Please review honestly but gently? :P
This is an Archetype for an Improvised Weapon focused fighter, let me know anything you think is vastly over powered, vastly under powered, or just confusing.
Thanks!
Fighter Archetype: Bricolager - Improvised weapon Fighter
/brēkōˈläˈZHer/
Weapon and Armor Proficiency
A Bricolager is proficient with all simple weapons and with light and medium armor and shields (including Tower shields)
The Bricolager gain either Catch Off-Guard or Throw Anything as a bonus feat.
This alters the fighter’s weapon and armor proficiency.
Unusual Focus
Bricolagers may treat specific items used as improvised weapons as if they were proficient for the purposes of taking feats that require weapon proficiency. I.E. They could take Weapon Focus (Shovel), Weapon Focus (Guitar), or Improved Critical (Chair).
These examples should also serve as examples of the correct level of specificity. Weapon Focus (String instrument) is too general, Weapon Focus (Velvet Upholstered Hepplewhite Chair) far too specific.
They may only do this for items used as Melee weapons if they have Catch Off-Guard, or for items used as thrown items if they have Throw-Anything. If they have both they can do both.
Impromptu Shield (Ex)
You not only know how to beat someone with a chair, you know how to use a chair to stop them from beating you.
Starting at 3rd level, you can pick up or hold an object and use it as an improvised shield with no penalty.
Objects like a metal plate, a small pot lid, or a book function as a Buckler.
Objects like a mid sized pot lid, a frying pan, or a small stool function as a Small Shield.
Objects like a large kettle lid, a small end table, or an ornamental crest or shield function as a Large Shield.
Objects like a large table, a wide bench, or a door taken off its hinges function as a Tower Shield.
(Sizes in the examples, except in Small Shield and Large Shield, are descriptive not specific game mechanic size categories)
They are considered improvised weapons, function fully as shields of their category including AC bonus, Max Dex (for Tower), Armor Check Penalty, and Arcane Spell Failure change.
Items that function as a Small or Large shield may be used to Shield Bash exactly as if they were shields of that type, and work with any feats or special abilities that work with their shield type.
This replaces Armor Training 1.
Weapon Training (Ex)
A Bricolager gains access to four new weapon groups, [Thrown Improvised Weapons], [Light Improvised Weapons], [One-handed Improvised Weapons], and [Two-handed Improvised Weapons]. They treat each of these as normal fighter weapon groups which contain any object used as an improvised weapon that meets their description.
They must take one of these 4 groups as their group for Weapon Training 1. Weapon Training 2-4 function as normal. (You may take either standard weapon groups or Improvised weapon groups with them)
Improvised Weapon Groups are also legal choices for all Advanced Weapon Training options that affect a chosen weapon group.
This alters Weapon Training 1 and Advanced Weapon Training.
Weapon Mastery (Ex)
The Bricolager must select a specific type of Improvised Weapon (as described in Unusual Focus) for this feature.
This alters Weapon Mastery.
There's a difference between being able to do something, and being good at that thing. This archetype falls very squarely in the realm of being able to use improvised weapons, but not actually being good with them. For all the class features this archetype provides, a shovel is still no better than a non-masterwork spear. That's fine at 1st level, but you will very quickly fall behind expectations. Even if you do allow for magical enhancement of these improvised weapons, it doesn't really solve the problem. If you have to seek out a weapon crafter to enhance your shovel... at that point you're putting so much effort into it that the weapon isn't really improvised anymore and is now just a cosmetic change to a spear.
To solve the problem with improvised weapons, you will need to make sure they track along the expected power curve of magical weapons while still satisfying the idea that they are improvised; that the fighter can just pick up random objects to use as weapons and shields and use them effectively. However, it will also need to come with appropriate downsides to compensate for the fact that this saves a substantial amount of gold investment on equipment. I would suggest looking at the Gloomblade to get an idea of what the balancing point is for a Fighter that gets such free enhancements.
I want to avoid making the archetype inherently magical, but I do see your point.
This can be partially alleviated by Gloves of Improvised Might from Adventurer's Armory 2 (Basically an Amulet of Might Fists for Improvised Weapons).
I guess my question to you would be, beyond giving them say Warrior's Spirit Advanced Weapons Training for free at 5th level, what sort of thing do you think would be an appropriate power?
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Actually improvised weapons have one big advantage over a spear and that's the shikigami style feat line. There's nothing equivalent for other weapons. If the intended user of this archetype knows about shikigami then no worries, if they might not then you might want to switch out fighter bonus feats for feats in that style line.
One thing I wonder about though, an improvised weapon expert should IMO be good at using different weapons. Getting specialised in just chairs seems odd. Also there's the improvisational focus feat which isn't so restricted.
I had Never seen that feat mentioned anywhere before, even in discussions of how to optimize Improvised Weapons builds!
That actually changes a lot of things, probably enough to require a full rewrite...
As for versatility (using many different improvised weapons) that was part of why I included the "improvised weapon groups", with the expectation that many would take the advanced weapon training Weapon Specialist, or if human or half-elf/half-orc the human racial feats that do the same thing.
But i had decided to err on the side of to restrictive on the first pass, so i could open up the functions a bit. Use the Rough and Ready trait as a guideline?
I agree with avr, if I heard of an Improvised Weapon focused fighter archtype, I would expect them to be masters of grabbing anything and using it almost on par with real weapons. I'd expect their damage to be slightly lacking (~95%) of a strictly normal fighter.
Maybe just apply the class feature feats of weapon training to anything that is considered an improvised weapon??
How does this class get magical weapons? Are you able to craft a magical table leg +1 to overcome some resistances? I'm a bit ignorant when it comes to crafting magical items. Maybe this could be another downside of this versatile class, but I could see that not scaling well in power, and if the DM doesn't give opportunities for the improvised weapon to shine, the class wouldn't feel so good.
One thing that would always be a hazard for the Improvised Weapon fighter is the hardness of their weapons. So I think giving them equivalent power is justified for the versatility of having any weapon any time.
Ok, second pass after looking as some feats I didn't know about and making minor adjustments to increase effectiveness.
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Fighter Archetype: Bricolager - Improvised weapon Fighter (take 2)
/brēkōˈläˈZHer/
Weapon and Armor Proficiency
A Bricolager is proficient with all simple weapons and with light and medium armor and shields (including Tower shields)
The Bricolager gains Catch Off-Guard and Throw Anything as bonus feats.
This alters the fighter’s weapon and armor proficiency.
[u]Equipment Suggestion[/u]
Magic Weapons are built into the assumptions for Fighters. A Fighter without a level appropriate Magic Weapon won’t function at full capacity. Fortunately Adventurer’s Armory 2 has solved this problem for the Improvised Weapon User.
Gloves of Improvised Might are a Glove Slot Wondrous Item. They may be enchanted with weapon enchants up to an effective +5, and grant those powers to any improvised weapon the wearer wields.
Quickmetal Bracers are a Bracer Slot Wondrous Item. They grant a weapon you wield the effects of a special material, Silver, Cold Iron, or Adamantine. The specifically work with Improvised Weapons.
A reminder about the Fragile weapon quality, and magic item durability.
A Fragile weapon gains the Broken condition if you roll a Natural 1 on an attack roll. If it is already Broken it is instead destroyed. A Magic (or masterwork) item with the Fragile quality does not have these weaknesses unless the specific item description says it does.
A magic item with a numeric bonus (eg a +2 sword) gain +2 Hardness and +10 HP per +1 bonus (eg our +2 sword get +4 hardness and +20 HP).
So when using Gloves of Improvise Might, your Improvised Weapons, even if fragile, only break if actively sundered, and gain the improved hardness and HP due their enchantment level.
Improvisational Focus
At 1st level the Bricolager gains Improvisational Focus as a bonus feat.
This replaces the 1st level Fighter Bonus Feat
[u]Fighter Bonus Feats[/u]
Suggested feats: Shikigami style, Shikigami Mimicry, Shikigami Manipulation, Chairbreaker, Improvised Weapon Mastery
Impromptu Shield (Ex)
You not only know how to beat someone with a chair, you know how to use a chair to stop them from beating you.
Starting at 3rd level, you can pick up or hold an object and use it as an improvised shield with no penalty.
Objects like a metal plate, a small pot lid, or a book function as a Buckler.
Objects like a mid sized pot lid, a frying pan, or a small stool function as a Small Shield.
Objects like a large kettle lid, a small end table, or an ornamental crest or shield function as a Large Shield.
Objects like a large table, a wide bench, or a door taken off its hinges function as a Tower Shield.
(Sizes in the examples, except in Small Shield and Large Shield, are descriptive not specific game mechanic size categories)
They are considered improvised weapons, function fully as shields of their category including AC bonus, Max Dex (for Tower), Armor Check Penalty, and Arcane Spell Failure change.
Items that function as a Small or Large shield may be used to Shield Bash exactly as if they were shields of that type, and work with any feats or special abilities that work with their shield type.
This replaces Armor Training 1.
Weapon Training (Ex)
A Bricolager treats Improvised Weapons as a Fighter Weapon Group.
When they gain Weapon Training 1 they must take Improvised Weapons as their Weapon Group. For Weapon Training 2-4 they may take other weapon groups or Advanced Weapon Training as usual.
Improvised Weapon Group is also legal choices for all Advanced Weapon Training options that affect a chosen weapon group.
This alters Weapon Training 1 and Advanced Weapon Training.
Improvised Weapon Supremacy (Ex)
In the hands of a Bricolager, Improvised Weapons are especially deadly. The Critical multiplier of Improvised Weapons they use is x3, and they cannot be disarmed while wielding an Improvised Weapon.
This replaces Weapon Mastery.
This looks good imo. You would just have to run the numbers and see if anything is too out of the ordinary
Gloves of Improvise Might does seem to cover a weakness of improvised weapons, thats nice.
Since the character might be constantly grabbing weapons, you might want to have a similar guide for weapons as you have for shields.
How strong is a leg table one handed? Two handed? Thrown frying pan?
Having a guide for what the DM has to give you would make it easier to convince the DM to allow this archtype :D
Sorry, I bought AA2 because I use a lot of stuff from it, and I forget that a lot of stuff in it isn't necessarily well known, especially rules stuff that isn't Feats or Magic Items.
It has a whole bunch of stuff for improvised weapons, including the following sidebar.
Also I hope it's ok to quote from player's companion books like this on the forum.
Adventurer's Armory 2 p.23 wrote: TYPICAL IMPROVISED WEAPONS
Most improvised light, one-handed, and two-handed weapons appropriately sized for a Medium character should deal 1d4, 1d6, and 1d8 points of damage, respectively.
The following examples of improvised weapons adhere to this guideline.
Light Weapons: Arrow or bolt (as melee weapons), book, bottle, broken bottle, bucket, chisel, frying pan, kitchen knife, rolling pin, scissors, skull, spade, straight razor, or tankard.
One-Handed Weapons: Branding iron, candlestick, chain, chair leg, crowbar, femur, grappling hook, scabbard, scepter, shovel, or walking stick.
Two-Handed Weapons: Brazier, chair, digging bar, metal pipe, ornamental greatsword, pitchfork, Small statue.
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