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Yakk
2006-12-28, 12:54 PM
The Style Fighter

This is a varient Fighter class. It is more powerful than the core Fighter class, but the core of the change comes from the addition of Styles.

Each Style is a set of feats designed to work together. The Fighter can switch between these feats at a modest cost during battle (move or standard action at low level, up to 4 times/day as a Swift action at higher levels).

Many of other the ideas where lifted from http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30383

This Fighter has enhanced versitility from the Style system, and more special abilities.

In addition, I stuffed the class full of special abilities starting at L 16, to encourage "going all the way" with a core class rather than the obligatory prestige classing.

Hit Dice: d10
Saves: Good Foritude (plus see Fighter's Saves)
Skill points: 4+int (x4 at L 1)
Class skills: Climb, Craft, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Jump, Ride, Swim, Spot, Survival, Knowledge(local)

Class abilities by level:
L 1: Two Styles, Bonus Style Feat, Weapon Aptitude
L 2: Bonus Style Feat, Fighter's Saves(+1)
L 3: 3rd Style, Learning Ease(1)
L 4: Weapon Specialization
L 5: Bonus Style Feat, Swift Style 1/day
L 6: Armor Specialization, 4th Style
L 7: Bonus Core Feat
L 8: Bonus Style Feat, Fighter's Saves(+2)
L 9: Do What It Takes 1/Battle
L 10: Armored Mobility, Swift Style 2/day, 5th Style
L 11: Bonus Style Feat, Learning Ease(2)
L 12: Greater Weapon Specialization
L 13: Bonus Core Feat
L 14: Bonus Style Feat, Fighter's Saves(+3)
L 15: Greater Armor Specialization, Swift Style 3/day, 6th Style
L 16: Do What It Takes 2/Battle, Fighter's Might
L 17: Bonus Style Feat, Fighter's Toughness
L 18: Fighter's Luck
L 19: Learning Ease(3), Bonus Core Feat, Fighter's Cunning
L 20: Bonus Style Feat, Swift Style 4/day, Fighter's Training

Class ability descriptions:
Styles:
Each stance has a pool of feats in it. A fighter can only have one stance active at any one time. Styles can be changed between with a Standard Action or a Move-Equivilent action.

New Styles start out identical to an existing Style, with one Feat changed.

Every Fighter level, a fighter may pick one feat from one stance and swap it for a different one.

As the Fighter gains levels, more and more of her feats are Style feats. By L 20, each stance has 8 feats in it, and the Fighter has 6 stances.

All Feats in a Style must always meet prerequisits either from Core feats, or from other feats in the Style. Core feats are feats that are not part of any stance.

A Fighter is always considered to be in one stance or another.

Bonus Style Feats:
These are a feat that can be added to each and every stance the Fighter has. A different feat may be picked for different stances.

A Fighter gains a Style Feat at L 1, 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20. A Fighter picks her Style Feats from the Fighter Bonus Feat List.

Fighter's Saves:
A Fighter gains +1 to Will and Reflex saves at L 2. This bonus increases at L 8/14 to +2/+3. (alternatively, you can simply use the medium progression for Will and Reflex saves)

Learning Ease:
Starting at L 3, the Fighter may add 1 to his mental stats, and 2 to his physical stats, for the purpose of qualifying for a feat. Cha, Wis and Int are mental, and Str Dex and Con are physical.

This increases to +2/+4 at L 11 and +3/+6 at L 19

Weapon Specialization:
At 4th level, the Fighter is considered to have Weapon Specialization for any weapon she has Weapon Focus for.

Swift Style Change:
Starting at 5th level the Fighter may change between Styles as a Swift action 1/day. At 10th, 15th and 20th level, the Fighter can do a Swift Style Change 2, 3 and 4 times per day.

Bonus Core Feats:
These are non-stance feats the fighter gains. These feats are always active. A fighter gains a bonus Core Feat from the Fighter Feat List at L 7, 13 and 19.

Armor Specialization:
At L 7, a Fighter gets a bonus Armor Specialization or Shield Specialization feat for each Style. This grants +1 AC while wearing that Armor or Shield, and reduces the Armor Check Penalty by -1.

The Fighter may spend 1 hour practicing a stance in new armor or with a new kind of shield to change the category for a particular stance.

Do What It Takes:
Starting at L 9, once per Battle, the Fighter simply wins a save, is missed, or hits their target. This ability must be used before the die is rolled. If Do What It Takes is used for a hit, the Fighter may roll to Threaten a Crit -- if the Crit is Threatened, it is automatically confirmed.

This ability can be used 2/Battle starting at L 16.

Do What It Takes cannot be used if the hit/save/miss would be impossible, even with a natural 20 or 1 on a d20 -- in that case, the ability is not used up. It only guarantees success from one roll.

Armor Mobility:
At L 10, armor no longer reduces the Fighter's movement speed.

Greater Weapon Specialization:
At 12th level, the Fighter is considered to have Greater Weapon Specialization for any weapon she has Greater Weapon Focus for.

Greater Armor Specialization:
At L 15, the Fighter's free Armor/Shield Specialization in each Style is upgraded to a Greater Armor/Shield Specialization. This increases AC by +2 and reduces Armor Check Penalty by -2.

Fighter's Might:
At L 16, the Fighter may add 2d20 damage to any one hit per battle. The use of Fighter's Might can be decided after the weapon is hit, but before damage is rolled. This is not considered precision damage, but it is bonus damage dice.

Fighter's Toughness:
At L 17, the Fighter is granted 10+Con Bonus temporary HP after a 6 hour rest (use the lowest Con bonus over those 6 hours if the fighter's stats vary). These temporary HP last for up to 48 hours, or until the Fighter replaces them by resting again, whichever comes first.

Fighter's Luck:
At L 18, the Fighter may add one of their physical stat's Bonus to all of their saves. (Str, Dex or Con)

Fighter's Cunning:
At L 19, the Fighter gains a +10 circumstance bonus to mental skill checks used in the heat of battle for combat-related purposes. Ie, sense motivation to detect a feint, bluff to perform a fient, etc.

Fighter's Training:
At L 20, the Fighter gains +2 to Strength, Dexterity and Constitution, from a lifetime of training.

Edit:

At L 20, this fighter has 8 Fighter Bonus Feats per style and 3 core Fighter Bonus Feats, the same as an existing fighter. Except this fighter has 6 styles to choose from. By L 20, all 6 styles can be completely different (the fighter has enough levels to pull this off) with no overlap between them.

On top of this, this Fighter gains Spec. in an Armor and Weapon (if the Fighter buys weapon focus) for free, and a large boost in saves.

On top of this, the Fighter can buy feats slighly beyond his stats (+3 for mental, +6 for physical), has a few per day abilities (temp. HP, swift style changes), some per battle abilities (+2d20 damage 1/battle, and hit, save or dodge 2/battle).

Lastly, combat skills like bluff and sense motive are boosted to a high level, and all of the fighter's physical stats are boosted by 2.

Valairn
2006-12-28, 01:56 PM
I like this, even though I have a feeling it might be too good. Then again, compared to metacheese, druidzilla, or any wizard, I don't think anything can be too good.

Roderick_BR
2006-12-28, 05:41 PM
I like how you did many things here. The Weapon Specialization as a class feature instead of a feat is interesting. I just think some things are a bit too much. Permanent +2 to all physical stats at level 20? Too much. Even a monk's 20th level powers can be countered easily.
Personally, I like the style system, allowing you to get more feats than normal. So I can at the same time get dodge, and mobility, and two-weapon fighting and Initiative, being able to switch from one to the other. Nice. If you make only 2 or 3 styles, you can allow the fighter to change styles how many times he want. Make it one full round to make it even.
The Learning Ease it a nice touch.
Personally I think the Weapon Apititude is stupid. Anything from Warblade is overpowered and unbalanced. Since you have Weapon Specialization for all weapons with focus, you dont need to worry much with changing weapons now.
I'm kinda split about the Armored Mobility and the Armor Specialization Feats.
Fighter's Might, Toughness, and Luck are a bit too much. The Cunning one doesnt seem very useful, other than feinting or jumping/climbing.
Do what it takes seems a bit too powerful to me. If it were to re-roll results, it would be better.
Keep the styles, Learning Ease (only the first level sounds good), the Specializations, and add something else in higher level, and it will be good. Otherwise, the higher levels will be some sort of automatic Prestige Class.

Yakk
2006-12-28, 09:14 PM
I am not comparing this class to a Monk's 20th level abilities. I'm comparing it to "cast time stop 4 times per day" of the Wizard.

Fighter's Might is an average of an extra 20 damage per battle, that can't be boosted via crits, and that has a high variance (ie, isn't reliable). It looks more impresive than it is.

Toughness is an extra 10 to 25 HP per day of healing and/or damage that doesn't need to be healed. To put this in scale, it is at least 10 times weaker than the Paladin lay on hands ability, and is self-only.

Luck is about as strong at a L 3 Paladin ability (adding cha to saves), but is a L 18 ability. L 18 was chosen to avoid a character from being able to get both without going to epic levels.

Cunning lets you have a non-crippled sense motive in combat. It doesn't work on jumping/climbing, because they are not mental skills. It is the weakest of the "Fighter's X" abilities, I agree.

And yes, higher levels are a kind of automatic Prestige class. Prestigue classes should be powerful because they are higher level to start with, not because core classes are bad. Others disagree.


Personally I think the Weapon Apititude is stupid. Anything from Warblade is overpowered and unbalanced. Since you have Weapon Specialization for all weapons with focus, you dont need to worry much with changing weapons now.

Weapon Focus/Spec means that each Style is tied to a particular type of weapon. Practically, in a world where you can custom-order magic weapons and/or where the GM custom-builds magic items for them, the disadvantage of Focus is that you can't pick up a weapon from a bad guy and use it immediately.

The Move/Standard cost for switching Styles means you can swap weapons and change styles, do a single attack and change styles, or run towards an enemy and change styles.

This fighter is meant to be adaptable above all else. Multiple styles, and the ability to adjust a style for a different weapon, add to this.

Learning Ease at higher levels isn't all it is cracked up to be. By that point you will have built your character to a large extent. All it means is that stat hard-caps become soft.

Do What It Takes is very powerful -- but it will probably be horded. It means a fighter cannot be killed by a single save-or-die effect, or the fighter can do something quite impressive. I am tempted to change it to a per-day ability.