Fighters that don't suck -- an attempt to make fighters flexible and fun

[Deadmanwalking]

Well, I've posted my House Rules (including Fighter fix) in the last couple threads discussing this, so I might as well post them here. I obviously think Fighters need some fixing.

As for swimming in plate armor this guy has done that a little so I'm not sure what the realism issue is with someone with unbelievably impressive physical capabilities doing it better.

[PathlessBeth]

I've actually toyed with something like this a couple years back, although I never got the time to work out all the kinks.

One question though: in 3.5, there's a feat called Toughness which grants an extra three hit-points, and has a special line

PHB wrote:

Special: A character may gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

It's a really awful feat on its own, but if you get it for free an unlimited number of times, you have infinite hit-points. There are a few other feats in 3.5 and a few more in 3.0 with similar special lines, such as Extra Contacts (Cityscape), Extra Rage (Complete Warrior), and Energy Resistance (ELH). (When I was trying to implement a fighters-get-every-feat-for-free system, I said that they only got each feat once, even if it could be taken multiple times).

I'm pretty sure none of those feats made it unaltered into Pathfinder, but are there any other feats in PF that can be taken an arbitrarily many times and stack with themselves?

[Paradozen]

Here are a few suggestions for making fighters better.

armor training:

In addition to normal, each instance lets you don armor as if it were one step lighter (so Armor Training III lets you put full plate on alone as auick as the bard puts on his tux). I realize this isn't huge, but it thematically always bothered me that the guy who routinely wears full plate like a second skin still has to ask for help at twentieth level. Also, Armor Training IV should let you add the enemy's ACP (to a max of your armor training level) to attack rolls due to your enhanced mobility over them. Maybe include a clause about equal-level fighters not getting this.

weapon training:

In addition to normal, a fighter should also be proficient with any weapon in this group he spends an hour training with. Also he gains two of the following benefits with that kind of weapon as long as he trains for an hour with it. Increase this by two per point of weapon training.

• One more AoO per round per point of weapon training
• +2 on attacks when two-weapon fighting with this weapon in your off hand
• add weapon training to AC and CMD (doesn't stack with itself)
• Combat maneuver checks made when this weapon is in hand do not provoke AoO's, and you add weapon training to CMB while wielding said weapon
• Treat yourself as one size category larger when making combat maneuver checks
• Consider the weapon one category lighter per point of weapon training for determining how many hands you need to use it
• Gain an extra 5ft of reach with this weapon for attacks on your turn per point of weapon training. If you have lunge, you can make AoO's with this new reach by taking the AC penalty.
• Add weapon training to saving throws to resist paralysis, sleep, stun, stagger, slowed, nauseated, sickened, or entangled conditions
• Add weapon training to the DC needed for enemies to cast defensively in your threatened area
• gain the benefits of one feat that only applies to a specific weapon (such as weapon focus) You must qualify for this feat

these could be easily expanded upon and represent studying new techniques to try while the wizard prepares spells.

Bravery:

add as a bonus to saves vs spells, sla's, and supernatural abilities, and they are immune to fear. This doesn't seem too powerful since paladins are immune next level, many SoS spells still affect on a successful save, and one race can get most of this as a feat and a trait (dwarf, I'm looking at you). Thematically, magic is scary, but your confidence in mind and body makes you harder to decieve or damage with magic.

Skills:

adding skills per level and new class skilss definitely. Also, consider adding the ability to use Intimidate ain place of diplomacy, not because you are terrifying but because you have a strong, imposing personality that makes it hard to argue with you.

I haven't playtested these, but they might help.

[Gronka]

Ryan Freire wrote:

I kind of think combat expertise needs reworked to be a +2 to cmd/cmb for combat maneuvers and no AoO, and the greater versions of the combat maneuver feats reduced to the improved option. Take the AC aspect of combat expertise and...

That would actually be pretty nice. I have combat expertise with my hunter. I have used it exactly one time over the course of 10 levels. When it did come up, I was really really glad I had it (we were fighting some kind of nasty ghost that was targeting touch AC and I had to be directly next to it), but that doesn't justify needing it as a feat.

[Ghray]

Here is my opinion on the title. I posted the source of this, it is an alternative ruleset called Frank K. Tome to 3.5 (easily convertible to Pathfinder). The problem with fighters is Feats, they just simply don't do enough. Anywho, read this if you're interested.

Feats were an interesting idea when they were ported to 3rd edition D&D. But let’s face it; they don’t go nearly far enough. Feats were made extremely conservative in their effects on the game because the authors didn’t want to offend people with too radical a change. Well, now we’ve had third edition for 6 years, and we’re offended. Feats are an interesting and tangible way to get unique abilities onto a character, but they have fallen prey to two key fallacies that has ended up turning the entire concept to ashes in our mouths. The first is the idea that if you think of something kind of cool for a character to do, you should make it a feat. That sounds compelling, but you only get 7 feats in your whole life. If you have to spend a feat for every cool thing you ever do, you’re not going to do very many cool things in the approximately 260 encounters you’ll have on your way from 1st to 20th level. The second is the idea that a feat should be equivalent to a cantrip or two. This one is even less excusable, and just makes us cry. A +1 bonus is something that you seriously might forget that you even have. Having one more +1 bonus doesn’t make your character unique, it makes you a sucker for spending one of the half dozen feats you’ll ever see on a bonus the other players won’t even mention when discussing your character.

We all understand this problem, what do we do about it? Well, for starters, Feats have to do more things. Many characters are 5th level or so and they only have 2 feats. Those feats should describe their character in a much more salient way than “I’m no worse shooting into melee than I am shooting at people with cover that isn’t my friends.” This was begun with the tactical feats, but it didn’t go far enough. It’s not enough to add additional feats that do something halfway interesting for high level characters to have – we actually have to replace the stupid one dimensional feats in the PHB with feats that rational people would care about in any way. Spending a single feat should be enough to make you a “sniper character” because for a substantial portion of your life you only get one feat. Secondly, we have to clear away feats that don’t provide numeric bonuses large enough to care about. The minimum bonus you’ll ever notice is +3, because that’s actually larger than the difference between having rolled well and having rolled poorly on your starting stats. Numeric bonuses smaller than that are actually insulting and need to be removed from the feats altogether. 3.5 Skill Focus was a nice start, but that’s all it was – a start.

Furthermore, the fundamental structure of feats has been a disaster. The system of prerequisites often ensures that characters won’t get an ability before it would be level appropriate for them to do so, but actually does nothing to ensure that such characters are in fact getting level appropriate abilities. Indeed, if a 12th level character decides that they want to pursue a career in shooting people in the face, they have to start all over gaining an ability that is supposed to be level appropriate for a 1st level character. Meanwhile, when a wizard of 12th level decides to pursue some new direction in spellcasting – he learns a new 6th level spell right off – and gets an ability that’s level appropriate for a 12th level character.

Source: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52013824/D%26D%20The%20Tomes%20v.0.7.pd f

[Ghray]

Feats need to scale imo. One thing that Frank/Tomb gets right is that if you pick a feat, for example, Two-Weapon Warrior, the feat unlocks additional features the higher your BAB gets. You pick one feat and eventually unlock the Pathfinder equivalent of 5-10 feats.

Here is the tomb rule version of Two Weapon Fighting

When armed with two weapons, you fight with two weapons rather than picking and choosing and fighting with only one. Kind of obvious in retrospect.

+0 BAB: You suffer no penalty for doing things with your offhand. When you make an attack or full-attack action, you may make a number of attacks with your off-hand weapon equal to the number of attacks you are afforded with your primary weapon.

+1 BAB: While armed with two weapons, you gain an extra Attack of Opportunity each round for each attack you would be allowed for your BAB, these extra attacks of opportunity must be made with your offhand.

+6 BAB: You gain a +2 Shield Bonus to your armor class when fighting with two weapons and not flat footed. +11: You may Feint as a Swift action.

+16 BAB: While fighting with two weapons and not flat footed you may add the enhancement bonus of either your primary or your off-hand weapon to your Shield Bonus to AC.

[Gronka]

Cyrad wrote:

I agree that the restriction of combat maneuvers is a contributing factor to many martials feeling like they lack tactical options.

But consider this perspective to that notion. If we focus on just buffing the fighter's damage, defenses, and giving them extra ways to bypass enemy defenses, that results in making damage always the best solution to different situations. Buffing a fighter's ability to run up and stab something does not give them incentives to do something other than running up and stabbing something.

Yeah. This is why I feel like combat in general suffers when 2-handed fighters or barbarians are dealing so much damage each round. The only option is "get close and smash the guy over and over". If you are fighting a really big guy it's just "I hope I kill him before he kills me". If you're fighting a bunch of little guys, there is basically no threat because you can squash 2 or 3 of them in a round.

[Raltus]

What if instead of Archetypes for fighters taking away Armor training and Weapon Training they instead just added their abilities to the fighter?

So Pole Arm Master still gets all the weapon bonuses from Weapon Training plus all the specialties from being a Pole Arm Master.

They should also have baked in Combat Expertise because that is what they do is combat.

Plus 6 Skill points per level + int

Plus Stamina system

This would only limit you to 1 Archetype

[Ghray]

@Aelryinth

In my opinion though, the problem with martial classes in Pathfinder in general is feats. And remember, that chain will come when you get +16 BAB (level 16). The problem stems from what Wizards and other magic users can do.

For example, I built a Dwarven Summoner who had more HP then the fighter and my eidolon did similar damage, effectively making the party's fighter... redundant. And this isn't just a single example. Martial classes are consistently outclasses by magic users in later levels to the point that it is plain silly.

Yes, Frank/Tome makes very powerful characters (mind you, that was their intent), but to be fair, considering a medium level Wizard played right can destroy an entire city. The bonuses from a feat like TWF really don't make it seem all to powerful when you really look at what other classes can do.

[Raltus]

Aelryinth where is a link to your warrior?

I guess you could pick 2 Archetypes and add those abilities in to your base ones.

Could make Legolas from LOTR

2 Wpn fighter and Archer.

[Bob_Loblaw]

What if a fighter just picked an archetype and did not also give up any of his class abilities? Would that be a decent enough change?

[Denorisn]

Bob_Loblaw wrote:

What if a fighter just picked an archetype and did not also give up any of his class abilities? Would that be a decent enough change?

That idea sounds more like a fighter version of sorcerer bloodlines. Inherently, its not a bad idea. it adds flavor to a horribly bland class, and allows at least some distinct class features for the fighter.

One thing of note is that every fighter seems to love multiclassing. Half the martial prestige classes seem to be based on the idea that at some point they will be entered by a fighter. So why not just mix the fighter in with this idea at baseline? Give them different fighting styles to chose from and mix and match which progress as they level.

While it doesn't address some of the their core issues with fighter ( Will defense, lack of movement, skill points), it does give them somewhat flavor and sets each different fighter apart aside from feat selection.

Imagine something like this: At first level and every other level afterwards, a fighter selects a martial path. Every time he may gain a new power from a martial path he may increase an existing path or chose anther one.

Paths could include anything an archetype covers like crossbowman, trench fighter, or mutation warrior, or weird hybrids like a mounted specialist, or a dragon knight. Not all paths HAVE to be purely EX abilities, some can be SU since this is a fantasy setting (I see dragon knight gaining things like immunity to paralysis/stun or a breath weapon).

[Tacticslion]

This sounds like fun! However, and bear with me, I have one favor before putting this in my game.

Only one.

Could someone run the stats for this,

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Fight Good (Ex) Fighters that don't suck automatically receive all combat feats for which they have fulfilled the prerequisites. As illustrative examples, a fighter that doesn't suck will automatically have the Power Attack feat if he has a strength of 13 or better, and at sixth level will automatically gain Bloody Assault.

... for me? 'Cause daggum, that sounds like crazy work... >.>

I'd settle for a list of feats-by-level, too, with ability score-prerequisite feats to the side, with the noted prereq' next to them...

... or maybe some kind of flow chart...

[Orfamay Quest]

Tacticslion wrote:

Could someone run the stats for this,

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Fight Good (Ex) Fighters that don't suck automatically receive all combat feats for which they have fulfilled the prerequisites. As illustrative examples, a fighter that doesn't suck will automatically have the Power Attack feat if he has a strength of 13 or better, and at sixth level will automatically gain Bloody Assault.

... for me? 'Cause daggum, that sounds like crazy work... >.>

I'd settle for a list of feats-by-level, too, with ability score-prerequisite feats to the side, with the noted prereq' next to them...

D20PFSRD.COM has a spreadsheet that you can download.

[Tacticslion]

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Tacticslion wrote:

Could someone run the stats for this,

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Fight Good (Ex) Fighters that don't suck automatically receive all combat feats for which they have fulfilled the prerequisites. As illustrative examples, a fighter that doesn't suck will automatically have the Power Attack feat if he has a strength of 13 or better, and at sixth level will automatically gain Bloody Assault.

... for me? 'Cause daggum, that sounds like crazy work... >.>

I'd settle for a list of feats-by-level, too, with ability score-prerequisite feats to the side, with the noted prereq' next to them...

D20PFSRD.COM has a spreadsheet that you can download.

But that doesn't print eeeeeaaaaasssssseeeeeeeeee...

#firstworldwhining

[Greylurker]

have you tried using some of the Unchained options

switching to Grouped Skills evens out the skill gap rather nicely

and Stamina Combat improves all the feats, thus improving the fighter without pidgeonholing him into a specific fighting style. If you want to keep it a fighter exclusive thing you just say it is only for fighters and only applies to fighter bonus feats (thus blocking 1 level fighter dip to steal stamina combat for other classes)

[Tacticslion]

Tacticslion wrote:

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Tacticslion wrote:

Could someone run the stats for this,

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Fight Good (Ex) Fighters that don't suck automatically receive all combat feats for which they have fulfilled the prerequisites. As illustrative examples, a fighter that doesn't suck will automatically have the Power Attack feat if he has a strength of 13 or better, and at sixth level will automatically gain Bloody Assault.

... for me? 'Cause daggum, that sounds like crazy work... >.>

I'd settle for a list of feats-by-level, too, with ability score-prerequisite feats to the side, with the noted prereq' next to them...

D20PFSRD.COM has a spreadsheet that you can download.

But that doesn't print eeeeeaaaaasssssseeeeeeeeee...

#firstworldwhining

This idea intrigued me, so I figured I'd give a stab at it, just to see what it looks like. And, you know, I'm actually trying to just list the feats out and have them organized into a comprehensible manner.

Holy Friggin' Crap. I'm at the letter "C" and daggum. This is kind of ridiculous - the sheer number of variable sub-groups that I've got is just silly, so far.

It's an interesting thought experiment, but... I'm tiiiiiirrrrrrreeeeeddddd.

[NenkotaMoon]

There are no solutions, only trade-offs.

[Tacticslion]

Spoiled for Off topic:

Tacticslion wrote:

Tacticslion wrote:

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Tacticslion wrote:

Could someone run the stats for this,

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Fight Good (Ex) Fighters that don't suck automatically receive all combat feats for which they have fulfilled the prerequisites. As illustrative examples, a fighter that doesn't suck will automatically have the Power Attack feat if he has a strength of 13 or better, and at sixth level will automatically gain Bloody Assault.

... for me? 'Cause daggum, that sounds like crazy work... >.>

I'd settle for a list of feats-by-level, too, with ability score-prerequisite feats to the side, with the noted prereq' next to them...

D20PFSRD.COM has a spreadsheet that you can download.

But that doesn't print eeeeeaaaaasssssseeeeeeeeee...

#firstworldwhining

This idea intrigued me, so I figured I'd give a stab at it, just to see what it looks like. And, you know, I'm actually trying to just list the feats out and have them organized into a comprehensible manner.

Holy Friggin' Crap. I'm at the letter "C" and daggum. This is kind of ridiculous - the sheer number of variable sub-groups that I've got is just silly, so far.

It's an interesting thought experiment, but... I'm tiiiiiirrrrrrreeeeeddddd.

Related: who is Claw Pounce for?

You must have:
- catfolk
- STR 13/DEX 15
- Nimble Striker
... - - for which you need the sprinter racial trait
- claws racial trait OR Aspect of the Beast
... - - for which you need wildshape OR lycanthrope OR be a ranger

Which means that pretty much it's use is exclusive to catfolk rangers and lycanthropes who fit a very exacting profile, right? 'Cause druids would get pounce from their wildshape, right? Am I missing something?

That is a very narrow profile of builds, right? Or am I missing something in the prereqs that opens this up?

EDIT: For spoiler tag and to clarify that I edited it.

[Chris Lambertz]

Removed a series of posts. Folks, don't derail someone else's homebrew solution thread into a discussion solely about your own (a new thread or taking it to an existing thread is more appropriate). Also, back and forth bickering helps no conversation—flag and move on.

[Tacticslion]

Alright.

When I've had time and focus, I keep chipping away at this thing.

Fight Good may just break me... but not yet.

So far, I've made it to "F" though I've got to say, doing this has made me realize just how... hm... let's say, "niche" certain feat trees and combinations are. Like, to a confusing degree.

I'm not sure if that's the OP's intent, but it sure does make me want a clarified, streamlined, and simplistic version of the game with shorter feat chains and more optional methods of following them.

Also, does anyone know what the deal is with the feats banishing critical?

Is is it supposed to be a kind of soft-retcon? Are they both viable? Is it an accidental oversight that they both happen to be named the same thing? Are they supposed to be the same thing, but aren't? Has there been any comment on this?

(Incidentally, getting that +9 BAB required for critical focus would pretty much makes this an "end of career" feat for your arcane casters that can qualify for the old version, and a 12th level career feat for the divine casters. Was that why a basically magus-exclusive one was created? To net the magus a better option?)

Anyway, doing this also helps me appreciate the concepts involved in designing things, and why, "This seems like a fun idea." or, "This seems reasonable." might not always make for a good feat or prerequisites.

(Also, also, I really, really, reeeaaalllyyyy want Paizo to clean up how they do feat prerequisite presentations, and I want designers to go won the feat tree when they assign prerequisites - 'cause daggum. While I'm generally a fan of, "only the most recently relevant things need listing" - after all, if you have Power Attack as a prereq. you don't need to specify "13 STR" as a prereq., too - some of these feat chains get kind of goofy.)

[Orfamay Quest]

Tacticslion wrote:

Alright.

When I've had time and focus, I keep chipping away at this thing.

Fight Good may just break me... but not yet.

Congratulations on your perseverance. I admit that one of the design influences was the rather confused and scattershot feat list, which means that a lot of the interesting feats never see any play because they're too marginal to waste a slot on.

Quote:

(Also, also, I really, really, reeeaaalllyyyy want Paizo to clean up how they do feat prerequisite presentations, and I want designers to go won the feat tree when they assign prerequisites - 'cause daggum. While I'm generally a fan of, "only the most recently relevant things need listing" - after all, if you have Power Attack as a prereq. you don't need to specify "13 STR" as a prereq., too - some of these feat chains get kind of goofy.)

The problem with this, though, is that some additional abilities will allow you to skip some prerequisites for SOME feats but not for others. For example, a high-level ranger can skip the Dex prereq for (Improved) Two Weapon Fighting, but not for (Improved) Two Weapon Feint (for some reason). I consider this to be a bad decision and bad design, but maybe there's some subtlety I am missing.

[Tacticslion]

As for the prerequisites, that's true. I'm currently just looking at the feats in a vacuum of anything other than themselves (and what they explicitly note).

That said, I kind of thought the ability score bypass things were legacy from 3.5, which makes a lack of expanding them seem weird.

Also, I'm exceptionally uninterested in the ever-escalating ability score requirements for feats. While these are feats, not classes, it still is starting to harkin back to the older systems in a bad way (for me, at least). "Must be this tall to ride." design kind of makes sense, but quickly becomes kind of goofy unless you presume very specific point buys and builds. It's easily one of the most complicating factors on the flow chart, and while I understand the decision, it actively hamstrings a fighter (who can't simply ignore the prereqs., unlike some other classes) or forces them into (or at least strongly encourages a sense of) a, "You're playing this character wrong with these stats, unless it's this way." - certainly not the intent, but the message-apparent.

One other side effect of this project is the clarification and ever-increasing divide (in my mind) of RAW, RAI, RAU, and RAtT; and why it is important to differentiate between them.

Orfamay Quest wrote:

Congratulations on your perseverance.

Thanks! The best/worst moment was when I realized that d20pfsrd had... *shudders* ... updated.

O.o

I had to trawl through the earlier part of the "already completed" sections of the alphabet...

Orfamay Quest wrote:

I admit that one of the design influences was the rather confused and scattershot feat list, which means that a lot of the interesting feats never see any play because they're too marginal to waste a slot on.

Yeah, I figured that much, at least. It's interesting; I expected that it would be OP, and kind of a fun train wreck at early levels, while slowly balancing out later on, but... I'm really not sure, now. It certainly allows you to break more of the combat rules than anything else, and allows the fighter to wield or equip every armor, weapon, or lack thereof from any source (they are proficient with everything, including improvised and unarmed). They get the expected bonus to attack. Then they get... weird. Lots of fiddly bonuses that, unlike my expectations, don't blur out into a smooth paste of "+<insert number(s) here>" - rather, the farther I go, the more it reads like, "You can do this, unless that, in which case this other, except for the ten things (see flow chart below) for all circumstances except this one, in which case..." and so on.

For full disclosure and clarity, this is exclusively my impression - I've not crunched all the crunch, yet, as I'm still figuring out what they can get, before saying what they can do. As I'm still on "F", this impression could change, but from my brief look down the list, I didn't see much that would. Perhaps when I actually crunch it, it'll be smoother?

Weirdly, it also doesn't free them from either a magic item dependency (those ability scores) or the scourge of multi-classing (it's still best to dip here and go elsewhere).

It's a fascinating thing to do, and shockingly enlightening. Make no mistake, this creature is a monster. But it's a fascinating monster that doesn't seem to suggest what I thought it would. Hm...

[Raltus]

The Ever increasing stat list needed for feats makes the game even more gear dependent that it already is. The Two weapon fighter will need gloves of dex or belt just to reach 17 without sacrificing other stats to stay able to compete.

[Firewarrior44]

I think it's hilarious that in order to swing a second blade around a 3rd time I need 19 Dex, which is the same number of points in intelligence required to cast 9th level spells. Meaning both are apparently of comparable difficulty.

[Raltus]

But not in overall "Narrative Power"