[PF] Pushing fighter combo to T3

[Spore]

Greetings playground,

I have longed for a good fighter build for several months now. I dislike the fact that straight fighters are not capable outside of combat but I have done a bit of fiddling around and ask myself:

Why don't I combo the everliving snot out of fighters and use their strongpoint - the extra feats - to cover for the weaknesses? Most people play their fighter to an almost religious extent as "damage dealers". Now my proposition might sound blasphemous in the ears of optimizers but why don't you take your non combat feats and invest them into skill boosts, supernatural abilities and utility?

Your big stick won't hit for a gazillion damage, your HP won't exceed triple digits but one thing is for sure. You will be useful out of combat and will often be able to circumvent bashing your face into a giant monster. you can't stay completely mundane, and a bit of WBLmancy has to be done here and there but a am confident that a fighter can hold his own.

0) Be Human. You need skill points, and humans provide them. You can use the bonus feat for Human Spirit for HP AND hitpoints for favored class. There you go. If you want to create a multiclass fighter half elf multi talented plus human spirit should be more useful. You will be using up your skill focus feat on humans anyway.

1) Favored class bonus in skill points. Yes it is true that you can't ever have enough HP. But you have the worst skill point modifier and the second best base HP modifier. Also Toughness is ONE feat, and Human Spirit is a great idea for the bonus feat for humans anyway.

2) Decent Int: Easier in high point buy games than in low ones but keep in mind that a fighter is about as MAD as a Monk. Str and Con. If you can get 12, great, if you can manage 14 (only 25 point), even better.

3) Don't be the face. As tempting as it is, being the face of the group rids you of your ONE dump stat. You need Str to hit, Dex for AC, Con for HP, Int for skill points and Wis to cover for your poor will save. Being the grumpy fighter can still be fun. No one says you can't be the leader. You are just not very charming.

4) Find a simple - as in cheap on feats - fighting style. Twohanded Weapons is great, as is Sword and Board without TWFing. But you are a master of weapons why don't you just get both? Get Power Attack, Furious Focus and Cleave and utilize your shield whenever you need it. If you combine antagonize, high Intimidate ranks and Intimidating Prowess, even your poor Cha won't matter that much. However, using Antagonize is an standard action and will net in some physical hits. So if you go to ask an troll to kindly bash in your face, please do so protected.

5) Have someone cover for damage. All in all your job in fights is still to deal more damage than the enemy. However this is turnbased strategy and you're no MMO dps class. So it's fine to use a shield and distract the enemy. It is seldom that your group consists of minmaxing people who are a wizard, a clericzilla and the unfortunate being that chose the wanna be npc class rogue. So jobs aren't that clear anymore. If the blaster sorcerer outstrips you in damage, that's fine. If the archer pins the enemies to the ground that's fine. If the barbarian grapples the enemy, everything is going to plan. You purposely weakened your fighting capability, and that's okay.

6) Choose a useful array of skills that benefit from your attributes and complement your group. Because of the simple style of fighters and their very odd selection of class skills, you might want to use your traits (and also Extra Traits feat) to extend your class skill list.


Human Fighter 4
LN Humanoid
Init +0; Senses: Perception +15

Defense

AC 20, touch 15, flat-footed 20 (+9 armor)

hp 38 (4d10+12)

Fort +6, Ref +1, Will +3

Offense
Speed 30 ft.
Melee +1 greatsword +11 (2w6+13/19-20) +13 charging
Ranged mwk comp longbow +5 (1d8+5/19–20)

Statistics

Str 20, Dex 11, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 7

Base Atk +4; CMB +9; CMD 19

Feats: (Hu) Human Spirit (1) Alertness (3) Skill Focus (Perception)
(1f) Power Attack (2f) Furious Focus (4f) Weapon Focus (Greatsword)

Skills: Climb +5, Craft (Alchemy) +9, Intimidate +5, Linguistics +6, Perception +15, Sense Motive +12, Swim +5

Traits: Eyes and ears of the City (Perception as CS, +1), Suspicious (Sense Motive as CS, +1)

Languages: Common, Draconic, Elven, Dwarven, Gnomish, Halfling, "Human dialect"


This character is more than capable of combat, can create alchemical stuff in her downtime, can identify potions and poisons, can speak 6 languages fluently, sees an ambush from the next town over, is hard to be lied to and with some more feats can use dazzling display or antagonize with intimidating prowess. He doesn't drown even in full plate and can climb any tree in his heavy armor. The concept is smart enough to inform himself before charging like a maniac into Tucker's kobolds.

I do realise that my build is probably pushed back into the peak of T4 with growing levels and maye you could loose a bit of Wisdom for Con but as she stand it's a decent build. On the plus side you cannot pull a spell out of your behind to shatter your DM's plot. :)

Please evaluate the build and general idea.

[Drachasor]

More skills will never get a Fighter to T3. For one he just doesn't have enough base abilities (mobility, different ways to handle combat, etc). Part of the reason Fighters come in at T5 is because they actually AREN'T good at combat -- they are just too limited.

That said, if you are trying to increase his overall power/usefulness, then not taking UMD is criminal.

[Spore]

More skills will never get a Fighter to T3. For one he just doesn't have enough base abilities (mobility, different ways to handle combat, etc). Part of the reason Fighters come in at T5 is because they actually AREN'T good at combat -- they are just too limited.

That said, if you are trying to increase his overall power/usefulness, then not taking UMD is criminal.

How are fighters terrible at combat?

Also I think the concept of an wand wielding fighter is nice but also a testimony against ANY noncasters. Also I think people overvalue wand based magic.

[grarrrg]

Be Human. You need skill points, and humans provide them. You can use the bonus feat for Human Spirit for HP AND hitpoints for favored class. There you go. If you want to create a multiclass fighter half elf multi talented plus human spirit should be more useful. You will be using up your skill focus feat on humans anyway.

I don't think Human Spirit (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/arg-feats/human-spirit-half-elf) does what you think it does.

First off, you must be a Half-Elf to take it. A Human can take the Racial Heritage feat in order to take Human Spirit, but then you're burning 2 feats.

Also, the big downside, Human Spirit gives you a max of _4_ Skill Points. Ever.
1 feat for 4 floating skill points? I'll just take Skill Focus instead thank you.

[Drachasor]

How are fighters terrible at combat?

I already said. They are too limited in their options. T3s like the Warblade, Crusader, Duskblade, and so forth have a wide variety of useful combat tools that allow them to be flexible on offense and defense. The Fighter does not have this. They are good at a very narrow field of combat and that's it.

[tzar1990]

I've actually been working on a Fighter upgrade for PF, that gives them a wider variety of abilities without going for maneuvers (because too many of my DMs and co-players find that prepared martial stuff breaks SoD).

So far, they get access to Fighter Talents instead of Feats. Fighter Talents cost Endurance (a resource pool with a very small cap, but fast regeneration) to use. They also upgrade automatically (i.e. if you take a power that gives you Knockback at level 1, at level 5 it might upgrade to knock the prone as well, at at level 11 you can pay a surcharge while actiating it to leave them no-save staggered for a round as well.

I then combined that with a Combo system - weaker powers are generally gree actions that supplement an existing attack, meaning you can activate several of them together, or use them to stick upgrades on a stronger power.

With this, the fighter gets the ability to have a wide variety of talents in combat, which let them deal with a variety of opponents. Got a flying dragon, but no decent bow? On your first attack, you can use Powerful THrower and Knockdown to force it onto the ground, and then use pinning strike on your next attack to nail it to the ground and keep it there.

Stuck in melee with something you can't OHKO, and don't wanna be murdered by its full attack next turn? Blind it with Head Wound (which upgrades to allow blindness and deafness simultaneously), then use Mighty Parry to block any attacks which make it through the miss chance and attack penalties it gets for being blind.

Trying to defend a fortress against an army of orcs? Activate Frightful Vigil to make them need a will save to even pass through the squares your defending, then get AoOs against any who pass through those squares anyways.

It also gets the ability to have the various "X -> Improved X -> Greater X" feat trees upgrade automatically (to make up for the lost bonus feats), 6+Int skill points per level, bonuses to your choice of some "party face" type skills, and the ability to train or re-train NPCs into various fighter-y classes while making them like you for it.

[Big Fau]

How are fighters terrible at combat?

You literally have to focus on Lockdown, Intimidate, or Dungeoncrasher to escape Tier 5. Focusing on damage just puts you into a low Tier 4, as the most common ways of doing damage involve Charging and Full Attacks.

And since you have only 5 options, you have very little choice and even less flexibility between feats. The same things that help a Lockdown build don't necessarily help a Dungeoncrasher or a Zhentarim or a Charger (although it is possible to Trip and Charge in the same build, or Dungeoncrash and Charge).

Basically it's because your options are limited even when optimized and those options don't always work. Even with enough feats to do all 5 things at once the Fighter wouldn't be much better than a high Tier 4 (Dungeoncrasher and Charger builds are the same thing to most enemies, and a similar argument can be made about Zhent and Lockdown builds).