Fighter tweak

[ranagrande]

What do you guys think of this?

Take the 3.5 SRD Fighter.

Add a requirement that the character's HD must equal his Fighter level.

Then add a multiclass penalty for Ex-Fighters: A Fighter who gains a level in any class other than Fighter loses all feats designated as fighter bonus feats.

Remove the Fighter's bonus feat progression.

Now that we're done nerfing, give the Fighter one class feature:

Fighter Bonus Feats
When the Fighter meets the prerequisites for any feat designated as a fighter bonus feat, he gains it as a bonus feat.

[Ashtagon]

This sounds like a fairly good NPC class.

[Seerow]

The Good: Okay, every fighter feat in the game might combine to be something vaguely worthwhile. Having weapon supremacy with every weapon you ever pick up for example is kind of cool. You also get easy access to a lot of feats that are otherwise too prerequisite intensive to get. Also, you're getting a free maneuver and stance, so it's not all bad. (Or is it 3? I mean, if I meat the prerequisite to take Martial Maneuver 3 times, do I get it 3 times, or only once? If so, how do you handle feats like toughness that can be taken an infinite number of times and stack?)

The Bad: You pretty much killed the only reason people currently take the class. A dip into fighter is now 100% worthless since as soon as you leave the Fighter class you lose all feat benefits.

The Ugly: Feats are never really enough. Even if you gave the Fighter every feat in the game INCLUDING non-fighter feats, he'd still be barely scraping tier 3. Fact of the matter is feats, as interesting as they are from time to time, don't fill the gap on their own. There's still just too little utility in the fighter even with all these feats. It would definitely be better than playing a straight fighter... but you could say that about anything. However you've killed off ever playing Fighter as any form of multiclass, which was previously the Fighter's forte, and give in turn a class that still isn't good enough to really stand on its own.

[Realms of Chaos]

The problem with this style of fixing the fighter is that it does the exact reverse of what a spellcaster does. With a spellcaster, the main problem is that they grow at an exponential level as they grow more powerful. As there are more feats available at lower levels than there are at higher levels, however, this class would start with most of its materials (it would have something like 70% of its stuff by level 6) and then leveling off pretty quickly.

For reference, a level 6 fighter in this fix could possess:
Active Shield Defense, Shield Specialization, Combat Reflexes, Vexing Flanker, Adaptable Flanker, Agile Shield Fighter, Improved Shield Bash, Aid Giver, Dodge, Power Attack, Backstab, Ballista Proficiency, Battle Hardened, Block Arrow, Blood-Spiked Charger, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (all), Point Blank Shot, Bow Feint, Bowslinger, Brutal Strike, Brutal Throw, Canny Opportunist, Combat Expertise, Chosen Foe, Cleave, Clever Opportunist, Close Quarters Defense, Shock Trooper, Close-Quarters Fighting, Improved Feint, Improved Trip, Great Cleave, Improved Bullrush, Improved Disarm, Improved Sunder, Martial Study, etc.

I meant to make a full list but you can probably get the idea.

[ranagrande]

The Good: Okay, every fighter feat in the game might combine to be something vaguely worthwhile. Having weapon supremacy with every weapon you ever pick up for example is kind of cool. You also get easy access to a lot of feats that are otherwise too prerequisite intensive to get. Also, you're getting a free maneuver and stance, so it's not all bad. (Or is it 3? I mean, if I meat the prerequisite to take Martial Maneuver 3 times, do I get it 3 times, or only once? If so, how do you handle feats like toughness that can be taken an infinite number of times and stack?)
You get 3 free maneuvers, and you can learn every stance in a discipline you know a maneuver from.

Regular Toughness isn't a fighter bonus feat, so that's not a problem. You do get Improved Toughness, but it can only be taken once. You also do have infinite hitpoints at epic levels, thanks to Epic Toughness, but you could get a similar effect long before then by using the Immortal Fortitude stance.


The Bad: You pretty much killed the only reason people currently take the class. A dip into fighter is now 100% worthless since as soon as you leave the Fighter class you lose all feat benefits.
That's kind of the point. :smalltongue:


The Ugly: Feats are never really enough. Even if you gave the Fighter every feat in the game INCLUDING non-fighter feats, he'd still be barely scraping tier 3. Fact of the matter is feats, as interesting as they are from time to time, don't fill the gap on their own. There's still just too little utility in the fighter even with all these feats. It would definitely be better than playing a straight fighter... but you could say that about anything. However you've killed off ever playing Fighter as any form of multiclass, which was previously the Fighter's forte, and give in turn a class that still isn't good enough to really stand on its own.
If you give the Fighter every feat including non-fighter feats, he's Tier 1. A Commoner can take Leadership and become Tier 2.

It still doesn't really compare with spellcasting, but I think that's a good thing. I'd still like to try it. :smallsmile:

[Yitzi]

The biggest problem, by far, with this approach, is that its power is incredibly dependent on the number of splatbooks available (even more than spellcasting classes.) This means that it's pretty much impossible to balance, and things get even more complicated when someone wants to play a fighter but doesn't have access to all the books allowed for the campaign.

Even discounting that, and even assuming a Core-only game (where this is weakest), it's way too powerful for non-broken (tier 3 and below) play out of combat; for instance, by putting 17 in DEX (or possibly less and make up the rest with Gloves of Dexterity), 13 in INT, and 13 in STR, he can get access to nearly every bonus fighter feat out there as soon as he reaches the appropriate BAB. So he's proficient in all weapons and gets bonuses that by level 12 reach +4 damage, +2 to hit, and double threat range. He can power attack with whirlwind attack, use combat expertise, or go 2-weapon fighting (somewhat weak if he didn't put a bit more into DEX, but not by much) at will, can DEFLECT ARROWS while at the same time having the whole archery list, can spring attack with Great Cleave, and can use every combat maneuver in the book at a +4 bonus without provoking an AoO. (This might be a bit underpowered for a game where everything goes, but is quite overpowered for Core-only. And including more splatbooks, unless it's non-warrior-type splatbooks only, just makes things worse because where it gives everyone else more options to take instead of what they have already it gives the fighter more abilities on top of what he already gets.)

Meanwhile, it still gets nothing that lets it compete in tier 2 and above play or help in non-combats, so it's no good for that either.

It also makes every fighter build exactly the same, which has its own problems, both in terms of gameplay and the logic of the general game world.

[jiriku]

Others have voiced valid concerns, but I'd be concerned that this fighter is too complicated to play. At my table, we play with all the books. An all-books fighter of middling level has at least 100 feats - probably significiantly more. No one can keep track of that many features, options, and special modifiers without a spreadsheet, and most people couldn't do it even with a spreadsheet. How would you ever play such a character without ignoring dozens of your class features (either accidently or intentionally to save time)?