|
Hey all, looking for some advice on houserules for the fighter. I've been thinking about how to give the fighter class a bit more of a boost so it does better both in its role as the main "fighter" of the party, but also a little better when fighting something is not the best approach. In other words, I'm focusing one making the fighter, stand out more in combat, while not allowing him to overshadow other martial completely in it, but also let other martial's keep their more "out of combat" shtick over the fighter.
Now, the advanced training options have done wonders to help with this, buuuut, I feel like it still wasn't -quite- enough. So I did a bit of tinkering and came up with the following, some stuff has been seen before, but, other bits, I think may help as well that I haven't seen.
1. 4+int mod, and perception/acrobatics as class skills. Simple, easy, been done, but effective.
2. (EX) Intensive training-
Let the fighter gain access to full feat chains from one feat investment as long as he meets other prerequisites. IE, instead of having to take vital strike 1, 2 and 3, he takes vital strike, and gains access to the later versions for free once his BaB meets the requirement. this would work for only combat feat chains, (IE cleave chain, any style feats etc), however if this is too much, we could limit it to a specific amount of feat chains, and attach it scaling, like, at level 5, a fighter can choose one feat chain, he gains access to those feat chains. IE, at level 5, he could take vital strike as his chosen feat chain, he would then gain the vital strike feat at level 6. Or some variation of this. It simply allows the fighter to get MORE out of a single feat than other classes can. (in a better way than combat stamina IMO) I would REALLY like your thoughts on this idea, as it was my most recent, and I haven't sat down to think through the best way to implement it.
3. (EX). Spell Sundering Weapons-
Add the option for the fighter to sunder spells like a barbarian as an advanced weapon training. It would function just as a barbarians rage ability, save that the fighter can use it only when wielding a weapon from one of his chosen weapon groups for his weapon training ability, and only a number of times per day equal either half his fighter level, or double his weapon training bonus. When he gains the weapon mastery ability, he can instead sunder freely with his chosen weapon/weapon group. (finally, no longer stopped by silly walls!)
4.EX. *Insert name here*-
Have any weapon in a fighters chosen weapon group from weapon training count as magic for the purpose of overcoming DR/magic when wielded by the fighter. simple, but nice.
5. Add the weapon equivalent of Master Armorer to advanced weapon training options, call it Master Weaponsmith?
6. Allow weapon focus/spec to apply to weapon groups, instead of a specific weapon.
I'm mostly looking for thoughts on my ideas, but if you had/have ideas of your own feel free to list them out!
Being able to get talents instead of bonus feats has always been an idea of mine.
A fighter can already access enough skills to be labeled a skill monkey.
Barroom Brawler + Abundant Tactics -> Advanced Weapon/Armor training gives the fighter access to a large number of skills on an as needed basis.
Martial Versatility already allows combat feats, e.g. Weapon Focus, to apply to entire weapon groups.
Item Mastery(Dispel) already lets the fighter attempt to break spells a limited number of times/day, and can be chosen as needed with Barroom Brawler -> Advanced Weapon Training -> Item Mastery. It also allows for for more.
Warrior Spirit allows the fighter to add actual magic to his weapon.
If you take Master Craftsman & Craft Magic Arms & Armor you can make both weapons and armor.
If you are worried about skills, give them some free ones based on the Advanced Armor/Weapon training that they can pick.
Otherwise I suggest the stamina rules or some free.
Give fighters rage and let them take rage powers as feats just like the viking archetype but more powerful
Advanced weapon training does fix many issues. But giving 4+ skills per level would be a good addition.
|
|
@ ginger jack
The idea would be they are limited in how many times per day they could dispel. Likely equal to double their weapon training bonus. (So 2 times a day at 5, 4 times a day at 9, 6 times a day at 13 etc) and at 20 they can sunder as an action whenever they want using their specified weapon, just like a barbarian can rage cycle that level. They just get it 3 levels later. In other words, it's a much more limited resource than a barbarians, technically speaking.
@ Volkrath
Yes, but you would be hard pressed to do all of that, and pass as more than efficient in combat, like I said, I agree the advanced training options gave a lot more,well, options to a fighter, hell, one of my favorite glaive builds abuses the trained grace weapon training for up to +12 damage for glaive.
I actually overlooked the item mastery feat, and will look into it, but I feel that weapon focus/training should already apply to groups, even if it was for everyone and not just the fighter.
As I rethought about my idea for weapon training giving counts as magic, I decided that I'm going to, at least in most of my games, make spirit warrior an EX ability. Thanks for the idea, I like that much better.
There is no need to force a fighter to take 2 feats and blow skill points on craft when it makes perfect sense to just let him choose the weapon version of Master Armorer. Especially since it competes with a plethora of really nice other options.
@ others,
I don't want rage powers, however, I do feel a fighter should have an answer to magic barriers, there is a reason you always see a barbarian take that rage power, its damn broken.
And while Talents would be cool, but I feel would be a bit too much in depth work for what I am looking for.
Also the AWT option for feat chains sounds nice, though I was think more like, at 6, 12, 16, or some variant of that, a fighter could "choose" a feat chain, and gain feats from that chain as long as he meets the prerequisites.
Re your ideas:
1: I do that (except heal instead of perception). Not a problem
2: I do that, but it applies to anyone. As the fighter gets more combat feats it affects him more
3: Certainly should need a feat and various limitations but broadly OK
4: Not much point. By the time this matters he should have a magic weapon.
5: Don't understand
6: I do that
The fighter generally fights OK, but he does need something to do outside a fight, and he does need better Will saves.
I strongly recommend Background Skills. It helps a lot with rounding out characters and making them a bit less useless outside their immediate speciality, while not increasing combat power. I give 2 skp at 1st level plus 1 per level afterwards.
Stamina is an unbalanced mess. A few feats give a useful ability but most are utter junk and remembering them is a pain, so almost all stamina points bar the last one get used for the bonus to hit granted by the basic feat.
If you really want to change up how fighters get skills I suggest 2 + Con mod. This keeps your fighter dumb and now he's bigger.
I have a some changes that affect all characters and added a few that specifically affect the fighter:
1) All characters choose which mental ability score they gain Skill Points from.
2) Most skills have at least 2 options for which ability modifier they use (ex Acrobatics is either Str or Dex, Heal is either Int or Wis).
3) Any character who has at least +1 BAB gains the inherent feats of Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Deadly Aim, and Weapon Finesse.
4) Any feat the makes a character choose a specific weapon (ex Weapon Focus)instead chooses a fighter weapon group.
5) Modified the Fighter weapon group a little.
6) Modified the Heal skill (blended the Heal unlocks and ideas from Kirthfinder's version of Heal), to make mundane healing useful.
7) At first level all characters gain 1 rank in their class skills (this increases the maximum rank per level by 1), and they gain a bonus to class skills equal to 1/3rd their level, and a bonus to non-class skills equal to 1/5th their level.
Fighter Only:
1) Added Heal, Knowledge (History, Local, and either Geography or Nobility, player's choice, all four can be used with Wis instead of Int) and Perception as class skills to the fighter.
2) Increased their Skill Points to 6/level (if it's good enough for the Ranger, it's better for the Fighter).
3) Gave them an ability based on the Inquisitor's Monster Lore (I think it might be a bit overdone, but to me, the Fighter should know how to deal with foes). And yeah, the name is bad, never been good at that.
Hard Knock Wisdom (Ex):
Whether from training or personal experience, information relevant to defeating his foes is literally or figuratively beaten into him. Because of this, at 1st level, the fighter adds his Constitution modifier on Knowledge skill checks in addition to his Intelligence modifier when making skill checks to identify a creature, its abilities, and/or weaknesses. He is not considered untrained when making checks of this nature. In addition, starting at 4th level, a fighter treats his fighter levels as ranks in Knowledge for making checks to identify a creature, its abilities, and/or weaknesses.
Interesting ideas. Some are similar to what I have done in my own homerules collection, so maybe I can add something more to what you've already done:
Point 1: I'd do that for all classes: 2 extra skill points per level. 2 skill points is too low for anyone. That would be an alternative to the "background skills" optional rule from Pathfinder Unchained, though.
To the fighter in particular, I would give good Reflexes save, since it's a class trained to dodge incoming threats anyway.
Point 2: I would rather rewrite most of the feats, since a huge part of them is incredibly underpowered, useless, or giving diminishing returns when going along the feat chain. For example, I have a single feat that gives the benefits of Vital Strike, but you get better benefits based on your BAB (one extra weapon die every 8 points of BAB, better than a standard attack, but worse than a full attack).
Point 3: This would be good as a feat chain of his own, such as a spinoff of the 3.5 Spellcaster Harrier chain, which already does something similar. And PF1 is compatible with most 3.5 feats by definition, so...
Point 4: I have removed DR from the game. A better solution. I only have damage resistance, which halves damage of a specific kind. It works for every class in the same way.
Point 5: See point 2.
Point 6: This is ok as a feat rewriting, but I think a fighter should not get hampered in its versatility on the battlefield, so I would rather have a feat that gives benefits when a fighter uses any weapon from any group he has Weapon Training for, than just a single group.
I also have introduced Weapon Proficiencies by groups instead than just simple, martial, and exotic, and reworked Weapon Training to work for all groups the fighter has proficiency in at the same time and at the same level of efficiency. Obviously, the fighter would start with more groups than anyone else, much like a rogue starts with more skill points or a barbarian with more hit points.
I'd be tempted to mention Kirthfinder's fighter but then I realized it doesn't really do that "Utility" bit you wanted.
Rogue Genius Games has their Unchained Fighter supplements. Legendary Games also has their Legendary Fighters supplement. I haven't looked at Legendary Fighter specifically, but I have all the others and they're really awesome.
Personally I have always felt that there were 2 issues with the Fighter specifically and martial classes in general.
1) Full attacks need to be a standard action. The only one that is really hurt by having to choose between movement vs full attacks are core melee combatants such as your Fighter, Barbarian, etc. Ranged martial types hardly notice the limitations of multiple attacks due to not having to move around as much, and casters can cast reality melting spells every round and STILL move.
2) Nerf the living hell out of the magic system. Yes, you heard me. The creep of the magic system within D20 games (and D&D / Pathfinder specifically) has grown exponentially over the years and has reached the point were anything that isn't a full caster is a sub-par class. This is not a flaw of those non-caster classes but rather is a significant flaw with the design and creep of the magic system, spells and caster classes in general. Don't think I'm right with this one? Why do you think Pathfinder Society set a hard cap on character level at 12th? They knew the same to be true. The system becomes too unbalanced the higher you go. This was the same reason the very popular E6 sub-system was designed.
So how do you fix it?
One of the biggest ways I addressed this was to remove spell trigger & spell completion items from my campaign setting almost entirely. This means scrolls, wands and potions took a HUGE hit. No more could a caster walk around with dozens, if not hundreds, of spells ready to be cast at a moments notice. Potions were still around although their appearance dropped to about 20% normal for a PF game, and the rule of potions only containing spells level 1 - 3 was strictly enforced. Secondly not every spell was represented in potion form, and magic item creation feats were completely banned as a PC option.
Secondly I hard capped the spells at 6th level.
Third I capped the campaign character limit at 11E with NPC's hard capped at 10th. Then I went through with a black marker and made a list of character classes and races appropriate to the campaign. If it wasn't on the list it wasn't welcome at the gaming table.
The Christmas tree effect of magical items was addressed through progression bonuses as the characters leveled.
The assumption that any item, creature or spell which had ever appeared in any published product was fair game at the gaming table was dropped entirely. Nope, the encounters for each game session (especially published AP's) were reviewed to make sure that balance under these new limitations were being maintained, if not it was updated, edited, or omitted as necessary in order to do so.
The magical market place where virtually anything could be bought or sold was another major area which had to go with this setting change. Magic items could still be bought and sold mind you, but the assumption that ANYTHING could be found and bought was completely dismissed. Magic items were (like in previous editions) assumed to be the rarest of the rare and only appeared more or less by accident.
Magic items take an enormous amount of effort and time to create, not to mention specialized labs, forges, etc. These facilities were frequently so expensive to set up that they had to be sponsored by local governments, and thus were large stationary affairs. (This is why item creation was banned for the adventuring PC, they simply didn't have the time and access to the facilities to create such things on the fly any more.)
NOTE: Because I KNOW someone will say, "But these rules only encourage your whole party to be casters" I would point out that no amount of rules will stop your players from attempting to manipulate a campaign setting and finding every possible way of breaking it. My suggestion is simply this: explain WAY in advance the type of campaign you will be running. Get the full support of each player before the campaign starts, explaining to each in turn that seating at your table for this campaign will be limited and only those interested in the setting should sign up. Should the player prove they are unwilling to comply with the theme of the campaign simply remove them from the game. <gasp!!> Yes, it is no shame or failure to acknowledge that there is a bad fit for a campaign.
Alternately if your group as a whole feel they simply don't like the limitations in place, you can always call an "all bets are off" and allow them to recreate characters without such limitations.
There are many ways the Fighter class (and other Melee / Martial classes in general) can be "fixed" but the bottom line is they are not ultimately the problem with the system. The system works beautifully up to a certain point, what that point is each gaming troupe will have to decide for themselves. The above suggestions was the point at which my gaming group decided was enough for our needs. Your mileage may vary.
Just use the existing core rules to multiclass a few dips into other areas of interest (same way as other classes dip fighter to front-load some feats and grab martial weapons and heavy armor proficiency).