| KnightErrantJR |
With all of the talk about swapping feats and having feat suites and adding class features to the fighter, honestly, the most compelling expansion to the fighter that still felt like a 3.5 fighter to me was the changes that Monte Cook made to the fighter in the Book of Experimental Might II.
I'm not talking about the entire set of changes for the BOXM rules, and I'm not talking about the double feats or feat domains, and as it pertains to recent discussions, I really don't like feat swapping. But what I really like are two rules introduced in the book.
1. Fighter Bonus Feats Granting Extra Bonuses: In the Book of Experimental Might II, fighters gain an extra bonus that other classes don't get if they take a feat using their fighter bonus feat.
Its usually not complicated, as its usually either an extra +2 beyond the normal bonus for the feat, but some feats have some interesting bonuses for fighters, for example, improved critical doing +10 damage if its taken as a fighter bonus feat, and improved trip allowing a fighter to do 1d6 points of damage if an opponent trips.
2. Fighters Get Feat Boosts: Every level that a fighter doesn't get a bonus feat, they get a feat boost, an ability that they can use that further modifies how a given feat works.
For example, using a feat boost on improved critical allows you to auto confirm the critical when used.
Honestly, I think these simple changes would still preserve the fighter as relatively simple, and maintain the core concept of the fighter as a character class that gets extra combat related feats due to their training.
Arnim Thayer
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2. Fighters Get Feat Boosts: Every level that a fighter doesn't get a bonus feat, they get a feat boost, an ability that they can use that further modifies how a given feat works.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Unearthed Arcana (and Eberron) do something similar with ACtion Points?
In essence, by spending an Action Point, a character would gain double the bonus for that feat for one round (or an additional +1d6 damage with an attack, but I digress).
Making this kind of feature a part of the Fighter class might be a good idea.
I still think that a Fighter Talent mechanic, much like the Rogue Talent or Rage Powers, would be ideal. Armor Training and Weapon Training could be considered a part of those talents with the ability to take them multiple times.
Placing this as an opposite level progression to feats would allow for backwards compatibility (Add, not subtract), and an easy of inclusion.
(Personally, I think that if WoTC had used the structure they used for Star Wars Saga as a base of 4th Edition, we wouldn't be having any of these conversations at all. Talent Trees for base/core classes was the best idea ever!)