Versatility for Fighters - Just an experiment

[Segev]

So, part of what makes casters as powerful as they are is the sheer number of options they have. In particular, Wizards and Clerics and Druids (and many other prepped casters) not only can pick a fair number of options at any one point in time, but they can change their load-out.

I'm not generally a fan of cribbing spellcasting mechanics for non-casters, and that's probably why the ToB material, while workable, still feels a touch "off" to me. (Not so badly off that I don't think it has a place, however. It just doesn't fill all the "non-caster" need, to me, in terms of flavor and feel.) However, if the Wizard is the iconic caster and the Fighter is the iconic ... well, fighting-man, perhaps the fighter needs just a little bit more of the same concept: the ability to turn his highly-trained techniques to the specific problem at hand, and a mastery of multiple fighting styles for use in multiple situations.

So, proposed: The Technique Repertoire.


A fighter trains in many different techniques. At each level of Fighter, he selects two "fighter bonus feats" to add to that repertoire. Any time he has had at least four hours of rest (equivalent to what a wizard needs 8 hours for to recover before he can prepare spells), a fighter may spend an hour practicing his techniques, readying himself for a particular unique style.

A fighter can form his style from one feat in his repertoire at level 1, and may add another at every even-numbered Fighter level, as indicated in the Fighter class level table. He must meet the prerequisites for any feats he selects, whether from other feats in his style for the day or from feats he knows naturally or from another source. If he ceases to meet the prerequisite for any feat he knows as part of his style selections, he cannot use that feat until he gains its prerequisites back again.

Joint Training


A 5th level fighter can share his secrets with others who are similarly trained. When multiple fighters spend the hour of training necessary to set their styles working together, they may share their repertoires, allowing each other to pick up on their techniques for the next 24 hours. After that time, if they do not train with a fighter who has any 'borrowed' feats in their repertoire, they lose access to those feats they borrowed.

Drill Sergeant


A 10th level fighter can spend an extra half hour in order to include those without fighter bonus feats in his training regimen. He may have as many trainees as he has fighter levels, and may train them as if they had bonus feats as a fighter of ten fewer levels (minimum one bonus feat).

He may grant other fighters these additional feats, as well, rather than having them consume their own bonus feat slots, but it can only be from his repertoire, not from theirs. There is also no requirement that the Fighter take the feats in which he trains others as his own style for the day.

This would make fighters working together get terrifying at higher levels, as well as allow a single fighter to really bolster the prowess of his whole team as they level up. It still isn't spellcasting, of course, but I'm hoping it might move them to a much more versatile place. Also makes fighters with Leadership able to really bolster his cohorts and followers.

The reason for the limited repertoire of 2 feats per fighter level is so that not every fighter feels "samey." Clerics and druids somewhat fall victim to this already due to having the same broad spell list, and Clerics try to combat it via Domains. It doesn't hurt their power or versatility, but I think the wizard's spellbook does something to make wizards feel...unique...to an extent. I hope to capture that with this.

I am picturing having additional ways to add feats to the repertoire, whether semi-permanently or just on a daily basis. Training dummies or perhaps even spending gp or xp on feats trained at dojos or swordsman schools...

Kinda rough, there, though.

[Galvin]

This can make an interesting fix for fighters... though I'm not sure about it. Personally, I think that fighters are broken beyond repair. Fighters are just a screw up. WOTC just really f***ed up when they made fighters. People should stop trying to fix the fighter.

While this can make a group of 10 20th level fighters get practically all the feats in the book, they are still confronted with the problem that feat chains are not balanced for someone that relies so much on them. The problem with them are that with a fighter, you can do the same things you can with your 6th level feat slot that you can do with your 20th level slot. The highest feat chain in the PHB is probably Whirlwind Attack.

This gives large amounts of fighters extra power, but remember this is nothing compared to that of a single Wizard or Cleric.

I think Tome of Battle comes as close as you can to breaching the gap between the melee and the caster. Tome of Battle makes melees fun to play. I always play melee for some reason, and I use ToB to actually make that option viable.

Overall, nice effort, but even 100 of fighters with this rule can never, ever match the power of a dedicated high level wizard.

[Segev]

It's not JUST that it gives more fighters more power. It also lets a fighter get a lot tougher for specific circumstances. Not as nicely as a wizard, no, but that niche feat suite that was only good in specific situations? You can have the feats lying around waiting to be used when those situations come up.

But no, it's not going to catch up to the Cleric or the Wizard just yet. Glad it sounds like a start, though.

[Maginomicon]

You want versatility? Let Fighters get the heroics spell self-targeting as an SLA 1/hour (CL 3). (not per day, per hour). Then they can mix up what they're capable of each combat.

[Eldariel]

I like the idea, though I feel it's a bit hard to implement in the system. The way I see I can find 3 separate archetypes for non-caster "out of combat" contribution capability:

1) The Leader: Someone with an exceptional ability to inspire masses, talk, appeal to crowds, make others exceed themselves and so on. Bard except not magic.

2) The Skilled: A true jack-of-all-trades (or indeed, master), quite (or supernaturally so) skilled in extremely many different things, creative and always able to find something that would help in the given task.

3) The Physical: Extremely strong, agile, capable of contributing in many things simply due to his physical prowess. Splitting rocks, doing extraordinary amounts of work in any physical labor, jumping chasms, etc.


The way I see it, most naturally Barbarian would be Physical, Rogue/Ranger cover Skilled and the natural out-of-combat role for Fighter/Pally is Leader. Of course, all this suggests class features that enhance these abilities beyond the raw skills.

Importantly, non-casters should also always get more skillpoints than their caster counterparts, usually significantly so too. After all, skills are still the primary out-of-combat contribution for anyone without spells and the classes with spells certainly shouldn't be better at it than the non-casters.

I definitely like this as the Fighter Leader idea; share feats, maybe even BAB or so with underlings/people you train, temporarily but while they work under you. Add to that social aspects to the Fighter and skillpoints to match and we're talking.

It does make me worry for the "lone swordsman"-archetype but when I think about it, that archetype tends to actually be a really good teacher and really charismatic but opt not to use the abilities so it works out okay.

[lsfreak]

I think the biggest problem is that there's simply not many feats that are equivalent to higher-level effects. So you'll be versatile, but it's still primarily versatility limited to 6th- or 8th-level-equivalent effects. I mean, except Zhentarim fighters and throwing Robilar's Gambit in at 12th for MOAR of whatever you're doing, the core of a build is usually complete in the 6th-8th level range. The other issue is that a given build is useful in several situations, while a given spell is too, and between the two of those one requires a great deal more investment. While a caster can easily prepare web, haste, charm, and fly to cover a huge variety of possible encounters, the fighter is still limited to a small number of actions which are only useful in a certain kind of situation.

Now, the majority of campaigns, I'd wager, stop around 12th level, so having three full 8th-level builds wrapped into one, plus some other toys, is still probably going to be a significant boost in usefulness in 80% of practical play.

[DMVerdandi]

But what if he is alone?
What if the fighter was a hermit in a forest, training alone perfecting fighting techniques out of a training manual?

That is when all that (I am not playing an individual, but a unit) jazz goes right out of the window. It doesn't fit thematically with every fighter that could ever be. Now, if this was a Soldier, then that would make sense, as formation fighting and teamwork would be apart of his natural curriculum. Not so with a fighter.

What I think, is that the fighter should be like a wizard. And TOB did something cool with that idea. By being like a wizard, I mean inherently having access to many different styles of techniques, that are not listed on something for everyone, but on lists for themselves. Not feats. Feats are something everyone can do.

Just as you cannot gain rage from feats, or spellcasting, one should not be able to gain techniques from feats either.
I am straying from my original idea though, so let me come back. Classes like the barbarian and rogue should not really have been. Are they not fighters as well?


The perfect fighter is not different from these guys, but an amalgamation.
Think about it. What should a fighter be. Not only a master at weapons, BUT an outstanding physical specimen.

Without looking at TOB, ideally, a fighter would have had a bonus to speed, DR, AC, and a rage like technique. I think that barbarian is not even a good idea for a class, since they too are fighters from a different culture. The DND barbarian is trying to reproduce the berserker, but really, what soldier has not been berserk a time or two?




The Ferocity rage variant IMO works wonders for what would be my ideal fighter's primary ability. It's not rage, but a more focused, sharp, and concentrated application of one's energy. Less wild, more direct.
It is perhaps better to allow all of the rages and their variants to be accessible,however, as versatility is what makes the fighter in the first place.

Take that, allow rage feats to be fighter bonus feats, give fighter DR1-/per level,monk speed, and the ability to change out one fighter feat per day with a fighter's manual or in an uninterrupted week; give him 6 skill points per level, and suddenly, we have ourselves what we were looking for.


THAT is a fighter.
Works in all settings, as fighters IRL are trained to perform BETTER under pressure, and in a "flow-like fugue state", are trained to ignore pain, have excellent stamina and endurance, and often add new techniques to their repetior on the fly.


Adding class variant options would of course make it better.


For a less complex fix, directly mix fighter and barbarian as one class. same overall effect.

[Segev]

This is just one thing I'm exploring, so I'm actually encouraged that the criticism is, "this only covers one area; what about these others?"

Feats definitely need a beefing up. This is true in general, but particularly for the "combat" feats that are the fighter's bread-and-butter. Yes, wizards et al can take them, especially through Heroics, but Heroics is usually better-spent on the fighter anyway, and wizards just don't have enough feats to spend on them to make them anything but a wizard pretending to be a fighter if they want to go that way. As-is, we have fighter-types splashing into magic to get themselves closer to par. If we get fighter toys to the level mages start splashing them, we've gotten closer to where we want to be.

The "lone swordsman" archetype can use this, too, by the by. He can't use his "train others" tools, but he still has twice his level in Fighter Feats to choose from when setting up his "build" for the day's Fighter Bonus Feats.

I do see need for some extra tools, or an ACF to replace "train others." I'll be pondering that.

[Maginomicon]

I do see need for some extra tools, or an ACF to replace "train others." I'll be pondering that.
You may want to look at the Fighter variants referenced here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AojdoKCdOXqNdFdyZFg1UEl5dDZHZURJVE1CRVdRU EE&usp=sharing) in the "Comprehensive Player Base Classes" sheet.