At level 9, a fighter with gloves of dueling can use warrior spirit 5 times a day for +4 bonus. Magus can't get bane; fighter can.
So a fighter can turn a +1 holy weapon into a +4 holy/bane weapon. Which added to weapon specialization and weapon training puts him at #1 in dpr.
On paper. When he can full attack. Which doesn't happen in actual games nearly enough to make up for the times it doesn't.
Plus at level 9 a magus has a 30% chance to crit for X2 with a 13d6 shocking grasp + weapon damage 4X a day if they want.
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On paper. When he can full attack. Which doesn't happen in actual games nearly enough to make up for the times it doesn't.At level 9, a fighter with gloves of dueling can use warrior spirit 5 times a day for +4 bonus. Magus can't get bane; fighter can.
So a fighter can turn a +1 holy weapon into a +4 holy/bane weapon. Which added to weapon specialization and weapon training puts him at #1 in dpr.
My (carefully logged and gained over numerous campaigns including most of the Paizo APs and a selection of 1st and 3rd party modules that would bankrupt the average upper-middle class citizen if they bought them all at once) experience is that generally full attacks happen just over 50% of the time for melee combatants without mounts and/or pounce. Testing those numbers was actually part of the early planning process for the Spheres of Might Kickstarter that I'm on the design team for.
Now, granted, most of those tests included fairly experienced GMs who wouldn't pull punches on leveraging monster tactics and abilities to their fullest intended extent (black dragons who strafe the party with breath weapon attacks while diving in and out of the protective cover of swampy pools, mounted archers who strafe the party at the very edges of their effective range while using their mounts to avoid reprisal, pit fiends who batter the party with spells and minions before closing for the kill, etc.), so those numbers may change the less aggressively the enemies are played, but when you factor a Fighter's damage assuming that his full attacks are only triggering about 1/2 of the time, then look at other classes who can more easily execute full attacks thanks to mobility enhancing class features, or attack sequences that rely less on their iteratives for the bulk of their damage, and the numbers don't look nearly as good as they do in a white room where the enemies feed themselves into the meat grinder.
So, I actually agree that the Fighter's full attack damage is pretty top tier, but that's conditional on the Fighter actually getting a full attack, which my experience indicates is really not that common an occurrence. Classes that deal less damage on a full attack but more damage on charges and standard + move turns tend to be much more effective overall.
I mean, you're spending an entire round activating Bar Room Brawler and Warrior Spirit, so at level 13 you'd better get a good return from it because otherwise you could be dealing 153 damage this turn.
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Maybe it's a bigger deal with melee builds where you spend your first round moving and activate warrior spirit than attacking.
Archery has some pretty serious action economy advantages over standard melee combat (Pounce mechanics not universally included in that statement), which makes a big difference, but effective archery also comes with more system mastery demands; players who don't realize that basically all of their feats are already spoken for can run into trouble, and players who don't properly account for things like DR can find themselves neutered pretty easily. There's also a lot of conditions that can severely hamper archery, like forested, snowy, or aquatic environments...
Anyways, yeah, archery is arguably the most superior form of non-magical combat in Pathfinder based on action economy advantages alone.
I don't know what the current DPR champion is or how high this would put them over it. Would this be significantly worse than the champion?
It does not matter.
If you deal enough damage to one-round your opponent, extra DPR is just wasted resources. There are several classes that can already achieve this, and fighter is one of them.
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If you deal enough damage to one-round your opponent, extra DPR is just wasted resources. [..]
True story. This is actually an argument I've seen come up several times when comparing the Fighter to other classes in the same role, like the Ranger or Slayer. While the Fighter's raw damage numbers were often numerically superior, applying those numbers to a play experience would often reveal that those numbers didn't actually change the basic dynamic very much. If a group with a Fighter and a separate group with a Ranger both take 2 rounds to defeat a fire giant, it doesn't matter if the fire giant only had 25% of his hit points in the second round from the Fighter instead of 40% from the Ranger; the fire giant still died in the same amount of time, and now that combat is over and all of the non-combat adventuring begins, one of your guys is a WIS caster with 6+Int skill points, and the other has no special advantages for his mental stats and 2+Int skill points on a class skill list half the size.
and the other has no special advantages for his mental stats and 2+Int skill points on a class skill list half the size
Depending on archetype chosen and how the player has chosen to develop the fighter.
Skill monkey fighters are a thing these days, you just have to plan for it.
This is wrong. Fighters skill monkey with ease now. It's just that being a skill monkey is not all that useful.
Any fighter can dump 7 feats (none of them on warrior spirit) to have 9 skill ranks per level over their int+2.
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fighter has 2 skills per level.
at level 3 you can spend a feat to get 1 skill point per level.
then at lv5 you can spend a feat to get 2 skill points per level and not patch up anything else.
then at lv6 you can take the feat or lv7 to for free to get 1 skill point per level.
so at lv6 and spending 3 feats you now have the base skills points per level of the ranger or vigilante. a fighter has 4 bonus combat feats by level 6.
yeah... trying to make a skill based fighter is trading away like everything it has to match the skill points of another class.
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This is wrong. Fighters skill monkey with ease now. It's just that being a skill monkey is not all that useful.
Any fighter can dump 7 feats (none of them on warrior spirit) to have 9 skill ranks per level over their int+2.
As Chess Pwn illustrates, a "skilled fighter," while possible, trades away a portion of his main class feature to equal what other classes have as base. Indeed, trading 3 feats to have the same skills as the ranger at level 6, the fighter has effectively only gotten 1 bonus feat, to the ranger's 2 combat style feats by level 6, and the ranger's companion, and spellcasting. The fighter's chosen skills for 2 of those is also limited based on what weapon group he takes at level 5, while the ranger has free choice of any skill (or can even have multiple skills not at max rank if so desired).
Beyond that, the fighter doesn't play like such a skilled class until level 6, while the ranger (or vigilante) played with their skills for those first 5 levels. Also, saying that the fighter can have 9 skill ranks per level over their int + 2 is a little disingenuous. It's right, but many of those points don't come online until the end of the fighter's life (levels 13+), so for the vast majority of the game the fighter won't have the benefit.
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I have to admit, I am amused with the prospect of playing a fighter who uses barroom brawler to take the Versatile Training AWT so they can be really intimidating/diplomatic/good-at-bluffing for 1 minute.
It's conceivable that you don't need to be diplomatic all day, just a few times a day.
A skill monkey's usefulness depends on the campaign and GM. If you're doing a dungeon delve, you can get away with just physical skills. If you're doing an "intrigue" campaign, that would not be wise.
Personally, I don't mind if a fighter has trouble competing with a good skill monkey. It's a bigger issue that they have trouble getting physical skills without some system mastery. This is just a weakness of the entire system though. A core only wizard can get tons of physical skills (even on top of mental ones) with ease. But several armored martial classes, particularly non-humans, have to stick with 0-2 mental skills. Unchained's skill options help this a bit but it still doesn't feel ideal.
fighter has 2 skills per level.
at level 3 you can spend a feat to get 1 skill point per level.
then at lv5 you can spend a feat to get 2 skill points per level and not patch up anything else.
then at lv6 you can take the feat or lv7 to for free to get 1 skill point per level.so at lv6 and spending 3 feats you now have the base skills points per level of the ranger or vigilante. a fighter has 4 bonus combat feats by level 6.
yeah... trying to make a skill based fighter is trading away like everything it has to match the skill points of another class.
Considering how the fighter gets skill ranks, it's more comparable to wizard skills.
There is still no reason to act like you need a special archetype or build to transcend 2+int skill ranks per level.
Also worth pointing out, the fighter's gaining of skills makes them class skills as well which isn't as common as just bonuses to a skill. Every time they take versatile training its like 2 cunnings and a skill focus (most of the time). The armor version is a cunning plus half a skill focus.
EITHER way, I dont really think the option is best used for creating fighters with 11+int skills. I think its best used to max out intimidate, perception, and either bluff or diplomacy. Now your fighter can participate in social rolls and it cost like..a feat and an armor training upgrade.
Also lore warden's big draw is maneuver mastery more than skills. The skills are cute but its all about the bonus +2 to +8 on generic maneuver checks that adds to improved/greater.
That is kind of the problem. One of the only reasons to choose a Fighter (if you're unwilling to admit Ranger archetypes and Slayers exist) is that they're not magical dudes. They're regular guys who swing swords and fight dragons anyway.
Sadly, the proposed Fighter doesn't work in an anti-magic field.
Also, Slayers and non-magic Rangers exist. It's okay to move on.
I think a lot of the interesting fighter toys that came out in the last couple years are fairly not mundane in their effect anyway. Like "Armor Material Mastery" lets you cast Daylight, Haste, or have your armor be flaming depending on what it's made of. You can handwave this away by saying "Mithral is inherently magical, you're just adept at leveraging that" and that's valid.
You can, however, make the same sort of justification for Warrior Spirit. Since you won't get that ability before level 5, you probably already own a magic weapon at that point and that weapon is the one you prefer to use. So it's more of a "through skill you take advantage of the magic that's already inside of the item" than "you are inherently magical".
To circle back to the occultist for a moment, the whole schtick of that class is "there is magic inside of all manner of mundane items, if you know how to look" and I don't know if it's all that weird to have the fighter agree, at least when it comes to weapons and armor.
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I think a lot of the interesting fighter toys that came out in the last couple years are fairly not mundane in their effect anyway. Like "Armor Material Mastery" lets you cast Daylight, Haste, or have your armor be flaming depending on what it's made of. You can handwave this away by saying "Mithral is inherently magical, you're just adept at leveraging that" and that's valid.
You can, however, make the same sort of justification for Warrior Spirit. Since you won't get that ability before level 5, you probably already own a magic weapon at that point and that weapon is the one you prefer to use. So it's more of a "through skill you take advantage of the magic that's already inside of the item" than "you are inherently magical".
To circle back to the occultist for a moment, the whole schtick of that class is "there is magic inside of all manner of mundane items, if you know how to look" and I don't know if it's all that weird to have the fighter agree, at least when it comes to weapons and armor.
Honestly "the guy who doesn't use magic" should be the barbarian. Its truer to the original versions of the class, and even now one of their better rage powers is anti-magic, even if its beneficial.
Too few skills. I give everyone a bonus 4 ranks per level in my game, to keep it simple, but if I wanted to go wild, I would completely redefine the number of ranks all classes get, and fighters would definitely get much more.
Depending on your GM the fighter's skill points don't need to be a huge issue. It specifically helps if Profession actually gets some use.
By way of example I played a fighter who was a samurai (rank/title).
It was easy enough to cover climbing, riding and swimming. Stat wise, no problem and really how good do you need to be at these skills for general adventuring. Perception got a few ranks here and there, but the rogue had it mastered. (He kept up to his agreement that nothing would ever sneak up on me.)
Then for flavor I had craft:wagasa (rice paper umbrellas). I only ever had one rank in it. But as my character did it for meditation purposes I just always took a 20. They even sold fairly well since it wasn't something people in the region of the world saw much.
Lastly I took Profession soldier. Which was used for plenty. Basic heal checks for weapon wounds, such as stopping bleeding and avoiding infection. Staying awake on watch. Swaying bar patrons to be friendly via some (terrible)singing and drinking. Scrounging minimal food/drink when on the march. Repairing weapons/armor until a smith could be found. Really a bunch of stuff I can go on about.
In general playing from 1-13, I never felt a lack of being able to do something other than just hit stuff. Plus, as I usually play skill/ability intensive classes, it was real nice to have a new level take about two minutes to add. Lastly, as an adventurer, my party filled the gaps. (Though they got about five minutes before I was kicking open the next door of the dungeon.)
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Honestly "the guy who doesn't use magic" should be the barbarian. Its truer to the original versions of the class, and even now one of their better rage powers is anti-magic, even if its beneficial.
Except barbarian is also "tribal rage magic" guy and has more supernatural toys than any other martial. I feel like most of those toys are thematically on point too; all the berserker, tribal warrior stuff is tied to lots of tropes and mythology.
Fighter could easily fulfill his role of "guy who wins with brawns instead of magical flim-flammery or spiritual aid", if he weren't working against a poor class chassis and the general suckiness of feats compared to most actual class features. As it is, I think the best "fights without magic" guy is actually the Vigilante, in no small part because most of his talents are what feats should actually look like.
There's actually a lot off feats+ that exist for fighters, I didn't find most of them until I wrote the guide.
Except barbarian is also "tribal rage magic" guy and has more supernatural toys than any other martial.
That you can leverage both with the same chassis seems like a good thing to me, not a bad thing, and the same for the fighter.
Either way if someone doesn't want their character to have a more magical bent, they can just not take the more overtly magical class options and that's fine.
Either way if someone doesn't want their character to have a more magical bent, they can just not take the more overtly magical class options and that's fine.
Problem is though if the "this is pretty clearly not mundane" options for the fighter are mechanically better than the "this is pretty clearly mundane" options, you're running into the "to build a viable monk, you have to be an archer" problem.
Sure, a build for the class exists that is very effective, but it doesn't necessarily reproduce the fantasy of the class all that very well or support a bunch of different visions.
That's not really a problem here though. Warrior Spirit is very good but its primary contribution is more damage, something Fighters have never really been lacking in. If anything it's kind of hard to justify taking it over options that patch up the fighter's holes, especially early and mid game.
Well, you can use Warrior Spirit to put the "Training" enchantment (from Inner Sea Intrigue) on your weapon so you can pick up another combat feat with it.
Devote a Move action to Barroom Brawler and a Standard to Warrior Spirit and suddenly you have two combat feats you didn't have 6 seconds ago.
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Except barbarian is also "tribal rage magic" guy and has more supernatural toys than any other martial.That you can leverage both with the same chassis seems like a good thing to me, not a bad thing, and the same for the fighter.
Either way if someone doesn't want their character to have a more magical bent, they can just not take the more overtly magical class options and that's fine.
Oh, I didn't mean it as a negative thing at all; I think the Barbarian is great as it is. Just noting that it would be weird to think of it as the "anti-magic" guy when it's pretty much the most magical martial without a spell list.
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BARBARIAN CONFIRMED FOR FIRST FULL-BAB CASTY.
BARBARIAN BECOME WHAT BARBARIAN HATE.
EXCEPT AM NOT SQUISHY, SO IT AM OK.
I think given that the bloodrager exists (and is almost certainly the best designed class in the ACG) we can let them do the "tribal rage magic" thing and make the barbarian more mundane.
Though you could probably use a more nature oriented tribal magic warrior, honestly.
Like the enlightened bloodrager?
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Honestly "the guy who doesn't use magic" should be the barbarian.
No, the "the guy who doesn't use magic" should most definitely not be a PC class. An adventurer (i.e. most PCs) not using magic in a setting with widely aviable, save and reliable magic is akin to a soldier in our times who's not using firearms (or other modern technology). Which is fine in personal life, but it just doesn't work well in a group of trained professionals semi-trained quasi-professionals. Such a soldier would heavily rely on his teammates while contributing very little himself, and even that only in few situations. Sounds exactly like the main complaint about fighters, doesn't it?
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This does not track. Plenty of people in the fantasy settings I'm familiar with have absolutely no intrinisic magical abilities. Wasn't the vast majority of the Fellowship of the Ring, for instance, "guys that don't use magic"?
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While Tolkein is often a point of contention, not one member of the Fellowship of the Ring besides Gandalf, and maybe-kind-of-sort-of Legolas in one instance, displays any abilities beyond what a 3rd to 5th level Pathfinder character is capable of, so they don't track as well into the broader world of Pathfinder. In a way, you're not really saying "Look at these examples of non-magical heroes" you're saying "Look at these guys who were too low level for magic items to be common".
While in many ways Lord of the Rings is considered "high fantasy", from the perspective of what's possible in Pathfinder LotR is very much a "low fantasy" game, where magic is largely the province of a select few guardians and dangerous enemies.
Presumably, if Aragorn were a Pathfinder Ranger, he never actually hit a high enough level to gain spellcasting, and most of the special or magical gear the party got their hands on (cloaks of elvenkind, mithril chain shirts, minor magic weapons) all fit within the WBL of a 3rd to 5th level party. If the Fellowship of the Ring had ever had to directly deal with a CR 8+ equivalent challenge without Gandalf, and particularly without a magic plot device protecting them, Middle-Earth would be swarming with orcs right now.
That's also kind of where this issue with the Fighter class grows from; many people want the Fighter to always be Gimli or Boromir, but Gimli and Boromir aren't appropriate for mid and high level play. Think of it this way- wizards start out as Gandalf the Grey; they've got a few tricks, more skills and knowledge than the average person, but they'll still have to run away from a gang of orcs or goblins riding wargs. Eventually though, the wizard evolves from Gandalf into more and more powerful concepts, eventually ending up as something that would be appropriate in a really high-powered anime like Naruto Shippuden, where the top tier "casters" are creating their own dimensions, transforming into colossal god-beasts, creating moons, mind-controlling entire countries, etc. Fighters, meanwhile, generally start as Gimli and spend the rest of their careers as Gimli. If they're really lucky and the player knows how to find and leverage the supplements that are out there, at some point they go from being Gimli to being Bruenor Battlehammer.
I'm a little fuzzy on the exact details (he's very vague on what is specifically "magic") but I seem to recall that magic was basically an angel-only thing.Didn't Gandalf once say something to the effect of "I once knew every spell in all the tongues of Elves, Men and Orcs"?
And besides Gandalf was one of those angels.
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So don't take warrior spirit if you don't like the fluff of it? It's far from mandatory.
I mean you say:
Well, I'm not trying to say that anyone that wants their fighter to be able to make any sword light afire is having wrongbadfun,
but then you go on to act as though the option merely existing is bad.
What I was responding to was this:
No, the "the guy who doesn't use magic" should most definitely not be a PC class. An adventurer (i.e. most PCs) not using magic in a setting with widely aviable, save and reliable magic is akin to a soldier in our times who's not using firearms (or other modern technology).It's a definitive statement on setting, and that's what I have an issue with. Why are we making so many definitive statements on setting in a non-PFS thread? If your world is medium/high magic, then that's great, but outside of PFS that isn't a necessary assumption. It's hard to say "Well, there shouldn't be anyone that doesn't have magic because that doesn't work in this setting" when the most famous work in the setting involves a bunch of people with no intrinsic magical abilities. Heck, in general, the reason why so many mundane characters have Weapon Of Plot Device in order to allow the Mundanes to keep up with the Magicals.
Please note that this is a fluff vs crunch argument. It is not to say that fighters don't need SOMETHING to balance them out with the mystics. It is to say that I don't think we should make a definitive statement about the setting in the game that models a story where, say, when none of the Lannisters or Targaryens have any magical powers (Khaleesi can be described as a Daring General Cavalier with Improved Eldritch Heritage - Draconic), and one of those powered Starks is a Ninja.
The game's mechanics work a certain way regardless of the setting. If you're playing Pathfinder with anything like the game's default assumptions, characters are going to need magic to keep up after a certain point.
I guess you could do a GoT-inspired game where everyone has to play a class with no spells or supernatural abilities, but at that point you're banning 8/11 classes in the CRB, all but one of the APG classes, 7/10 ACG classes, and significantly restricting the options of the classes you do allow. That's a pretty hefty hatchet job. And even after all that, a lot of the system math will get wonky at higher levels without at least allowing ABP: Base Attack automatically goes up every level, AC does not.