NeoSeraphi
2012-05-19, 10:55 AM
The fighter in 3.5 was intended to be a "build your own character" class. No class features, instead you get 11 bonus feats, which would allow you to seriously customize your gaming experience and give you a wide breadth of options. To that end, quite a few active feats have been released, particularly in Complete Warrior and the Player's Handbook II, along with some passive feats for a weapon master and etc.
However, the fighter still has problems. 9 dead levels and an absence of class features make his blandness stand out, and it is up to the player to choose the best feats from the sources available to him. While this is similar to a wizard's spellcasting, in that there are good spells and bad spells, the fighter does not receive the ability to retrain his "bad" feats, and even his good feats can usually be picked up by another martial class with the feats they receive through level-up eventually. Plus, you can just dip fighter and move on, so very rarely will you see a person who has chosen to take a 3.5 fighter all the way to level 20 (though I applaud those who do).
Pathfinder changed this, however. In Pathfinder, a normal character receives a feat at every odd level, rather than 1st and then every 3rd level. The Pathfinder fighter still receives a bonus feat at 1st level, and every even level thereafter. This means that a Pathfinder fighter receives a feat every time he levels up. A total of 21 feats over the course of your career allows for extreme customization in a way that 18 feats did not, particularly due to some feat chain heavy styles like Shield Bash, Archery, and TWF. The payoff is much quicker now, because there are no spots that you have to wait in order to continue getting stronger (like 5th, 7th, 11th, 13th, 17th, and 19th levels for the 3.5 fighter, which are the truly dead levels). Not only that, PF has released some pretty nice feats that support combat maneuvers, like Equipment Trick, Body Shield, Break Guard, and Fury's Snare, which means that a fighter can finally be a true specialist and do cool tricks that most other classes will not get to do without serious investment of resources.
Pathfinder didn't solve the problem of feat chains, but it did make some feat chains that are actually pretty worth it, and so I think the PF fighter is actually something worth playing. Not to mention all the cool class features and archetypes the PF fighter gets. Take Bravery for instance. A PF fighter may not get auto-immunity to fear like a paladin, but at least he's more resistant to fear than a rogue or a ranger. The Armor Training class feature is something I always thought fighters should have anyway, and the Weapon Training feature is a nice flashback to fighter specialization in 2.E, and lets a fighter be more accurate with his weapons without wasting any of his bonus feats on it (and if he wants, he can still spend feats on it to be even more accurate than another fighter).
I was trying to explain the PF warrior classes to a friend of mine who had never played before, and I told him this: A barbarian is the master of damage and durability; the cavalier is the master of mobility and tactics; and the fighter is the master of accuracy and versatility.
Okay! Long rant over, I was hoping to hear about everyone's experiences with the Pathfinder fighter. What's your favorite archetype? Your favorite feat chains? Do you think Pathfinder's fighters are actually worth taking for 20 levels, or do you have a prestige class you enjoy using with them?
However, the fighter still has problems. 9 dead levels and an absence of class features make his blandness stand out, and it is up to the player to choose the best feats from the sources available to him. While this is similar to a wizard's spellcasting, in that there are good spells and bad spells, the fighter does not receive the ability to retrain his "bad" feats, and even his good feats can usually be picked up by another martial class with the feats they receive through level-up eventually. Plus, you can just dip fighter and move on, so very rarely will you see a person who has chosen to take a 3.5 fighter all the way to level 20 (though I applaud those who do).
Pathfinder changed this, however. In Pathfinder, a normal character receives a feat at every odd level, rather than 1st and then every 3rd level. The Pathfinder fighter still receives a bonus feat at 1st level, and every even level thereafter. This means that a Pathfinder fighter receives a feat every time he levels up. A total of 21 feats over the course of your career allows for extreme customization in a way that 18 feats did not, particularly due to some feat chain heavy styles like Shield Bash, Archery, and TWF. The payoff is much quicker now, because there are no spots that you have to wait in order to continue getting stronger (like 5th, 7th, 11th, 13th, 17th, and 19th levels for the 3.5 fighter, which are the truly dead levels). Not only that, PF has released some pretty nice feats that support combat maneuvers, like Equipment Trick, Body Shield, Break Guard, and Fury's Snare, which means that a fighter can finally be a true specialist and do cool tricks that most other classes will not get to do without serious investment of resources.
Pathfinder didn't solve the problem of feat chains, but it did make some feat chains that are actually pretty worth it, and so I think the PF fighter is actually something worth playing. Not to mention all the cool class features and archetypes the PF fighter gets. Take Bravery for instance. A PF fighter may not get auto-immunity to fear like a paladin, but at least he's more resistant to fear than a rogue or a ranger. The Armor Training class feature is something I always thought fighters should have anyway, and the Weapon Training feature is a nice flashback to fighter specialization in 2.E, and lets a fighter be more accurate with his weapons without wasting any of his bonus feats on it (and if he wants, he can still spend feats on it to be even more accurate than another fighter).
I was trying to explain the PF warrior classes to a friend of mine who had never played before, and I told him this: A barbarian is the master of damage and durability; the cavalier is the master of mobility and tactics; and the fighter is the master of accuracy and versatility.
Okay! Long rant over, I was hoping to hear about everyone's experiences with the Pathfinder fighter. What's your favorite archetype? Your favorite feat chains? Do you think Pathfinder's fighters are actually worth taking for 20 levels, or do you have a prestige class you enjoy using with them?