WoW Warrior as a more flexible Fighter?

[Seerow]

Okay, I know it's basically blasphemy to mention WoW or any MMO as something to do with a tabletop game. After all, 4e got all sorts of criticisms for being too MMO-ish. But in my opinion, they were nothing close to an MMO, and a game that took a much closer look at what makes MMOs popular/interesting might have produced a better game.

But for now, let's ignore that, and instead look at the Fighter problem. Fighter's don't get enough interesting things as they level. They are largely restricted to a small subsection of abilities compared to their magical counterparts, and that small subsection of abilities is drawn from not just the mundane, but a small section of the mundane (to allow the Rogue to have Role protection).

So a while ago on another forum, someone asked if there was an example of a Fighter done right. My first thought was the WoW Warrior, because it is interesting to play, has a lot of utility abilities, and keeps up (and occasionally dominates) when compared with his counterparts in other classes.

Of course, the problem I ran into was that the WoW Warrior didn't really have much in the way of out of combat capability. This is fairly universal among all WoW classes, as the focus in the game really is on combat. But say we gave the Warrior two professions by default, Blacksmithing and Engineering? Those two professions fit thematically, and provide a lot of out of combat utility, as well as providing some minor combat capabilities that augment, rather than overshadow, the class's capabilities. (Note: This last part is important. Making an Iron Man class that creates awesome gear and gets all of his potent abilities from that gear really is a cool concept, but it does not make for a Fighter, because the Fighter needs to be able to stand on his own in a fight, even without the gear).


Basically, I'm thinking making a d20 class that draws from the abilities of the WoW Warrior plus the two mentioned professions, would provide a workable Fighter class that maintains the martial flavor while being much more all around competent.

Here's a bullet point list of things that the class would be able to do (note for anyone familiar with WoW reading this, yes I am including things from all 3 specs. Yes I am including talents/set bonuses. And yes I am including some things that got taken away in older patches. However everything listed is something available to Warriors via a class specific capability, or was not so long ago):

Mobility
-The Warrior can charge on a short cooldown, generating rage and closing the distance to the target instantly.
-The Warrior can intercept an attack for a teammate, moving instantly next to them and taking the next attack targeting ally instead of the ally, as well as reducing the damage they take from all attacks for a short period of time.
-The Warrior can leap great distances instantly, and upon landing damages any nearby opponents. Usable in combat as a tactical movement option and out of combat for enhanced mobility.
-Short term increased move speed. (In game this is tied to Heroic Leap)
-Can break immobilization effects.

Buffing/Debuffing
-The Warrior can boost the health of all allies as a long duration buff (Commanding Shout)
-The Warrior can use a cooldown to boost the health of himself and all allies for a limited period of time.
-The warrior can boost the physical damage of all allies as a long duration buff
-The warrior can boost the damage he and all allies deal on a critical strike as a cooldown
-The Warrior can reduce the damage taken by all allies with a cooldown
-The Warrior can make a specific enemy take more damage from all his allies
-The Warrior can reduce the armor of an enemy he is attacking for all allies
-The Warrior can take a portion of the damage for a specified ally (similar to the Shield Other ability)
-The Warrior can reduce all healing received by an enemy he is attacking.

Control
-The Warrior can intimidate non-boss enemies, forcing them to cower in fear or run away for several rounds
-The Warrior can inflict stuns, both in single target and in AoE
-The Warrior can knock opponents back in an AoE
-The Warrior can knock an opponent down and keep him there for several seconds
-The Warrior can throw a weapon at an opponent and stun them. If the opponent is immune to stun, they take much greater (4x or 5x) more damage.
-The Warrior can disarm an opponent
-The Warrior can make himself seem the biggest threat on the field. (Note: Contrary to popular belief, taunt/threat is not mind control and doesn't mean a caster will run over and start beating on the warrior in melee. It just makes the enemy perceive the Warrior as the biggest threat and someone who needs to be taken down first, and adjust tactics accordingly).
-The Warrior has several ways to slow enemies, both single target and in AoE.


Anti-Caster capability
-The Warrior can interrupt an enemy he is in melee with, stopping a spellcast and preventing future spellcast from the same school for a short period of time.
-On a longer cooldown the Warrior can interrupt enemy casters in an AoE
-The Warrior can throw a weapon at an enemy, silencing them for a few seconds.
-The Warrior can reflect spells targeting him back at the caster. The caster takes the full effect of whatever the spell is
-The Warrior can reflect spells targeting any ally of his, but on a longer cooldown.
-The Warrior can remove spell buffs from a target with one of his attacks. Basically built in dispel magic to one attack.

Stances
-The warrior has 3 stances.
--Battle Stance increases rage generation
--Defensive Stance reduces damage taken and reduces rage generation
--Berserker Stance provides rage generation based on damage taken.
(Honestly these are pretty boring)

AoE capability
-The Warrior can make a whirlwind attack, attacking all enemies around him with his weapons (yes, if dual wielding both weapons hit with this attack)
-The Warrior can create a shockwave, dealing damage in a cone in front of him and stunning all affected enemies
-The Warrior can Roar with such ferocity that all enemies take high damage and are knocked back
-The Warrior can do an enhanced whirlwind where he turns into a blender of death, dealing more aoe damage, attacking faster, and becoming immune to all CC effects
-The Warrior can create a thunderclap (sometimes with a lightning effect) dealing damage to all nearby enemies and inflicting a lingering bleed effect on them.

Self Healing
-The Warrior when he drops/kills an enemy regains 20% of his maximum HP (eg Victory Rush, not Vampirism)
-The Warrior can talent for the ability to use Victory Rush on a moderate cooldown even when he has not made a kill
-The Warrior when dropped below 35% HP regenerates a small portion of his HP every round until he is above 35% HP.
-The Warrior when enraged can recover 20% of his HP on a long cooldown.
-The Warrior has a strike that heals him a small amount when used.

Personal Cooldowns
-The Warrior can on a long cooldown boost his crit rate dramatically for a short period of time (+30-50%)
-The Warrior can on a moderate cooldown enhance his attacks to leave a bleed effect, dealing 30% of their damage again over a period of time.
-The Warrior can turn into an Avatar, gaining increased damage and immunity to movement impairing effects.
-The Warrior can increase his own maximum/current Health for a short period of time. (this is separate from the group versions)
-The Warrior can make himself immune to melee attacks for a short period of time (+100% parry rate), and take 20% less damage from other sources.
-The Warrior can give himself 60% damage reduction while using a shield on a long cooldown.
-The Warrior can throw his weapon, reducing the target's armor, dispelling any defensive buffs, and breaking any magical barriers on a long cooldown.
-Can break Fear/Incapacitation effects and enrage himself

Regular Use Abilities
-The Warrior can get Enraged, granting him bonus rage, increasing his damage, and can be used to fuel other abilities.
-The Warrior can give himself a 100% block rate while using a shield on a moderate cooldown.
-The Warrior can spend rage to make all of his attacks also hit an additional target within reach.
-The Warrior can gain an increasing damage bonus from damage he takes.


Strikes
-The Warrior can make a strike allowing him to ignore all of the target's armor for a short period of time.
-The Warrior can spend rage while enraged to strike with both weapons for massive damage. If the Warrior has been using whirlwind, this ability strikes multiple targets.
-The warrior can make an attack that has an increased critical strike chance, if it crits he becomes enraged.
-The warrior can add extra damage to an attack as a free action with a high rage cost.
-The warrior has a strike that allows him to hit with his offhand weapon twice for high damage.
-The warrior can make a strike that may not be dodged/blocked/parried, and nearly always critically strikes
-The warrior can shield bash for high non-weapon based damage.
-The warrior can make an attack that hits 3 targets simultaneously for high damage.
-The warrior can make a strike that leaves a Deep Wound, inflicting damage over time afterwards.
-The warrior has a high damage finishing.


By my count, that's 64 distinct abilities, only 10 of which are actual strikes, the rest of which are utility/control/buffing/cooldowns. But still, a lot of cool stuff there that's fitting for the archetype. And most of it is far less bland than anything that's been in the books for a martial character in the majority of RPGs.

Of course, as noted, it doesn't solve the out of combat utility problem. You have some debuffing/magic dispelling, intimidate is there, and players in a tabletop could probably find some creative uses for something like spell reflect, but let's face it. Most of those abilities are designed for combat.

So to add to that, let's add some of the fun stuff from Blacksmithing/Engineering.

-Craft magical weapons and armor
-Make custom improvements to your personal armor
-Craft skeleton keys that let you get into any level appropriate lock
-Wormhole Generator (courtesy of Engineering. Basically teleporter)
-Rocket Boots
-Modification to turn any cloak you wear into an effective hang glider
-A hat modification that gives actual mind control
-Robot that acts basically as a butler, will repair your gear, carry your stuff for you, and just generally be useful
-A robot that tinkers with stuff on its own and will occasionally give you free stuff.
-A portable forge (perfect for when you need that one item and don't have it, but can't afford to go back to town. Just press this button and you can make it yourself wherever you are)
-Swiss Army Knife style thing that acts as basically any tool you need for a given task
-Create complex ranged weaponry (ie crossbows, guns)
-Create bombs/explosives
-Create goggles that make it easier to see hiding enemies, or makes finding resources easier.


This gives you effectively Flight, Teleportation, minions, on the fly utility, enhanced perception/scouting ability, and less dependence on random loot to make the core numbers work. Combine that with the utility and combat potential of the stuff from the Warrior itself, and I think it's a potentially winning combination of features that matches up with what is needed to remain relevant in a high magic game a la D&D.

But before I get knee-deep into a conversion (and I do have some ideas already on how to keep the core of the complex abilities while remaining simple enough to play at the table), I want to concept check this. Is this an idea worth pursuing, or are people going to go "Boo, WoW!" and ignore it based on that?

[ngilop]

this is actually the first idea from you that I generally agree with. Not only that but think it is a great idea.

Honestly just giving D&D fighters the support in combat roles that not just WoW, but all MMO mundane warrior types get would go leagues in boosting them viability.

i never thought of 4th ed as D&D the MMO.. but i cna say for me ToB felt that way and i just considered those manuevers to have Cooldown periods.

In all MMO fighters are for the most part the main/sole tanks in the game so the ability to ignore/reduce damage is a must the best part is NOW sword and board finally will get some love!

Then you have the big damage spikes which normally are dual widlers POW now you got more TWF love!

couple that with group buffs and debuffs in the form of shouts/auras/attacks and youd doing pretty great already.

typically MMO warriors have MUCH better mobiltiy and the ability to ignore mobility hampering ability than in D&D, and they have millions of time sbetter control. froms ingle target lock down to multi target lockdown

Honestly i fel that if WoTC had just made the Fighter a tristalt fighter/marshal/Knight the class would be have been fine. but just glean from those 3 classes what you can use in a class that fitys your specific concept and there ya go

my fighter feats HERE (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=268577) are partly inpried by what Ive experienced in MMO as teh warriors calss ( im always settling into the tank role it seems ive been the best geared in the game in DAoC and the best on my particular server horde side so I know end game content, was a wizard in EQ though.. idk why but getting money for binding was too much to pass up, LOL) as well as abilites that I feel should have went to the fighter as default ( liek all the abilities form the epic PrC legendayr dreadnaught)

[Deadlykire]

Might try a forum search, when I first joined I remember seeing someone having ported almost every WoW class over to 3.5. Might be something to look at that meets your needs (Lix Lorn I *think* was the homebrewer, apologies if it was another).

[Seerow]

Might try a forum search, when I first joined I remember seeing someone having ported almost every WoW class over to 3.5. Might be something to look at that meets your needs (Lix Lorn I *think* was the homebrewer, apologies if it was another).

Google isn't turning up anything for me, but if you can find a link I'll look it over. I tend to prefer my own work over something someone else writes, but if it turns out someone did a quality conversion already, it could save me some time.


this is actually the first idea from you that I generally agree with. Not only that but think it is a great idea.


I'm hurt :(


typically MMO warriors have MUCH better mobiltiy and the ability to ignore mobility hampering ability than in D&D, and they have millions of time sbetter control. froms ingle target lock down to multi target lockdown


This was my thoughts exactly



i never thought of 4th ed as D&D the MMO.. but i cna say for me ToB felt that way and i just considered those manuevers to have Cooldown periods.


I didn't either, but it's one of those terms that gets thrown around a lot.




Anyway, regarding cooldowns/mechanics, I'm kind of thinking of this as having two resources:
Rage-Generated round by round. Used for the commonly used/short cooldown abilities.
Stamina-Daily resource, used for the big cooldown abilities.

Stances are gone, because they're an extra thing to track that don't really provide much. Enrage might be a binary on/off buff, something real simple like Enrage increases damage by +5, and other abilities can get rid of it for a big boost (ie enraged regeneration, raging blow). Or maybe that mechanic can be scrapped for simplicity as well, not sure.

[GlorinSteampike]

Well, I mean there is a World of Warcraft Roleplaying game, that has feats for everything unique to the Warrior from older editions. I usually let my players borrow from Warcraft books, tho most of them don't play and don't do so the scaling doesn't get ridiculous. But for feats like Initmidating Shout, battle shout, i think mocking blow is in there, 3.5 already has things for it. They just aren't very easily accessed by fighters.

Goad is a pretty all purpose taunt that requires charisma(like most things the WoW Warrior has going that fighters do not.). Never outnumbered/imperious command make for a powerful version of Intimidating Shout. So much so its banned in most games I play. I removed the SA pre-reqs for a bunch of the SA feats with saves and just allowed players to deal no damage in return for the benefits. So hamstring is a totally viable option for all martial combatants and is more akin to maneuvers like tripping/grappling etc.

Its pretty easy to tweak stuff to let fighters get more options. Its not very easy to allow them the uberstickyness that WoW allows them. Most games I play in monks and barbarians just leap 50 feat a turn and stun their opponent anyways, and fighters aren't super far behind being able to do that. Just giving the fighter more skill opponents and nerfing armor check penalties really offer the fighter a lot more options unless you have munchkin casters in your games.

[Seerow]

Well, I mean there is a World of Warcraft Roleplaying game, that has feats for everything unique to the Warrior from older editions. I usually let my players borrow from Warcraft books, tho most of them don't play and don't do so the scaling doesn't get ridiculous. But for feats like Initmidating Shout, battle shout, i think mocking blow is in there, 3.5 already has things for it. They just aren't very easily accessed by fighters.

Quick google search to go check out this RPG... and it's basically everything I wouldn't want to see. The Warrior is literally the 3.5 fighter, and most of the new feats in the book just aren't that great. Battle Shout is +2 morale bonus to damage (and super vague on things like action cost/duration). Intimidating Shout, which you call out as broken requires you to spend a hero point to get anything better than applying a -2 to hit debuff. Item crafting is inexplicably restricted to casters only. Core abilities like Charge are neutered to be the 3.5 equivalent, things like Spell Reflect are given so many prerequisites and restrictions that they're all but useless[[Edit: Just looked again, apparently one of those prerequisites is Caster Level 7. Sorry Warriors, you don't get your ability, it goes to Mages now]]. Thunderclap is a freaking spell, and the Warrior needs to spend 3 feats to get access to it.

Seriously the more I look into it, the more I see it's a relatively poor reskin of 3.5. It does none of the things I specified in my original post. Why would you even reference this waste of time and energy?


Goad is a pretty all purpose taunt that requires charisma(like most things the WoW Warrior has going that fighters do not.). Never outnumbered/imperious command make for a powerful version of Intimidating Shout. So much so its banned in most games I play. I removed the SA pre-reqs for a bunch of the SA feats with saves and just allowed players to deal no damage in return for the benefits. So hamstring is a totally viable option for all martial combatants and is more akin to maneuvers like tripping/grappling etc.

Its pretty easy to tweak stuff to let fighters get more options. Its not very easy to allow them the uberstickyness that WoW allows them. Most games I play in monks and barbarians just leap 50 feat a turn and stun their opponent anyways, and fighters aren't super far behind being able to do that. Just giving the fighter more skill opponents and nerfing armor check penalties really offer the fighter a lot more options unless you have munchkin casters in your games.

Okay, look at the list of things you specified you can do:
Intimidating Shout, Hamstring, Jump 50ft, skill checks (wtf have you seen the fighter's skill list?).

Now look at the list of things I put forth in the original post that a WoW warrior can actually do in game. Here's a hint, you missed about 95% of them, and most of the more interesting ones at that.

[Xzoltar]

Think you got a good idea here except on the Engineering thing, if someone want to do it fine but dont think every fighter should be able to craft teleport machine and special googles, guns or helicopter...

Here's a lit of some WoW class create on this forum over the years :

WoW Classes
- Death Knight : http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=253368
- Death Knight : http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=186986
- Paladin : http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187214
- Rogue : http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187931
- Shaman : http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187533

[GlorinSteampike]

Quick google search to go check out this RPG... and it's basically everything I wouldn't want to see. The Warrior is literally the 3.5 fighter, and most of the new feats in the book just aren't that great. Battle Shout is +2 morale bonus to damage (and super vague on things like action cost/duration). Intimidating Shout, which you call out as broken requires you to spend a hero point to get anything better than applying a -2 to hit debuff. Item crafting is inexplicably restricted to casters only. Core abilities like Charge are neutered to be the 3.5 equivalent, things like Spell Reflect are given so many prerequisites and restrictions that they're all but useless[[Edit: Just looked again, apparently one of those prerequisites is Caster Level 7. Sorry Warriors, you don't get your ability, it goes to Mages now]]. Thunderclap is a freaking spell, and the Warrior needs to spend 3 feats to get access to it.

Seriously the more I look into it, the more I see it's a relatively poor reskin of 3.5. It does none of the things I specified in my original post. Why would you even reference this waste of time and energy?



Okay, look at the list of things you specified you can do:
Intimidating Shout, Hamstring, Jump 50ft, skill checks (wtf have you seen the fighter's skill list?).

Now look at the list of things I put forth in the original post that a WoW warrior can actually do in game. Here's a hint, you missed about 95% of them, and most of the more interesting ones at that.

Did you even read my post? -_-; I mentioned the fact that boosting warrior skills in tandem to giving them the feat selection there is fine. Spell reflection for a traditional fighter is completely ridiculous. Re-directing spells back at casters shouldn't be an ACF much less a feat a fighter or ranger can just take. The shout feats are great. I said Imperious Command + Never Outnumbered (intimidate vs all surrounding enemies = Cowering) is completely broken as ****. So I brought it up because it fixes most of the problems with fighters.

If you want to make fighters into Tier 1 Tome of Battle just buff Tome of Battle. I already play a fighter that can Charge, Stun a wizard, then grab him and gag his mouth. It takes 8 BAB and a decent Wisdom score. All while pumping average 40 damage into them. Restricting blacksmithing and engineering to fighters is the stupid. Its worse than Restricted race/class combos.
Theres also more than just the corebook. People act like fighter is so bad when you don't take more than 6 or 7 levels of even tier 1 base classes most of the time. If you wanna fix fighters, just give them more spells and better feats. Fighters aren't supposed to be this unique class of specific abilities. They are supposed to get more feats for fighting stuff that anyone can take just at a slower rate aside from specialization feats.

You really should read and comprehend things before shutting them down because they aren't exactly what you wanted.

[Just to Browse]

Did you even read my post? -_-;I don't know the feats you're referring to, but I did read the game* and it is awful. What feats are OP or what your original post meant is something I'm not going to touch.


[snip about buffing ToB]It's true that a lot of this stuff can just be different disciplines and stances, but so can spells, and so can a brand new fighter class. I do believe this is irrelevant.


[My fighter is strong]I... um... there's a new thread on 3.5 gaming like every week about how this doesn't make any sense, especially at level 8. Can we not go into this?


[snip about splats/PrC and give fighter better spells/feats] This is also a way to do a fighter fix, but other system buffs also do this, and rewriting the fighter class also does this. Irrelevant.


Fighters aren't supposed to be this unique class of specific abilities. They are supposed to get more feats for fighting stuff that anyone can take just at a slower rate aside from specialization feats.No, no no no no no no no no please no. Fighters can't just get things at an accelerated rate, because that means they're taking things that are level-appropriate for something way above them. That either means, a) The fighter is getting something grossly inappropriate for their level (like an on-hit stun or blindsight at level 1), or b) The "level-appropriate" feats other people would get are actually totally inappropriate and crappy, or c) They're restricted from the fighter because they require spells, shadowcasting, talking feet, etc. and are thus a moot point.3

*Last month, which is why I can't contribute to the specifics of this. Also I'm too lazy to read it again.

[ben-zayb]

The first thing that I'll have to ask you is: What is your image of a fighter? To be more precise, what would the range of a fighter be for this "fix"? Is he either a Sword-Board, T(H)WF or THF only, or would other weapon styles work?

Can your fighter opt to be: a pugilist? a submission specialist? a net-trident wielder? light TWF wielder? a dervish? a one-hit bushido? an AoO lockdown tripper? a volley archer? a sniper?

Assuming only the first three classic WoW weapon style applies, I generally agree with most of the concept that you have, except for the Engineering profession. The fighter who crafts his own weapons is common in literature, although wasn't always the case and actually never was a prerequisite to be good in his primary trade (i.e. to fight). Still, that carries some Blacksmithing options.

As for the Engineering, I really don't see much fighters as capable tinkerers or siege engineers especially in high-fantasy settings. The contrasting image is especially evident in the context of Gnomes in WoW, where many of them are stereotypically using their brains or cunning (as rogue, casters, and techie-links) to compensate for their physical shortcomings.

Trying to cram as much versatility as possible shouldn't be made at the expense of the fluff. However, if you could make a compelling argument why Engineering should be an integral part of being a Fighter, or at least just your own vision of what a Fighter is, then that would be good enough I guess.

________________________________
As for the "Tanking" aspect, I'm on the same boat about "Threat" mechanics. Generally, ideal targets in combat are either the least resistant or the most threatening, whichever is more strategic. The trick is to make yourself appear so threatening (generate threat) that the enemies would want to take you down ASAP before things get FUBAR, instead of attacking puny nerds which they could easily take down in a second or less after anyways (or so they think).

From that point of view, it is as much a mind-affecting effect as bargaining on a Planar Binding. Technically, the Fighter is forcing his enemies to make specific, and probably the most logically sound, decisions. Of course, insane enemies or assassins/etc who have specific objectives are another issue to tackle.

As for the the implementation, the basic mechanic is to probably do an ordinal ranking system based on Damage dealt during the whole encounter. Ideally, damage dealing is still the Fighter's schtick, and a "tank"-dedicated Fighter could probably have tricks to make his damage scale differently (like counts as x1.5 damage). Then, maybe further along, you could have the Fighter carry leftover threats for future encounters (explained fluffwise as having fighting credence/ reputation/ infamy of sorts).

Anyway, just my two cp. I'd probably start doing my brainstormed Fighter Fix too, if I could only dedicate enough time for Homebrew, :smallbiggrin:
________________________________
Oh, I also have to mention that there are Homebrewers who scoff at letting the Badass-Normal Fighters get seemingly magical stuff like causing Thunderclaps and other sparkly stuff. Good luck with this project!

[GlorinSteampike]

I don't know the feats you're referring to, but I did read the game* and it is awful. What feats are OP or what your original post meant is something I'm not going to touch.

It's true that a lot of this stuff can just be different disciplines and stances, but so can spells, and so can a brand new fighter class. I do believe this is irrelevant.

I... um... there's a new thread on 3.5 gaming like every week about how this doesn't make any sense, especially at level 8. Can we not go into this?

This is also a way to do a fighter fix, but other system buffs also do this, and rewriting the fighter class also does this. Irrelevant.

No, no no no no no no no no please no. Fighters can't just get things at an accelerated rate, because that means they're taking things that are level-appropriate for something way above them. That either means, a) The fighter is getting something grossly inappropriate for their level (like an on-hit stun or blindsight at level 1), or b) The "level-appropriate" feats other people would get are actually totally inappropriate and crappy, or c) They're restricted from the fighter because they require spells, shadowcasting, talking feet, etc. and are thus a moot point.3

*Last month, which is why I can't contribute to the specifics of this. Also I'm too lazy to read it again.

Everything you said was completely irrelevant except the last part. Which is wrong. They don't get things before they are level appropriate. They still have to meet the pre-reqs. They get things at an abundance, and so can complete chains faster. The game was made with this in mind. Thats why things require BAB, or Fighter level 4. To get rid of the generic fighter class would be like getting rid of the generic rogue class, or the generic wizard. Why aren't they considered too bland?

Like really, if you want magical fighters, take one of the many magical fighter classes.

[Just to Browse]

Everything you said was completely irrelevant except the last part.Well, if you call me saying "that's irrelevant" irrelevant, then yes.


Which is wrong. They don't get things before they are level appropriate. They still have to meet the pre-reqs.Thus they are not actually getting anything faster than other people, so their class features are crappy.


They get things at an abundance, and so can complete chains faster.So they complete chains faster, but they actually don't? They either get through the chain faster and get higher-level feats (which causes the problems listed above) or they don't go through it faster and thus become weak because horizontal advancement =/= vertical advancement.


The game was made with this in mind. Thats why things require BAB, or Fighter level 4. To get rid of the generic fighter class would be like getting rid of the generic rogue class, or the generic wizard. Why aren't they considered too bland?The rogue has a list of several customizable class features in its description. And people do call the vanilla rogue bland, which is why they use alternate rogues and ACFs. The wizard isn't bland because it has a bunch of different class features that it can switch access to, giving it both horizontal and vertical advancement.


Like really, if you want magical fighters, take one of the many magical fighter classes.I don't get this point. It's like saying everything about science has been discovered and we should just stop research. Or that everything in literature is already written so we just shouldn't write anymore. You can't just say not to homebrew something because another thing exists, because it's the base premise of this thread. That's how fighter fixes work, you fix the fighter.

[Ashtagon]

Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Waker]

Well, you could address the Rage mechanic (probably should change the name) as having a maximum number of Rage Points (determined by level) that slowly increases as rounds tic by or damage dealt/received. The former is a simpler mechanic, the latter faster. Were you to go the route of automatically generating Rage, I would say something like 1/round at lower levels, but that increases as you level, so like 2/round at 4 level. You could also include feats to increase generation rate and maximum pool size.
If you went with the damage route, you could take a note from Crusaders delaying damage power. Whenever you hit an enemy or take damage, the amount is divided by 5 or some other number and you generate that much Rage.
As for the list of powers that you posted, I would say that you make a big list of abilities that you can choose every two levels or so, sorta like Rogue Talents but a bit more expansive. Later on I might comment on the making of specific powers, but right now I'm lazy.

[Seerow]

Think you got a good idea here except on the Engineering thing, if someone want to do it fine but dont think every fighter should be able to craft teleport machine and special googles, guns or helicopter...



Assuming only the first three classic WoW weapon style applies, I generally agree with most of the concept that you have, except for the Engineering profession. The fighter who crafts his own weapons is common in literature, although wasn't always the case and actually never was a prerequisite to be good in his primary trade (i.e. to fight). Still, that carries some Blacksmithing options.


I was surprised it took as long as it did for Engineering to be brought up as an issue. I realize that it is a break from the "Generic Fighter" deal, but frankly, the Fighter/Warrior alone provides all sorts of in combat capability, but very little out of combat. As I noted when going through the Warrior power list, the things that can be used out of combat include dispelling and intimidating people for the most part. Even if you add typical D&D skills to that, it's not an impressive suite of abilities. Adding item crafting and key making helps, but still frankly is not enough to keep up.

The engineering addition provides an extra layer of out of combat capabilities that frankly the class needs to be useful past low levels in anything that doesn't involve killing people. Fluff-wise, you've already more or less agreed to being able to craft your own enchanted gear, I don't see why it's a big leap to jump from that to "characters of this class tinker with various things in their free time". Players who don't want things like pet robots or teleporter machines can choose not to craft those things, but they should be there as a possibility for games where neat out of combat stuff is a key component of play.

So yeah, I don't have a compelling reason why Fighters must be engineers. I do have a compelling gameplay reason for it though, and a good enough fluff justification that I don't see having it as a problem. If you can think of some other reasonable way to give the fighter legitimate out of combat utility (and not just "Give him some more skill points!") then I will consider that as an alternative. But barring that, the idea was to adapt a WoW Warrior into a class with the full flexibility/capability of a strong D&D class, and in this case taking two professions from WoW which provide flavor, utility, and on top of that are probably the most common Warrior professions in game, seems to me to be the best fit.



Did you even read my post? -_-; I mentioned the fact that boosting warrior skills in tandem to giving them the feat selection there is fine. Spell reflection for a traditional fighter is completely ridiculous. Re-directing spells back at casters shouldn't be an ACF much less a feat a fighter or ranger can just take. The shout feats are great. I said Imperious Command + Never Outnumbered (intimidate vs all surrounding enemies = Cowering) is completely broken as ****. So I brought it up because it fixes most of the problems with fighters.


I did read your post. Did you read either of mine? Seriously I'm going to direct you again the original post where I laid out all of the things a Warrior can do (and while yes I did make a note that not all warriors can do all of those things, any given warrior can easily do about 2/3 of the things listed there). Spell Reflection is a core Warrior capability, and as such would be an ability I expect to show up in an adaptation of that class, not restricted to casters. Saying that should never show up on a fighter, ever, just shows a blatant lack of understanding of my main point, and indicates just how low I should value your opinion on this subject.

As for boosting skill selection and giving access to those feats... seriously that's pretty much the lowest bar you can set for a fighter fix. If that's the point where you believe balance actually lies, then I have no need to respond to you further.



The first thing that I'll have to ask you is: What is your image of a fighter? To be more precise, what would the range of a fighter be for this "fix"? Is he either a Sword-Board, T(H)WF or THF only, or would other weapon styles work?

Can your fighter opt to be: a pugilist? a submission specialist? a net-trident wielder? light TWF wielder? a dervish? a one-hit bushido? an AoO lockdown tripper? a volley archer? a sniper?

The focus would be on the first three, but the others would be possible. Except maybe the archer/sniper. I actually see the Warrior with a lot of control oriented abilities that should make him better at control than an AoO lockdown tripper, but could easily have access to the tripper tricks as well. Archery is unlikely to be a strength, because few of his abilities are aimed in that direction, but there are several throwing weapon based abilities that allow him to function at range. Unarmed Combat and Net-Trident are both extremely niche, and should be able to function, but no special support would be given. light TWF is basically the same as heavy TWFing, and should work just as well, and with all of the mobility inherent in a conversion of the Warrior, I'd think a Dervish style would be well represented without any additional work.


As for the "Tanking" aspect, I'm on the same boat about "Threat" mechanics. Generally, ideal targets in combat are either the least resistant or the most threatening, whichever is more strategic. The trick is to make yourself appear so threatening (generate threat) that the enemies would want to take you down ASAP before things get FUBAR, instead of attacking puny nerds which they could easily take down in a second or less after anyways (or so they think).

From that point of view, it is as much a mind-affecting effect as bargaining on a Planar Binding. Technically, the Fighter is forcing his enemies to make specific, and probably the most logically sound, decisions. Of course, insane enemies or assassins/etc who have specific objectives are another issue to tackle.

As for the the implementation, the basic mechanic is to probably do an ordinal ranking system based on Damage dealt during the whole encounter. Ideally, damage dealing is still the Fighter's schtick, and a "tank"-dedicated Fighter could probably have tricks to make his damage scale differently (like counts as x1.5 damage). Then, maybe further along, you could have the Fighter carry leftover threats for future encounters (explained fluffwise as having fighting credence/ reputation/ infamy of sorts).

I don't think a whole threat system is necessary, as that is unnecessary book keeping. I am however thinking something like 4e's marking (ie "Include me as a target of your attacks or take penalties") accomplishes a similar outcome with a much simpler mechanic. Alternatively something similar to the Goad feat, where the Fighter uses an action and the target makes a save or has to include him as a target. Either way something simple and relatively easy to use while getting the overall point across should be feasible here.


Oh, I also have to mention that there are Homebrewers who scoff at letting the Badass-Normal Fighters get seemingly magical stuff like causing Thunderclaps and other sparkly stuff. Good luck with this project!


I'm well aware of it. Honestly I expected more outcry of "Omg not WoW, don't turn my D&D into an MMO!", but I am fully aware a lot of people are not happy with the idea of a Fighter doing anything interesting or useful (see GlorinSteampike saying that no mundane warrior should be able to spell reflect)






Well, you could address the Rage mechanic (probably should change the name) as having a maximum number of Rage Points (determined by level) that slowly increases as rounds tic by or damage dealt/received. The former is a simpler mechanic, the latter faster. Were you to go the route of automatically generating Rage, I would say something like 1/round at lower levels, but that increases as you level, so like 2/round at 4 level. You could also include feats to increase generation rate and maximum pool size.
If you went with the damage route, you could take a note from Crusaders delaying damage power. Whenever you hit an enemy or take damage, the amount is divided by 5 or some other number and you generate that much Rage.

Okay let's talk mechanics.

Like I mentioned in the last post, I'm seeing two separate groups of abilities. Common use Rage abilities, and rare use Stamina abilities.

Rage is generated in combat. Some abilities generate rage when used (Shouts, Charge, etc), some require rage to use (Heroic Strike, Shield Block, Sweeping Strikes, etc). In addition to the abilities to grant rage, landing a successful attack on an opponent generates 10 rage. Attacking an opponent and missing generates 5. Being hit with an attack that incapacitates you generates 5 rage per round that it is in effect.

The abilities that use rage will include basically anything in WoW that is a 30 second cooldown or less, which should be most of the frequently used abilities.

This should be relatively easy to track and use. If we want to make the numbers smaller, dividing all gains/costs by 5 wouldn't be too hard. (So rage cap would be 20, heroic strike would cost 6 rather than 30, shouts would generate 4 instead of 20, etc). These costs/generation remain relatively consistent across all levels. All that changes is the number of abilities you get to take advantage of it.


Stamina is daily use, and is where all of your big cooldowns come in. Your maximum Stamina scales up as you gain levels, and any Stamina based ability may only be used once an encounter (ie you can use Recklessness and Avatar in the same encounter, but you cannot use Recklessness twice). Stamina based abilities will have variable cost, depending on their value.


As for the list of powers that you posted, I would say that you make a big list of abilities that you can choose every two levels or so, sorta like Rogue Talents but a bit more expansive. Later on I might comment on the making of specific powers, but right now I'm lazy.

I was thinking a greater number available than that. I'm thinking a total of 30ish abilities by level 20 as a starting point, and see how it looks from there. Say you start out with 2-3 rage powers, and one stamina ability. As you progress in level, you might end up with say 20-25 regular use powers, and 7 stamina abilities.

Then a few abilities that are core to the class (ie Charge, Taunt, maybe reworked Stances) are inserted as class features alongside the engineering/blacksmithing perks.

[Draken]

Fighter characters from pretty much all video games should be inspiration to provide the class with a personal system of special abilities with offensive, defensive and utilitarian uses (I would shape such a system akin to the warlock's Invocations, personally).

My only beef with your proposal is including blacksmithing and engineering as part of a class chassis. I'm of the opinion that, in D&D, these two things should belong to the realm of Skills, and the only reason they don't is because the various iterations of third edition kind of didn't devote as much space to a system of Mundane Crafts as it should have, and put every system of non-mundane craft safely out of reach of everyone but the spellcasters. Nothing exemplifies both of these issues better than Craft (Alchemy), mundane enough that it got barely a paragraph to its name but mystical enough that some of that wordcount was wasted on limiting it to spellcasters.

[Seerow]

Fighter characters from pretty much all video games should be inspiration to provide the class with a personal system of special abilities with offensive, defensive and utilitarian uses (I would shape such a system akin to the warlock's Invocations, personally).

My only beef with your proposal is including blacksmithing and engineering as part of a class chassis. I'm of the opinion that, in D&D, these two things should belong to the realm of Skills, and the only reason they don't is because the various iterations of third edition kind of didn't devote as much space to a system of Mundane Crafts as it should have, and put every system of non-mundane craft safely out of reach of everyone but the spellcasters. Nothing exemplifies both of these issues better than Craft (Alchemy), mundane enough that it got barely a paragraph to its name but mystical enough that some of that wordcount was wasted on limiting it to spellcasters.

This is a stance I can sympathize with. But given that I am out to write a class conversion, and not a whole profession/skill system, can you understand my desire to want to include the things from a couple of relevant professions as a part of the class?

Because trying to rewrite all of the various professions to give them more utilities means instead of copying the benefits of a couple professions from another game, and writing them into the class itself, I need to try to write up 10+ different professions. Then all of these professions must be balanced against each other, and then these professions either need to be separated from the skill system, or I then need to also revamp the skill system, and balance them in such a way that they do provide the desired utility for mundane classes. And all of this must be done without giving magic using classes an even larger advantage.

A larger overhaul is a larger goal, but it's far beyond the scope of what I had in mind here. Given that, are you able to accept making something a part of a class to make sure that class has the utility without needing to worry about far reaching implications is acceptable for purposes of balance?

[Deepbluediver]

I definitely think it's a good idea; I've used it for inspiriation on more than one occasion already. My first attempt at a 3.5 Fighter fix included several short term buffs or debuffs via a "battle-cry" mechanic.

Then I decided there was more stuff that I wanted melee classes besides the Fighter to have access too, and I reworked the various feat chains for weapon styles (since everyone used weapons). You can probably see the influence most heavily in the Sword 'n Board feats, which has both a taunt and a Spell-reflect feat. In my Combat Manuevers thread I also worked out an "Aggressive Fighting" option to partner with Fighting Defensively and cover the Defensive/Berserker stance dynamic.

Here's the links so you can check the mechanics I worked out, if you want to use them as a basis for you own stuff or just copy-pasta it.
Fighter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=228850)
Feats (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=267778) (you might see some of YOUR influence in a few of these :smallwink:)
Combat Manuevers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249818)

I think that the best candidates for Fighter-exclusive things to ripoffborrow would be the buffs and the mobility (particularly if you are mobile via something other than the Fast Movement). Self-healing or damage reduction kind of feals like its stepping on the Paladin or the Barbarian's toes, and the Fighter tends to wear more armor anyhow. Strikes and Control are something that I think everyone be should be able to enjoy, either as non-unique class features or feats. Ditto for the engineering, though a "Repair Equipment" feature, including magical equipment, would probably be something I could get behind.

If you take a look at any of my stuff, let me know what you think.

[Draken]

This is a stance I can sympathize with. But given that I am out to write a class conversion, and not a whole profession/skill system, can you understand my desire to want to include the things from a couple of relevant professions as a part of the class?

Because trying to rewrite all of the various professions to give them more utilities means instead of copying the benefits of a couple professions from another game, and writing them into the class itself, I need to try to write up 10+ different professions. Then all of these professions must be balanced against each other, and then these professions either need to be separated from the skill system, or I then need to also revamp the skill system, and balance them in such a way that they do provide the desired utility for mundane classes. And all of this must be done without giving magic using classes an even larger advantage.

A larger overhaul is a larger goal, but it's far beyond the scope of what I had in mind here. Given that, are you able to accept making something a part of a class to make sure that class has the utility without needing to worry about far reaching implications is acceptable for purposes of balance?

Tat depends on the flavor and themes of the class to me.

To me, a fighter is about battle and prowess. I always thought that the fighter should get abilities that enhance her physical prowess, as levels approach and go beyond the superhuman range (level 5 and above). Leap further, climb faster, swim longer, just as examples of things that could go into such a paradigm of prowess. The upper echelons of these abilities could quite simply go Incredible Hulk on various problems.

The issue of flight, for instance. Flight is great, that is true in D&D, the real shame of it is how the simplicity of flight made people disregard jumping and climbing as methods of tridimensional movement. The Hulk could give us ideas for some excellent high level movement abilities to give to a character based on jumping.

What the fighter, to me, isn't supposed to be about, is about shoring faults in their prowess with... Stuff. Shouldn't be about building things to do stuff for you. That's not to say they shouldn't need basic items to achieve certain effects (ranged attacks, for example), only that these items should be that, basic, simple, not complex devices designed for a specific purpose (jetpack), but simple objects turned to a broad purpose (throwing rock).

In this respect, I guess that the "fighter" I would build would likely end up very similar to Xefas' Sun Hero adaptation of Solar exalted to D&D, mechanically, at least, not thematically.

-----

But yes, I accept that a full rewrite of the crafting system is not in the scope of this project, but I must say that it would be a small thing scratching at the back of my aesthetical sense.

[Waker]

Rage is generated in combat. Some abilities generate rage when used (Shouts, Charge, etc), some require rage to use (Heroic Strike, Shield Block, Sweeping Strikes, etc). In addition to the abilities to grant rage, landing a successful attack on an opponent generates 10 rage. Attacking an opponent and missing generates 5. Being hit with an attack that incapacitates you generates 5 rage per round that it is in effect.

The abilities that use rage will include basically anything in WoW that is a 30 second cooldown or less, which should be most of the frequently used abilities.

This should be relatively easy to track and use. If we want to make the numbers smaller, dividing all gains/costs by 5 wouldn't be too hard. (So rage cap would be 20, heroic strike would cost 6 rather than 30, shouts would generate 4 instead of 20, etc). These costs/generation remain relatively consistent across all levels. All that changes is the number of abilities you get to take advantage of it.
While simplifying the Rage gain is well, simpler, I don't know if the idea that it's even across the board sits well with me. It just seems odd that a half-hearted punch that deals 2 damage generates the same amount of Rage as Power Attacking with a Greatsword for 200 damage. Just my personal opinion though.


Stamina is daily use, and is where all of your big cooldowns come in. Your maximum Stamina scales up as you gain levels, and any Stamina based ability may only be used once an encounter (ie you can use Recklessness and Avatar in the same encounter, but you cannot use Recklessness twice). Stamina based abilities will have variable cost, depending on their value.
You kinda confused me here. Do you mean to say that the Stamina use abilities are limited to 1/day or 1/encounter which also consumes Stamina Points? You seem to refer to them as being both.


I was thinking a greater number available than that. I'm thinking a total of 30ish abilities by level 20 as a starting point, and see how it looks from there. Say you start out with 2-3 rage powers, and one stamina ability. As you progress in level, you might end up with say 20-25 regular use powers, and 7 stamina abilities.

Then a few abilities that are core to the class (ie Charge, Taunt, maybe reworked Stances) are inserted as class features alongside the engineering/blacksmithing perks.

Were you thinking of dividing the techniques up based on levels and availability sort of like a spells known table? Or could any technique be learned at any time that you gain more techniques?

[Seerow]

While simplifying the Rage gain is well, simpler, I don't know if the idea that it's even across the board sits well with me. It just seems odd that a half-hearted punch that deals 2 damage generates the same amount of Rage as Power Attacking with a Greatsword for 200 damage. Just my personal opinion though.


This is pretty much how it works in the game though. You gain rage per hit based on weapon speed. I just took the weapon speed out of the equation because it's something that 3e really doesn't have an equivalent for, and it's a fiddly modifier anyway.

I know rage used to work based on some complex formula based around damage dealt, but that got canned because it was confusing and hard to balance even when you had a computer doing all the mechanical work. I don't see it working better in an environment where you don't have that advantage.


You kinda confused me here. Do you mean to say that the Stamina use abilities are limited to 1/day or 1/encounter which also consumes Stamina Points? You seem to refer to them as being both.


Stamina is restricted per day, but a given stamina ability could be used 1/encounter.

As a quick example with numbers pulled out of my rear, the Warrior has 20 stamina. In Fight 1, he uses Intimidating Shout (5 stamina gone), and Die By The Sword (7 stamina gone). This takes 12 stamina total, leaving the character with 8 stamina remaining for the day. So he still has enough stamina he could theoretically do either one of the aforementioned abilities, but they are limited to 1/encounter, so he can't use either one. On the other hand he could still spend that last 8 points on Avatar this encounter, if desired.

The idea is to give them some nova capability, but keep them from blowing the same ability over and over. It also simulates the cooldown mechanic without needing to track round by round what abilities are coming available.


Were you thinking of dividing the techniques up based on levels and availability sort of like a spells known table? Or could any technique be learned at any time that you gain more techniques?


I was thinking any technique at any time. Though some techniques may cost more stamina, so taking them before you have that much stamina could make for a useless ability on your part until higher level.

[Waker]

This is pretty much how it works in the game though. You gain rage per hit based on weapon speed. I just took the weapon speed out of the equation because it's something that 3e really doesn't have an equivalent for, and it's a fiddly modifier anyway.

I know rage used to work based on some complex formula based around damage dealt, but that got canned because it was confusing and hard to balance even when you had a computer doing all the mechanical work. I don't see it working better in an environment where you don't have that advantage.
I understand, just wanted to comment on it. Like I said, seems odd to me.




Stamina is restricted per day, but a given stamina ability could be used 1/encounter.

I figured that's what you meant, just wanted you to clarify.



I was thinking any technique at any time. Though some techniques may cost more stamina, so taking them before you have that much stamina could make for a useless ability on your part until higher level.
Would certain techniques have prereqs like a certain Strength or a feat?

[Seerow]

Would certain techniques have prereqs like a certain Strength or a feat?


Generally no. Maybe a prereq of another class ability (ie mass spell reflect requires spell reflect. Possibly make Rallying Cry require Commanding Shout, and have them interact, that sort of thing), but stat prerequisites are definitely out (those are stupid in almost every incarnation I've seen them), and feat prerequisites I'd like to avoid. Maybe TWFing for some abilities, but I'm likely to just give that away for free either as a class feature, as an option (eg fighting styles), or as a proficiency (eg using the rules from the combat styles from my sig).




Fake Edit: I actually saw your post after making my last post DeepBlueDiver, I'll respond to it in the morning when I have a little more time.

[ngilop]

Oh wow. this has grown considerable since I last looked.

I have to agree with you about wow d20.. i was soo angry when in reality all it was was 90% 3.5 with different names.. nothing at all like EQ d20 where things were.. ya know EQ and not D&D..

But putting that gripe aside for now.

I love the dual resource your going with (rage and stamina) but I completely feel that there should be an ability that allows a fighter to regain his stamina, either partly or all of it. getting a second or thrid wind is well.. just too cliche to no have in my opinion.

For me, i think incorporatign the whole 'tanking' aspect is going to be the hardest thing as well so many things are immune to mind affecting stuff and im not sure how else you would plop that inot the class and it NOT be mind affecting.

I cna understand simplyfing rage, it don't have to make any more or less sense that it don't matter it that attack did 2 damage to you or 200. you still have 1 HP left and are at 100% fighting ability.

I know that you and I have seen thnigs very differenly on several occasions. but I would be honored if I could work on this with you, perhaps having a set of eyes that generally do not meet level with yours would be a boon in trying to tetris drop the peices of MMO warriors into what the fighter could completely become? who knows it might even turn out awesome:smallcool:

[Waker]

For me, i think incorporatign the whole 'tanking' aspect is going to be the hardest thing as well so many things are immune to mind affecting stuff and im not sure how else you would plop that inot the class and it NOT be mind affecting.
Well, I see a few ways you could run Taunt in this. You could make it an (Ex) Will sv along the lines of (10+1/2Fighter Levels+Cha), make it a special use of Bluff/Diplomacy/Intimidate against a DC determined by the opponent (based off HD as an example) or you could go opposed checks, say against BAB or Sense Motive. Regardless of the method used to determine it, the enemy is taunted into attacking you for a number of rounds (1d4, exceeding the checks adds extra rounds, duration determined by level/feats, whatever). If you simply tag it as (Mind-Affecting) without including (Compulsion) or some other tag you could still affect the majority of thinking creatures. If you are concerned by the inability to taunt Undead, Constructs, Plants and Oozes, you could include a feat or technique that modifies your taunt to include them in the list of allowable targets.

[ngilop]

Intimidate is how my group ran taunts actually. we had a huge debate over undead being immune. we eventually came to the conclusion that completely mindless( zombies and skeletons) and totally psychotic undead (ghouls and ghasts) were immune but the rest were not, after all youc ould stil actually get a vampire mad over insulting his mother. Its just something that I believe at least one needs mechanically. becuase basially any class with half decent spells are better than the fighter at everything, at least let the fighter taunt and draw some attention while the wizards do all the work



on a side note.
Ive been scouring over some of my well less used D20 material and I happened upon my deadlands core rulebook. the bigest suprise was I even had it :confused:

but it does have some nice thing. most notabel the Brave class basically a fighter modeled after native american warrior with a warcry as their main class ability it basically rage but on crack. and the Rowdy which is a fightere centered around ignring damage and disables

I can see enrage/frenxy being akin to what warcray gives and maybe incorporating some of the toughness of the rowdy into the more defensive abilities as well.

[mrzomby]

Giving fighters engineering as a base ability is a little strange in my opinion, maybe make it an option if they want to give up some of the "berserker rage" schtick, having an enraged 6'6 dude charge up to you, beat you over the head until you are stunned, then pull out a shotgun with laser scopes on it seems a little off. This does look sorta interesting though.

[Seerow]

I definitely think it's a good idea; I've used it for inspiriation on more than one occasion already. My first attempt at a 3.5 Fighter fix included several short term buffs or debuffs via a "battle-cry" mechanic.

Then I decided there was more stuff that I wanted melee classes besides the Fighter to have access too, and I reworked the various feat chains for weapon styles (since everyone used weapons). You can probably see the influence most heavily in the Sword 'n Board feats, which has both a taunt and a Spell-reflect feat. In my Combat Manuevers thread I also worked out an "Aggressive Fighting" option to partner with Fighting Defensively and cover the Defensive/Berserker stance dynamic.

Here's the links so you can check the mechanics I worked out, if you want to use them as a basis for you own stuff or just copy-pasta it.
Fighter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=228850)
Feats (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=267778) (you might see some of YOUR influence in a few of these :smallwink:)
Combat Manuevers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249818)

I think that the best candidates for Fighter-exclusive things to ripoffborrow would be the buffs and the mobility (particularly if you are mobile via something other than the Fast Movement). Self-healing or damage reduction kind of feals like its stepping on the Paladin or the Barbarian's toes, and the Fighter tends to wear more armor anyhow. Strikes and Control are something that I think everyone be should be able to enjoy, either as non-unique class features or feats. Ditto for the engineering, though a "Repair Equipment" feature, including magical equipment, would probably be something I could get behind.

If you take a look at any of my stuff, let me know what you think.

1) I'm pretty sure I've looked through that feat list before, I'll take a look at the fighter and maneuver list later.

2) To be clear, I'm not just looking to ripoff/borrow a few specific things. The intention is to make a full conversion. If the WoW Warrior can do it, I expect the new d20 class to be capable of doing something at the very least in the same vein, if not using the same mechanics. If that means that the new class is stepping on the toes of Fighter/Barbarian, or contains things that everyone should in theory be able to do... I'm not bothered.

As far as I'm concerned, every martial themed class in 3.5 is worth only slightly more than the paper they are printed on. If a single new class obsoletes every last one of them, I consider that a great triumph, not a failing. The point is to see just how good a WoW based class is when measured up against the real classes in the game, not trying to make a class that fits in with the other mundanes which have questionable value to start with.

3) Yeah engineering keeps coming up as a problem people have with this, but I still have yet to see anyone suggest anything that gives a fraction of the utility that is not building cool things. Also this goes back to porting a character straight from WoW, they come with 2 professions, and BS/Engineering is an extremely common Warrior combo. What I could do is make the actual class feature "Profession" and just only bother writing up BS/Engineering, so someone could theoretically fill in the blank with whatever else they want instead, if they felt like coming up with a different set of non-combat capabilities to replace it.



I have to agree with you about wow d20.. i was soo angry when in reality all it was was 90% 3.5 with different names.. nothing at all like EQ d20 where things were.. ya know EQ and not D&D..

Seriously, I actually went to GC's twitter and asked if Blizzard actually paid anyone for that. Because holy crap it was bad.


I love the dual resource your going with (rage and stamina) but I completely feel that there should be an ability that allows a fighter to regain his stamina, either partly or all of it. getting a second or thrid wind is well.. just too cliche to no have in my opinion.

I was actually thinking about tying something like that to Victory Rush. ie with Victory Rush you regain some hp and stamina at the same time. I'd have to be careful with how it works with Impending Victory, but it should be workable.

Maybe a couple other things as well, but definitely want to keep Stamina limited overall. It should feel much more like a daily resource than an encounter one.


I know that you and I have seen thnigs very differenly on several occasions. but I would be honored if I could work on this with you, perhaps having a set of eyes that generally do not meet level with yours would be a boon in trying to tetris drop the peices of MMO warriors into what the fighter could completely become? who knows it might even turn out awesome


Of course, any and all input/feedback is very helpful, especially with something that has as many moving parts as this is likely to. I'm going to try to get a first draft up by the end of the day, to give us a starting point to work with.



Taunt stuff between Ngilop and Waker

Well here's what I'm thinking: With the various mobility/control/damage capabilities of the class, they're going to be seen as a combat threat in a way that a warrior typically is not. So they will likely be a focus of enemy attention even before any special mechanics. Additionally, in WoW threat/taunts aren't actually always effective. There are untauntable bosses. There are enemies that fixate on a target and stay on them. Among other mechanics I'm probably forgetting offhand. So the tanking aspect doesn't necessarily need to be absolute.

Because of that, I'm okay with it being an (Ex) mind-affecting effect, or even a compulsion. Basically the target is compelled to treat the Warrior as the greatest threat and attack him first. The creature can make a Will save to ignore it, but doing so incurs a -4 penalty to all rolls for doing so. It won't work against most mindless creatures, but those creatures are probably going to be attacking the Warrior anyway because he's closest to them.

Make it start out as its own ability (Taunt) which then opens up followup ability options ie Mocking Blow (specific attack that acts as a taunt), Challenging Shout (AoE taunt), and Vigilance (all attacks made are treated as taunts). So someone who doesn't want to tank at all? They just ignore that set of abilities. Someone who wants to tank all the things? They go for Taunt->Mocking Blow->Vigilance. Most characters will probably end up somewhere in the middle, picking up taunt, and maybe Challenging Shout for those clutch situations where someone's about to die and you need to pull a bunch of enemies off your ally or it's game over.

[Deepbluediver]

1) I'm pretty sure I've looked through that feat list before, I'll take a look at the fighter and maneuver list later.
The point of making those weapon-style abilities as feats was so that I could give every melee class I homebrewed a bunch of bonus feats and let them pick up whatever they wanted. It wasn't intended that only a Fighter would have access to them.

The Fighter was one of my earlier attempts at homebrewing. I tried to cover different options with the Battlecries, but now I'm thinking that buffs might be better provided by Marshal-like auras, with Shouts reserved for active things (stunning, interrupts, debuffing, damage-skyrim-style, even).

The maneuver list was honestly just included as a reference for the other two. Its mostly just the core stuff tweaked a little to try and be easier to use so don't feel the need to waste time with it if that's not what you're looking for.


2) To be clear, I'm not just looking to ripoff/borrow a few specific things. The intention is to make a full conversion. If the WoW Warrior can do it, I expect the new d20 class to be capable of doing something at the very least in the same vein, if not using the same mechanics. If that means that the new class is stepping on the toes of Fighter/Barbarian, or contains things that everyone should in theory be able to do... I'm not bothered.

As far as I'm concerned, every martial themed class in 3.5 is worth only slightly more than the paper they are printed on. If a single new class obsoletes every last one of them, I consider that a great triumph, not a failing. The point is to see just how good a WoW based class is when measured up against the real classes in the game, not trying to make a class that fits in with the other mundanes which have questionable value to start with.

Ok, sure, but two things to keep in mind I think: WoW classes are a lot more balanced because there is a much more limited variety of things they can do. The squishy classes have some CC to keep melee off of them, but no one can really fly and attack at the same time, and everyone pretty much has the same range for everything.
By the same token, casters can't transform themselves into melee beasts at the flip of a switch. Not even druids, because unless you are geared and spec'd for it, a melee druid's spells aren't worth didly and a spell-druid's melee forms are as weak as a caster's.
There's no equivalent of skill points so the "Rogue" ends up as just as much of a melee class as the Warrior. There's one really crappy Mind-Control spell in the entire game, and nothing like other game-breakers: grease, genesis, shapechange, gate, etc. There's also no real need for anything related to charisma or social and knowledge skills on characters.

Before I quit playing, every melee class was getting some form of self-healing to keep up with Death Knights, and every caster was getting CC to keep up with frost mages. And everyone was getting more CC breakers to keep up with THAT.

What I'm getting at is that the game is based on an entirely different design philosophy. There're no such thing as a Tier 1 or Tier 5 WoW class, because balance has been a goal pretty much from the get go, and the versatility to a fraction of what tabletop games need.


The second thing is that WoW started out with 10 classes (I think?) and now has 12 or 13. Most classes can now fill radically different rolls because that helps the fluid nature of a MMORPG, and because there are tight limits on what they can do at any one time.
D&D started out with 11 classes and now has ~55 (base classes, not including variants) and several hundred PrCs. D&D campaigns tend to be far more static than WoW groups, and while specialization beats out generalization, it's also far easier to respecialize in WoW.
I agree that a fair number of D&D's classes are weak and overly-specialized (PrC's in particular) but think there is room for more than one melee archetype. To summarize, I don't think you need to find a way to cram the "shining knight" and "rampaging barbarian" and "cunning highwayman" all onto one chassis, which is pretty much what WoW does.


3) Yeah engineering keeps coming up as a problem people have with this, but I still have yet to see anyone suggest anything that gives a fraction of the utility that is not building cool things. Also this goes back to porting a character straight from WoW, they come with 2 professions, and BS/Engineering is an extremely common Warrior combo. What I could do is make the actual class feature "Profession" and just only bother writing up BS/Engineering, so someone could theoretically fill in the blank with whatever else they want instead, if they felt like coming up with a different set of non-combat capabilities to replace it.

I've recently been reading a web novel I found linked on this forum, about superheroes. One of the power-sets that people can get is called "Tinker", and it basically lets them create incredible inventions. The caveat, of course, is that a creator is usually the only one who can get his individual stuff to work. Some tinkers spend most of their time in a lab, but others build power armor and go around punching bad guys in the face (or stabbing them with vibro-swords or shooting disintegration rays or you get the idea).

Maybe that feels a little to much like artificer, and you'd have to work out the details for crafting to keep it limited and yet not bank-breaking, but maybe something like that might help, if you could fluff it right.

I admit that this sort of thing is not my first impression of what "fantasy" should be, but (objectively) I realize that's a weak argument at best, so I'm trying to look past my personal preferences and think of ways to make it work.

[Seerow]

What I'm getting at is that the game is based on an entirely different design philosophy. There're no such thing as a Tier 1 or Tier 5 WoW class, because balance has been a goal pretty much from the get go, and the versatility to a fraction of what tabletop games need.


I agree with this in general. And that's why I'm not setting out to convert all of the WoW classes, because doing that would end up highlighting a lot of the problems inherent in MMOs in terms of.


However, the issue isn't that MMO classes are too limited in capability. The Warrior alone accomplishes more in terms of versatility and capability than basically every non-magical class in the game (TOB included) combined. The issue is that the toolboxes in general are too similar between classes. WoW makes up for this by making sure the gameplay feels different, despite having a similar toolbox (seriously the difference between playing a Monk and a Warrior, or a Paladin, is night and day. They may have a lot of overlap between them, but their playstyle and feel are very different).

Of course those kinds of differences don't carry over as well to a tabletop environment. But luckily that doesn't matter so much when creating a single class.


The second thing is that WoW started out with 10 classes (I think?) and now has 12 or 13.

Started with 9, now has 11. But each spec is effectively a class unto itself in D&D terms, so the numbers are more like 27->34.


I agree that a fair number of D&D's classes are weak and overly-specialized (PrC's in particular) but think there is room for more than one melee archetype. To summarize, I don't think you need to find a way to cram the "shining knight" and "rampaging barbarian" and "cunning highwayman" all onto one chassis, which is pretty much what WoW does.


Here's the thing. The reason why mundanes are weak is because the breadth of what a martial character might accomplish is inherently limited. They then took that limited ability, and divided that up among a dozen classes and dozens of prestige classes.

Meanwhile, you have the Wizard who starts with the concept "It's magic" and then gets access to everything "Magic" can conceivably be. It's obvious looking at that why Mages are so much more flexible and powerful than their mundane counterparts.

If the solution to that is condensing mundanes down to a smaller number of much more flexible and capable of classes, so much the better. I'd rather have a single class that actually works than 30 that don't.

[Seerow]

Okay so first draft time. Haven't finished converting all of the abilities yet (going down the list I put in the OP I finished up through "Anti-Caster Abilities". Right now there's a little under 20 techniques, and 8 or 9 abilities listed, but I've still got a lot of stuff still to include. Right now the abilities are basically in the order of the ability list in the OP. I'll alphabetize them and make a little table when it's all done.

I do think some extra information in the Techniques/Abilities could be useful (ie a little note/column for target, weapon restrictions, saves, etc, a la spells), but what I have now will suffice for the moment.

Almost all of the numbers with regards to stamina amount and resource cost are 100% pulled out of my rear end, with only a vague idea towards balance at the moment. This pass was all about trying to get as much down into one place as I could in one sitting, with worrying about refining to be left for later.

Also worth noting, professions have no information yet simply because I didn't get that far.



The Warrior

http://wowsnatch.com/wp-content/plugins/RSSPoster_PRO/cache/74047_Warrior-450x432.jpg

The Warrior is no NPC class. Warriors come from every walk of life and every culture. They are defined by their martial prowess and skill in battle. The Warrior is a master of the martial arts, and an artisan of the battlefield. They stand head and shoulders above their foes, taking advantage of an exceptional level of mobility and control to shape the battlefield to their desires.

Warriors primarily focus on melee combat. They are adept at throwing their weapons, and can use most ranged weapons, but their abilities are almost all focused towards melee combat, which is both their strength and their passion.

Hit Die: d12
Alignment: Any
Skill Points: 4+int mod per level, x4 at first level.
Class Skills: Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (History), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str)

Table: The Warrior

Level Base Attack Bonus Fort Ref Will Special Techniques Stamina
1 +1 +2 +0 +0 Intercept, Rage, Stamina Ability, Profession 3 3
2 +2 +3 +0 +0 - 4 4
3 +3 +3 +1 +1 - 5 5
4 +4 +4 +1 +1 Stamina Ability 6 7
5 +5 +4 +1 +1 Warbringer 7 9
6 +6/+1 +5 +2 +2 Second Profession 8 12
7 +7/+2 +5 +2 +2 Stamina Ability 9 15
8 +8/+3 +6 +2 +2 Armor Specialization 10 19
9 +9/+4 +6 +3 +3 Intervene 11 23
10 +10/+5 +7 +3 +3 Stamina Ability 12 28
11 +11/+6/+1 +7 +3 +3 - 13 33
12 +12/+7/+2 +8 +4 +4 - 14 39
13 +13/+8/+3 +8 +4 +4 Heroic Leap, Stamina Ability 15 45
14 +14/+9/+4 +9 +4 +4 - 16 52
15 +15/+10/+5 +9 +5 +5 - 17 59
16 +16/+11/+6/+1 +10 +5 +5 Stamina Ability 18 67
17 +17/+12/+7/+2 +10 +5 +5 - 19 75
18 +18/+13/+8/+3 +11 +6 +6 - 20 84
19 +19/+14/+9/+4 +11 +6 +6 Stamina Ability 21 93
20 +20/+15/+10/+5 +12 +6 +6 - 22 103


Class Features
All of the following are class features of the Warrior

Weapon and Armor proficiency
A Warrior is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, and with all armor (heavy, medium, and light) and shields (including tower shields).

Rage (Ex)
Warriors use Rage to fuel a number of their abilities. Rage starts at 0 at the beginning of a combat situation. Any time the Warrior hits a target, they gain 10 rage; if the Warrior misses the attack, they only gain 5 rage instead. The Warrior additionally gains 5 rage any time he takes at least one point of damage. Some abilities may also generate rage. A Warrior may not have more than 100 rage.

Warrior Techniques
Warriors gain a number of techniques as they grow in level, as indicated on the table. A Warrior starts with 3 techniques at level 1. Most of these techniques are abilities that may be used frequently, and most either generate or consume rage when used. Some techniques, rather than providing an entirely new ability, may modify other already known techniques. The description of these techniques, and what each does, may be found below.

Intercept(Ex)
A First level Warrior starts play with the Intercept ability. This allows the character to, as a move action, move up to twice his move speed without provoking any attacks of opportunity, as long as he ends his movement adjacent to an opponent. Using Intercept generates 20 points of rage. This ability may not be used on two consecutive turns.

Stamina Ability
Even the most stalwart Warrior has his limits. Certain abilities push the Warrior's capability to its limits, and have a limited amount of daily use. These abilities use Stamina. The amount of Stamina a Warrior has each day is shown on the class table. Stamina Abilities each have a cost that is subtracted from the Warrior's stamina when used. Additionally, a given Stamina ability may only be used once per encounter (though the Warrior may use the same stamina ability multiple times in different encounters, or multiple different stamina abilities in the same encounter). For this purpose, any time in which the Warrior has not attacked an enemy or been attacked by an enemy for 5 minutes counts as an encounter having ended.

The Warrior begins play with a single stamina ability. Every 3 levels after first (4th, 7th, etc) the Warrior gains access to one additional stamina ability. You can see a list of the various Stamina abilities, and their costs, below.

Profession
The Warrior, in addition to his combat prowess, maintains useful out of combat skills, represented as a profession. A profession represents a group of skills and capabilities that the Warrior has trained and has access to. The Warrior starts play with one profession, and gains access to a second profession at level 6.

Designer Note
For the purposes of this project, I am supplying only two sample professions. However, these may be swapped out for any other profession that the DM deems appropriate. The two included professions (detailed below) are Blacksmithing and Engineering. Other professions that could be considered appropriate might include General/Noble/Leader, Hunter/Tracker/Survivalist, Beast Tamer/Trainer, Dungeoneer/Architect/Siege Expert, and so on. The profession should primarily provide things that the Warrior can do out of combat, with a focus on providing useful utility to a group, even at high levels. The professions can (and probably should) be able to provide a minor boost to combat capability, but nothing that overshadows or replaces the core capabilities of the class.

Warbringer (Ex)
Your Intercept ability may now be used as a swift action. When used as a Move action, you can move three times your movement speed, and you may make a trip attempt against the opponent as a free action. You may now use Intercept once per round, rather than once every other round.

Armor Specialization(Ex)
Your Armor acts as a second skin to you. You can ignore 1 point of ACP per 2 Warrior levels you possess, and ignore any movement penalties that your armor would normally incur.

Intervene(Ex)
As an immediate action, you can move up to twice your movement speed to move adjacent to an ally. If you use this ability as a reaction to that ally being attacked, you become the target of that attack.

Heroic Leap (Ex)
You can spend 20 rage to enhance a jump check you make. You are treated as running even if you are at a stand still. You gain a competence bonus to the check equal to twice your Warrior level, and you can multiple the result of your roll by x4 for either the height or distance, you choose which at the time you use this ability. You may use this ability to jump as a swift action, but you do not get the competence bonus to the roll, and only gain a x2 multiplier to the roll. In either case, when you land, you deal 1d6+str mod damage per 3 levels to all creatures within a 20ft radius of you.





Notes
Nonstandard Action Types
Attack: An Attack Action is an attack that may be used in place of a normal attack during a full attack routine.
Strike: A Strike action is a standard action that deals 1[W] additional damage for every 5 points of BAB the Warrior possesses. For example, a level 20 Warrior using a Greatsword for a Strike would deal 10d6+mods rather than 2d6+mods.

These have been codified to avoid having to write out a very similar 1-2 lines on many powers.

Saving Throws: All saving throws caused by a Technique or Stamina Ability are DC10+1/2 Warrior Level+Strength Modifier.


Warrior Techniques

Heroic Strike
Action: Free
Prerequisite: None
Rage: 30
Benefit: You can use this ability as a free action to add 1[W] damage to any weapon based attack.

Safeguard
Action: Swift
Prerequisites: None
Rage: Costs 10
Benefit: Using this ability immediately ends the effects of any immobilize or slow effect currently affecting you.

Commanding Shout
Action: Standard
Prerequisites: None
Rage: Gain 20
Benefit: You and all allies gain a +4 morale bonus to constitution for 5 minutes.


Battle Shout
Action: Standard
Prerequisites: None
Rage: Gain 20
Benefit: You and all allies gain a morale bonus to hit and damage equal to 1/4th your Warrior level (round up) for 5 minutes.


Demoralizing Shout
Action: Swift
Prerequisite: None
Rage: Costs 10
Benefit: You apply a penalty to all enemy attack and damage rolls equal to 1/4th your Warrior level (round up) for 5 minutes.


Hit the Ground Running
Action: Special
Prerequisite: Heroic Leap
Rage: n/a
Benefit: When you use Heroic Leap, you gain a +30ft morale bonus to your base movement speed until the end of your next round.


Sunder Armor
Action: Attack
Prerquisite: None
Rage: Costs 10
Benefit: When you hit a target, you may give up the damage you would normally deal to instead reduce their AC by 2 points, to a maximum of their armor value. This ability may be used multiple times against the same opponent, its effects stack.

Shield Other
Action: Swift
Prerequisite: None
Rage: Costs 20
Benefit: Select one ally you can see. Until the end of your next turn, any damage that ally takes is reduced by 50%. You take the other half of this damage.

Mortal Strike
Action: Strike
Prerequisite: None
Rage: Costs 10
Benefit: You make a strike that mauls the target. Until the end of the encounter, the target has any healing received reduced by twice your Warrior level, and takes your strength modifier in damage at the start of their turn (The target or an adjacent ally may use a full round action to make a heal check DC20 to end this effect).


Storm Bolt
Action: Strike
Prerequisite: None
Rage: Costs 30
Benefit: You throw a weapon at the target. If it hits, the target must make a Fort Save, or be stunned for 1 round. If the target is immune to Stuns, this attack has it's damage tripled.


Taunt
Action: Swift
Prerequisite: None
Rage: None
Benefit: Select one enemy that can see or hear you. This enemy is affected by a Compulsion to treat the Warrior as the greatest threat on the field until the end of the encounter. This means the target will make every effort to take down the Warrior quickly, focusing attacks primarily on him. The enemy may make a Will Save to ignore this effect and act normally, however even if they succeed, any actions taken have a -4 penalty.

Mocking Blow
Action: Attack
Prerequisite: Taunt
Rage: Costs 15
Benefit: When you attack an enemy with Mocking Blow, you deal your normal attack damage, but treat the enemy as though they have been affected by Taunt.

Challenging Shout
Action: Swift
Prerequisite: Taunt
Rage: Costs 10
Benefit: You taunt all enemies within 30ft of you.

Vigilance
Action: n/a
Prerequisite: Mocking Blow
Rage: n/a
Benefit: All enemies you attack are automatically affected by your taunt ability.

Hamstring
Action: Attack
Prerequisite: None
Rage: Costs 10
Benefit: You deal only strength modifier in damage with your attack, but the target has its movement speed reduced by 15ft.


Pummel
Action: Immediate
Prerequisite: None
Rage: Costs 10
Benefit: You can use this ability when an enemy adjacent to you attempts to cast defensively. You disrupt the cast, causing the spell to fail. The caster is unable to cast another spell of the same school as the spell that was interrupted until the end of his next turn.


Heroic Throw
Action: Strike
Prerequisite: None
Rage: Costs 20
Benefit: You throw a weapon at a creature within 60ft. If it hits, the target must make a Will Save or be unable to cast any spells until the end of your next turn.

Spell Reflect
Action: Immediate
Prerequisite: None
Rage: Costs 20
Benefit: When a caster targets you with a spell, you may use this ability. You make an attack roll against an AC equal to 10+the spell's level+the caster's casting mod, if you hit, you the spell has no effect against you, and the spell is reflected back to the caster. The caster is affected by the spell as though he were the original target.


Shield Slam
Action: Standard
Rage: Costs 20
Benefit: This ability may only be used while wearing a shield. You bash the target with your shield, dealing 1d12 points of damage for every 3 Warrior levels you possess. The target of your Shield Slam ability is treated as though hit by a Targeted Dispel Magic (treat your Warrior level as your caster level for this)



Stamina Abilities

Rallying Cry
Action: Swift
Prerequisites: Commanding Shout
Stamina Cost: 2
Benefit: The benefit of Commanding Shout is doubled until the end of your next turn.

War Cry
Action: Swift
Prerequisites: Battle Shout
Stamina Cost: 3
Benefit: Increase the critical strike multiplier of you and all of your allies by 1 until the end of your next turn.

Intimidating Shout
Action: Swift
Prerequisite: None
Stamina Cost: 7
Benefit: When you use this ability, all enemies within 30ft must make a Will Saving throw. Any enemy that fails this saving throw becomes panicked for 1d6 rounds, and remains shakened afterwards for the remainder of the encounter. A creature that succeeds on the saving throw is still shakened. Any enemy that can hear the Warrior but is outside the 30ft range must make a Will save (same DC) or become Shakened for 3 rounds.

Shockwave
Action: Standard
Prerequisite: None
Stamina Cost: 15
Benefit: You create a shockwave in a 40ft cone in front of you, dealing 1d6 damage per warrior level plus strength modifier to all enemies in the cone, reflex save for half damage. Any enemy that fails their save is also stunned for one round.

Dragon's Roar
Action: Standard
Prerequisite: None
Stamina Cost: 7
Benefit: You let out a deafening roar that deals Strength Mod damage per 2 warriors levels (so a level 8 Warrior with 20 strength would deal 20 points of damage) to all enemies within 10ft of you. All affected enemies make a Fort Save or be knocked back 10ft.

Improved Disarm
Action: Attack
Prerequisite: None
Stamina Cost: 7
Benefit: You can make a disarm attempt without provoking an attack of opportunity that automatically succeeds. You may use this on a target with natural weapons, reducing their natural weapon damage to 1d3 (for a medium creature. Scale up or down for size as necessary) until the end of the encounter.

Disrupting Shout
Action: Standard or Immediate
Prerequisite: None
Stamina Cost: 7
Benefit: You shout, disrupting the spellcasting of any enemy within 30ft of you until the end of your next turn.

Mass Spell Reflect
Action: Immediate
Prerequisite: None
Stamina Cost: 15
Benefit: You can use this ability to use Spell Reflect even if the spell is not targetting you. If the reflected spell is an Area spell, it is treated as though centered on the caster of the spell.

Shattering Throw
Action: Strike
Prerequisite: Heroic Throw
Stamina Cost: 15
Benefit: You throw a weapon with shattering force, dealing twice the normal damage you would deal with a Strike. This attack automatically dispels any Abjuration Spells on the target, and can be used to break Force effects such as Forcecage and Wall of Force. If used on a mundane barrier, this attack ignores Hardness and deals double its normal damage.



Professions
Blacksmithing
Surprise! Nothing here yet


Engineering
Just kidding, nothing here either

[Just to Browse]

My immediate suspicion is that, without prerequisites on abilities, powers will not be level-appropriate and you'll have crappy ones that used to be awesome the higher-level you get and/or you'll have broken powers at lower levels.

Shield Other is a little weird because there's little justification for how you defend the ally (I know, I know, it's a video game thing, but still it's weird). And Commanding Shout is like the awesomest thing in the world--I can see people banning the class outright just by looking at that, despite the fact that it's like 2*lvl HP and +2 Fort.

[ngilop]

I think the sheild other ability should be adjacent only. while the actual WoW ability does this. it just translates not so good in D&D, how cna you take half the damage of somebody that is 100 feet away and just hit by a polar ray for example.

I like what you have so far. give me a couple of days to see what all my warriors have and add some abilities and imgaine how they would best be translated to table top land.

[gooddragon1]

Okay, I know it's basically blasphemy to mention WoW or any MMO as something to do with a tabletop game. After all, 4e got all sorts of criticisms for being too MMO-ish. But in my opinion, they were nothing close to an MMO, and a game that took a much closer look at what makes MMOs popular/interesting might have produced a better game.

Firstly:
I was one of the most fervent (if not trolling) detractors of 4e on the WotC forums when it was being released.

Don't unspoiler if you don't like people who don't like 4e.
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d12/gooddragon1/psi.png

However:
Taking ideas from any mmo or WoW or whatever is perfectly fine. It's when you base the WHOLE system around it and make every class use the same mechanics of at will/per encounter/per day that it becomes a problem. That mechanic would be fine for a seperate class or group of classes but not a whole system. The fact that it removed a lot of flexibility was the problem.