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That is a very, very helpful list - thank you! (also a very useful one for balancing everything else in the game world around)
1st-4th level, spellcasters can do some weird stuff, but nothing that couldn't be done the old fashioned way.
5th level, wizards get fireball and fly. These are sort of the base things people think of when they think of wizards, so this might be the place that a relatively diligent wizard can expect to reach during his career. (Also, getting a score above 15 is rare in NPCs, so a lot of wizards pretty much cap out here, even if they have more levels.)
We stay in that 'better than ordinary, but not earth-shattering' groove until level 9, when wizards start to be able to teleport and clerics start raising the dead or visiting Hell in person. Any semblance of 'normal' pretty much ends here.
Above 9th level, you can call Outsiders, visit other planes, travel the world instantly, and have beaten death itself. You're very special. And you're also rare enough that these abilities aren't so available as to warp society.
At 13th level, you get 7th level spells, you can heal any malady, or raise the dead from a lock of hair. You can create your own demiplane.
And at 17th level, you get wish, which sort of says it all.
I guess translating this to non-magical (I'm trying really hard to stop saying 'mundane', because 'mundane' means 'ordinary', and a Linnorm King is certainly not ordinary) characters means that 'normal' characters cap out around level 5. This sort of makes sense. Several sets of 'elite troops' are statted as being around 4th level: Grey Maidens, Hellknight Armigiers, Sable Company Marines.
Between level 5 and 9 (give or take), such a character is superhuman (compared to Earth), but still fairly grounded in reality: action heroes. Take an absurd amount of a beating. Dish out a heck of a hurt. Fight crowds of 'normal' people, or take on big, angry monsters. The commanders of those elite troops are probably in here. Finding someone of this level shouldn't be too difficult, but you shouldn't be able to find them in quantity.
After level 10, though, you're clearly in a whole other realm, and should be able to do things as cool as raising the dead. Not actually raising the dead, or casting teleport, or whatever, because that isn't a fighter's thing.
Move at speeds faster than a running cheetah.Can't do it in Pathfinder (unless you're a caster).Level 18 monk, speed of 60 without any other things like feats. Barbarians can do it easy. Even with just Core, I can get 55, 5 faster than a Cheetah. I think I can get to 85 or 90.
A running cheetah (in Pathfinder) has 500 ft speed.
Speed 50 ft.;
EDIT:
Along the same lines,
So, right now, today the best athlete can only show around 10th level- but that's in skills. How about combat?
Takes a str of 24 to lift Olympic weights, outside normal human, right? or 16th level.
The world deadlift record is about 1000 lbs, which falls between the cabailities of Str 21 and Str 22. 4th-8th level itemless human, which is a very different animal from 16th level itemless human.
Although it may be worth pointing out that several of the fine gentlemen involved in competitive weightlifting may be sporting alchemical bonuses to their Strength scores.
Didn't Gun Twirling come out after the errata? If I'm remembering correctly then I think that would be a clear indication that Paizo's response to the dual-wield pistols was "cool idea but this execution is terrible". So... they fixed it. There are a lot of things that you can fairly criticize Paizo about but I don't think this is one of them.
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Gunslingers can still TWF with double-barreled pistols, they just need a Glove of Storing...This is the part I don't like: "It's okay now because magic!"
Now Kirth, right after that I listed a non-magical feat that would do it as well.
I think you're also aware that I'm a pretty staunch supporter of the "martials deserve nice things too" camp, I'm just saying that there is some justification for the weapon cord not being the delivery method for this particular option.
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Didn't Gun Twirling come out after the errata? If I'm remembering correctly then I think that would be a clear indication that Paizo's response to the dual-wield pistols was "cool idea but this execution is terrible". So... they fixed it. There are a lot of things that you can fairly criticize Paizo about but I don't think this is one of them.
Yes, it did. By a couple months actually, I think.
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You can only store and bring out ONE pistol with the gloves, and you can NOT wear two. Not to mention it cost 10000 gps and takes up a valuable slot.
So, lets assume that the mouse-cord thing wasn't a joke and move on to the rest of the point. They didn't take anything away from high level martials. They took away something from a cord that any 0 level commoner had access to. Gunslingers can still TWF with double-barreled pistols, they just need a Glove of Storing or the Gun Twirling feat now. The weapon cord errata literally had nothing to do with high level martials, it had to do with the relative expedience of leather cords.
It's a free action to switch a weapon between hands, and a free action to stow or draw a weapon from the glove, so it works just fine thank you. And a Gunslinger going for that fighting style literally has no better choice for what to spend the cash and slot on.
Also, as I noted, Paizo came out with a feat that not only allows the trick, but actually gives it to lets Rogues slap their Sneak Attack damage on besides.
Why are people saying that the monk can't out run a cheetah? 90 speed, ki point for +20 speed, 2 fleet feats, run feat for x5 speed when running. Now you have 600 speed. You don't even need the fleets, just burn a ki point for 550.
I found them all just in class description, without using any feats. However, there's no use posting them as he'd just move the goalposts again from "this can't be done without spells" to "Spells can do it better", which is moving from a objective to subjective argument.
Air walk? MonksI'm not aware of that option.
Spider walk? Monks, rangers.Or that one.There's ways for a Monk to do it.
S&@%ty versions, that are limited to his Slow Fall distance (Capped at 100 ft., not Any Distance), and require TWO FEATS to pull off, but technically he's right I guess.
Eh?
A Monk cannot Air Walk or Spider Climb without outside help from Feats or magic. I don't know what you're talking about in that case.
The Feats I'm talking about in this case are Spider Step and Cloud Step (and I was mistaken, it caps at 50 feet not 100).
And saying "spells do it better" is not a subjective statement. Being able to move up to your speed and not have to LAND every turn is objectively superior to those options.
For Ranger I just assumed you were talking about the Infiltrator archetype to get a Climb speed, but that's a meh option at best. Shapeshifter is another (I think?) and it's outright terrible.
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The weapon cord thing was Jason, not me, and although he did try it out, I think he mainly did it as a joke, and was not intending it to be a reasonable test of whether or not a skilled gunslinger (which Jason is not) could use a weapon cord (which is not a mouse cord) to drop and catch a pistol (which is not a mouse) accurately and reliably enough to make it part of his attack routine.
Recent post from Jason on this:
Not going down that road again. The last time I tested a rule (even though it was just a joke), folks thought I used it as the basis for making a rules decision. I still see it quoted to this day as if it were real. Ugh..
But yeah.. for the kids. :)
:-)
Off Topic: Twf with guns the new old fashioned way: 2 level dip into alchemist for an extra arm or two
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Magic Weapon Affinity (Ex)
In the hands of a fighter, magical weapons behave differently than they do in the hands of those who are not as well-trained in armed combat. Beginning at second level, a fighter can, as a free action, override the default enchantment of a magical weapon and replace it with the benefits granted by this ability. The benefits include a total bonus, and a maximum enhancement bonus. Weapons empowered with this ability must adhere to the magical weapons rules of needing a minimum of a +1 enhancement bonus before special qualities can be applied. The fighter can give the weapon any enhancement bonus up to the maximum provided on the Magic Weapon Affinity table, and any remaining bonuses from the total bonus can be used to apply special qualities to the weapon.
The special qualities for a given weapon can only be changed once per day, in a short (5 minute) ritual where the fighter concentrates on aligning his desires for how the weapon should function in his hands. If this power is activated for a weapon that the fighter has not performed this ritual for, it is empowered with his maximum enhancement bonus, but no special qualities are activated until the fighter can perform the ritual.
This ability cannot be used on ammunition, but it can be used on thrown weapons. The weapon is funcionally the same in all ways as the weapon it is empowered as while in the hands of the fighter (or until the attack is resolved, in the case of thrown weapons).
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What's kinda funny to me is that the "generic fantasy fictional setting" is essentially just... Lord of the Rings and what spawned from it. This concept of hyper-mundane heroes is a very recent thing. 19th century American folklore heroes were far and above the power level of any of the Fellowship members; Pecos Bill took a perfectly ordinary lasso and wrangled a tornado with it. And the further back you go, the more extraordinary the Tough Guys of myth become.
Tolkien was trying to express a very specific theme with the trilogy (the greatest of good sometimes comes from the smallest of things or whatever the exact quote was) and writers that came after him just sort of ran with it while forgetting almost all of the fantasy that came before it.
There's nothing remotely realistic or down to earth about a high level martial's combat abilities.
And yet there are, actually, lots of things.
In many ways, you remain tied to the same old low level ball and chain.
Many things improve only a little and so become, relatively, worse. Some things improve so little that they become relatively far worse - mobility being a poster child.
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PCs aside - what level should my "most talented individual in the world" NPC be? ;)Depends on your adventure and the story being told, to be honest. Personally, I'd cap NPCs at 17-18th level. I'd make it lower, but someone had to scribe those scrolls of wish that percolate around. And there's probably not more than a few of those around at a time.You're assuming those scrolls of wish percolate around. I see no need for scrolls of any spell over 6th level to exist in the world, unless made by a PC or extremely rare [either reclusive or world-shaking] NPC.
On this subject though, I wouldn't be opposed to integrating rules that allow a Wizard to scribe a scroll of a spell he didn't know [in order to either cast it once or transfer into his spellbook] via magical reagents and special rituals. Or maybe just go with Spell Research.
There's no need for scrolls of any level if you're going for a low magic setting. But a scroll of a 9th level spell (maybe not wish, since it has a material component) costs 3,875 gp. That's available for purchase in 75% of Small Cities according to the base settlement rules.
That means that in the history of the world, a sufficient number of 17th level casters have existed to create them in (relative) abundance.
I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm saying that the rules are talking out of both sides of their mouth for what it means to be high level.
PCs aside - what level should my "most talented individual in the world" NPC be? ;)Depends on your adventure and the story being told, to be honest. Personally, I'd cap NPCs at 17-18th level. I'd make it lower, but someone had to scribe those scrolls of wish that percolate around. And there's probably not more than a few of those around at a time.You're assuming those scrolls of wish percolate around. I see no need for scrolls of any spell over 6th level to exist in the world, unless made by a PC or extremely rare [either reclusive or world-shaking] NPC.
On this subject though, I wouldn't be opposed to integrating rules that allow a Wizard to scribe a scroll of a spell he didn't know [in order to either cast it once or transfer into his spellbook] via magical reagents and special rituals. Or maybe just go with Spell Research.
There's no need for scrolls of any level if you're going for a low magic setting. But a scroll of a 9th level spell (maybe not wish, since it has a material component) costs 3,875 gp. That's available for purchase in 75% of Small Cities according to the base settlement rules.
That means that in the history of the world, a sufficient number of 17th level casters have existed to create them in (relative) abundance.
I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm saying that the rules are talking out of both sides of their mouth for what it means to be high level.
I can't confirm this, but wouldn't scrolls come under spellcasting, since they actually do require the spell used? So a 9th-level spell would be limited to metropolises?
Deliberately so: the wizard who scribed a scroll can live half a continent away, or be a century dead. Spellcasting services require a living caster who is local.
There's no way Ruby is level 12. She might be level 6. In PF terms, she's got dodge, mobility, whirlwind attack, and might be a 6th level monk.
What she's got is a super duper adamantine weapon that allows her to rocket all over the place and keep her full attacks while she does...expending charges of red powder as she does so. Duh, she's using magic. One shot from a bad guy in the final episode lays her out like a mat. She's not high level.
I mean, come on, it's ONE giant scorpion, and the most skilled person there was running away from it, and it clocked Ruby effortlessly. Without teamwork, the 'roc' was just ignoring them.
Cap with Thor's Hammer could easily take on the Hulk. Quit mistaking template stats and gear for level. They are easy to confuse because bonuses all stack the same way, but Cap is way higher level then Tony Stark. Cap doesn't come with an impossible suit of power armor, however.
The Hulk is not high level. The Hulk has the Gamma Powered template. There's a big difference between the two.
Give Captain America the gear of a level 20 PC and sit back and watch what happens. He ain't no 8th level.
==Aelryinth
Arriving late to the discussion, as usual...
@ SKR: Woah! Seriously, in my mind you've just gone from "this guy must be talking about some other game than PF" to "this guy makes more sense and shows more system insight than any former or current Paizo dev previously has". I think you've made very good and highly relevant points that IMO touches on some of the most profoundly important aspects of the game and its future development (obvious just from reading the many and diverse posts in this thread). Thank you for an insightful and interesting blog! Though I seem to recall you've said that mechanics and system tweaking wasn't your thing? Well, IIRC: Liar! ;)
Anyhow, if I've correctly understood your reasoning, here's what I disagree with:
Currently, fantasy=magic and fighter=nonmagic, resulting in fighter=nonfantasy. The idea of removing the Ex/Su distinction addresses that result by removing "fighter=nonmagic", but I personally would much prefer to leave "fighter=nonmagic" intact and instead remove "fantasy=magic", allowing nonmagical fighters to still be fantastic in their nonmagicalness.
Basically this. Though I'd describe the current relationships between Ex/Su/SLA/Spell as an implied "holy law of PF" which basically says:
"Mundane can only affect the mundane, while magic can affect both the mundane and the magic."
This "law" currently seems virtually all-encompassing - AFAIK, besides blightburn paste and Trapfinding, there are no non-magical (non-Su/SLA/spell) items/abilities/tools in the game able to affect magic in any way.
I firmly believe awesome martial abilities, as well as other thoroughly non-magic options, should be able to affect magic, including high level spells that currently make casters virtually immune against anything but magic of equal or higher CL. In short, this law needs to be broken. Utterly and repeatedly.
Again, my point is that if you don't have to label an ability as Ex or Su, it doesn't matter whether a swordsman is doing X with magic or skill, where X is He just does it.
But it does matter whether an ability is Ex or Su:
1 - Because AMF can be a very good and interesting DM/player tool, *IF* martial (Ex) abilities/tools get to break the above mentioned law and still remain unaffected by AMF.
2 - Because there should be fundamental differences between the superhuman martial (Ex) stunt a fighter has learned and a magic/(Su) ability or spell, and this difference should be reflected in the mechanics. In other words, (Ex) needs to keep its "special snowflake" status (being unaffected by AMFs) while having its power boosted in general and given tons of new ways to interact with magic in particular. Removing the unique mechanic makes (Ex) less special and also means removing its only existing advantage. I would much rather see the mechanical differences between especially (Ex) and (Su) were increased.
3 - Because flavor: A high level fighter should be able to affect magic through sheer badassness, doing things magic/(Su) can not do (at least not as effectively), like bull rushing through a prismatic sphere to pounce the caster inside all the way to kingdom come.
So if I'm designing a level 10 ability for a class, it should be
* an appropriate power level for character level 10, and
* appropriate to the theme of the class,whether that class's theme is
* "great power from amazing martial training" (fighter)
* "parent is a deity and genetics are awesome" (fighter)
* "near-precognitive intuition for tasks" (rogue)
* "ridiculously lucky like Fonzie" (rogue)
* "mutual pact with a supernatural entity" (cleric)
* "chosen evangelist of a transdimensional being" (cleric)
* "uncanny knowledge of physics that lets me exploit loopholes in reality" (wizard)
* "catalysis of fantastic reactions using apparently-ordinary combinations of materials" (wizard)
* or any other explanation you think is appropriate for your interpretation of your class, race, and archetype.Don't let the flavor (and the difference between Ex and Su is mostly flavor) limit the options for design.
And yes, I'm drawing a line between "flavor" and "theme of the class." "Rogues are martials and can't have magical abilities" is limiting design based on flavor. "Rogues can teleport a short distance to get behind an enemy, but not across the continent" is limiting a design based on a class's theme. (And that technically doesn't mean that "the greatest escape artist ever" as a rogue theme couldn't have "I get away from my heists by teleporting a mile away." Continuing our comic book analogies, would you say Nightcrawler from the X-Men is best represented as a cleric, fighter, rogue, or wizard? I'd say fighter or rogue, leaning toward rogue (stealth, swashbuckling, personable)... with the ability to teleport.
While I don't agree that (Ex) and (Su) should be merged/removed/reduced to flavor only, I totally agree with the general design philosophy here. It's truly uplifting to see this coming from someone as involved in PF as you. So if you haven't already, please ensure your old Paizo colleagues also embrace this way of thinking!
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... if the designers can set aside the idea that a "nonmagical" fighter can't do amazing things without using overt magic, maybe they need to set aside the idea that self bows and crossbows need to work differently from each other (for example, in 13th Age self bows and crossbows work identically).
In other words, just because it's physically impossible for someone in the real world to fire a heavy crossbow five times in six seconds doesn't mean a powerful fighter in a fantasy game shouldn't be able to do so.
Xbows certainly need a boost, but I don't think that necessarily means their mechanics need to copy those of bows. My suggestion is using the most relevant advantages a RL xbow has over a bow as inspiration (for example that it was the only medieval ranged weapon able to easily penetrate high quality full plate, or that even small handheld renaissance versions could be extremely powerful at short ranges). Something along the lines of the current firearm touch AC mechanic would likely be appropriate and distinct enough.
The problem with capping realism at level 6 is that there are feats based on real martial arts that have prerequisites higher than level 6. Quite apart from the reality based style feats you have to have the following feats to throw someone into a grapple. I've seen people do this. Not black belts. Not professional martial artists. People with day jobs who practice martial arts for their health. That means, in d20 terms members of the expert NPC class. This is not particularly advanced Judo.
Improved Unarmed Strike
Improved Grapple
Combat Expertise
Improved Trip
Ki Throw
Binding ThrowThat's 6 feats.
But it gets worse. If you want to throw one person into another you also need power attack, improved bull rush, and improved ki throw. If you want slamming someone into the ground to hurt you need a ki pool and enhanced ki throw. If you want to throw someone more than five feet you need spinning throw.
If you want to have someone as good at throws as a real person and discounting any mostly numerical feats like greater trip and grapple that a level 6+ martial artist specializing in trip and grapple should have you need 10 feats.
Oh, here's another good one. Poking a spear through someone. BAB 11 prerequisite. And it also requires 3 prerequisites and can only apply to one weapon. If you want to be able to impale someone on a longspear or a spear you need to be human and level 12. And 7 feats including taking martial versatility for each of weapon focus, specialization, and impaling critical.
Injuring someone's legs requires 13 BAB and Crippling Critical. Injuring someone's eyes requires 15 BAB and Blinding Critical.
The realistic martial really is, apart from falling distance and environmental damage, very high level. The ridiculously long chains of nonscaling feats to do things real people can do proves it.
Assume E6 rules on reality (attributes/class abilities/etc. stop scaling after 6, but you still get Feats) and the inconsistency disappears.
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Assume E6 rules on reality (attributes/class abilities/etc. stop scaling after 6, but you still get Feats) and the...The problem with capping realism at level 6 is that there are feats based on real martial arts that have prerequisites higher than level 6. Quite apart from the reality based style feats you have to have the following feats to throw someone into a grapple. I've seen people do this. Not black belts. Not professional martial artists. People with day jobs who practice martial arts for their health. That means, in d20 terms members of the expert NPC class. This is not particularly advanced Judo.
Improved Unarmed Strike
Improved Grapple
Combat Expertise
Improved Trip
Ki Throw
Binding ThrowThat's 6 feats.
But it gets worse. If you want to throw one person into another you also need power attack, improved bull rush, and improved ki throw. If you want slamming someone into the ground to hurt you need a ki pool and enhanced ki throw. If you want to throw someone more than five feet you need spinning throw.
If you want to have someone as good at throws as a real person and discounting any mostly numerical feats like greater trip and grapple that a level 6+ martial artist specializing in trip and grapple should have you need 10 feats.
Oh, here's another good one. Poking a spear through someone. BAB 11 prerequisite. And it also requires 3 prerequisites and can only apply to one weapon. If you want to be able to impale someone on a longspear or a spear you need to be human and level 12. And 7 feats including taking martial versatility for each of weapon focus, specialization, and impaling critical.
Injuring someone's legs requires 13 BAB and Crippling Critical. Injuring someone's eyes requires 15 BAB and Blinding Critical.
The realistic martial really is, apart from falling distance and environmental damage, very high level. The ridiculously long chains of nonscaling feats to do things real people can do proves it.
Try looking it from the other direction. A monk or someone with Improved Unarmed Strike is already doing that. After all they do a serious amount of damage with their bare hands. The feats allow them to do it in a better and more efficient way, with some extra effect.
Simply the game depict them doing do those things as doing hp of damage. With the feats you get some further description and some further effect.After all when a character use a weapon he is slashing the weapon arm of the enemy to get him off balance and weaken its attacks, hitting his legs to slow him down, cutting him to make him bleed and weaken and so on, but we don't describe those attacks and and they don't have special effects beside "the target suffer X hp of damage".
The a character can pick some specific class ability or some feat and actually get special effects (like a rogue taking bleed attack) to make those specific attacks more prominent in play.
If you want specific throws, bleeding damage and so on, you should play Rolemaster (the old editions, no idea of how is the new edition) with all the specific damages and effects from throws.
A martial artist attacking a target isn't simply bashing it with his hands till it die.
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@Byers There is a rule in the magic section that rarely affect play, but show how different is the fire from a fireball from that of a alchemist fire:
A spell's range is the maximum distance from you that the spell's effect can occur, as well as the maximum distance at which you can designate the spell's point of origin. If any portion of the spell's area would extend beyond this range, that area is wasted.So, if I cast a fireball to my maximum range of 400 ft. + 40 ft./level the area outside the my range is unaffected. Instead of a sphere of flame I get a crescent, with the area outside my maximum range cut away. That is what make something born of magic different from something "natural".Again, I understand how the rules work. I'm saying that they could work differently without being worse. It's really weird that dragon's breath (or any Su) fire and fireball (or most Sp) fire work differently.
If the rules changed so that fire was just fire (thus making SR something that applied just to spells that specifically target that creature), what would that break?
It will make SR way less valuable (especially for the monsters) and fire resistance or evasion more valuable. It is similar to the problem I see with making the witch hexes supernatural abilities instead of spell like. It has removed their main defence from a lot of creatures. Look the FAQ about the Ice Tomb Hex. a hard gestation and it hasn't jet resolved all of the problems of the hex. And that simply for making it a SU ability.
Remove that and call it "an ability". You are removing even more limitations.In the past several conjuration spell did that, conjuring real matter that didn't cared about spell resistance, as an example the orb spells in the 3.5 or several spells with the name Nystul in them in the 1st edition, and when Pathfinder was written they were removed and only recently something similar has returned.
The good number of people in the D&D forums think that giving those spell immunity to SR made them too powerful and you are arguing about giving all not targeted spell that ability. You really think that it is a good idea?
Uh...the Gun Twirling Feat also works. And isn't magic.
For the record, that's actually 4 feats you need to get it to work, or 3 feats and a class feature (follow the link). I think it got pretty well-established in the "what fighters need" and other threads, including this one just above, that feat chains are one of the banes of martial characters. If we could eliminate some of the prerequisites, though, I'd be totally OK with a feat requirement there.
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I'm dismayed though especially that Pathfinder which started out as the traditionalists defense against 4e thinking is now succumbing to the same ideas.
1. "Edition warring" posts are not cool here.
2. If I design a plane poorly, does that mean that flight is impossible? That's a serious question, btw. Sometimes we can actually learn from a failed attempt at something, and go on to avoid its flaws and make something better. By your logic, though (anything new that fails is BADBADBAD!), we would never have developed the wheel, would still be living in caves, and would not be cooking our food. If you're going to ignore point (1) and pick apart 4e, why not look at the specific things that didn't work and why, rather than, in effect, saying "anything that reminds me of anything from 4e is bad."
2. If I design a plane poorly, does that mean that flight is impossible? That's a serious question, btw. Sometimes we can actually learn from a failed attempt at something, and go on to avoid its flaws and make something better.
Kerbal Space Program, just sayin' ;)
Sometimes you just gotta crash, burn, and blow stuff up to work out what you're doing.
2. If I design a plane poorly, does that mean that flight is impossible? That's a serious question, btw. Sometimes we can actually learn from a failed attempt at something, and go on to avoid its flaws and make something better.Kerbal Space Program, just sayin' ;)
Sometimes you just gotta crash, burn, and blow stuff up to work out what you're doing.
I am talking about the OPs post. I believe it is the sort of 4e thinking that led to 4e's demise. I am being specific. I'm not anti-anything new. I am anti-turning martial characters into spellcasters.
And we are against "non magic equals mundane". Balance was not the issue that led to 4E's demise. It was the way WotC handled a number of issues.
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I am anti-turning martial characters into spellcasters.
As it stands, people like me will say, "You know, if a fighter had enough tactical awareness and experience, he should be able to deduce which mirror image is the real caster, and which enemies are illusory, and where an invisible opponent is actually located and how to be sure to hit said opponent. Let's make it a fighter-only feat, Tactical Acumen, and give it an {Ex} tag." People might or might not accept it, but there's a certain kind of logic to it. Get rid of the tag, and people look at it and say, "That's true seeing. It's magic. Fighters shouldn't be able to do that." And there goes a perfectly useful ability.
So, am I "turning martial chatacters into spellcasters" with that? As SKR correctly noted, the concept of level-appropriate abilities is independent from whether those abilities are magical or extraordinary. That's the real point to be taking away from this thread. I want to keep an [Ex] tag to apply to some of those abilities, for people like you. But the $64,000 question remains, is that good enough, or is any attempt to allow a fighter to do something other than swing a stick "turning him into a spellcaster"?