What about throwing in some semi-exotic proficiencies for free? He's already got tower shield, how about bastard sword and dwarven waraxe?
I allow the semi-exotics to be taken at level 1 if the character takes Weapon Focus Technique in that weapon. It's not worth a feat, and the endurance of the bastard sword class weapons means they should be a prime focus for fighters to take.
The main reason for this is the samurai gets katana for free...but fighters don't get bastard swords? Bah.
=+Aelryinth
I honestly see Armor Training as paizo saying: "Yeah, well unlike the other Mithral-wearing losers, you can backflip in Adamantine Full-Plate and still have the same Dex-to-AC as them."
How about making the fighter all about iterative attacks?
There's the old shtick of being able to get whirlwind attack at level 4, which is the earliest of any single class in the game, and that actually got me thinking.
The Barbarian runs in and smashes things (Not to mention he gets pounce. Blegh.)
Then the fighter should be able to run in and smash things in style.
Perhaps the fighter could gain a wide variety of different attack options he could use for a penalty of 2-5 to his total attack bonus, but adding different effects and posibilities to such attacks. For instance, Piledriver in the Two-handed Weapon archetype allows you to make combat maneuvers and attack in one go, and later you get Devastating Strike (Ex) which essentially lands a no-compromise crit at level 20, as long as you can actually hit him.
If the fighter had a wide variety of such effects, essentially increasing his flexibility in combat, that could:
a) Give the class its own unique flavour, something the current fighter lacks.
b) Sepparate his role from just about any other dude with a Greatsword and Power Attack
c) Give him options other than full-attacking endlessly.
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Together with the feats, you could use this to build some really fun combat styles! For instance, a combat-maneuver-attack in combination with Greater Trip could easily earn you a very long attack of opportunity lockdown combo breaker, which is a fun combat style.
Or otherwise, you could have a grand variety of AoE attacks such as Whirlwind, each granting a different effect (Sickening Whirlwind, for instance.) to their enemies.
Perhaps some of these iteratives could emulate meta-magic for melee attacks, too. Maximized Vital Strike at -2 to hit. Empowered Devastating Blow at -5 to hit. So on and so forth!
This is solved with Archtype feats, or other things.
If you read above about my feat pool, it could be used with that and Versatile feats, or go with Inspired feats for short term use of these things.
The struggle is statting all those things out. You're talking literally dozens of feats/techniques. It's a major time sink, Basically, if the player wants them, you take a look at them and look for approval. But asking me to come up with Archetype feats for every fighter, samurai, cavalier, swashbuckler, and slayer archetype is a bit much.
Also note that various manuvers in combat are actually fairly accessible to the Fighter, and he's actually pretty good at them. The out of combat, or 'not fightin' stuff' versatility, is what we want to work on most. That, and his defenses.
As for Armor Training: Armor Training has great flavor. Unfortunately, it doesn't deliver.
The Fighter can't backflip easily in Adamantine Plate until level 16 when the Check penalty hits 0. At that point, he also must have a 20 AC to max out his class AC bonus...which, if you start with a 12, he can't do without wishes/books.
The mithral plate user needs the 24 dex now...but +2 AC is better then DR 3/- pretty much across the board. Hence, if you have the Dex, you don't use Adamantine. You use Mithral to do the backflips at level 8, 8 levels sooner, because it reduces the check penalty by another 2!
The only way to make adamantine viable is for the DR to increase, and stack with Armor Spec and class abilities. As it stands now, you could say Adamantine has DR AND gets the Mithral abilities, and you'd finally make adamantine armor worthwhile.
=+Aelryinth
Freedom from Full attacking:
Giving away a full attack with a move represents a difficulty in that under the current rules, if you do it for characters, you do it for monsters.
Monsters able to move and full attack will be LETHAL. It also renders the Pounce ability little more then a range extending effect, instead of something powerful and cool.
Too, Full attacks mean NOTHING until BAB 6. Literally. If you full attack at level 1, you must be a TWF...it's the only reason why you'd do such a thing.
Proposals:
Fighters with TWF Technique can attack once with each weapon as a standard action when using Primary Weapons.
Non-Fighters can blow a feat to do the same.
Vital Strike: This feat can be taken at level 1. It has the following effects.
1) Strike on Draw: If you draw your weapon while adjacent to an enemy and hit them, you do maximum normal weapon damage (i.e. an iajitsu strike). You can do this only once per combat.
2) Full Strike: If you take the full attack action and make a single attack(if you have TWF, with each weapon), you gain a +2 Th and Damage, or a +2 to AC and saves until the beginning of your next turn. If you give up your iterative attacks, this bonus increases by +1 per iterative you give up (i.e. +1-3 more). This single attack may be a Vital Strike.
3) Rising Strike: At BAB 6, the normal effect of Vital Strike takes place, adding weapon damage again. This autoscales for all classes at BAB 11 and 16.
4) Superior Strike: A fighter adds his weapon training and Weapon Spec modifiers to weapon damage when multiplied by Vital Strike.
5) Moving Strike: You can use a Vital Strike on a charge; with a Spring Attack or its variants; or as the first strike of a Cleave. If you have Expertise, it can also be the first attack in a Whirlwind.
6) True Strike: A Vital Strike cannot be parried or deflected.
So, this turns a Full attack into: Do I want massive damage with multiple attacks? Do I want good defenses this turn? Do I want to make sure I hit them this turn?
It turns move and attack into a solid option with charges, cleaves and spring attacks possible.
Fighters are better at it, but not to the point of multiplying Str bonuses. Fixed bonuses are controllable...it's not mythic. (And you know, there's a feat chain that lets you keep spec bonuses to Vital Strike, it's just horrendously expensive to take).
And lastly, inability to parry or deflect means you can get around some Swashie or Crane Winger's massive AC if you decide to forgo damage for a Vital Strike.
It also means you can't parry or Crane Wing a T-Rex.
==Aelryinth
As an aside, Kirthfinder cuts down on large weapon/nat attack nonsense with Vital Strike by making it +2d6 damage per Vital Strike level, instead of + Weapon Size. So, a dagger wielder gets the same benefit that a greatsword wielder does.
I'm muling that as an option, it does present more control, but I'd probably increase the amount by the size of the monster, so big things do get a Vital Strike boost, but I'd move away from reliance on weapon sizes, which can be exploited (esp bite attacks).
A Vital Strike damage bonus based on the size of a foe seems to make more sense then the size of a particular attacks, anyways.
==Aelryinth
I was thinking of making a new action type called "Extended Action", which is in the middle of Standard and Full actions. It would require using up your Standard and Swift actions for the round, and you only make 1/2 Str damage on all attacks (aren't getting your full swing in on every hit), but you can make a full attack.
Now you have a tactical choice. Do you:
1. Do an extended action, allowing you to move that round.
2. Do a full round action, allowing full strength damage and a swift, but can only move 5'.
3. Do only a standard action (full strength, maybe vital strike), so you can do a full move & perform a swift.
Back in the day, swift actions weren't that prevalent, so it wasn't that big a tactical choice for most (if you weren't casting a quickened or rare swift spell, it wasn't a big deal). Now it seems like half the classes rely on doing stuff with their swift actions.
The fact that the Fighter *doesn't* just makes it so he'll benefit more from burning his swift to gain move+full attack. Perhaps an ability to get full strength would be in order too.
.
As for Pounce being taken down a notch, well... I think there needs a more gradient change between single-attack-suck-fest and full-attack-amazing.
Pounce still benefits from full strength damage and allows swift actions, so it is still special. Just not omgineedthistostayrelevant special.
Hmnm, must've ate my post.
The gradient I went uses Vital Strike instead of the full attack action.
1) Normal Move and attack. Upgrades to Normal Move and Vital Strike.
2) Charge and Vital Strike; Spring Attack and Vital Strike; Cleave and Vital Strike.
3) Give up movement for a single attack, with a bonus th/dmg OR a bonus to AC/Saves. Choose to hit something, or to defend against it.
4) Give up movement for the classic full attack action, getting more attacks.
I thought about restricting Pounce to Natural attacks only, and restricting iteratives to weapon wielders as a counterpoint (Pounce would have to be a standard option for monsters in such case).
So Dragons would pounce, but Giants would get multiple attacks.
Considered it too dangerous overall. Vital Strike had more control and less rocket tag.
==Aelryinth
As an alternative to all this single attack vs multiple attack business...
Adept Attack [Combat]
Prerequisite: BAB +6
Benefit: As a standard action, you can make an attack and add your base attack bonus to the damage roll.
Special: You do not gain the benefit of this feat if you are not able to use full-round actions.
This could just as easily be a fighter class feature. Might be abusable though.
Hmm. I actually made a feat that allowed you to sub half your BAB for your ability score bonus to hit and damage. That way, you could get a 12th level fighter in his 60's still doing an excellent amount of damage. Since it maxed out at +10, equal to a 30 stat, it wasn't unbalanced.
Your feat is either a sub for Vital Strike, or a bonus to Vital Strike? It's doing basically +5 damage per iterative. The only problem is that it's a big fixed bonus, basically a Smite, and crits are gonna be nasty with it.
Easier to make Vital Strike a feature for all full BAB classes, a scaling feat for those who take it, and let Fighters include their Weapon Training/Spec bonuses in the multiplier, so fighters are best at it.
==Aelryinth
You could say the damage isn't multiplied on a critical hit. That's a little better than precision damage.
Yeah, but now you're adding a new damage category. It would be simple if it were dice.
==Aelryinth
so, what do you think of a Fighter's Armor training enhancing their physical ability stat toys?
Basically it would be a minor accelerant and a cost saver. I was thinking adds +2 to Physical stat devices, to a max of +6, at level 9. If they wear a magical helm, it applies to mental Int/Wis/Cha things.
At level 16, the bonus increases to +4, with a maximum of +8 to Str and Con (only) if they are in heavy armor (only).
Which would mean a fighter could get a str enhancement bonus equal to a sorc bloodline.
==Aelryinth