Giving Fighters a Combat Style System

[Dayr]

Having recently switched to Pathfinder from 4E, my friends and I have gained a renewed interest for one of our dearest pastimes. What drew us in about Pathfinder was not only the brilliantly upgraded 3.5 mechanics but also the character depth and customization allowed by the system. With the release of the APG and the variant Class Archetypes detailed, we recently had a discussion about allowing the Fighter class, either loved or hated for its generic qualities, to choose a Combat Style at creation similarly to the Ranger's ability. Essentially the player would get to choose to either be a Shield Fighter, Two Weapon Fighter, etc... and then as he continues to level up as a fighter he would gain access to some of the more signature abilities detailed in the APG under the related archetype's heading. This would allow the fighter to further specialize in his role without losing key abilities in the Pathfinder revision that made them so much more balanced to begin with. Ultimately though, the discussion came down to the question of power level and class balance. Simply put we're looking for well thought out and reasoned advice on the subject in a hope that we can come up with a suitable answer. So what do you all think?

*Not really sure if this belongs here or in Suggestions/House Rules/Homebrew*

[DeathQuaker]

Let me make sure I understand what you are saying --

You are proposing that fighters take their usual, core advancement -- with bravery, weapon training, and armor training -- AND as long as they take certain feats, etc. they get specific archetype abilities ON TOP of the standard Fighter abilities? So for example, the Archer gets both "Hawkeye" AND "Bravery"?

If that's the case, no, I don't think it's a good idea, personally. By all means try it out, but the archetypes swap out standard class abilities for a reason. And note that in most cases, you're swapping out a general ability (for example, Weapon Training), for a fighting-style specific one (for example, Expert Archer) that actually more or less does the same or similar things (get +1 to attack and damage to one weapon group of your choice, vs. get +1 to attack and damage with the bows group, no choice, but that's why you're playing the archer archetype). Stacking them atop each other would definitely be overpowering.

Generally, the "losses" from core fighter to archetypal fighter is that few of the archetypes keep armor training and thus aren't able to move normal speed in medium or heavy armor (unless you're a dwarf). That IS a huge tradeoff--but it's a tradeoff. You're normally getting an ability that is worth that tradeoff. (And some of the fighting styles, like Free Hand Fighter are ideal for light armored fighters anyway.)

I <i>suppose</i> you could swap fighter bonus feats for archetypal abilities... but I don't know how that would work, as it still presents an issue of various attack and defense abilities that would stack that shouldn't. Hmm.

[joela]

DeathQuaker wrote:

Let me make sure I understand what you are saying --

You are proposing that fighters take their usual, core advancement -- with bravery, weapon training, and armor training -- AND as long as they take certain feats, etc. they get specific archetype abilities

The Book of Experimental Might by Monte Cook has something like that.

[Dayr]

That's my fault for overgeneralizing in my original post. Things like Expert Archer, Crossbow Expert, Shield Fighter and all the other abilities that are obviously linked to their original counterparts wouldn't simply be given to the class to stack on top of the foundational equivalents but rather those new abilities that help further specialize the archetypes (the twin blades and overhand chop abilities trees come to mind) would be slowly given out over the course of the character's career in a manner similar to the ranger's. Another idea that has been brought up was simply to convert some of these more iconic abilities into feat chains in order to simplify the transition rather than rewriting the class as a whole.

I do agree though that a simple copy and paste of an archetype over the base fighter would be a terrible idea. I also understand the idea of trade offs is very reasonable. There are just certain abilities that vastly improved the effectiveness of the fighter in Pathfinder that if taken out again would leave him vastly outmatched much like in 3.5 edition. Simply put there are some abilities swaps that do more damage than good. I can go into further detail if you'd like in another post but I think I've cleared up some of the questions you had regarding my original post.

[anthony Valente]

What about trading fighter bonus feats for certain APG archetype abilities at appropriate levels? Other archetype abilities wouldn't make sense in this fashion (polearm master wouldn't necessarily port over as a bonus feat for instance).