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just curious while I go sushi huntingOh, nom!
Do you use a rod & reel for that, or a net?
speed and low animal cunning
You don't get it:
Wizards have a Spell that allows them too mind control stuff. But if the creature is immune too mind control thats something else. The Wizard might not even have the spell
The issue with a Fighter that auto has followers that forces the GAME WORLD too act a certain way:
What if Im in a desert setting? A Survival Horror setting?
Balancing the Fighter around the assumption that there will be any followers AT ALL, is just wrong in my opinion.
Just so you know I'm not in favor of giving fighters auto-cohorts, I'm just arguing against the argument because I have different reasons to not want cohorts as a class feature.
In terms of making social impacts I do think that more fighter friendly feats similar to dazzling display or the Boar Style chain is more appropriate because the flavor of a fighter either is a weapon/armor/combat expert or a badass normal and in the flavor of badass normal it would be nice if he could get some diplomacy or intimidate perks for being a guy without magic, hulking out or kung-fu mysticism and still going straight into a fire-breathing monster's face swinging a sword.
I had started Rise of the Runlords recently and because all the other players were noobs I wanted to make something a bit simple and made a dwarf barbarian. After going through the one of the first encounters enraged because I was disturbed in my ribs eating the DM had the NPCs praise the PCs for their heroism and bravery individually but when he got to me he said "and you... behaved exactly like a dwarf, so it's no very remarkable but hey you saved us too. " which was just a funny little commentary but I think it reflects the Fighter's plight. He has nothing but twice as many feats as a caster. If a wizard exploded a group of orcs its just business as usual, but the Fighter? one guy with an sword in hand decided to get in a fight against multiple guys that are bigger than him with giant teeth of which they are armed to. He has balls.
And really I think that should be a class feature. He already kinda has it, as far as Bravery goes but I think he has more balls than a bonus to his weak will saves, and I think he should have more abilities that recognize the shear size of his balls, either by scaring the poop out of his enemies or impressing the local bar-wenches. Now some of this is a bit selfish; I have to dump charisma to be effective at all in combat but I think I deserve some bar wenches as it is my iconic duty as a Fighter. That Bard only sat in the back encouraging me and he gets all the bar wenches.
I'm not aware of any archetypes that have built-in leadership and improve upon its effects, but then again I haven't really scoured fighter archetypes. It'd be pretty interesting, I bet.For one, I suggested turning the army class feature idea into an optional feature, like creating an archetype out of it rather than forcing it upon the base class.so you mean leaving it as it is now
Anyone can take leadership
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I'm not aware of any archetypes that have built-in leadership and improve upon its effects, but then again I haven't really scoured fighter archetypes. It'd be pretty interesting, I bet.
Adding the "improve upon its effects" undercuts, because the point is to get better.
OtoH, a Cleric with the Nobility domain gets Leadership at 8th level, and as a Cleric can Call Planar Ally, eventually Call Greater Planar Ally, and gets domain spells that enable the Cleric to impose his will on others.
A Wizard with Truename can get an 18HD critter who probably has more abilities than any Cohort will ever have. Of course he probably needs to keep said critter happy with gifts, and it's subject to DM whim, but anyone with a Cohort has to keep the Cohort's equipment up to snuff, and Cohorts are as subject to DM whim as Truenamed or Called critters.
Now, I'm not saying a Fighter should be able to do exactly those things. But neither is it unreasonable for a Fighter to scale his followers, his ability to influence soldiery, etc (just as other classes with abilities that influence NPCs have those abilities scale as they level).
Kirth's ideas may not be perfect - IMO they probably aren't, they're a intriguing, flavorful starting point (consistent with the game's history) that probably need refinement (as I think he would agree to), but simply rejecting them, scorning them, repeatedly saying they are problematic - that does nothing to improve on the initial idea whatsoever.
Thoughtful consideration of how to refine them or what alternatives to them that Archetypes might get would contribute more to the thread than arguing in circles against them.
What ways would you like to influence the game that you feel the fighter currently doesn't?
Any. But specially those that allow him to be like the martials heroes of myth. Like Achilles, Ulyses, Jason, Beowulf, Sigfried, Jamie Lannister or King Arthur. Stuff like, say, followers.
I would disagree here. The ranger is able to explore certain weapon styles with greater versatility (like being able to skip dex prereqs on TWF feats taken via their combat style feats) but they don't have the sheer number of feats a fighter does.The point was: Fighter may have "more feats" but they often have to take rubbish just to qualify for the good stuff or shore up deficiencies those other classes don't have, while other classes can ignore the rubbish and just get at the good stuff straight away. Or the Fighter uses their Feats just to get close(r) to what other Classes get as straight class-abilities, ones that frequently scale with level much better than most Feats do (some Feats do scale with level, but even those don't scale as well as class abilities).
Once you take all that into consideration, the Fighter's advantage in Feat quantity pales in comparison to the quality of what other classes get (something that has been demonstrated with examples only like half a dozen times in this thread alone).
I posted a possible solution to this issue a couple of pages back. My players have been using my homebrew tweak for nearly a year now, and it has had a hugely positive impact on how they play their fighters.
I also use many of Kirth's scaling feats, as well as many of my own, and since I introduced these changes to my players, there as been at least one fighter in every game we've played in the past year. Before that, I saw maybe one fighter out of 3-4 games that were played.
Using 5e terminology, the game has 3 legs. Combat, explorarion and interaction. Fighters can't do 2 of them right know. Tgey need stuff to be relevant in all 3 of them
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OK Kirth. I VERY much disagree with you and all your forms of evidence. Lets leave it at that.
What I am going to ask now is something I feel applies to life in general:
How do you DISAGREE with EVIDENCE?
to fix fighters use kirthfinder feats, done
I posted a possible solution to this issue a couple of pages back. My players have been using my homebrew tweak for nearly a year now, and it has had a hugely positive impact on how they play their fighters.
I also use many of Kirth's scaling feats, as well as many of my own, and since I introduced these changes to my players, there as been at least one fighter in every game we've played in the past year. Before that, I saw maybe one fighter out of 3-4 games that were played.
All worthy steps and I don't disparage them, but one reason I think Kirth himself is interested in this thread is to promote getting beyond homebrew patches.
Of course, he can confirm or deny that or expound upon it or whatever.
one thing I am thinking of that's a dramatic increase is swapping bravery for full out immunities selected from the mercies list. then add in the stipulation that it doesn't apply to conditions granted by class features the fighters possess(no rage cycle for you mr barbarian), and I think it's a start to bring the fighter up. It also can give the fighter balls (shrugs off fear, dirt in his eyes, etc)
to fix fighters use kirthfinder feats, doneI posted a possible solution to this issue a couple of pages back. My players have been using my homebrew tweak for nearly a year now, and it has had a hugely positive impact on how they play their fighters.
I also use many of Kirth's scaling feats, as well as many of my own, and since I introduced these changes to my players, there as been at least one fighter in every game we've played in the past year. Before that, I saw maybe one fighter out of 3-4 games that were played.
All worthy steps and I don't disparage them, but one reason I think Kirth himself is interested in this thread is to promote getting beyond homebrew patches.
Of course, he can confirm or deny that or expound upon it or whatever.
so paizo just needs to hire kirth, expand and build upon his alterations, and become even more awesome than they already are. This...probably isn't going to happen(crosses fingers for pathfinder 2.0)
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to fix fighters use kirthfinder feats, doneI posted a possible solution to this issue a couple of pages back. My players have been using my homebrew tweak for nearly a year now, and it has had a hugely positive impact on how they play their fighters.
I also use many of Kirth's scaling feats, as well as many of my own, and since I introduced these changes to my players, there as been at least one fighter in every game we've played in the past year. Before that, I saw maybe one fighter out of 3-4 games that were played.
All worthy steps and I don't disparage them, but one reason I think Kirth himself is interested in this thread is to promote getting beyond homebrew patches.
Of course, he can confirm or deny that or expound upon it or whatever.
that won't happen. The devs don't think there's martial/caster disparity, and we are people with agenda
that won't happen. The devs don't think there's martial/caster disparity, and we are people with agendaI think they know that there's disparity, but have loosely designed it to keep it that way.
they have said there is no such thing, and those who said otherwise are people with agendas
Giving fighters more feats isn't the best fix imo. They then have to somehow find an intuitive way to use them to plug in the weaknesses. That's not a garuntee. Feats also don't do the best job of filling in for 2 skill points per level, and might possibly just be used for more deeps or something like that.
anyone else think that all the fighter only feats should just be written into the class?
I think everyone who isn't int based should get 4+. I think universally paladin/cleric/fighter should get the 4+ and magus/summoner/wizard can keep theirs at 2+.
I also think feats should get a fix up to help everyone, especially the martials who can be far more dependant on them. I would like to see feats that do more than static numbers.
Even if they buffed all that fighters might still be low tier, but they certainly wouldn't suffer as much and the game would likely benefit from it as a whole I would think.
As a quick esxample, pathfinder. I find pathfinder a better game than 3.5, because of things like wildshape nerf, polymorph nerfs, divine metamagic nerf, etc. I think the game would be better if we fix or nerf things like Gate, Simulacrum, plannar binding and other absolutelly broken spells that can wreck havoc in any campaign, ruin the economy system or destroy entire realms.Hi! I have just started playing with some very long time 3.5 and other system players. These guys are also competitive gamers, and love to optimize all sorts of systems.
When asked if the cleric or wizard was nerfed, I was greeted with outbursts of laughter. They felt wizard was overall buffed, because of skill changes, incredibly broken bonus feats, better hit dice, and some other things. They felt cleric power was basically unchanged, because the stupidly powerful spells are stupidly powerful.
Let's say the wizard or cleric can win the fight with spell x1 x2 x3, similar spells. If you nerf just one of them, the wizard powerlevel is unchanged, because he still wins with 2 other spells.
If your friends think patgfonder wizards and clerics are more powerful than 3.5 versions, then they don't optimize as well as they think. We cannot Pun-Pun or CoDzilla anymore, and we cannot do 4000+damage per round with magic missiles that drain levels.
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I wanted to re-defend some of the things that I see people consistently want out of fighters.
1) A second good save.
I think this one legit. I'm not sure what the criteria was for what good saves a class gets so I do look at this flavorfuly. I see a lot of definitions for what a fighter is and most of them begs for another good save. If he's a badass normal he should get all good saves but I think all good saves feels like Munchkins reaching too far even if that's not the case. As far as what the second save should be my vote is on Will because Fighters have bravery out of the box so the game wants fighters to have a second good save but kind of half-asses it.
2) Better feats.
As 'the feat guy' the feats being bad makes fighters bad. Feats as a whole are full of traps and effects that barely impact the game. which is awesome the first few levels but as time goes on new feats suck harder and harder considering that feats that you need to be 13th level for don't make a 13th level impact and further up the chain isn't that great either. For example Lightning Reflexes seems okay, you get a 2 bonus which I guess is okay, but then you get Improved Lightning Reflexes, which you'd think gives you a +4 bonus or even a +6! But no, it gives you the ability to reroll a reflex save. Because that's total value!
Because Feats are ,relative to spell levels, close to each other in terms of combat impact and power this makes fighter's grow at a steady even pace while casters, after two levels can all of a sudden drastically change things In four different ways if not more.
Now my 'patch' idea for this is to give the fighter 'Combat Style Feats' from the Ranger's class feature, because in the flavor text above the class calls out the fighter as a weapon guy, so why not? I think he definitely deserves to have some prerequisite-free feats for fighting styles if he's the feat guy and the weapon guy. And as far as Pathfinder stands in it's current form I think that's a good way to go, but if I were to personally rewrite Pathfinder I would give fighters a few Style Feats for each weapon group. They're neat 3 feat packages that allow you to do interesting things without getting too supernatural and some of them allow you to take advantage of some mental stats.
3)More than 2 skill ranks per level.
I think the biggest opposition to this is 'what the heck is a fighter going to do with skill ranks.' because since he's a mundane class we can all imagine HOW he got them. But does he need them?
I'd argue that he doesn't really NEED them but it would let me do a bit more since INT isnt' that important of a stat for him. Everyone insists that the fighter takes Swim and Climb, because he's expected to be athletic and all. Since STR is an important stat I dont' need too many ranks in that. Its not like I'm going to jump in rushing waters with heavy armor.
But I'd like to take Survival. Seems like a Fighter could go out roughing it, hunt something while traveling, track some stuff when we don't have a Ranger or something. I can think of a lot of situations where I'd want survival. I can survive outdoors better than the Gandalf in the group I'm sure. I don't exactly know why this is a class skill when we explicitly have a nature themed fighting class but I don't have perception so I'll take what I can get.
Intimidate is a good one. If I'm pumping out high DPR I'd like to imagine that I'm pretty scary. It does make me wish I could use it more in combat because then I can be a scary man with a sword in a fight too. If I were to make new feats I'd definitely make that, a way to 'tank' by being so scary that the opponents have to attack me out of fear, making Fighter a slightly viable Melee Debuffer. Make intimidate checks to do Cause Fear affects.
This may suck but I actually want to make a crafting Fighter. It always irked me that ole' longbeard with 8 strength is the one hammering out magic swords and stuff and I don't bother because I cant cast spells and not enough skill ranks. Whatever happened to the blacksmith's son who longs for adventure so goes off to slice off orc heads with his massive blacksmith arms? I'd totally put ranks into craft. I'd also like some knowledge Engineering. I can have some knowledge of something instead of being a dumbshit behemoth, especially if I have huge blacksmith arms or mechanic arms or something, someone that crafts things, like traps or catapults.
My whole dumb rambling is that if I'm a Fighter what am I supposed to do when we're not in a fight? Just go to sleep? I can play Pathfinder and get a lot of naps in that way! I don't know anything and I can't do anything but swim and climb, I'm totally not a face, so just wake me up until we're done with this roleplaying s$&%, or better yet I'll be drinking some beers IRL while my Fighter is in the tavern drinking and waiting for you people who can do stuff to get done and then move on to the next dungeon. yeah the Cleric has 2 skill ranks but he has some room to put INT at 12 and he gets superpowers from God, a few ranks in diplomacy and Knowledge religion and he's good to go. he can even spread out his stats. He doesn't even need to get a job, he could just cure the sick with 15 minutes of praying.
I'm a little drunk what am I talking about?
4) Do something (not combat)
(3) ties into this a bit, more skills let you do a little more than fetch things from up high or under water but I do see that people want the Fighter to do something that isn't combat. I'm not even sure if they know or even care what they want him to do outside of combat, just SOMETHING. They don't want to just go "yeah, I fight a lot, I'm a fighter, but if the monster is like flying, intangible or in any way too hard for me to deal with or if there's like something in the way or I have to talk to people I just let everyone else do that, but I get to carry the wizards wands!
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What if a fighter could use the heal skill to heal HP, reducing the limit of their "resource" that they burn (which EVERYTHING ELSE HAS!).
perhaps
Healing Strike(ex) whenever a fighter is reduced to one quarter of their max HP, they may attempt a DC 15 heal check to heal 1d10 hit points of damage as a full attack action. If he fail the DC by 5 or more, or rolls a natural one, he must make an attack roll against himself with whatever weapon is in hand (or unarmed strike if unarmed, without normal penalties) and take that much damage. At 5th level, and every five levels after, He may heal an additional 1d10 HP and takes one more attack if he fails by too much. At 10th level, he may attempt a Healing Strike on an ally (still taking normal risk)
I think this could help with balance if combined with more skills and a better will/reflex save. If anyone has a problem with a fighter that heals himself then, refer to paladin which has that and tonnes of cooler stuff that fighters can't get. also, instead of leadership, what if fighters got a bonus on diplomacy checks made towards anyone who has seen him slay a monster or has heard of him (with a system of heresay that lets word travel slowly from town to town) and a provides morale bonuses for instructing allies at high levels.
You know what's weird. Casters are not OP when compared against similar CR monsters.
If we nerf casters we have to nerf all the monsters too, just to make the fighter work.
OR we could Fix fighter feats
Everything everyone is suggesting would be better if it was in feat form. Then people could pick and choose what kind of fighter they want to play/
I'm in favor of all of these suggestions. I'd also elaborate that (2) should be "better fighter feats," specifically. Though, because that buffs other classes who can pseudo-claim fighter levels, is that the best fix for the class?I wanted to re-defend some of the things that I see people consistently want out of fighters.
1) A second good save.
2) Better feats.
3) More than 2 skill ranks per level.
4) Do something (not combat)
#2 should fix all of the problems. Fighter doesn't need more skill points. He does need a 4, but that should be the effect of making better feats.
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also elaborate that (2) should be "better fighter feats," specifically. Though, because that buffs other classes who can pseudo-claim fighter levels, is that the best fix for the class?
Bad feats hurts all the martials. Its a universal problem.
I think this could help with balance if combined with more skills and a better will/reflex save. If anyone has a problem with a fighter that heals himself then, refer to paladin which has that and tonnes of cooler stuff that fighters can't get. also, instead of leadership, what if fighters got a bonus on diplomacy checks made towards anyone who has seen him slay a monster or has heard of him (with a system of heresay that lets word travel slowly from town to town) and a provides morale bonuses for instructing allies at high levels.
I think I made a similar comment a page ago. I agree very much that fighters shouldn't get cohort class features because their existence is controversial enough, but fun abilities that gives temporary renown-like buffs would be cool, flavorful and give fighters a bit more to do.
I'm not too keen on healing strike as that gets into more supernatural realms of sense.
I maintain that I believe in the changes that I suggested but I agree with Marthkus that Fighter feats should be fixed. Both Fighter only feats and Combat Feats in general because despite what the fighter is supposed to be in flavor mechanically he's seems to be sort of a choose your own adventurer kind of class and fixing combat feats in general helps other martial classes.
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If people don't like what I've said so far, that's OK. Here's your chance to put your money where your mouth is. Here's what I'd like to see, in order from least to most pressing:
1. Long feat chains dispensed with. Scaling feats takes care of that in an intuitive way. That's already been done, more than once, so enough said on that.
2. Meaningful class features. This is one thing, other than scaling feats, that I managed to fix in Kirthfinder. Fighters get talents (analogous to rogue talents) at every odd level. Armor training and weapon training are basic talents. At higher levels, things like a souped-up Combat Patrol, or Robilar's Gambit from 3e, or using tactical awareness to deduce the true locations of illusion-hidden spellcasters are the types of things available. To some extent this can ameliorate #3 and 4, but I can't fix them with it yet.
3. Mundane guys with useful skills. The problem is that skills are ALWAYS trumped by magic. 5th level rogue, max ranks, 18 Dex, Skill Focus (Stealth) = +15 on the check! 5th level wizard, 10 Dex, no ranks = +20 on the check! LOLWUT. This sort of crap has got to go. There should be some sort of limit that a really skilled character always gets a slight edge over some bookworm with a spell -- especially when the skilled guy is relying on skills as his entire schtick. This means that either we need to go through the rules and nerf the hell out of a LOT of spells, or else massively buff skills so that they preform at the level of spells, or both (and meet in the middle). Past that, I have no ideas, although I sure wish I did. Fixing this one issue would help fix the rogue and monk as well.
4. Narrative power. This is the one I've been harping on, because all I have are starting points. And this is, at the end of the day, THE #1 most important thing to fix, for fighters (and rogues and monks and so on) to stay viable past 10th level. I want people to come up with more ideas than the ones I've listed, but there's a high benchmark: as stated, if a caster can (as in the example above) remove you from a dungeon mid-combat and move you to some other strategic location in the world, with reinforcements, then mundanes need some way to accomplish those sorts of plot-defining exploits as well. They don't need spells, but they need some gimmicks that work just as well. And that's something that 2 more skill points or another feat will never accomplish (unless skills are totally rehauled; see 3, above).
"resource draining sponge."
However, it has certainly become increasingly frequent, to the point where now even our party casters (who have typically been very openhanded with sharing their boons with the fighters in the past) have begun talking about how unhappy they are getting with the scale of resources me and my fellow fighter are sucking out of them.
Interesting wording on this. It almost sounds as though your casters are annoyed because they have to carry you through everything, when I'm pretty sure they are annoyed because they rarely get kills, and the fighters often do.
You know what's weird. Casters are not OP when compared against similar CR monsters.
sure they are. They just make a truce to make the game playable. That's why they don't break every campaign world with self-replicating pit fiend simulacrum armies, chain-binding efreets for wishes and colapsing the economy with the half dozen infinite money tricks they can pull.
It almost sounds as though your casters are annoyed because they have to carry you through everything, when I'm pretty sure they are annoyed because they rarely get kills, and the fighters often do.
Them's fightin' words. That said, I've played wizards who play clean up more than the martials. I've also seen fighters who suck at doing clean up after the control is done because the barbarian and ranger does it better.
#2 should fix all of the problems. Fighter doesn't need more skill points. He does need a 4, but that should be the effect of making better feats.I'm in favor of all of these suggestions. I'd also elaborate that (2) should be "better fighter feats," specifically. Though, because that buffs other classes who can pseudo-claim fighter levels, is that the best fix for the class?I wanted to re-defend some of the things that I see people consistently want out of fighters.
1) A second good save.
2) Better feats.
3) More than 2 skill ranks per level.
4) Do something (not combat)
Are you suggesting a feat that give 2 more skill ranks? because personally that's good enough for me. It doesn't make fighters as good as casters but I didn't really need that.
Actually if Improved Lightning Reflexes/Iron Will actually turned your bad save into a good save (spend two feats to make a bad save into a good save) would be good enough for me on #1. I do question how this impacts the rest of the classes though.
I wanted to re-defend some of the things that I see people consistently want out of fighters.
1) A second good save.
I think this one legit. I'm not sure what the criteria was for what good saves a class gets so I do look at this flavorfuly. I see a lot of definitions for what a fighter is and most of them begs for another good save. If he's a badass normal he should get all good saves but I think all good saves feels like Munchkins reaching too far even if that's not the case. As far as what the second save should be my vote is on Will because Fighters have bravery out of the box so the game wants fighters to have a second good save but kind of half-asses it.
I think it should be good Fort saves ( which they have already ), and a choice of one other good save. The reason? There's a lot of difference in how different fighters fight; One has a strong conviction, one learns to dodge as well as he swings a sword. There's a lot of different ways you can play a Fighter, and the choice of his second save should reflect these differences.
The rest of this was a good post.
I maintain that I believe in the changes that I suggested but I agree with Marthkus that Fighter feats should be fixed. Both Fighter only feats and Combat Feats in general because despite what the fighter is supposed to be in flavor mechanically he's seems to be sort of a choose your own adventurer kind of class and fixing combat feats in general helps other martial classes.
combat feats dont help only martials, though. A scaling dodge or weapon focus can be taken by a wildshaping druid, combat ckeric or summoner synthesist as well
4. Narrative power. This is the one I've been harping on, because all I have are starting points. And this is, at the end of the day, THE #1 most important thing to fix, for fighters (and rogues and monks and so on) to stay viable past 10th level. I want people to come up with more ideas than the ones I've listed, but there's a high benchmark: as...
How does this one occur? In 4e, they just sort of removed narrative power from the spellcasters, and that didn't go over that big.
It almost sounds as though your casters are annoyed because they have to carry you through everything, when I'm pretty sure they are annoyed because they rarely get kills, and the fighters often do.Them's fightin' words. That said, I've played wizards who play clean up more than the martials. I've also seen fighters who suck at doing clean up after the control is done because the barbarian and ranger does it better.
It's not a guess. I'm Coriat's DM, and I've heard the complaints for years.
combat feats dont help only martials, though. A scaling dodge or weapon focus can be taken by a wildshaping druid, combat ckeric or summoner synthesist as well
I maintain that I believe in the changes that I suggested but I agree with Marthkus that Fighter feats should be fixed. Both Fighter only feats and Combat Feats in general because despite what the fighter is supposed to be in flavor mechanically he's seems to be sort of a choose your own adventurer kind of class and fixing combat feats in general helps other martial classes.
Very true. Higher up I did say that I question how fixing fighter by fixing feats only affects other classes, especially in cases that seem like they could made something like a Cleric, Druid or Wizard to go from being good to CoDzilla, but your reply makes me more skeptical that this can be fixed in the feats alone.
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What if fighters got the ability to make an intimidate check as an immediate action to disrupt the casting of a spell. I could easily see a wizard casting a spell then seeing a decked out fighter with greatswords and earthbreakers evil eying him and suddenly feel like its more important to s!## himself then say alakazam while flapping his arms. Or if fighters got improved bonus feat as a class feature and he can increase the feat variables, scaling, making fighters superior with combat feats.