There seem to be many opinions on the problems with fighters. This idea might help with some of them.
Fighters are Lords (and Ladies) of Feats. They have feats almost literally coming out their ears. But you know what; members of other classes can take almost every feat they can. So really they are the Lords (and Ladies) of the Commonplace.
Rogues on the other hand get special talents. Some of these talents even let them take more mundane feats if they desire.
Monks get several VERY unique skills and they get a handful of mundane, I mean feats. But Monks must be smarter (or more talented) than Fighters because they get to bypass those pesky prerequisites.
So, why don't we redo the Fighter a bit?
Instead of Bonus Feats, the fighter gets, well Fighter Talents. These talents would include VERY unique skills (maybe even some that help them manipulate the battle field) and would let them take more mundane skills WITHOUT those pesky prerequisites.
Heck while were at it, maybe Fighters could get a bonus 5' steps (an in-combat movement parallel to a Monks extra movement speed) that helps them move to intercept melee opponents, step up to interrupt spell casting and many other uses that other posters will come up with.
By replacing Bonus Feats with Fighter talents (or maneuvers or some other martial sounding word) Pathfinder can maintain backwards compatibility (since a standard feat can be used for a Fighter talent, maneuver, skill thingy) and open new options (like the overhauled rage and ki mechanics did). It would also give the fighter access to more unique abilities and even allow for regional maneuvers and such in forthcoming supplements.
Just an idea I had.
Cheers
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Hey, I'd be all for 'Fighter/Combat Talents', and it would also be internally consistent with the Rogue Talents as well. In addition to this, it would be possible to include 'Bonus Combat Feat' as one of the talents, just as the rogue can pick a Feat instead of a talent. The problem is that I don't think this is going to happen... IIRC Jason has stated that fighter class abilities are pretty much set in stone, although there *will* be more Feats and Combat Feats in the PF RPG...
Sounds to me like you're just renaming "Bonus Feats" to "Fighter Talents".
I believe what you're requesting could be covered by just having some "Fighter Only" feats. Sure, they could take a "mundane" feat, as you put it, or they could take a Fighter Only feat.
It covers all the bases, really.
Hrmm, I thought I deleted this, I guess not.
Yes, it appears that it is just renaming Bonus Feats into Fight Talents/Tactics or whatever but the difference is that the Talents/Tactics can be placed with the Fighter write-up to make it easier to select them (the same way the Rogue talents are) and would hopefully allow some degree of closure on the Fighter improvements without working our way through the Feats chapter. Also, the general structure of the Talents/Tactics could allow Fighters to skip some pre-requisites (the same way Monks do).
Making Fighter Talents/Tactics might also prevent the dilution of originally "Fighter-Only" feats in the unstoppable stream of house rules and probable splat books or Paizo articles.
If the goal is to make and keep the Fighter unique and viable then they need something unique. Since backwards compatibility is a core goal, and Paizo has demonstrated that adding rules and options is considered backwards compatible, adding Fighter Talents/Tactics allows a simple mechanic for adding many of the proposed armor feats, combats feats, weapon feats, stances, ability to swap feats out and who knows what else as Talents/Tactics.
All I have to offer at the moment is a framework. It will take everyone to help populate it.
Cheers
Sounds to me like you're just renaming "Bonus Feats" to "Fighter Talents".
I believe what you're requesting could be covered by just having some "Fighter Only" feats. Sure, they could take a "mundane" feat, as you put it, or they could take a Fighter Only feat.It covers all the bases, really.
It would be nice if the same semantic was use thorough. Why then are rogue talents not called rogue-only feats?
I was going to include that in my post but I got distracted. And you could even stretch it to say, why aren't the Monk abilities just Monk talents and make them Monk-only feats.
Of course this path may lead to madness. Because what it could produce is a 'Generic' class template where focusing on a different stat has different effects.
STR focus = Fighter
DEX focus = Rogue
WIS focus = Monk
And if we toss in some non-core...
INT focus = Duelist
And who knows, maybe Second Edition Pathfinder, you know you want to see one (especially if 5th Edition alienates the same way 4th Edition did), will be able to fix the majority of everyone's issues.
Cheers