Why give fighter's ACF's?

[Hazzardevil]

Om a few books in 3.5, they have given serveal ACF's that haven't made sense to me.
Namely, Dungeoncrasher and Complete Champion ones.
Why did they make them Alternate class features you swap feats for and not just simple feats?
I am aware that if they were feats, then Warblade could have taken them, but to my knowledge Tome of Battle was a long way off.

[Coidzor]

So that instead of falling into the age-old trap of making decent feats have too much of a feat chain to be worth it to a sane character so that they can't be taken at low levels, they could give the abilities at levels they felt were appropriate.

[Flickerdart]

Because then Fighter would still be a pointless class. This way it's less pointless.

[Hazzardevil]

Because then Fighter would still be a pointless class. This way it's less pointless.

They could have given part of the Prerequisites a certain number of fighter levels.

[Fouredged Sword]

The idea of giving a fighter feats and then make some huge feat chains that require fighter levels is silly to begin with. Just break down and give the class class features rather than feats. No other class works on that system. Why? Becuse it isn't a good way to hand out class features.

[Aharon]

They could have given part of the Prerequisites a certain number of fighter levels.

I don't know wether they kept it up till the end of 3.5, but at the start of 3.0, there was a policy that Prereqs should never include specific classes, so you could still get stuff with a different character if you were absolutely determined to have it.

[FMArthur]

It is a little redundant to come at the problem from the ACF angle when all you lose is feats, but there are a couple possible reasons:
They didn't want you to be able to take the first ability without also taking the second. This is somewhat illogical. They could have thought the first part (enabling the ability) was the most powerful and decided that you must take the greatness of the 2nd level ability 'on loan' from a later sacrifice.
The ACF changed from something else during the course of its design.
They didn't want Warblades to have it. Dungeonscape was one of the last books for 3.5. Warblades were certainly around already.
They wanted to draw attention to it. Giving it to Fighters in the feats section does not make the buff they wanted to deliver obvious enough.


I don't know wether they kept it up till the end of 3.5, but at the start of 3.0, there was a policy that Prereqs should never include specific classes, so you could still get stuff with a different character if you were absolutely determined to have it.
If they did have this policy, Fighter feats were exempt from it from the start in PH and continued support of that exception into PHII, which was very late in 3.5.

[Vandicus]

It is
[list] They didn't want you to be able to take the first ability without also taking the second. This is somewhat illogical.

Its not necessarily illogical. Another class or PRC could provide feature #2 that completes the chain, but is otherwise much better than the class that offers feature #1.

[Yuki Akuma]

They could have given part of the Prerequisites a certain number of fighter levels.

Then that would mean Warblades remain absolutely superior, because they have a class feature that lets them take Fighter-only feats.

[Aharon]

If they did have this policy, Fighter feats were exempt from it from the start in PH and continued support of that exception into PHII, which was very late in 3.5.

D'oh. I was missing the obvious there :smallredface:

[Urpriest]

The only feats with Fighter level prerequisites are generic. The ACFs are for nontraditional types of Fighters, like dungeoneering or thuggish ones.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

They could have given part of the Prerequisites a certain number of fighter levels.

Warblades would get a chuckle out of that.