Actually, yeah, isn't Fighter basically "Oops! All Subclasses!"?
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Like the original design idea behind the Fighter and Monk is that these are the classes through which you design your own subclass as you go.
the fact dnd has fighter subclasses and unique ones at that should show PF fighter should aswellSo, in your mind, even though Paizo is legally required to be less like D&D, it would be better for them to, instead, try to be more like D&D?
That more Pathfinder copies D&D, the happier you would be?
I don't think anyone is saying that. For my part it's simply a consistency of design thing. Other classes have their sub-class dials, often multiple dials in the case of spellcasters. I'm not sure why such dials weren't included for fighters and monks beyond perhaps a "we want this class to be simple and intuitive to play" perspective. Unfortunately with so many feats to consider, I actually think fighter and monk are much more complex than classes like barbarian, investigator, or ranger. Among the useful features good sub-classes provide is scaffolding to facilitate player choice for particular families of builds (much like the doctrine + deity).
At any rate I certainly wouldn't expect it. There's a million other things I'd rather have the devs working on. And we have house rules for this kind of thing.
For me at least, I wish fighter had subclasses so it could have some theme or stuff outside of “hit good”. Maybe I haven’t seen all the feats, but based off what I’ve seen there isn’t really anything I can use to fit into a “theme” like I can other classes. It’s just swinging a weapon or blocking, nothing that allows for flavor.
Sure there are archetypes but you don’t get those till level 2. Given how I want my character to be flavorful, the only way I’d start out as fighter is if I am able to dual class, cause then I can use that other class to establish character flavor and theme
There's not really a reason to have subclasses for classes that don't have core abilities to build off of, and the philosophy of expanding on core tools in subclasses has been pretty consistent through post-launch classes.
Oracle's mysteries are linked to it's Oracular curse, Swash subclasses give you ways to build Panache, Psychic Conscious Minds give you amp spells and spells known, Gunslinger Ways give you new reload actions, etc.
Fighter doesn't really have a signature feature to do this with.
Weird, while there isn't anything overarching like panache I could swear that they both did have abilities that didn't have to do with feats, proficiencies, or skill ranks. Not sure why you have to have an overarching game-like mechanic to build a sub-class system off of. I'm not sure that things like deity would qualify as a sub-class in the design paradigm you're suggesting.
My approach for fighters was to take a closer look at the weapons they gain early mastery with and play around with all those other special abilities they actually have.
The Fighter's only class features besides it's increased proficiencies are better Initiative, better Will saves vs fear, AoO, and Combat Flexibility. The only one of these that is remotely unique is Combat Flexibility, and it's just more feats. It emphasizes the Fighter's nature as the "Build a Bear" class.
Monk's core feature, on the other hand, is Flurry of Blows. It's a rather plain feature with no bells or whistles attached that signposts that Monk is an action efficiency class. There's not too many ways to tweak it compared to more complex mechanics, and it already has fantastic feat support for that.
Meanwhile, something like a Cleric's deity or a Witch's patron is central to each class's concept as a whole. In addition, both impact the classes' core feature of spellcasting via domains and changing your tradition, respectively.
The only subclasses that don't really do this at all...
Exactly
A fighter without subclasses or anything outside those four things is just boring imo.
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I really like cackle, I'll go further than saying it should be made baseline and personally I want it to be a part of every spell a witch casts, a built in meta magic that they must use if they want to cast at all. After all, laughter is the best medicine so it would probably be pretty awesome!
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Ah, the crocodile is choosing chaos, I see.
Well, it made me laugh.
What does "subclass" mean?
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What does "subclass" mean?
The different preset ability sets within classes. Like Thief for rogues or Paladin for champion or Precision for ranger. Things that add flavor and/or mechanics within the class but are (mostly) mutually exclusive to each other.
I was using it to refer to those special archetypes like Runelord, so that's egg on my face.
A fighter without subclasses or anything outside those four things is just boring imo.
Yes the archetypes available enable you to do different things. But the Fighter has plenty of opporutunity in class with athletics and the feats it has available. A fighter subclasses with it's weapons and skills.
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I have too little experience with casters to really comment on that, so I'm left with ranger, fighter and rogue. Fighter is about as fine as you can get and ranger is close. I'd like to see Hunted Shot be exclusive (no taking it via the archetype), so the ranged fighter cannot just nab that and be an almost objectively better archer for no reason.
The only one I'd like actual changes to is the rogue - specifically two subclasses. Eldritch Trickster needs to be actually useful past the first few levels - having a subclass with a shelf life is poor design. Mastermind needs to be somewhat divorced from its complete dependence on Recall Knowledge - it's range of effectiveness is from "you basically do not have a subclass" (way too often and especially when it actually matters) to "I have permanent flat-footed now" (in any campaign set in 1 location with only really one type of creature you fight - usually urban campaigns). That's just not healthy, which is why the Thaumaturge didn't do it.
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Actually, yeah, isn't Fighter basically "Oops! All Subclasses!"?
I'd agree. And here I'd actually ask, 'is a sublass needed?'. And for those who compare to D&D 5E, please remember that feats are a little easier to get over here in Pathfinder.
What design space will a subclass fill, and how will it work? What would make a subclass A fighter different from a subclass B while still needing the standard fighter chassis to build on?
The only ways I can think of to differentiate are based on actual combat style. Archer, two-hander, sword and board, just to toss three out there. Except ... well, what will you give them? What will you emphasize, and how will you enact it? What will make a Figher (Archer) distinct from a Fighter (Shield) and how will that progress through the levels?
About the best I can come up with Fighter and Monk 'subclasses' would be general build styles. Feat chains that are intuitive so if that meets your needs you can see where you're going to a feat that will make you better. It does 'lock' those feats, like a Mountain Stance monk taking Mountain Stronghold, but I think it still works.
To me the fighter has always sort of been defined by the absence of defining features.
People say they’re “weapon masters” but I always felt that was a pretty narrow field, like am I to believe the swashbuckler isn’t a master fencer? Or the rogue isn’t a master of daggers, or whatever else.
So really most Martians are a weapons master, it’s just fighters are “masters of many?” Maybe? But then how many players play fighters switching between and ace and a sword and hammer etc.
Not many in my experience. So really I think the fantasy of the fighter is very thin. It’s the absence of definition for me.
If the fighter class had never existed I don’t think it’d be missed much. Not in the same way a cleric or a wizard would leave a gaping chasm in the fantasy if they never existed.
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I used to think the Swashbuckler should just be a Fighter. Once Swashbuckler came out on its own, I gave up, and now if a flavor concept seems like it should be built into Fighter somehow my default stance is that it should either be another class or and archetype because *gestures broadly at everything so far*.
Love it or hate it, Fighter is a highly effective, simple, beginner-friendly, flavor-neutral package. At this point, it's better to just embrace it as it is.
Edit: Also, Chromantic Durgon <3 said Martian instead of Martial and I think that's just the best.
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I used to think the Swashbuckler should just be a Fighter. Once Swashbuckler came out on its own, I gave up, and now if a flavor concept seems like it should be built into Fighter somehow my default stance is that it should either be another class or and archetype because *gestures broadly at everything so far*.
Love it or hate it, Fighter is a highly effective, simple, beginner-friendly, flavor-neutral package. At this point, it's better to just embrace it as it is.
Edit: Also, Chromantic Durgon <3 said Martian instead of Martial and I think that's just the best.
Masters of ray guns and flying saucers!
What design space will a subclass fill, and how will it work? What would make a subclass A fighter different from a subclass B while still needing the standard fighter chassis to build on?The only ways I can think of to differentiate are based on actual combat style. Archer, two-hander, sword and board, just to toss three out there. Except ... well, what will you give them? What will you emphasize, and how will you enact it? What will make a Figher (Archer) distinct from a Fighter (Shield) and how will that progress through the levels?
About the best I can come up with Fighter and Monk 'subclasses' would be general build styles. Feat chains that are intuitive so if that meets your needs you can see where you're going to a feat that will make you better. It does 'lock' those feats, like a Mountain Stance monk taking Mountain Stronghold, but I think it still works.
Here are fighter subclass ideas
maybe a drunken brawler fighter where unarmored defense is increased aswell as bonuses to improvised weapons and unarmed natural weapons
Or a fighter subclass where you wield a sentient weapon and stick with that same weapon and never change weapons, and that weapon grows more powerful as you gain levels. Like Excalibur or something like that.
Fighter subclasses wouldn’t have to be based around certain weapons. You can come up with lots of cool subclasses with a class like fighter.
Most of the 5e fighter's subclasses riff on this same theme, to my memory. Champion is the brutally simple warrior, battlemaster focuses more on techniques, samurai is about bursts of high-accuracy attacks, cavalier draws aggro in fights. , but the latter serves as kind of a multiclass deterrent. The 2e fighter doesn't replicate these 1:1 but the way its feats create playstyles for loadouts is pretty similar - dual-wielding is multiple high-accuracy lower-damage attacks, reach is battlefield control, free-hand inflicts conditions, you even have the Intimidating Strike line for something a little more oddball that's not particular to any loadout.
They aren’t the only “oddballs”. Rune knight… psi warrior… echo knight
And even then, stuff like samurai lets you add wisdom to persuasion checks
Or champion that gives half proficiency in all strength/dex/con checks
That isn’t to say pf should copy subclasses from dnd, because it shouldn’t
But I feel subclasses would be a nice addition. You can have a basic subclass that doesn’t do much for new players but also provide subclasses like the brawler I mentioned or a sentient weapon wielder that would fit nicely into fighter
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What design space will a subclass fill, and how will it work? What would make a subclass A fighter different from a subclass B while still needing the standard fighter chassis to build on?The only ways I can think of to differentiate are based on actual combat style. Archer, two-hander, sword and board, just to toss three out there. Except ... well, what will you give them? What will you emphasize, and how will you enact it? What will make a Figher (Archer) distinct from a Fighter (Shield) and how will that progress through the levels?
About the best I can come up with Fighter and Monk 'subclasses' would be general build styles. Feat chains that are intuitive so if that meets your needs you can see where you're going to a feat that will make you better. It does 'lock' those feats, like a Mountain Stance monk taking Mountain Stronghold, but I think it still works.
Here are fighter subclass ideas
maybe a drunken brawler fighter where unarmored defense is increased aswell as bonuses to improvised weapons and unarmed natural weapons
Or a fighter subclass where you wield a sentient weapon and stick with that same weapon and never change weapons, and that weapon grows more powerful as you gain levels. Like Excalibur or something like that.
Fighter subclasses wouldn’t have to be based around certain weapons. You can come up with lots of cool subclasses with a class like fighter.
Those are archetypes, not Class specific Subclasses.
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Everything else aside, a sentient-weapon-wielder is 100000% an archetype. (Or an ancestry, lookin at you Battlezoo!)
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The Fighter's only class features besides it's increased proficiencies are better Initiative, better Will saves vs fear, AoO, and Combat Flexibility. The only one of these that is remotely unique is Combat Flexibility, and it's just more feats. It emphasizes the Fighter's nature as the "Build a Bear" class.
Monk's core feature, on the other hand, is Flurry of Blows. It's a rather plain feature with no bells or whistles attached that signposts that Monk is an action efficiency class. There's not too many ways to tweak it compared to more complex mechanics, and it already has fantastic feat support for that.
Meanwhile, something like a Cleric's deity or a Witch's patron is central to each class's concept as a whole. In addition, both impact the classes' core feature of spellcasting via domains and changing your tradition, respectively.
The only subclasses that don't really do this at all...
Perhaps it's more useful to think about what "build a bear" doesn't build. Soldiers - I cannot build a convincing soldier, unless I select the Hobgoblin ancestry. However, my expectation is that out of the box, a fighter can easily be used to build a soldier. However, if you sub all of those bells and whistles around combat flexibility, then you can do something interesting in that space. Moreover, I see an issue with the "build a bear" approach. All fighters in PF2 are bears but not all fighter concepts are. And so there is a delta here where the supposed flexibility fails.
Now we could argue that we could use archetypes here but, as any semi-optimizer is going to tell you, either you want to multi-class as a caster for those tasty spells or you just straight up want a fighter feat, because many of them are very good. So in practice, you don't use archetypes to turn fighters into soldiers. Just selecting feats doesn't get the job done.
Regarding the monk, it has at least four core features, one of which is flurry. The other three are: 1) stances, 2) unarmored defense...
How are you not able to build a convincing soldier with the Fighter chassis? I feel like a lot of people playing this game have surely done that before.
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Current fighter lacking of defender subclass that can trade his legendary weapon proficiency to legendary armored and unarmored defence and probably some reaction that allow him defend allies.Same goes for champion that should have offensive subclass
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My only big ask is removing the whole "slow Advanced Weapon proficiency" thing from Fighters. It does very very little.
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I mean, the thing that subclasses mostly do for other classes is "gate access to feats you will take later". Like you don't get Dragon's Rage Breath unless you're a Dragon Instinct Barbarian. But fighters can take whichever fighter feats they want, even if they're unrelated to the other fighter feats a player has taken (just go ahead and take some archery feats on your greatsword fighter, it's fine.)
The other thing subclasses do is frontload something on the class chassis, but fighters already start out with the best weapon proficiency, free shield block, and AoO. They don't really need more stuff out of the gate.
Current fighter lacking of defender subclass that can trade his legendary weapon proficiency to legendary armored and unarmored defence and probably some reaction that allow him defend allies.Same goes for champion that should have offensive subclass
Both already exist.
The first one is called "play a champion". The fighter is a weapon specialist, so if you take that away, you are taking away the class.
The offensive champion subclasses - with a little less sass - are called Paladin, Tyrant and Antipaladin. They could use more feat support, but they most definitely exist. Paladin and Tyrant at least are both extremely effective.
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I used to think the Swashbuckler should just be a Fighter. Once Swashbuckler came out on its own, I gave up, and now if a flavor concept seems like it should be built into Fighter somehow my default stance is that it should either be another class or and archetype because *gestures broadly at everything so far*.
Love it or hate it, Fighter is a highly effective, simple, beginner-friendly, flavor-neutral package. At this point, it's better to just embrace it as it is.
Edit: Also, Chromantic Durgon <3 said Martian instead of Martial and I think that's just the best.
I remember when they released SoM and I saw the class archetype concept in practice, I stopped and thought:
"Wow, come to think of it, the 4 APG classes could have been class archetypes and would probably be in a much better situation than they are today."
Because conceptually we should stop to think:
Investigator: In short, it could have been a class archetype for a rogue or even a ranger, or even a racket, as a good few of his feats were also incorporated into the rogue.
Oracle: Could have been a class archetype for sorcerers, maybe bards too! Because if we stop to think about it, mechanically he is a sorcerer with bonuses and drawbacks from curses who doesn't need to keep buying focus spells with feats and gets light armor for free.
Swashbuckler: It could very well have been an archetype class for rogues, perhaps also for fighters. This way he could maintain the rogue's sneak attack or the fighter's high hit and crit skill. It would be much more functional and interesting than the panache and finishers we have today.
Witches: It could have been an archetype class for wizards, maybe even for druids, clerics and maybe even bards (ok this last one would be the most forced). But if it were just for mages it would be the easiest to do, I would force the thesis to be that of a familiar (or simply leave it without being forced to have a familiar) and I would change the mechanics of schools for hexes.
I will say
Fighter subclasses/archetypes aren’t as big of a deal thanks to Paizo making other interesting martial classes such as Investigator, thaumaturge or Magus
Current fighter lacking of defender subclass that can trade his legendary weapon proficiency to legendary armored and unarmored defence and probably some reaction that allow him defend allies.Same goes for champion that should have offensive subclassBoth already exist.
The first one is called "play a champion". The fighter is a weapon specialist, so if you take that away, you are taking away the class.
The offensive champion subclasses - with a little less sass - are called Paladin, Tyrant and Antipaladin. They could use more feat support, but they most definitely exist. Paladin and Tyrant at least are both extremely effective.
Champion is very specific deity focused class class so he dont really fit into all archetypes of defender warrior And fighter is rather fighting style specialist rather than a weapon specialist
Paladin is pretty good class but i wont call him offensive he still focused on protecting his allies.Tyrant suffer same problems as all evil champions(they are unable to trigger their reaction unless they become a target and that is hard for them because they build on defensive class chassis) and as bonus his reaction is not working on many enemies like mindless undead or golems| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Everything else aside, a sentient-weapon-wielder is 100000% an archetype. (Or an ancestry, lookin at you Battlezoo!)
I hate it when my weapon wielders aren't sentient! ;P
On a serious note, Artifact Archetypes can do this.
Everything else aside, a sentient-weapon-wielder is 100000% an archetype. (Or an ancestry, lookin at you Battlezoo!)I hate it when my weapon wielders aren't sentient! ;P
On a serious note, Artifact Archetypes can do this.
Wait Really?!?
Omg omg I wanna wield Excalibur what archetype are you talking about?!?!
Alchemist and witch need a boost.
My choice would be to make alchemist master bombers. Witches more focus on hexes and cackle/chanting, less focus on witches.
To answer the question of the thread.
Everything else aside, a sentient-weapon-wielder is 100000% an archetype. (Or an ancestry, lookin at you Battlezoo!)I hate it when my weapon wielders aren't sentient! ;P
On a serious note, Artifact Archetypes can do this.
Wait Really?!?
Omg omg I wanna wield Excalibur what archetype are you talking about?!?!
Treasure Vault made a new kind of Archetype, the Archetype Artifacts. There are only 2 so far.