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I just got the alpha Pathfinder, and I love how the Barbarian works. I think rage points is a very intuitive, interesting and customizable concept. However, the fighter leaves a lot to be desired in my mind. However, I propose something:
Battle Points/Tactics Points!
The fighter would keep it's feat progression or get a lesser feat progression. All other abilities are nixed. Instead, they get a "point" progression similar to the barbarian, only instead of fueling rage and abilities like that, they fuel tactical abilities or ones relying on witty combat. As one possibility, you could spend 1 tactic point to deal 1d8 more damage on your next attack. Or you could spend 4 tactic points to avoid a single attack in the next round. Abilities of that nature.
Please, help me expand this idea!
I kind of like this idea myself, but I would like to hit this with a pro and a con.
Pro: You could drop the majority of fighter feats and just turn them into "tactics powers" or some such craziness. Spend two tactics points for a power attack like effect, or spend 6 tactics points for a whirlwind attack. It could open a lot of opportunities for people who like certain feats but hate having to go through all of the feats in a chain.
Con: Where does the neat idea for one class, become a total re-working of all the classes. Someone could argue that the Rogue or the Ranger would benefit from a similar system. (Which they may) However, this would involve another overhaul of the classes. The way it is now, if you do not like Rage points....just do not play a Barbarian....but if we make this a standard across the board you may alienate some players.
Anybody else have any thoughts, ideas, suggestions?
My personal reaction is that if I wanted a fighter with X/day abilities, I'd use the Tome of Battle classes instead. The barbarian "rage points" idea is less of a conceptual leap for me because the barbarian already had an X/day ability (3.5 rage).
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I think I'd also want to keep the mechanics seperate between the Barbarian and the Fighter. One of the strengths of 3.X over 4E, IMO, is that if I want to play the resource-management game, I can (spellcasters, barbarians, etc) and if I *don't* want to play that game, there's the Fighter and Rogue, who operate round-by-round without having to keep track of any 'points' or 'slots' or 'dailies.'
Burst classes (spellcasters, raging barbarians, etc) tend to have sudden things they can do a limited number of times, as opposed to steady classes (fighters, rogues) who can function at full power all day long. I prefer that both options remain represented, as converting the Fighter into a burst class with /encounter or /daily powers would be re-inventing the 4E wheel, and if I was in love with that idea, I'd be playing 4E, since they've already trod that ground.
I think it should be kept the way it is. Barbarians are very cool now, perhaps more so than they every were. I think with so many classes getting groovy stuff it is a shame the fighter didn't get more bells and whistles but I guess it is up to you to make your character more interesting. My only quibble about the fighter is that it would be nice if some of the feat trees stacked. Maybe I just like the idea of charging into the middle of a melee with mobility and spring attack and then unleashing a whirlwind attack :)