Am I the only one that finds this new pathfinder fighter to be rather stale still? Now its indeed an improvement but...
3-3.5 fighter: feat, feat, nothing, feat, nothing, feat, nothing, etc.
pathfinder fighter: feats and bonuses to armor and hit eventually ending with some nice abilities at level 19-20.
as said, it's an improvement, but still the class doesn't seem exciting at all. Now what I really liked was the options and feats presented for the fighter in PHB2. Made myself a kobold fighter that took ranged weapon master, weapon focus, greater weapon focus, weapon spec. greater weapon spec. feats for crossbows, PLUS crossbow sniper. He would be doing something like +8-10 damage with each crossbow shot and it was wonderful. But what made it nice was the feats that i decided to use on upping my damage.
I dunno if this makes sense, i'm typing this rather tiredly. I don't know if just giving + to armor/hit/damage makes for better fluff or excitement. Maybe this is why i like the 4e changes to the fighter so much, rather like abilities more than just flat bonuses.
And on the weapon training bonuses. In reality you just need maybe 2 weapon bonuses instead of you ending up with 4 different weapon groups being upped. I mean you have your melee weapon you are specialized in and probably have weapon focus in, then you have your ranged weapon (or this could be in reverse). I have never met a fighter in any of my campaigns that ever used any sort of backup weapon. Maybe they do though in many campaigns, i don't know. I'm just talking from my personal experience.
It's the idea of increasing your specialization in a weapon vs. maybe some exciting abilities or "maneuvers" like the ones you gave to the rogue, that was really spiffy.
As with many who've argued about this, the point is being missed. As Paizo staffers have indicated, the fighter is designed with simplicity in mind.
The fighter is the class you can play right off the bat with no fuss or muss.
Bringing a new girlfriend to the game to try and prove it's not just for geeks? You don't necessarily want to toss her into the role of wizard or sorcerer or druid. And heaven forbid that you con her into playing a cleric just because no one else wants to.
Girlfriend: OK, so we're being attacked by orcs. What am I supposed to be doing?
Assembled Other Players: AHG! Kill them before they kill us!
Wizard's Player: And by the way, can you position yourself here in front of me? Um...yes, that probably is the best line for them to attack.
As with many who've argued about this, the point is being missed. As Paizo staffers have indicated, the fighter is designed with simplicity in mind.
The fighter is the class you can play right off the bat with no fuss or muss.
Bringing a new girlfriend to the game to try and prove it's not just for geeks? You don't necessarily want to toss her into the role of wizard or sorcerer or druid. And heaven forbid that you con her into playing a cleric just because no one else wants to.
Girlfriend: OK, so we're being attacked by orcs. What am I supposed to be doing?
Assembled Other Players: AHG! Kill them before they kill us!
Wizard's Player: And by the way, can you position yourself here in front of me? Um...yes, that probably is the best line for them to attack.
No fuss, no muss, but plenty of suck and redundancy.
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Am I the only one that finds this new pathfinder fighter to be rather stale still? Now its indeed an improvement but...
3-3.5 fighter: feat, feat, nothing, feat, nothing, feat, nothing, etc.
pathfinder fighter: feats and bonuses to armor and hit eventually ending with some nice abilities at level 19-20.
Well, I often play fighters, so I rather liked what I saw. I agree it could be better, but I like the basic idea : the fighter is the feats man, just like the rogue is the skills and special abilities man.
Simple solution to your dilemma : create new and exciting feats.
End of your problem.
I think it works pretty well for what fighters are suppose to be. Fighters are the trained soldier guys, as opposed to the blind rage guys (i.e. barbarians). Being the "trained soldier guys" should give the fighter a better chance to use weapons and wear armor more effectively.
The other effect this has is that the fighter can pull off special attacks that require them to take negatives on attacks better, for example, and they can do so while still being more effective than, for example, the barbarian, paladin, or ranger.
I think the fighter changes do this without making the class a lot different or more complicated than it currently is.
New fighter only feats would be sweet. But for the love of the gods NO TOB magic crap.
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Im not sure what people want the fighter to be. To me the fighter is the generic class. Note: Generic does NOT equal bad. The number of feats allow you to make any kind of fighter you want. Ranged specialist, finesse fighter, armored tank, whatever.
It seems like some want special ablilies and such. If you start doing that youre going to alienate a lot of creativity because there are endless types of fighters and feats allow for that in some way. Think about it, it was already done with the ranger. In 3.0, you got 2 weapon fighting. What if I didn't want to use 2 weapons? Im out of luck. Thankfully they changed it to combat skills, but thats another story.
Creative Director
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One of the things I'd like to see the fighter remain: Simple. In 3.5 it's an easy class to handle, but its bonus feats allow veteran players to get relatively complex if you draw those feats from various other books.
But at its core, it's a VERY simple class. It's the one you hand to the new player, and he doesn't have to wade through spells, skills, or unusual rules and flavor restrictions. He gets to play the game with minimal character creation hurdles, and in theory, gets to see more complex characters played by other players and over the course of a campaign learns the game.
Making the fighter equally or more complex to, say, the monk or the druid or the ranger is bad for the game.
One of the things I'd like to see the fighter remain: Simple. In 3.5 it's an easy class to handle, but its bonus feats allow veteran players to get relatively complex if you draw those feats from various other books.
But at its core, it's a VERY simple class. It's the one you hand to the new player, and he doesn't have to wade through spells, skills, or unusual rules and flavor restrictions. He gets to play the game with minimal character creation hurdles, and in theory, gets to see more complex characters played by other players and over the course of a campaign learns the game.
Making the fighter equally or more complex to, say, the monk or the druid or the ranger is bad for the game.
My point exactly. And those of you who find this boring, keep in mind that the fighter is a basic-style class. If it's not your cup of tea go ahead and use your warblades or whatever.
It just won't be in my game.
There sure seems to be alot of anti TOB people around.I own the book and the outrageous brokenness that so many people mention i never managed to find.
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There sure seems to be alot of anti TOB people around.I own the book and the outrageous brokenness that so many people mention i never managed to find.
I think it was, at best, warmly received... more correctly it was probably mostly ignored by people. The "anti-TOB people" you see (of which I might consider myself one) may relate to the later-revealed role that it played in the publication schedule - as a testbed for 4e stuff for the fighter.
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Keep in mind that the Pathfinder PRG grants a feat every odd level; for the Fighter, that equates to a feat every level. Plus the fun stuff.
And as a longtime DM, I agree that the Fighter's simplicity makes it the ideal class for new players. We used to refer to this as "D&D 101: I want to be a Fighter please."
There sure seems to be alot of anti TOB people around.I own the book and the outrageous brokenness that so many people mention i never managed to find.I think it was, at best, warmly received... more correctly it was probably mostly ignored by people. The "anti-TOB people" you see (of which I might consider myself one) may relate to the later-revealed role that it played in the publication schedule - as a testbed for 4e stuff for the fighter.
So......fighters that stay useful aren't wanted?
No, fighters that belong in Exalted are not wanted.
No, fighters that belong in Exalted are not wanted.
If I had any idea what Exalted was I'd retort back.
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No, fighters that belong in Exalted are not wanted.
Don't bring Exalted into this. Exalted is a different game.
You don't like ToB, fine. You do not have to use it.
Just because you do not see how awesome the Tomb of Battle is no reason to 'dis' it. You need to learn some more katas to properly understand the way ToB enriches your life. ;)
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If I had any idea what Exalted was I'd retort back.
VVD: Here you go.
Exalted here.It's a fun game about a fantasy world where the Players (and NPC's) have fantastic abilities that come in the flavor of High Fantasy Kung Fu powers.
And from what i can gather Exalted is leaps and bounds higher in power level than anything in TOB.The three classes inside TOB are actually quite well balanced.Except for the asshats that ignore the rules and endlessly abuse and/or misplay them.Which is why spellcasters are universally accepted as overpowered.
I know in some respects that is true,but honestly some people just ignore any kind of limitations set forth by the rules.Martial Adepts are no more overpowered than your average spellcaster,much less so in my opinion.They are fighters that don't suck.
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There sure seems to be alot of anti TOB people around.I own the book and the outrageous brokenness that so many people mention i never managed to find.
I think it was, at best, warmly received... more correctly it was probably mostly ignored by people. The "anti-TOB people" you see (of which I might consider myself one) may relate to the later-revealed role that it played in the publication schedule - as a testbed for 4e stuff for the fighter.
So......fighters that stay useful aren't wanted?
Gee, load your questions much? ;)
Anyway, this shouldn't be a discussion about ToB and whether we liked or didn't like it. I think that it was one of the catalysts for many divisive discussions in the 4e forum before Pathfinder RPG came along. I simply stated why I thought that there existed anti-TOB sentiment.
And, if I'm not mistaken, they say right in the book that you shouldn't use the classes there with the one they are intended to replace... could be misremembering, though. That should indicate it might not be an ideal thing to compare the Pathfinder fighter to if we're looking to keep compatibility within sight.
I'm not really against the concept of the Tome of Battle classes, and I'll not argue with anyone that likes them, but moreso than even balance, what bugged me about the Warblade is that not only did he get the maneuvers from that book, he got a d12 and all of the fighter's toys too (i.e. he got a few bonus feats, and could take feats that only a fighter could take), and on top of that, he got to swap out what he specialized in!
It just seemed like a really heavy handed way of saying: This is the new, better fighter!
I had no problem with the Warblade being a "mystic martial artist" style class, and the fighter being the more down to earth soldier type, but then leave the fighter with his unique abilities.
And one time, to punish myself, I used a crusader as an NPC villain. Ugh.
If I allowed these classes in my games, I'd strip the "fighter only" features from the Warblade and drop him to d10, and I'd implement Rich Baker's suggestion for "revising" these classes from the podcast, i.e. no recharge mechanic (including the bizarre "cycling" crusader abilities).
It was kind of an interesting idea, but:
1. It wasn't fine tuned as well as it should be, and Rich Baker even admited that.
and
2. It shouldn't replace the simple, "hit them hard and be hard to hit" soldier like Fighter.
I dig the ToB.
I do not want the core fighter to be ToB.
2. It shouldn't replace the simple, "hit them hard and be hard to hit" soldier like Fighter.
Eh, different strokes for different folks (God I hate that saying). Eh when I first started playing D&D the fighter was far to simple. Just about everything it gets other classes can get. When given the choice between a fighter or a Bard, its Bard all the way for me personally.
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I like the way theyve got the fighter put together, i think the only suggestion I might make is a increasing CMB bonus (aside from stat bumps and bab) for them somewhere as they go up in level, I've always seen the fighter as the guy who charges in, or grabs the staff from the bad guy, or breaks the bandit's silly little quarter staff in two...
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I still cant see a problem with making fighters more interesting to play without making them more complicated.
feats are a great utility the fighter gets in abundance but what the fighter lacks is power at higher levels. so why not give them that power? if your bringing someone new to the game sticking them in the fighter role is fine but it wouldn't hurt to give them more interesting powers after 10th level. by then they probably got a good grasp on the game anyhow and it could actually show them how the rest of the classes work. Those that feel braver will likely try and multiclass.
What I'm suggesting is not to give them complex things like wildshape or spells but instead to give them tools that make them think about their possible options.
I've mentioned this before and I think its worth taking on board in the alpha just to try it out. introduce abilities that fighters use to enhance other classes actions or compliments other classes skills and abilities. pick from the ToB for ideas but don't make them complex, keep them with a "choose this and you get this" mentality. Using immediate and swift actions can add a little more complexity without flooding the player with new rules. heres some examples;
as an immediate action take a free 5 ft step if your movement would provide a flank.
as part of a full round action you can take a -2 to your attack rolls during this time you do not provide cover for your allies. Those allies may attack enemies you threaten with ranged attacks without the standard -4 for firing into melee.
as a swift action you can provide a spellcaster adjacent to you with a +4 bonus to their concentration check while casting spells on the defensive.
as an immediate action you can provide a +4 bonus to a characters feint in combat.
as a readied move action you can move with an ally shielding them from attacks of opportunity both characters occupy the same square for this movement but must end their turns in different squares. during this movement you suffer any attacks of opportunity instead of the person your shielding.
as an immediate action you can provide an ally who is the same size or smaller than you with cover so that they may use it to hide.
as a swift action you can throw a weapon to an ally who has been disarmed or who does not have a weapon then draw a new weapon yourself without provoking an attack of opportunity (requires Quickdraw)
I too think that the fighters, as is in Pathfinder, is a good class.
I too believe that a bit of tweaking would be nice, specially at higher levels.
Quijenoth has a good approach.
Let's give them special abilities starting at 10th, and one every 3 levels afterwards (along the lines of the rogue special ability gain progression).
I am not in favor of making a bunch of new feats that are only allowed to fighters. There are already several feats that have a lot of prerequisites that make it unlikely that anyone except fighters will take them (whirlwind comes to mind).
The special ability would be a better place for it, and would have the added benefit of making people more interested in playing a high level fighter.
I dig the ToB.
I do not want the core fighter to be ToB.
Amen.
No, fighters that belong in Exalted are not wanted.Don't bring Exalted into this. Exalted is a different game.
ToB is the Exalted D&D.
The Fighter is a... fighter.
The best way to make the class enjoyable is to give opportunities in fights to the character.
Encourage the players to describe their attacks, their position, their maneuvers, like flanking a fiend with their fellow rogue, disarming a dangerous black knight, parrying a duelist's deadly attacks, blocking a monster's blows, protecting the mage, supervising the area of combat like an officer in battle and so on.
And honestly, for all that you don't need feats or sophisticated maneuvers.
Tactics don't have to be limited by rules.
Just imagination and creativity.
This being said, i give my fighters 1 feat and 4 skill points per level. It seems enough.
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Someone mentioned in the other fighter thread that fighters need more abilities that provide conditional effects to the opponents; stunning, sickened; fatigued, etc. tying these into fighters weapon choice would be a nice idea.
Regarding the maneuvers from Bo9S I think the only way to incorporate this sort of thing into the fighter is to provide a +dice damage attack 1 per day or similar but that doesn't gel well with the fighter. It would however give fighters a much needed boost at high levels in damage output. However I don't think that is necessary if you replace the extra attack with x damage instead.
Lastly If the fighter class is supposed to be the easy martial character to play I propose that Paizo appease the masses who want more from a fighter by introducing a new base class that is more complex than a fighter but less stylized like the barbarian ranger or paladin. My vote would be the knight class, not as it is presented in the PHB2w but a more militaristic class whose perfection of fighting is on par with a fighters but a little more specialized kind of like the opposite to the barbarian, cultured instead of uncivilized.
I personally would like to see both the ranger and paladin becoming prestige classes (like the UA versions) however I know this does make backwards compatibility more difficult so understand why this will never be.
Lastly If the fighter class is supposed to be the easy martial character to play I propose that Paizo appease the masses who want more from a fighter by introducing a new base class that is more complex than a fighter but less stylized like the barbarian ranger or paladin. My vote would be the knight class, not as it is presented in the PHB2w but a more militaristic class whose perfection of fighting is on par with a fighters but a little more specialized kind of like the opposite to the barbarian, cultured instead of uncivilized.I personally would like to see both the ranger and paladin becoming prestige classes (like the UA versions) however I know this does make backwards compatibility more difficult so understand why this will never be.
While I basically agree with the concept of a more complex martial class. I dislike calling it a knight. Knight denotes a rather specific type of martial character, same as barbarian and ranger do. Perhaps something more like Warmaster or Armsman.
-Weylin Stormcrowe
While I basically agree with the concept of a more complex martial class. I dislike calling it a knight. Knight denotes a rather specific type of martial character, same as barbarian and ranger do. Perhaps something more like Warmaster or Armsman.-Weylin Stormcrowe
Okay, so what is called for (if I consolidate correctly) is a fighter class with enough flexibility to become a ranger or barbarian (possibly a Paladin with some cleric levels and alternate turn/rebuke tweaks, suggested in another thread), but with a SAMPLE construct (possibly called the Warrior or Armsman) that can be played as an intro character.
For that matter, you might have greatly flexible base clases, each of which has a less flexible SAMPLE character. But I'm going to shut up now before I have the mental equivalent of 'popping bubble wrap' on the forum.
Sword sweeps, special hammer or spear techniques that cause bleeding, knock shields down, or create advantages when fighting in a formation. Something akin to the fighter powers from 4e, but in feat format. Making these feat choices does not build complexity into the class, it just creates more choice. It's also easier to balance than sweeping changes to the core character class.
Thoughts?
I like it. Thought I'd rather them be more like tactical feats. That is: feats that give more (usually 3) options that require some minimal setup.
I would also like to see "standard" combat options (trip, disarm, bull rush) a bit expanded and maybe powered by feats in a way that isn't just a plain and boring "+2 here and there", thought I understand it's a perfectly legitimate choice for a feat, both as design choice and as character choice.
I strongly support the idea of a fighter that doesn't just charge and full attack all day, rolling dice until wrist sprains. I understand the idea of "keep it simple", but if this means that new guy has to get bored and keep rolling dice after dice without really doing anything particular, it's not the way of keeping it simple that I'm looking forward to.
To start, I am fundamentally against the addition of another core class. Unless that class was a more socially oriented class than any other (an area i feel is lacking even with the rogue and bard around). Which why earlier i said i basically agree.
That being said, I would say the solution to a more versatile fighter is in feats and feat trees. Possibly only accessable by fighters or with requirements that would make them harder for other classes to qualify for. I think that area more than the addition of more classes is the key to adding interesting martial options.
As a side note (one i have mentioned in other threads), I dont really see barbarian as deserving of a class themself. Barbarian has more to do with culture than profession. It is more likely that the warriors of a tribe are a mix of warrior NPC class, fighters, rangers and a few more rural-aspected rogues. Berserker would be a more apt class name and remove any cultural links. Most cultures have had individual berserkers or in some cases entire groups. Even among the common seen as civilized samurai there were berserkers, just not always the common image of shouting and shield bashing berserkers...more the silent killing machine type. In any barbarian culture, I would think that berserkers were the minority.
As for the fighter (back to topic), I would like to see more tactical options without complicating things too much. Which is why I have no problem with the basic feats that grant +2 to a specific maneuver. I would like more options inherent in the class though for playing a non-tank fighter.
-Weylin Stormcrowe
I would really like to know what changes Rich proposed. It might make those ToB classes playable in future campigns.
It was a few podcasts ago, the one called "you may already be playing 4th edition." Essentially Rich just said that no ToB class should have a "recharge" mechanic, i.e. if they run out of maneuvers, they are out until the next encounter, end of story.
The biggest change would be for the Crusader, which means that they just prepare their maneuvers. No "two randomly determined, with one replacing the one used" cycling, just readying the number they can ready and getting to use whatever they feel like.
Essentially he said they realized by the time the book was finished they didn't need per encounter powers and a recharge mechanic, and using both made the classes more awkward than they needed to be.
I can't believe people always complain about the fighter being "generic".The name is generic as is the stereotype behind them.No amount of tinkering will ever change that.
But they would kick more ass if they got an ability like Mettle,and could do more physical damage than any other character.They just get outshined by almost every other class in the long run.
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I can't believe people always complain about the fighter being "generic".The name is generic as is the stereotype behind them.No amount of tinkering will ever change that.
But they would kick more ass if they got an ability like Mettle,and could do more physical damage than any other character.They just get outshined by almost every other class in the long run.
I wouldn't mind seeing a fighter getting a mechanic similar to the Samurai Class's katana in Oriental Adventures - how they could "upgrade" their weapon as they went along. Make the upgrade linked to actually earning a fighter level so that everyone isn't taking a level of fighter and then moving on to something new would help ensure the value of the fighter. I might start working that into the home campaign, but the kids and I want to work with the Pathfinder Vanilla a bit first before we add sprinkles (actually, I think that's just me - the kids LOVE sprinkles ...)
- Dave
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I mentioned I'd like to see some "special" abilities like the Rogue has, perhaps in place of a bonus feat, special abilities that allow the fighter to do more dramatic events, like maneuvers. Bind weapon would be a great one.
I think this would be best done by making those "special abilities" fighter-only feats. The simplicity of the fighter class is preserved, but it gets a necessary boost in the "oomph" department. Sometimes, the simplest solution is the best solution. :)