Someone commented on the wishlist thread that they'd like an Int-centric melee fighter, so this is what I came up with in a hurry. This is a very rough draft, and any suggestions on additions, revisions, or critiques would be greatly appreciated.
Fencer
There are those who wield a blade, and then there are those who learn it. A fencer masters the style of fighting with a single blade, learning to wield his weapon with skill and finesse rather than brute strength.
Hit Die: d8
Attack Bonus: High
High Save: Reflex
Skills: 4 + Int/level
Class Skills: Acrobatics, Bluff, Craft, Intimidate, Knowledge (history), Knowledge(nobility), Perception, Profession, Sense Motive, Slight of Hand
Proficiencies: Simple weapons, Kukri, Short sword, Longsword, Rapier, Scimitar, Light ArmorClass Abilities:
Parry: At 1st level, a fencer learns to safely turn aside his opponent's strikes. When a fencer is attacked in melee he may make a single attack roll (before the result of the attack is known). If the fencer's attack roll exceeds his opponents, the attack misses.
Canny Defense: Starting at 1st level, while a fencer has a light or one-handed melee weapon in one hand and nothing in the other, and is wearing light or no armor, he adds his Intelligence modifier to his Armor Class. Any time he would lose his Dexterity modifer to his Armor Class, he also loses the benefit of this ability.
Flourish: As the fencer gains experience, he gains the ability to perform incredible displays of bladework called flourishes. He learns his first flourish at 2nd level, and then learns an additional flourish every two levels thereafter.
Perfect Strike: While wielding a light or one-handed melee weapon in one hand and nothing in the other, and wearing light or no armor, the fencer adds his Intelligence modifier to damage rolls instead of Strength. This damage is treated as precision damage.
Riposte: When a fencer...
Don't take the sarcasm personally.
Critiques:
Why wouldn't I use Parry every single time I'm attacked? At least make it use an AoO, so it'd cost something.
Perfect Strike is a resource tax. The whole point of the character is to use Int as a fighter. Why wouldn't someone take it? I'd make it a level 1 ability.
If I read it correctly, if you parry someone, and haveriposte and improved riposte, and greater riposte you'll get three attacks against them? Why does Improved Riposte / Greater Riposte use an AoO? What happens when a fighter with a lot of attacks targets them for their 6 attacks. Suddenly the Fencer would get 18 attacks against them, without even using up their turn? Assuming they had Combat Reflexes of course.
If you can just Parry everything, wouldn't it be best to keep your AC at a minimum? Negating all the melee damage against you would be pretty easy with Parry.
Superior Vital Strike. Uhhh...So for a short two level dip (that lets you parry too!) I can use Greater Vital Strike in a full attack action? Yes please.
Improved Precision: It is my understanding that foes immune to precision damage are as such since there's no place to hit to do more damage. This doesn't make sense. Also, if the player is an uneducated cow, they may not have taken Precise Strike, so this would be useless.
Master Fencer: Sweet, so now I can use Superior Vital Strike during my full-attack action that I get (for the cost of a standard action) during my Spring Attack! This is extremely powerful.
Recommendations:
Precise Strike should be a level 1 ability.
Nuke Superior Vital Strike from Orbit. Or at least make it require level 15.
Use the Parry from the Duelist.
Use Riposte from the Duelist. Get rid of the further ones in their current forms.
Improved Riposte could be something that puts the enemy at a disadvantage. -2 to AC or something.
Master Fencer: seriously rethink this. It is vastly better than the Fighter's capstone ability.
Ugh. just lost a whole post.
I didn't read the Ripostes closely enough it would seem. sorry about that.
Parry as a defensive fighting option seems decent. Maybe a system where if you failed to parry by 5 * (number of parried attacks this round against this enemy) you couldn't parry again this round would work too. The multiplicative part is to make it so later attacks aren't easier to beat. Also, being able to parry animals just seems weird to me.
Superior VS as a 6th level makes a lot more sense.
I didn't realize the capstone had a precedent. In light of that, it's much better.
As for replacing Improved Precision, I'd replace it with something about Disarming or using Dirty Trick maneouvers. Preferably Dirty Trick, since it doesn't require the enemy to be armed to be useful!
Perhaps an ability to apply mInt * 1.5 to damage instead of just mInt would work too. A small damage boost at higher levels.
I meant possibly explore EITHER using Parry as fighting defensively, OR using the 5*(num parries) rules. That wasn't really clear in my text, so sorry about that. Also, they weren't what I had in my mind when I wrote them. RAW, the fencer would need to lose the opposed roll by 5 or more. Here's my refined version, which I think is better.
A fighter attacks the Fencer with 3 attacks, at +11/+6/+1. On the first attack (a 16), the Fencer rolls his attack and rolls an 11. Due to his bonuses, this ends up being 17. This means he can continue to parry. On the second attack (a 16 again), the Fencer rolls to parry. He gets an 11 once more. But this time, his bonus was only +1 since he already parried once. One parry means he had a penalty of -5.
He fails this one, and can't roll to parry the 3rd attack, as well as taking damage from the second.
Basically, it's using the rules of multiple attacks to deal with multiple parries. There should probably be some hard limit of number of attacks they can parry per round though.
Further, I think the Fencer should have to designate one foe per round, and they can only parry their attacks. A real fencer will be focusing on just one guy, so perhaps this guy should too? Perhaps they get a boost against this one enemy, much like the Ranger's quarry, or the various challenges.
I'm not sure if *all* combat maneuvers fit. Sunder, bullrush, grapple, and steal are the ones that stick out in my opinion. But the others (if I recall them all) seem fine.
I think if you were to do parry fairly, it would need to be a skill or a combat maneuver.
As a skill, it could be DEX bonus + ranks = to BAB + 1/2 level, DC 15 minimum, modified for how much they exceeded your AC by, impossible to parry crits (as skill checks don't auto suceed on a nat 20).
As a combat maneuver, I'd require you to be fighting defensively and use the above check, only using CMD inplace of CMB, or possibly counter the melee attacks as you'd counter spells ie. readying actions to use as possible parrys and burning future actions.
Riposte would be an AoO on a sucessful parry, as it is for the Duelist, so you'd need combat reflexes to make it useful (more than 1 AoO a round, but that still doesn't get past 1 AoO per target per occurence).
Ok, so first of all, this class has ALOT of dead levels. Near as I can tell, 3,7,9.11,13,17,19 you get nothing. This isnt a PFRPG class. Classes that dont get spells should get something every level.
Next, in pfrpg generally classes that have full bab are d10, is there a reason you diverge from this conventions? Again it really seems like this is a 3.5 class not a pathfinder one.
Next what exactly is the purpose of improved canny defence? You dont lose dex bonuses when flanked. Do you perhaps mean cannot be flanked instead? You might consider using the wording from the rogue abilities of uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge instead of making up your own. Familiar is usually better with regards to clarity.
Parry/Riposte: This should not take up so many 'flourishes'. This is the meat and potatoes of the class block and attack back. It should be an automatic ability, with 1 talent to make it an attack of opportunity (so you can do it more then once per round)
Perfect strike. Because this is instead of strength rather then in addition to, this class gets no damage bonus from it, and thus will have serious problems. The Superior vital strike ability along with master fencer is abusable, but without it, this class basically does no damage.
Even if you take perfect strike, this class needs dex (light armor) con (duh) enough strength to hold up light armor and a high int. As opposed to the heavy armor types that nead strength and con and thats it. So chance are a fencers int will be less then a strong characters strength.
So the fencer has something like 1d6+int[lets say 4] damage to the fighters 2d6+1.5*str[lets say 7] damage + weapon training/weapon spec, or the rangers favored enemy or the paladins smite. The difference will eventually be tremendous and the fencer will be punchless.
at level 1 the fencer does an average of 7.5 damage on a hit, the fighter does 14. At level 10 the difference is far more dramatic with the fencer still at 1d6+int[still 7.5 per attack on a full attack] and the 2handed fighter doing 2d6+str+weapon speci+2weapontraining[18 damage per full attack]. Add to that the difference in the gains for things like power attack and the room for more feats and the 2handed fighter literally leaves the fencer in the dust. Sure he can parry, but he cant do any real damage back.
So you have to re-examine how you use vital strike in this class, or find a different damage bonus (something like the duelist precise strike instead, or adding int to str for damamge instead of replacing it). I mean even with superior vital strike flourish [assume power attack], at level six you are looking at 2d6+int+4[powerattack]/1d6+int+4 vs a 2handed fighter 2d6+1.5str+6[powerattack]+2[weapontraining]+2[weapon spec]/2d6+[all that stuff in the previous attack].
It would get better at higher levles when you get improved vital strike and finally greater vital strike, but the class will really sag until then. I strongly recommend you retool the class to not need 3 feats that you get at 6th, 11th and 16th levels in order to do it's damage.
It also doesnt have to be damage, you can focus on inflicting negative conditions instead. If you move Some of the flourishes (riposte and canny defense ones) to the odd dead levels as granted abilities, you can leave yourself options for things like Stunning flourish, weakening flourish, etc. You could tie them to criticals (fencers after all are best with rapiers arent they?) Super Genius Games put out a critical feat pdf a while back that might serve as inspiration for the kind of things that might be balanced at low levels.
Like i said being able to block attacks is nice, but with limited offense this class cant fufill the melee role and will be relegated to the 5th party member status at best.
Regarding the critical flourishes, i recommend checking out this super genius games product They have a number of feats there that grant effects in place of the extra damamge from a critical. Things like Deface, Parrying strike, Shock or tendon cut are great Feat = Flourish options.
Or you could have flourishes that impose negative conditions for a save or at the expense of damage.
Forarm cut, on a successful parry/riposte you can direct your attack agaisnt the arm(s) your opponent is wielding a weapon. When making an attack you can forgoe the damage from Perfect Strike (which should be a 1st level ability) in order to give the target a penalty to his CMD vs disarm attempts equal to half the damage sacrificed. This penalty remains until the target is the subject of a DC 15 heal check or magical healing of some kind.
Hamstring: As a standard action you may make a single attack, if successful the target much make a Fortitude Save = 10+1/2 your fencer level + your int modifier or suffer a -4 penalty to dexterity. This penalty remains until the target is the subject of a DC 15 heal check or magical healing of some kind.
You could make similar flourishes to the above for strength, con. Thus its more in line with stunning strike instead of the crit feats. It also means that even if you arent doing the most damage you still pose a threat and have some bite.
*raises hand*
Isn't this really similar to duleist?
This class is basically the duelist on steroids - not that this is a bad thing. Mechanically, one problem is that full BAB should correspond with d10 hit dice. Pathfinder went out of its way to establish BAB/hit die correspondence, let's stick to that.
I'm not really a fan of marrying BAB to HD, d8 was chosen to emphasize not getting hit, which is what the duelist aims to do, rather than just soak the damage. But given it's the convention, d10 it is.
Yes, it's the way Pathfinder was made.
I like the concept, I like the emphasis on brain over brawn. I think it could do with more 'fighter similarity' in some respects, such as some bonus feats rather than abilities, but it's a sound concept.
Regarding combat maneuvers, I think sunder fits the duelist just as well as disarm, the sword-breaker dagger was designed to let someone like a fencer ruin an opponent's sword, after all.
If you want to make sword-breaker daggers, main-gauches or various other off-hand weapons viable, ie for sundering, then you need some kind of exemption for abilities that only work when you have your offhand free.
Another ability that might fit is some kind of insight bonus to attacks or damage if you spend X rounds not attacking your opponent or a bonus for every iterative attack you give up in a round. This would match a fencer watching their opponent to see if they have any exploitable pattern in their technique or some flaw that can be taken advantage of.
And given this is a fantasy setting, some kind of bluff/feint ability based around witty quips and sparkling repartee would be a fun option.
The Dashing Swordsman has off course studied his Agrippa..
Seriously though this is the class I've been looking for as have a couple of my friends.Something to play a proper Aldori Swordlord with.
It would have been good for a certain Varisian of our acquaintance too ...
Yes, a fencer will often spend time feeling out his opponent before executing his strategy (except saberists), but not attacking is about the worst thing you can do as a fencer. I can speak from experience there. It also emphasizes single combat, which I did kind of want to get away from. However, perhaps an advantage of some sort if you can catch your opponent off-guard (flat-footed)?
I have also fenced and my parents were both champion fencers. Since sport fencing is all about one-on-one and has some restrictions that do not translate to real sword fighting (limited target area, riposte rules etc), trying to equate any aspect of the sport to pathfinder would be difficult. So trying to build a class that is more "swashbuckler" than fencer might be more feasible.
If you are after a base class who wields a rapier or sabre with dash and panache while not getting clobbered by the heavily armoured "traditional" Pathfinder melee types you are going to have to look more towards the "dashing swordsman" (but perhaps a bit more three dimensional than the mighty Elan!).
need to make a comment, so are you still sticking with int replacing str for damage, instead of being added to str ? So now the char has to rely on Str, Dex, Con, and Int, you still have a problem there, Or does this class give weapon finesse for free at 1st level ?
Ok,
My suggestion, to avoid MAD for this class...
Insightful Strike (1st level) : A fencer is trained to think about where his opponent will be not now, but when his blade moves, and so his strikes precisely where the opponent will be. As such, a fencer adds his INT bonus to his BAB whenever he is using a light one-handed weapon in his primary hand, and nothing in his off hand.
Weapon Finesse (2nd level) : A fencer gains the Weapon Finesse feat as a class feature at 2nd level.
Insightful Placement (3rd level) : A fencer is trained to place his strikes precisely where it needs to go to do the most damage. As such, a fencer adds his INT bonus to his damage whenever he is using a light one-handed weapon in his primary hand, and nothing in his off hand. This damage is considered precision damage, and is not multiplied on a critical (although immunity to criticals does not negate this damage).
What this does is cut the MAD down a bit. The Fencer can go with DEX, INT, and CON, and ignore STR. This means he can still have a d8 and 3/4 BAB, since he's boosting his BAB by both his DEX and his INT.
EDIT : I'd also let him add his INT Bonus to his CMB/CMD about level 5. So he can do some of those dirty tricks and avoid having them done to him.
You cannot avoid MAD for the class, it will happen.
You need strength to inflict damage, dexterity for quickness (AC and weapon finesse), constitution to take damage (you can't avoid it, you WILL get hit no matter how nimble you are), Intelligence to add to AC and damage if you want to go that way (and most swashbucklers seem to want to).
The thing is making a MAD class that allows things to stack up without being broken.
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I had been (half-heartedly) working for many years on this concept for 3.5 ed. Much work was done and things discussed. Many good things were produced and many ideas were scrapped. Take a look at what the community helped me with, and it may give you some ideas. Just keep in mind that Pathfinder wasn't in my toolbox at the time.
You cannot avoid MAD for the class, it will happen.
You need strength to inflict damage, dexterity for quickness (AC and weapon finesse), constitution to take damage (you can't avoid it, you WILL get hit no matter how nimble you are), Intelligence to add to AC and damage if you want to go that way (and most swashbucklers seem to want to).
The thing is making a MAD class that allows things to stack up without being broken.
You can keep it down to 3 stats though, if you take STR out of the equation. IE: If you give them damage from their INT on top of STR, they can ignore STR and take a 10 in it (or a 12), and put their higher stats in INT and DEX, then CON. I agree you can't completely get away from MAD for this type of class, but you can at least keep it down to 3 stats, and if you roll good, you can keep the str higher than needed for an extra couple of pts of damage.
I can see that this is a class though that is going to spend the majority of it's cash on headbands and belts though, to keep up with the fighter, but that's ok, since they aren't going to be getting heavier armor.
Sorry I have to ask, wth does MAD stand for ?
You cannot avoid MAD for the class, it will happen.
You need strength to inflict damage, dexterity for quickness (AC and weapon finesse), constitution to take damage (you can't avoid it, you WILL get hit no matter how nimble you are), Intelligence to add to AC and damage if you want to go that way (and most swashbucklers seem to want to).
The thing is making a MAD class that allows things to stack up without being broken.
You can keep it down to 3 stats though, if you take STR out of the equation. IE: If you give them damage from their INT on top of STR, they can ignore STR and take a 10 in it (or a 12), and put their higher stats in INT and DEX, then CON. I agree you can't completely get away from MAD for this type of class, but you can at least keep it down to 3 stats, and if you roll good, you can keep the str higher than needed for an extra couple of pts of damage.
I can see that this is a class though that is going to spend the majority of it's cash on headbands and belts though, to keep up with the fighter, but that's ok, since they aren't going to be getting heavier armor.
Yes, you can. In practice this class will largely hinge on Dex and Int - fast footwork and fast wits, basically. But the other attributes will always be useful: Str for added damage, Con for tougher hit points, Wis for willpower, Cha for flamboyance (and those occasional Improved Feints).
I think the fencers main stats should be Dex Int Chr, with an attack or ability based off Chr to off balance his foe with witty banter or repetoir.
and thankyou Kyrt for the explanation.
Strength will be only useful to the class if I take the suggestion that it stack with Intelligence for damage, which I am definitely not sold on.
Why wouldn't it be? If this is the Duelist on steroids, then Precise Strike stacks with strength damage for that class, and for the old Swashbuckler from Complete Warrior in 3.5 it stacked Intelligence bonus with Strength bonus for damage.
It doesn't get broken because the class is MAD: You are hinging to-hit on Dexterity (from Weapon Finesse), so you need high Dex to compete with the fighter, and damage on Intelligence. That gives you two scores you have to max out on, rather than just strength. Hence your Strength is not going to be a high priority, and stacking strength and intelligence bonuses is only going to match the strength-based fighter's damage, not exceed it. Added to that, you will likely find that your fighter's weapon is doing more base damage as well ...
For example, on a 20 point buy your strength fighter can have 18 strength (16 +2 racial) and 14 Dex and Con. Your Fencer can go for 18 dexterity (16 +2 racial) and 16 intelligence. So your strength fighter has +4 to hit from strength and +4 to damage. The Fencer has +4 to hit from Dexterity (weapon finesse) and +3 to damage; if he split his 10 points he put into Intelligence between Intelligence and Strength, he cannot get more than +4 damage out of them.
Edit: If other factors hinge off intelligence as well, strength just does not come into the equation except as an also-ran. It might get more influential later with belts of perfection and headbands of mental might but frankly the strength fighters +50% for his two-handed weapon is always going to trump it. The Fencer will need the bonus damage from strength just to keep up ...
This is better, but you are still better off going Duelist as soon as possible even with this build.
Weapon & Armour proficiency: Why not all simple and light martial weapons?
Precise Strike: 2nd rate compared to the Duelist's. I suggest that (a) you stack it with strength and (b) make it +1 per 5 levels like Weapon Training, and make the bonus to hit and damage. Add Improved Precise Strike to add in Intelligence, or else the Duelist becomes too good an option to ignore.
Parry: Look at the Duelist's parry, it makes sense to have two class abilities with the same name function the same way. You could add this option at 6th level when they get a second attack.
Improved Weapon Finesse: This is a joke - no-one using a light weapon with low strength will wait this long to get Weapon Finesse. Give them Weapon Finesse as a feat at 1st level and have done.
How about this as a Flourish?
Main Gauche - when using a dagger in the left hand with the benefit of the Two Weapon Fighting feats, the Fencer may use the dagger to parry only and not lose any advantages of not using an off-hand weapon granted by their class.
Canny Defense doesn;t have to be a stated ability, like the monk's wis bonus to AC is under their weapons and armor block, so you can still give them Weapon Finesse for free at 1st level.
Precise Strike: 2nd rate compared to the Duelist's. I suggest that (a) you stack it with strength and (b) make it +1 per 5 levels like Weapon Training, and make the bonus to hit and damage. Add Improved Precise Strike to add in Intelligence, or else the Duelist becomes too good an option to ignore.
Right now, it lets you fight without Strength, which is what it was designed to do. Yes, the Duelist's level to damage is better, but is useless against crit-immune enemies, requires 2 ranks of a cross-class skill, and sacrifices 2 parries/round, recover, the improved riposte, improved precise strike, Aggripa, and master fencer, as well as pushing lunge and improved weapon finesse past the point they'll actually be useful.
No, it removes any bonus you get from strength. Remember, under just about any circumstances I can think of your Fencer isn't going to have a strength below 10 anyway. All you are doing here is making it so that they get no benefit from strength.
The Duelist's Precise Strike is only ineffective against a few creatures, and it makes sense because it is precision damage - how is the damage from the Fencer not precision damage, especially as you use 'Precision' in the name? So the Duelist's Precise Strike is hardly inferior, and delivers more damage. It doesn't sacrifice any Parries per round (at least not the way the Duelist's parries work), cross-class skills do not exist any more, etc. The bottom line for any melee class is deliver damage and avoid it.
The other point I was making is that the Fencer has no really good reasons NOT to go Duelist at the earliest opportunity, the same as a the Single-Handed fighter from the APG. You then get the benefits of both Precise Strikes, straight up. No base class should be designed such that going with a Prestige class is automatically a big improvement.
I think this is a big improvement over the original, however I still have some concerns.
Like others have said, weapon finesse at 1st level is a must. A character using weapon finess isnt going to want to wait untill 3rd level to be able to hit something. Especially since you are taking a penalty to hit to use the parry and repost abilities.
Also, improved weapon finesse is close to a pointless ability. Yes you can use a longsword or other 1handed weapon with weapon finesse (the idea that one could finesse a dwarven waraxe seems kind of wrong to me but thats besides the point), but by level 9 a martial class is pretty set in their weapon choice. You probably have a feat or two for your main weapon. You probably already have a magic weapon in whatever you are using as well. You would have to change these over to the new one handed weapon to get use of this ability. And a longsword is not really all that much better then a rapier or scimitar (which this class will probably be focused on). In some ways it isnt better at all.
So really the only benefit i could see is taking exotic weapon prof bastard sword at 9 so you can swing around that d10. But I am pretty sure improved crit on a rapier would be of more use at level 9 then uping to a bastard sword. So again the ability isn't really useful.
I think you should do some serious playtesting regarding parry and riposte. Since you have to fight defensively, will a character have any real chance of beating an attack role at all let alone by 5? Not only will chances of success be low, but it also reduces your chances in your normal attacks. I think something needs to be done so you have a good chance of parrying and riposting, or a major ability is left in the cold.
Regarding Aggripa, it isnt a terrible ability, but kind of strange. Why would having a weapon in hand have anything to do with difficult terrain? I mean light or no armor makes sense, but the weapon?
You also have a dead level at 19 which you should see to fill. Maybe a bonus to parry? Or no longer require defensive fighting to be able to do it?
Like I said I think it's an improvement but it still needs alot of polish.
Even if I were to change Precise Strike as you suggest, that wouldn't make Duelist any less attractive. Fencer 10/Duelist 10 has +3 to hit and +13 to damage is a lot better than Fencer 20's +5 to hit and +5 to damage. The only way to make it worthwhile to not take duelist is to hold off on adding Intelligence until after 10th level, and then what was the point of the Fencer again?
If you change precise strike from the Fencer to add a to hit as well as damage and spread it over levels, it gets more desirable. +1 to hit and +1 damage trumps +2 damage any day, especially at high level where you need that bonus to hit with iterative attacks. Fencer 10/duelist ten can do more damage but hits less often in that case. If you change other features like the Parry (I know you don't like it) and other features to match the Duelist's, there becomes less benefit to taking the prestige class at all because it only gives you abilities you either already have or will get anyway.
Other abilities you could add would be Evasion (this class is rogue-like in many respects), Quickdraw and Improved Critical instead of Improved Weapon Finesse. You could also adjust the benefits from the Fencer's abilities to apply to finesseable weapons rather than just 'piercing finesseable weapons' - perhaps add flourishes that enable them to apply to, for example, the Aldori dueling sword, or the elven curveblade. The Fencer can then be adapted to any combat concept that relies on speed and skill over brute force - like Japanese samurai, ancient Chinese swordsmen (I watched the Water Margin as a kid, go for monk/fencers!) as well as renaissance western nobility.
We can work on the change to the Precise Strike and how it works, maybe amend it so it does NOT stack with the duelist's, or make the bonus +1 to hit and +2 precision damage (not stackable with the duelist's precise strike) at 4th, 9th, 13th and 17th levels?
Aldori dueling sword is a one-handed exotic weapon, finesseable, does 1d8 slashing damage.
Elven curveblade is a two-handed exotic weapon, finesseable, does 1d10 damage, threat range 18-20 (a Golarian katana, really).
What I would suggest is at 1st level declare a fighting style with a finesseable weapon weapon the character is proficient in. That weapon then becomes the weapon they gain all their bonuses with.