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Seerow
2011-05-20, 01:51 PM
The Weapon Styles

This project started up as a side effect of a rather lengthy debate about Two Weapon Fighting. I decided that trying to balance the weapon styles was more potentially constructive than arguing about why one is better than the other. Initially, my thought was to have only 3 weapon styles, but ultimately that fell flat due to the fact that it doesn't really encompass the various styles of fighting D&D characters take up. And so the project evolved, and now we have our styles: Two Weapon Fighting, Two Handed Fighting, Reach Combat, Shield Fighting, One Handed Fighting, Ranged Combat, Unarmed Combat. Of course there is a fair degree of mixing and matching between these that can be done as well.

The goal is to make each of these viable options, if not all equal damage, at least similar in damage, and each with their own perks and utility.

Systemic Changes

The first part of rebalancing the weapon styles means tearing down some of the foundations of the styles from 3.5. This involves some changes to how some of the core mechanics work. The main goal of these changes is reducing feat taxes placed upon certain builds.

TWFing Change: Fighting with Two Weapons is now treated as a Martial Weapon Proficiency. If you have a proficiency with two weapon fighting, you may attack with both weapons with a -4 penalty (-2 if the offhand weapon is light), as a full attack action. As a part of a full attack you may make an additional offhand attack for every main hand attack from base attack bonus. If you lack the proficiency, you take an additional -4 penalty to all attacks.

In addition to classes with martial weapon proficiency, Rogues have this proficiency for free.

THFing Change: Wielding a weapon with two hands gains you no special benefits unless you take a feat that increases the benefits of having a second hand on the weapon. Power Attack loses its default bonus damage for having a two hander

Ranged Combat Change: The penalty for firing into melee no longer exists. The penalty for doing so is accurately enough modeled by the cover rules, having both is an unnecessary feat tax. Also, the majority of the Archery feats are either feats that don't need to be archery only (Rapidshot, Manyshot), already covered by non-range specific feats (Spring Attack/Shot on The Run), or not particularly useful (when's the last time you needed to snipe someone from half a mile away with Far Shot?). So basically all feats currently targetted towards range cease to exist, and are either left to rot, replaced by the feats in this topic, or should be adapted to work with both melee and range.

Shield Change: The bashing property no longer exists, being rolled into Shield Bash Mastery, to reduce reliance on a specific magic item to deal decent damage with your shield. The Animated Property also no longer exists, because squirrel.

Light/Finessible Weapon Change: Weapon Finesse no longer exists as a feat. If you are wielding a weapon that is light, or has the finessible property, then you may opt to use your strength or dexterity modifier to attack, whichever is higher.

Unarmed Combat Change: Unarmed Combat is considered a simple weapon proficiency, that is now granted to Monks, Swordsages, and all characters who have proficiency in all simple weapons. Having proficiency in unarmed combat means that you do not provoke an attack of opportunity from an unarmed attack, and you do not take the non-proficiency penalty to attack rolls.

Two-Weapon Fighting

Improved Two-Weapon Fighting [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Dexterity 13, Proficiency with two-weapon fighting
Benefit: Any time you make a single attack (such as a standard action attack, an attack of opportunity, or a charge), you may attack with both of your weapons. Additionally, any bonus attacks you gain from sources other than base attack bonus on a full attack now also grant an offhand attack.


Two-Weapon Rend [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, BAB+3
Benefit: You may add your full strength modifier to offhand damage. When you deal damage with both of your weapons to a target on the same turn, you automatically deal extra damage as if you hit with your offhand weapon, with damage bonuses from attribute doubled. You may deal damage with this feat once per target per round. Additionally, your penalties for fighting with two weapons are reduced further. The penalty for your primary hand and offhand lessens by 1 per 5 points of base attack bonus you possess (the penalty cannot be reduced below 0).

Two-Weapon Defense [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, BAB+6
Benefit: You gain a +2 shield bonus to armor class while wielding a weapon in each hand. While fighting defensively, you may increase this bonus by 50% (round up). While taking a full defense action, you may double this bonus.

Additionally, if an attack made against you while fighting defensively or taking a full defense action misses, you may make a free attack with your offhand weapon against the opponent. This attack may not be used for any special maneuvers, but does not count as an attack of opportunity.


Two Handed Fighting

Feats:
Improved Two-Handed Fighting [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Str 13, proficiency with a weapon that may be held in two hands.
Benefit: While wielding a weapon with both hands, your damage bonus from strength is increased by 50%. Additionally, if you have the Power Attack feat and this feat, while wielding a two handed weapon your damage bonus from power attack is doubled.

Mighty Blows [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Improved Two-Handed Fighting, BAB+3
Benefit: While wielding a two handed weapon, your base weapon damage is increased as if you were one size category larger, plus an additional size category if your BAB is above +10. Additionally, your strength modifier to damage with two handed weapons is increased by another 50% (so your strength bonus to damage is now doubled).
Special: Your weapon's effective size may not exceed colossal.

Forceful Blow [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Improved Two-Handed Fighting, BAB+6
Benefit: You have learned to leverage the power of a two-handed weapon to your advantage. As a standard action while wielding a weapon in two hands, you may make a special bull rush attempt that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. For this attempt increase your effective size by 1 size category for every 5 points of BAB you possess.

If your check beats the opponent's, you deal damage as though you succeeded on a normal attack. If your check beats the opponent's by 5 or more, you may knock the opponent back more than 5 feet without moving with him, and deal an additional 1d6 damage for every 5 feet the opponent is knocked back. An opponent who is moved more than 15 feet in this way must make a Fortitude save DC10+1/2 your HD+str mod, or be dazed for 1 round.



Reach Weapons
Reach Weapon Specialist [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Dexterity 13, Proficiency with at least one reach weapon.
Benefit: You are capable of striking opponents adjacent to you with any reach weapon that you hold. Additionally, while wielding a reach weapon, you may take additional attacks of opportunity per round equal to 1/4th your base attack bonus, plus your dexterity modifier.
Special: This feat may be used in place of Combat Reflexes to meet the prerequisites to qualify for other feats or prestige classes. The benefits of this feat and Combat Reflexes do not stack.

Lockdown [Style][Fighter]
Prerequisite: Reach Weapon Specialist, BAB+3
Benefit: You gain a bonus to all attacks of opportunity made against an opponent you attacked on your turn equal to your dexterity modifier. Additionally, any enemy you attack has its move speed cut in half until the start of your next turn (this effect can only apply once per enemy per turn).

If this effect is triggered by an attack of opportunity provoked by movement, their new move speed is considered their maximum movement for that action, if their remaining movement for the round is dropped to 0, they immediately stop, if it is dropped below 0, they fall prone.


Harrier [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Reach Weapon Specialist, BAB+6
Benefit: Your reach is increased by 5 feet while wielding a reach weapon. Additionally, all enemies within your reach take a penalty equal to 1/4th your base attack bonus to attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks.


Unarmed Combat
Improved Unarmed Strike [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Proficiency in unarmed combat
Benefit: Your Unarmed Strike damage is increased to 2d6 and you no longer take a penalty to attack rolls while attacking an opponent while grappling. If your BAB is +3 or higher, you may treat your fists as Masterwork (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202722)

Additionally, upon taking this feat, you may choose to treat your unarmed attacks as a single one handed weapon, two weapons, or a two handed weapon, at will. Changing between these styles requires a swift action. Using your unarmed strike as a two handed weapon or as two weapons does require having both hands free, even if you strike with other parts of your body.

Special: Monks gain this feat as a bonus feat at level 1, instead of the normal monk unarmed damage scaling.

Ranged Combat
Precise Shot [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisites: Dex 13
Benefit: You may designate one ally as a free action, you may ignore this ally when determining if a target has soft cover relative to you. You additionally gain +1 to attack rolls and +1 per 4 points of BAB to damage rolls while using a ranged weapon within 1 range increment of your target.

Piercing Shots [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisites: Precise Shot, BAB+3
Benefit: While wielding a ranged weapon, you may add your dexterity modifier to damage rolls with a ranged weapon. Additionally when using power attack with a bow or a two-handed crossbow, you can choose to gain 2d6 damage per 3 points of BAB sacrificed rather than the normal 1 point of damage per point of hit sacrificed.

Missile Mastery [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisites: Precise Shot, BAB+6
Benefit: Choose 1 ally within 1 range increment of a ranged weapon you attacked with this turn. Until the beginning of your next turn, you can take attacks of opportunity if an enemy provokes an attack from that ally. For every 10 points of base attack bonus you possess, you can treat your threatened area as if you had 5 foot greater reach than your ally.

Other feats that increase your reach do not affect this threatened area. Additionally, this feat enables you to use combat maneuvers (such as disarm, grapple, and trip) with a ranged weapon against targets within one range increment, though you take a -4 penalty to the check.


One Weapon Fighting

Einhander [Style] [Fighter]
Benefit: When attacking with a one handed weapon held in one hand, and no other weapons, you gain +2 to hit and Armor Class, plus an additional bonus to damage equal to your dexterity modifier. Apply double the bonus to hit as a bonus to any combat maneuvers made while wielding a one handed weapon in one hand.


Parry and Riposte [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Einhander, BAB+3
Benefit: When attacking with a single one handed weapon held in one hand, you can choose to take a -4 penalty to all attack rolls to have a chance to parry any melee attack made against you. Any time an enemy in melee makes an attack roll against you, you can make an opposing attack roll at your highest bonus (with the -4 penalty), if your roll is higher, the attack misses. If you beat the opponent's roll by at least 5, you may take an attack of opportunity against the opponent.

Special: If you have a weapon or shield in your offhand that is granting a bonus to armor class that you did not attack with this turn, you may add that bonus to all attack rolls made to parry.

Flashy Offensive [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Einhander, BAB+6
Benefit: When attacking with a single one handed weapon held in one hand, you can feint as a free action once per round, and as an attack option during a full round attack. Additionally, when you use Power Attack with a one handed weapon in one hand, you can gain +1d6 damage for every 2 points of BAB sacrificed.


Sword and Board
Shield Fighter [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Proficiency with a shield
Benefit: When you attack an enemy you can choose to make an intimidate check, with a bonus equal to your constitution modifier, against the enemy's Will Save. If they fail this check, they must include you as a target of any attack it makes, or take a penalty equal to 1/3 of your BAB (round up) to all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability DCs until it resumes attacking you. You may have this effect active on up to 1 enemy, plus one additional enemy per 4 points of base attack bonus you possess (round down). This effect lasts 5 minutes.

Additionally, your shield bonus to armor class increases by 1, and your shield bonus applies to your Touch AC, Reflex Saves, and when defending against combat maneuvers.

Shield Bash Mastery [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Shield Fighter, BAB+3
Benefit: When you perform a shield bash, you may still apply the shield’s shield bonus to your AC, and your shield is considered 2 size categories larger when determining the damage it deals. When you hit an enemy with both your mainhand weapon and your shield on the same turn, the enemy must make a Fortitude Save DC 10+1/2 HD+Level, or be dazed until the beginning of your next turn.


Warder [Style] [Fighter]
Prerequisite: Einhander, Shield Fighter, BAB+3
Benefit: While wielding a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other, but not attacking with the shield, you gain soft cover, and can treat squares you threaten as granting soft cover to allies. When you fight defensively, or take a full defense action, you can choose to block line of effect to squares directly behind you, plus an extra 5 feet around you per 8 points of base attack bonus, to a maximum of your reach. This does not prevent spells from affecting you. (So at BAB+16, you can block line of effect through your square, and up to 10ft away from you, as long as you have a reach of 10ft)

Additionally, any ally within your reach gains half your shield bonus to armor class (this does not stack with existing shield bonuses if any), and is treated as if under the effects of a Shield Other spell, cast by you.

Seerow
2011-05-20, 01:52 PM
Generic Feats

The following feats are modified versions of existing feats that have been changed to help the balance between the styles, by making the feats available to all styles. This particularly helps a fighter or other character with many feats who wants to pursue more than one fighting style, by allowing more of the feats to synergize.


Power Attack
Prerequisites: Str 13, BAB+1
Benefit: On your action, before making attack rolls for a round, you may choose to subtract a number from all attack rolls and add the same number to all damage rolls. This number may not exceed your base attack bonus. The penalty on attacks and bonus on damage apply until your next turn.



The change? No more free bonus damage for two handers. You get that from Improved Two-Handed Fighting. Also no penalty for using it with light weapons, which helps out both TWFing and Einhander if you're inclined to fight with something like a short sword or dagger. It now also works for Archery. Other weapon style feats will likely also change how this feat interacts with their weapon style, making it a more flexible feat


Rapid Attack
Prerequisites: Dex 15, Base Attack Bonus +6
Benefit: As a standard action, you may make two attacks at a single opponent. Both attacks use the same attack roll (with a -4 penalty) to determine success and deal damage normally (but see Special).
For every five points of base attack bonus you have above +6, you may add one attack to this action, to a maximum of four attacks at a base attack bonus of +16. However, each attack after the second adds a cumulative -2 penalty on the attack roll (for a total penalty of -6 for three attacks and -8 for four). Damage reduction and other resistances apply separately against each attack.

Special:
Regardless of the number of attacks made, you apply precision-based damage only once. If you score a critical hit, only the first attack made deals critical damage; all others deal regular damage.

Special: If you have Improved Two Weapon Fighting, when using this feat you may make an attack with each weapon for every attack granted by this feat via BAB. Normal Two Weapon Fighting penalties apply. For example a character with this feat and improved two weapon fighting at BAB+16 would make 4 attacks with both their mainhand and offhand, at a -8 penalty.

Greater Rapid Attack
Prerequisites: Dex 15, Base Attack Bonus +6
Benefit: When you use the Rapid Attack feat, you may choose to attack different opponents with each attack, instead of using all attacks on the same target. You make a separate attack roll for each attack, regardless of whether you attack separate targets or the same target. Your precision-based damage applies to each attack, and, if you score a critical hit with more than one attack, each critical hit deals critical damage.

Flurry
Prerequisites: BAB+1
Benefit: You may strike with a flurry of blows at the expense of accuracy. When making a full round attack, you may make one extra attack in a round at your highest base attack bonus, but this attack takes a -2 penalty, as is each other attack made that round. This penalty applies for 1 round, so it also affects attacks of opportunity you might make before your next action.

Improved Flurry
Prerequisites: BAB+11, Flurry
Benefit: When using your Flurry feat you no longer take a penalty to attack rolls. You may alternatively choose to take a -2 penalty to attack rolls to gain a second extra attack during a full attack action.


Multi-Attack and Flurry are adaptions of Rapid Shot and Manyshot, made to work with all fighting styles, rather than being range specific. These + power attack were the biggest offenders in things being kept separate for ranged and every other style out there. So now, if you want to specialize in having a ton of attacks, even on a standard action, that isn't exclusive to being a range specialist. I also imagine that Flurry/Imp Flurry could turn into bonus feats for the monk rather than it having a separate class feature)



Flurry of the Adamantine Shield
Benefit: You gain a Dodge bonus to Armor Class until the end of your next turn after making an attack action equal to +2 per successful attack made. The attacks must be made as a part of the same action for the bonus to stack. Attacks made with different actions do not stack, only the highest bonus applies.
Special: A fighter may select Flurry of the Adamantine Shield as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Pushback
Prerequisites: Flurry of the Adamantine Shield, Base Attack Bonus +6
Benefits: Whenever you make an attack, you may push back the target of the attack a distance equal to 5 feet per successful attack made on that target. If the full attack targets multiple targets, each is pushed back a distance equal to the number of successful attacks made on them individually. A successful Reflex save (DC 10 + 1/2 ECL + Dexterity modifier) halves the distance pushed back. The distance pushed is calculated at the end of the current action, so if you take a full attack, the target is not pushed until the full attack is resolved entirely. A target may only be pushed back in this way once per round.
Special: A fighter may select Pushback as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Overwhelming Assault
Prerequisites: Flurry of the Adamantine Shield, Base Attack Bonus +6
Benefits: Whenever you make an attack, you gain a bonus to attack rolls until the end of your next turn equal to the number of successful attacks made in the attack, after the attacks in the attack resolve. The attacks must be made as a part of the same action for the bonus to stack. Attacks made with different actions do not stack, only the highest bonus applies.
Special: A fighter may select Overwhelming Assault as one of his fighter bonus feats.


The Flurry of Adamantine Shield feats are new feats courtesy of unosarta, that emphasize the benefit of taking multiple attacks, synergizing particularly well with TWFing, but work well with any of the styles.


Spring Attack
Prerequisites: Dex 13, Dodge, Mobility, base attack bonus +4.
Benefit: When using the attack action, you can move both before and after the attack, provided that your total distance moved is not greater than your speed. Moving in this way does not provoke an attack of opportunity from the defender you attack, though it might provoke attacks of opportunity from other creatures, if appropriate. You can’t use this feat if you are wearing heavy armor.

You must move at least 5 feet both before and after you make your attack in order to utilize the benefits of Spring Attack.


A slight, change. Shot on the Run has been rolled into Spring Attack, which now works any time you take an attack action, rather than working on melee only. This is a slight buff for archers who now no longer deal with AoOs from their target when using spring attack (a benefit which was not included in shot on the run), but for 3 feats, I'd say more power to them.

Seerow
2011-05-20, 01:55 PM
Reserved for future use.

Ziegander
2011-05-20, 01:55 PM
Define what you mean by Control? If you mean something akin to "battlefield control" then I have no idea why wielding a two-handed weapon should suddenly make you a controller.

Shadowknight12
2011-05-20, 02:06 PM
In my opinion, TWF is not about damage (which I assume is what you mean by Offence). To me, that's the province of the Two-Handers. I would make the following changes:

TWF:

High Control, Medium Defence, Low Offence.

Two-Handed:

High Offence, Medium Control, Low Defence.

The way two-handed has always been seen by the rules is that it deals more damage (look at Power Attack, for an example of two-handed getting more damage than other styles). Furthermore, one could conceive the ability of a warrior damaging multiple (clustered) enemies with a single sweep, as a variation on Cleave. Furthermore, by having no shield or off-hand weapon, and being so focused in dealing damage, it stands to reason it should have a poor defence.

TWF, on the other hand, is more about attacking more often, not about dealing more damage. TWF often has less accuracy and deals less damage than any other style, and it offers bonus in the way of Defence to compensate (though I recognise it shouldn't be on the same level as S&B). To me, TWF has always been about battlefield manoeuvring (since it requires a high Dexterity, which implies a build geared towards agility and evasion, rather than the brute strength that would imply a high Offence), and all the possible "riders" that can be applied to attacks, such as some class features that allow the character to channel spells or effects through his attacks. That still doesn't necessarily mean damage, for it can very easily mean poison, or a Chill Touch or Touch of Idiocy effect that disables multiple foes at once (or stacks with itself, thereby heaping penalties onto the same target). Either way, TWF seems, to me, the most geared at Control, with Defence a close second.

Seerow
2011-05-20, 02:10 PM
Define what you mean by Control? If you mean something akin to "battlefield control" then I have no idea why wielding a two-handed weapon should suddenly make you a controller.

My reasoning for two handed fighting having the highest control is because two handed weapons are the only weapons in the game with reach. You won't find a single handed weapon with reach. This is actually a part of the imbalance, currently you have a two handed weapon with reach that does the same or more damage than two weapon fighting, with less investment, and maintaining the higher control.

Yes, there are two handed weapons without reach, but they are less efficient to use. Though I suppose a distinction could be drawn between a two handed reach weapon and a two handed non-reach weapon as separate fighting styles, but then what do you set as a two handed non-reach weapon's benefits?

Hiro Protagonest
2011-05-20, 02:15 PM
My reasoning for two handed fighting having the highest control is because two handed weapons are the only weapons in the game with reach. You won't find a single handed weapon with reach. This is actually a part of the imbalance, currently you have a two handed weapon with reach that does the same or more damage than two weapon fighting, with less investment, and maintaining the higher control.


One-handed weapons don't have reach, but you ever heard of nets or bolas? And the other hand for a two-weapon fighter has their actual melee weapon, and they'd have quick draw to get out another melee weapon or another control weapon.

And you can do melee control with one-handed weapons, using a flail or sickle.

Shadowknight12
2011-05-20, 02:19 PM
My reasoning for two handed fighting having the highest control is because two handed weapons are the only weapons in the game with reach. You won't find a single handed weapon with reach.

I would argue that Control means control of the actual battlefield, not simply twice the radius you'd normally affect. In that regard, I'd actually defend that a higher mobility would allow the warrior in question to have more control of the battlefield. If he doesn't cast any spells, his only hope of being able to influence the battlefield on time to make a difference is if he can actually get to where he needs to be fast enough.

Seerow
2011-05-20, 02:20 PM
One-handed weapons don't have reach, but you ever heard of nets or bolas? And the other hand for a two-weapon fighter has their actual melee weapon, and they'd have quick draw to get out another melee weapon or another control weapon.

But then they still lack reach, which is the primary form of control for a melee.


And you can do melee control with one-handed weapons, using a flail or sickle.

By that you mean you can trip with those weapons. You are seriously underestimating the reach advantage of two handers.


edit:

I would argue that Control means control of the actual battlefield, not simply twice the radius you'd normally affect. In that regard, I'd actually defend that a higher mobility would allow the warrior in question to have more control of the battlefield. If he doesn't cast any spells, his only hope of being able to influence the battlefield on time to make a difference is if he can actually get to where he needs to be fast enough.


Maybe, but how far they can move is going to come from class features and feats that aren't specific to the weapon style feats. When comparing a TWFer and a THFer with the same investments other than their weapon styles, the THFer will have the reach advantage over the TWFer, and that's the point I'm trying to make.


The net/bola argument is a bit more in favor of the TWFer being more controlling, but while that is thematic, it requires a specific weapon, and isn't particularly effective regardless, except to say the TWFer has more attacks he can blow on throwing nets all over the battlefield (which is actually pretty funny to picture, a guy quick draw throwing 4 nets at 4 enemies, and then attacking the enemy in front of him with his spear or whatever). On the other hand, the THFer has a variety of reach weapons to choose from (though has to fall back on a second weapon in close range unless they have a spiked chain)

Mystify
2011-05-20, 02:54 PM
Here are my thoughts on how the system needs to be reworked:


1.Parrying
The ability to sacrifice your attack to get a chance to negate the enemy's attack (probably based on opposedattack rolls).
Sheilds now become a source of parry, with a strong bonus to it, instead of an AC boost.
two weapon fighter's can use their weapons to parry, hence allowing them flexibilty in their attack style, but obviously aren't as good at it as using a sheild.
one handers get a bonus to parrying, and may be able to riposte
Two handed weapons get a bonus for countering a parry, light weapon's a penalty
specific weapons may have extra bonuses or penalties for parrying.

This makes a sheild a strong defense, and two handed weapons are better at countering a sheild user or a one-hander trying to parry.

2. speed
Different weapons and styles have different speeds. High speed allows for more attacks. A two handed weapon will have a low speed, while a dagger will have a high speed. two weapon fighting takes a slight speed penalty on each hand, but has a greater speed overall. A one-handed weapon has the greatest individual speed, allowing them to strike fast and deal a lot of damage, and have enough attacks to use some to parry effectively. Precision based fighters would want more speed, which would make them tend towards one handed to two weapons, which matches the stereotpyes. A monk's flurry can be changes to a speed increase on fists, which would allow them to use their increased speed to move around and still get most of their attacks, since any given movement now takes less time and they have a high speed to utilize.

3. alter the full round system
a full round lets you take full advantage of your speed, but high enough speeds can allow multiple attacks on a move. Also make the percent of your speed you move impact how many attacks you can get.
This would allow a two weapon fighter to dart in, and strike several times.

4. Charging
A charge allows 1 attack, and only 1 attack, with all weapons. 2 handers can use this to deleiver a powerful blow, 2 handers can charge in and strike twice, other styles may prefer to move in and get an attack sequence if possible.

5.auto-finesse
certain styles, namely 2 weapon and one handed, automatically allow dex to accuracy.This makes combat reflexes more useful to those styles.

6. dex limit on armour applies to everything
wearing heavy armour limits dex, making it unsuitable for combining with one or two handed styles. shield and two handed weapons don't need the dex as much, and the other styles can still use strength for accuracy if they want, but the armour limiting accuracy creates a more natural limit on what styles will wear.

7. more style-specific feats
These outline basic mechanics, but all styles should have a wide selections of feats to improve themselves. Sheild bash could allow a sheild user to attack with their sheild instead of parrying, aa riposte may allow a one hander to attack at a penalty off a successful parry, etc. Focus less on numerical bonuses and more on new options. Some may be useable with multiple styles to varuous degrees of effectiveness. Be sure to include a selection for unarmed. For instance, being able to parry with fists, and then able to do counters on successful parries.

Xzoltar
2011-05-20, 02:55 PM
Your Two-weapon fighting style and feats are nice (but still nothing new here, most of it is just a fix you can find on almost all D&D boards), im curious ont what you have in mind for other styles and what you will do with the High, Medium and Low Offense/Defense/Control...

I also think that this would be better :

{table]Style | Offense | Defense | Control
Two-Weapon Fighting | Medium | Low | High
Two Handed Fighting | High | Low | Medium
Sword and Board | Low | High | Medium
Einhander | Medium | Medium | Medium
[/table]

But I have see your argument about reach and that's your work here so do what you want. Im also one of those who think that Two-handed Fighting style is High Offense (Power Attack, Cleave...), Two-weapon fighting is High Control (Parry, Riposte...) and Sword and Board High Defense (Shield Defense, Shield Wall...)

Waiting for more to give input. But its a interesting mini-project

Mystify
2011-05-20, 03:01 PM
pathfinder has a feat called comabt patrol
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/combat-patrol-combat

If we added something similar we could boost anyone's control signifcantly without needing reach.

Quietus
2011-05-20, 03:09 PM
I think our first step here should be to define what we expect out of each style, and what different words should mean.

THF : To me, the basic version of this, to me, means power. This is the barbarian with the greataxe and the foaming mouth.
Reach : Distinct from THF, despite being limited to it (outside of spinning swords and kusari-gamas). This is where battlefield control comes in.
TWF : This is another one that, to me, represents heavy offense. You're giving up the option to use a shield, generally, for more chances to cut the other guy.
Sword and board : Defense. Turtling doesn't work in D&D, so this needs to touch a little bit on control. The shield charge/shield slam type feats are good for this.
Einhander : This one speaks to me of mobility and precision, mostly mixing the ability to do damage with quick dodges. So offense/defense, with control limited to possibly disarm-style techniques.

As to the TWF treated as a proficiency : I disagree. Everyone should be able to pick up a weapon and use it, sure, but I think that the feats chosen should define a character's style. If you're going to give TWF as a proficiency thing, then power attack should be given as well, and now we're redefining too much. Make TWF not totally pointless without a feat, perhaps : Say a -2 or -4 to use a couple light weapons, and then have the feat eliminate the penalty entirely as well as opening iteratives with your off-hand.

Of all these different styles, I think Einhander is the only one that most lacks feats. Something that would give them the option to fight defensively at a smaller penalty would be a good start, for me - or give the option to fight in full defensive, and retain one attack per round at double the normal penalty. So, say, something like :

Einhander [General]
Prerequisites : None
Benefit : The penalty for fighting defensively is reduced to -2. Additionally, when taking the Total Defense action, you may still make a single attack, though you are still prevented from taking attacks of opportunity. You take a -4 penalty to this attack. You may use the Combat Expertise feat in combination with Total Defense.

When your base attack reaches +6 or higher, you no longer take a penalty for fighting defensively, and the penalty for total defense lessens to -2. If you choose to take the Total Defense option you may still only make a single attack during your turn, and may not take any attacks of opportunity.

Normal : Fighting defensively is a -4 penalty, and Total Defense doesn't allow you to attack at all.

Special : A Fighter may take this as one of his bonus feats.

Mystify
2011-05-20, 03:18 PM
Of all these different styles, I think Einhander is the only one that most lacks feats. Something that would give them the option to fight defensively at a smaller penalty would be a good start, for me - or give the option to fight in full defensive, and retain one attack per round at double the normal penalty. So, say, something like :

Einhander [General]
Prerequisites : None
Benefit : The penalty for fighting defensively is reduced to -2. Additionally, when taking the Total Defense action, you may still make a single attack, though you are still prevented from taking attacks of opportunity. You take a -4 penalty to this attack. You may use the Combat Expertise feat in combination with Total Defense.

When your base attack reaches +6 or higher, you no longer take a penalty for fighting defensively, and the penalty for total defense lessens to -2. You may still only make a single attack during your turn, and may not take any attacks of opportunity, if you choose to take the Total Defense option.

Normal : Fighting defensively is a -4 penalty, and Total Defense doesn't allow you to attack at all.

Special : A Fighter may take this as one of his bonus feats.

Einahnder definitely needs more support. I'm not sure if that is the way to do it. At low levels, you are taking a -2 accuracey penalty to get +2 dodge, which is no better than a sheild, and you are sacrificing accuracy and a feat. By the time that penalty is reduced, the sheild user has a magic sheild and hence more AC, the possbility to sheild bashing , and to keep up with their AC you have to use total defense, which puts you back at the -2 and locks out all of your extra attacks. So you end up with less offense and defense than a sheild user, and no control to speak of.
So, what is the benefit?

Quietus
2011-05-20, 03:45 PM
Einahnder definitely needs more support. I'm not sure if that is the way to do it. At low levels, you are taking a -2 accuracey penalty to get +2 dodge, which is no better than a sheild, and you are sacrificing accuracy and a feat. By the time that penalty is reduced, the sheild user has a magic sheild and hence more AC, the possbility to sheild bashing , and to keep up with their AC you have to use total defense, which puts you back at the -2 and locks out all of your extra attacks. So you end up with less offense and defense than a sheild user, and no control to speak of.
So, what is the benefit?

The benefit is getting the discussion started, of course. :smalltongue:

No, you're totally right in that it's a cost to do something poorly. It's attractive at first glance, but when looking at how it fits into the system as a whole, it fails. How would you recommend putting forward an Einhander style?

Quellian-dyrae
2011-05-20, 03:46 PM
I think one of the big issues with the fighting styles is that they do a bunch of different things that are really difficult to balance against each other. I'd take THF as the baseline, and modify the other styles to fall in line with it. The main benefits of THF are:

-Add half Str mod to damage.
-Use larger weapons, generally getting in the vicinity of 2d6 base damage without special effects.
-Half again normal returns on Power Attack.

So, to balance them, fit similar capabilities.

TWF:
-Use two light weapons, or a one-handed and light with a -1 attack penalty, or two one-handed with a -2 attack penalty. Make a single attack roll, adding the damage dice (only) together. Paired weapons and double weapons can be enchanted as a single weapon. Generally will be in the range of 2d6 damage, potentially going higher with attack roll penalties.
-Add half your Str mod to damage from your off-hand weapon.
-Since your paired weapons let you strike faster, your attack roll penalty for iterative attacks is only -3, rather than -5.

Single Weapon:
-Use a single, one-handed weapon, typically around 1d8 base damage. Thanks to your more balanced stance, you get a +2 competence bonus on attack rolls.
-Since you can place strikes more precisely, add half your Dex mod to damage.
-Your balanced stance lets you reduce the attack roll penalties you take from Power Attack or Combat Expertise by 1 (to a minimum -1 penalty when using such a feat). For each full four points of penalty you take, you further reduce the penalty by 1. This does not increase the maximum penalty you can take; it merely reduces the actual impact to your attack roll.

Weapon and Shield:
-Use a single, one-handed weapon, typically around 1d8 base damage, and a shield, typically providing +2 AC.
-Your shield also lets you reduce the damage of physical attacks by half your Con mod, as if from DR/-, although this stacks with other DR.
-Your shield makes it easy to parry enemy attacks. Double the bonus from Combat Expertise, Fighting Defensively, and Total Defending.

Spiryt
2011-05-20, 03:53 PM
THF as "Control" makes quite a lot sense, that was kind of the point, use of two hands for better control of longer weapon, heavier weapon, more precision and ability to interact with stuff.

Trip with long wood, hook with guisarme or halberd, disarm with sword bind...

So it seems interesting, going to see what you will make out of it.

Mystify
2011-05-20, 03:55 PM
The benefit is getting the discussion started, of course. :smalltongue:

No, you're totally right in that it's a cost to do something poorly. It's attractive at first glance, but when looking at how it fits into the system as a whole, it fails. How would you recommend putting forward an Einhander style?

how about this as an initial set of feats:
Einhander:
You gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls whenver you are weilding a weapon in one hand with nothing in the offhand. This bonus increases by +1 for every 5 BaB you have. You may also apply the effects of weapon finesse to this weapon. This feat counts as weapon finesse for meeting prerequisites, but you can only gain their benefits when using a weapon one-handed.

Einhander speed:
Pre-reqs: Einhander, Bab x
You may make an additional attack once per round with a weapon gaining the bonus from Einhander

Einhander feint:
pre-reqs: Einhander
When using a weapon that gains the bonus from Einhander, you may feint as an attack option as part of a full round.

Einhander parry:
pre-reqs: Einhander
When using a weapon subject to Einhander, you may sacrifice one attack (either taking no attack on a standard attack option, or sacrificing an attack from a full round). Until the start of your next turn, you may elect to parry an enemies attack. Make an opposed attack roll using the BaB of the attack you sacrificed. If you win, you negate the enemy's attack.

Einhander riposte:
pre-reqs: Einhander parry
if you make a successful Einhander parry, you may make a free attack against the target of the parry, using the BaB of the attack you sacrificed.

Some of these probably need some more prerequisites, and you could combine some of them, but you get the idea.

NineThePuma
2011-05-20, 04:09 PM
Kusarigama (DMG p145) is a Light melee weapon with reach.

... Just saying. <_<;;

Mystify
2011-05-20, 04:30 PM
Kusarigama (DMG p145) is a Light melee weapon with reach.

... Just saying. <_<;;

Its a spiked chain as a light weapon. Sweet!

Seerow
2011-05-20, 04:31 PM
It'll probably be tomorrow before I get a chance to update the original posts.


THF : To me, the basic version of this, to me, means power. This is the barbarian with the greataxe and the foaming mouth.
Reach : Distinct from THF, despite being limited to it (outside of spinning swords and kusari-gamas). This is where battlefield control comes in.

Okay, but if we're going to make reach distinct from two handed fighting, then we need to make sure that the bonus damage from two handed non-reach weapons can't spill over. Things like bonus power attack damage and the like MUST specify non-reach weapons.

And in that case, what makes the difference between non-reach TWFing and THFing, conceptually? Are we aiming for similar damage with similar investment against average opponents, with which is more effective varying by levels of DR? Or something else?


As to the TWF treated as a proficiency : I disagree. Everyone should be able to pick up a weapon and use it, sure, but I think that the feats chosen should define a character's style. If you're going to give TWF as a proficiency thing, then power attack should be given as well, and now we're redefining too much. Make TWF not totally pointless without a feat, perhaps : Say a -2 or -4 to use a couple light weapons, and then have the feat eliminate the penalty entirely as well as opening iteratives with your off-hand.


The thing is, you're identifying Power Attack as necessary for two handed fighting. It is not. It is so good you want it, yes. But it should be a viable option for all fighting styles. TWFing as a proficiency is to emulate the fact that every other fighting style can be done at its core without any feat support.

You can pick up a sword and shield, and with no feats be able to attack without penalty, and have a bonus to defense.

You can pick up a two hander, and with no feats be able to attack without penalty, and deal strx1.5 damage.

But you pick up two one handers, and suddenly without feats you can't attack without insurmountable penalties. Even with the feat, you still have a small penalty, but the smaller penalty balances out that you're getting a lot of damage counted twice. What I'm doing here is removing that feat tax, so that two weapon fighting is on an even playing field with the other styles. The alternative would be giving massive penalties for other styles that get overcome with an entry feat, but I think we would all agree that is convoluted and stupid.


On the other hand, I would like to strip some of the two handers' innate advantages away. Primarily I'd like to have Power Attack only give the two to 1 ratio to non-reach two handers, and offhand weapons to be able to use power attack. Giving those two styles a easy source of more damage.

That said, something else may also be in order, remember, THFing has a -0- feat investment currently that is specific to its style. No, power attack and leap attack are not THFing specific. Something like reducing THFing's str contribution back to the normal 1, but introducing a feat that lets you double the strength bonus to damage while wielding a non-reach two handed weapon (this would be the equivalent of having TWFing proficiency, vs taking the feat ITWF to reduce the hit penalty and gain extra attacks.




Short comments on the rest: I like the einhander feats, but feel it's too many feats. The einhander feat already in existence which is pretty weak is basically parry + feint, so you could probably roll those two into one even with the effects each being increased. Similarly, Speed could probably be pushed into normal Einhander, a extra attack and a bonus to hit is good, and may be worth not just picking up a second weapon or a two hander. Either one alone, probably not so much.

I don't think giving more attacks per rounds for faster weapons is a particularly good solution, as it adds an extra layer of complexity, and deviates from the norm too much. That said I don't mind the idea of giving up extra attacks for defense so much, though I'd go a slightly different route. Something like trade 1 attack for 2-3 points of AC, this would simply replace the fighting defensively/full defense mechanic. This, combined with TWFing as a proficiency means a sword and boarder can just give up all of the attacks with his shield to pump up his AC (possibly with some benefit for having a shield), or a TWFer can use his offhand attacks for parrying while attacking with the main hand. The downside is I'm not sure how this would interact with standard actions (nor how yours would work), and that would be the biggest barrier for it.



I'll comment more later, I'm about to leave for dinner, then have a game after that, I'm sure you guys will pick apart my statement and I'll have more to digest on top of what I already have missed responding to.

Mystify
2011-05-20, 04:42 PM
It don't want toput the speed into the base feat. A two weapon fighter takes a feat and gets a penalty for another attack. Throught the system, extra attacks tend to cost a feat and a -2 penalty. An extra attack by itself with no penalty is easily enough for an entire feat.

The base feat is also giving a significant accuracy boost, and a combination of weapon finesse and graceful edge, which less limits.

Those 2 I am comfortable with being seperate. The parry and riposte could be combined into 1 feat. Feinting as an attack option is actually pretty powerful. normally itsa full round with a feat to reduce it to a move. As an attack option you can feint multiple times within the same full round, which allows you to do a few more attacks with sneak attack damage if you can't pull off a more reliable source that round. It also doesn't feel like it would fit with parry/riposte. It could fit with speed, but I'm not sure if that is balanced.


I do think a lot of the current disparity in power is becuae a 2 handed fighter can be very powerful, and is just as fast as anything else. It seems kinda silly that a barbarian can swing an axe around just as fast as a rouge can stab with a dagger. If the axe was slower, or other weapons faster, then it could hit like a ton of bricks and not be the only option for damage.

T.G. Oskar
2011-05-20, 06:57 PM
Hmm...martial proficiency with two weapons? Isn't that what TWF already does, removing the penalties on two weapons? Otherwise, you'd need to revive Ambidexterity and place it as a free bonus feat (for Rangers, Rogues and classes that would benefit from it). I've figured that TWF works best with the TWF feat collapsing TWF, Dual Strike and Double Hit (the feats that deal with making attacks with two weapons as part of a standard action melee attack and the ones that allow striking with two weapons as part of any attack of opportunity, respectively) through the idea of allowing the use of both weapons in any melee attack (including the one from Imp. Trip, for example). Maybe add a few benefits alongside it; maybe a +2 bonus on disarm and trip attempts when wielding two weapons. This makes the first feat extremely diverse, and the second extremely focused in terms of action. However, it keeps it on the realm of feats, since it makes TWF an option rather than something you'll probably fall upon.

I would allow some changes, though. Remember how Combat Expertise limits your bonus to AC by restricting how much Power Attack works? And ever considered that pretty much all games that use Power Attack restrict the use to a +5 bonus to damage? Well, nerf Power Attack if you're making all weapon styles based off two feats, or boost stuff like Combat Expertise, TWF and S&B if you wish to keep it the same. The best way to see this is Combat Expertise versus Power Attack; whatever change you make to Combat Expertise should apply to Power Attack, since they're extremely similar feats (replace one thing for another). I'd recommend nixing the Int requirement, since you don't need to be too smart to parry with your weapon (which is basically what Combat Expertise does). I'd personally equate CE with PA, and make the benefit of Combat Expertise apply to the ability to fight defensively instead.

S&B would be the hardest, though. You get Imp. Shield Bash and Agile Shield Fighting to produce something, but that's basically a poor man's TWF. High Def and Medium Control leads to use your shield as a stopper, something along the lines of increasing the Tumble check required to bypass moving through your threatened space based on your shield, or automatically providing aid another bonuses to any ally adjacent to you, or even daze any opponent whenever you make a shield bash as an AoO.

One-hander is less difficult to pull off, because it's less of an actual combat style than a transitory combat style. If you had, say, Power Attack and TWF (the basics for THF and TWF), you could use a single one-handed weapon to shift from one style to another, wielding said weapon in two hands or taking another and fighting appropriately. Fighting with one weapon and nothing in the other hand shouldn't be the norm. However, if you really want a proper one-hander, you'll have to make it precision-based; something that adds bonuses to attack and damage whenever you're wielding the weapon in one hand and nothing in the other, perhaps even a defensive bonus because you're adopting a sideways stance which should increase dodging. However, it's much better if you make it transitory, so that you can fight well in one-hand but shift to a more appropriate combat style if necessary.

Mystify
2011-05-20, 07:12 PM
One-hander is less difficult to pull off, because it's less of an actual combat style than a transitory combat style. If you had, say, Power Attack and TWF (the basics for THF and TWF), you could use a single one-handed weapon to shift from one style to another, wielding said weapon in two hands or taking another and fighting appropriately. Fighting with one weapon and nothing in the other hand shouldn't be the norm. However, if you really want a proper one-hander, you'll have to make it precision-based; something that adds bonuses to attack and damage whenever you're wielding the weapon in one hand and nothing in the other, perhaps even a defensive bonus because you're adopting a sideways stance which should increase dodging. However, it's much better if you make it transitory, so that you can fight well in one-hand but shift to a more appropriate combat style if necessary.

I don't see it as a transitory style at all. If you have one weapon in hand, it doesn't take an action to grip it in two hands and swing. You want two weapons, you let go and draw your other weapon. You don't stop in the middle of the transition to attack. Its also a commonly used style, with fencing being the most prominent example. Its a style based on speed. Granted it isn't really mixed with knights in armour since it is designed for unarmored foes, where speed is more important than power, but that doesn't mean it should be exiled to a handful of pathetic feats.

mykelyk
2011-05-20, 07:59 PM
A problem of TWF is that take a lot of time because you have a lot of rolls at different to-hit, this feat allow a high level TWFighter a more powerful and simple full-attack.

Supreme Two Weapon Fighting
Prerequisite: BAB +12, Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Rend
Benefit: When fighting with two weapon your iterative attacks gain full BAB bonus to-hit.

Mystify
2011-05-20, 08:25 PM
A problem of TWF is that take a lot of time because you have a lot of rolls at different to-hit, this feat allow a high level TWFighter a more powerful and simple full-attack.

Supreme Two Weapon Fighting
Prerequisite: BAB +12, Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Rend
Benefit: When fighting with two weapon your iterative attacks gain full BAB bonus to-hit.

I'd rather have the extra attack. Its only dropping it by one roll, and the first 2 iterations are very likely to hit anyways. The third is iffy, but its still worth having.

Comparison:
attack bonus 45, AC 35

95/95/90/90/65/65/40=5.4

to

95/95/95/95/75/50=5.05

Greater two weapon fighting is commonly considered weak, and you are presenting a weaker version with more prerequisites just to save 1 attack, and its the same attack bonus as the third attack, so you aren't even saving any computation.

Edit: I may have misinterpreted that you were meaning it as a replacement for greater.

Siosilvar
2011-05-20, 08:32 PM
A problem of TWF is that take a lot of time because you have a lot of rolls at different to-hit, this feat allow a high level TWFighter a more powerful and simple full-attack.

Supreme Two Weapon Fighting
Prerequisite: BAB +12, Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Rend
Benefit: When fighting with two weapon your iterative attacks gain full BAB bonus to-hit.

Full BAB? So an attack sequence might run +12/+12/+12 main-hand, +12/+12 off-hand?

mykelyk
2011-05-20, 09:04 PM
Full BAB? So an attack sequence might run +12/+12/+12 main-hand, +12/+12 off-hand?
+12/+12/+12 main-hand, +12/+12/+12 off-hand.

I'm using the feats of this thread as prerequisites.

Seerow
2011-05-25, 12:51 AM
So this kind of died off cause I died for a few days. Things have been hectic around here. But now I'm back, and I updated the first post, so I'm going to comment on that first:

1) I think I decided on a formulaic approach to these styles. I'm aiming for 3 feats for each style, the first two feats boost the primary purpose, and the third feat boosts the secondary purpose. That secondary purpose is optional, but the feat should be attractive enough that most people focusing in the style will want to pick it up to flesh out their style.

2) No shield or einhander style yet. Right now I'm actually thinking they should be based on the same starting point, with one feat in common that then branches out to two other possibilities.

Basically feat one is "If you wield a one handed weapon in one hand". Feat two is two different feats, where one gives benefits for wielding a shield, and one gives benefits for going without. The shield would obviously lean more towards defense, with the open hand leaning more towards damage. But I may change my mind on that and just make them wholly distinct as originally planned.

3) The THF and Reach styles were broken up, as I mentioned I might do when people complained about THFing being focused on control. THF still has a focus on damage, and Reach is more about the controlling aspect of it.

Given this break, I did make the change that THFing no longer has its inherent benefits of stronger power attack and higher strength to damage. I crunched out the math, and even without those bonuses, and TWFing coming for free, TWFing and THFing were almost dead even in damage done pre-feats (within .1 damage per round), and with the feats THFing pulled ahead by a lot.

4) Because of that, I did go back and make Imp TWFing also grant full str damage for offhand attacks. This made it so TWFing could keep up with THFing when both took their improved version of the feat. I haven't done the math all the way to 20, but the scaling seems comparable with things as they are now. I'll probably crunch more numbers tomorrow to check.

5) The reach style is missing its 3rd feat, because I'm not sure what the secondary focus should be. I'm currently leaning towards defensive, but am not sure what would be good enough to warrant it. Alternatively, if I ditch the 100% formulaic approach, I am considering something like a bonus movement offturn as an immediate action, to help with the controlling aspect further.



Anyway now to comment on stuff posted:


But I have see your argument about reach and that's your work here so do what you want. Im also one of those who think that Two-handed Fighting style is High Offense (Power Attack, Cleave...), Two-weapon fighting is High Control (Parry, Riposte...) and Sword and Board High Defense (Shield Defense, Shield Wall...)


I missed this before so I'm going to comment on it now. Parry and Riposte is something that can be done regardless of weapon type, but if anything would be iconic to einhander not TWFing. Also, those abilities are more defensive in nature than controlling. When I talk about control I am referring to being able to meaningfully restrict the enemy. Denying them options, restricting their movement. Forcing them to be where I want to be.


It don't want toput the speed into the base feat. A two weapon fighter takes a feat and gets a penalty for another attack. Throught the system, extra attacks tend to cost a feat and a -2 penalty. An extra attack by itself with no penalty is easily enough for an entire feat.

Maybe you're right, but I'm more worried about how an Einhander style will compare round by round with THFing or TWFing. I won't mind if it's down like 10-20%, since those are the high damage styles where Einhander is not, but it should be in the vicinity. I'll look at it closer when crunching numbers for Einhander.


Hmm...martial proficiency with two weapons? Isn't that what TWF already does, removing the penalties on two weapons?

Basically, yes. So it's not really a major change. The big thing is now being able to use TWFing is a proficiency rather than a bonus feat. So a Fighter or Ranger can automatically use two weapons fairly proficiently without having to sink a feat into it. By sinking a feat into it they get better, just like with any other style.


I've figured that TWF works best with the TWF feat collapsing TWF, Dual Strike and Double Hit (the feats that deal with making attacks with two weapons as part of a standard action melee attack and the ones that allow striking with two weapons as part of any attack of opportunity, respectively) through the idea of allowing the use of both weapons in any melee attack (including the one from Imp. Trip, for example).

That's basically what this does. You get the TWFing chain as a proficiency, then Dual Strike/Double Hit/Two Weapon Pounce/whatever else for extra non-BAB based attacks, wrapped in as another feat, with a scaling reduction in penalties, so by level 20 you can use two one handers without penalty.

It seems like a lot, but when you line up a character with the feats next to a character with the THFing feats, it should come out pretty similar.

When you start adding in class features it gets a bit murkier. The THFer will scale better with weapon damage and strength, the TWFer will scale better with bonus damage. But then, THF will fare better when DR is brought into play... overall it should still stay about even between the two.


A problem of TWF is that take a lot of time because you have a lot of rolls at different to-hit, this feat allow a high level TWFighter a more powerful and simple full-attack.

Supreme Two Weapon Fighting
Prerequisite: BAB +12, Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Rend
Benefit: When fighting with two weapon your iterative attacks gain full BAB bonus to-hit.

TWFing has no more different to-hits than anyone else, they just get twice as many rolls at each to-hit. Your solution is pretty overpowered. If you were determined to go the route of all attacks use the same to-hit, you should at least follow the example of manyshot and make a penalty to hit that increases with the number of attacks you make. Honestly though, I don't care for it.

IronWilliam
2011-05-25, 09:13 PM
The most effective two-handed reach weapon is the spiked chain, due to it's ability to attack adjacent foes and at 10 ft. Spiked chain builds are usually focused on control because of this, and for effective battlefield control good movement speed is needed. This restricts most SCF's (spiked chain fighters) to light armor. Because weapon finnese works with spiked chain, and a good DEX is needed to boost AC with light armor, DEX is emphased over STR. This creates a mobile controller build that hits often, possibly using whirlwind attack for more attacks with reach, and does little damage, but gets multiple attacks of opportunity per round, can set up flanks easily, and use feats like improved trip to keep powerful foes ot of commission.

The other type of two-handed weapon style is the greatsword fighter. The idea behind the greatsword fighter is that he hits often and does large amounts of damage (especially with the X2 power attack bonus) but lacks any special tricks. Most greatsword fighters use heavy armor to make up for otherwise low AC due to lack of DEX or a shield. This makes them poor controllers as they can't move quickly.

Greatsword Fighter
Pros: Great damage per round
Less expensive, because only one item must be enchanted, as opposed to a sword and board or TWF.
Simple to make and play
Cons: low speed due to heavy armor
Has no special tricks, is only a simple melee combatant. (I attack. I attack again. And again)

Spiked Chain Fighter
Pros: Can make many attacks per round with whirlwind attack due to reach
Gets many attacks of opportunity due to reach
Can use feats such as improved trip at 10 ft. distance to keep targets out of action. Getting up from being prone provokes.
Has good move speed and can control battlefield with reach.
Cons: Does not deal much damage with each successful hit, because SCFs are usually DEX focussed.
Is designed for crowd control, not individual powerfull melee combatants who it fairs poorly against due to low damage per hit.
Requires numerous feats for optimal play, and can be difficult to play.

These comparisons should show that there need to be separate fighting styles for reach based and damage-per-round based two handed weapon fighters. Also, I believe that power attack should still have bonus damage for two-handed weapons, as without it greatsword fighters tend to be boring and less effective.

Seerow
2011-05-25, 09:28 PM
Thanks for the response. I'm going to summarize your post with the last paragraph:


These comparisons should show that there need to be separate fighting styles for reach based and damage-per-round based two handed weapon fighters. Also, I believe that power attack should still have bonus damage for two-handed weapons, as without it greatsword fighters tend to be boring and less effective.


I agree with you! The comments earlier in the thread converted me on separating Reach and Two-Handed Fighting, and I actually just finished editing in the last feat for Reach Weapons, check them both out and let me know what you think.

I took the bonus damage from power attack away from two handed weapons to get it away from reach weapons. Note that the Improved Two-Handed Fighting feat gives back the double damage from power attack, as well as the increased damage from strength. Yes, there is now a feat required to get the awesome bonus damage, but the biggest imbalance before was that THFing got more damage for less investment. With this, a TWFer and THFer with the same investment should be close to even.



I also got the Archery and Einhander styles up. All that's left now is Shield Fighting.

I think I've decided to split shield fighting into two separate categories, one that has a prerequisite of Einhander (which I worded so that it didn't preclude wearing a shield in the offhand, though the later feats do), and one that has a prerequisite of two weapon fighting. That way you can have your low attack turtle with some control and buffing allies' defense AND your guy who's using his shield as more of a weapon than a shield, but not at the same time.

unosarta
2011-05-25, 10:14 PM
TWF, on the other hand, is more about attacking more often, not about dealing more damage. TWF often has less accuracy and deals less damage than any other style, and it offers bonus in the way of Defence to compensate (though I recognise it shouldn't be on the same level as S&B). To me, TWF has always been about battlefield manoeuvring (since it requires a high Dexterity, which implies a build geared towards agility and evasion, rather than the brute strength that would imply a high Offence), and all the possible "riders" that can be applied to attacks, such as some class features that allow the character to channel spells or effects through his attacks. That still doesn't necessarily mean damage, for it can very easily mean poison, or a Chill Touch or Touch of Idiocy effect that disables multiple foes at once (or stacks with itself, thereby heaping penalties onto the same target). Either way, TWF seems, to me, the most geared at Control, with Defence a close second.

This seems to be an interesting point, but not one that is really reflected in feats in 3.5 in general. I hope you (to the OP) don't mind if I put these feats in this thread, since I got the inspiration here, and they seem relatively connected to the actual feats you have.

Flurry of the Adamantine Shield
Benefits: You gain a Dodge bonus to Armor Class until the end of your next turn after making an attack action and after all of the attacks resolve equal to +2 per successful attack made. The attacks must be made as a part of the same action for the bonus to stack. Attacks made with different actions do not stack, only the highest bonus applies.
Special: A fighter may select Flurry of the Adamantine Shield as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Pushback
Prerequisites: Flurry of the Adamantine Shield, Base Attack Bonus +6
Benefits: Whenever you make an attack, you may push back the target of the attack a distance equal to 5 feet per successful attack made on that target. If the full attack targets multiple targets, each is pushed back a distance equal to the number of successful attacks made on them individually. A successful Reflex save (DC 10 + 1/2 ECL + Dexterity modifier) halves the distance pushed back. The distance pushed is calculated at the end of the current action, so if you take a full attack, the target is not pushed until the full attack is resolved entirely. A target may only be pushed back in this way once per round.
Special: A fighter may select Pushback as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Overwhelming Assault
Prerequisites: Flurry of the Adamantine Shield, Base Attack Bonus +6
Benefits: Whenever you make an attack, you gain a bonus to attack rolls until the end of your next turn equal to the number of successful attacks made in the attack, after the attacks in the attack resolve. The attacks must be made as a part of the same action for the bonus to stack. Attacks made with different actions do not stack, only the highest bonus applies.
Special: A fighter may select Overwhelming Assault as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Seerow
2011-05-25, 10:25 PM
This seems to be an interesting point, but not one that is really reflected in feats in 3.5 in general. I hope you (to the OP) don't mind if I put these feats in this thread, since I got the inspiration here, and they seem relatively connected to the actual feats you have.

I don't mind at all, though I will comment that with the system I've been working on, the feats wouldn't have a prerequisite of two weapon fighting, as the two weapon fighting style is already pretty well fleshed out. So you'd have the first feat with no prerequisites, and Pushback/Overwhelming Assault requiring the BAB and Flurry of the Adamantine Shield.

Even if you don't care about compatibility with this, nothing in those feats actually implies that it -requires- two weapons to use, the feats just get better with more attacks, so a two weapon fighter would synergize better with them.

To comment on the actual feats, a couple things:

1) Does a full attack include something like a whirlwind attack? ie if you whirlwind 8 enemies, do you get +16 AC and +8 to attacks?
2) Do the bonuses last until the start or end of your next turn?
3) When does the overwhelming assault attack bonus get added? Do you add the bonus after each attack, or does it wait until the end of the full attack, and add the full bonus?

Example1: Fighter with 4 attacks at +20/+15/+10/+5 is really lucky and hits all 4 of his attacks. His attack rolls end up really being +20/+16/+12/+8 since you're gaining the overwhelming assault as you attack. All AoOs are made at +24

Example2: Fighter attacks with 4 attacks at 20/+15/+10/+5 is really lucky and hits all 4 of his attacks. His attack rolls are actually 20/+15/+10/+5 as advertised, since you're gaining the overwhelming assault after you attack. All AoOs are made at +24

4) If it is like Example 1, do AoOs also add to the bonuses granted? ie after the first AoO do you then have +25 on the next AoO?

The answers to those questions will determine how strong or weak the feats actually are. Though right now it seems like they're either going to be too good or too bad, and a middle ground would need to be found.

unosarta
2011-05-25, 10:29 PM
The feats come into effect after the full attack ends, as shown with Pushback (I.E. after the attacks have resolved). They last until the end of your next turn, and do not stack with themselves. I will clarify. The individual feats don't stack with themselves, and only accrue bonuses from Full Attacks.

Seerow
2011-05-25, 10:40 PM
The feats come into effect after the full attack ends, as shown with Pushback (I.E. after the attacks have resolved). They last until the end of your next turn, and do not stack with themselves. I will clarify.

Okay, I can see that as workable. Though given that, it feels like Overwhelming Assault is slightly weak at first glance, but thinking about it more, being able to net a +4-8 or higher bonus to hit on the next round isn't too shabby.


That just leaves the question of how does this interract with multiple attack actions that aren't full attacks? I get that you probably don't want something like double hit activating the feats, but what about someone with spring attack/bounding assault/rapid blitz, or whirlwind attack?

unosarta
2011-05-25, 10:46 PM
Okay, I can see that as workable. Though given that, it feels like Overwhelming Assault is slightly weak at first glance, but thinking about it more, being able to net a +4-8 or higher bonus to hit on the next round isn't too shabby.

That just leaves the question of how does this interract with multiple attack actions that aren't full attacks? I get that you probably don't want something like double hit activating the feats, but what about someone with spring attack/bounding assault/rapid blitz, or whirlwind attack?

Hm... if you think about it, if I say that it doesn't stack with itself, then it wouldn't really need to be a full attack.

Seerow
2011-05-25, 10:57 PM
Okay, I like that.

Slight rewording to clarify the stacking/resolution of effects:

Benefits: You gain a Dodge bonus to Armor Class until the end of your next turn after making an attack action and after all of the attacks resolve equal to +2 per successful attack made. The attacks must be made as a part of the same action for the bonus to stack. Attacks made with different actions do not stack, only the highest bonus applies.


Benefit: Whenever you make an attack, you may push back the target of the attack a distance equal to 5 feet per successful attack made on that target. If the full attack targets multiple targets, each is pushed back a distance equal to the number of successful attacks made on them individually. A successful Reflex save (DC 10 + 1/2 ECL + Dexterity modifier) halves the distance pushed back. The distance pushed is calculated at the end of the current action, so if you take a full attack, the target is not pushed until the full attack is resolved entirely. A target may only be pushed back in this way once per round.

Benefits: Whenever you make an attack, you gain a bonus to attack rolls until the end of your next turn equal to the number of successful attacks made in the attack, after the attacks in the attack resolve. The attacks must be made as a part of the same action for the bonus to stack. Attacks made with different actions do not stack, only the highest bonus applies.

unosarta
2011-05-25, 11:03 PM
Awesome, and updated.

Seerow
2011-05-25, 11:05 PM
Awesome, and updated.

Cool. Do you mind if I update those into my original post under general feats? It doesn't have much to do with weapon styles, but it is another options for people that any weapon style should be able to pick up.

unosarta
2011-05-26, 07:35 AM
Cool. Do you mind if I update those into my original post under general feats? It doesn't have much to do with weapon styles, but it is another options for people that any weapon style should be able to pick up.

Go ahead. I actually have another couple of feats, as well.

Vicious Strike
Prerequisites: Base Attack Bonus +1, or Sneak Attack +1d6, or Sudden Strike +1d6
Benefits: When making a full attack, you may sacrifice all but one of the attacks. You may choose which attacks you sacrifice in this way. You gain a bonus to damage on that attack equal to +1d6 per attack sacrificed. This bonus increases by +1d6 at ECL 5, and every 4 ECL thereafter (+3d6 at ECL 9, +4d6 at ECL 13, etc etc). You may not sacrifice more attacks in this way than the total number of attacks your base attack bonus grants you. If you remain with more than one attack even after sacrificing all of the attacks your base attack bonus grants you, only one of them gains the bonus to damage. If the character has Sneak Attack or another form of precision damage, he deals an extra amount of damage per attack sacrificed while using this feat equal to one half of the sneak attack dice that the character could deal, if the vicious strike qualifies as activating the precision damage. The damage from this feat is not precision damage.
Special: Fighters may take this feat as a bonus feat.

Strike Fear
Prerequisites: Vicious Strike, Intimidate 6 ranks
Benefits: Anytime you use the Vicious Strike feat, and you successfully hit with the attack, you may, as a swift action, force the target to make a Will save (DC 10 + ½ ECL + Strength modifier), or become shaken until the end of the encounter. This fear effect stacks with itself, shaken becoming frightened, frightened becoming panicked.
Special: Fighters may take this feat as a bonus feat.

Seerow
2011-05-27, 12:07 PM
Class specific feats are a bit narrow for what I'm working on here. I will comment the first feat seems a bit weak though (as a 20th level rogue, I can take a full attack option to take a single attack and gain a whopping +15d6 damage. Considering I could have just taken my other attacks, hit 2 of the three on average, and gotten 20d6 extra sneak attack plus the actual weapon damage and other modifiers... it's just not worth it).



But does anyone have any comments on the feats I've put up? There was a lot of discussion at the beginning, but then after like the first day there's been almost nothing, and I've put up several new styles since then, it would be nice to get some commentary on them.


I'm also just about to put up the sword and board style, but it's the one I'm currently most unsure of. The intimidate mechanic might seem kind of unrealistic, but the only other way I could think of to encourage enemies to attack you is something like 4e where you get attacks when they ignore you.

The Warder feat seems like it may be too strong for a single feat, but I'm really not wanting to break up the sword and board feats further, since they already have the potential to be the longest feat chain (since it requires the first step in TWFing or Einhander, you would likely want to pick up the latter feats from those chains as well, for the combination style, effectively making a shield fighting a 5 feat investment compared to the normal 3.

At first I was worried about Warder giving a level 2 spell effectively at will at BAB+3, but then I realized it's an hour/lvl spell anyway, so really it's not that big a deal. Especially since it requires allies to be within your reach to grant. The blocking line of effect is a bigger deal, but the area is blocks scaling up so slowly I think should balance that.

There's also the fact that the alternative is shield bashing, which is pretty decent damage all told, while keeping up the personal defenses (especially if you nab two weapon defense), so it kind of needs the utility to keep up....

Mystify
2011-05-27, 12:22 PM
I don't think the improved bash feat is nessecary. At all. As it is, a medium creature with a spiked bashing sheild hits like a gargantuan creature for 3d6. a size increase or strongarm bracers can max that out at 4d6. The only reason the improved bash is not going to do more is the fact there is no size category above collosal. Sheilds can already be one of the best sources of base weapon damage, there is no need to add more to that.

Seerow
2011-05-27, 12:30 PM
I don't think the improved bash feat is nessecary. At all. As it is, a medium creature with a spiked bashing sheild hits like a gargantuan creature for 3d6. a size increase or strongarm bracers can max that out at 4d6. The only reason the improved bash is not going to do more is the fact there is no size category above collosal. Sheilds can already be one of the best sources of base weapon damage, there is no need to add more to that.

I was actually thinking that the improved bash damage would not stack with the bashing property, but rather replaces it, so you didn't have one magical enhancement that is absolutely required for anyone who wants to go that route. I suppose I could have made that comment.

Mystify
2011-05-27, 12:51 PM
I never felt that the sheild bash feat was weak. You have all of the effectiveness of a sheild, and all of the effectiveness of two weapon fighting. In fact, once you have a bashing spiked sheild, its one of the most powerful offhand weapons you can have. Any weaknesses in that strategy are from the two weapon fighting, not the sheild. I don't see why you need to boost it so much.

One issue I'll raise with the strategy we are empoying with this rebalance is that it accelerates a fighters martial skill without extending it. By which I mean it makes fighters better at the beginning and doesn't do much to help them advance further. Since fighters already dominate the early game and fall behind in the later game, I don't think this is the shift that is needed. We need more high level options to remain competitive, not quicker advancement in the beginning.

Seerow
2011-05-27, 01:09 PM
I never felt that the sheild bash feat was weak. You have all of the effectiveness of a sheild, and all of the effectiveness of two weapon fighting. In fact, once you have a bashing spiked sheild, its one of the most powerful offhand weapons you can have. Any weaknesses in that strategy are from the two weapon fighting, not the sheild. I don't see why you need to boost it so much.

It's the extra feat cost. You are paying two extra feats compared to a normal 2 weapon fighter (a 66% cost increase), so yes, you should be a bit better at it. The Bashing is something that you would have gotten with or without the feat, all I did was make it so you don't have to get a specific magic shield to be competitive (which is very nice in campaigns without a Magicmart).

I wouldn't mind losing both the size increasing benefit -and- the bashing property, thus making the benefit for a shield fighter increased defenses, and the chance to daze, compared to a normal two weapon fighter, but if you're going to have a shield property that increases damage that much, I'd rather have it baseline than make one item so completely critical.


One issue I'll raise with the strategy we are empoying with this rebalance is that it accelerates a fighters martial skill without extending it. By which I mean it makes fighters better at the beginning and doesn't do much to help them advance further. Since fighters already dominate the early game and fall behind in the later game, I don't think this is the shift that is needed. We need more high level options to remain competitive, not quicker advancement in the beginning.

Well, this is about balancing the fighting styles, not the Fighter itself. I'm more worried about what an average character can do with their 7-8 feats than what a fighter can do with 18. Why? Because it's better to balance around the majority than the minority. And the fighter with all those feats? He's in the minority. Everyone else? They have the majority, and with the feat chains that go 10 feats deep, they can't actually take advantage of most of them.

The fighter needs help, but what it needs is more along the lines of a total overhaul, not more feats that he's the only one in the world who will take them.

That said, most of these feats scale in power with your BAB, and they are intended to synergize better with other feats. If you have two different fighting styles, all of your feats should work to some degree with the fighting styles. A Fighter using these feats could have for example, the Two Weapon Fighting Feats, the Archery Feats, and the Rapid Attack feats, and as a standard action be able to make 8 attacks at +12/+12/+12/+12/+12/+12/+12/+12 (just BAB), either in melee, or from range with throwing weapons.


Though looking at this, it seems that the ranged style once combined with two weapon fighting may favor thrown weapons/dual wielding auto-loading crossbows too much. Is this another case of a style that should be branched out, so throwing weapons don't get the same damage boosts as someone using a heavy crossbow or a longbow? If so, how would you mark that division?

Mystify
2011-05-27, 01:51 PM
The bashing property means you have to desynergize your sheild fighting slightly. Instead of a +2 AC, you have a +1 AC and a stronger offhand. Its a tradeoff that you are completely removing.

I also disagree that the fighting styles need to be balanced this identically. To me, two weapon fighting has always been about being really hard to master, but with more payoffs. The failing is the payoff, not the cost. Fighting with 2 weapons is not something that is easy to do. You shouldn't be able to spend a single feat on it and get complete mastery. You are taking all of the complexity of fighting with a sword, and learning to coordinate that between 2 hands at the same time. It should be hard to master, but awesome if you do. A two handed weapon can be simple to learn and use effectively, but lack the same heights of potential. But by not needing that level of dedication, you can learn other things.

People look at two weapon fighting, see a high cost, and little to no advantage over a two handed weapon, and react by saying "That costs too much". The more interesting way to balance it is to say "thay doesn't give you enough". What if we upped its power, either from base or through feats, so you coul do things like ignore the sheild bonus to AC on one hand. You are striking with 2 weapons, they can only block one with a sheild at any time, leaving an opening for the other. It would be like the pin sheild feat without sacrificing your attacks. Take a cue from pathfinder and let them get the full str bonus on the offhand. Let them apply weapon specific feats to a pair of weapons instead of individual weapons. If your favored weapon style is longsword and shortsword, why should you only master the longsword? Wouldn't you be mastering using the two in tandem? Why don't we let two weapon fighting take dedication, then allow that dedication to pay off?

Seerow
2011-05-27, 02:12 PM
The bashing property means you have to desynergize your sheild fighting slightly. Instead of a +2 AC, you have a +1 AC and a stronger offhand. Its a tradeoff that you are completely removing.


It's a small tradeoff that only means anything at very low levels. Somewhere between 8 and 12 you just get a pearl of power and have the cleric cast magic vestment on your shield during his morning buffing routine (during which he most likely has a higher than usual caster level, thanks to things like prayer beads, so you are probably getting a +4-5 shield by level 12). You effectively give up a very small amount of wealth to get the bashing property.

On the other hand, in a game that doesn't have magic marts, you could go your entire career without ever seeing a bashing shield, while as a shield bash fighter, you're kind of expected to have one for your damage. If it isn't expected, losing it isn't a big deal, but if it is expected, you should have it regardless.


I also disagree that the fighting styles need to be balanced this identically. To me, two weapon fighting has always been about being really hard to master, but with more payoffs. The failing is the payoff, not the cost. Fighting with 2 weapons is not something that is easy to do. You shouldn't be able to spend a single feat on it and get complete mastery. You are taking all of the complexity of fighting with a sword, and learning to coordinate that between 2 hands at the same time. It should be hard to master, but awesome if you do. A two handed weapon can be simple to learn and use effectively, but lack the same heights of potential. But by not needing that level of dedication, you can learn other things.


The problem here is you underestimate what a feat is. An average human has 2 feats. Spending one feat is a big ****ing deal. Spending 2 feats makes you amazing. Spending 3 is putting you above the level of what any normal human can actually do. When you go beyond that, you either need to make the benefits really amazing or you don't do that.

We're literally talking about spending almost half of the abilities than an epic-nearly-godlike character spends dedicated to this style. I don't give a damn if it's only a fraction of what a fighter gets. It's a huge portion of what any other character gets, and that's what's important.

Let me put it this way, if a 20th level character has as his 7 feats:

-Improved Two Weapon Fighting
-Two Weapon Rend
-Two Weapon Defense
-Power Attack
-Rapid Attack
-Flurry
-Improved Rapid Attack

Would you say he is not focused in his two weapon style? I mean all of his feats are geared towards getting more attacks with his two weapons, and dealing more damage with them. Why do you need more feats that are two weapon specific when there are plenty of feats you can already take that are not that work just as well with two weapon fighting?


People look at two weapon fighting, see a high cost, and little to no advantage over a two handed weapon, and react by saying "That costs too much". The more interesting way to balance it is to say "thay doesn't give you enough". What if we upped its power, either from base or through feats, so you coul do things like ignore the sheild bonus to AC on one hand. You are striking with 2 weapons, they can only block one with a sheild at any time, leaving an opening for the other. It would be like the pin sheild feat without sacrificing your attacks.

A great example of a feat that shouldn't be a feat. If Fighters got actual abilities, like maneuvers, something like pinning an enemy's shield makes a great maneuver. However, as a feat, it is far too situational to EVER be worth the cost. Too few enemies wear shields. Even among those that COULD wear shields only a fraction do. Why would you waste a feat on that? More importantly, that's the sort of thing I would expect to be possible from someone in real life. Given that, it isn't the sort of thing that should be picked up as a feat by someone who's going on 6th to 9th level.


Take a cue from pathfinder and let them get the full str bonus on the offhand.

*looks back at Improved Two-Weapon Fighting* hrm, looks like I already did that.


Let them apply weapon specific feats to a pair of weapons instead of individual weapons. If your favored weapon style is longsword and shortsword, why should you only master the longsword? Wouldn't you be mastering using the two in tandem?

I actually agree with this. Such a change also makes the weapon style feats like High Sword Low Axe more palatable, since they tend to require weapon focus in two different weapons.

That said, I think the whole weapon focus line should also be condensed down to 2-3 feats (feat 1: +to hit and damage, scales up to the +4/+6 you get via the feats currently. Feat 2: The feat that adds a special effect depending on the weapon damage type, like Slashing Flurry. Feat 3: Weapon Supremacy. The problem being that WF/GWF/WS/GWS/MWM are just really terrible investments on their own), but that's a separate issue from weapon styles.

Mystify
2011-05-27, 02:39 PM
But you have to admit, it takes a lot more effort to learn to master 2 weapons than to learn how to swing an axe around. If you condense every fighting style into 3 feats, then there is no learning disparity. The advantage of a fighter should be that they are the ones who dedicate the training to mastering every nuance of the style. You don't need every abilty to use two weapon fighting, but it is harder to learn, and you should have a good reason for learning it. A fighter can apply their weapon training to be awesome at it for what it is, a rouge may swallow the cost to stab things twice as often. As a style, it does not mesh well with everything. A dual weilding paladin doesn't have to work well.

Yes, a single feat is a big deal for a normal human. Normal humans don't dual weild. In fact, most serious literature I read on the subject tends to agree that it is a silly thing to do in real life since it is so hard to coordinate it properly. If a normal human fighter is going to learn to fight with two weapons, that will be the sole focus of their efforts. The initial -10 penalty for dual weilding is not unrealistic.

Pretty much every feat in this thread is as powerful as 2 or 3 feats since you feel that learning a weapon style shouldn't take much effort. A longbowman trains for years to be able to use his weapon properly. The precision needed to shoot into a melee without risking your freinds life is kinda absrud, yet D&D lets it be accessed at a fairly earle level out of nessecity. Yet there are people who dedicate their life to mastering it, and can learn how to shoot candles out and other ridiculous feats. You are pretty much saying "I want to master 2 or 3 styles, so lets jsut compress them all into a couple feats", when mastering a style should take concentrated effort. That is what a fighter does. They put in the training, and spend the many feats required to master their style. That is what a feat represents, concentrated training to further your combat skills. All D&D characters pick up some as they progress jsut by nature of their lives, but fighters concentrate all of their effort on this training. Beign able to spend a dozen feats on a combat style is the entire point of a fighter. A normal D&D character is not focused on mastering their weapon style, and while they can improve at it, they shouldn't be able to match a fighter dedicated to it. The barbarian doesn't train with their axe day in and day out to master every nuance of its style. They go into a rage and swing it harder. A ranger isn't dedicated to using a bow, they are focused on being in tune with nature, and learning to use a bow is just part of it. If a character does intend to put forth the effort into training a style, they will probably want more feats, and dip into fighter. This represents that focused training, and they get the fighter feats to prove it.

Seerow
2011-05-27, 03:05 PM
But you have to admit, it takes a lot more effort to learn to master 2 weapons than to learn how to swing an axe around. If you condense every fighting style into 3 feats, then there is no learning disparity. The advantage of a fighter should be that they are the ones who dedicate the training to mastering every nuance of the style. You don't need every abilty to use two weapon fighting, but it is harder to learn, and you should have a good reason for learning it. A fighter can apply their weapon training to be awesome at it for what it is, a rouge may swallow the cost to stab things twice as often. As a style, it does not mesh well with everything. A dual weilding paladin doesn't have to work well.

*snip*


Why shouldn't a dual wielding paladin work? Why shouldn't a paladin be able to go with the sword and shield bash? Why shouldn't a Gish be able to manage dual wielding? Why shouldn't a range be able to be capable at both melee and range?

The point is that D&D is a game, and this game seeks to model various fantasy archtypes. Each of these archtypes should be equally valid, which means they should have roughly the same amount of investment required to be viable, and should be roughly similar in overall power level when investing the same amount of effort into that style.

The difficulty in wielding two weapons relative to other styles is represented by that penalty to hit (-2 with a light offhand -4 with a one handed weapon), which is gradually reduced as you get more skilled. There is no need to expand the feat tax, because (I'm going to reitterate this one more time) that doesn't do anything for anyone except the fighter, which was a poorly thought out and badly designed class from the start




Your problem is that you want to balance around the idea that the fighter with all of his bonus feats is the pinnacle of fighting ability. You keep referring back to the Fighter as the guy with all these feats you want to make really long feat chains for, and that model doesn't work! That's what WotC tried to do, and failed horribly at. The Fighter is a terrible class, and no rearranging of feats is going to fix that problem. So instead, you should forget the fighter class even exists, and work on balancing the styles from that perspective. And from that perspective, feats are a very scarce commodotity, and each one should be defining what you do.

Yes, the weapon style feats are stronger than normal feats. The reason is I would expect any physically based character to want to invest in at least one fighting style. The problem is, currently that right now means anyone who wants to do physical combat nabs power attack and holds their weapon in two hands, and moves on. This is the core problem that I intend to address.

Other feats outside of the fighting styles stay the same, except for becoming accessible regardless of what type of fighting style you use (ie Power Attack and combat maneuvers available for ranged, Rapidshot/Manyshot available in melee), in order to open up something other than two-handed fighting as viable options for people who don't get a dozen bonus feats.

Mystify
2011-05-27, 03:41 PM
Why shouldn't a dual wielding paladin work? Why shouldn't a paladin be able to go with the sword and shield bash? Why shouldn't a Gish be able to manage dual wielding? Why shouldn't a range be able to be capable at both melee and range?

The point is that D&D is a game, and this game seeks to model various fantasy archtypes. Each of these archtypes should be equally valid, which means they should have roughly the same amount of investment required to be viable, and should be roughly similar in overall power level when investing the same amount of effort into that style.



My archetype of a two weapon fighter mandates that they have poured a on of effort into mastering it becasue it is so incredibly effective when mastered that anything else would be broken. Equally valid does not mean same investment. It means same investment/return ratio. Base competency of swinging 2 weapons at once may be a bit exensive right now, but that doesn't mean everything regarding it needs to be collapsed down into a singularity. But mastering the style, realizing its full potential, should take more effort, and end up higher. A character who used an easier style and learned another trick may be equally as capable as a character, but the dedication to a single style should pay off.

The penatly for dual weilding does represent the difficulty in doing it, but it does nothing for increasing its potential.






The difficulty in wielding two weapons relative to other styles is represented by that penalty to hit (-2 with a light offhand -4 with a one handed weapon), which is gradually reduced as you get more skilled. There is no need to expand the feat tax, because (I'm going to reitterate this one more time) that doesn't do anything for anyone except the fighter, which was a poorly thought out and badly designed class from the start

Your problem is that you want to balance around the idea that the fighter with all of his bonus feats is the pinnacle of fighting ability. You keep referring back to the Fighter as the guy with all these feats you want to make really long feat chains for, and that model doesn't work! That's what WotC tried to do, and failed horribly at. The Fighter is a terrible class, and no rearranging of feats is going to fix that problem. So instead, you should forget the fighter class even exists, and work on balancing the styles from that perspective. And from that perspective, feats are a very scarce commodotity, and each one should be defining what you do.
The fighter is a perfectly good class. It is the feat structure that fails to support it. You are right, WotC failed to make feat chains for the fighter. However, rearranging feats is exactly what would fix it.People argue, correctly in many cases, that class features are stronger than feats. Well, that is a problem with feats. If there are complex feat chains, only a fighter will be able to climb to their tops. The higher level feats could be more powerful and be worth the class features you are not getting. Synergies could exist between them to make it become a level 12 ability not 2 level 6 abilities standing side by side. Making it so that you can put this much focus into mastering what you are doing is what will fix a fighter. They are supposed to be the kings of melee. Paladins have an edge agaisnt evil, barbarians have more mavnueverabilty and skills, rangers are scouts, rouges are sneaky skill monkeys, but fighters are supposed to be good for fighting. And sure, a paladin can learn 2 weapon fighting, but a fighter should be able to take it to the next level.Instead of abandonining the fighter, why not allow them to function as they should?




Yes, the weapon style feats are stronger than normal feats. The reason is I would expect any physically based character to want to invest in at least one fighting style. The problem is, currently that right now means anyone who wants to do physical combat nabs power attack and holds their weapon in two hands, and moves on. This is the core problem that I intend to address.

Other feats outside of the fighting styles stay the same, except for becoming accessible regardless of what type of fighting style you use (ie Power Attack and combat maneuvers available for ranged, Rapidshot/Manyshot available in melee), in order to open up something other than two-handed fighting as viable options for people who don't get a dozen bonus feats.


By making the weapon style feats significantly stronger than normal feats, you are making it virtually mandatory to take them. Any character that doesn't will now be relatively weaker, and so not taking any will be suboptimal. Just because you expect any martial character to take them doesn't mean they should be more powerful than normal feats. If you are going to make a selection of feats that are practically mandatory, why not make it fully mandatory so as to not punish people for not taking them. Give every character a free weapon style feat to start, that will make them capable with the style, just like you are capable with a 2 handed weapon by default. Now you don't have to worry about being suboptimal just becuase you didn't feel like picking up a combat style. If you want multiples, then they can still be available as normal feats, but its not suboptimal to not take it due tothe inherant lack fo synergy between 2 mutually exclusive styles.

unosarta
2011-05-27, 04:02 PM
Class specific feats are a bit narrow for what I'm working on here. I will comment the first feat seems a bit weak though (as a 20th level rogue, I can take a full attack option to take a single attack and gain a whopping +15d6 damage. Considering I could have just taken my other attacks, hit 2 of the three on average, and gotten 20d6 extra sneak attack plus the actual weapon damage and other modifiers... it's just not worth it).
I think you missed the or in the prerequisites. The feat can be taken by anyone, but rogues/ninjas are able to take it earlier, since they don't have full Base Attack Bonus.

Seerow
2011-05-27, 04:05 PM
My archetype of a two weapon fighter mandates that they have poured a on of effort into mastering it becasue it is so incredibly effective when mastered that anything else would be broken.

Yet despite arguing this through two threads, you have yet to give any example of what would make this two weapon fighting so much stronger than a non-two weapon fighter. You want him to spend all of these feats to get better at the style, but every suggestion is either something I've already accounted for, or is too situational to be worth a feat.

You could maybe make a tactical feat with a half dozen of these situational maneuvers jammed into one, might be enough to make it worth taking... but then maybe not. There's a lot of tactical feats out there that never get taken simply because most of their stuff never comes up. The ones that do get taken regularly are the ones that are universally applicable.


Equally valid does not mean same investment. It means same investment/return ratio. Base competency of swinging 2 weapons at once may be a bit exensive right now, but that doesn't mean everything regarding it needs to be collapsed down into a singularity. But mastering the style, realizing its full potential, should take more effort, and end up higher. A character who used an easier style and learned another trick may be equally as capable as a character, but the dedication to a single style should pay off.

Once again, what is the benefit for spending all these extra feats you want then? More damage? No, it already does plenty of damage, about on par with a THFer, enough that if you optimize fully, you blow stuff up, and if you play normally, you are competitive.



The penatly for dual weilding does represent the difficulty in doing it, but it does nothing for increasing its potential.

Why does its potential need to get higher? It's a difficult style to master, that is accurately modeled. Its benefit is that it allows you to maintain similar damage to a two hander while maintaining a higher defense for yourself.


The fighter is a perfectly good class. It is the feat structure that fails to support it.

No, any class that has nearly half its levels with no benefits at all, and the only thing it has unique to it is a +hit/damage feat chain most people don't even care about isn't a good class. Making longer feat chains just means the fighter ends up in an even narrower niche. You can make a dozen new feats for any given style that eventually bring the Fighter up to the level of other classes... but at that point you may as well have just made 10 new classes, because nobody other than the fighter can really use those feats.


Instead of abandonining the fighter, why not allow them to function as they should?

Because "functioning as they should" is a subject of much debate. Take it as someone who was part of the class wars back on the WotC forums before ToB came about, it's hard to get a definition of how a fighter should function everyone agrees with. It's even harder to make a set of feats that will fix the fighter in any niche, without making it completely useless outside of that niche, or something that other characters will get too strong from having access to the first 7 feats.

You mentioned synergies that eventually make multiple 6th level abilities combine to be more like a 12th level ability, that's really what this is about. The various fighting styles synergize with other feats and each other to make the character as a whole more powerful, and so that any two given characters with the same base style can be different.


By making the weapon style feats significantly stronger than normal feats, you are making it virtually mandatory to take them. Any character that doesn't will now be relatively weaker, and so not taking any will be suboptimal.

You know what that reminds me of? Oh yeah, every fighting style in 3.5!

Except right now, EVERY fighting style, except two handed fighting is sub optimal, and that's because two handed fighting gets its whole goddamn style without spending a feat because it's supposed to be the easy thing to do. Then they just jump right into the power attack chain and laugh at everyone. Meanwhile, everyone else, TWFing, Archery, etc, are either spending feats to get to the same baseline level of competency a two handed fighter starts with, or don't have any feats/bad feats to support it (see: Einhander, Sword and Board), making them effectively even weaker.

I think you have really gone out of your way to either ignore or miss every point I've made, because you have this glorious idea of a magical chain that takes exactly 18 feats that will make a Fighter a tier 3 class. I'm sorry, but it's really not going to work. You can build enough power into that number of feats, but to get the level of diversity needed, you really need something more.


I have no problem with adding more decent versatile feats that can be applied to anyone regardless of their fighting style, but I don't think anyone should be spending their entire career doing nothing but getting better at swinging two weapons. That's a boring character.

NineThePuma
2011-05-27, 04:23 PM
Boring character to play. I'm sure someone would enjoy reading a book about it though.

Take it from someone who enjoys the TWF concept: when the DM turns Improved Two Weapon Fighting into Perfect Two Weapon Fighting and you still have to take six more feats to be competitive, you've got a problem.

But this is not the place to rehash the TWF vs THW argument. You started an entire thread for it, Myst. Go back to your thread to argue it while we try to do some homebrew.

That, or actually provide some decent feedback. These are feats, not a fighter fix. Trying to make this out to be a fighter fix is liable to annoy someone.

@Seerow: give me a little while to read over the feats. I'll try to give you a good PEACH in a few minutes.

unosarta
2011-05-27, 04:47 PM
I feel like power attack could still be used to increase damage to a ridiculous point, albeit a little bit harder now. Something I was thinking about; what if the penalty from Power Attack bit directly into the character's BAB. So, if you have a base attack bonus of +13, and you take a -5 penalty to the attack, that means your BAB becomes +8/+3, instead of +13/+8/+3. You take the penalty, but you also lose the attack, which means that A) it becomes a much more interesting choice, between losing attacks and gaining a bonus to damage and still being able to hit the opponent, and B) reduces the amount of damage a pounce-charger can do, since if they take a -20 penalty to the attack, they only get one attack, period, even if they do take the penalty to their armor class via Shock Trooper. Thoughts?

Also; I feel that Mighty Blows should increase by one step period, and then 1 step for every 5 points of BAB the character possesses. Otherwise, if taken when most opportune, no character besides a character with medium BAB would actually gain any benefit from it. Most of the other feats gain a bonus, and then extra bonus on top of that from BAB.

Mystify
2011-05-27, 04:48 PM
I like playing fighters for 1 reason:
They are very flexible in how you build them.
Every class feature is a feat, and hence has a huge list of potential things you can choose from.
Every other class sits there and force feeds you your progression. Most rangers I see are 90% identical to each other. Paladins are cookie cutter. Rouges have some decent felxiblity, but that is or because of the broadness of their concept and their skill list than class features. Magic users also tend to fair better, since their progression is spells known, which is also choice.

Hence, I almost always have fighters as a strong base in my builds. Practically every gestalt I build has a strong fighter presence. It can adapt to whatever you need it to.

So I do want fighters to get more support. Feat chains aren't the only way to do ti. Feat trees are much better, and that keeps the variety up and doesn't railroad you along a specific class. You can take cerain branches of of tree, dip into another tree, etc. I reject the notion that you have to design 10 classes via feats to make fighter viable. Its about creating choiced for them, not dictating progressions. Maybe I want a ranged fighter, but don't want to take the feats based on fighting at long range. I can focus it in, take feats to make me better as a close-range archer, ignore AoOs from being at close range, etc. Or maybe I prefer to take the crossbow feats, mix it with the dual weilding tree, and while not as good at dual weilding or crossbows as someone who focused on either, get both abilities together. Flexibility.

And most classes have a really splotchy advancement. Barbarian's class feature table may look full, but its really not. A lot of them are simply trap sense, and that is barely worth anything for a level. Rangers really peter out at high levels. Rouge are spotty, paladins are mostly dead levels... Sure, its not great, and that is one thing that pathfinder did a lot better, but fighter's are by no means the only offenders.

And TWF would be great compared to THF if it wasn't for power attack. For all the extra attacks they get, THF is allowed to simply swing their axe harder and doing just as good if not better. Taking power attack out of the picture, and just comparing the two styles:

THF gives 1 1/2 str damage plus 1d10-1d12
TWF gives 1 str damage plus 1d6-d8, and 1/2 str damage + 1d4-1d6.

Both deal the same damage based on str, but the TWF has a bit more in base damage dice. By itself, not a real advantage, esp. after you consider the accuracy penalty. So you spend your feat, learn the style, and have very little advancement. But then you add in other bonuses. You take a +1 weapon. Now you are dealing an extra point of damage. You get str, you both end up the same. You get a bard's +1, and you are another poitn ahead. You take weapon specilization, you are now 2 points ahead. As you advance, most bonuses improve upon you more, and you stride ahead.

But in practice, the THF just goes "lol, power attack", and lurches ahead.
So, I said let them bypass sheild better. I always saw one of the major advantages of 2 weapon being that it is much harder to defend agaisnt 2 attacks, and hence you can peirce defenses better. They are busy blockign your sword with their sheild, and you dagger them in the side. They duck under your high swing, and get stabbed in the face. They parry a strike, and there is another strike coming. You have more attacks, and they are more likely to penetrate defenses. D&D does not represent active defenses well, and so this advantage is lost. Perhaps abilities to lower their defenses against your second weapon in general.

You are also able to defend yourself with 1 weapon and press your advantage with the other, thereby increasing your defenses. They tried to model this with two weapon defense. However, since the main benefit of a sheild is as an extra enchantment slot, this is a very underwhelming abilty. If this allowed you to add your weapon enchantment to the sheild bonus it would be much better. More expensive than just having a sheild, but you also get offense out of it.

Also, I often picture two weapon fighting in a River Tam style dance of death. In core, this would be a whirlwind attack with 2 weapons, but they specificalyl designed that to not work. Outside of core you have the dervish, which does it wonderfully. Unfortunately, that same book gives the frenzied beserker, which is the most unbalanced martial class I am familiar with, even before you start exploiting it. But in general, more synergy with mobilty.

Another thing is using the two weapons in tandem to pull of maneuvers. Use two weapons to catch their sword and rip it out of their hands, try to trip them while you do an attack that forces them to dodge backwards and lose their balance...



And making it hard to be a dual weilding gish is probably a good thing. I can see how that could get extrordinarily powerful very quickly. I played a dual weilding jedi in the saga edition, and synergizing two weapon fightign with battle strike was devestating. I wasn't even nearly as good at it as I should have been. Many magical bonuses a gish would pull out would count double with 2 weapons, so it should be hard to do.

Mystify
2011-05-27, 04:50 PM
I feel like power attack could still be used to increase damage to a ridiculous point, albeit a little bit harder now. Something I was thinking about; what if the penalty from Power Attack bit directly into the character's BAB. So, if you have a base attack bonus of +13, and you take a -5 penalty to the attack, that means your BAB becomes +8/+3, instead of +13/+8/+3. You take the penalty, but you also lose the attack, which means that A) it becomes a much more interesting choice, between losing attacks and gaining a bonus to damage and still being able to hit the opponent, and B) reduces the amount of damage a pounce-charger can do, since if they take a -20 penalty to the attack, they only get one attack, period, even if they do take the penalty to their armor class via Shock Trooper. Thoughts?

That would make power attack much more intersting. Doesn't hurt the lance multiplier chargers though.

Veklim
2011-05-27, 04:52 PM
This discussion on the merits/flaws of fighters and feat chains is getting nowhere fast, I know, but this is a good example of what usually happens when I go in for the BDF build:
levels 1-4 are for weapon specialising and picking a combat style.
levels 5-10 are for fleshing out that style and getting a utility or two until you have a decent set of choices and bonuses.
levels 11+ gets really murky, you run out of worthy feats for your style so you either go in for a second style (I usually hit TWF at this point, and often need monkey grip to make room next to my greatsword), or you multi-class out of fighter (often with me it's into barbarian for a couple of levels, then into ranger for a couple more) and even then I get a little stuck.
Now I'm pretty up on fighter types, I used to play them a lot when everyone else in the group had made their interesting, flavourful and COMPLETELY squishy characters, who needed someone up front to stop them getting all smeared across the flagstones. I learned something during this period, with the exception of one single feat tree, the only thing fighters do is give you a 1-4 level dipping class to top up feats. This is inherantly bad on both the class AND feat front, trying to fix one will never sort out the other, and the moment you try to fix both, every other class starts having a hissy fit.

What Seerow is trying to acomplish is a fair way of every class in existence EXCEPT fighter, to have a reasonable chance of picking up a singular fighting style and still having a feat or two left over to try and compliment EVERYTHING ELSE the class can do. Fighters SHOULD be able to master 3 styles, they are merely an empty chassis with loads of feats, if a combat style requires 5+ feats, then it would never have been developed in the first place outside of that 1 in 50 classes who can really afford it.

This is what's wrong with fighters, they're backwards (or inside out maybe?). Every other class gets abilities which give it flavour and function, and then a smattering of feats where you can try and shore up the weaknesses and add to your abilities. Fighters have lots of feats instead of flavour OR function, and they're from a limited list, making their only class feature the capability of mastering weapon styles, so there's nothing else to add upon, and the remaining feats can't shore up the gaping holes, they simply don't vary enough.

Mystify
2011-05-27, 04:57 PM
You just said it yourself: fighters run out of feats for their weapon styles, and are forced into diversifying. If you had more feats available for a style, you could contineu to reinforce what you are good at. They aren't all nessecary for the style, and other characters can take a subset of them, but fighters can get the full package.

unosarta
2011-05-27, 05:01 PM
That would make power attack much more intersting. Doesn't hurt the lance multiplier chargers though.

I guess not, but there are a lot of things that aren't really going for the lance wielding mount chargers anyway. Considering how expensive it is to keep a mount up in hit points relative to level, killing a mount is relatively easy (if incredibly cruel to the player; they are a lance multiplying charger, though, they kind of deserve it >_>), especially if given a lot of time. In addition, leap attack, although oft contested in this context, usually cannot be combined, which means that they lose an important multiplier on their power attack damage anyway.

Veklim
2011-05-27, 05:13 PM
OK, fighters get 11 fighter bonus feats over 20 levels. How in the nine hells is ANY single fighting style going to have nearly that many worthwhile feats? Even if it does, how in those same nine hells did it ever get developed in the first place?!?! By your own admission, there's a limit of about level 2-3 where 'normal' human capability ends, and the extremely rare adventurer type starts to pull ahead on the evolutionary scale. If you were to then calculate how many of those people will be fighters, and put that into a demographic for a reasonably well populated world, you're looking at maybe 1 in 10,000 people (conservative estimate) who would be physically capable of developing and using the given style, and even then they'd need to be approaching epic to get there, it makes no sense.
On the other hand, I think 3 feats per style is too little, too condensed. There's probably a happy middle ground somewhere, but truly I don't see it just now. One thing is for certain, I don't entirely agree with you OR Seerow.


Hence, I almost always have fighters as a strong base in my builds. Practically every gestalt I build has a strong fighter presence. It can adapt to whatever you need it to.
Fighters do the opposite of adapt. They specialise right off the bat, and only dig the hole deeper as they progress. Adaptability implies usefulness in a diverse variety of situations, if all of those situations are combat, then you're not diverse! Fighter helps with gestalt because you can put a fighting style or two ONTO ANOTHER CLASS, if you're using it for that express reason, then Seerow's arguement of other classes not having sufficient access is only reinforced by your point!

Seerow
2011-05-27, 05:32 PM
@Seerow: give me a little while to read over the feats. I'll try to give you a good PEACH in a few minutes.

Alright, thanks.


I feel like power attack could still be used to increase damage to a ridiculous point, albeit a little bit harder now. Something I was thinking about; what if the penalty from Power Attack bit directly into the character's BAB. So, if you have a base attack bonus of +13, and you take a -5 penalty to the attack, that means your BAB becomes +8/+3, instead of +13/+8/+3. You take the penalty, but you also lose the attack, which means that A) it becomes a much more interesting choice, between losing attacks and gaining a bonus to damage and still being able to hit the opponent, and B) reduces the amount of damage a pounce-charger can do, since if they take a -20 penalty to the attack, they only get one attack, period, even if they do take the penalty to their armor class via Shock Trooper. Thoughts?

This is actually a pretty neat idea. It does separate pretty far from the normal amount though, and would probably result in nobody ever power attacking for more than 4, ever, with the exception of someone with leap attack and shock trooper, and even then the damage lost from the extra attacks may not be worth it. I understand wanting to devalue power attack, but you don't want to make it useless either.


Also; I feel that Mighty Blows should increase by one step period, and then 1 step for every 5 points of BAB the character possesses. Otherwise, if taken when most opportune, no character besides a character with medium BAB would actually gain any benefit from it. Most of the other feats gain a bonus, and then extra bonus on top of that from BAB.


You're right that it should give some benefit when you first get it. At first though, I'm more inclined to swap the prereqs on it and Forceful Blows, since Forceful Blows would still give the new option, and would progress to the increased size for the opposed check later, while Mighty Blows would be picked up at +6 and give bonus damage as soon as you got it.

Alternatively, if I gave it +1 size category right away, I'd want to slow down the progression, to +1 for every 6 or even 8 points of BAB, I don't think a medium BAB going class -should- get up to effectively colossal size.


But yeah, I didn't even think about that, something does need to change.


And TWF would be great compared to THF if it wasn't for power attack. For all the extra attacks they get, THF is allowed to simply swing their axe harder and doing just as good if not better. Taking power attack out of the picture, and just comparing the two styles:

THF gives 1 1/2 str damage plus 1d10-1d12
TWF gives 1 str damage plus 1d6-d8, and 1/2 str damage + 1d4-1d6.


You're forgetting about the to hit penalty.

Math below
3.5 no changes, person with TWFing vs person with a Great Sword. Both at 18 str.

Greatsword (2d6) vs Longsword + Shortsword (1d8/1d6)


THF: +5 2d6+6 damage
TWF: +3/+3 1d8+4 1d6+2 damage

Against AC 15


THF:
10%-Crit threat (5.5% crit, 4.5% hit)
45%-Hit
45%-Miss


Average: 5.5% 26 damage, 49.5% 13 damage = 7.865 average damage

TWFing:
10%-Crit threat (4.5% crit, 5.5% hit)
35%-Hit
55%-Miss


MH: 4.5% 17 damage, 39.5% 8.5 damage
OH: 4.5% 11 damage, 39.5% 5.5 damage

1.26+5.53 = 6.79 average damage

That's right, the two weapon fighter spent a feat, and lost 1 average damage, even before adding power attack or anything else.

Which is why in my changes I nerfed the baseline two handed fighting, and made two weapon fighting a proficiency. Two weapon fighting damage stays the same, but no longer costs a feat. two handed fighting becomes:


Greatsword (2d6) vs Longsword + Shortsword (1d8/1d6)

THF: +5 2d6+4 damage
TWF: +3/+3 1d8+4 1d6+2 damage

Against AC 15


THF:
10%-Crit threat (5.5% crit, 4.5% hit)
45%-Hit
45%-Miss


Average: 5.5% 22 damage, 49.5% 11 damage = 6.65 average damage



Within .1 of the TWFer. From there the intent is for the feats to progress both of their damages pretty similarly. TWFing gets more attacks more easily, and its penalty gets lessened. Meanwhile THFing gains increased str, weapon, and power attack damage, to keep up with TWFing's bonus attacks (which now fully benefit from power attack and str, so scale in effectiveness quickly)


Also, I often picture two weapon fighting in a River Tam style dance of death. In core, this would be a whirlwind attack with 2 weapons, but they specificalyl designed that to not work. Outside of core you have the dervish, which does it wonderfully.


If that's what you want, why are you so opposed to the idea that you are able to pick up the spring attack chain, and whirlwind attack? You keep saying you want two weapon fighting to be this really long chain that only a fighter can finish out, if that were the case there's no way the fighter could afford whirlwind attack. So you'd have to make some new two-weapon whirlwind, which is silly when you have a perfectly viable feat already to do that! Like I keep saying, this is all about allowing synergies with the weapon styles, and with this you can get Spring Attack and use it with a two handed weapon, two weapons, or a ranged weapon (actually I should probably post a modified spring attack indicating it works with ranged weapons, even though I mentioned it briefly under the archery section).

Mystify
2011-05-27, 05:50 PM
OK, fighters get 11 fighter bonus feats over 20 levels. How in the nine hells is ANY single fighting style going to have nearly that many worthwhile feats? Even if it does, how in those same nine hells did it ever get developed in the first place?!?! By your own admission, there's a limit of about level 2-3 where 'normal' human capability ends, and the extremely rare adventurer type starts to pull ahead on the evolutionary scale. If you were to then calculate how many of those people will be fighters, and put that into a demographic for a reasonably well populated world, you're looking at maybe 1 in 10,000 people (conservative estimate) who would be physically capable of developing and using the given style, and even then they'd need to be approaching epic to get there, it makes no sense.
On the other hand, I think 3 feats per style is too little, too condensed. There's probably a happy middle ground somewhere, but truly I don't see it just now. One thing is for certain, I don't entirely agree with you OR Seerow.

Fighters do the opposite of adapt. They specialise right off the bat, and only dig the hole deeper as they progress. Adaptability implies usefulness in a diverse variety of situations, if all of those situations are combat, then you're not diverse! Fighter helps with gestalt because you can put a fighting style or two ONTO ANOTHER CLASS, if you're using it for that express reason, then Seerow's arguement of other classes not having sufficient access is only reinforced by your point![/QUOTE]
I assume that if you are a level 15+ fighter, you aren't being trained, you are training yourself. You are developing these techniques yourself.

And when I say the fighter class adaptable, I do mean the class. You can use levels of fighter to enhance almost anything or achieve whatever build you want. I always use it in gestalt becuase there should be more in a given style than any character can learn themselves, and hence expanding your selection should always be an improvement. Plus, I find the weapon focus tree synergises well with most things I do, so I like 12 levels of fighter just for that.



You're forgetting about the to hit penalty.

Math below
3.5 no changes, person with TWFing vs person with a Great Sword. Both at 18 str.

Greatsword (2d6) vs Longsword + Shortsword (1d8/1d6)


THF: +5 2d6+6 damage
TWF: +3/+3 1d8+4 1d6+2 damage

Against AC 15


THF:
10%-Crit threat (5.5% crit, 4.5% hit)
45%-Hit
45%-Miss


Average: 5.5% 26 damage, 49.5% 13 damage = 7.865 average damage

TWFing:
10%-Crit threat (4.5% crit, 5.5% hit)
35%-Hit
55%-Miss


MH: 4.5% 17 damage, 39.5% 8.5 damage
OH: 4.5% 11 damage, 39.5% 5.5 damage

1.26+5.53 = 6.79 average damage

That's right, the two weapon fighter spent a feat, and lost 1 average damage, even before adding power attack or anything else.

Which is why in my changes I nerfed the baseline two handed fighting, and made two weapon fighting a proficiency. Two weapon fighting damage stays the same, but no longer costs a feat. two handed fighting becomes:


Greatsword (2d6) vs Longsword + Shortsword (1d8/1d6)

THF: +5 2d6+4 damage
TWF: +3/+3 1d8+4 1d6+2 damage

Against AC 15


THF:
10%-Crit threat (5.5% crit, 4.5% hit)
45%-Hit
45%-Miss


Average: 5.5% 22 damage, 49.5% 11 damage = 6.65 average damage



Within .1 of the TWFer. From there the intent is for the feats to progress both of their damages pretty similarly. TWFing gets more attacks more easily, and its penalty gets lessened. Meanwhile THFing gains increased str, weapon, and power attack damage, to keep up with TWFing's bonus attacks (which now fully benefit from power attack and str, so scale in effectiveness quickly)



If that's what you want, why are you so opposed to the idea that you are able to pick up the spring attack chain, and whirlwind attack? You keep saying you want two weapon fighting to be this really long chain that only a fighter can finish out, if that were the case there's no way the fighter could afford whirlwind attack. So you'd have to make some new two-weapon whirlwind, which is silly when you have a perfectly viable feat already to do that! Like I keep saying, this is all about allowing synergies with the weapon styles, and with this you can get Spring Attack and use it with a two handed weapon, two weapons, or a ranged weapon (actually I should probably post a modified spring attack indicating it works with ranged weapons, even though I mentioned it briefly under the archery section).
I didn't say that two weapon fighting was better straight off the bat. I said that it has increased payoffs later, which just goes back to my assertion that it should inherently be a high investment style.

And I wasn't opposed to the idea that you could learn both two weapon fighting and whirlwind. I complained that they don't mix in core.

I still think its not helpful to game balance to strengthen martial characters in the beginning. I did say fighter, but I meant martial character in that instance. The magic/martial divide starts in favor of martial, then shifts to favor magic, so early game boosts to martial doesn't help the balance.

NineThePuma
2011-05-27, 06:53 PM
Are the Archery/One-Handed feats that grant bonus damage when power attacking granting that damage on top of standard Power Attack features?

One handed looks alright, but I'd have to really go over the math to check it.

Theres a Sword & Board feat that requires the Einhander feat. Was that intended?

@Fighter Debate: Seriously, guys. This is a homebrew thread. Focus on the homebrew, not the fact that this is bad for fighters. (To the contrary, I think this is good to fighters, cause suddenly fighters can master 3-4 fighting styles!)

Seerow
2011-05-27, 07:18 PM
Are the Archery/One-Handed feats that grant bonus damage when power attacking granting that damage on top of standard Power Attack features?

No, it's in place of it. I'll reword it to make it clearer. Basicaly when power attacking with a ranged weapon you can choose to gain 2d6 of damage for every 3 you power attack for, or 1 damage for every 1 you power attack for. Baseline power attack is slightly higher than a minimum, but the extra d6 averages significantly better, and closer to where a THFer is. (actually slightly above it on average, 2.3 per point of penalty.) The Einhander style is slightly lower than that, maintaining decent damage, but on average slightly below a two handed power attacker (about 1.75 per penalty on average).


The main concern I have at the moment is how strong ranged+two weapon fighting becomes when synergized, ie dual crossbows or throwing knives. As is you can pick up both styles, power attack, and rapid attack, and as a standard action attack 8 times as a standard action, from a range, with +dexterity and up to 12d6 bonus damage per attack. Or with Flurry/Improved Flurry instead, you can have the same bonus damage, with something like 13 attacks on a full attack action.

This could be chalked up to synergy doing awesome things(this requires a whopping 3+3+2+2=10 feats to pull off), but something doesn't seem right about the longbow being invalidated, so I'm tempted to separate two handed range vs 1 handed range weapons.



One handed looks alright, but I'd have to really go over the math to check it.

Please, do post it if you do it. I haven't gotten around to crunching as much as I would like here.


Theres a Sword & Board feat that requires the Einhander feat. Was that intended?

Yes. You'll also notice there is a sword and board feat that requires two weapon fighting. Basically the idea for sword and board is either you go with einhander, and be more supportive, or go two weapon fighting, and be more offensive, with a pretty hefty personal defense, though both keep the ability to encourage enemies to attack them, the one who is focusing more on defense gains the stuff like block line of effect to allies.


@Fighter Debate: Seriously, guys. This is a homebrew thread. Focus on the homebrew, not the fact that this is bad for fighters. (To the contrary, I think this is good to fighters, cause suddenly fighters can master 3-4 fighting styles!)

Indeed, in my fighter fix from some years ago, the entire concept of the Fighter was that he wasn't just a badass, but he was a badass at everything. The ultimate weapons master, they had 4 different sets of feats they could swap between mid fight as a swift action, along with unique class features that would help any fighting style, and gave fighters a renewable pseudo-resource to manage.

If I were going to update that today, I'd be using these weapon style feats, and at low levels (up to 10) let the Fighter have 2-3 of these weapon styles that develop simultaneously that he can swap between, plus a couple bonus feats that are always active, then past level 10 he'd get a couple of floating feats that could be changed to whatever, along with either a port over of the combat focus mechanic from my Fighter, or a new mechanic sort of like a mix between TOB and Psionics (a stamina pool that you can expend to do cool things, when it runs out you become fatigued/exhausted), or some combination. But as you state, that's a wholly different topic.

Spoilered that cause I started getting carried away with my commentary on the fighter rather than just agreeing it's a different topic. That said, I don't necessarily mind the ongoing fighter discussion, as it has brought up a few points regarding the feats, and I don't mind debating design philosophy, but I'd rather the design philosophy stay more along the lines of "What do these feats let a character do" as opposed to "What do these feats let a fighter do"

Seerow
2011-05-27, 07:20 PM
By the way, if I hadn't made it clear before, I really don't mind you guys throwing different names at me for some of these feats. A lot of them are just "Whatever came up at the time" and a lot of them are terribly bad. Names have always been terrible for me. I mean look at some of those and tell me you can't come up with something better. I mean, "Mob Herder" really?

Mystify
2011-05-27, 07:38 PM
I don't see why "what do these feats let characters do" and "what do these feats let fighters do" can't both be concerns. Anything regarding feats will have a profound impact on how fighters function, and unless you intend on banning them from campaigns, the impact on them needs to be considered. And if we are changing the feat balance, why not do it in a way that at least moves fighters in the right direction towards balance?

Seerow
2011-05-27, 07:44 PM
I don't see why "what do these feats let characters do" and "what do these feats let fighters do" can't both be concerns. Anything regarding feats will have a profound impact on how fighters function, and unless you intend on banning them from campaigns, the impact on them needs to be considered. And if we are changing the feat balance, why not do it in a way that at least moves fighters in the right direction towards balance?

Because Fighter's aren't the only hurting martial class. Pretty much all martial characters have issues. And almost all martial characters that succeed do so via two handed fighting. This is because of the relatively low investment that allows you to gain it while still qualifying for prestige classes, or augmenting your class features or being able to just have another trick up your sleeve.

The Fighter as a class can burn for all I care if it makes the other martial classes viable and capable of doing more than wield a two handed weapon. Why? Because the Fighter was poorly designed from the start, and never should have made it past editing as is, much less through a edition update without a shift.

Fixing feats to make a fighter viable effectively prevents any other martial character who isn't a fighter from being able to have interesting feats. That isn't a route I want to go. I'd rather make the feats work for everyone, and if the Fighter is still behind after that, then he needs a fix anyway.

Mystify
2011-05-27, 08:26 PM
Fixing feats to make a fighter viable effectively prevents any other martial character who isn't a fighter from being able to have interesting feats.
BS.
Just becuase feats allow a fighter to succeed doesn't mean a non-fighter is left in the lurch. It just means that non-fighters don't reach the same heights of the weapon style. Other classes shouldn't reach those heights, their focus is elsewhere. They can take some feats to be good with it, but fighters should be the ones who completely master the style.

It shouldn't be hard to be functional at a style. However, I think this thread is highly overestimating what that requires. That doesn't mean there can't be additional feats for the style above and beyond that. Every last detail and possible benefit of the style doesn't need to be condensed into these feats. Give bonuses to it, have situational abilities condensed into tactical feats, make it so that you can specialize in the style. What is being done with the shield and board is good. More than one way to use the style. Expand on that. A fighter is capable of mastering every nuance and trick of the style, but other classes don't need to. They have their own class features and abilities. Fighters get the mastery.

NineThePuma
2011-05-27, 08:31 PM
If you need 7 feats to function in a style, you've got issues. This gives you a base 3 feats to "master" a fighting style, and then you can use your other feats for other benefits.

Mystify
2011-05-27, 08:37 PM
If you need 7 feats to function in a style, you've got issues. This gives you a base 3 feats to "master" a fighting style, and then you can use your other feats for other benefits.
There is a huge gulf between "function in a style" and "master" a style. You should be able to be functional in the style, then go get other benefits, or continue to invest the feats to be better at it. I'm just arguing that there should be room for continued pursuit of a style.

unosarta
2011-05-27, 08:43 PM
There is a huge gulf between "function in a style" and "master" a style. You should be able to be functional in the style, then go get other benefits, or continue to invest the feats to be better at it. I'm just arguing that there should be room for continued pursuit of a style.

However, there also needs to be room to fill out a character as a person. Feats needn't always be specifically and only for combat; sometimes the best way to mechanically represent a character's background or even the way they play currently is through feats, and that option should also be available to the character.

Mystify
2011-05-27, 10:21 PM
In any case, a feat for flavor will come at the cost of a feat for power. The only way around that is to have few feats for power than you could possibly take. I find it silly to limit your character options to force room for flavor feats.

unosarta
2011-05-27, 10:49 PM
In any case, a feat for flavor will come at the cost of a feat for power. The only way around that is to have few feats for power than you could possibly take. I find it silly to limit your character options to force room for flavor feats.

"Few feats for power than you could possibly take"? I honestly have no idea what you are saying or trying to say here. Could you please elucidate, if you would be so kind? Either way, I don't see how having the feats Seerow has made has, in any way, limited my character options. Far from it. It allows for more character options, because I can suddenly take feats that actually add to my character, rather than to his or her combat abilities, and not lose combat capabilities. In this way, it is in fact, creating character options where there might previously not have been any.

Anyway; here are some new feats. They are all for around level 9 or so, as continuations of the original fighting style feats.

Graceful Stride
Prerequisites: Spring Attack, Base Attack Bonus +9
Benefits: You no longer provoke attacks of opportunity while moving, as long as the movement is part of a Spring Attack. In addition, you gain a bonus to all movement speeds for 3 rounds equal to your Base Attack Bonus rounded to the nearest 5 foot increment whenever you use Spring Attack two turns in a row, and you gain a bonus to all attack rolls equal to the number of turns in a row you have used the Spring Attack feat, with a maximum bonus of +5.
Special: A fighter may select Graceful Stride as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Overwhelming Charge
Prerequisites: Improved Bull Rush, Improved Two-Handed Fighting, Base Attack Bonus +9
Benefits: Your opponent takes 2d6 damage per Five feet they are pushed back whenever you make a Bull Rush attempt while simultaneously at a penalty from Power Attack and while wielding a two handed weapon. In addition, you gain a +1 bonus to the Bull Rush attempt when you charge into the opponent’s space in order to initiate the Bull Rush, increasing by +1 per four points of Base Attack Bonus you possess.
Special: A fighter may select Overwhelming Charge as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Precise Lunge
Prerequisites: Reach Weapon Specialist, Base Attack Bonus +9
Benefits: As a full round and swift action, you may make a full attack against one creature within a distance of your reach + 10 feet. You may only make a number of attacks in this way equal to the total number of attacks you can make from Base Attack Bonus, minus one. You are flat-footed until the beginning of your next turn. In addition, you gain a +2 bonus to all damage rolls made against opponents that are on the very edge of your threatened area (within 5 feet of an area that you do not threaten) per 5 Base Attack Bonus you possess.
Special: A fighter may select Precise Lunge as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Sharpeye Sniper
Prerequisites: Precise Shot, Base Attack Bonus +9
Benefits: As a swift action, you may ignore Ranged Increment penalties, and your maximum ranged increment is increase by a number of ranged increments equal to one per 5 points of Base Attack Bonus you possess, for your next attack action that includes at least one ranged attack, within 10 rounds. You may only use this ability once per encounter. The penalty to the Hide check in order to hide after making any ranged attack is reduced by a number equal to your Base Attack bonus.
Special: A fighter may select Sharpeye Sniper as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Dazzling Fleché
Prerequisites: Einhander, Base Attack Bonus +9
Benefits: You may make a Feint attempt as a free action during a charge, before the attacks resolve. You gain a +1 bonus to the Bluff check per 4 points of Base Attack Bonus you possess. In addition, you deal an additional +1d6 damage per 3 points of Base Attack Bonus you possess against any creature that you have successfully Feinted against within the past 5 rounds.
Special: A fighter may select Dazzling Fleché as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Vengeful Aegis
Prerequisites: Shield Fighter, Base Attack Bonus +9
Benefits: Any time you successfully Shield Bash a target, that target takes a penalty to all movement speeds equal to your base attack bonus, rounded down to the nearest five foot increment, and must make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 Base Attack Bonus + Strength modifier) or become Confused for 1 round. A target who has been made Confused by this ability is immune to the Confusion effect associated with it for the rest of the encounter, although not to the penalty. In addition, whenever you attempt an attack of opportunity against a target that is leaving your threatened area, you may move with that target, up to a distance of your base land speed, as an immediate action. You provoke no attacks of opportunity for this motion.
Special: A fighter may select Vengeful Aegis as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Mystify
2011-05-27, 11:33 PM
I meant to say "fewer feats for power than you could possibly take". If you can take every feat you want for power and still have room in your character, then taking a feat for flavor has no opportunity cost. Otherwise, there will be a cost to taking flavor feats, and condensing feats will not change that.

I maintain, and will continue to maintain, that you need enough available feats relevant to what you want to do to fill your character with them if you so desire. Most characters should be able to specialize in a branch of a weapon style if they so choose. Fighters should be able to master all branches, cause that is what they do, take piles and piles of feats. You don't have to specialize at all to be effective. You could learn archery, then go and fill up with skill focuses. But you should be able to put in more effort. While I'll agree that the minimum to be functional with certain styles is high currently, I think this thread overcompensates. Its not making the style functional in a low number of feats, its trying to cram mastery into 3 feats. Not only do I think that is too powerful, it also reduces the variety of characters.

I think that archery is done well, apart from the harsh requirements to be competent in practical situations. There are a wide variety of feats you can take, with a wide degree of focuses. You can focus on rate of fire, close range,long range, accuracy, mobility, stealth, ranged maneuvers... no one character can learn it all, not even a fighter. But no one character needs to. You learn what aspects of it are relevant to the style of archer you want. You can benefit from putting more effort into ranged combat, or you can be happy with the basic archery skills and move on to other aspects of your character. a "Master archer" with a complete focus in the bow can look very different from another Master archer who is built with the same levels. Different classes may work better with different focuses, but that is because the classes are different. Other styles should have the same breadth of possible feats.

NineThePuma
2011-05-28, 12:15 AM
So your solution to "TWF costs too much" is... To make everything cost the same amount? :smallconfused:

Honestly, I really like this system. I can have my character's combat style finalized by level 6 or so, then do something else with my feats. Like take Dragonwings and the associated feat chain, or something.

Mystify
2011-05-28, 12:26 AM
So your solution to "TWF costs too much" is... To make everything cost the same amount? :smallconfused:
If you leave all the feats as they are, and add in 100 more feats for a weapon style, that style does not cost more. It just has more options.
Just like a two weapon fighter has no need to take the two weapon defense chain, or an archer has no need to take the ranged pin feat. General usefulness aside, the extra options add value. There is no need to take them, and most characters may not, but they are there if you want them.


Honestly, I really like this system. I can have my character's combat style finalized by level 6 or so, then do something else with my feats. Like take Dragonwings and the associated feat chain, or something.
And just becuase you want to take dragon wings, why shouldn't someone be able to take more weapon style feats? And why should learning a weapon style be more powerful than any another feat tree?

NineThePuma
2011-05-28, 12:28 AM
Why should someone be forced to take more feats to be a decent combatant?

Mystify
2011-05-28, 12:46 AM
Why should someone be forced to take more feats to be a decent combatant?
Why shouldn't someone be able to continue training their skills?

To be clear, I am not saying you need to take more feats to be a decent combatant. I'm saying the feats presented are well beyond what is needed to be a decent combatant. They are encompassing everything needed to be a really amazing combatant, well beyond what a feat is meant to give. I am saying they should be toned down a bit, so they make you very competent at the style, but not a complete master. There should also be enough auxiliary feats that you can put as little or as much focus into mastering the style as you wish. If I am training to be a master swordsman, why should I accomplish that in 3 feats? Shouldn't I be able to base my entire character around it if I so wished? If I am going to be an archer, why shouldn't I be able to specialize into the type of archer I want to be? If you want to take 3 feats, be a fully functional archer, then get dragon wings and fly around, that is perfectly valid. If you decide you instead want to advance your mastery of the bow, that should also be a valid choice. One doesn't have to be lesser than the other. Getting dragon wings and flying around is probably a very good choice for an archer, and can be a useful component of other builds. If you value diversity, you can be diverse. But diversity comes at the cost of being worse at a specific task than the person who specialized in it. If the generalist matches or surpasses the specialist in their specialty, something is wrong.

Seerow
2011-05-28, 02:17 AM
Nobody is saying you need to stop training your skills, or stop increasing your combat ability with feats.

What we're saying is that continuing to progress specifically in two weapon fighting isn't needed. Two Weapon fighting at its core is gaining the ability to use your two weapons in tandem, being able to attack with both as easily as someone else attacks with one weapon.

You can make that happen in a very small number of feats. Why? Because it's not that broad of a concept. You simply don't need 50 feats to support it. A few is enough.

Once you finish mastering fighting with two weapons, you continue improving it automatically by virtue of BAB (reducing your penalties, gaining more attacks). If you want to focus further on it, you can take other feats that work in combat and synergize with two weapon fighting.

As a fighter you could, if you wanted to focus wholly on two weapon fighting and nothing else, get something like:


1) Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
1) Weapon Focus
2) Power Attack
3) Two-Weapon Rend
4) Weapon Specialization
6) Two-Weapon Defense
6) Power Attack
8) Weapon Mastery
9) Greater Weapon Focus
10) Slashing Flurry (or equivalent that works with your weapons)
12) Improved Rapid Attack
12) Greater Weapon Specialization
14) Dodge
15) Mobility
16) Spring Attack
18) Weapon Supremacy
20) Whirlwind Attack


All 18 feats focused 100% on becoming better at things that improve my two weapon fighting. If you condense the weapon focus chain, then you can pick up whirlwind attack quite a bit earlier, and use those extra 4 feats to also pick up Flurry/Improved Flurry, a Weapon Style (the ones from Complete Warrior, not here) or Exotic Weapon Proficiency, and hell, you can even pick up Monkey Grip so you can have yourself a pair of large one handers and still attack with the same penalty that a two weapon fighter would normally have in 3.5.

Or you could instead of those last 4 have combat reflexes, karmic strike/robilar's gambit, and be all about the counter attacking. Or you could pick up the shield style, and have some pretty nice defenses while still focusing on two weapon fighting. Or the ranged style + throw anything, and be able to throw your one handed weapons for some serious damage. Or the Adamantine Shield line of feats which are awesome for someone who gets as many attacks as this (especially if you pick them up and the Flurry)

I would argue the set of feats I just put forth really does represent a total dedication to two weapon fighting. He really doesn't do anything else. He could go with a single weapon, or a two hander, but he's nowhere near as good at it. This character is all about two weapon fighting, and doing two weapon fighting well. Yes, he has some options, he can switch things in and out depending on how he wants to progress... but then, that was what you said you wanted out of the fighter anyway.

What more do you really want? Do you want to recreate all of these feats but instead have "Two-Weapon Spring Attack: Just like spring attack, but lets you use two weapon fighting!"? Because that's how D&D handles things now, and I think it's retarded. If that's what you want, stick with what's already there, because yes the game currently gives you a really long feat chain to do nothing but what should be baseline competency.

Even with the huge condensing of feats, there's still tons of options out there for a character. I mean, I didn't even take into account things like fighter alternate class features, to pass up some of those feats for bonuses (getting large size or goliath, picking up knockback and improved bullrush, on a dungeoncrasher, with all those attacks per round adds up to some wicked damage really fast).

Yes, you could swap out the two weapon fighting feats for two-handed fighting feats, and still have close to the same build and still be viable. But that's the point. The playstyles will still be pretty different (the two hander is getting far fewer attacks, and more damage per attack, with an extra option for a control ability), even while picking the exact same feats, and the different styles actually encourage you to pick different feats (for example if you went reach style, you'd be going for standstill/trip and whirlwind attack as your first priorities). But the options are there and viable for all of the styles. This allows for more flexibility while maintaining focus on your style. It also allows more versatility if that's what you're after, by being able to master another style more easily, while the other feats you pick will synergize well with both styles (for example I could see a fighter going sword and board getting both Einhander AND two weapon fighting, and switching round by round based on what the group needs at the moment, while other characters will likely want only one or the other).


Anyway, I'm done going on this subject. The tl;dr is that with these styles, you can still focus heavily in one area. You just won't have a ton of feats that say "Two-Weapon _____" in it. You'll instead get things that actually make you better. This is a bonus, not a detriment.


edit: Changed a couple things above, mainly added in another possible option and separated a paragraph that seemed to run on too long.

Also, on an unrelated note: After trying to help a friend make a vow of poverty character and realizing how terrible the feat selection is if you're not like a Paladin or Monk (still bad even for them, but better than say a bard, who has all of two feats he actually cares about), I think my next project is going to be some new exalted feats. Cause seriously, you need them.

NineThePuma
2011-05-28, 03:54 AM
Yay, exalted feats! VoP is only good on a Druid, so this is gonna be awesome =D

Veklim
2011-05-28, 08:31 AM
And why should learning a weapon style be more powerful than any another feat tree?

It's not really, if we're all in agreement over the fact that martial classes suffer from a widening gap in power vs casters as they progress in levels, then surely a good way to help sort that out is to up the power and advancement of the martial feats...? That's logic that is, especially considering the fighter will gain the most and he's the one who needs to gain the most, followed by other martial characters who similarly need it, and then of course there's every other class out there, who can benefit the same way with these, but are less likely to because they have BETTER STUFF! You keep harking on about it being all out of balance, but the balance is shifted the OTHER way, and has been since 3.0

Mystify
2011-05-28, 10:25 AM
It's not really, if we're all in agreement over the fact that martial classes suffer from a widening gap in power vs casters as they progress in levels, then surely a good way to help sort that out is to up the power and advancement of the martial feats...? That's logic that is, especially considering the fighter will gain the most and he's the one who needs to gain the most, followed by other martial characters who similarly need it, and then of course there's every other class out there, who can benefit the same way with these, but are less likely to because they have BETTER STUFF! You keep harking on about it being all out of balance, but the balance is shifted the OTHER way, and has been since 3.0

But this shifts the balance in the wrong part of the game. This is a huge advantage in the beginning of the game, when martial characters work properly anyways. By the time you get to the late game, you have your huge power boost, and are now increasing at the old rate. What is needed are not awesome basic feats, but high-level feats that are truly spectacular. It won't fix the balance, but it would be a step in the right direction.

But its not like most martial characters have problems performing at high levels. The problem is that the mages become godlike. Feats can make a fighter function as it is supposed to relative to other martial classes, but the problem of linear fighters vs. quadratic wizards is not so easy to solve. That is a deeply seated issue in the system itself, and no minor rearrangement of feats will change that.

Seerow
2011-05-28, 10:58 AM
What is needed are not awesome basic feats, but high-level feats that are truly spectacular

The difference is, these basic feats are only awesome because that's what it takes to get the worse off styles equivalent to a two-handed fighting style. Two-Handed fighting, the entire first feat is basically just giving back what it currently gets for free, because making those things not for free was the only way to bring THFing down a notch at the start.

No, you shouldn't need to be 15th level for Two-Weapon Fighting, or Einhander, or Sword and Board, to be about as effective as Two-Handed Fighting. Which is more or less the point of the feats here.

I also like how I write a nice long post detailing how even with a much shorter two-weapon fighting feat chain you can still take tons of feats and be exclusively a two-weapon fighter, and you just ignore it and keep complaining.

Mystify
2011-05-28, 11:17 AM
I understand that is what you are trying to do, and I agree with that. However, that is not what you are accomplishing. I'm pretty certain that your two weapon proficiency alone makes 2 weapon fighting stronger than two weapon fighting in the long run. For rouges in particular that is a radical power shift. Even without any of the other feats. Instead of being an expensive but worthwhile investment, it becomes the only sensible style.

You aren't making all styles equal to THF. You are making them all several times stronger, including THF. Any humanoid NPC that doesn't take weapon style feats will now be underpowered; You will be forced to put their initial feats into their weapon style so they can be worthwhile in combat, whereas now they can be made in a wide variety of ways without being underpowered. And if its a non-weapon using enemy, they have no boost relative to the players, and hence the challenge drops.

Also, if someone tries to use a non-standard weapon style, they won't have these super-powered feats available for it, and will be even more underpowered.

Don't try to pass off this radical power shift as simply making all styles equal to THF. Its not.

Seerow
2011-05-28, 11:51 AM
I understand that is what you are trying to do, and I agree with that. However, that is not what you are accomplishing. I'm pretty certain that your two weapon proficiency alone makes 2 weapon fighting stronger than two weapon fighting in the long run. For rouges in particular that is a radical power shift. Even without any of the other feats. Instead of being an expensive but worthwhile investment, it becomes the only sensible style.


Yes, different class features encourage different styles. Just like the Barbarian will likely be better served with two handed fighting thanks to his higher strength.

Two Weapon Fighting still has the problem of multiple smaller hits compared to one bigger hit, and Einhander gains a +hit bonus and is intended to be lower damage in exchange for better defense and control.

The idea is to make the styles roughly comparable in a baseline no class feature test, and class features from there that complement a certain style will make it better for that class relative to other styles.


You aren't making all styles equal to THF. You are making them all several times stronger, including THF. Any humanoid NPC that doesn't take weapon style feats will now be underpowered; You will be forced to put their initial feats into their weapon style so they can be worthwhile in combat, whereas now they can be made in a wide variety of ways without being underpowered. And if its a non-weapon using enemy, they have no boost relative to the players, and hence the challenge drops.


Wait, are these feats overpowered and 100% necessary as you're saying here, or are they not needed because the baseline is so awesome now, as you said in your last paragraph?

And once again, you make the argument that the weapon styles are required, while I'm still making the same counterargument: Weapon style feats have ALWAYS been required. What I've done here is standardize them, and make them more accessible for more characters. If a player wanted to do TWFing, he had to spend at least 6 feats to be any good at it. If a player wanted to go with Einhander, then he may as well give up now. Same if he wanted to do sword and board.

The ONLY set of feats that has become more necessary than before is the two handed fighting feats, and that's because two handed fighting didn't have any feats to start with!

I can see the argument that they were made stronger, but several times stronger is a huge exaggeration. The difference between a THFer in core, and a two handed fighter with the first two feats here is +1/2 str to damage, and the weapon is treated as 1 size category higher, so for two feats, compared to a core 3.5 fighter with no feats, you've gained probably an average of 5 about damage. That's a similar return to weapon specialization. Hardly several times stronger. I could of course have made it so those feats ONLY gave back what I had taken away, but then there was a strong chance those feats would not give enough per investment to encourage anybody to take them.

The other styles, did become several times better, but that's because those styles currently have next to no support, and are absolutely terrible at being useful for anything. A sword and board fighter sits there like a wall, with high personal defenses and nothing else. A einhander fighter cries himself to sleep wondering why he didn't just grab a two-hander. If you can make a logical argument these styles didn't need to be made several times stronger, I'm willing to listen, but you are seriously wearing at my patience.

As for enemies without weapons, they already have it! Seriously, look at most enemies, they have access to multi-attack/improved multi-attack, and rend, which means they're basically on par with a two-weapon fighter by default. And of course they can qualify for things like rapid-attack if mobility is an issue.


Also, if someone tries to use a non-standard weapon style, they won't have these super-powered feats available for it, and will be even more underpowered.


Name one weapon style that isn't supported here. If you can think of one, I'd be happy to do my best to support it. (Note I've already added like 2-3 more fighting styles than I initially intended when I started this topic, and am considering making another to separate thrown weapons/crossbows)



Edit: Okay, I realized the above seemed a little harsh, especially the losing patience bit. But honestly, when talking to you Mystify, I feel like I am talking to a brick wall. The same arguments get made over and over, and any point that gets made, you seem to ignore rather than respond to.

Yes, you are right that a character with these feats is stronger than a character without them. However, all characters currently who aren't two handed fighters need to invest at least as many, if not more feats, into their style to be competent.

My point of view on this is that it isn't raising the power level, but rather setting the bar, while maintaining the idea that you must invest in a style to do well with it. Picking up the full style means delaying important things like power attack, even with how powerful they are, in the stronger styles (TWFing and THFing), there will be a strong temptation to skip feats after the first one to get other feats instead, and maybe get the others later. Because yes, there are still options that are on par with these. There are feats out there that you want to take sooner. Or need to, in the case of looking for a quick prestige class entry. At least one of the three feats for each style isn't a direct power boost, and for most, only the first is strictly necessary. All 3 should be desirable, but I see many situations where desirable would not translate into "I'm taking this no matter what", and I certainly don't see it unbalancing relative to NPCs.

If you have any specific issues you want to point out, do so. If you feel the damage bonuses are unmanageable, show math. So far as I can tell, the two handed fighting style ends up with ~20-30 more damage per hit compared to normal at level 20 (while at low levels it's a difference more like 2). That is a significant boost, but there's very few games where that will be game breaking (in a low op game, the fighter probably needs that boost. In a high op game, he probably doesn't even notice it compared to his power attack damage boost), and in any case comes at the cost of 2 feats, which is two more feats than a two handed fighter would normally need to worry about.

Seerow
2011-06-07, 11:04 PM
Okay update time:

-Unarmed Combat has been added as a style. It is a single feat, that opens up the ability for an unarmed warrior to dip into the other styles. So you can have an unarmed THFer, an unarmed Einhander, or an Unarmed TWFer.

-Both TWFing and THFing were brought down slightly. I rearranged the TWFing feats so that ITWF could be given and have an immediate benefit without granting full str to damage on the offhand (ITWF now comes at BAB+6, with TWR being the first TWFing feat and TWD being the BAB+3 feat. It feels a little weird having TWR being required for ITWF, but I didn't want to have the intro feat not be useful until level 5. I'm still not quite sure this feat is worth it with the nerfs, and may revert it).

THFing got its str bonus to damage from the first feat reduced to only 50%, so the intro feat is literally just getting THFing to where it is in 3.5 core. Mighty Blows got its scaling nerfed some to compensate for it getting its initial bump as soon as you take the feat, so now it caps at level 16 with effectively +3 size categories.

-I decided not to make a new style for two weapon archery, and instead decided to nerf the dual crossbows/thrown weapons slightly by making the power attack bonus from piercing shots only apply with Longbows/two handed crossbows. This way two weapon fighting with ranged weapons still gets dex to damage, but they no longer get the extra power attack damage, keeping the overall damage more inline with other two weapon fighters.


edit: Updated again.
-THFing got its bonus weapon sizes nerfed again (1+1 at BAB+10), but gained an extra 50% bonus strength damage. This lets it scale more linearly with TWFing.

-ITWFing now only gives the penalty reduction and str to offhand damage. It no longer also grants bonus offhand attacks from class features/feats that grant additional attacks.

The current method kind of balances out.

From some basic math it seems like at this point they're roughly equal at level 20, assuming no magic items or class features. Of course those throw it all off. Two Weapon Fighting scales better with bonus damage effects, such as the generic +x damage effects. Two Handed Fighting scales better with bonus attacks, such as those granted by Flurry, or Haste.


Edit2: Modified TWFing yet again, but this time I think I'm finally happy with how it works, and don't think I'll mess with it again except to tune numbers if anyone actually responds with proof that the styles are fundamentally unbalanced outside of normal expected bounds. Improved Two Weapon Fighting is the first feat again. Standard action double attacks are now granted by that feat, rather than proficiency, and the bonus strength to damage is now part of the imp rend feat. I just feel it flows a lot better this way, but it solves the pesky problem of TWFing gaining too much at level 1 and not enough later, I think, nicely smoothing out the progression.

Gideon Falcon
2011-06-14, 07:38 PM
Why does Two-Handed fighting not apply to Reach weapons?

Seerow
2011-06-14, 08:39 PM
Why does Two-Handed fighting not apply to Reach weapons?

Because, having the extra control of reach is a huge advantage on its own. Every reach weapon currently out there is two-handed, and the reach weapons have the dual benefit of the highest damage and highest control in the game.

When going back to the start to rebalance the styles from the ground up, you have to recognize one style having the best of both worlds like that is a pretty bad idea. My initial idea was to make two-handed focused on the reach weapons/control, with TWFing being the highest damage style, but early posters here talked me out of it. The end result was non-reach THFing having damage that is about even with TWFing, with the two of those as the highest damage styles (with Ranged weapons not far behind), and reach weapons gaining superior control abilities at the cost of damage.

I suppose I should probably also clarify the other styles so that they don't work with reach weapons, since someone pointed out a light reach weapon (not to mention my weapons system I'm working on that allows for one handed reach weapons), to avoid shenanigans there, but yeah. The whole concept of that style is control at the expense of the high damage from other styles.

Gideon Falcon
2011-06-14, 11:02 PM
Hmm... but that can also cramp up reach weapon users who don't want to take the Reach Weapon style feats, like someone that uses a spiked chain without focusing on tripping. I'm not sure whether that's what you intended, or whatever...

Seerow
2011-06-14, 11:12 PM
Hmm... but that can also cramp up reach weapon users who don't want to take the Reach Weapon style feats, like someone that uses a spiked chain without focusing on tripping. I'm not sure whether that's what you intended, or whatever...

Well that's a case of trying to use a weapon for something it's not intended for. That's like asking what happens when someone picks up a dagger and wants to use it as a two-handed weapon. The weapon isn't intended for that. If you want straight up damage, you pick up a non-reach weapon. If you want the benefits of a reach weapon, you give up some of the damage.

I dunno, maybe a feat that allows reach weapons to be used as a part of the other styles, similar to what I did for unarmed combat, would be okay, at that point you could use a reach weapon for damage, but it has a higher investment compared to picking up a weapon that was actually intended for that purpose, and if you want the best of both worlds, that's either all you're doing, or you're a fighter.

Gideon Falcon
2011-06-15, 12:45 PM
That was an idea that I also had, but was hesitant to put forth. Mistify did have the point that there need to be higher level feats that fighters can get much easier than other classes.

Mystify
2011-06-15, 01:03 PM
Here is one way to view fighter only feats that may ease the "but then other classes can't get good feats!" reaction.

Fighter's have a selection of possible class features. In place of one of these features, they can take a feat. They also have the capacity to take a feat that grants an extra class feature option, and this feat can be taken as many times as desired.

This would function identically to the way it does now, so its an equivelent way to view the situation. From this perspective, fighter only feats are not feats that other classes can't access, they are optional class features for the fighter. No one is saying that it is wrong that a paladin can't take a ranger class feature like camaoflauge. Camaflauge is a ranger class feature, not a paladin one. Likewise, the inability of other classes to take the fighter feats is just having different class features.

If you then relax the restriction from "fighter-only" to "high-prereqs that are hard for fighters to obtain", it is to the other classes benefit to have it as an option, even if it may not be feasible in most builds.

These feats just need to be strong enough to make fighters competitive with other classes and you have a functional system. Esp. if these high-level feats are the type that expand your options, much like a tome of battle manuever may. The main problem with tome of battle is that while yes, it does make those characters that use it more awesome and viable, it is mostly replacing the combat system. While that can be a perfectly valid choice to make when designing the system, it is oddly shoe-horned it. It makes it so it doesn't mesh well with existing abilities. By providing similar options via feats, it meshes with the existing content in a much smoother manner.

Seerow
2011-06-15, 02:40 PM
That was an idea that I also had, but was hesitant to put forth. Mistify did have the point that there need to be higher level feats that fighters can get much easier than other classes.

I still don't necessarily agree with this concept. As I've said many times, I tend to be of the opinion Fighters need a fix of their own. While feats may be an aspect of the fighter that won't go away, and the Fighter will have a more diverse range of options, I don't think that Fighters need to have high end feats nobody else can get.

I'm okay with the idea of a damaging reach weapon feat that lets you use a reach weapon for thfing feats, or even a one handed reach weapon for the other styles, and think I will add that. However it will not be because Fighters need some really long feat chain, but because I agree that the option makes sense, and it opens up a new line of potential synergies that anyone could choose to access.

Gideon Falcon
2011-06-15, 03:57 PM
The fighters do need their own fix, but that doesn't mean they can't get special fighter-only feats the same way that monks and rogues can get special monk-only or rogue-only feats. In this case, they needn't even be fighter-only, just high-investment. The other styles could easily gain boosts at higher levels, granting more and more benefits as you invest more and more feats into them. I know that they don't need to have several feats just for that style in order to simulate the specialization, but that doesn't mean they can't have higher level feat options.

But yes, I do agree that it does make sense to offer up that synergy. In fact, it's the only two fighting styles (unless I'm mistaken) that could conceivably synergize that don't automatically do so, such as using twf with one-handed reach weapons or a thri-kreen with mwf and archery feats.

Seerow
2011-06-15, 05:17 PM
The fighters do need their own fix, but that doesn't mean they can't get special fighter-only feats the same way that monks and rogues can get special monk-only or rogue-only feats. In this case, they needn't even be fighter-only, just high-investment. The other styles could easily gain boosts at higher levels, granting more and more benefits as you invest more and more feats into them. I know that they don't need to have several feats just for that style in order to simulate the specialization, but that doesn't mean they can't have higher level feat options.

Most of those "this class only" feats are there to augment specific class features. You don't have "Super Weapon Finesse" that is rogue only, even if it would fit. Instead you get "Improved Sneak Attack". Because one is a totally new ability that has no reason to be rogue unique, the other is rogue unique because it improves a rogue only ability.

If you want fighter unique feats, you need to give the fighter class features for said feats to play off of and augment. Without first having a fix to discuss, you can't discuss fighter exclusive feats. And while I'm fine with multiple short feat chains having synergies that a fighter can snag earlier or easier than others, I don't agree with the premise of a really long feat chain that a character can't hope to complete until level 18 unless they're a fighter, and I'm really not going to budge on that.



But yes, I do agree that it does make sense to offer up that synergy. In fact, it's the only two fighting styles (unless I'm mistaken) that could conceivably synergize that don't automatically do so, such as using twf with one-handed reach weapons or a thri-kreen with mwf and archery feats.

Major synergies I see:
TWFing + Sword and Board
Einhander + Sword and Board
These two both have a bit of synergy built into them, but it is a choice to fully flesh out the full style. There is also the third option to take Sword and Board along with both of those and switch round to round, but that's more of an option than a synergy.
Ranged + TWFing
Unarmed Combat + Einhander/TWFing/THFing (This feat is similar to how I see the new reach feat working, basically a feat tax that opens up the styles to reach weapons. It makes it less optimal for a pure damage perspective, but someone who wants the best of both worlds has it available)



Edit: Added the Adaptable Fighter feat under Reach Weapons. It does require you pick up Reach Weapon Specialization, but given that is basically combat reflexes+, I doubt that'll be a problem for anyone wanting a reach weapon. I also edited a special description into the other weapon styles (sans archery which goes without saying) that to work with a reach weapon you must take the feat.

While doing this I did realize that my wording of the THFing feat technically would allow someone to use it in conjunction with ranged weapons. I'm wondering if I should edit this to make it unambiguously not work, or leave it in as a counterpart to TWFing. I'm currently leaning towards disallowing it, because it doesn't make sense, and Two Handing Archery is in large the default method, and one handed range weapons are pretty rare, and relatively weaker.

Mystify
2011-06-15, 05:39 PM
You are looking at it all wrong. fighter specific feats are the class feature. You have a class whose structure is to get a lot of feats. They have access to some select feats that other classes don't. If you instead implimented it like the rouge abilities, would you complain? You have a list of them you select from, get one every other level, and can spend them on feats instead if you wish. Thats pretty much what a fighter specific feat accomplishes, without having to alter the structure of fighter, and giving a little bit more flexibility on when you pick it up. Is there anything about defensive roll that would require you to be a rogue to use it? Only that it is a rouge option. Saying that fighter's shouldn't have exclusive options is pure prejudice against fighters. Your stance is pretty much "I don't like fighters, so their shouldn't be anything in the game that requires me to be a fighter", even though every other class has options exclusive to them. It even has existing content that fits into that paradigm, the weapon focus tree. If the weapon focus tree can be fighter only, why can't other abilities be? Pathfinder does it to. The penetrating strike tree and the critical mastery are fighter specific. Both are options that any martial class could find useful, but fighters are the only ones with access, and it helps distinguish how a fighter can operate in combat. There are also some feat trees that require a lot of investment for non-fighters. The whirlwind attack tree, for instance. It is clear to me that it is intended to be a fighter ability, and for other classes to take it will require significant investment and will only get it at a much higher level. Both of these are already in the game, and are how fighters are supposed to function. The only problem is that they didn't do it enough.

So stop approaching the issue from the stance of "fighters suck so they must continue to suck".

Seerow
2011-06-15, 06:09 PM
You are looking at it all wrong. fighter specific feats are the class feature. You have a class whose structure is to get a lot of feats. They have access to some select feats that other classes don't. If you instead implimented it like the rouge abilities, would you complain? You have a list of them you select from, get one every other level, and can spend them on feats instead if you wish. Thats pretty much what a fighter specific feat accomplishes, without having to alter the structure of fighter, and giving a little bit more flexibility on when you pick it up. Is there anything about defensive roll that would require you to be a rogue to use it? Only that it is a rouge option. Saying that fighter's shouldn't have exclusive options is pure prejudice against fighters. Your stance is pretty much "I don't like fighters, so their shouldn't be anything in the game that requires me to be a fighter", even though every other class has options exclusive to them. It even has existing content that fits into that paradigm, the weapon focus tree. If the weapon focus tree can be fighter only, why can't other abilities be? Pathfinder does it to. The penetrating strike tree and the critical mastery are fighter specific. Both are options that any martial class could find useful, but fighters are the only ones with access, and it helps distinguish how a fighter can operate in combat. There are also some feat trees that require a lot of investment for non-fighters. The whirlwind attack tree, for instance. It is clear to me that it is intended to be a fighter ability, and for other classes to take it will require significant investment and will only get it at a much higher level. Both of these are already in the game, and are how fighters are supposed to function. The only problem is that they didn't do it enough.

So stop approaching the issue from the stance of "fighters suck so they must continue to suck".

I'm not approaching it from "Fighters suck so they must continue to suck" I am approaching it from "Making feats just for fighters is always going to result in a substandard fix, so let's not focus on using feats to fix the fighter"

I actually like fighters. Melee Archtypes are among my favorite, and I love the concept of a Fighter who is so flexible he can do or become anything based on how you build him. This much should be obvious from how much time I have sunk into these types of archtypes just in homebrew. I didn't decide to work on these feats because I want the Fighter to suck forever, nor do I have a Fighter fix (which I'm currently working on a major overhaul for), because I hate fighters and never want to have reason to play one. In fact that's about as far from the truth as it gets.

I like the concept of the Fighter, I just acknowledge the implementation of it was absolutely terrible, and would rather not have to worry about trying to rebalance the fighter on top of balancing the various different weapon styles. The entire point here is to balance out the difference between various weapon styles, not to fix fighters. You keep trying to shoehorn this second responsibility onto me via these feats, and I refuse.

The problem is, no matter how many new and cool feats you introduce, the fighter is going to lag behind where it matters most: Flexibility. The problem with having half your levels dead when most people in good classes are gaining anywhere from 1-3 features per level means you're just straight falling behind in terms of options. Basically if you want to fix fighters via feats, you're stuck rewriting literally every feat in the game, making each one give a new unique option in combat that scales with level. And even then you're miles behind in out of combat utility still.

The Whirlwind Attack feat is a prime example of why long feat chains don't work. It's a mediocre ability that requires too many crappy feats to get it. If it was a Fighter specific ability that you can take Whirlwind attack at level 4 without any of the other prerequisites, it'd be pretty awesome, but that's the problem, it doesn't! If the feats required for Whirlwind Attack weren't so terrible, it wouldn't be bad, but here's the problem, they are!

Yes, having Fighter Specific abilities that you choose from, or even 0 prereq feats that are Fighter Specific are a very different thing from feats that have really long lists of prerequisite to make them available to the Fighter. A Fighter Only special ability I can get behind. A Fighter Only feat that has no prereqs I can get behind. Making feat chains that are 8-10 feats long so only the Fighter has the feats to get to them? That I disagree with entirely, and that is what you continuously push, and are now trying to compare to rogue special options. What you have asked for repeatedly straightjackets the fighter's options throughout his career if he wants the good stuff at the end, and is in no way a valid fix.



Finally and most importantly, though I did mention it up post, it bears repeating this thread is not about fixing fighters, it is about balancing the weapon styles at a baseline to give each their own strengths and weaknesses. I can understand how it can brush up against fighters, but you keep trying to turn the topic into a topic about them, and that isn't what this is about at all. Fighters deserve nice things, and current feats don't do it for them. The feats here help them in allowing them to fill out their weapon style and have feats leftover the pursue nice things. But they are not intended to be a fighter fix, and I am not going to repurpose this thread to that.

PS: As an aside, for the love of god man break up your text into paragraphs. That's a lot of text to take all in one chunk.

Mystify
2011-06-15, 06:29 PM
To start, I don't think fighter's are nearly as bad off as most people think. Until you throw in absurdly powerful prestige classes like frenzied beserker, a fighter can easily outperform a barbarian on both offense and defense. The barbarian just has a lot mroe frontloading, so they start off a step ahead. They are hands down the best archers in the game. Their main problem is the lack of high level feats to migrate into. At high levels, their power increase slows since they have already taken all the really good feats they wanted, while other classes are unlocking newer and better abilities. Simply having high level feat options that are worth something would make a world of difference to them. The dead levels are by no means unique to fighters, though other classes disguise it on their tables better with minor improvements to minor abilities. I consider a level where the rouge only gained trapsense to be just as much of a dead level as a fighter level with no feat, or ranger/paladins levels that only progress their pitiful spellcasting.

I'm not saying you need to actually create feats for the fighters to use with these styles, but you've acted like you are opposed to their very existence. If I mention that there should be stuff in existence that fighters can gobble up, you complain that other classes can't get it. I'm not saying you have to produce a fighter fix, but since this entire paradigm is shifting the relative advantage away from fighter, even if it technically improves them, I think its fair to consider how to counter it.

When looking at an alteration to the system, you have to consider how it effects every part. You can't just wave your hand and say "I don't care about that part of it, its someone elses problem". If you were making an alteration to the spellcasting system, and it worked well for every class, but made wizard twice as powerful, you can't just say "Oh, wizards are the most powerful anyways, and I'm not trying to fix it." Overpowering a class may be more obviously wrong than underpowering one, but both disrupt the system. While this is not as high a priority as the more obscure classes like samurai, fighter is a very core class, and has to be considered.

Seerow
2011-06-15, 06:59 PM
1) The first problem is you're only looking at pure numbers. Who can deal the most damage? Who has the most AC/DR? As long as you're competitive there, you're fine, is the attitude you've consistently expressed. I disagree with that notion. If that were the case the Wizard would not be overpowered in core, because their damage is relatively low. But instead, they are still really strong in core, because of their flexibility. What the fighter lacks is flexibility and every proposal I've seen from you makes that worse, not better. Yes there are other classes with similar flexibility problems, here's the fun thing though: Almost universally those that are considered good don't.

2) I have been consistent in opposing extended feat chains for the sole benefit of Fighters. You have argued here that you like the current model of two weapon fighting where it takes a dozen feats to do things that should be available easily. No, you're not going to sway me in the least that having a dozen feats for a single fighting style is worthwhile.

3) Actually, I very well can wave my hand and say "No, seriously, it's okay if Fighters still suck with these feats, because they suck without these feats", because the feats don't actually make the Fighter worse.

Using your example of a new casting system that makes all casters better, and doubles the effectiveness of the strongest caster, the comparison would be if this system actually significantly cut the power level of the Fighter. It doesn't do that. It makes the Fighter stronger by leaving him more feats open to spend on other options. While it also raises the bar for other melee classes, at worst it breaks even, at best the Fighter pulls ahead and closes some of the gap.

Yes, I am more concerned about how these feats affect classes like the Warblade, or a Gish, than how they affect lower tier classes, but that doesn't mean that they are automatically bad news for anyone not in those classes. A page or two back I gave you a full Fighter20 build that had all of its feats focused on one combat style. That build would not have been possible without the condensing of feats done here, and I'd posit that the fighter in question is far more effective than a fighter status quo.

4) I haven't actually said "That's someone else's problem" I've said "It's beyond the scope of this topic" and pointed out I have an alternative Fighter that can be used in place of the core "11 feats and that's it" fighter. Additionally I'm actually in the process of revamping it again to play nice with these feats and a new subsystem, because I recognize that the combat styles of the version I have up can be pretty messy and are hard to wrap your head around at first. Of course, if you don't like my Fighter fix, there are a dozen other fixes out there, or you can make your own.

The point is that feat chains alone aren't going to make the fighter worthwhile, and making more powerful feats only benefits the fighter, so it's not making a bad situation worse like you try to claim it does. If you want to fix the fighter, it's a topic all of its own

On a related note, I also intend to tackle the Barbarian and Rogue at the very least, possibly also the Ranger/Paladin. However, that, along with the Fighter will be its own topic when it is finished.

Mystify
2011-06-15, 07:46 PM
If you have 5 kids, 1 has $100, 3 have $50, and the last has $10, you can't give $10 to the $100 kid, $25-30 to the $50 kid, and $5 to the $10 kid and say that its ok since he got a bonus and so is better off. In absolute terms, yes, he is. But relative to the other kids, he is not. It doesn't matter where the balance point is, as long as its balanced. Every kid haveing $100 and every kid having $10 are both equally balanced. People may prefer the $100 situation, but the $10 one works just as well. Raising the bar and increasing the spread is not a good change.

All the flexibility in the world is useless if there is no force behind it. A wizard is highly felxible, and each of their abilities that lets them be so felxibile is itself powerful. The reason they are unblanced is that that flexibilty extends to "defeat fighters" in a dozen ways. They have a dozen tricks that are so powerful as to give them a huge advantage by themselves. The invisibily chain, summons, flight, teleportation, just to name some ofthe more common ones. While they all offer a lot of flexibily, there is a lot of raw power in each one individually .Invisibility is a huge defensive and offensive bonus, summons offer more HP between you and the enemy and a persistent source of extra damage, flight drastically improves your defensivenes, teleportation gives you great capacity to escape danger or bypass obstacles...

These abilities might not seem like they have a lot of numerical advantage, but trust me, they do. Flight taking you out of reach of enemies saves you hit point damage just as handily as wearing armor does, if not more-so. The wall of force that cuts the battle into 2 easy battles is cutting down on the enemies damage output. Just because its not rolling dice to directly affect the numbers does not make the numerical advantage any less potent.

My complaints in the other threads about the relative advantage of fighter's as controllers is that they are not very good at it. Fighters deal the raw damage that brings the battle to a close quicker, and wizards supply the control to make it easier. Making a fighter that is trying to control is like making a wizard focused on blasting. Sure, you can do it, and be pretty good at it, but its not the best thing you could be doing.

Even if you could only learn 1 spell at each level, thereby destroying a lot of the flexibility of spellcasters, there is enough raw capability there to make a potent character. A rouge is a much better example of the benefits of flexibilty. Tumble is very usefull, but as radically powerful by itself as teleportation or flight. Sneak attack is a good example of a boost that is dependant on your flexibility to acheive it. They have a lot of little tricks that give them great versatality, but none of it is overwhelming by itself.

Though one problem with rouges is a lot of thier abilities you can get can make them really good at single strikes. spend an action to be able to bypass armour, spend an action to catch them flat footed, etc. But they are not really that good at dealing damage with a single strike.

I think the real issue is that fighters and martial classes are based on real life, at least as a starting basis. how armour and weapons work are meant to model human capabilites, how training effects things, etc. Meanwhile, magic is starting from fantasy and fiction. Its abilities have never been based on realism, and its very concept is starting from being superhuman and acheiving the impossible. They are conceptually unbalanced against each other, not just mechanically. In order for them to be balaneced, you need a conceptual shift about what each can acheive. Magic can be made into a much subtler force, without world-shattering capabilities. Or you can open up and let martial character's go wild. Tome of battle was an attemt at the latter, and people seem to agree that it is relatively sucessful. But even though they have a lot of flexibility, it still doesn't compare to what mages can do. But they are all tier 3.

If you aren't familiar with the tier system, tier 3 is the middle tier, where you have a lot of flexibility and moderate power. That is the ideal balance point in my opinion. Tome of battle raises martial classes to tier 3, which is great. To couple with it, you need a corresponding revision of magic to lower it to a tier 3. I think classes like beguiler and dread necromancer are a reasonable model for magic. You don't (easily) get to learn the mind boggling diversity that a wizard does, but you have your own domain of power that you function in. If you had all the martial classes functioning at tome of battle level, and the various mage classes functioning at beguiler level, you would have a viable system.

This doesn't really have much bearing on the discussion anymore, but it shows my overall stance.

Seerow
2011-06-15, 08:20 PM
If you have 5 kids, 1 has $100, 3 have $50, and the last has $10, you can't give $10 to the $100 kid, $25-30 to the $50 kid, and $5 to the $10 kid and say that its ok since he got a bonus and so is better off. In absolute terms, yes, he is. But relative to the other kids, he is not. It doesn't matter where the balance point is, as long as its balanced. Every kid haveing $100 and every kid having $10 are both equally balanced. People may prefer the $100 situation, but the $10 one works just as well. Raising the bar and increasing the spread is not a good change.

Now show in definitive terms how these feats give 10x more to the majority than to the fighter, and I'll buy this analogy. Til then, it is meaningless.

Especially consider other classes trying to enter prestige classes while still grabbing these feats, and some non-fighters may have been actually weakened, if they usually relied on THFing because it required no feats at all.

You're making a big deal about the Fighter losing relative power, but have yet to back up any claim of this.


All the flexibility in the world is useless if there is no force behind it.

The converse of that is that all the force in the world is useless if you can't bring it to bear. You need to find a balance of it. The Fighter already has plenty of force, as has been demonstrated time and again in the past. It lacks flexibility, and that is where any fighter fix should be focused. You continue missing this and insisting that you need ridiculously long feat chains so the Fighter can compete, that is the complete wrong way to go about it as it makes the Fighter into even more of a one trick pony than it already is.


My complaints in the other threads about the relative advantage of fighter's as controllers is that they are not very good at it. Fighters deal the raw damage that brings the battle to a close quicker, and wizards supply the control to make it easier. Making a fighter that is trying to control is like making a wizard focused on blasting. Sure, you can do it, and be pretty good at it, but its not the best thing you could be doing.


Reach Weapon Control is actually very significant. For one thing, it is targeted control, something not many spells do well without specific feats/class features, and even then it's iffy on long duration control spells. A melee controller is a fixture right in the center of the battlefield who is consistently limiting enemy actions in a way that is hard to replicate.


Tier Stuff

So you are in fact familiar with the tier system yet continue to argue in favor of long feat chains and nothing else? You are aware that tiers are determined primarily by the level of flexibility the class has. A Frenzied Berserker or Hulking Hurler who can one shot anything of a CR even higher than their level clocks in around tier 4 because they can be easily shut down, but are good at their one trick.

Beguilers, Warblades, etc, are Tier 3, because they're good at their one thing and have a reasonable variety of options for how to go about it, with some utility on the side. Sorcerers and Favored Souls are Tier 2, because they have the potential to do anything, but have a limited spell selection so they can't actually do everything. Wizards, Druids, and Clerics are tier 1 because they can literally do everything, and if they can't do it now then they can do it tomorrow.

Now given that, if you make really long feat chains that are specifically tailored to the Fighter as you have suggested, even if they give exceptionally strong abilities, he will never exceed tier 4. You say you want a tier 3 balance point, well I agree tier 3 is the ideal. The problem is you seem to fail to comprehend what tier 3 actually means, and continue to make faulty arguments from a position of ignorance.

Mystify
2011-06-15, 08:45 PM
You keep overlooking the fact that I say these feats should be focused on flexibility.

Seerow
2011-06-15, 09:00 PM
You keep overlooking the fact that I say these feats should be focused on flexibility.

You also say they should be part of huge chains. So if you want the upper level abilities you're straightjacketed into a set of abilities. Or even with 11 unique abilities you can cherry pick at will. At the best, you're getting 11 abilities. Compare that to the beguiler, dread necro, or other t3 casters. Or even a Warblade or Psiwar. Hell, even a Warlock gets more invocations than that.

Any angle you want to look at it, a class with 11 features isn't going to be in league with a tier 3 character. You simply don't have the flexibility to keep up with that little. If you want a fighter that is tier 3, you fix that by altering the class, not making new feats.

Mystify
2011-06-15, 09:31 PM
A fighter should not reach that degree of flexibilty since that is its tradeoff for raw power. However, flexibility from feats could shift it from a high tier 5 to a high teir 4. A change radical enough to make it a full tier 3 would make it not be a fighter anymore. You would have a warblade.

You don't need to give fighter complete flexibility. Just flexible in the right places. Your main job is still to dish out damage and absorb agro. The balance between raw power and flexibilty should not allow both. However, you can be flexible in how you do it, such that you can help ensure you will be doing it. Melee fighters could gain abilities to let them utilize more mobility and draw aggro, ranged fighters could have abilities to help them defend at range, ignore line of sight, bypass defenses(such as windwall), make sure that the fighter can keep doing his job. Let him take an AoO at the monster whose reach he needs to run though, so he slashes at its claws when it tries to grab him, and hence lets him slip through. Let him grab onto the side of the dragon as it takes to the air and continue to attack it as it tries to fly away. But these abilities should still be related in trees. AS you progress through the tree, you access more potent abilities in it.

A fighter is not a skill monkey. They should not be a skill monkey. They should be experts of combat. Other classes will have more flexibility, but less combat capability. Designing a system from scratch, tier 3 is the general goal. Some classes have more brute power and less flexibilty, other have more flexibility and more power. The fighter is the former. While he has more uses than brute strength, the time you really appreciate him is when the steel is flying. If the alterations to fighter can allow him to function in combats where there are spells to counter him, then he has acheived the flexibilty he needs. If the enemies can utilize a basic ability and render the fighter moot, then he needs more options.

The real problem here is that D&D's balance is a complete and utter mess, so anything you try to change in one part seems irrelevant when compared to another part. There is no magic bullet that will magically fix things. The main problem with the weapon styles before was that power attack was all mighty. You take power attack out, and things compare much more favorably. Howeverm that is also a martial gimp, which doesn't help in a caster dominated system.

I prefer just to start with a blank slate and design my own system, but while a good framework isn't that hard, there is a lot of content and details to work out to make it functional.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-06-15, 09:41 PM
A fighter should not reach that degree of flexibilty since that is its tradeoff for raw power. However, flexibility from feats could shift it from a high tier 5 to a high teir 4. A change radical enough to make it a full tier 3 would make it not be a fighter anymore. You would have a warblade.

So you think eliminating feat chains, giving it better skills, and giving it stuff like mettle and uncanny dodge turns it into a warblade?

Seerow
2011-06-15, 09:51 PM
A fighter should not reach that degree of flexibilty since that is its tradeoff for raw power. However, flexibility from feats could shift it from a high tier 5 to a high teir 4. A change radical enough to make it a full tier 3 would make it not be a fighter anymore. You would have a warblade.


So first the ideal balance point is tier 3, now you don't want to make fighters tier 3 because they'd be warblades?

Seriously we've had the talk about moving goalposts before. I'm not rehashing it again.

Now please, the discussion about the Fighter has been done to death. There's another "Fix Fighters" topic floating around somewhere around here that was posted recently, if you want to continue talking about fixing Fighters take it there.

If you want to actually critique the feats themselves, and comment on any styles you think aren't supported, or ones that are too strong relative to the others, by all means contribute. If you just want to harp on about how you think this might hurt fighters, I don't want to hear it. You've made your argument, I don't agree, you're not going to change my mind on it.


So you think eliminating feat chains, giving it better skills, and giving it stuff like mettle and uncanny dodge turns it into a warblade?


No he thinks that the Fighter shouldn't be given better skills. It should only be good at Fighting, hence the name. And Fighters should have long feat chains so that they can get the feats earlier than other people (or even better, feats other people can't get cause it takes more than 8 feats in prereqs to get to!), that somehow grant raw power and interesting options.

Mystify
2011-06-15, 10:02 PM
Ok, now you are just twisting my words around.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-06-15, 10:05 PM
Ok, now you are just twisting my words around.

No, we're not. You think making fighters tier 3 turns them into warblades. That's exactly what you said. And you turn things into tier 3 by giving them out of combat things and stuff like uncanny doge, evasion, and mettle.

Mystify
2011-06-15, 10:20 PM
giving fighter uncanny dodge, evasion, and mettle will in no way make fighters tier 3. Not even close. Rouges have uncanny dodge and evasion, and the stat inclinations to make the most of them, and they are only tier 4. mettle would be a considerable bonus, but I rarely see a fighter have a problem with fort saves anyways, since most of them are fort negates in the first place, and if you fail the will saves then mettle isn't helping you. Yeah, they would be nice abilities, but they aren't exactly tier-shifting.

I didn't say that turning fighters into tier 3's made warblades. I said (or at least I meant) that the warblade is the revision of fighter that is tier 3, and that the warblade represents the kinds of structure needed to make a fighter into a tier 3. And at that point you are in an entirely different system. And in an entirely fresh systems, it could be balanced around that type of fighter.

You've sidetracked me so much I don't even remember what point I was trying to make. I think it was actually relevant to this discussion. Now I just feel like the D&D system is a kid's messy room, with only a hint of order, and we are sitting in the corner trying to sort the spilled Legos by color.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-06-15, 10:22 PM
Um...


A change radical enough to make it a full tier 3 would make it not be a fighter anymore. You would have a warblade.

Yeah...