Fighter Fix?

[SneaksyDragon]

After play testing the Pathfinder Fighter i realized that many of the problems still existed. they are noticeably better at higher levels (still not enough) but low levels are still a snorefest. one problem that was never fixed was the repeatitive nature of the Fighter. A Fighter can be decent if given the proper feats (such as the Spiked chain Tripper )the problem with that is is get pretty aggravating/boring to be a one trick pony. I got to thinking when i heard rumors of the Barbarian Rage points ( I have no idea if I like them ) What if Fighters had feats for at will abilities but had a "Edge" pool to determine per combat versatility, for example...

FIGHTER

Hit Die: d10

Class Skills: Climb(Str), Craft(Int),Handle Animal(Cha),Intimidate(CHA), Knowledge(dungeoneering)(Int),Knowledge(engineering)(Int),Profession)(Wis),
Ride(Dex),Survival(Wis),and Swim(Str).
1st Level Skill Choices: 2+Int modifier.

Class Features
Weapons and Armor Proficiency:(same as in Pathfinder 1.0)

Bonus Feats:(same as in Pathfinder 1.0)

Armor and Weapon training (Ex): (same as in pathfinder 1.0)

Martial Edges: at first level the Fighter gains a number of feats equal to 3+Int modifier (minimum 3), he gains an additional feat to add to this pool every other level. The Fighter has a set number of times per encounter that he can use said martial feats. (see table below for times per Encounter)Fighter must chose from a level dependent feat list.
special:a Fighter must wait a minimum of one combat round between using the same Martial edge,(for example a first level Fighter has an Intelligence of 13 and has a martial pool of improved Initiative, Combat expertise, Power Attack and Cleave. if he uses power attack on the first round of combat, he must wait til the third round of combat to use Power Attack again.)maximum one Edge per round.

Level / Edges per Encounter
1 / 2
2 / 3
3 / 3
4 / 3
5 / 4
6 / 4
7 / 4
8 / 5
9 / 5
10 / 5
11 / 6
12 / 6
13 / 6
14 / 7
15 / 7
16 / 7
17 / 8
18 / 8
19 / 8
20 / 10

1st level Edges: (any feat with only one Prerequisite, and must follow the Base attack Bonus Prerequisite.)Blindfight, Combat Expertise,Improved Disarm,Improved Feint, Improved Trip,Combat Reflexes,Dodge, Mobility,Endurance,Diehard,Exotic Weapon Prof,Great Fortitude,Improved Initiative, Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple,Snatch Arrows,Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Martial Combat, Mounted Archery, Ride by Attack, Trample, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot,Rapid Shot,Power Attack, Cleave,Improved BullRush,Improved Overrun, Improved Sunder,QuickDraw,Rapid Reload,Run,Imporved Shield Bash,toughness*,Twoweapon Fighting,Twoweapon Defense,Weapon Finesse,Weapon Focus. (these are just from the main book)

If you take a feat that you have in your martial pool, you strike the feat from the pool and can choose a replacement.

[Adam Laux]

I would also like to see specifically FIGHTER ONLY feats that did effects much like "K" described in a previous post (mimicking some of the more realistic arcane effects)

such as a blinding slash: Fighter level 3rd, improved Feint, combat expertise, you may strike a foe in such a way as to blind them. make a attack roll, if successful roll damage at a -2 (minimum 1 damage), the foe has to then make a Fortitude save (DC=10+1/2fighterlevel+Str)if the foe fails he is permanently blinded
normal: you suffer a -4 to your attack roll and draw an attack of opportunity

[SneaksyDragon]

wow I cant even get constructive criticism. people have great amounts of fun belly aching, but commenting on a possible fix is just too hard.

I've heard many complaints that the Paizo fighter is still not IT, so I was looking to find an answer to a problem. The Fighter still doesnt give enough to make it that fun to play ( yay i got weapon focus rapier, combat expertise and improved disarm....I think I'll disarm this round too) It should be the master swordsman (there doesnt seem to be something that fills that archetype) and if Barbarian has to be the way to go then something wrong. no skills, okay hitpoints and one good save? for all you people saying "I know plenty of people who love the fighter" I have to say " you probably know several people that have sniffed glue in the past" just because there are people who do it doesnt make it good... or even decent.

[Anry]

Honestly this idea makes my head spin with the number of feats would appear on the fighters character sheet.

I don't believe a class that gets a feat basically every level needs more feats that he can only use sometimes ontop of that.

But I do agree that something more must arrive to give the fighter that little extra flare.

Perhaps Tactical Manuevers, they learn new tactical manuevers every so often, like maybe even 1/5 levels. Things he can do that give situational bonuses to either himself or allies. Like being able to do aid another while still actually attacking. (That obviously lacks meat, but mechanically its the idea I'm trying display)

[SneaksyDragon]

I can understand that this may seem to be too many feats (it may just be) but think of all the spells that a wizard has in his spell book, or the endless supplies of divine spells that to can memorize. I was thinking of actually backing down on the bonus feat progression (bonus at first and for every three level after that, 4th,7th,10th etc) a sorcerer at an even level will have more spells to juggle than this fighter will have feats (honestly, I feel that the fighter just doesnt have enough things to do on his turn of combat, at any level.)

and let beginners play barbarians if they want simple yet good.

your idea for tactical maneuvers seems like a welcome addition to the base fighter, I would like to see a larger number of fighter only maneuvers. (in my system you could probably take them instead of feats for your Edge pool.)

[Jal Dorak]

SneaksyDragon wrote:

After play testing the Pathfinder Fighter i realized that many of the problems still existed. they are noticeably better at higher levels (still not enough) but low levels are still a snorefest. one problem that was never fixed was the repeatitive nature of the Fighter. A Fighter can be decent if given the proper feats (such as the Spiked chain Tripper )the problem with that is is get pretty aggravating/boring to be a one trick pony. I got to thinking when i heard rumors of the Barbarian Rage points ( I have no idea if I like them ) What if Fighters had feats for at will abilities but had a "Edge" pool to determine per combat versatility, for example...

Looking at this build I would say mechanically the problems are two-fold:

1. You give fighters more feats, but you limit the number of times and frequency that a fighter can use these feats. To me that is a DECREASE in power. Your fighter build has access to a lot of abilities, but can only use so many of them per combat (much like a spellcaster). However, a 3.5 Fighter has a decent number of feats they can use AT WILL.

2. One of the problems people are having with 4th Edition is the whole "per encounter" caveat. It is arbitrary book-keeping even moreso than "per day", simply because defining an "encounter" is sketchy.

[Kirth Gersen]

I'd chime in that, when I play a fighter, I just want to throw dice and kill stuff. If I'm after versatility, I play a wizard or rogue. Many people play a fighter -- I kid you not -- because raging is too much trouble to keep track of. Simplicity has a lot going for it.

If you want a more complex class, it might make sense to create a new base class around your concept (the "battlemonger" or something), or use BoNS (which adds a boatload of complexity to a fighter concept). Suggestions:

1. "Fighter is still too weak" --> Add +1d6 damage on every weapon hit at 7th level (+2d6 at 13th, +3d6 at 19th).
2. "Fighter isn't versatile enough" --> Add more combat feats; raid splatbooks & 3rd party sources.
3. "Fighter lacks complexity" --> New base class needed.

[Anry]

Fighters are supposed to be the simplest class, and are not supposed to be complex. Fighter is the class that you can just pick up and play.

The fighter still needs a bit more umphf. Currently I don't beleive it will match up in the end with other classes despite the megaton of feats it now gets plus the weapon and armor training and masteries.

[Frank Trollman]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

I'd chime in that, when I play a fighter, I just want to throw dice and kill stuff. If I'm after versatility, I play a wizard or rogue. Many people play a fighter -- I kid you not -- because raging is too much trouble to keep track of. Simplicity has a lot going for it.

Moving bonus feats around is more complicated than Rages. By a lot.

If Fighters are supposed to be the simplest class, they badly fail at life.

-Frank

[Kirth Gersen]

Frank Trollman wrote:

Moving bonus feats around is more complicated than Rages. By a lot. If Fighters are supposed to be the simplest class, they badly fail at life.

Well, in a word, yes, they do. But making them MORE complicated certainly won't correct that!

Also, a player can (and often does) select static feats that don't have a lot of in-play tracking, even if they're not mechanically as advantageous: 1st - exotic weapon (bastard sword), 2nd - weapon focus, 4th - weapon specialization, 6th - some kind of armor or shield specialization, 8th - improved critical, etc.

[Anry]

Yeah, I can vouch that that is a common occurence.

[Voss]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Frank Trollman wrote:

Moving bonus feats around is more complicated than Rages. By a lot. If Fighters are supposed to be the simplest class, they badly fail at life.

Well, in a word, yes, they do. But making them MORE complicated certainly won't correct that!

Also, a player can (and often does) select static feats that don't have a lot of in-play tracking, even if they're not mechanically as advantageous: 1st - exotic weapon (bastard sword), 2nd - weapon focus, 4th - weapon specialization, 6th - some kind of armor or shield specialization, 8th - improved critical, etc.

Making an ineffective character because its easier isn't exactly a hallmark of good game design.

People who take exotic: bastard sword makes me want to sit down and teach them basic math skills. -1 damage (for a longsword) won't kill you if you use a shield, and there isn't any point in wasting the feat if you're going to use it two handed. Especially since its inferior to two swords that don't cost a feat...

[Kirth Gersen]

Voss wrote:

Making an ineffective character because its easier isn't exactly a hallmark of good game design.

Nor of a mathematically-literate player, as you correctly point out. Nor did I claim it was. I said that if people really want to make the fighter MORE complex, instead of less so, they should really make a new base class. Whether the fighter is lame, poorly-designed, or (as I maintain) a draw for lazy or foolish players is of course an interesting discussion in its own right.

[Voss]

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Voss wrote:

Making an ineffective character because its easier isn't exactly a hallmark of good game design.

Nor of a mathematically-literate player, as you correctly point out. Nor did I claim it was. I said that if people really want to make the fighter MORE complex, instead of less so, they should really make a new base class. Whether the fighter is lame, poorly-designed, or (as I maintain) a draw for lazy or foolish players is of course an interesting discussion in its own right.

A new class is really only necessary because the old one has nothing worth salvaging. Its really the basic framework of a class, with a note from developers saying, 'Hey, aren't feats a great idea? Too bad we only gave you about 3 good ones'.

[BM]

The new fighter is a lot stronger than it looks like at first glance.

It idea behind the new fighter is use feats and combat feats to increase damage to crazy stupid levels. 200+ damage stupid. The secret multiply damage by multiple attacks and crits.

Since the fighter as always been considered weakest at the high levels, I will use a 20 fighter with 30 Strength(Easy to get in PRPG), +5 weapons, and the appropriate weapon training.

Build one: Scythe+Devastating Blow.

Effect: Kill instantly a monster with less than 200 HP(300 if you do right) with a standard action.

How to do: Take a the Devastating Blow feat chain, make heavy weapons your primary weapon training, take the scythe for your weapon mastery, and for maximum effect take Power Attack(but it is not needed).

Devastating Blow allows you make a single attack(at full BAB) as a standard action, that if it hits, is automatically a crit. Since you took Scythe as your weapon mastery, it has a 5x crit. Now assuming you have +5 Scythe and Power Attack

Damage: 10d4+275(5 from heavy blade training+5 weapon enchantment+15 Str mod+30 from power attack)

For 4 feats. Out of 21. And every point you add to your damage is 5 points of damage under this build. This build works with all two handed weapons, but they tend to be tamer with their lower crit multipliers. A greatsword will still do 6d6+165 damage however.

Build 2: Falchion+Improve Critical+Weapon Mastery

Effect: Crit 30% of the time.

How to do: Simply take Improved Critical and the Falchion as your weapon mastery.

This isn't so much a build as a basis for a build. The falchion has a crit range of 18-20 before improved critical, which gives it a 15-20 critical range after improved critical. With weapon mastery you automatically confirm a crit chance. This makes the chance of a crit a flat 30% chance on all attack rolls. So all you have to do is crank up the number of attacks per round, and you can do crazy amounts of damage.

Example: You take power attack(the reason for the falchion), improved critical, and weapon mastery(Falchion). You make a full attack and get two criticals. If you used power attack,

Damage: 2x 6d4+165(5 heavy blade+5 weapon enchantment+15 Str+30 from power attack) or 12d4+330 damage.

cost: 2 feats. And your weapon mastery.

Since damage increases with each attack, and since the odds of getting a crit and a hit are mostly the same(due to the numbers being the mostly likely to hit being the same for a crit), each extra attack will add 165+ damage. Take feats like backswing and Great Cleave to increase the number of attacks. If you can get two crits each round, you can outperform build 1. A falchion can also be used in build 1(through tamer).

Build 3: Two fighting madness

Effect: 7 attacks with a full attack, each attack with a 30% of a crit.

How to do: This build is the most difficult to do. Two weapon fighting tends to be sub-optimal, but PRPG gos a little of the way to fix it. The weapon train bonus makes up for the decrease in BAB for the extra attacks, and there are a few combat feats that help. For this build, I advise you to take the weapon specialization tree, to make up for the penalties to hit due to two weapon fighting.(Note: You need high dex for this build.)

Take the two weapon fighting tree, the weapon focus/specialization tree, Improved Critical(Kukris), and make Kukris your weapon mastery. If you want to be sure that you will hit with your off hand, take the combat feat Double Slice.

The +5 from weapon training here helps, as it pushes your lowest attack bonus to a +10+Str mod for you primary hand and +15+1/2 Str mod(25 and 22 respectively)

Damage for the primary hand: 2d4+69 (5 weapon training+4 weapon enchantment+10 str mod+4 greater weapon specialization)

Damage for the off-hand: 2d4+60 (5 weapon training+4 weapon enchantment+7 str mod+4 greater weapon specialization)

Damage is much lower, but number of potential crits here is much higher.

There is probably more, but I'm getting bored.

The fighter as a class skeleton seems to be workable right now. What we need are A)more combat feats to allow multiple different fighting styles(two handed fighting is the only thing worthwhile right now.), and B)more feats that are good to take as a fighter.

[Voss]

And real classes can insta-kill monsters with a standard action without spending feats or spending cash on +5 magic items.

That isn't impressive.

And almost decent classes like the rogue can do the same thing more effectively. Getting 10 extra feats and little else of note doesn't help any.

[Dorje Sylas]

Quick look at currently supported feat tree's by style (OGL/Pathfinder only):

Spoiler:

One-Handed
???

One-Handed with Shield
Deft shield*
-> Shield slam
--> Shield master

Two-Handed
Overhand chop
-> Backswing
--> Devastating Blow

Two Weapon
Two-weapon fighting
-> Improved two-Weapon fighting
--> Greater two-Weapon fighting
-> Two-weapon defense
-> Weapon swap
--> Two-weapon rend
-> Double slice

Ranged/Thrown Weapons
Throw anything
Deadly Aim
Point Blank Shot
-> Rapid Shot
--> Manyshot
----> Greater manyshot
-> Far Shot
-> Shot on the run
Careful targeting
-> Exact targeting
--> Pinpoint targeting

Now this excludes some common universal ones feats like Weapon Focus (tree), Weapon Finesse, Power Attack (which favors two-handed). *Deft shield also builds into the two-weapon fighting style.

So as you can see Ranged, Two-Weapon,, and a bit of Two-handed has the most support in feats. In the case of TWF feats part of this is overcoming the disadvantage of TWF. However with fewer feats in the style One-Handed, One-Hand and Shield, and Two-Handed lend themselves well to other fighter options like Weapon Specialization. There are also new tricks like Dazzling Display. I do have problems with such things, since they don't last long enough to be useful. How often was intimidated actually used in combat, as a serious option in 3.5?

Now I will say that the new fighter Weapon Mastery ability really helps Fighters as archers, with that direct +1 damage.

[BM]

Voss wrote:

And real classes can insta-kill monsters with a standard action without spending feats or spending cash on +5 magic items.

That isn't impressive.

And almost decent classes like the rogue can do the same thing more effectively. Getting 10 extra feats and little else of note doesn't help any.

Most classes spend class features to do so. Guess what the fighter's class features are? Bonus feats! So they spend bonus feats to do so.

Fighters spend less than 40% of their class features to be able to instant kill CR 20 monsters as a standard action, and they aren't good enough? They match the rest of the classes and still not "Balanced"?

And how does the rouge do the same thing more effectively? Even with a full attack, they don't do as much damage as my fighter using a standard action. A rogue's damage maxs out at (weapon damage+damage mod)*4+40d6 with a full attack. With average damage is (weapon damage+damage mod)*4+150 provided all their attacks hit and they can use their sneak attack. The only way they can do as much damage is go into two weapon fighting, which eats their far more limited feats. And still they need to use a full attack. How they beating the fighter?

[Frank Trollman]

Dorje Sylas wrote:

How often was intimidated actually used in combat, as a serious option in 3.5?

It was used extensively (and nearly exclusively) by Frenzied Berserkers and Dread Necromancers. If you have a free ability that leaves enemies shaken, then spending an action to give someone even a one turn shaken effect is totally worth it. Shaken + shaken stacks to frightened, which causes them to spend an entire round running away. This means that they lose their attacks for an entire round and you probably get to take an attack of opportunity on them and in any case your friends get to attack normally.

It's like Tekken Juggling or Everquest Kiting. It doesn't matter if your per-round or per-second damage output is hampered if the enemy doesn't get to attack at all.

-Frank