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View Full Version : [3.5] Thought: Fighters and magic items



Analytica
2010-09-24, 07:40 PM
I feel dirty for bringing up something which is essentially a fighter fix thread. I just had an idea and figured I should post it.

The fighter heroic archetype quite often involves magical gear, moreso than other archetypes. In particular, there are fighters carrying magical swords. Elric (though a mage as well), Aragorn, Gourry Gabriev...

So possibly: could the fighter class be made to focus more around being able to put magical equipment to optimal use? A fighter is a trained warrior who is able to become the kind of person that magical gear considers worthy, and who is able to make the most out of them? The peasant youth who trains with the family heirloom weapon like their parents before them, and so forth, might actually be training (implicitly) in using magic items well. This is another thing that distinguishes them from an NPC warrior.

So suppose we then give fighters additional skill points, so 4 + Int/level, and Use Magic Device as a class skill. Mainly, though, there could be a bonus factor scaling with fighter levels, maybe 1 per 4 levels or something, that is added to all bonuses granted from magical equipment? Competence, insight or luck bonus, say, requiring Use Magic Device the way bard song requires Perform. It would apply to AC, ability enhancements, weapon enchantments and similar. Perhaps any use-activated items become automatically empowered after some level, or the like.

Effectively, fighters exist because no-one else can unlock the secrets of ancient tools of powers as they can. They might not understand these tools, or be able to craft them, but in their hands, they simply work better.

Ziegander
2010-09-25, 12:07 AM
Kind of an interesting thought. Perhaps find a way to combine some Legacy Champion style features with the Fighter class?

T.G. Oskar
2010-09-25, 12:33 AM
So suppose we then give fighters additional skill points, so 4 + Int/level, and Use Magic Device as a class skill. Mainly, though, there could be a bonus factor scaling with fighter levels, maybe 1 per 4 levels or something, that is added to all bonuses granted from magical equipment? Competence, insight or luck bonus, say, requiring Use Magic Device the way bard song requires Perform. It would apply to AC, ability enhancements, weapon enchantments and similar. Perhaps any use-activated items become automatically empowered after some level, or the like.

Effectively, fighters exist because no-one else can unlock the secrets of ancient tools of powers as they can. They might not understand these tools, or be able to craft them, but in their hands, they simply work better.

Um...part are good ideas, part are horrible ideas.

The good: more skill points (and more skills), and the ability to increase the effect of some items (the concept)

The bad: giving UMD to the Fighter (it makes no sense whatsoever, unless you wish to add an ACF that allows the Fighter to fool magic items) and the competence/insight/whatever bonus to magic items (essentially, the execution).

Giving more skill points (and more skills; i.e. Listen and Spot) is good because the Fighter should do more than just fight. UMD is bad because it perpetuates the concept of "UMD Wizard", which is certainly not the idea. And there's a big problem with increasing the effect of magic items, at least the way it's presented.

The concept is phenomenal: Fighters (and probably by extension martial characters, including the Samurai and the Swashbuckler) unlock more of a magic item's powers. However, it is terrible in execution, because you'll end up either having powerful magic items for cheap, or the power of Epic magic items as pre-Epic (example: you could have a Gloves of Ogre Power, which normally grants a +2 to Strength, grant +3 or even +4 right at the moment they get it, for less of the price that you'd get to have the Belt of Giant Strength). This gets ridiculous when you consider that you might be capable of stacking the bonus multiple times; say, let's assume you're a 9th level Fighter with a +2 Full Plate, a +2 Heavy Steel Shield, an Amulet of Natural Armor +2 and a Ring of Protection +2. Now, the normal AC for a character with these items would be 28 (base 10, +10 for armor, +4 for shield, +2 NA and +2 deflection), but since your bonus would apply four times, you'd effectively get a bonus of 36. Then, consider that you can get stuff like an Oil of Magic Vestment +1 which would increase the enhancement bonus of the item by 1, but since the bonus kicks in, you can get a 750 gp item to provide an enhancement bonus increase of +3: hence, you can increase your Full Plate and Heavy Steel Shield enhancement bonuses to +3 (they are already +2, but you're adding an effective +3 enhancement bonus hence the oil is far more beneficial) for a further +2 to AC. It may not seem ludicrous now, but eventually, you'll get stuff like having a +5 armor actually provide a +9 bonus pre-Epic, and that's a bit ridiculous.

There's a few things I *do* support, though, and that's the enhancement of potions and oils, specifically Potions of Cure Wounds. In that case, Fighters would gain the effect of the spell as if the caster level of the item was equal to either its normal caster level, or the character level of the Fighter, whichever is higher. So, a 5th level Fighter using a potion of Cure Light Wounds would get at least 4 extra HP from the potion at the same price it has (50 gp). In comparison, a Wand of Cure Light Wounds would still act as if having a CL of 1st, so while the Wand would heal around 275 HP (1d8+1 on average heals 5.5 hp, times 50 if used entirely on the Fighter), 15 potions would heal 142-143 hp (1d8+5 on average heals 9.5, times 15 if we're trying to equate the cost of a single wand) instead of 82-83 (5.5 times 15) as normal; an increase of almost 57% on its worth (though the wand still wins at the end, at least you know who'll quaffle the pots). Otherwise, the trouble remains the same: the Fighter can use magic items better, but unfortunately the Wizard won't care since they can cast actual spells.

IMO, the best Fighter fix is to nerf the Wizard, but that's very, very hard to do. However, you might work this out as an alternate class feature, taking bonus feats for the ability to enhance the power of magic items; just make sure that you can provide a reasonable limit or a reasonable mechanic behind it, because otherwise you're just artificially enhancing the Fighter by making it even more dependable on magic items (and on an Antimagic Field, or if the items are suppresed or disjoined, the Fighter suddenly loses even more).