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There are Fighter-specific Combat Feats... they just happen to also be available to Magi, Warpriests, select Bards...
The fact that they even thought to think that any number of Combat Feats would be "good enough" to sum up a soldier is shortsighted, lazy, and wrong. May the designers of the PF1 Fighter class stub their toes every day for the rest of their pathetic natural lives.
I don't think the Fighter's Bonus Combat Feats are bad. They just needed to have Advanced Weapon Training and Advanced Armor Training out of the box, and something like Ranger Combat Style for a subset of their feats, and more skill ranks per level rather than having to fall back on the kludgy Adaptable Training and Versatile Training(*).
(*)The analogous Versatile Performance is also kludgy on the Bard, but at least the Bard has more skill ranks to start with, and doesn't have other vital Advanced Armor Training and Advanced Weapon competing for the same scarce slots, so it's less noticeable.
What I DO think is bad is the enormous profusion of feat taxes, so that even for things that don't explicitly require levels in Fighter, even a Fighter ends up being sorely pressed to fit them all in. And then other classes get ways to bypass some of the feat taxes and Fighter doesn't (again, a Fighter Combat Style like what Ranger gets would go a long way towards addressing this).
Demanding that everything be right on the first try is a bit much. D&D 3.0 bards had 4 base skill points (from a longer list than in PF), a skill tax in the form of the perform skill and nothing like versatile performance. OK, it'd be nice if the turnaround time was faster than 15 years as it was on the fighter...
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^Also, they should have learned from D&D 3.x that 2 skill points per level doesn't cut it for anybody (not just the Fighter) who isn't an Intelligenc-based caster.
A Wizard still getting 2 + INT mod for skills is still puzzling. I get that the class uses Intelligence as its key ability, but wizards are often seen as knowledgeable and as book worms, so bumping it to 6 + INT mod would have been more suitable.
^Also, they should have learned from D&D 3.x that 2 skill points per level doesn't cut it for anybody (not just the Fighter) who isn't an Intelligenc-based caster.
I think they figured that lessening the total number of skills would be sufficient.
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No class should get only 2+Int mod skill points.
Martials should get 6+Int mod.
Full Casters should get 4+Int mod.
Skill monkeys should get 8-10+Int Mod.
All other classes should get 6+Int mod.
Alchemist get 4+Int mod skill points, I think Wizards could have that as well.
I don't think the Fighter's Bonus Combat Feats are bad. They just needed to have Advanced Weapon Training and Advanced Armor Training out of the box, and something like Ranger Combat Style for a subset of their feats
It's kinda silly that you say the bonus feats aren't bad... but you'd still want to change them!
Bonus Feats as the main class feature is terrily because they're not really a selectable class feature that allows character shaping choices.
Such character shaping choices come in three forms:
1) Daily: Mostly spell preparation, Shaman's Wandering Spirit/Hexes, and the Medium's spirit.
2) On levelup: Spells known, rage powers, etc., doesn't have to be every level up
3) One time: Domains, bloodline etc., mostly done at first level
I don't count feats, skills, and equipment because it should be obvious that options that literally every class can take have to be relatively weak (otherwise almost every character would take them, cf. Leadership for what happens when this rule is broken). I also don't count choices that don't affect playstyle and only grant minor numeric bonuses, such as a Fighter's weapon training.
Archetypes are technically one time choices as well, if these are included depends on what we want to compare.
Naturally, the more choices you can make, the more you can (in general) shape your character. Also, the more often you can make choices, the more flexibility the character can have. Daily choices don't add power over on levelup choices, but they add a lot of flexibility.
The following classes are generally accepted to be the weakest ones in Pathfinder: Fighter, Brawler, Rogue, Cavalier, Samurai, Gunslinger, Swashbuckler, Monk.
Apart from the Rogue *, you'll notice that none of these classes have a daily or on levelup choice **. Cavalier and Samurai have a one time choice at first level, while the others don't get to make any character shaping choices at all. It's also noteworthy that there are no classes lacking daily or on-levelup choices that are generally considered good.
Now, choices don't automatically contain strong options (few rogue talents are better than feats), some fixed class features are fairly powerful as well (like rage), and there are options that offer choices to make on the fly, like wildshape or a Summoner's SLA (not character shaping by definition, but can be very powerful). But if you look at both power level and flexibility, there's almost no getting around having class features that allow character shaping choices fairly often.
*) Whoever thought that a pure martial with medium BAB, no accuracy increasing abilities, d8 HD, and the worst possible saves a PC class can have was a good idea?
**) Fighter got on levelup choices with AAT and AWT, while Monk got on levelup choices with UnMonk's Ki Powers and Style Strikes.
End spoiler
Choices that everyone can select have to have a lower power level, that's a vital part of the fundamental design of the game because otherwise, characters would be dominated by the generic options, and classes wouldn't matter. That means that while rage powers, rogue talents, alchemist discoveries, revelations, evolutions, hexes, magus arcanae, ninja tricks, exploits, investigator talents, slayer talents, ki powers, wild talents, mesmerist tricks, focus powers, phrenic amplifications, and vigilante talents are all allowed to be stronger than feats (in theory, for rogue talents -.-), a bonus feats class feature logically can't do that.
Now, Fighter-only feats kind of do fill the spot of Fighter's exclusive selectables, but not only do those suffer from designers treating them too much as ordinary feats (for the allowed power level), the whole thing is inserting a square peg into a a round hole. What's the difference between Fighter having bonus combat feats and exclusive feats, and Fighter having a selectable class feature that offers the exclusive options as well as the choice to take a bonus combat feat? If you make an "Extra X" feat, nothing changes for the Fighter, but a non-Fighter-player doesn't have the feat list clogged up with options they can't possibly take. You could also not do an "Extra X" feat, thereby limiting the amount of selectables a Fighter can have, which would allow even greater power or impact for those.
A selectable class feature would also be the easiest way to do things like grant a Ranger Combat Style, as the Slayer shows. I'd do that differently, though: I'd tie lists of prereq-ignoring bonus feats to the weapon groups. Right now, weapon groups are a negligible selection, nowhere close to e.g. bloodlines or even the already-too-impactless domains. I'd have the Fighter select a weapon group at first level, granting a prereq-free bonus feat from a list specific to the weapon group than, and also (with expanded lists) at intervals at higher levels.
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Saying so-and-so has a high INT so they don't need any more skill points is hypocritical from a class design viewpoint.
Only if skills are a focal point of the class.
For classes where something is not an intended strength of the class, they shoud start at, not above, the average.
For classes where something is an intended strength of a class, they should start above the average.
Having classes start behind the average because you know they'll invest into something is bad design. However, things that scale off your primary ability score don't take any investment, so if you're already having e.g. Int as your primary ability score, anything that sclaes off int you get for effectively no investment.
How does that look in practise? Despite their 2+Int starting point, a Wizard character starts with 6-7 skill ranks per level, which is on par with a 4+Int class with Int as the secondary attribute (e.g. Alchemist or Occultist), or a 6+Int class with Int as a tertiary attribute (e.g. Bard or Inquisitor). A 6+Int class with int as the secondary attribute (e.g. Investigator), as well as a 8+Int class with Int as a tertiary attribute (Rogue and Ninja) will start above that, which is the correct starting point (from a balancing viewpoint) for classes where skills are an intended strength of the class.
A skill-heavy class is supposed to be have more skill ranks than a Wizard, if you give the wizzy more than 2+Int skill ranks per level, your perverting that.
It can be seen in the above that the skill ranks for a class where skills are an intended strength of the class aren't at something like 12 per level, but only about 2 above average. Which logically suggests that classes where skills are an intended weakness of the class should be about 2 below average, which means that a class with Int as a tertiary ability should never have below 4+Int skill ranks, with 2+Int reserved for classes that're supposted to be bad at skills where Int is the secondary ability score.
The problem with Cleric, Sorcerer, Summoner (if you don't count the Eidolon), Warpriest, Paladin, Antipaladin, and Fighter is that those are two steps below average - and that's bad design. Paizo removed another "two steps below average" crap when they removed d4 HD, they should've done the equivalent with skill ranks.
I like that house rule of no class should have 2+int skills. I think I might do that in my next campaign; everyone gets 2 extra skill points per level.
I don't think the Fighter's Bonus Combat Feats are bad. They just needed to have Advanced Weapon Training and Advanced Armor Training out of the box, and something like Ranger Combat Style for a subset of their featsIt's kinda silly that you say the bonus feats aren't bad... but you'd still want to change them!
It's not silly to say that they're good as far as they go but that they don't go far enough, which was what I was trying to say. (Along with the observation that what is in the Weapon Master's Handbook and Armor Master's Handbook should have been introduced in the Core Rulebook or at least in the Advanced Player's Guide.)
Bonus Feats as the main class feature is terrily because they're not really a selectable class feature that allows character shaping choices.
{. . .}
Sure they are -- each time you select a feat, you are building your character, only Fighter gets to do this more frequently and in smaller steps than most other classes. Although the feat taxes do put a crimp in this, which is why I wanted to enhance the Fighter Bonus Feats with a Fighter Combat Style analogous to Ranger Combat Style.
A Wizard still getting 2 + INT mod for skills is still puzzling. I get that the class uses Intelligence as its key ability, but wizards are often seen as knowledgeable and as book worms, so bumping it to 6 + INT mod would have been more suitable.Completely and utterly disagree - a wizard is a spellcaster not a skill monkey. What your suggestion would do would be to negate large components of classes like Rogue and Inquisitor.
At 2+INT a Wizard does absolutely fine for skills - for most builds that means starting at 7/level and fairly quickly getting to 10/level.
For a Rogue just to match that 10/level he has to get to 14 INT... and I have seen plenty of Rogue builds that don't even do that.
SUMMARY: So the class with the most number of spells doesn't get the most skill points either.....LOL... Well boo hoo and play me a violin!!!
They would focus on putting points in multiple Knowledge skills, which would come handy.
The last two sentences lead to a false conclusion due to character and class design.
If a Cleric has an INT 16 (to get more skill points) he's paid for that by decreasing other ability scores, possibly his primary casting ability. So it's not 'free' and choices/investments have to be made.
I ask you to read my post again, because you either missed or misunderstood something. The sentence about gaining skill ranks without investment only applies to classes where intelligence is the primary ability score. A Cleric's primary ability score isn't Int. It's usually strength or wisdom, maybe dexterity or even charisma, but never intelligence. The only classes with Int as the primary ability score are int-based full casters and maybe Silksworn Occultist.
Secondly, if I perform a substitution of Fighter and STR in the above, it argues that anything that scales off STR you get for no investment.
That is correct. And, just like the low skill ranks for Wizards, the biggest by-product of strength is compensated for, in the way of heavy armor weighting a ton!
Sure they are -- each time you select a feat, you are building your character
Yeah... in a way that even a Commoner could do. What I wrote wasn't about building a character, it's about shaping a character. Most feats don't affect how you play your character, which makes them not character shaping. For example, you don't play a character differently because you gained Weapon Specialization last level-up. But if you gained pounce last level-up, you do play your character different (charging the enemy instead of moving around them got get flanking position, for instance).
There are feats that affect what you do in a turn, but unless they require (or are discounted for) class levels or class features, they cannot seperate you from other characters that go in the same general direction. For example, whether you have Precice Shot or not does change what you do in a given turn, but you will never see an archer without it, so it can never be a defining (or even notable) thing of your character.
That depends upon which feats you take -- some are just feat taxes, and some are feat taxes in all but name, but if you go down the Vital Strike Line, you will be specializing in a different line of work from someone who works up to Whirlwind Attack. (I purposely picked 2 examples that don't require you to be a Fighter, but that Fighters and Warpriests are better at than most other classes(*) due to their bonus feats together with Advanced Weapon Training (Focused Weapon) for a Fighter or together with Sacred Weapon for a Warpriest.)
(*)A Magus or somebody similar who can Spellstrike with a multi-touch spell is also in the running, and Rangers with the right Combat Style can even get either of these as bonus feats (but Magi and Rangers have to do without Focused Weapon or Sacred Weapon), but for other martials, the feat opportunity cost of pursuing either of these is usually enough to be a deterrent (unless they also need the prerequisite feats for something else or are going REALLY specialized).
That Spiritualist and Mediums had channel, not to heal the living, but to harm undead/haunts.
That spiritualist had a positive energy/spirit armor/field that protected them from incorporeal creatures and did damage to undead.
That the wood and void Kineticist's elemental defense improved as you level like all the other ones do.
That Clerics got at least one ability specific from their deity, not just domain choices, favored weapon, etc.
^Actually, 1st Edition does have a little bit of deity specifics other than Domain/weapon choices: Look for Obedience, Divine Fighting Technique, "For Followers of {Insert Deity Name}", Unique Spell Rules (including those specific to Clerics), Unique Summon Rules, and Other Rules in each deity's entry; these generally include benefits for Clerics. But I agree that Clerics should have more flavor, and Domains should have been more like mini-Mysteries with deity-specific modifications (right now the only deity-specific modification I know of to a Domain is Pharasma replacing Undead-creation spells with other spells in the Death Domain).
That depends upon which feats you take -- some are just feat taxes, and some are feat taxes in all but name, but if you go down the Vital Strike Line, you will be specializing in a different line of work from someone who works up to Whirlwind Attack.
The issue is not that feat can't shape your character, it's that they for the most part simply don't. Sure, WWA is character shaping... but unless you can ignore the prereqs, you have to take four feats that aren't to get to it.
Note that my paper about Character Shaping Choices is drawn from observations of the actual game. It's like physics, where you creates equations that describe, understand, and predict what is observable. It can (and should) help create interesting new classes, but it's still strictly based on the existing classes, class options, and, yes, feats. I do think that feats should have much fewer prereqs, feat chains should be merged, and gateway feats should be removed. But the reality is different. There are feats that shape your character, but the overwhelming majority of feats taken by characters aren't. Some of it is a crippling number of prereqs, some of it is lack of power, some of it is feats coming online too late for most games to even be in consideration (hello Spell Perfection). There are a few feats that break the concept, most notably Sacred Geometry and the mentioned Leadership. Oh look, those are the two most banned feats in the game. Well, that's a strange coincidence!
Oh, and to be clear: Using VS when you could full attack is not the feat shapign the character, it's the player making a terrible choice in a desperate attempt to get a character shaping effect out of a feat that doesn't do that on its own.
Ultimately, it is what it is - with feats as they are, the Fighter's Bonus Feats class feature does not allow Fighters to differentiate themself from the pack.
Think of a character's sheet as a résumé in a job application - what does the character have that seperates them from the other applicants? What would your character say when asked about what they can do? "I can shoot a bunch of arrows, with a bunch of bonuses." At this point, the Fighter who made a good selection with a Character Shaping Choise says "I activate Warrior Spirit to grab Cyclonic or to grab Training to ultimately get Flight Mastery." A Fighter who relied on feats just sits there, looking stupid.
Don't get me wrong, Fighter is better than many other classes (even without AWT), because it can go into multiple different directions, even without archetypes - something that the likes of Swashbuckler or Gunsligner can't. But it either takes until 9th level, or does require a feat (at which point we're using feats gained from class features to gain class features... if only there was an easier way to get this result!) to get a character shaping choice.
{. . .} There are feats that shape your character, but the overwhelming majority of feats taken by characters aren't. Some of it is a crippling number of prereqs, {. . .}
Which Fighter and Warpriest help with by having so many Bonus Combat Feats.
{. . .} Oh, and to be clear: Using VS when you could full attack is not the feat shapign the character, it's the player making a terrible choice in a desperate attempt to get a character shaping effect out of a feat that doesn't do that on its own.
Not always a terrible choice -- if you have to hit and move often, and especially if you are often up against very high AC enemies, it's not bad -- with Sacred Weapon, Focused Weapon, or just a really big weapon (especially Butchering Axe), you concentrate a good fraction of (eventually) 4 hits into 1, at your highest attack bonus (and if you also have Weapon Trick (Two-Handed Weapon) and Cleave/Great Cleave, you can even spread the hurt).
Ultimately, it is what it is - with feats as they are, the Fighter's Bonus Feats class feature does not allow Fighters to differentiate themself from the pack.
Think of a character's sheet as a résumé in a job application - what does the character have that seperates {. . .} Fighter is better than many other classes (even without AWT), because it can go into multiple different directions, even without archetypes {. . .}
And that is multiple different directions that can be different for different Fighters. That's precisely because Fighter (and to a lesser extent Warpriest) has so many Bonus Combat Feats. Don't get me wrong -- I would have liked to have seen some of them made into a Fighter Combat Style special bonus feat feature like Ranger Combat Style, and I would have liked for the Advanced Weapon Training feat to have a less severe limit on how often you can take it -- but as far as they go they are a decent start.
My understanding of why Leadership and Sacred Geometry are often banned is not because they let you make more unique characters, but that they drag out in-person game sessions(*) (while also being allegedly overpowered in the case of Leadership), while not being quite core enough the way the Summon Monster/Summon Nature's Ally spells are (on these boards, in the days before 2nd Edition it sounded like a lot of people wanted to ban those for the same reason as banning Leadership, but felt that they couldn't get away with banning them beyond banning Master Summoner).
(*)I'd be interested to see how often these are banned in PbPs -- I have followed a number of PbPs, and while I wouldn't swear that none of them banned these, certainly not very many of them did -- even so, out of a couple of handfuls of PbPs, Leadership was only used rarely (with most of the instances of it being concentrated in one awesome Wrath of the Righteous PbP), and Sacred Geometry not at all -- the latter doesn't surprise me, because it looks like a pain to use from the point of view of the player as well as the GM.
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Sacred geometry is rather more obscure than leadership. It is however possible to systematise the maths and do it quickly and reliably if you're that kind of person, getting a couple of metamagic feats for the cost of one - which also don't require increased spell slots. This is regarded by most who have considered it very stinky cheese.
Wasn't that big on deific boons but I wanted something that was unique from each deity.
Examples
Abadar- Create a magical shelter(size based on level), detect precious metals/gems, or create/summon mundane objects, etc.
Desna- Shooting stars(magic missile 1/day per level), coat of many stars(as heaven's oracle mystery), or guided by the heavens(know direction, low-light vision, +1/level to survival checks not to get lost) etc.
Urgathoa- Undead companion, kinetic blast(negative), or summon monsters gain an undead template, etc.
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Not much about a difference per say, but...
Descriptions for a deity's behavior toward their followers.
That might be coupled with Divine spells in which the caster can interact with the deity itself.
That Druids got more nature bond options other then the few we got. Such as Shifter claws/keen senses, fast healing, kinetic blast(wood), etc.
Detect Magic and Read Magic as Universal spells... so every class would give them at the start. Case-in-point: if an Occultist doesn't have a Divination Implement, it doesn't get access to those spells :S
I can see Read Magic as a universal spell.
What if every class with cantrips got Detect Magic for free?
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I'd prefer to just get rid of cantrip detect magic and allow item identification with spellcraft alone. Spamming detect magic to find every magic aura you come across wasn't a thing in 3.5 and it has weird effects on the game.
The identify spell is still there to fill any gaps this creates.
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1) I would have simply give an alternate option for mount-less Cavaliers and Samurais. I get that some archetypes do this, but at the core, I would have split the mount-related abilities into a fighting style and give them both a mount-less style, similar to what a Paladin or Druid can get.
2) I would simply expand the list of mounts for Paladins, Cavaliers and Samurais depending on the level, and NOT make it complicated.
"Is your companion one size bigger than you? Then it can serve as a mount."
"You can pick any companion at 4th or 7th that fit that criteria."
That every class had alternate options for bombs, companions, favored enemies, mounts, etc.
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Paladin/Antipaladin DR… I’ve always believed their DR was backwards… why should a Paladin who trains their whole life to fight evil be resistant to attacks from everything that isn’t Evil? And vise-versa for Antipaladins…
Paladin/Antipaladin DR… I’ve always believed their DR was backwards… why should a Paladin who trains their whole life to fight evil be resistant to attacks from everything that isn’t Evil? And vise-versa for Antipaladins…
Because Evil has trained to fight Paladins, and Good has trained to fight Antipaladins?
That every class had the option to get cantrips and maybe first level spells from any one class of their choice. Caster level, number of spells, and number spells known,spell book, etc. would be based on character level.