the OTT level of that book.
Sample fighter powers ('exploits') seen so far:
1- force an enemy to take a 5' step where you want him to
2- cleave- an enemy adjacent to the target takes a bit o' damage.
3- attack one enemy, take a 5' step, attack another
4- hit someone really, really hard. (roll the weapon's damage die 3 times, add strength once).
Class features-
gain a bonus on attacks of opportunity.
Smack someone if he tries to 5' step away from you.
Nothing on the scale of time-shifting mountain-cleaving fire-spitting superman leaps.
In fact, going by the preview material available, it looks like the fighter has gone up a bit in damage potential, while at the same time, spellcasters got bludgeoned by a swarm of nerf bats. Fly and invisibility are up in the teen levels, and you have to spend minor actions to keep them going.
I can completely understand not liking 4e, and I've found a fair amount of stuff I really dislike, but fighters as OTT wuxia immortals (or spellcasters) isn't one of them. Not even close.
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Here is a new fighter ability inspired by some of the other posters on this thread.
Fighter
Alignment: Any
Hit Die: d10
BAB: Good
Fort: Good
Ref: Poor
Will: poor
Class Skills: Climb, Craft, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Knowledge (dungeoneering), Knowledge (engineering), Profession, Ride, Survival, and Swim.
Skill Points: 4 + Int modifier
01 - Bonus Feat, Adrenalin Surge 1/day
02 - Bonus Feat
03 - Armor Training
04 - Bonus Feat, Adrenalin Surge 2/day
05 - Weapon Training
06 - Bonus Feat
07 - Armor Training
08 - Bonus Feat, Adrenalin Surge 3/day
09 - Weapon Training
10 - Bonus Feat, Improved Adrenalin Surge
11 - Armor Training
12 - Bonus Feat, Adrenalin Surge 4/day
13 - Weapon Training
14 - Bonus Feat
15 - Armor Training
16 - Bonus Feat, Adrenalin Surge 5/day
17 - Weapon Training
18 - Bonus Feat, Greater Adrenalin Surge
19 - Armor Mastery
20 - Bonus Feat, Weapon Mastery, Adrenalin Surge 6/day
Adrenalin Surge (Ex):
A fighter can use his inner reserves of strength to perform feats that he would otherwise be unable to perform. Activating an Adrenalin Surge is an immediate action. After using an Adrenalin Surge a fighter is exhausted until he spends one minute resting. He cannot use Adrenalin surge when he is exhausted. A fighter may perform one of the following ability:
- Second Wind: A fighter can regain a number of hit points equal to his Con modifier X 1/2 his fighter level.
- Combat Maneuver: A fighter can perform a combat maneuver as if he had the required feat.
- Extra Attack: A fighter can make an extra attack at his full attack bonus.
Improved Adrenalin Surge (Ex):
A fighter may choose one of the following ability in addition to the normal Adrenalin Surge abilities:
- Damage Resistance: Any time a fighter takes damage, he can attempt a Fortitude save (DC 15 + damage) to ignore half of the damage.
A fighter is also only fatigued when he uses a normal Adrenalin Surge ability. He is still exhausted when he uses an Improved Adrenalin Surge ability.
Greater Adrenalin Surge (Ex):
A fighter may choose one of the following abilities in addition to the normal Adrenalin Surge abilities:
- Save Substitution: A fighter may make a Fortitude save in place of a Will or Reflex save.
A fighter is also only fatigued when he uses an Improved Adrenalin Surge ability and suffers no ill effects when using a normal Adrenalin Surge ability. He is still exhausted when he uses a Greater Adrenalin Surge ability.
It needs more Adrenalin Surge abilities, but these were all I could think of. It may be too much with all the Bonus Feats. Maybe taking the Bonus Feats from levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20? That would still leave 6 BFs.
In 4e, characters from legend who have any decent magical schtick are somewhere between 11th and 20th level. Characters who have several magical schticks and go down in legend are 21st to 30th levels. The 4e Conversion for Aladdin is seriously going to be like a 23rd level Rogue (vast wealth, flying carpet, controlled Djinn - that stuff counts as epic in 4e).
A 4e character can do extremely cartoony things. They can leap off a 50' building head first and be completely fine within 5 minutes. They can wade through literally dozens of enemy warriors and chop them to pieces with their sword without taking any real injuries. They can teleport themselves across the room while jumping around saying "Woo-hoo." And they can do all of this without magical assistance at about 3rd level. But if you want to do anything really magical, you have to be very high level to do it.
At 1st through 10th level you can be Daffy Duck. At 11th through 20th level you could aspire to being Bellepheron. And at 21st through 30th you might be able to be Aladdin. Which is really weird for old school D&D players, because in 3rd edition D&D Theseus is somewhere between 3rd and 6th level, Bellepheron 7th, Aladdin is 9th, and Daffy Duck is at least 17th.
4e gives out the resilience and the plasticity of a cartoon character at first level, and makes people wait in long lines to get invisibility. 3rd edition gives out invisibility to first level characters and makes people wait in long lines for Porky Pig's toughness.
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But in 3.P the assumption is that we are using the 3rd edition standards of progression. That means that people can vanish from sight and bargain with demons at 7th level, but people don't become nigh indestructible until 17th level.
-Frank
What does "wuxia" even mean when you people use it? Cause it certaintly doesn't mean the same thing it usaully does if you consider Iron Heart and Stone Dragon to be wuxia. Not a single thing the Warblade has is either magical or strictly oriental flavored.
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Adrenalin Surge (Ex):
A fighter can use his inner reserves of strength to perform feats that he would otherwise be unable to perform. Activating an Adrenalin Surge is an immediate action. After using an Adrenalin Surge a fighter is exhausted until he spends one minute resting. He cannot use Adrenalin surge when he is exhausted. A fighter may perform one of the following ability:
- Second Wind: A fighter can regain a number of hit points equal to his Con modifier X 1/2 his fighter level.
- Combat Maneuver: A fighter can perform a combat maneuver as if he had the required feat.
- Extra Attack: A fighter can make an extra attack at his full attack bonus.Improved Adrenalin Surge (Ex):
A fighter may choose one of the following ability in addition to the normal Adrenalin Surge abilities:
- Damage Resistance: Any time a fighter takes damage, he can attempt a Fortitude save (DC 15 + damage) to ignore half of the damage.A fighter is also only fatigued when he uses a normal Adrenalin Surge ability. He is still exhausted when he uses an Improved Adrenalin Surge ability....
That's some interesting stuff there. Thanks for sharing!
What should a high level fighter be capable of?
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women.
All before breakfast...
The fighter problem isn't not enough attacks. They need better attacks, and they need to be able to ignore the defenses of enemies. For reasons of economy, they need to do so without five weapons for different DR situations. So let them bypass DR. And miss chance. Let them crit constructs. Fighters just know where the weaknesses are, and have perfect timing.
My thoughts go in that same direction. A high level fighter should be immediately recognizable as such by his extreme weapon skills alone. I also kinda like Vissigoth's Adrenaline Surge ideas (except the Second Wind).
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I can't see not adding Tome of Battle style mechanics to Pathfinder. I really can't.
With all due respect, I'd suggest you try harder. It's pretty clear that it's not going to happen. Instead, Jason's decided to go with Combat Feats, so that's where we should be focusing our attention.
The ToB maneuvers made martial characters way more fun to play by giving them actual combat options instead of just charge, attack, attack, attack. The feat based fighter should probably just be dropped or made into an NPC class. As far as the wuxia stuff, I don't really like the wuxia flavor much, but it's easy enough to just change the names of the manuevers so they're less wuxia implied. Mountain hammer could become mighty strike and moment of perfect mind could be iron will defense. Considering PF can't actually use the ToB, it means that it needs entirely new maneuvers with new names anyway, so the wuxia flavor could be gone.
I agree that ToB was particularly effective at giving fighter-types multiple options that made them more interesting. The key would be to take some of those ideas and turn them into Combat Feats for Pathfinder.
We need feats that:
* Improve mobility
* Give options for overcoming DR
* Enhance damage (hey, that is why they're there)
* Apply status effects
* Enhance saves or save effects
* Allow for some battlefield control
* Improve as many different kinds of fighting styles as possible
All these need to be things that are sufficiently good and generally useful that there's an actual decision to be made when using them - i.e., you won't just pick "the best" and stick with it. They should scale, too, or fighters should have the option to retrain feats with significantly lower prereqs so they can stay at the cutting edge of their feat potential. (Other classes can hang - this is what fighters do.)
Some thoughts on this...
Couldn't [shouldn't?] high level fighters already possess a famous/infamous reputation for their fighting skills and [previous] legendary acts of violence? I'm thinking maybe an "Aura of Intimidation" or something, which would potentially allow them to use their [very high]Intimidate Skill on large numbers of foes [armies even?]. Not many things would want to mix it up with a 20th level Fighter, and you definately wouldn't want to have standing with the opposition in a battle. These individuals are king makers and realm breakers...
Also wondering if high level fighters would somehow employ a "killing blow" option - perhaps on a critical. Again Fighters this powerful should be potentially able to finish combats very,very quickly. They are just damn good at what they do...
Thought I'd add more to the pot than the odd Conan quote :)
Also wondering if high level fighters would somehow employ a "killing blow" option - perhaps on a critical.
Not sure, but he should be able to do more than run 20 feats and be an expert fisherman. Vorpal ability?There's an epic-level feat already in 3e that lets you do exactly that.
I never understand why people say "we need more feats" when they are trying to fix Fighters.
Fighters need class features. We can't go back to all of our 3e books and remake every Fighter. We can add a template of real class features.
We don't even have to mess with the old feat structure. We can just place into every dead level something like "3rd: Deadly Criticals"
Iron Heroes & Book of Iron Might
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I never understand why people say "we need more feats" when they are trying to fix Fighters.
Fighters need class features. We can't go back to all of our 3e books and remake every Fighter. We can add a template of real class features.
We don't even have to mess with the old feat structure. We can just place into every dead level something like "3rd: Deadly Criticals"
Very true. Throw something into those odd numbered levels that any Fighter can do, and, later, add *options* for some of those odd numbered levels (Alternate Class Feature-style), and you've got no dead levels and plenty of room for new Class Features.
(And while the 'dead level' concept is a bit of a straw man, it is completely the case that a spellcaster gets new spells / slots every level and usually an array of new options which which to fill that slot, often times *dozens of different options* that they can swap out on a daily basis, if they are a divine caster!)
IMO, some current Feats, such as Combat Expertise and Power Attack, should already be class features of the Fighter (and available as Feats for the non-Fighters).
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Vissigoth, I like those ideas in principle, but I'd have to think about "balancing" issues. I like those Adrenaline Surges, except 'Second Wind' (those "self-healing" abilities are what I especially don't like in 4E). Extra attacks would be nice, and using FORT to replace WIL saves :)
These were just ideas. I'm no game designer and I haven't playtested any of this. This was something I was thinking about a work and typed up in about 5 minutes. As I said earlier, this ability was inspired by other posters in this thread. I just tried to give it some structure.
As for the 'Second Wind' ability, I think that a heroic fighter should be able to reach deep down and draw on reserves of endurance that he usually doesn't have access to. It may need to be balanced, but I think that it is a good ability.
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You know, I was about to spell it out, but it's less work this way. A high level fighter should be able to do most of the things that this fighter rewrite can do. That is to say, his job.