...Fighters are as good as everyone else with every single weapon.
But better with a select weapon group. They get the critical benefit of every weapon they use without qualification.
Considering that the fighter is "good as everyone else with every single weapon" is trying to ignore the fact that having +2 proficiency is not relevant for the fighter and ignoring that without it he has no way to compete with the extra damage of a barbarian or inventor, the precision of investigators, rogues and swashbucklers, the fusion of magical damage from a spellstrike in addition to eventual arcane case bonuses and so on.
They are the least limited with weapons in the game.Yes, I agree, until you are forced to specialize in a weapon group. When that happens you are as limited or more limited than any other martials in the game.
The rest of the fighter's chassis is balanced in proportion to the balance of the vast majority ofOn top of that they get Master Perception with a +2 initiative with Battlefield Surveyor.
Frightened reduced by 1 immediately and crit save on success against fear effect.
All Armor master with specialization by level 17.
Flexible interchangeable daily feats.
They get Reactive Strike for free on top of an extra reactive strike from a feat.
Limiting them to one weapon group being better than everyone else is hardly limiting.
Fighter gets a ton of highly effective, great stuff.
You can even arguably be a better champion as a fighter with Champion archetype because you get shield up all the time defensive stance by level 12. And with the extra Reactive strike, you can use one reaction for champion's reaction and still have another for Reactive Strike.
Viewing the fighter as all based on this one weapon group "limitation" is not looking at the overall fighter chassis which is very flexible and great for building on.
You're focusing too much on the weapon group limitation and too little on the limitations every class has.
The fighter is the least limited class in the game. They use whatever number of weapons in the weapon group better than everyone and every other weapon in the game as well as everyone else until level 19 where they are better than everyone else.
That's why you see things like a fighter with champion archetype being better than a Champion.
Why you can make a fighter with rogue archetype and do insane damage. I am currently playing this archetype and gang up and Opportune Backstab work with any weapon which the fighter can use better, so I'm getting more Reactive Strike damage than normal.
Fighter with Magus is great too as that one spellstrike has a better chance to crit.
You're focusing way too much on the limitation weapon group trying to paint all these other classes as unlimited when they are even more limited than the fighter if you focus on the overall abilities of each class.
The calm spell can completely ruin the barbarian if they fail the roll.
A fighter's special ability is ruined by nothing but what can ruin everyone else's ability to swing a weapon.
I know you know this game YuriP and I usually agree with a lot of what you say, but in this case the line of reasoning just don't add up. Fighter focusing on a weapon group is not limiting. It's in fact more unlimited than all the limitations on the main damage abilities of other classes.
Rogue as an example almost always has to wait until another martial class engages because Sneak Attack is very hard to make work without a flank partner.
Barbarian has to rage. If they aren't raging, they are even worse than the fighter.
Same thing can be said about all the martial classes.
The fighter at worst is just as good hitting as every other martial class with every weapon and when using the one weapon group. better than they are. It always works. It has few limitations. So continuing to count the weapons is about as useful as counting the arcane spell list.
You know that every martial is going to be focused on a single weapon they built up. So the fighter being limited to a weapon they build up is no different than every other martial class.
There is nothing more boring to me than just going through a checklist of most optimal choices. The whole point is to adapt to circumstances. The fighter has a great chassis for adapting to circumstances.
If adaptability is praised this much, then why can't I "adapt" my favorite weapon to multiple situations instead of changing it to something I don't like?
Yes, the fighter has an entire pool of feats that are 'what they can do with the sword that others can't'. They just... don't restrict you specifically to the sword, because why would you need to? Do you really need three different ways to write 'gain +1 circumstance bonus to AC' tagged to different weapons, instead of one good Parry feat?
Besides, you then ask for ways to remove that restriction, so that's just extra hoop-jumping.
Really? Where are the feats with "Expert in the Sword/Axe/Hammer weapon group" as prerequisites?
All in all though, if we imagine the fighter did not have any weapon group restrictions, and someone suggested to introduce them, the question "what problem are you trying to solve here?" would be a tough one to answer. I see it more as giving a nod to the PF1 fighter legacy than actually serving a gameplay design goal.
I'm trying to solve the problem of "not getting caught off-guard in an encounter where my weapon is useless".
"Oh no! My shield broke! I can't fix it yet! All I have is my longsword. If only I could grab it in two hands and get extra damage."
"Oh no! My bastard sword doesn't do much slashing damage! If only I could stab with it and get piercing damage instead."
"I'm super good with my bow, but it would be nice if I didn't need to enter a stance to remove that annoying volley trait. I would use other stances instead."
"I'm super good with my bow, but it would be nice if I could snipe people with Reactive Strike within half of my weapon's range increment."
You'd think that the Fighter would be much better at this than other classes.
There is nothing more boring to me than just going through a checklist of most optimal choices. The whole point is to adapt to circumstances. The fighter has a great chassis for adapting to circumstances.If adaptability is praised this much, then why can't I "adapt" my favorite weapon to multiple situations instead of changing it to something I don't like?
Yes, the fighter has an entire pool of feats that are 'what they can do with the sword that others can't'. They just... don't restrict you specifically to the sword, because why would you need to? Do you really need three different ways to write 'gain +1 circumstance bonus to AC' tagged to different weapons, instead of one good Parry feat?
Besides, you then ask for ways to remove that restriction, so that's just extra hoop-jumping.
Really? Where are the feats with "Expert in the Sword/Axe/Hammer weapon group" as prerequisites?
All in all though, if we imagine the fighter did not have any weapon group restrictions, and someone suggested to introduce them, the question "what problem are you trying to solve here?" would be a tough one to answer. I see it more as giving a nod to the PF1 fighter legacy than actually serving a gameplay design goal.I'm trying to solve the problem of "not getting caught off-guard in an encounter where my weapon is useless".
"Oh no! My shield broke! I can't fix it yet! All I have is my longsword. If only I could grab it in two hands and get extra damage."
"Oh no! My bastard sword doesn't do much slashing damage! If only I could stab with it and get piercing damage instead."
"I'm super good with my bow, but it would be nice if I didn't need to enter a stance to remove that annoying volley trait. I would use other stances instead."
"I'm super good with my bow, but it would be nice if I could snipe people with Reactive Strike within half of my weapon's range increment."
You'd think that the Fighter would...
Well, they are...so not sure what you're talking about.
You seem to want the fighter to do everything with any weapon at will without any limitation even though every single other class you listed has a limitation.
Never seen a fighter with a useless weapon given the only monster in the game you see very often with immunity to weapons are oozes.
You seem to want the fighter to do everything with any weapon at will without any limitation even though every single other class you listed has a limitation.
The other classes do indeed have limitations, but they have unique class features instead.
A Sorcerer has spontaneous spellcasting and bloodlines, while the Wizard has prepared spells and schools, and the Magus can spellstrike, but all 3 can access the Arcane spell list.
An Oracle, a Summoner and a Witch can select spell lists according to , mysteries, eidolons and patrons, respectively.
By this logic, A Barbarian has rage, a Ranger has edges, a Gunslinger has ways, and the Fighter can "adapt".
So, yo be clear, the fighter can already do, like, a ton of these via feats, and you even specifically name Point Blank Stance here - you just... want the current feats to be more powerful, despite everyone in this thread trying to explain to you that the fighter is, already, powerful!
Really? What feats? Show me.
Like, at least the discussion on Versatile Legend has an actual meaningful difference with a clearly stated goal, you just keep asking for the fighter to get feats that do a thing, and when you get told they already have that, insist it doesn't count because your ideal feat would stack with the existing feat. Which, come on, you're not asking for identity here, you're asking for the fighter to have vertical power increases in their feat trees beyond what they already get.
Prove it... and not by number crunching please...
Thank you. I had trouble looking for feats.
Seriously, AoN is free and well organised, do you like... not read the free open archive before insisting things don't exist.
The feat charts have one glaring flaw: it doesn't list requirements. It lists any prerequisite, but not requirements. That makes it a bit harder to look. Also, the description is often all fluff instead of "straight to the point". That doesn't help either.
Dual Handed Assault, as already mentioned multiple times to you, allows you to... increase the damage of a weapon by using it in two hands.
Guess you forgot to mention that it's a Flourish (1/round), not a regular thing you can do normally.
Dazing Blows let you deal bludgeoning with any weapon (there are like... 10 total creatures weak to piercing)
Provided that the creature is grabbed...
You have Point Blank Stance to remove volley already, live with it. There is no identity-based reason why you need to stack multiple stances
I don't see any gameplay reason to have that trait either...
While ranged fighters will have to tragically (lol) live with not having a reaction, Lunging Stance lets you apply Lunge's effect to your Reactive Strike.
Back in P1E, there was the Snap Shot feat, which allowed you to threaten squares within 5 feet of you and make attacks of opportunities.
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...Fighters are as good as everyone else with every single weapon.
But better with a select weapon group. They get the critical benefit of every weapon they use without qualification.
Considering that the fighter is "good as everyone else with every single weapon" is trying to ignore the fact that having +2 proficiency is not relevant for the fighter and ignoring that without it he has no way to compete with the extra damage of a barbarian or inventor, the precision of investigators, rogues and swashbucklers, the fusion of magical damage from a spellstrike in addition to eventual arcane case bonuses and so on.
They are the least limited with weapons in the game.Yes, I agree, until you are forced to specialize in a weapon group. When that happens you are as limited or more limited than any other martials in the game.
The rest of the fighter's chassis is balanced in proportion to the balanceOn top of that they get Master Perception with a +2 initiative with Battlefield Surveyor.
Frightened reduced by 1 immediately and crit save on success against fear effect.
All Armor master with specialization by level 17.
Flexible interchangeable daily feats.
They get Reactive Strike for free on top of an extra reactive strike from a feat.
Limiting them to one weapon group being better than everyone else is hardly limiting.
Fighter gets a ton of highly effective, great stuff.
You can even arguably be a better champion as a fighter with Champion archetype because you get shield up all the time defensive stance by level 12. And with the extra Reactive strike, you can use one reaction for champion's reaction and still have another for Reactive Strike.
Viewing the fighter as all based on this one weapon group "limitation" is not looking at the overall fighter chassis which is very flexible and great for building on.
The point you're making here is that the fighter can specialize in anything. And I agree. But the point here is, should the fighter really be restricted to having to specialize? What's the point of that? How does that help? What's the balance? Why restrict characters to specializing in the very class that's supposed to be the most flexible?
The issue I'm making here that I agree with the OP is that I don't see the point of this specialization and I see that it's detrimental to some specific builds and strategies. That's why I'm pointing out that it would probably be a more interesting class without this obligation to specialize in order to gain the benefit of proficiency. Because both those who make a specialized fighter wouldn't be penalized, and those who make a more all-rounder fighter could do so without feeling that at level 5-18 it was better to make a champion because at least he would have a higher AC, since the fighter requires specialization in order to obtain his differential, which is a higher proficiency.
Note: The champion is just an easy example, there are other similar options that provide a higher flexibility of weapon switching without losing the main benefits of the class.
Well the current-rules swordmaster gets the axe crit at some percentage, while your modified allmaster gets the axe crit at either that same percentage, 5%, or 10% more often depending on monster AC. AND your allmaster does that extra damage to a nearby foe when she does. How do you not see that as an improvement?Sorry, but I don't understand what kind of mess you're making there. How are you accumulating these critics?Sorry, but it's still horizontal, and even the crit specializations that do more damage can be from your current weapon group that you're specialized inThis is just incorrect. A current 5th level fighter takes Sword master. They pick up an axe and crit with it. They do double damage. Your variant fighter takes All master. They pick up an axe and crit with it. They do double damage AND damage to the target next to it. This is very much a vertical improvement. Your modified swordmaster picks up a bow, crits with it, they add immobilize to the target which a current sword master fighter doesn't get. They punch someone, they add slowed 1. And so on. These are clearly vertical power improvements.
Sorry, but I still don't understand. Please try a practical example to see if I understand. I really don't understand what you want to convey here.
Are you thinking of how to trigger two different specializations on the same foe? Yeah that's tough to do and if that was the only trick your change made, I'd be willing to say it's not really an upgrade. But it's not the only trick. Just consider Pie's skeleton example above: L5 fighter sees skeleton across room. She lightning swaps in hammer for sword before ever wading in. If she's a swordmaster under the current rule, she's gonna hit it with Expert proficiency and do regular crits. Not bad. Maybe worth getting around their resistance. Now if she's an allmaster under your proposed rules, she's going to hit it with Master proficiency and do specialization crits. That's an upgrade. A very clear and obvious upgrade in power over single-weapon-class master. Your proposed rule change from 'one weapon class master' to 'all weapon class mastery' is strictly better and yes it's a vertical improvement letting them increase their expected dpr over the swordmaster in a wide variety of circumstances, such as when you find yourself facing a foe with resistances to your preferred weapon damage type. In no way is your proposed change a horizontal one.You know that you already have MAP-5/MAP-4, right?and it's not like you can switch weapons at crit time to choose the weapon that will use the crit.Of course they can. Fighter gets Lightning Swap as a L2 feat. If they don't want to take that, they can still Release + Interact to draw a new weapon for 1 action.
I still don't understand the big advantage because it's already covered by the versatile and modular, for example Polytool already covers the 3 types of damage and is from the Sword group. In other words, a swordmaster fighter can use this to cause blunt damage to skeletons that are weak against it with all the benefit of his specific proficiency from the sword group.
It's because of things like this that I haven't even gone into the issue of mechanical balance properly and I'm focusing on the issue of thematic build options. Because if someone asks me if it's possible for a fighter to have access to weapons with different traits (specifying which traits he/she wants) without losing the highest proficiency, I'll say yes and I'll probably tell they which group is best and which options he has access to the traits he wants.
And that's why I'm at this point, because so far no one has shown me that the fighter's weapon group specialization doesn't just restrict it from having to choose a weapon group without that just restricting build theme options. Because mechanically it's possible to get around almost everything else.
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That's why I'm pointing out that it would probably be a more interesting class without this obligation to specialize in order to gain the benefit of proficiency.
This seems clearly right; anyone inclined to disagree might remember that it hardly broke the game when, pre-remaster, fighters often had the option to extend their increased proficiency to other weapons via certain archetypes or ancestry feats. As such, it's hard for me to see why there's even much of a debate here.
Still, I do have a soft spot for the archetype of a warrior dedicated to a single type of weapon above all others; evidently, lots of other people do, too, and it seems reasonable that the fighter should represent this archetype as a default. Furthermore, the ability to use a wider range of weapons at increased proficiency does make a character more powerful--though, importantly, not by much (outside of a handful of niche builds).
This suggests a simple fix: just add some class feats the fighter can take to expand their repertoire. For instance, there could easily be a level 6 feat that let fighters choose a second group to use at increased proficiency, and a later feat (with the first as a prerequisite) that extends the benefit to all weapons. (In this case, Versatile Legend would either just let you retrain those feats, or--which would be my preference--be replaced with a different capstone, one that didn't make mostly irrelevant a choice you likely built much of your character's identity around.)
You seem to want the fighter to do everything with any weapon at will without any limitation even though every single other class you listed has a limitation.The other classes do indeed have limitations, but they have unique class features instead.
A Sorcerer has spontaneous spellcasting and bloodlines, while the Wizard has prepared spells and schools, and the Magus can spellstrike, but all 3 can access the Arcane spell list.
An Oracle, a Summoner and a Witch can select spell lists according to , mysteries, eidolons and patrons, respectively.
By this logic, A Barbarian has rage, a Ranger has edges, a Gunslinger has ways, and the Fighter can "adapt".
Fighter was built to be the simple, but highly effective weapons guy. That is what he is. His limitation is being master with one weapon group.
It is pretty much like you said earlier: the other martial classes are specialized warriors or fighters.
The fighter was meant to be the generic weapon's guy because some people want to play a great swordsman or a great archer or a great puncher without any of the other abilities or themes. That's the fighters niche and it's super strong in PF2. Strongest it has been in practically any edition of D&D or PF.
I will say, while I think the OP could have perhaps formulated their point better, I do think they and quite a few others make a valid point of questioning whether the restricted specialization to a single weapon group is truly necessary. As far as I'm concerned, Versatile Legend exists pretty much because otherwise the Fighter wouldn't have a real class feature at level 19, and I'd be keen to see if the class would truly go off the rails if they just had expert-to-legendary proficiency in all weapons from levels 1-13, as somehow I doubt that too. The Fighter is, in my opinion, the least versatile class in the game, and while I don't think that's a huge deal owing to their tremendous effectiveness in combat and diversity of builds, I wouldn't be particularly opposed to at least giving them the option to branch out into switch-hitting a little better by improving their proficiency with another weapon group via a feat.
...Fighters are as good as everyone else with every single weapon.
But better with a select weapon group. They get the critical benefit of every weapon they use without qualification.
Considering that the fighter is "good as everyone else with every single weapon" is trying to ignore the fact that having +2 proficiency is not relevant for the fighter and ignoring that without it he has no way to compete with the extra damage of a barbarian or inventor, the precision of investigators, rogues and swashbucklers, the fusion of magical damage from a spellstrike in addition to eventual arcane case bonuses and so on.
They are the least limited with weapons in the game.Yes, I agree, until you are forced to specialize in a weapon group. When that happens you are as limited or more limited than any other martials in the game.
The rest of the fighter's chassis isOn top of that they get Master Perception with a +2 initiative with Battlefield Surveyor.
Frightened reduced by 1 immediately and crit save on success against fear effect.
All Armor master with specialization by level 17.
Flexible interchangeable daily feats.
They get Reactive Strike for free on top of an extra reactive strike from a feat.
Limiting them to one weapon group being better than everyone else is hardly limiting.
Fighter gets a ton of highly effective, great stuff.
You can even arguably be a better champion as a fighter with Champion archetype because you get shield up all the time defensive stance by level 12. And with the extra Reactive strike, you can use one reaction for champion's reaction and still have another for Reactive Strike.
Viewing the fighter as all based on this one weapon group "limitation" is not looking at the overall fighter chassis which is very flexible and great for building on.
I figure they make them specialize because as we've all seen from theorycrafting and confirmed in play that little +2 to hit advantage is more powerful than anything else any other martial gets in the game.
It seems really unimpressive and boring, but it turns out giving a +2 above everyone else to hit allows you to do immense damage because you crit more often and when combined with a good Reactive Strike strategy, makes you the crazy high damage martial.
I read a long time ago the fighter was the highest damage when theorycrafting using the damage estimation tools. I was surprised and had to test that.
So I tracked damage in the game. Sure enough, for the fighter the damage estimation tool was accurate. The fighter did the most damage in the game due to getting nothing more than a +2 bonus over everyone else with that single weapon group.
That +2 makes them better with everything that requires you to hit something, that uses MAD attacks, and they crit more often and when combined with no MAP reactive strikes is just brutal damage.
So that boring, somewhat limited +2 advantage with one weapon group is better than rage, better than sneak attack, better than hunter advantages, better than strategic strike, finishers, and even the magus spellstrike.
I figure that's why they don't allow it for all weapons until level 19 because that boring, unimpressive looking +2 with one weapon group is an extremely powerful advantage in PF2 that they wanted to put some limitation on given the game is built on Master proficiency which most martials have.
I thought it was an impressive bit of design math by the designers myself to make this simple, boring advantage the fighter gets this powerful ability that doesn't look like it when you first read it. That is why it is limited.
Thematically I think is meant to simulate the fighter who is great with some weapon group they spend the most time studying and practicing with like a great swordsman or a warrior known for being great with axes.
In game, the fighter looks like a weapon master as good as anyone else with every weapon, but particularly great with a single weapon group.
I will say, while I think the OP could have perhaps formulated their point better, I do think they and quite a few others make a valid point of questioning whether the restricted specialization to a single weapon group is truly necessary. As far as I'm concerned, Versatile Legend exists pretty much because otherwise the Fighter wouldn't have a real class feature at level 19, and I'd be keen to see if the class would truly go off the rails if they just had expert-to-legendary proficiency in all weapons from levels 1-13, as somehow I doubt that too. The Fighter is, in my opinion, the least versatile class in the game, and while I don't think that's a huge deal owing to their tremendous effectiveness in combat and diversity of builds, I wouldn't be particularly opposed to at least giving them the option to branch out into switch-hitting a little better by improving their proficiency with another weapon group via a feat.
I sometimes get the feeling that the designers didn't know exactly what to do with the fighter.
On the one hand, they wanted to make it a versatile weapon class, specialized in fighting with any weapon, but on the other hand, they wanted it to be the class that specialized in one type of weapon, creating a build where he has several feats and "maneuvers" to make the most of the potential of fighting in a specific style. However, at the moment they restricted it to the fact that it needs to choose a group of weapons, at the same time they gave it the versatility of taking 1, then 2 extra class feats that it can change every morning and a level 20 feat (Ultimate Flexibility) that in practice allows it to take any feat from a lower level class feat and change any of these flexible feats with a 1-hour retraining.
The funny thing is that if your build was intentionally designed to not be so flexible, these features and feats work perfectly as additional feats, helping without hindering, but on the contrary if you want to use different weapons from another group, you have to wait until level 19 and to no more be forced to stick to a group of weapons (usually the one that best meets your need for flexibility), which is contradictory.
It's as if you took a kineticist, gave it access to all the elements without need to choose, and said 'Take from level 1-4 you can take any feat of any element'. Then when you reach level 5 you said: 'OK now you need to choose an element to specialize in and your new feats will have to be of that element and when you become expert in the kineticist DC the other elements will continue to be trained, when you become master the other elements will only be expert' and at level 19 you say 'Now you are legendary with all the elements and can choose any element feat retroactively'.
I don't think the problem was that they didn't know what to put in 19. But rather that they made a contradictory progression.
In fact, it's a characteristic that PF2e had a lot in the beginning, in the first versions of the core book and in the core classes, which was a huge fear of versatility, in my opinion, a trauma from D&D and PF1 that remained in the designers' concept due to some kind of fear that players would take advantage of it too much. But as the system matured, especially from Secrets of Magic onwards, the feeling I had was that this fear was decreasing and flexibility was becoming looser with each new class, more and more flexible with each new rulebook. And the remaster also followed this direction, the alchemist became much more flexible without being penalized in usage limits, addition of additives, and in the use of his higher level items even in his archetype, the monk now has access to combine postures earlier, the oracle had his curses disassociated from focus spells and even from mysteries, becoming more versatile (although it has decharacterized the class in my opinion, even though it is good to play) and so on. But they didn't change the fighter's flexibility because most of its use is as a specialist and almost no one complained about it (and there were a lot of classes to be reviewed, they didn't even have time to look at each one in detail during remaster). Maybe that's why this type of complaint has only emerged now, because after seeing so many flexible classes in the game, it became more evident that when you look at the fighter better you notice that in a way, in the flexibility of changing weapons it was more rigid than he advertises himself to be.
I figure they make them specialize because as we've all seen from theorycrafting and confirmed in play that little +2 to hit advantage is more powerful than anything else any other martial gets in the game.
It seems really unimpressive and boring, but it turns out giving a +2 above everyone else to hit allows you to do immense damage because you crit more often and when combined with a good Reactive Strike strategy, makes you the crazy high damage martial.
I read a long time ago the fighter was the highest damage when theorycrafting using the damage estimation tools. I was surprised and had to test that.
So I tracked damage in the game. Sure enough, for the fighter the damage estimation tool was accurate. The fighter did the most damage in the game due to getting nothing more than a +2 bonus over everyone else with that single weapon group.
That +2 makes them better with everything that requires you to hit something, that uses MAD attacks, and they crit more often and when combined with no MAP reactive strikes is just brutal damage.
So that boring, somewhat limited +2 advantage with one weapon group is better than rage, better than sneak attack, better than hunter advantages, better than strategic strike, finishers, and even the magus spellstrike.
I figure that's why they don't allow it for all weapons until level 19 because that boring, unimpressive looking +2 with one weapon group is an extremely powerful advantage in PF2 that they wanted to put some limitation on given the game is built on Master proficiency which most martials have.
I thought it was an impressive bit of design math by the designers myself to make this simple, boring advantage the fighter gets this powerful ability that doesn't look like it when you first read it. That is why it is limited.
Thematically I think is meant to simulate the fighter who is great with some weapon group they spend the most time studying and practicing with like a great swordsman or a warrior known for being great with axes.
In game, the fighter looks like a weapon master as good as anyone else with every weapon, but particularly great with a single weapon group.
In the past, because of the theory, I would agree with you.
But after following some adventures of different groups with fighters playing, I can now say that in practice, from my own experience, fighters are not that strong, nor that annoying!
I have followed players from 1-20 playing fighter, barbarian, rogue, magus, monk, ranger, investigator, inventor and swashbuckler and I can say that the fighter, despite being a super-solid class, is one of those with the flattest progression. Being very good at the beginning, but not keeping up with the other brands until the end of the game, remaining very similar to how it started.
It's not like the fighter doesn't gain more strength and flexibility during progression, in fact it progresses even faster than the others, but everything is much smoother and focused on feats, while barbarians do things like gigantic with massive spinning attacks capable of hitting practically all enemies in a room with a brutal fury that causes brutal extra damage in huge spinning attacks due to their reach; or rogues who in the end-game not only cause up to 6d6 extra damage, but also add 2 debuffs of their choice (slightly limited by the subclass) and an extra one so strong that it is incapacitating and can only be used once per target, while fighting opponents who are unprepared against it for anything and still disappear in front of them as if it was never there; or monks whose stances allow their blows to become increasingly brutal and they also add this to powerful ki magics that make them much stronger and more flexible, while they move at absurd speeds and reach CAs that compete with the champion until they become some kind of SSJ or have perfect bodies with super powerful accelerated healing; or 2-weapon rangers who start with a slightly smaller map and despite having one more attack need to mark the target first, and at the end of the game they are marking 3 targets with a free action and giving a 6-hit flurry, 2 with MAP-1 and the other 4 with MAP-2 and so on.
The other side is that the fighter gains so many different feats, with so many different actions, reactions and activities, to use in different situations, that as it progresses it becomes less and less "boring" until it reaches a point where there is no shortage of actions and activities for the player to choose according to their taste, need and situation, and it is far from being boring.
That is why I say with absolute certainty that it is an incredible and stupidly solid class and that it is very much worth playing. But that does not mean that it does not have one or two points that could be adjusted (practically every class does) of something useless, forced, or not fun that could be improved without breaking the game or making the class OP. It is so solid that the only real point of criticism I have found about it so far is that of the flexibility limited by a strange progression.
...those who make a specialized fighter wouldn't be penalized, and those who make a more all-rounder fighter could do so without feeling that at level 5-18 it was better to make a champion because at least he would have a higher AC...5-18 you've got +2 to hit over anyone else with your preferred weapon group. That's not nothing. I mean if you don't like it as much as the champion's bells and whistles, that's fine. It's a fun class too. But your statement above makes it sound like the fighter gets nothing at L5, and in fact they get quite a powerful class bonus.
I think you misunderstood.
What I said was that if you want to use weapons that are not from the group chosen in the level 5 feature, such as a bow and a finesse sword, while in the fighter in one of the groups you will be penalized with a lower proficiency, in other classes that do not care about this like champions you will receive the full benefit. In the example of the champion, it is the fact that his benefit of having a higher armor proficiency does not hinder his weapon flexibility.
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I sometimes get the feeling that the designers didn't know exactly what to do with the fighter.On the one hand, they wanted to make it a versatile weapon class, specialized in fighting with any weapon, but on the other hand, they wanted it to be the class that specialized in one type of weapon
The problem has been around a long time in D&D with weapon specialization. I was against it then and still am. Giving a large bonus to one type of weapon only locks the fighter into that weapon. If any class the fighter should be able to be more than that with a range of weapons. A fighter who is a master in one weapon is only one of the many types of fighter.
At least we have good Athletics options.
Sorry, but I still don't understand. Please try a practical example to see if I understand. I really don't understand what you want to convey here.Okay. L5 fighter with sword mastery comes across a skeletal mage. She’s got longsword and Warhammer.
Current rules option #1: she can attack with the sword. She’s at +15 vs. AC 21, with a crit chance of 25%. She’ll get the sword crit specialization if she crits. She loses 5 points of damage to resistance.
Current rules option #1: she can swap out for hammer. She’s at +13 vs. AC 21, so a worse chance to hit and only a 15% chance to crit. She doesn’t get the hammer crit specialization if she crits, but she does avoid the resistance.
Your “Allmaster” scenario: she can swap out for hammer, she’s at +15 so she’s back up to that nice 25% chance to crit, she’ll get the hammer crit specialization if she crits, and she avoids the resistance.
Your allmaster is strictly better. Yes?
So it's as I thought and the answer is no!
Because this mechanical advantage already exists in practically all groups except very restricted ones like bow.
Adapting your example:
L5 fighter with sword mastery comes across a skeletal mage. She's got longsword and a Polytool that is a weapon of Sword group.
Current rules option #1: she can attack with the sword or with the Polytool in slashing or piercing mode. She's at +15 vs. AC 21, with a crit chance of 25%. She'll get the sword crit specialization if she crits. She loses 5 points of damage to resistance.
Current rules option #2: she can swap out for Polytool in Blunt mode (or if it is already with polytool in hand just switch the mudular damage type to blunt). She’s at +15 vs. AC 21, with a crit chance of 25%. She’ll get the sword crit specialization if she crits and she does avoid the resistance.
OK, the Polytool is currently the only weapon in the sword group with blunt damage, so you can’t do that with a 2-handed sword (yet), for example. If the mechanical goal is to have a second weapon that has a different damage type to avoid a resistance or take advantage of a weakness without being penalized in proficiency, then that already exists!
This also happens with other groups, such as brawling, club, firearm, flail, knife, pick, polearm, shield, spear; and this can increase at any time as Paizo introduces new weapons.
In other words, if the player's goal, instead of being thematic, is to take advantage of having the 3 types of damage to benefit from weaknesses and avoid certain physical resistances, this is already possible with almost all weapon groups, even giving the possibility of choosing the group by the type of damage or whether you want a 1 or 2-handed weapon, not to mention combination weapons with concussive guns.
That's why I said, the biggest limitation today is thematic and not mechanical. The player who is more concerned with the mechanical issue already has options, but the guy who wants to make, for example, a Walking Armory style character, the fighter today penalizes him for this choice.
It's as if you took a kineticist, gave it access to all the elements without need to choose, and said 'Take from level 1-4 you can take any feat of any element'. Then when you reach level 5 you said: 'OK now you need to choose an element to specialize in and your new feats will have to be of that elementKind of a strange example to try and prove your point, since the kineticist doesn't get to freely choose from every element...until hey look! Level 17. If you always expanded the portal. So that's like the current fighter, which gets it at 18.
So the kineticist IS living with some specialization. At the same time, the class is not as big a damage-dealer as the fighter. But yet, you really really want to drop the specialization on fighter and make that class stronger?
I know it's a weird and bad example. But I wanted to use it to try to give a better idea of the problem of the fighter being forced to specialize in a single group.
Honestly, for me, if the fighter had a progression mechanic similar to the kineticist and started out being an expert in 2 weapon groups, and an extra group at level 5 and another at 13 or something similar to that like the kineticist does with the elements, it would already be a much more solid solution for both those who want to specialize and those who want to be flexible with weapons. After all, no one really wants to have more than 1 or 2 backup weapons. It would be the perfect representation of Valeros, the iconic fighter, a character who uses a sword, a dagger/short sword, a bow and a shield. It wouldn't be strange for him to choose these 4 groups, or at least in the sword and bow groups. He wouldn't even need to be legendary with all the weapons, he would just need to have access to more than one group at levels much lower than 19 to solve 99% of the problem.
That's why I said, the biggest limitation today is thematic and not mechanical. The player who is more concerned with the mechanical issue already has options, but the guy who wants to make, for example, a Walking Armory style character, the fighter today penalizes him for this choice.But that's... good, right? Because thematics means not every class can fit every character concept, and 'the fighter is good with one group of weapons' is a simple, easy to communicate restriction that matches up to many character concepts, even if it's strictly not true at 1-4. The fact that the sword fighter needs to either use the polytool or something like Dazing Blow to deal bludgeoning at their full proficiency is good! It's thematic!
If you want to be a walking armoury you can go be a precision ranger, who does with hunt prey have the added cool bit that he focuses on his prey then pulls out the best suited weapon for that prey. Using multiple different weapon groups wasn't exactly in the fighter's ballpark in any edition, it's fine, they'll live.
No, for two reasons. The first is that one of the great benefits of the fighter since time immemorial is that it can serve any weapon theme that does not depend on anything supernatural or magic. And as I and others have mentioned before, the advantage of the fighter is precisely that it does not have a well-defined archetype or personality, thus allowing it to be adapted to any type of character concept focused on weapons without depending on magic or supernatural powers, with some other more specialized classes alternatively serving other specific concepts better, such as the ranger, who has the concept of being a hunter/fighter of nature.
Furthermore, the ranger is not the best example to be a Walking Armory (even though Goblin Slayer tries to do this by taking advantage of the opponents' weapons) or a very flexible class because he is much more focused on the concept of the hunter/explorer and 2-weapon fighter, which is kind of a weird thing inherited from D&D (it's something that I think comes from the concept of elves in the first editions of D&D, which are those very Tolkien-esque elves connected to nature with incredible dual dexterity and who demonstrate this by fighting with 2 weapons while walking through the forest and other wild regions as if they were strolling in their own garden that was later transferred to ranger class). Apart from these builds, it lacks feats that help with other weapons like the fighter has, needing to get them via archetypes.
Not sure you're disagreeing. I almost feel like you're carrying on this debate due to wanting to argue a bad position for your entertainment.It's not just that no one has yet managed to counter-argue in a direct and clear way that the point I'm "complaining about", even in agreement with the OP, is not a valid point. No one has yet managed to point out in a simple and direct way that the point I'm defending is invalid, wrong, or already adequately met by the system, or would cause a serious problem for balancing or would prevent/hinder existing builds. Instead, almost all the answers I've been given have been things like "no, the fighter is flexible with weapons but you have to specialize or accept the fact that this type of build will be subpar" where I usually counter-argue by saying 'why? If the idea, even inherited from PF1/D&D, besides being implicit in the class feature and in examples, is precisely for the fighter to be flexible, what is the benefit and meaning of this restriction? Why not simply remove it or add feats that allow for a little more flexibility by taking extra weapon groups?' and the discussion for some reason ends up going back and forth due to attempts to show that I am either seeing things from the wrong point of view, or I did not correctly understand some need for limitation, or it simply goes beyond the scope of allowing a wider range of character concepts built on the fighter by removing or reducing an obligation of specialization along with several normal digressions that occur in the middle of the discussion.
In dual class games fighter is the one class I don't let combine with other martials as combining it with other martial classes makes for an overpowered combination.I'm avoiding getting into this dual-class and archetypes thing because it opens up infinite potential, not just for the fighter, and I also want to avoid possible "band-aid" solutions that I know some people will criticize because they...
I'm going to say I don't think the fighter needs any alterations.
I will also say if you house rule away the weapon group, I don't think it matters a whole lot if someone wants to do it. It will make their level 19 ability meaningless.
Why?
One of the big things we're all kind of dancing around is every martial deals with the rune and weapon issue. If you want to maximize damage as a barbarian, you need a d10 weapon with deadly or fatal or a d12 weapon. Some have posited you can use Double Slice with a couple of picks on the barbarian for max damage, but I haven't used that combat yet so can't speak to it. I know for most barbarians, I get a greatpick or ogre hook or a d12 weapon because that maximizes their damage.
Barbs have one reaction and always remain with one reaction. Whereas the fighter and champion are the reaction based martials who can expand their reactions in a meaningful enough way to have it impact damage.
To tie this together, every single martial I've seen played is weapon limited due to runes and feats.
When I play a dual weapon flurry ranger, I want the very best finesse or agile weapons I can get to maximize damage and to stack on as a many per attack damage bonuses as I can get as that is what maximizes their damage.
When I play a barb, I want the biggest damage stacking I can get the biggest die.
When I play a monk, I want a martial arts style like Wolf who maximizes agile and finesses with d8 damage to maximize damage dice due how runes stack.
When I play a rogue, elven curved blade or rapier is what I see most often with maybe a dogslicer or shortsword for those who understand the advantage of agile weapons.
So every class is weapon limited by the way runes work and special abilities on weapons.
In my experience, you do the same with the fighter, but the fighter has some feats to make other weapons work pretty well.
I usually play a crashing slam fighter using the maul before the change to allow a save. I hate the save not just because it makes it not work as much, but this game has a lot of tedious rolling which I don't care for. So I want hit stuff and have it work without rolling yet another roll. So I don't even worry about it anymore.
I started playing a single weapon fighter. I'll be damned if it wasn't great. I was able to pick up Dueling Parry and now Dueling Dance at level 12 and I have a much better AC than the barb or rogue as well as being able to use Dual Handed Assault to boost my damage for one action without disrupting Dueling Dance.
It's made me a really hard to hit warrior with a single weapon. I do use a falcata for the big damage, but he performs really well while being great defensively.
I couldn't do this with other classes like the barb, ranger, rogue, or swashbuckler. I can't do it with other martials.
I've seen the fighter do well with every type of weapon.
The weapon group limitation is never much of a factor due to the way runes and feats work making nearly every martial limit themselves to a single weapon or a very limited selection.
If any other martial wants to use an advanced weapon, they have to take Unconventional Weaponry. That limits them to a single great weapon for all time.
Whereas the fighter can take Unconventional Weaponry, a heritage feat, or a level 6 Advanced Weapon training and they can use every advanced weapon in their weapon group.
This is far more versatile than every other martial who usually end up taking an ancestry feat just to access the better weapon traits Advanced Weapons have locking them into a single weapon.
So I don't see the problem. I also don't think it would matter if you expanded fighter optionality because they'll still end up locked into a single weapon by runes or feats if they want to max their damage. It's how I've seen the game work for nearly every martial.
I'm not sure what 'time immemorial' is - I think I've sufficiently made my case that 'weapon group specialist' is the intended core identity of the 3e fighter, due to how the weapon focus chain is positioned, and this was in fact carried on to 4e (many of their powers ask for specific weapon groups). It didn't quite into 5e, but I don't think PF2e took any cues about class identity from 5e and thank goodness.
Time immemorial was just a metaphorical and fun way of talking about OD&D.
The fighter was not originally designed to focus on a single weapon or group of weapons. In AD&D, you started to specialize, but you chose the weapon groups and there were more than 1.
In 3.x, Weapon Focus started to focus on a single weapon, and in fact it was more efficient in the fighter due to its feat tree. But besides the fact that the base Focus Weapon is not exclusive to the fighter, in practice, especially experienced players did not pay much attention to this build, because unlike here in PF2e the +1 and +2 bonuses were not that significant since the numbers grew to much higher values and many people ended up using the fighter as a base for prestige classes, besides there were other much more interesting feats competing like Combat Expertise, in PF1 the archetypes reduced this aspect of chassis class for prestige classes, but in compensation the list of feats was so big and with so many more interesting things that many players chose not to focus on weapons, even fighting with a single weapon all the time, simply because it was not worth focusing because you could get better things using the same slots. 5e is also another system where weapon focus depends on feats and feats even compete with attribute bonuses, it changed in 2024, but in 2014 it was an even worse situation than PF1 because the feat rule was still optional.
Back in the ancient days of D&D, the fighter was limited by stats unless you rolled a great strength and a great dex which wasn't easy to do. Magic items were pretty abundant and the fighter could switch between them.
But the ultimate fighting style back then was two weapon fighter, get lucky rolling ambidexterity or make a drow when they came around, chop things up going to town way better than every other type of warrior in the game.
I figured that's why they gave two-weapon fighting the big old nerf bat in 3E as it was the dominant fighting style in 2E and earlier when initiative did this weird segment rule and weapons had a segment modifier for how many segments they took to use. Two-handed weapons were very, very slow.
A couple of shortswords with two weapon style was a brutal fighting style in those early days.
3E/PF1 made two-handed weapons dominant.
PF2 seems to be pretty balanced with weapons, though two-handed weapons maintain some dominance due to the way damage runes work.
It's not just that no one has yet managed to counter-argue in a direct and clear way that the point I'm "complaining about", even in agreement with the OP, is not a valid point. No one has yet managed to point out in a simple and direct way that the point I'm defending is invalid, wrong, or already adequately met by the system, or would cause a serious problem for balancing or would prevent/hinder existing builds. Instead, almost all the answers I've been given have been things like "no, the fighter is flexible with weapons but you have to specialize or accept the fact that this type of build will be subpar" where I usually counter-argue by saying 'why? If the idea, even inherited from PF1/D&D, besides being implicit in the class feature and in examples, is precisely for the fighter to be flexible, what is the benefit and meaning of this restriction? Why not simply remove it or add feats that allow for a little more flexibility by taking extra weapon groups?' and the discussion for some reason ends up going back and forth due to attempts to show that I am either seeing things from the wrong point of view, or I did not correctly understand some need for limitation, or it simply goes beyond the scope of allowing a wider range of character concepts built on the fighter by removing or reducing an obligation of specialization along with several normal digressions that occur in the middle of the discussion.
I did address this point. When the fighter is equally good with any weapon and has feats to support its use, they can be effective using every weapon.
So this claim has been counter-argued. You don't like it for some reason.
You seem to think if the fighter doesn't get to use their plus 2 advantage, they aren't good with say the bow. That isn't true. They are as good with the bow as everyone else if they don't specialize.
They can take feats with the bow without limitation. They still get the critical specialization effect for every weapon by level 13.
They are not worse with these weapons. They are equally good for all levels.
As far as the balance point, you'd be fine removing the limitation as I pointed out above because every single class in the game is weapon limited for other reasons.
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I will also say if you house rule away the weapon group, I don't think it matters a whole lot if someone wants to do it. It will make their level 19 ability meaningless.
But in most cases it already is! Builds focused on a single weapon basically ignore the level 19 feature. Because they are already legendary with the weapon in question and even class proficiency only matters if you have one of the 3 feats that use it. That's why Ryangwy commented a few posts ago that the level 19 feature is "just a fun ribbon" and Teridax considered that without it "the Fighter wouldn't have a real class feature at level 19".
In practice, if your fighter is focused on a single weapon or a group of weapons and you don't intend to change that, the Versatile Legend makes no practical difference. However, if your idea was to be a versatile character who intends to change weapons to suit the situations, it simply comes too late, the game already forced you to change the character concept long before when you reached level 5. Changing it again now simply seems like a joke.
I honestly disagree with the idea that the Versatile Legend was put in to fill a gap. But the designer who did this, probably with the intention of representing that the level 19 fighter is so skilled that he can fight legendarily using any type of simple or martial weapon, did not consider the practical use of this both mechanically and thematically.
It is a feature that in my opinion could simply have been replaced by Ultimate Flexibility if the fighter had kept the flexibility.
I did address this point. When the fighter is equally good with any weapon and has feats to support its use, they can be effective using every weapon.
So this claim has been counter-argued. You don't like it for some reason.
Because that's not the point. The problem isn't that the fighter is able to be good with any weapon when it choose the group it wants to specialize in, the problem is that it loses versatility and is forced to specialize in some group of weapons.
Levels 1-4 and 19-20 already show that the fighter is not overpowered or causes any problems without the obligation to specialize, and can achieve any type of non-magical character concept that uses different weapons. But even so, at levels 5-18 the class goes and forces you, just because! The character who had already chosen to specialize doesn't feel any difference, while the one who would like to be more flexible is hamstrung and made unviable for any adventure that goes beyond level 4!
That's always been the point, it's not the fact that the fighter can choose any group of weapons and that many classes don't have that option, but rather the fact that the fighter has a mechanic and an entire concept of a character that is dead for nothing!
You see the point. So when I point this question out again, what I get in response are things like "yes, but because you want flexibility, you can't already choose any weapon with the fighter" which is different from the idea of maintaining flexibility what fighter have is just a freedom of specialization options or "there you will become very strong due to the high flexibility" to which I always answer that it is not, because this does not happen at levels 1-4 and 19-20 if this argument were valid the fighter would be defended as overpowered at these levels and that is not what happens or "yes but you are disregarding the rest of the chassis" and I always answer that no, that there is nothing so great about the chassis, for example it can even gain mastery in armor at level 17 instead of 19 or armor specialization that normally only the champion has, but in compensation it does not become legendary in any save, which honestly is missing. But I still think it's well balanced. What makes the higher proficiency compete with other martial is precisely the extra damage that many other martial receive, which it doesn't get because it already compensates for it with higher and more consistent hits and critical hits.
Perhaps what bothers me the most is the inconstancy, because if the fighter had a concept of specialist from level 1, everyone would understand that it is a specialist in a group of weapons of his choice. But what we actually have is that you are flexible and exceptional with all martial weapons, you are flexible with your training, being able to change advanced techniques and maneuvers for weapon battles (class feats) as you need to deal with different weapons. But for some reason, in the middle of the game, this stops being valid because you are forced to choose a group of weapons!
You've already pointed out that limitations exist in practically all martials, but they are consistent in this. The barbarian is not good with ranged attacks, except for throwing, the rogue, investigate, swashbuckler and thaumaturges are not good with 2-handed weapons, the ranger is... honestly sometimes I just find the ranger weird in its possible builds, the monk is not good with non-monastic weapons or weapons that are not part of its chosen stances, the champion is focused on defense and does not care much about the weapon used, the magus specializes during the choice of his subclass at level 1, the gunslinger is focused on firearms and reloading weapons, the inventor chooses a single exclusive weapon to specialize in or treats them all as secondary and focuses on his armor or companion and the exemplar if it chooses a weapon ikon focuses on that ikon as a divine item not compensating the use of other weapons besides it (unless they are also other ikons). So they are all classes that have a consistency and even a personality that is not violated in the middle of the game, especially without a good reason.
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The thing is, even if the Fighter were legendary in every weapon at level 13, they'd still favor certain weapons, because that's what their feats push them to do. The entire point of the Fighter's feat selection is to let you build around a specific weapon or weapon set and do really cool techniques with those, so the Fighter is already encouraged to specialize, on top of the broader consideration of runes favoring the use of one particular weapon over a plurality. In this respect, allowing the Fighter to apply their improved proficiency to a larger variety of weapons would be a horizontal power-up rather than a vertical one, and one that would be going up against both the class's push towards specialization and players' inherent instinct to specialize. Effectively, you'd have fewer obstacles to becoming a switch-hitter, even if those obstacles wouldn't be removed entirely.
Again, I think playtesting is what will reveal exactly how powerful this is, but my perspective is that this is probably not as big a deal as it's made out to be here by some. Switch-hitting is not a dominant Fighter playstyle and is unlikely to become one even with the change being discussed, and in my opinion the only downside is that, again, the Fighter wouldn't have a real class feature at level 19, which all things considered is a fairly minor concern (you could just let them swap out their temporary feats as a 10-minute activity or something). If this makes the Fighter too good at switch-hitting, then it's something to roll back and stick to the vanilla class progression, but if this gives the Fighter a bit more versatility without giving them excessive power, that to me sounds like it could be a good thing overall.
So it's as I thought and the answer is no!
Because this mechanical advantage already exists in practically all groups except very restricted ones like bow.
Adapting your example:
L5 fighter with sword mastery comes across a skeletal mage. She's got longsword and a Polytool that is a weapon of Sword group.The polytool is d6. The others are d8. At L5 you should have a striking rune so the Swordmaster is -2 DPR compared to the Allmaster.
Allmaster is still strictly better...even by the example you chose yourself. Not by much, but again this is a vertical improvement by 2 damage. Not horizontal. For a class that just doesn't need it.
Sorry, but this is not a significant difference in the midst of the benefit of being able to change your damage type to avoid a resistance of 5, in addition the polytool is agile and this easily compensates for this difference in damage in a second Strike with a small map, besides that if the player is making the choice for optimization, it will choose another group of weapons that has a better versatility of damage types and transitions better between reach, thrown and versatile damage type weapons than the swords group.
The first is that one of the great benefits of the fighter since time immemorial is that it can serve any weapon theme that does not depend on anything supernatural or magic.I disagree twice over. First, because most of the fighter tropes involve particular weapons the hero likes, magical or not. Excalibur, Mjolnir, Stormbringer, Sting, the list goes on.
This is more in the realm of exemplary, it wouldn't really be a fighter or a pure fighter to deal with this.
I'd argue you've got it backwards: it is much rarer to find a fighty hero in fantasy literature that doesn't have some signature weapon or fight style, than to find ones that do. The 'switch all the time because everything is just as good' is not a common fantasy trope. It arguably IS the case for modern martial arts action movies, where folks like Jackie Chan will seamlessly switch from fist to chair to ladder to throwing cups etc. and is equally deadly with all of them. But that's not the trope, I'd argue, for fantasy fighters.
I agree, the vast majority of character fantasies are specialized, but not because the majority is that you need to kill the remaining minority in the process and because it's relatively simple to adjust the fighter to hit both niches without compromising anything else (a designer just needs to add a class feat to add proficiency to the second weapon group). I would agree that it would be a problem if it were a change that made specialized builds unfeasible, but that's not the case, so there's no reason to restrict it.
Secondly, it should be patently obvious from PF2E's integration of runes into their math that whatever your concept of what the fighter should be, your quote above does not reflect Pathfinder 2nd Edition's concept for their fighter. PF2E fighters very much depend on magical weapons...and with the costs of runes, probably only a few individual...
Yes, and for that very reason you don't need a restriction on the fighter to hinder things even more. And PF2e does provide options to increase flexibility with magical weapons like Doubling Rings, Blazons of Shared Power and Shifting rune without breaking the character's wallet in the process. These items have their own limitations and idiosyncrasies, yes, but they already allow for great flexibility within their limitations.
I have yet to introduce a polytool in my game.
It is uncommon but given how weird a weapon it is it should probably be rare.
It's because it's a favored weapon of a deity, so it ends up not being that rare.
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From a design standpoint this is a "give a mouse a cookie" situation.
If the fighter is equally good at all weapons, it sure seems bad that they have to burn actions to swap weapons.
If they can easily swap weapons it seems bad they have to buy so many or use the shifting rune.
If they have a shifting rune it seems bad their other runes may not work on all weapons and they can't use different weapon handednesses.
If the shifting rune is more flexible it seems bad they can't shift weapons as part of their reaction or someone moving into reach flanking range.
If they can shift to any weapon at all it seems bad that they can't also change their fighter feats during combat.
If they can shift their feats during combat it seems bad they can't get weapon specialist dedication bonuses on all their weapons.
If all that then it feels bad you have to give up your shield sometimes.
And then, after all that, it feels bad that fighters are all samey and complicated.
--
It really is healthy for a game to have "if I had X instead of Y this would have gone differently" outcomes.
Ironically, the original RPG multi-tool, the rod of lordly might, had different pluses for each weapon option.
From a design standpoint this is a "give a mouse a cookie" situation.
If the fighter is equally good at all weapons, it sure seems bad that they have to burn actions to swap weapons.
If they can easily swap weapons it seems bad they have to buy so many or use the shifting rune.
If they have a shifting rune it seems bad their other runes may not work on all weapons and they can't use different weapon handednesses.
If the shifting rune is more flexible it seems bad they can't shift weapons as part of their reaction or someone moving into reach flanking range.
If they can shift to any weapon at all it seems bad that they can't also change their fighter feats during combat.
If they can shift their feats during combat it seems bad they can't get weapon specialist dedication bonuses on all their weapons.
If all that then it feels bad you have to give up your shield sometimes.
And then, after all that, it feels bad that fighters are all samey and complicated.
When you give an inch and someone tries to take a mile :D
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Actually there is more to fighter differences than just weapon group selection.
A bow fighter might be a +3 str +4 Dex fighter with point blank shot at level one and they might rather take a finesse weapon as thier melee option to fully take advantage of their dex.
A twohanded maul fighter is going to have +4 str and maybe 0 dex. Sudden charge or vicious strike and if they have a ranged option its going to be a true last resort.
These two fighters play fairly different from each other.
Actually there is more to fighter differences than just weapon group selection.
A bow fighter might be a +3 str +4 Dex fighter with point blank shot at level one and they might rather take a finesse weapon as thier melee option to fully take advantage of their dex.
A twohanded maul fighter is going to have +4 str and maybe 0 dex. Sudden charge or vicious strike and if they have a ranged option its going to be a true last resort.
These two fighters play fairly different from each other.
I've seen people complain about this back in D&D, so it would become another thing to "fix".
I've seen people complain about this back in D&D, so it would become another thing to "fix".Actually there is more to fighter differences than just weapon group selection.
A bow fighter might be a +3 str +4 Dex fighter with point blank shot at level one and they might rather take a finesse weapon as thier melee option to fully take advantage of their dex.
A twohanded maul fighter is going to have +4 str and maybe 0 dex. Sudden charge or vicious strike and if they have a ranged option its going to be a true last resort.
These two fighters play fairly different from each other.
I find it to be a good thing.
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I've seen people complain about this back in D&D, so it would become another thing to "fix".Actually there is more to fighter differences than just weapon group selection.
A bow fighter might be a +3 str +4 Dex fighter with point blank shot at level one and they might rather take a finesse weapon as thier melee option to fully take advantage of their dex.
A twohanded maul fighter is going to have +4 str and maybe 0 dex. Sudden charge or vicious strike and if they have a ranged option its going to be a true last resort.
These two fighters play fairly different from each other.
I find it to be a good thing.
I agree that the difference between builds is good. All limitations that create build differentiation get pushback. Dex to damage is another one. Using a two-handed weapon with a shield is yet another.
The thing is, even if the Fighter were legendary in every weapon at level 13, they'd still favor certain weapons, because that's what their feats push them to do. The entire point of the Fighter's feat selection is to let you build around a specific weapon or weapon set and do really cool techniques with those, so the Fighter is already encouraged to specialize, on top of the broader consideration of runes favoring the use of one particular weapon over a plurality.
Stepping back in after a break to argue against this - most of Fighter's building block feats and plenty of its subsequent ones do not specialize you into a weapon or weapon group - most of them care more about the configuration of weapons in your hands.
For example, Dueling Parry's "one melee weapon and one free hand", Brutish Shove's "two-handed melee weapon", The Ranged Ones' "wielding a ranged weapon" (which, for the classic cases like bows and crossbows, tend to not be in your hands at the same time as your melee weapons).
Most of them get a little more specific than that, like saying "a thrown weapon", "a shield", "ranged with reload 0" but a majority of Fighter's feats are not akin to Haft Striker Stance or Spear Dancer. Tangentially, many of the specific-weapon-group feats are actually newer; indeed, both of the latter examples are from War of Immortals.
This is an important distinction, because it still allows you plenty of room to use your feats even if you're using a weapon outside of your chosen group. You can curate your feats and weapon choice such that you can have a panoply of feats that work with a good few chosen weapons, not just a single one, which can include weapons outside of your chosen weapon group. Ultimately, most Fighters (like all martials) will specialize some due to runes, but their feats are actually what enable them to swap weapons and still be way more effective at doing so than other martials.
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There seem to be a bunch of implicit assumptions being made here that I think are worth questioning: the first is the assumption that the Fighter being equally proficient in all weapons would mean they'd be equally effective with all weapons all the time, when as mentioned already, this is untrue by the simple fact that their attributes and feat choices will have them favoring certain weapons over others, and their runes will make one or a small subset of their weapons more effective than others. Even with equal proficiency, relative differences in effectiveness would be maintained, and a Fighter would be more effective with a subgroup of weapons than with others. For instance, a Strength-heavy Fighter who's opted into two-handed melee weapon feats is going to be much more effective with a maul than with a bow, even with legendary proficiency in both weapons.
The second assumption is that becoming equally proficient is what will cause the Fighter to want to pack more than one weapon, when that's something they already do: any martial will want a backup weapon, for the simple reason that some monsters will be particularly effective against certain weapon traits, damage types, materials, and runes, and particularly vulnerable to others. Therefore, such a change would not induce switch-hitting, even if it would make Fighters more likely to pick backup weapons of a different group, or make backup weapons from another group more effective.
All of which is to say: I don't think it's really a case of spoiling the Fighter rotten by giving them better switch-hitting, whether through feats or core class changes. Again, this is something well worth testing, rather than purely debating online based on principles that may or may not have any basis in reality. Perhaps this is versatility the Fighter may not need, but perhaps this is the sort of versatility that would open up builds that are currently not so strong and make them a bit better.
Do you agree that your proposed Allmaster is ahead in damage or not?Sorry, but this is not a significant differenceThe polytool is d6. The others are d8. At L5 you should have a striking rune so the Swordmaster is -2 DPR compared to the Allmaster.
Allmaster is still strictly better...
No, because the damage variation is so small that it is questionable whether it exists most of the time.
In this example from polytool, even for one-handed weapons, in situations where the fighter can attack up to 2-3 times, the fact that it is agile is a benefit that compensates, perhaps even surpassing the difference in average damage between the d6 and the d8 (which is an average of 1 per damage die). Since you have a 5% greater chance of landing a second hit and a 10% greater chance of landing a 3rd hit, this in the hands of a fighter who has a very high hit rate or even a ranger who has an even lower MAP is often more significant than 1 more damage per damage die.
Or the alternative version with other groups like polearms, which was what my fighter friend used to compensate for the fact that he could no longer use d12 weapons at level 5 and started using a Scythe instead, and the deadly d10 ended up compensating very well for the loss of 1 average damage per dice. In addition, at higher levels this loss ends up being even more mitigated due to the elemental runes.
In the end, there is no significant difference because the game was adjusted so that the traits try to compensate for the difference in damage from the size of the dice, and as I said, an optimizing player finds a way to find a group that compensates for all of this.
There is not really a difference in vertical power, but rather an extra difficulty in finding alternatives for those who focus on optimization.
Follow a PF2e damage calculator so we can get this straight:
The "incredible" damage difference between a d8 weapon vs a d6 agile weapon
besides that if the player is making the choice for optimization, it will choose another group of weapons that has a better versatility of damage types and transitions better between reach, thrown and versatile damage type weapons than the swords group.This pretty much admits that swordmaster is not as good as allmaster. You're literally telling me that the way to optimize across a wide variety of threats is to not choose swordmaster. Of course with your allmaster, you don't have to choose anything - you get all of them. Which, again, is mechanically better than swordmaster, axemaster, etc. because it includes all of them.
The point is not the swordmaster, this is just a diversion. The point is that you are arguing that there is a (significant) vertical advantage in being an all-rounder over being specialized in a single group, something that does not exist. Focusing on a single group that is not a class requirement, as if the player were forced to play with the swords-only group, does not fit here, because this restriction does not exist.
It is trying to force the argument, and it does not even work well in this case because I cannot see the polytool being weaker than a longsword due to agile.
I agree, the vast majority of character fantasies are specializedOkay, so now we are in agreement that (a) there's no game mechanics balance reason to make the change, AND (b) the vast majority of classic book-and-movie based fighter character concepts don't need the change either?
Please do not ignore the rest of the text and context and do not change the meaning of my sentences because:
a) There's no game mechanics balance reason to not make the change. But there's a thematic reason to do it.
b) You test again ignoring the fact that the majority should not restrict the minority!