Martial class help


Advice

Grand Lodge

Looking for a martial class that's..... fun to play. I'm not looking to match castors blow for blow. I'm just looking to have options and fun. I dont want to spend all combat for 20 levels saying "I swing my sword". Getting so many feats as a fighter is a plus but they are lackluster feeling after 5 levels ya know.

So martial with options. Whatcha think?


Rangers have a lot of skills, a few nifty spells, and are still very good martials. Shapeshifter is neat I think.

Paladins can easily be made a face, have boss saves, and basically have a "One evil corpse comin' up" button a few times a day.

Barbarians can get so angry they can eat magic, among other ridiculous things based on being reality warpingly angry.

Magi have spells, a good number of skills, are decent martials, and do pretty well as all-rounders. Bladebound, Kensai, and Hexcrafter are good archetypes.

Sczarni

Fighters get a bagillion feats, so you can basically do whatever you want with them. Go nuts with combat maneuver trees.

Ninjas let you go invisible, use acrobatics, flank, big sneaks.


If you are open to 3PP content, I would recommend The Book of Martial Action. This gives the martial classes a "martial action pool" which they can use to do all kinds of non-magical martial maneuvers instead of just another full attack. For me, this book solved one of Pathfinder's issues--boring martial classes.

Shadow Lodge

martial classes are boring?

huh...


Play a monk archetype. Flowing Monk I think gives you the most amount of things to build around. Even then you will get bored of flinging the enemy around like a rag doll and pummeling downed enemies. Redirection + greater trip + vicious stomp = tons of damage against enemies on their turn, then when its your turn they are probably still prone next to you, flatfooted and sickened.


Spike chain fighter or monk with oversize weapons. fun, fun.


If you're looking for martial with options every round, I would suggest fighter, monk, or magus.

Fighters can sacrifice some of their primary power to get all sorts of nifty feat chains and moves. Pick feats that let you do fun stuff, like Charge Through (APG), which allows you to make a free overrun as part of a charge. Or pick an interesting weapon that has several properties. Basically, give yourself multiple "styles," rather than just focusing on one weapon.

Monks have combat styles (UC), Qinqong Monk, etc. that allow them to have a wildly diverse array of abilities. Between feats and ACFs, you should be quite happy with playing a monk.

Magi are probably the class with the most options, since they have spells.


I'd suggest you stay away from fighters personally. They don't get anything anyone else doesn't and their big thing is being able to do one thing.

Rangers can be built in many ways, have an animal companion which can be brought up to full companion with a feat, lots of skill points and some okay casting.

Barbarians would be my personal pick of a mundane guy. Superstitious and your pick of totem line. Rage powers sometimes do actually add options and 4+ skill points is plenty to spread around. Compare to fighter and paladin's 2.

Paladin has spell casting and smiting is always fun, but this always depends on your group because of the roleplaying attachments.

Inquisitors can hold the front lines. Look at the handbooks for inquisitors for details. They can be very hard to kill, have six level casting, and they get class features that are nothing but options or doing their options better. They don't have full BAB however.

Magus has a pseudo pounce as a second level spell when using spell combat. They can dive around the battle field mixing damage and swordplay pretty well, but their mechanics are hard to understand when your new. They have 2+ but are intellect based so they have many skill points, and they have spell casting which is as versatile as it gets.

I would suggest against monks because like fighters they don't actually have a lot of options. They have many class features, but most of them are just awful.

Oracle and Cleric both have melee builds, but I'm not keen on them myself. Alchemist requires buffing but vivisectionist can be pretty cool. Cavalier and samurai depend on a mount which is varies between campaigns. Summoners aren't melee monsters themselves but they have one and they buff him up. Gunslinger can be cool but he's all ranged obviously. Druids have melee builds but they take forever and a half because you have to wait on wildshape unless you can convince your DM for homebrew, but if you could use homebrew I'd actually suggest nabbing a class from Tome of Battle from an edition back.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32

A good option for fighters is using a reach weapon and going for some battlefield control. If you fight alot of casters, you should look into the "Step Up" and "Disruptive" lines of feats.

The Exchange

Samurai are amazing and durable

A fighter going for whirlwind attack by lvl 4 is also a fun idea I've wanted to play. (Retraing a feat to make it happen). I also think step up, following step, and stand still are great choices.

Liberty's Edge

People have recommended almost every martial option there is...this is one reason I always answer this sort of question with...what do you want to do? If you can come up with something of a concept...be it fighting style...or almost anything relevant, it makes it a lot easier to help. Recommending an incredible ranger archer build is pointless if you want to swing a sword. Give us something to build on. There are far too many 'martial' options without knowing what you really want.


What sources are you using?

I found swordsage and warblade to be the most fun martial classes I've ever played, but they were 3.5.

3rd party pathfinder has the psychic warrior, which I've found to be a lot of fun, the dread looks interesting, though I haven't played one. In additionally, DSP is probably the most well regarded 3rd party publisher.

Using only Paizo pathfinder sources, inquisitor or magus is probably your best bet. Lots of options, and both have a good number of skill points (inquisitor because of base skill point, magus because of int focus) and spells with which they can contribute both in and out of combat.

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