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Yitzi
2011-07-31, 01:04 PM
The fighter is one of the two weak core classes that really needs a boost; having already done a fix for the monk, now comes the fighter's turn.

First, a few words on what this is meant to do:
It is not meant to allow fighters to beat wizards. It'll help them somewhat, but fighters will remain the weakest class against wizards.
It is not meant to allow fighters to use nonstandard rules the way wizards do; unless he goes the combat maneuver route, a fighter's options boil down to "hit it with a weapon" (or two weapons), "shoot it with a weapon", "throw a weapon at it", and "distract it while my allies take it out."
It is not even meant to make fighters a mechanically interesting class; while there are definitely interesting options for fighters with the appropriate feats (combat maneuvers, feint, etc), the bulk of making a class interesting should IMO arise from the players, not the mechanics.
What this is meant to do is make fighters extremely effective in physical combat (usually melee combat, but the ranged path is definitely an option as well, as is the combat maneuver path, as is the defensive path.)

The boost comes in three parts. First, fighters' whole thing is feats, so we'll want to give them some new feats, particularly for the higher levels (some will be fighter-only, some won't, but only a fighter will have the feats to get more than a few.)

The second part is a change to the Sunder rules, to allow it to be used without doing too much damage to your future loot.

The third part is the addition of new class features for fighters at levels 16, 18, and 20, replacing the bonus fighter feats.

New feats:

Improved Mounted Archery

Prerequisites: Ride 10 ranks, Improved Mounted Combat, Mounted Archery, base attack bonus +14.
Benefit: There is no penalty for using a ranged weapon while mounted.
Special: A fighter may select Improved Mounted Archery as one of his fighter bonus feats.


Improved Mounted Combat:

Prerequisites: Ride 10 ranks, Mounted Combat, base attack bonus +7.
Benefit: You may make 1 ride check per round for every 5 ranks in ride to negate hits on your mount with the Mounted Combat feat, but each check takes -5 more penalty than the preceding one. You may still only make one check per attack.
Normal: You may only use the Mounted Combat feat once per round.
Special: A fighter may select Improved Mounted Combat as one of his fighter bonus feats.


Improved Rapid Shot:

Prerequisites: Dex 15, Rapid Shot, base attack bonus +11.
Benefit: When you use the Rapid Shot feat, you get a second additional attack at a -10 penalty (in addition to the normal penalty for using Rapid Shot.)
Special: A fighter may select Improved Rapid Shot as one of his fighter bonus feats.


Improved Whirlwind Attack:

Prerequisites: Dex 13, Int 13, Combat Expertise, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack, base attack bonus +14.
Benefit: When you make a whirlwind attack, you may make one additional attack against each opponent, at a -10 penalty.
Special: A fighter may select Improved Whirlwind Attack as one of his fighter bonus feats.


Keen Hearing:

Prerequisites: Blind-Fight, Listen 3 ranks
Benefit: If you beat the Listen check to detect a creature by 10 or more, you pinpoint its location. If you beat the check by 20 or more, you know its exact location, and any attack action taken in reaction to the sound ignores all concealment.

Keen Sight:

Prerequisites: Blind-Fight, Spot 3 ranks
Benefit: You get a +15 bonus to spot the location of invisible creatures.
Furthermore, if the creature has no cover or concealment other than invisibility and displacement, it gains only concealment (20% miss chance), rather than total concealment (50% miss chance) from such effects.
In addition, you can make a DC 5 spot check to distinguish which of a group of Mirror Images is real; if the Images have cover or concealment, the DC increases by the caster's Hide modifier (if it is positive.)
Special: A fighter may select Keen Sight as one of his fighter bonus feats.


Superior Armor Proficiency:

Prerequisites: Endurance, Armor Proficiency (Medium), Base Attack Bonus +16.
Benefit: You may move at full speed in any armor you are proficient in. If you are proficient in heavy armor, you may treat it as medium armor whenever such is more advantageous to you (including being able to run at 4 times your normal speed, or 5 times your normal speed with the Run feat).
Normal: Medium and heavy armor decreases your speed, unless you are a dwarf.
Special: A fighter may select Superior Armor Proficiency as one of his fighter bonus feats.


Weapon Expertise:

Prerequisites: Weapon focus with a weapon of the selected category, fighter level 4th.
Benefit: Choose a category of weapon: Melee, projectile, or thrown. You gain +1 to all attacks with weapons of that category. This stacks with bonuses from all other feats.
Special: A fighter may select Weapon Expertise as one of his fighter bonus feats.
This feat may be taken more than once. Its effects do not stack; each time, it applies to a different category.


Weapon Superiority:

Prerequisites: Weapon expertise with selected category, fighter level 8th.
Benefit: Choose a category of weapon: Melee, projectile, or thrown. You gain +2 to all damage rolls with weapons of that category. This stacks with bonuses from all other feats.
Special: A fighter may select Weapon Superiority as one of his fighter bonus feats.
This feat may be taken more than once. Its effects do not stack; each time, it applies to a different category.


Greater Weapon Expertise:

Prerequisites: Weapon Superiority with selected category, fighter level 12th.
Benefit: Choose a category of weapon: Melee, projectile, or thrown. You gain +1 to all attacks with weapons of that category. This stacks with bonuses from all other feats, including Weapon Expertise.
Special: A fighter may select Greater Weapon Expertise as one of his fighter bonus feats.
This feat may be taken more than once. Its effects do not stack; each time, it applies to a different category.


Greater Weapon Superiority:

Prerequisites: Greater weapon expertise with selected category, fighter level 15th.
Benefit: Choose a category of weapon: Melee, projectile, or thrown. You gain +2 to all damage rolls with weapons of that category. This stacks with bonuses from all other feats, including Weapon Superiority.
Special: A fighter may select Greater Weapon Superiority as one of his fighter bonus feats.
This feat may be taken more than once. Its effects do not stack; each time, it applies to a different category.




Sunder fix:

It is possible to damage an item enough to affect its use without destroying it. If a masterwork item takes damage equal to its bonus hit points from enchantments (if any) plus half its normal hit points, it loses the masterwork quality (and with it any enchantments that require the masterwork quality) until repaired. A character with Improved Sunder can choose to only do this much damage to the item.


New fighter features: Combat Mastery

At levels 16 and 18, the bonus fighter feat may be instead replaced with a Combat Mastery ability. (If the fighter wants, he may still take a feat instead.) These abilities have numerous prerequisites (mostly feats), and represent a particular focus for this particular fighter.
At level 20, the bonus fighter feat may be replaced by a Combat Mastery ability, or by upgrading an existing Combat Mastery to the corresponding Combat Grandmastery ability. (The effects listed for the Grandmastery ability are in addition to those from the Combat Mastery ability.) (Some Combat Grandmastery abilities have prerequisites beyond the corresponding Combat Mastery ability and its prerequisites.) This is essentially the capstone ability for the fighter, and the culmination of his pre-epic capabilities.

The Combat Mastery and Grandmastery abilities are:

Defensive Mastery:

Prerequisites: Dex 13, Int 13, Combat Expertise, Dodge.
Benefit: As a full-round action, you may create a defensive shield with one or more manufactured melee weapons you wield until the beginning of your next turn. In addition to the benefits of the Total Defense action, you gain a shield bonus to AC against melee attacks equal to the attack bonus with whichever one of the weapons has the lowest bonus, plus 5 for each weapon used after the first. You may treat a shield as a weapon for this purpose, but if so you lose the normal AC bonus from it, even against ranged attacks. Light weapons, with the exception of shields and a monk’s unarmed strike, cannot be used to create a defensive shield.
You may make Attacks of Opportunity while creating a defensive shield, but only with the weapons being used to create the shield.
If you have deflect arrows, the bonus applies against ranged attacks as well
If you have Combat Reflexes, whenever anyone attacks you in melee while you are creating a defensive shield, you may spend an Attack of Opportunity to sunder or disarm the attacking weapon with a +2 bonus (even if the enemy is not in your threatened area). If the attack is made with a natural weapon, you may make a special attack of opportunity against the enemy (even if they are not in your threatened area). Damage from this attack cannot exceed 5 damage, but if you do even 1 point of damage with it the provoking attack is negated. In either case, the attack of opportunity must be made with a weapon being used to create the defensive shield.

Defensive Grandmastery:

Benefit: When you create a defensive shield, all allies whose space you threaten (with all weapons used to create the defensive shield) gain half the shield bonus you do. Furthermore, if you have the Combat Reflexes feat anyone attacking such allies in melee provokes an Attack of Opportunity as if they had attacked you, but with a -4 penalty on the Attack of Opportunity.


Maneuver Mastery:

Prerequisites: At least 3 combat maneuver feats (the combat maneuver feats are Improved Disarm, Improved Trip, Improved Grapple, Improved Overrun, Improved Sunder, and Improved Bull Rush)
Benefit: When making an opposed roll to disarm, trip, grapple, overrun, sunder, or bull rush an opponent, you gain a +4 bonus.

Maneuver Grandmastery:
Benefit: When making an opposed roll to disarm, trip, grapple, overrun, sunder, or bull rush an opponent, halve all bonuses and penalties from size and strength or ability scores, as well as from BAB derived from racial Hit Dice (but not from BAB due to classes or from feats) for both yourself and your opponent if such is advantageous for you.

Archery Mastery:

Prerequisites: Dex 19, Point-Blank Shot, Far Shot, Rapid Shot, Manyshot, Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot
Benefit: Halve all penalties to attack rolls that apply specifically to ranged attacks (including penalties due to feat use and distance), as well as all miss chances that apply specifically to ranged attacks.


Archery Grandmastery:
Additional Prerequisite: Dex 21
Benefit: Negate all distance penalties for your attacks, as well as the penalty for using rapid shot. You are still limited to 10 ranged increments with a projectile weapon, or 5 with a thrown weapon. Also, negate all miss chances that apply specifically to ranged attacks. Furthermore, you may add half your Dexterity bonus to your ranged attacks; this replaces any Strength bonus to damage (if the Strength bonus is greater, it is applied instead). Finally, Deflect Arrows and similar abilities no longer allow the user to simply deflect your attacks. Instead, they must make an opposed attack roll at a +10 bonus in order to deflect your attack.

Power Attack Mastery:
Prerequisites: 19 Str, Power Attack
Benefit: When using Power Attack, you may apply penalties and bonuses for each attack individually.
Normal: The bonuses and penalties from Power Attack apply to all attacks in a round.

Power Attack Grandmastery:
Additional Prerequisite: Str 21
Benefit: When using Power Attack, add twice as much to your damage roll as is subtracted from the attack roll, or four times as much if wielding a weapon in two hands. The total bonus to damage still cannot exceed your base attack bonus, or twice your base attack bonus if wielding a weapon in two hands. This still does not allow you to use Power Attack with a weapon that would normally be ineligible.
Normal: The number added to the damage roll is equal to the number subtracted from the attack roll, or twice as much if wielding a weapon in two hands.

Two-Weapon Fighting Mastery:

Prerequisites: 19 Dex, Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
Benefit: When fighting with two weapons, you take no penalty on attack rolls, and may add your full strength bonus to damage for both attacks. Furthermore, you may make as many attacks with your off-hand weapon as with your main weapon. Finally, if you hit an opponent with a weapon in each hand in the same round, you may automatically rend the opponent. This deals additional damage equal to the base damage of the less powerful (lower base damage) weapon plus 1 ½ times your Strength modifier. Base weapon damage includes an enhancement bonus on damage, if any. You can only rend once per round, regardless of how many successful attacks you make.
Normal: There is a penalty on attack rolls when fighting with two weapons, and the off-hand weapon gains only half your strength bonus as a bonus to attacks.

(OOC note: This is a combination of an ettin's Superior 2WF ability, and the SRD epic feats Perfect 2WF and Two-Weapon Rend.)


Two-Weapon Fighting Grandmastery:

Benefit: When attacking a single opponent with two weapons, the opponent may only apply its dexterity bonus to AC against one of the weapons, unless its BAB is higher than yours by at least 4. You may roll one attack with each weapon before resolving either; if either attack rolls high enough to hit, the other attack gets a +2 bonus and the target cannot apply its Dexterity bonus to AC against that attack. You may do this as many times per round as you have attacks with each weapon.


Weapon Mastery:

Prerequisites: Greater Weapon Superiority or Greater Weapon Specialization
Benefit: The Weapon Superiority, Greater Weapon Superiority, Weapon Specialization, and Greater Weapon Specialization feats each give +10% to damage rather than +2 damage whenever such would be more advantageous to you. Any source of damage not multiplied by a critical hit is not increased in this manner, and the bonus is rounded down after the effects of all applicable feats have been calculated and added together.

Weapon Grandmastery:

Benefit: The effects of Greater Weapon Expertise, Greater Weapon Superiority, Greater Weapon Focus, and Greater Weapon Specialization are doubled.

Thoughts?

Ziegander
2011-07-31, 02:06 PM
Your stated goal is to make them extremely effective in physical combat. But that's still a pretty vague goal if you ask me. In your opinion how does the published Fighter class fall short of that goal and what are a few examples of existing published classes or creatures that meet that goal that you are attempting to boost the Fighter's performance to match (or exceed)?

In my opinion any Fighter Fix™ that attempts to boost their performance so that they are "extremely effective in physical combat" at least needs to improve their fighting ability to the point that they could go toe-to-toe with monsters that are at that same level across all points on the level-to-CR spectrum.

For example, just using the SRD, at CR 5 we have Dire Lions, or worse, Trolls. At CR 10 we have Fire Giants, or worse, the Bebilith. At CR 15 the concept of a monster that is only "extremely effective in physical combat" kind of goes out the window but we have Half-Dragon Colossal Monstrous Scorpians.

All of the above creatures are what I would consider to be effective melee combatants, and some I would consider to be extremely effective in physical combat in general. A boosted Fighter of any one given build that can't go toe-to-toe with all of those creatures (at the appropriate levels of course) and kill some of them, weaken some others, and at the very least survive an encounter with the rest simply can't be called "extremely effective in physical combat."

byaku rai
2011-07-31, 02:29 PM
The way I see it, there are two problems with the core Fighter as written:

1) Bonus feats should not be the only class features a class gets. Ever.

2) This goes double when 95% of the bonus feats available are completely worthless.

So, to fix the fighter, you need to either come up with ACTUAL CLASS FEATURES instead of just bonus feats, or to create fighter-only feats that are worthwhile to take. This means feats that scale with fighter level progression, or high-level feats that give the fighter the capacity to not suck, or mimic actual class features.

Sorry if this came off as harsh. >.<

NeoSeraphi
2011-07-31, 03:29 PM
So, funny thing about Weapon Expertise and Weapon Superiorty...they already made a feat like that, that's better than the one you created (In that it provides a higher bonus and only consumes one feat slot)

It's called Melee Weapon Mastery (Type). (Comes in Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing. There are also three Ranged Weapon Mastery feats with the same attributes)

The requirements are Weapon Focus with a weapon of the chosen type, Weapon Specialization with a weapon of the chosen type, and +8 BAB. The benefits are: +2 bonus on attacks and damage rolls with all weapons of the chosen type, stacks with Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization. So it can be taken at the same time you offer Weapon Superiority, but it grants an additional +1 to hit and only consumes one feat slot. (And non-fighters can take it if they have Weapon Specialization, like a favored soul)

I suppose if a fighter wanted they could take Greater Weapon Expertise to balance it out, so that would be 3 of your homebrew feats to equal to the benefit of a single already existing feat.

Nothing else to say that byaku rai didn't cover already. Good luck in the editing process though.

Yitzi
2011-07-31, 03:33 PM
Your stated goal is to make them extremely effective in physical combat. But that's still a pretty vague goal if you ask me. In your opinion how does the published Fighter class fall short of that goal and what are a few examples of existing published classes or creatures that meet that goal that you are attempting to boost the Fighter's performance to match (or exceed)?

Barbarian is a good example of what I'm trying to boost the fighter's performance to exceed.


In my opinion any Fighter Fix™ that attempts to boost their performance so that they are "extremely effective in physical combat" at least needs to improve their fighting ability to the point that they could go toe-to-toe with monsters that are at that same level across all points on the level-to-CR spectrum.

Not really. The CR is designed for a party; a single character will of course do somewhat worse than that. That said, it is not at all clear that a fighter can't take those on, assuming of course that he's properly equipped.


1) Bonus feats should not be the only class features a class gets. Ever.

Why not? So long as there are enough good feats that you can't get them all without bonus feats, bonus feats are worth something substantial.


So, to fix the fighter, you need to either come up with ACTUAL CLASS FEATURES instead of just bonus feats, or to create fighter-only feats that are worthwhile to take. This means feats that scale with fighter level progression, or high-level feats that give the fighter the capacity to not suck, or mimic actual class features.

Why isn't the ability to hit reliably and do substantial damage considered worthwhile to take?

Hiro Protagonest
2011-07-31, 03:38 PM
Not really. The CR is designed for a party; a single character will of course do somewhat worse than that. That said, it is not at all clear that a fighter can't take those on, assuming of course that he's properly equipped.

Except a party of four is expected to take four encounters of their CR per day. That means a fighter should be able to take one encounter of their CR while at full hit points.

NeoSeraphi
2011-07-31, 03:41 PM
Except a party of four is expected to take four encounters of their CR per day. That means a fighter should be able to take one encounter of their CR while at full hit points.

I'm not quite sure that's how it works...after all each monster is designed to have certain exploitable weaknesses and certain powerful defenses. A balanced party working together should be able to take it out, but I don't think that a level 3 fighter could take down a That Damn Crab, for example. Or a level 10 fighter fighting a rakasha. Or even a level 4 fighter fighting a brown bear. Even when the encounter is simple and played to the fighter's strengths (an opponent who simply attacks, has a high Strength but low AC and no magical attacks) I think the monster would win, as fighters have no class features and the monster simply has higher HD (and therefore, comparable to better BAB)

Ziegander
2011-07-31, 03:49 PM
Except a party of four is expected to take four encounters of their CR per day. That means a fighter should be able to take one encounter of their CR while at full hit points.

And honestly a party of four taking on four encounters of their CR is pretty much easy mode. Consider that a party of four level 5 characters is actually an Encounter Level of 9.

I'm kind of curious to see how you would build a Fighter using all available published material as well as your own suggested fixes (even ongoing as you come up with them) that at 5th level could successfully take on a Troll, then at 10th level take on a Fire Giant, and at 15th level take on a Half-Dragon Monstrous Scorpion. Bonus points if you don't build specifically to defeat Trolls, Fire Giants, and big 'ol Scorpions.


Even when the encounter is simple and played to the fighter's strengths (an opponent who simply attacks, has a high Strength but low AC and no magical attacks) I think the monster would win, as fighters have no class features and the monster simply has higher HD (and therefore, comparable to better BAB)

And this is exactly my point. If any sort of "boosted Fighter" doesn't have a reasonable chance of victory in an encounter that plays to his supposed strengths of being "extremely effective in physical combat," then that attempt to boost the Fighter has utterly failed.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-07-31, 04:06 PM
I'm not quite sure that's how it works...after all each monster is designed to have certain exploitable weaknesses and certain powerful defenses. A balanced party working together should be able to take it out, but I don't think that a level 3 fighter could take down a That Damn Crab, for example. Or a level 10 fighter fighting a rakasha. Or even a level 4 fighter fighting a brown bear. Even when the encounter is simple and played to the fighter's strengths (an opponent who simply attacks, has a high Strength but low AC and no magical attacks) I think the monster would win, as fighters have no class features and the monster simply has higher HD (and therefore, comparable to better BAB)

That's my point. A 4th level warblade at full hit points can beat a brown bear. Emerald Razor for better chance of hit or more damage with PA, Mountain Hammer and Claw at the Moon for an extra 7 points of damage on average, Steely Strike for better chance of hit or more damage from PA, etc.

Yitzi
2011-07-31, 04:38 PM
Except a party of four is expected to take four encounters of their CR per day. That means a fighter should be able to take one encounter of their CR while at full hit points.

No, as 4 characters are more than 4 times as powerful as 1 character, especially in a balanced party.


as fighters have no class features

Not quite; their feats are their class features, and some of them can be pretty impressive if used intelligently.


And honestly a party of four taking on four encounters of their CR is pretty much easy mode.

That's what the DMG says; an equal-CR encounter is expected to take 1/5 of their resources, so they have to limit it to 4 to be confident of winning.


Consider that a party of four level 5 characters is actually an Encounter Level of 9.

Yes; you need to be level 9 to beat them without using substantially more than 1/5 of your resources.


And this is exactly my point. If any sort of "boosted Fighter" doesn't have a reasonable chance of victory in an encounter that plays to his supposed strengths of being "extremely effective in physical combat," then that attempt to boost the Fighter has utterly failed.

An encounter that plays to the fighter's strengths isn't one that's the monster equivalent of a fighter, and especially not one that's the monster equivalent of a fighter with lots of HP (monsters tend to have more HP because they're designed to oppose entire parties.) An encounter that plays to the fighter's strengths would be one that is most effectively fought with physical combat, such as a golem or a roper. Or one that's vulnerable to combat maneuvers (such as humanoids with class levels) or to using things like cleave.

A single "brute" monster actually isn't what fighters are designed to defeat. At least not alone; keep in mind also that a fighter with caster support should be far more powerful than either fighter or caster alone.

Also, trolls in particular are a bad example because regeneration is best defeated by focus fire from multiple party members, so they're far more difficult for a single character than their CR would indicate.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-07-31, 04:42 PM
You seem to have missed NeoSeraphi's first post.


So, funny thing about Weapon Expertise and Weapon Superiorty...they already made a feat like that, that's better than the one you created (In that it provides a higher bonus and only consumes one feat slot)

It's called Melee Weapon Mastery (Type). (Comes in Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing. There are also three Ranged Weapon Mastery feats with the same attributes)

The requirements are Weapon Focus with a weapon of the chosen type, Weapon Specialization with a weapon of the chosen type, and +8 BAB. The benefits are: +2 bonus on attacks and damage rolls with all weapons of the chosen type, stacks with Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization. So it can be taken at the same time you offer Weapon Superiority, but it grants an additional +1 to hit and only consumes one feat slot. (And non-fighters can take it if they have Weapon Specialization, like a favored soul)

I suppose if a fighter wanted they could take Greater Weapon Expertise to balance it out, so that would be 3 of your homebrew feats to equal to the benefit of a single already existing feat.

Nothing else to say that byaku rai didn't cover already. Good luck in the editing process though.

Yitzi
2011-07-31, 04:53 PM
Yes, I did miss it.

So maybe I'm missing something...given that a fighter can get a better offense than a barbarian, why is it that fighters are considered so underpowered when barbarians are not?

NeoSeraphi
2011-07-31, 05:08 PM
Yes, I did miss it.

So maybe I'm missing something...given that a fighter can get a better offense than a barbarian, why is it that fighters are considered so underpowered when barbarians are not?

First of all, barbarians are pretty subpar when it comes to things like warblades and crusaders. That said, a fighter's skill from his bonus feats can only take him so far. What really matters is a fighter's equipment. A fighter needs to have the absolute best +5 adamantine sword of flaming destructive awesomeness in order to be able to dish out the damage he's expected to dish out at CR 20.

Some of his feats to improve damage that scale with level, such as Power Attack, Shock Trooper, and Leap Attack, are not fighter-only feats, so the barbarian can also take them.

The difference between the fighter's +4 to hit and +6 to damage (Assuming Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization, and Melee Weapon Mastery, which is a total of 5 feats) and the barbarian is that bonuses to hit aren't really that necessary for optimized melee. Generally, the full BAB combined with a decent Str score is more than enough to land a blow. And unlike damage, all you have to aim for when you want to hit a creature is their AC. There's very little luck involved, generally, and most of my pure melee builds have been able to hit on rolls of 2 and 3.

The barbarian, with a +5 weapon, already has a +5 bonus to hit and to damage. That's more than Greater Weapon Focus/MWM and almost as much as Greater Weapon Specialization/MWM. And he hits just fine. That's because Greater Weapon Focus is unnecessary with full BAB and proper equipment and Strength.

Meanwhile, the barbarian is able to, at will, increase his physical ability scores by as much as 16-18 (Full Frenzied Berserker+Rage+Reckless Rage = +16 Str).

With that +16 Str comes a +8 bonus to hit which is double the bonus that the fighter receives from MWM and Greater Weapon Focus, as well as an extra attack at his highest attack bonus each round. The bonus to damage is +12, assuming a two-handed weapon.

Combine this with pounce, the valorous weapon enhancement, and a two-handed weapon, and Power Attack with -20 with your full BAB thanks to Heedless Charge, have absolutely no penalties to hit. And thanks to Supreme Power Attack from Frenzied Berserker, you're adding +80 to your damage rolls, instead of +40.

So let's count. Say the average barbarian, with correct WBL and optimization, has a base Str of 38 at level 20. (18+4 racial from Orc+5 level+5 inherent+6 Enhancement from a magic item). Now add that +16 Strength. His Strength score is now 54.

He charges and Power Attacks. (Note that as of Complete Champion, barbarians receive pounce as a class feature. While fighters get Greater Weapon Focus)

With that 54 Strength, the +2 bonus from charging, and a +5 Valorous Berserker Greataxe, he has a total of +51 to hit. Thanks to Heedless Charge, he drops his AC to 0 instead of taking that penalty to his attack rolls. So he attacks his opponent, with +51/+51/+46/+41/+36. We assume he hits all 5 times.

His Greataxe deals 2d12+240 damage per hit. Without using the Leap Attack feat.

That's why fighters aren't as good as barbarians. They have exploitable class features. (Rage, Pounce, Frenzy, and Supreme Power Attack)

Edit: And before you say "None of that is core", the widespread opinion that the barbarian is better than the fighter is based on all of the options available to both classes in 3.5. Also, Swiftmongoose's points about the barbarian are all valid and core-only.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-07-31, 05:11 PM
Yes, I did miss it.

So maybe I'm missing something...given that a fighter can get a better offense than a barbarian, why is it that fighters are considered so underpowered when barbarians are not?

Barbarians get rage. The Extra Rage and Extended Rage feats basically allow them to rage the entire combat, every combat, giving them +2 to attack and damage, +2 to fortitude and will saves, for -2 AC. At 11th level, the bonuses become +3, at 20th level, they become +4. Starting at 14th level, they also gain +4 on saves against spells like Dominate Person and Hold Monster.

NeoSeraphi
2011-07-31, 05:23 PM
Barbarians get rage. The Extra Rage and Extended Rage feats basically allow them to rage the entire combat, every combat, giving them +2 to attack and damage, +2 to fortitude and will saves, for -2 AC. At 11th level, the bonuses become +3, at 20th level, they become +4. Starting at 14th level, they also gain +4 on saves against spells like Dominate Person and Hold Monster.

You also forgot that delicious +80 HP at 20th level. Extra hit points, as well as the highest hit dice in the game and a terrible but still better than nothing DR 5/- make the barbarian a much better damage soaker than a fighter.

Yitzi
2011-07-31, 05:25 PM
First of all, barbarians are pretty subpar when it comes to things like warblades and crusaders. That said, a fighter's skill from his bonus feats can only take him so far. What really matters is a fighter's equipment. A fighter needs to have the absolute best +5 adamantine sword of flaming destructive awesomeness in order to be able to dish out the damage he's expected to dish out at CR 20.

So? At level 20, that equipment is quite within his means.


Some of his feats to improve damage that scale with level, such as Power Attack, Shock Trooper, and Leap Attack, are not fighter-only feats, so the barbarian can also take them.

Yes, but none of the barbarian's abilities scale with level that way; the barbarian's improving rage can be matched by the fighter taking more constant-bonus feats.


The difference between the fighter's +4 to hit and +6 to damage (Assuming Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization, and Melee Weapon Mastery, which is a total of 5 feats) and the barbarian is that bonuses to hit aren't really that necessary for optimized melee. Generally, the full BAB combined with a decent Str score is more than enough to land a blow. And unlike damage, all you have to aim for when you want to hit a creature is their AC. There's very little luck involved, generally, and most of my pure melee builds have been able to hit on rolls of 2 and 3.

With Core-only that shouldn't happen so much.


Meanwhile, the barbarian is able to, at will, increase his physical ability scores by as much as 16-18 (Full Frenzied Berserker+Rage+Reckless Rage = +16 Str).

Ah, so it's because of non-core barbarian capabilities.
I'm only trying to balance within core.

And within core, an equal-CR monster will be more than a single character of that level can handle without extremely heavy expenditure. Which is how it should be; after all, we want it still to be somewhat of a challenge for a 4-character party that supports each other properly.

NeoSeraphi
2011-07-31, 05:26 PM
Ah, so it's because of non-core barbarian capabilities.
I'm only trying to balance within core.


See the edit above.

Yitzi
2011-07-31, 05:38 PM
Yes, at higher levels barbarians are quite defensively powerful.

Of course, my fix (with the combat mastery abilities) means that at higher levels fighters are also quite offensively powerful (or defensively if they decided to focus on defense.)

NeoSeraphi
2011-07-31, 05:45 PM
Now, about your "Core Only Melee Needs Bonuses to Hit" thing.

I went to the SRD and chose a CR 20 monster. I focused on both classical approaches and specialized AC, and I picked a wyrm- age category Black Dragon. Its AC is 39.

At level 20, a barbarian or a ranger's BAB is +20. We'll go with a melee focused barbarian, since that was the original argument. So I have a level 20 barbarian. He's a Half-Orc who has focused on Strength, as core-only barbarians tend to do. His Strength score is 36. (18 starting, +2 racial, +5 level, +6 Belt of Giant Strength, +5 inherent because wish is a core spell)

He has a +5 greataxe with no ability enhancements, again, typical and even subpar for melee at level 20.

His total to-hit bonus without raging is +38. On a natural 2, he will hit that CR 20 black dragon.

Edit: And with raging, his to-hit is +42. So he auto-succeeds on his first attack roll, needs a natural 2 on his second attack roll, needs a natural 7 on his third attack roll, and a natural 12 on his fourth. So a core-only barbarian without your fix that has been properly equipped has a very good chance of hitting a black dragon even with his +5 iterative attack. Without Weapon Focus.

137beth
2011-07-31, 05:53 PM
I strongly disagree with the notion that feats can never be considered class features. If the feat has a prerequisite of a particular class, and the class in question gives bonus feats, then that feat can essentially be a class feature. In fact, the fighter really gets to customize their class features when they pick feats.

The main argument against feats replacing class features is "feats aren't as good as class features." Using just published material, this is true. Weapon Specialization may be a fighter class feature, but it's an awfully bad one. But if we are homebrewing, the solution is simply to make better feats. These fighter-only feats would have to be substantially more powerful than almost all WotC feats. Basically, that good idea you have for a 12th level class feature could instead be a feat, with "12th level fighter" as a prerequisite.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-07-31, 05:59 PM
I strongly disagree with the notion that feats can never be considered class features. If the feat has a prerequisite of a particular class, and the class in question gives bonus feats, then that feat can essentially be a class feature. In fact, the fighter really gets to customize their class features when they pick feats.

The main argument against feats replacing class features is "feats aren't as good as class features." Using just published material, this is true. Weapon Specialization may be a fighter class feature, but it's an awfully bad one. But if we are homebrewing, the solution is simply to make better feats. These fighter-only feats would have to be substantially more powerful than almost all WotC feats. Basically, that good idea you have for a 12th level class feature could instead be a feat, with "12th level fighter" as a prerequisite.

If they're fighter only, why are they feats? Why not call them Arts of War or Battle Arts?

Edit: oh yeah, because warblade can get them.

137beth
2011-07-31, 06:08 PM
If they're fighter only, why are they feats? Why not call them Arts of War or Battle Arts?



I suppose for the same reason you still call any other class-specific feat a feat:smallwink:

Or that you call a metamagic feat a feat, instead of a Casting Style.

NeoSeraphi
2011-07-31, 06:13 PM
While I wait for Yitzi to reply, I'll go ahead and point out that even if you balance a fighter, without fixing all the dead levels, he's still going to be no fun to play, especially if it's in Core-only when there aren't that many prestige classes.

Also you made a mistake with some of your coding in the OP, missed a few / before spoiler and stuff.

Ziegander
2011-07-31, 06:29 PM
I'm having a really difficult time understanding what it is you're trying to accomplish here.

Your main points appear to be as follows:

1) A Fighter should be able to hit stuff and deal damage.

2) Melee Monsters of CR equal to a Fighter level should always be strictly better at physical combat than said Fighter.

3) A Fighter should (only?) excel in encounters where he gets to mop up lots of worthless mooks (cleaving), bull rush or trip fools (humanoid opponents), and/or attack creatures that no one else can effectively attack.


Now, point 1 is already taken care of, as has been extensively pointed out to you already.

Point 2 is simply dooming any effort to boost the Fighter to failure. You see, a Fighter 5 is, as per the rubric given us by the game designers, a CR 5 challenge. So any Fighter 5 should be, according to the game designers, an equal challenge as any Dire Lion or Troll. If part of your accepted design philosophy is that a Fighter 5 shouldn't be equivalent in combat to either of those monsters, then you are accepting that by your standards you aim to actively make the Fighter even weaker than the game's designers expected him to be.

Mind, you could certainly still improve the published Fighter and it would still not be equal to a Troll or even a Dire Lion, but if you choose not to even attempt making a CR 5 melee Fighter character roughly equivalent to any given CR 5 melee monster, if you choose to willfully make said CR 5 melee Fighter strictly weaker than any given CR 5 melee monster, then you may as well throw the CR system completely out the window and start all discussion of game balance from scratch.

As far as point 3 is concerned, worthless mooks and humanoid opponents are pretty silly to be balancing anything against anyway and it implies that you do accept that an encounter against a CR 5 melee humanoid is supposed to be as challenging as an encounter against a CR 5 melee monster.

That last bit about attacking creatures that no one else can effectively attack is the most interesting bit, and may be something to work with in attempting to boost a Fighter. Of course that angle seems to imply that the Fighter should always be worse at everything than literally everyone else, but also that he is the one class that is basically impossible to stop from doing his thing. Shrug.

137beth
2011-07-31, 07:02 PM
That last bit about attacking creatures that no one else can effectively attack is the most interesting bit, and may be something to work with in attempting to boost a Fighter. Of course that angle seems to imply that the Fighter should always be worse at everything than literally everyone else, but also that he is the one class that is basically impossible to stop from doing his thing. Shrug.
[/LIST]

Which lead us straight back to the one-trick pony. You (the OP) almost seem to be assuming that the fighter is tier 6, but should be boosted to tier 5. But the fighter is ALREADY tier 5 (and not all that bad for its tier).

Yitzi
2011-07-31, 07:51 PM
Now, about your "Core Only Melee Needs Bonuses to Hit" thing.

I went to the SRD and chose a CR 20 monster. I focused on both classical approaches and specialized AC, and I picked a wyrm- age category Black Dragon. Its AC is 39.

At level 20, a barbarian or a ranger's BAB is +20. We'll go with a melee focused barbarian, since that was the original argument. So I have a level 20 barbarian. He's a Half-Orc who has focused on Strength, as core-only barbarians tend to do. His Strength score is 36. (18 starting, +2 racial, +5 level, +6 Belt of Giant Strength, +5 inherent because wish is a core spell)

He has a +5 greataxe with no ability enhancements, again, typical and even subpar for melee at level 20.

His total to-hit bonus without raging is +38. On a natural 2, he will hit that CR 20 black dragon.

Edit: And with raging, his to-hit is +42. So he auto-succeeds on his first attack roll, needs a natural 2 on his second attack roll, needs a natural 7 on his third attack roll, and a natural 12 on his fourth. So a core-only barbarian without your fix that has been properly equipped has a very good chance of hitting a black dragon even with his +5 iterative attack. Without Weapon Focus.

Point. Although I'm thinking about reworking inherent bonuses so that he can't get that, but yes full-BAB classes can hit pretty well as it is. (They can then use the extra for the iterative attacks or stuff like Power Attack and Weapon Expertise.)
Of course, barbarians are a bad example of "without my fix", as this is primarily a fighter fix; barbarians already have what it's trying to give fighters.


The main argument against feats replacing class features is "feats aren't as good as class features." Using just published material, this is true. Weapon Specialization may be a fighter class feature, but it's an awfully bad one. But if we are homebrewing, the solution is simply to make better feats.

That's essentially what I tried to do here with the Combat Mastery abilities.


If they're fighter only, why are they feats? Why not call them Arts of War or Battle Arts?

Because they work a lot like feats, and are conceptually the same as feats.


While I wait for Yitzi to reply, I'll go ahead and point out that even if you balance a fighter, without fixing all the dead levels, he's still going to be no fun to play

That really depends on the player. In my own opinion, any class is no fun to play if the mechanics are all that you're using to make them fun. D&D is a roleplaying game.


Also you made a mistake with some of your coding in the OP, missed a few / before spoiler and stuff.

Whoops. Fixed.


I'm having a really difficult time understanding what it is you're trying to accomplish here.

Your main points appear to be as follows:

1) A Fighter should be able to hit stuff and deal damage.

No, a fighter should be able to do whatever it is that his feat selection is customized to. That could be combat maneuvers, it could be hitting stuff and dealing damage, it could be being hard to kill.


2) Melee Monsters of CR equal to a Fighter level should always be strictly better at physical combat than said Fighter.

Not true. They should be able to beat said fighter one-on-one, since they tend to be effectively optimized against single opponents (or maybe it's that parties are optimized against them, and the CR represents that.)


3) A Fighter should (only?) excel in encounters where he gets to mop up lots of worthless mooks (cleaving), bull rush or trip fools (humanoid opponents), and/or attack creatures that no one else can effectively attack.

Not only, but those are some examples of the encounters where he's particularly impressive. Just like a wizard is particularly impressive against brute monsters.


[LIST]Point 2 is simply dooming any effort to boost the Fighter to failure. You see, a Fighter 5 is, as per the rubric given us by the game designers, a CR 5 challenge. So any Fighter 5 should be, according to the game designers, an equal challenge as any Dire Lion or Troll.

Oh, he's quite as much a challenge. He's got lower hit points, but is often smarter, will tend to have better AC and attack, and can have a whole slew of nasty tricks.

But just because two encounters are equally a challenge against a party doesn't mean they're evenly matched against each other.

[LIST]As far as point 3 is concerned, worthless mooks and humanoid opponents are pretty silly to be balancing anything against anyway[/quote]

Not necessarily; especially at high levels, humanoid (or similar, like templated undead) opponents are some of the nastiest foes a party can face.


Of course that angle seems to imply that the Fighter should always be worse at everything than literally everyone else, but also that he is the one class that is basically impossible to stop from doing his thing.

While I wouldn't go to that extreme, that's certainly a way to go (although the barbarian should be even more so.) Magic, trickery...all these things are powerful, but ephemeral and therefore easily diverted by those who no how. A sword in the gut...now that's solid.


You (the OP) almost seem to be assuming that the fighter is tier 6, but should be boosted to tier 5. But the fighter is ALREADY tier 5 (and not all that bad for its tier).

Not really; I'm assuming it's tier 5 (one-trick pony who's not so great at his trick) and trying to boost it to a very strong tier 4 (one-trick or a-few-tricks, and very very good at his chosen tricks.)

Hiro Protagonest
2011-07-31, 08:08 PM
Not true. They should be able to beat said fighter one-on-one, since they tend to be effectively optimized against single opponents (or maybe it's that parties are optimized against them, and the CR represents that.)

I need help remembering why I'm not just playing an awakened animal instead of a fighter.

gkathellar
2011-07-31, 08:17 PM
I really don't want to get into this, especially because I disagree with your philosophical approach to fixing 3.5 in general, but I can't let this go.


That really depends on the player. In my own opinion, any class is no fun to play if the mechanics are all that you're using to make them fun. D&D is a roleplaying game.

Good mechanics can contribute to fun, if designed to do so. Bad mechanics, however, will always detract from fun, because mechanics are the functional means by which conflict is resolved — and conflict is fun.

Yitzi
2011-07-31, 08:48 PM
I need help remembering why I'm not just playing an awakened animal instead of a fighter.

Because awakened animals don't have an LA, and if they did it would be at least 0 (and a fighter is a far superior combatant to an awakened animal of his HD.)


I really don't want to get into this, especially because I disagree with your philosophical approach to fixing 3.5 in general

In what way?


Good mechanics can contribute to fun, if designed to do so. Bad mechanics, however, will always detract from fun, because mechanics are the functional means by which conflict is resolved — and conflict is fun.

Yes. But that is true of bad mechanics, but not of boring mechanics. If the fighter's mechanics are bad, that's a problem. If they're just boring, though, that's no issue, as there are other ways to make conflict resolution interesting.

gkathellar
2011-07-31, 09:44 PM
In what way?

I don't like the idea that the game should have some kind of rock-paper-scissors dynamic going on, and through most of your threads you've made quite clear that you think this is a good approach.

I don't think you're a bad homebrewer, btw — you've obviously got a vision of what you want to do and you're working towards it with aplomb. I just personally don't like your approach.


Yes. But that is true of bad mechanics, but not of boring mechanics. If the fighter's mechanics are bad, that's a problem. If they're just boring, though, that's no issue, as there are other ways to make conflict resolution interesting.

Conflict = Fun. Therefore, boring conflict resolution mechanics are boring fun. Boring fun is not a thing. Therefore, boring conflict resolution mechanics are not fun to use. If a game mechanic prevents you from having fun while playing said game, it's a bad mechanic.

Ziegander
2011-07-31, 09:53 PM
That's essentially what I tried to do here with the Combat Mastery abilities.

So your solution is to force everyone to play Core-Only but with extra Fighter-Only feats that are weaker versions of non-Core Fighter feats.


No, a fighter should be able to do whatever it is that his feat selection is customized to. That could be combat maneuvers, it could be hitting stuff and dealing damage, it could be being hard to kill.

Okay.


Not true. They should be able to beat said fighter one-on-one, since they tend to be effectively optimized against single opponents (or maybe it's that parties are optimized against them, and the CR represents that.)

I'm not sure how that's any different from what I said, but let's move on.


Oh, he's quite as much a challenge. He's got lower hit points, but is often smarter, will tend to have better AC and attack, and can have a whole slew of nasty tricks.

Um, what? Let's compare a Core-Only Fighter 5 + your boosts to an SRD Dire Lion.

Steed (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=303116) (See spoiler below)
Male Human Fighter, Level 5, Init +1, HP 45/45, Speed 20ft, or 50ft Mounted
AC 19, Touch 11, Flat-footed 18, Fort +7, Ref +2, Will +1, Base Attack Bonus 5
+1 Spiked Chain +12 (2d4+7, 20 (x2))
Throwing Dagger (4 daggers) +11 (1d4+4, 19-20 (x2))
Longbow (50 arrows) +6 (1d8, 20 (x3))
Masterwork Full Plate (+8 Armor, +1 Dex)
Abilities Str 19, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 8
Skills Climb +12, Jump +12, Ride, +9
Using 28pt buy, our Human Fighter starts with Str 16 Dex 12 Con 16 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 8. At 5th level he's got six feats, one bonus ability point, and roughly 9000gp. Using the guidelines in the DMG he can't have any single item worth more than 2250gp which should more closely reflect gear obtained through actual gameplay.

With his ability scores, class level, and base attack bonus, the following list of feats shows everything available to him in this scenario:


Acrobatic, Agile, Alertness, Animal Affinity, Athletic, Blind-Fight, Keen Hearing, Keen Sight, Combat Reflexes, Deceitful, Deft Hands, Diligent, Endurance, Diehard, Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Great Fortitude, Improved Critical, Improved Initiative, Improved Unarmed Strike, Investigator, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Magical Aptitude, Mounted Combat, Mounted Archery, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge, Trample, Negotiator, Nimble Fingers, Persuasive, Point Blank Shot, Far Shot, Precise Shot, Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Overrun, Improved Sunder, Quickdraw, Rapid Reload, Run, Self-Sufficient, Improved Shield Bash, Tower Shield Proficiency, Skill Focus, Stealthy, Toughness, Track, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus, Weapon Expertise, and Weapon Specialization.


Let's give him Blind-Fight, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain), Power Attack, Mounted Combat, Ride-by Attack, and Weapon Focus (Spiked Chain), and Weapon Expertise.

Let's assign him Gauntlets of Ogre Power (4000gp), a +1 Spiked Chain (2025gp + 300gp Masterwork component), a suit of Masterwork Full Plate (1500gp + 150gp Masterwork component), and a Heavy Warhorse (400gp). This leaves him with 625gp to fill out the rest of his possessions.


V.S.

Dire Lion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/direLion.htm)

The Fighter indeed has significantly lower hp (roughly two attacks worth), but has an extra 4 points of AC by comparison. On the other hand the Dire Lion not only has more hp, it has higher attack bonus, two extra attacks per round, improved grab, pounce, rake, scent, as well as skills that matter.

The Fighter's only chance of defeating the Dire Lion is to chase it down with his mount and plink at it with his Longbow whenever he's presented the chance and even if this succeeds, the long, drawn out hunt will separate him from his party by hundreds of feet at the very least if he doesn't become altogether lost or get attacked by another monster (if I were a Dire Lion all alone and being chased by a big scary man on a horse I think I might run back to my pride).

If he doesn't (or isn't able to) hunt the Dire Lion with his bow and superior movement he's simply outmatched. His "nasty tricks" are limited to 10ft reach and a horse. The Dire Lion simply pounces on him every turn until he and his horse are reduced to blood and gore.

In the Fighter's defense, yes, he is smarter than the Dire Lion, but I don't see how exactly those brains are going to help him defeat it. No Core-Only Fighter 5 is going to possess anything resembling a "slew of nasty tricks" at 5th level, let alone any level. And keep in mind that I attempted to build the single best Core-Only+ Fighter 5 possible.


Not necessarily; especially at high levels, humanoid (or similar, like templated undead) opponents are some of the nastiest foes a party can face.

Which still makes them silly to balance against. If the humanoid is another Fighter type his combat maneuvers such as Trip or Bull Rush are unlikely to succeed favorably, but if they are nasty caster types the Fighter is never going to be in position to perform his combat maneuvers in the first place.


While I wouldn't go to that extreme, that's certainly a way to go (although the barbarian should be even more so.)

Wait, wait, so now you're saying that the one thing you could have possibly ran with to boost a Fighter to make him more relevant is something that you think a Barbarian should still be better at? So now the Fighter is just worse than everyone else by default, because his schtick is to continue being mediocre when everyone else is locked out of being incredible, except the Barbarian is better at that schtick than he is and has a whole schtick of his own.

Yitzi
2011-08-01, 11:24 AM
I don't like the idea that the game should have some kind of rock-paper-scissors dynamic going on, and through most of your threads you've made quite clear that you think this is a good approach.

It's either a rock-paper-scissors dynamic, or else all classes are equally effective against all classes (extremely hard to do, and very intolerant of minor mistakes in balancing), or else you get class imbalance (the current system.)


Conflict = Fun. Therefore, boring conflict resolution mechanics are boring fun.

Not true. They are boring mechanics; roleplaying can be fun from sources other than the mechanics.


So your solution is to force everyone to play Core-Only but with extra Fighter-Only feats that are weaker versions of non-Core Fighter feats.

Firstly, by having it all core-only, that lowers the power level to the point where even weaker versions of non-Core fighter feats can be balanced.

Secondly, some of the other feats are weaker than non-Core equivalents; I'm pretty sure that there are no non-Core pre-epic feats anywhere near comparable to the abilities in the Combat Mastery section


Um, what? Let's compare a Core-Only Fighter 5 + your boosts to an SRD Dire Lion.

Steed (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=303116) (See spoiler below)
Male Human Fighter, Level 5, Init +1, HP 45/45, Speed 20ft, or 50ft Mounted
AC 19, Touch 11, Flat-footed 18, Fort +7, Ref +2, Will +1, Base Attack Bonus 5
+1 Spiked Chain +12 (2d4+7, 20 (x2))
Throwing Dagger (4 daggers) +11 (1d4+4, 19-20 (x2))
Longbow (50 arrows) +6 (1d8, 20 (x3))
Masterwork Full Plate (+8 Armor, +1 Dex)
Abilities Str 19, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 8
Skills Climb +12, Jump +12, Ride, +9
Using 28pt buy, our Human Fighter starts with Str 16 Dex 12 Con 16 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 8. At 5th level he's got six feats, one bonus ability point, and roughly 9000gp. Using the guidelines in the DMG he can't have any single item worth more than 2250gp which should more closely reflect gear obtained through actual gameplay.

With his ability scores, class level, and base attack bonus, the following list of feats shows everything available to him in this scenario:


Acrobatic, Agile, Alertness, Animal Affinity, Athletic, Blind-Fight, Keen Hearing, Keen Sight, Combat Reflexes, Deceitful, Deft Hands, Diligent, Endurance, Diehard, Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Great Fortitude, Improved Critical, Improved Initiative, Improved Unarmed Strike, Investigator, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Magical Aptitude, Mounted Combat, Mounted Archery, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge, Trample, Negotiator, Nimble Fingers, Persuasive, Point Blank Shot, Far Shot, Precise Shot, Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Overrun, Improved Sunder, Quickdraw, Rapid Reload, Run, Self-Sufficient, Improved Shield Bash, Tower Shield Proficiency, Skill Focus, Stealthy, Toughness, Track, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus, Weapon Expertise, and Weapon Specialization.


Let's give him Blind-Fight, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain), Power Attack, Mounted Combat, Ride-by Attack, and Weapon Focus (Spiked Chain), and Weapon Expertise.

Let's assign him Gauntlets of Ogre Power (4000gp), a +1 Spiked Chain (2025gp + 300gp Masterwork component), a suit of Masterwork Full Plate (1500gp + 150gp Masterwork component), and a Heavy Warhorse (400gp). This leaves him with 625gp to fill out the rest of his possessions.


V.S.

Dire Lion (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/direLion.htm)

The Fighter indeed has significantly lower hp (roughly two attacks worth), but has an extra 4 points of AC by comparison. On the other hand the Dire Lion not only has more hp, it has higher attack bonus, two extra attacks per round, improved grab, pounce, rake, scent, as well as skills that matter.

Of course, the fighter has other advantages: He can use expendables, he can strategize (a dire lion will usually be distracted by summons, a fighter probably won't), etc. Also, why'd you give him a spiked chain if he's not disarming or tripping?


In the Fighter's defense, yes, he is smarter than the Dire Lion, but I don't see how exactly those brains are going to help him defeat it. No Core-Only Fighter 5 is going to possess anything resembling a "slew of nasty tricks" at 5th level, let alone any level.

Combat maneuvers and expendables, for instance.


And keep in mind that I attempted to build the single best Core-Only+ Fighter 5 possible.

Well, you didn't do a very good job of it IMO; if he's going for DPS he should be using a greatsword, and if he's going for combat maneuvers he should actually have some appropriate feats. There is little if any synergy among your feat selection.


Which still makes them silly to balance against. If the humanoid is another Fighter type his combat maneuvers such as Trip or Bull Rush are unlikely to succeed favorably

They are if the humanoid is a barbarian or monk without the appropriate feat (especially once the fighter takes Maneuver Mastery).


but if they are nasty caster types the Fighter is never going to be in position to perform his combat maneuvers in the first place.

Well, depends what sort of caster.


Wait, wait, so now you're saying that the one thing you could have possibly ran with to boost a Fighter to make him more relevant is something that you think a Barbarian should still be better at?

Yes, but a barbarian should likewise be even weaker than the fighter in terms of effectiveness when not blocked.

For instance, a barbarian has better saves and is rogue-resistant, but should be weaker when those are not an issue.

The fighter doesn't have to have some area where he's better than every other class, only some area for each other class in which he is better.


So now the Fighter is just worse than everyone else by default

No, he's harder to lock out than anyone but the barbarian, and when neither he nor the barbarian is locked out he's superior.

Ingus
2011-08-01, 12:24 PM
Yitzi, you may remember I disagree with your way to fix fighter. For those whom weren't there, here's the link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202779). I don't think that arguing with you on our respective tastes would be of any use (if it is not the case, feel free to let me know).
Instead, I would like to contribute to your project trying to start by your point of view.

IMO Improved Mounted Archery, Improved Mounted Combat, Improved Whirlwind Attack, Superior Armor Proficiency and the whole set of new fighter features come in play too late. By this level, you already went by many levels of suck. Moreover, Improved Rapid Shot and Improved Whirlwind Attack seems vexing with the -10 to attack (iterative attacks tend to be less useful scaling with level).
Defensive Mastery seems quite useless and it become only subpar with Superior DM (this largely depends on the uselessness of the total defense action). I still evaluating other major issues, but as a general impression, it seems to me that you've been too afraid to unbalance the game. Even by your point of view, you maybe should consider to dare a bit more.

You can maybe fix it introducing the Improved line early, add by the level of "Improved" a Superior instead, granting a reduction on the taxing penalties (in this direction, I liked the Archery Mastery, only I would like to see it at 8th level or so).

Moreover, you should consider that listen is not a class skill for fighter, so Keen Hearing should grant a bonus on the check just like Keen Sight.

And by the way: barbarian has a higher tier, even in core, just because of the skill points per level and because of listen and survival as class skills, making him the possible scout/tracker of the party. A second role other than hit things :smallwink:

Yitzi
2011-08-01, 04:56 PM
IMO Improved Mounted Archery, Improved Mounted Combat, Improved Whirlwind Attack, Superior Armor Proficiency and the whole set of new fighter features come in play too late. By this level, you already went by many levels of suck.

So at what point does a fighter begin to such as compared to, say, a barbarian (core-only for both)?


Moreover, Improved Rapid Shot and Improved Whirlwind Attack seems vexing with the -10 to attack (iterative attacks tend to be less useful scaling with level).

Why are iterative attacks less useful?


Defensive Mastery seems quite useless and it become only subpar with Superior DM (this largely depends on the uselessness of the total defense action)

How is total defense useless? It's a great way to keep yourself alive and able to distract enemies (assuming they're stupid enough to be distracted) while others destroy them. With the greater form, it allows you to also protect your allies.

It does rely on low-AC builds not being vastly superior to anything else, but the main contributing factors to that are non-core.


but as a general impression, it seems to me that you've been too afraid to unbalance the game. Even by your point of view, you maybe should consider to dare a bit more.

Any suggestions? I'm not so concerned about balance here (since the fighter's still useless at noncombat and vulnerable to rogues and wizards), but I don't want to change too much (and definitely not to change the flavor of the fighter or its basic idea of feats-as-customizable-class-features; the "anybody can get them" problem should be IMO dealt with by making enough good feats that even the difference between the fighter's collection and other classes is worth a set of class features.)


You can maybe fix it introducing the Improved line early

Improved Mounted Archery is really extremely impressive (together with Far Shot and a good fast mount such as a pegasus, it is quite capable of allowing a fighter to do to a wizard what a wizard does to a melee-only monster.) So I don't think BAB +14 is inappropriate for it. Improved Ride is totally useless before the level I gave it, and the other 2 are essentially iterative attacks in conjunction with the feat, and so shouldn't be available before the corresponding iterative attack for normal full attacks.


Moreover, you should consider that listen is not a class skill for fighter, so Keen Hearing should grant a bonus on the check just like Keen Sight.

You don't really need listen as a class skill in order to hear something that's DC 0. The feat is mainly meant to let archers disrupt casters by sound, and casting needs to be loud and clear.


And by the way: barbarian has a higher tier, even in core, just because of the skill points per level and because of listen and survival as class skills, making him the possible scout/tracker of the party. A second role other than hit things :smallwink:

Yes; that's why I'm trying to make the fighter more effective at combat than the barbarian. :smallwink:

Ingus
2011-08-01, 07:31 PM
Before entering into details, I'm thinking of a retcon of your feats. I've not the time to do it now, so I may seem incomplete: I'm interested in this talk, so I'll come here later


So at what point does a fighter begin to such as compared to, say, a barbarian (core-only for both)?




Yes; that's why I'm trying to make the fighter more effective at combat than the barbarian. :smallwink:

From level 1, IMO :smalltongue:
If you consider the difference in skills, it is not out of nowhere anyways



Why are iterative attacks less useful?


An average CR monster should be hit among 8 and 14 or more on the dice (it depends on how strong AC is and how optimized the PC is) by a full BAB class. The second attack hit from 13 to 19, the third from 18 to 20 an the fourth with a natural 20 only. This is why, usually, maneuvers that grant +Xd6 on a standard action are considered a better investment than an iterative attack.
In brief: with a -10 to to-hit, you'll hit the target really rarelly. If you want to add something fun and effective, it should be something that the player would remember and use.



How is total defense useless? It's a great way to keep yourself alive and able to distract enemies (assuming they're stupid enough to be distracted) while others destroy them.


The bold part says it all: against clever encounters, it is totally useless.
Basically, you forfeit the attack to grant your allies the flanking advantage (questionable). The problem here is that you can't make attack of opportunity, letting enemies slip past you with ease.



Any suggestions? I'm not so concerned about balance here (since the fighter's still useless at noncombat and vulnerable to rogues and wizards), but I don't want to change too much


As a general fix, double most of the bonuses, particularly those coming from the weapon feats. I'll discuss later other ideas



Improved Mounted Archery is really extremely impressive (together with Far Shot and a good fast mount such as a pegasus, it is quite capable of allowing a fighter to do to a wizard what a wizard does to a melee-only monster.) So I don't think BAB +14 is inappropriate for it. Improved Ride is totally useless before the level I gave it, and the other 2 are essentially iterative attacks in conjunction with the feat, and so shouldn't be available before the corresponding iterative attack for normal full attacks.


Improved Mounted Archery: you spare a -2 to range attacks when mounted and moving, or -4 when mounted and running. Putting aside casters, at this level your ranger pal can use a quite effective dire bat and hit hard with his bow without having to spend the 4.000 gp for a pegasus.
Then again, let's confront with the weapon focus chain: with 3 feats you get a +4/+8 situational (M. Combat, M. Archery, I. M. Archery) against a +3 flat (W.F., I.W.F., your W. Expertise) and put the 4.000 gp on +1 arrows
I. Mounted Combat: you're right.
The other two: iterative attacks, so not so useful. As per (to say), Rapid Shot, if it comes into play earlier than a normal iterative attack, maybe with a mere -5 to hit, you may even evaluate it. This way, you're using a feat to obtain an attack that is more likely to miss than to hit.



You don't really need listen as a class skill in order to hear something that's DC 0. The feat is mainly meant to let archers disrupt casters by sound, and casting needs to be loud and clear.


This is true against a DC 0 listen check. But I present you my lil caster: Ziggy, 8th level halfling transmuter. He had 14dex (12+2racial), full ranks in hide and move silently to a total of 11 and 15 respectively. Even with a normal movement and thus a -5, he had a +6/10, to an average of 16/20 (even without any Polymorph shaneninga).
If you think about it, at first level it is comparatively worst (+6/+10).

byaku rai
2011-08-01, 08:23 PM
Core-only, Wizards, Clerics, and Druids are deities compared to the Fighter at mid to high levels.You have done nothing but prolong that unfortunate circumstance.

I am a martial player by nature; I prefer to run up to the enemy and hit it with my pointy stick (or Beat it senseless with my fists (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150122), as applicable) than do any of the various nasty tricks spellcasters can pull on it. I want martial classes to be able to run and play with the big boys without being relegated to the status of "meat shield" at high levels. That's why I feel this sort of homebrew "fix" is really nothing more than a tiny band-aid on the problem.

The "nasty tricks" you mentioned are disappointing. Knock it prone, push it backwards, knock its pointy stick out of its hands, break its stick, etc. Compared to Wizard NASTY TRICKS, they're really nothing at all. Compared to a Wildshaped Bear-riding-a-bear-summoning-bears-that-summon-bears Druid or a Chain-gating Solars Sorcerer, knocking one of the other little kiddies down into the dirt pales in comparison.

To fix the balance, you have to fix the power difference. I'm not talking about resolving all the places in 3.5 where the creators were obviously drunk or high when they were writing the stuff, I'm talking about the simple stuff, like Time Stop stacking DBFs or Wind Wall. Make a fighter that can compete with a semi-optimized, non-cheese caster, and I'll be impressed.

Also, the Feat thing has been done better. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192596) Look at the Warlord's feat mechanic and you'll see what I mean.

Here's a hint on what you can do to immediately make things better: singular feats that scale with hit dice, instead of feat trees. It gives more variety... and it's simply not worth it to sink 5 feats into a +7 bonus to attack and damage. There are better ways, and there should be better things to spend feats on. Even a fighter only gets so many.

Yitzi
2011-08-01, 11:15 PM
From level 1, IMO :smalltongue:

Really? Let's compare it at level 1...

The barbarian gets +2 hit points, +8 skill points (for what that's worth to a primarily melee class), and 10' movement. Once per day for about 7 rounds, he can sacrifice 2 AC for +2 Fort save, +2 will save, +2 attack, and +3 damage (assuming a 2-handed weapon).

Are you saying that you can't find 2 feats in core that are at least each comparable to that?


An average CR monster should be hit among 8 and 14 or more on the dice (it depends on how strong AC is and how optimized the PC is) by a full BAB class.

Source? Because that's saying (given that AC should be roughly CR+13) that a full BAB class should have between level+5 and level-1 attack bonus. Which is pretty reasonable for earlier levels (toward the upper end), but definitely not for later levels.

Those iterative attacks aren't meant just for use against weak monsters. Especially not for full-BAB classes.


The bold part says it all: against clever encounters, it is totally useless.

Well, unless it's a tight spot and you're blocking the way (either entirely or by threatening the area they'd have to go through), or the whole party consists of defensive builds, or similar. But yes, that option (remember, it's only one option) is designed for those who want to play meatshields, and as such it suffers all the weaknesses of meatshields (namely being largely ineffective against intelligent and mobile opponents.)


The problem here is that you can't make attack of opportunity

Says who?


As a general fix, double most of the bonuses, particularly those coming from the weapon feats.

Thing is, I don't want it to get too much more powerful than the barbarian; it's already got slightly better DPS than the barbarian (it gets by level 12 what the barbarian gets at level 20), and that blows out of control once he gets combat mastery.


Improved Mounted Archery: you spare a -2 to range attacks when mounted and moving, or -4 when mounted and running. Putting aside casters, at this level your ranger pal can use a quite effective dire bat and hit hard with his bow without having to spend the 4.000 gp for a pegasus.

Actually, a fighter makes a far better archer than a ranger (barring favored enemy); rangers get 3 bonus feats by level 11, fighters get 6.
And when you're kiting, a dire bat simply doesn't have what it takes to keep away from the quicker sorts of enemies (including a flying wizard.)


Then again, let's confront with the weapon focus chain: with 3 feats you get a +4/+8 situational (M. Combat, M. Archery, I. M. Archery) against a +3 flat (W.F., I.W.F., your W. Expertise) and put the 4.000 gp on +1 arrows

The 4,000 isn't a good comparison, as you'd be getting that anyway for the speed.
Mounted combat (and Improved Mounted Combat) also isn't a good comparison, as it's helping you keep your mount alive despite archers (and perhaps fast summons).


This is true against a DC 0 listen check. But I present you my lil caster: Ziggy, 8th level halfling transmuter. He had 14dex (12+2racial), full ranks in hide and move silently to a total of 11 and 15 respectively. Even with a normal movement and thus a -5, he had a +6/10, to an average of 16/20 (even without any Polymorph shaneninga).

Yep, there's no way this'll substantially help whoever takes the feat hear the wizard move.

But you don't care where the wizard's moving, you care where he's casting. And that is a flat DC 0.


Core-only, Wizards, Clerics, and Druids are deities compared to the Fighter at mid to high levels.

They're that compared to everyone else too. I'm not balancing as compared to casters, as that's an issue with the casters. I'm trying to balance as compared to barbarian.


I want martial classes to be able to run and play with the big boys without being relegated to the status of "meat shield" at high levels.

Does grappling a dragon count as "playing with the big boys"?
Does shooting a low epic monk (with deflect arrows and infinite deflection), at a distance of a quarter mile, through a wind wall, with a not insignificant hit rate (say, once per round) count as "playing with the big boys"?

That said, much of the problem is that the "big boys" are entirely unreasonably powerful, and this isn't the place to fix that.


The "nasty tricks" you mentioned are disappointing. Knock it prone, push it backwards, knock its pointy stick out of its hands, break its stick, etc. Compared to Wizard NASTY TRICKS, they're really nothing at all. Compared to a Wildshaped Bear-riding-a-bear-summoning-bears-that-summon-bears Druid or a Chain-gating Solars Sorcerer, knocking one of the other little kiddies down into the dirt pales in comparison.

And this thread is not the place to depower all of those.


To fix the balance, you have to fix the power difference. I'm not talking about resolving all the places in 3.5 where the creators were obviously drunk or high when they were writing the stuff, I'm talking about the simple stuff, like Time Stop stacking DBFs

I presume you mean a maximized Time Stop, as otherwise the spells' variable nature will nip that tactic in the bud. (The solution there is simple, and posted in my wizard fix: No maximized Time Stop.)


or Wind Wall.

Not really all that overpowered when you think about it, as it has to be vertical (so can't protect from enemies right under him) and stationary (so you lose mobility if you use it as a shield.)


Also, the Feat thing has been done better. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192596) Look at the Warlord's feat mechanic and you'll see what I mean.

It's an interesting approach, but I don't see any way that it could possibly be justified in-character for an [Ex] class. A better approach if you want to go that route, as I see it, might be to make a large number of powerful feats that are dependent on the equipment he's using (e.g. one that's best with light or no armor, one that's best with heavy armor and a shield, one that's best with 2WF, etc.) and then his "feat preparation" is as simple as arranging his equipment for the day. It does mean heavy MAD, but an MAD fighter actually makes a lot of sense, and it's not like the MAD/SAD balance doesn't need fixing anyway.


and it's simply not worth it to sink 5 feats into a +7 bonus to attack and damage. There are better ways

Such as? How (in Core) can you get +7 attack and damage with 5 feats (or, for that matter, with half of a class's class features period)? Now, the advisability of a DPS build is more questionable, but those feats are designed for someone who does want a DPS build.

Ingus
2011-08-02, 05:39 AM
.
The barbarian gets +2 hit points, +8 skill points (for what that's worth to a primarily melee class), and 10' movement.
/.../
Are you saying that you can't find 2 feats in core that are at least each comparable to that?


The nearest things in core are Toughness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#toughness), Skill Focus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#skillFocus) and Speed of Thought (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#speedOfThought) (providing you're psionic). So you need three feats to compensate



Source? Because that's saying (given that AC should be roughly CR+13) that a full BAB class should have between level+5 and level-1 attack bonus. Which is pretty reasonable for earlier levels (toward the upper end), but definitely not for later levels.


CR+13 on average is correct. Let's calculate. As a CR = average level, the full BAB class should hit it oh a average of 10 early levels, 8 or less at higher levels. But this is on average. AC monsters are harder to hit and from level 7/8, you should expect to face DR. So, with a -10 to-hit at low-medium to higher levels you will have either a non hitting attack (but costing you a feat) or an attack that while hitting, it will result ineffective.



The problem here is that you can't make attack of opportunity




Says who?


SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#totalDefense)



Yep, there's no way this'll substantially help whoever takes the feat hear the wizard move.

But you don't care where the wizard's moving, you care where he's casting. And that is a flat DC 0.


Yes, but...

Standard: invisible mage casts a spell. Now your fighter may know even his exact location.
Move: mage moves. Providing he still has cover/concealment (simplest way: Greater Invisibility (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/invisibilityGreater.htm), which comes at 7th level), now your fighter doesn't know where the hell the mage is, unless he beats it in an opposed check in which he's in disadvantage by more of 10 or by more of 20.
This aside invisible stalker, ghosts, ethereal creatures and so on

Yitzi
2011-08-02, 07:34 AM
The nearest things in core are Toughness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#toughness), Skill Focus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#skillFocus) and Speed of Thought (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#speedOfThought) (providing you're psionic). So you need three feats to compensate

And two of them are extremely weak feats. We're assuming the fighter's going to be taking one of the somewhat better feats.


CR+13 on average is correct. Let's calculate. As a CR = average level, the full BAB class should hit it oh a average of 10 early levels, 8 or less at higher levels. But this is on average. AC monsters are harder to hit and from level 7/8, you should expect to face DR. So, with a -10 to-hit at low-medium to higher levels you will have either a non hitting attack (but costing you a feat) or an attack that while hitting, it will result ineffective.

Except that sometimes you can bypass the DR, and while some monsters have higher AC, not all do. (Also, Whirlwind Attack is in fact going to be used against larger groups of weaker monsters (or against Mirror Images, which are likewise easy to hit.))


SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/actionsInCombat.htm#totalDefense)

Point, although this isn't total defense (even though it grants the benefits thereof). Still, probably should be made explicit.


Standard: invisible mage casts a spell. Now your fighter may know even his exact location.
Move: mage moves. Providing he still has cover/concealment (simplest way: Greater Invisibility (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/invisibilityGreater.htm), which comes at 7th level), now your fighter doesn't know where the hell the mage is, unless he beats it in an opposed check in which he's in disadvantage by more of 10 or by more of 20.

That's not how this feat is used. Here's how it's used:

Fighter's turn: Ready to shoot the mage on casting+pinpoint

Mage: Standard: Cast a spell. Fighter knows his exact location and shoots. He hits, and the mage loses the spell.


This aside invisible stalker, ghosts, ethereal creatures and so on

This isn't designed against them.

byaku rai
2011-08-02, 11:33 AM
That's not how this feat is used. Here's how it's used:

Fighter's turn: Ready to shoot the mage on casting+pinpoint

Mage: Standard: Cast a spell. Fighter knows his exact location and shoots. He hits, and the mage loses the spell.


Mage: Contingency against being hit, Abrupt Jaunt, other immediate-action GTFO spell. =/ Fighter eats a SoD or five.

I notice you made no mention of my suggestion of scaling feats...

Yitzi
2011-08-02, 12:18 PM
Mage: Contingency against being hit, Abrupt Jaunt, other immediate-action GTFO spell. =/ Fighter eats a SoD or five.

Abrupt Jaunt isn't core, so that's not a concern. A contingency to teleport (or DD) out would work at the appropriate level, but that's what's known as running away from the fight, which has its own problems (if the encounter ran away, the party won the fight (unless the goal was to kill the mage, in which case they should've prepared to block teleportation); if a party member ran away now the rest of the party has to finish the fight on their own.


I notice you made no mention of my suggestion of scaling feats...

Point; the problem with scaling feats is essentially that it makes fighters grow in power too fast (faster than wizards even, as wizards aren't really quadratic due to having to use their highest-level spells to have a good chance of penetrating SR.)

NeoSeraphi
2011-08-02, 12:36 PM
Point; the problem with scaling feats is essentially that it makes fighters grow in power too fast (faster than wizards even, as wizards aren't really quadratic due to having to use their highest-level spells to have a good chance of penetrating SR.)

Yeah, that's not how spell resistance works.


To affect a creature that has spell resistance, a spellcaster must make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) at least equal to the creature’s spell resistance. (The defender’s spell resistance is like an Armor Class against magical attacks.) If the caster fails the check, the spell doesn’t affect the creature. The possessor does not have to do anything special to use spell resistance. The creature need not even be aware of the threat for its spell resistance to operate.

Spell resistance is a caster level check. The level of the spell has nothing to do with it.

137beth
2011-08-02, 04:19 PM
Also, in case you hadn't realized this, tier 1 casters increase in power very rapidly, particularly at high levels. I don't think you should be worried about a martial character becoming more powerful than a wizard:smallsigh:

Yitzi
2011-08-02, 05:19 PM
Yeah, that's not how spell resistance works.

Whoops. I was thinking of save DCs (yes, there are spells that do not allow saves, but they tend to either have other severe limitations and be high-level anyway (e.g Power Word, Blasphemy) or else be on the weaker end (e.g. single-target evocations)), and for some strange reason wrote SR. That's got to be the most embarrassing mistake I've made in some time. :smallfrown:


Also, in case you hadn't realized this, tier 1 casters increase in power very rapidly, particularly at high levels. I don't think you should be worried about a martial character becoming more powerful than a wizard:smallsigh:

I'm not concerned about a martial character becoming more powerful than a wizard, but I am concerned about a fighter becoming vastly more powerful than a barbarian.

byaku rai
2011-08-02, 05:39 PM
If that really worries you, build a better barbarian. :smallsigh:

Yitzi
2011-08-02, 10:10 PM
If that really worries you, build a better barbarian. :smallsigh:

Except that the barbarian is roughly at the power level that I think is good, so I'd rather balance everything to it (or the paladin for more versatile classes.)