A fighter with options and fun to play?

[Killer Angel]

After endless debates we already know in deep details all the limits of the fighter class, there's no need to discuss about it.
So, i was wondering if, after all, is possible to build a fighter that is also useful OoC and fun to play, eclectic and with options for many situations.
(I know it's not optimal... it's a sort of test, to see if we can arrive to something playable).

The fighter can do usually well just one thing: to hit and kill things.
Basically all of its resources, are devoted to that objective... which is kinda excessive.
The core basis to fight are good, if you use only the fighter bonus feats to increase your combat styles, you should be OK... I think we can take for granted that a fighter, with only its bonus feats, can be a nice meleer.

So you can spare the standard feats for something else. The same can be said for your few skill points.
Given that it has no class features, you must play your chances, primarly around equipment.
As Always, the list of necessary magic items (TM) is a valid starting point, to cover the basis. And then?

put skill ranks in UMD, perform, craft... really, if I'm not a cavalier, why should I bother to vaste ranks in riding? or swimming?
Let's pick some unusual (for a fighter) skills.

UMD will be useful for first-second level utility scrolls. little money investment, nice comeback.

Tnx to perform, you can afford to have a Lyre of building.

Craft is for Marvelous pigments!


The idea is clear: you will fight, and you will be sufficiently good at it. The goal is to have resources (expendable or always active) do be able to do something else.
You are becoming a fighter with a mixed bag of tricks that have nothing to do with your core chassis.

Any idea on how to further improve the concept?

[Eldan]

I think there was a trick around somewhere to trick your way into Craft: Alchemy without having any spellcaster levels. Just with a few feats, I think.

[Eldariel]

Well, you can certainly use some of your HD-based feats for more interesting goals. Also, Fighter class doesn't really gain anything meaningful higher up so multiclassing doesn't actually cost you much at all; therefore, Fighter can afford to multiclass for class features.

Ranger 2/Fighter is already way more versatile than straight Fighter for instance; same BAB, free Rapid Shot (and with that, ranged combat capability), a truckload of class skills and skill points, ability to use Ranger Wands and either Speak with Plants/Animals few times per day or poor Wild Empathy.

Add to that Wild Cohort feat and you're a mini Druid without really giving up any Fighterism (you get more feats this way; Fighter is frontloaded so losing the later Fighter-levels doesn't actually cost you anything).


You can add the Hit'n'Run Fighter [Drow of the Underdark] to become a baby Rogue while at it, getting Dex to damage while attacking a surprised enemy within 30'. You also get some Initiative-bonus.

Obviously Zhentarim Fighter to further get some social abilities and the ability to Fear-lock people in combat (it does both, handily enough). Thug-Fighter for extra skill points and some class skills would also be nice, but it conflicts with Hit'n'Run. Either way, you can just take Able Learner and utilize Ranger skill list (provided you're a Human). Obviously you take Darkstalker too since you have basic Hide setup.

You still have room for basic battlefield control + charger + Mage Slayer setup so your combat ability is not diminished that much. Add Dungeoncrasher and you are v. good at going through doors and have some trap avoidance and you can tie the Bull Rushes to your attacks for Wall Slammery Powers. But of course, you still run into the basic issue of Fighter levels past 10 giving you nothing unless you invest 6 feats into Weapon Supremacy, which you really can't afford if you want to be versatile.


You really should have Barbarian anyways tho, 'cause Pounce reduces the amount of resources needed for competent Charging massively, thus freeing up resources for everything else. You can also get Improved Trip or Uncanny Dodge as desired.

[prufock]

I think there was a trick around somewhere to trick your way into Craft: Alchemy without having any spellcaster levels. Just with a few feats, I think.

Assuming we take "spellcaster" to mean "someone who can cast spells" and not "someone with levels in a class that casts spells," the Magical Training feat will get you there.

[Vanitas]

Nymph's Kiss is a good feat for this. You get an extra skill point per level and +2 to Cha skills (including UMD).

[Killer Angel]

Ranger 2/Fighter is already way more versatile than straight Fighter for instance;

The idea was straight fighter, but I suppose a little mix won't hurt... :smallwink:

[Vanitas]

The idea was straight fighter, but I suppose a little mix won't hurt... :smallwink:

Well, you could take a lot at the Horizon Tripper, then.

[Togo]

I'm fond of trick fighters. Basically, you make the most of bull rush, trip, disarm and other str/melee/BAB based abilities. By combining various ACFs you get a customisable list of class features that replace most of your feats for the first 10 levels or so, and then after that you can go into a prestige class.

Obviously going for fighter 20 is less interesting, but then going for paladin 20 is pretty dull too.

[Killer Angel]

Well, you could take a lot at the Horizon Tripper, then.

Already played. I wanted something different, hence the starting idea with pigments, and so on. :smallwink:

For now, I pick suggestions, then I'll think to a build with its own flavour. :smallsmile:

[Fouredged Sword]

The dungeon crasher fighter makes for an interesting set of battlefield choices. Be a goliath and use knock back to do some battlefield control + damage. Positioning becomes a big deal.

Mix that with some intimidate op like never outnumbered, and Zhentarim Soldier + counting as large for intimidate means that you can do some lockdown during combat and lead pipe diplomacy when not in combat. Just don't dump cha. It also gets you diplomacy as a class skill. A one level dip in marshal seems to go well with this, though you want at least 9 levels of fighter.

[Segev]

Cosmopolitan - if you use the 3.0 version - for Handle Animal can make him better with his chosen steed and let him have a cadre of attack dogs. Some of the dogs can be trained in tracking, as well, and he could be a passable investigator/hunter-of-men for law enforcement or less legal "enforcement" purposes.

[nedz]

I did consider building a Fighter who spends his non fighter feats on something like the Fay heritage line. This would give him a few SLAs. The trouble is that there are better ways of achieving this result — just take a few levels in a casting class for instance.

[Wargamer]

I think the main thing that stops Fighters, or indeed all melee classes from achieving maximum fun is the extremely narrow scope of actions. If you want to reshape reality as a Wizard, it's a standard action. If you want to break someone's nose with your shield, it requires a specific feat and provokes an attack of opportunity.

Melee needs to be much, much broader. My starting point would be to remove all requirements for grappling, tripping, bullrushing and so on, and then expand on those options so that a Fighter can truly be a monster in combat. In essence, grabbing a guy's wrist and trying to snap his arm should be no more difficult for a Fighter, in terms of mechanics used, than swinging a sword.

[Eldariel]

For Fighter in particular, it's mostly that the class does increasingly less as you get to higher levels. That is to say, Fighter 1-2 are decent levels that give you a lot of stuff (a bunch of proficiencies & al.) but Fighter 11 gives you less than Fighter 10, which gives you less than Zhentarim Fighter 9. The next thing they get is on level 18 (Weapon Supremacy) between which they just get increasingly bad feats (since they've already taken all the best ones, only weaker ones are left).

That, in short, is the ultimate flaw of the class; it scales negatively which basically says "multiclass to get base level stuff or stay in class to gain increasingly less", which is the opposite of an incentive to take a lot of levels in anything. If it gained some useful abilities for leading armies, smashing mountains and so on higher up (and lower up too), it'd be a whole lot more interesting.

[Telonius]

Human Factotum1/FighterX with the Able Learner feat should cover skills pretty well. It doesn't help the awful 2+Int limitation for the Fighter levels, but at least it lets you get useful cross-class skills like Diplomacy and Use Magic Device less painfully.

[Seerow]

The fighter can do usually well just one thing: to hit and kill things.
Basically all of its resources, are devoted to that objective... which is kinda excessive.
The core basis to fight are good, if you use only the fighter bonus feats to increase your combat styles, you should be OK... I think we can take for granted that a fighter, with only its bonus feats, can be a nice meleer.


A Fighter, with only his bonus feats invested in actually fighting, is going to be only marginally more competent than an NPC Warrior with flaws at fighting (and actually worse than him at low levels).

You can't just take for granted that the Fighter is a valuable meleer while spending half his feats on combat. If he does that, he's got roughly the value of a weak NPC in combat, to gain some out of combat utility that is marginal and almost exclusively replaced by low level spells or a rogue half his level.

[Psyren]

Add Incarnum and stir?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You'll definitely want the Zhentarim Soldier (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a) substitution levels (you can rename/reflavor it big-bad-bully and strip its association to an organization), along with the feat Imperious Command (DotU), and hopefully Dreadful Wrath (PGtF) as well, plus the Never Outnumbered skill trick (CS). You can make the character a Desert Half-Orc (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/environmentalRacialVariants.htm#desertHalfOrcs) and use the Half-Humans and Humanlike Races variant (RoD p150) to count as human instead of orc to qualify for Dreadful Wrath. In that case also say you visited the Otyugh Hole in CS to get Menacing Demeanor without spending a feat on it.

As for more things to do outside of combat (besides intimidating people), Shax's Indispensable Haversack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148101) almost always has something useful for any situation.

Edit: The Dungeoncrasher ACF from Dungeonscape is also highly recommended, but it's best on a large size character. The free Dead Levels class features (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20061013a) should always be used, because they're free.

[Ruethgar]

The fighter is one occasion where I don't mind suggesting the Quentiessential books. A beast master fighter gives up most of their weapon and armor proficiency for an animal companion based on character level. It also gives you Animal Friendship 1/day as a 3.0 book, but I would suggest just removing it(however if you keep it you have cheese with complete scorndel, namely a source of chaos shuffle). AEGs Dragons has the Dragon Fighter class(intended for true dragons but not stated outright) to fill your first 6 fighter levels with bonus feats.

Grab Free from AEGs Feats to get UMD, Lucid Dreaming and Autohypnosis as class skills and wth, Slight of Hand too. If you want to take a money granting feat(or be in debt), you can afford the University(100g)feat for 6 +2 skill points/level.

[Thurbane]

The Binding feats for non-binders can add versatility to a Fighter.

[nedz]

The Binding feats for non-binders can add versatility to a Fighter.

Well you could make the same argument about Martial Study and Martial Stance, but there comes a point where you say Dip Binder or play ToB etc.

[Thurbane]

That's true, but the Binding feats, Martial feats and Soul Melding feats are nice to add versatility without actually dipping, if you are determined to stick with a particular base class.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Ruethgar
The fighter is one occasion where I don't mind suggesting the [Quintessential] books. A beast master fighter gives up most of their weapon and armor proficiency for an animal companion based on character level.

Can I assume this is from Quintessential Fighter? I don't know that series at all, but this option sounds interesting.

[Killer Angel]

You can't just take for granted that the Fighter is a valuable meleer while spending half his feats on combat. If he does that, he's got roughly the value of a weak NPC in combat, to gain some out of combat utility that is marginal

I don't think I agree. For example, a 10th lev. barbarian, will have 4 feats (5, if human). The bonus feats for a 10th lev. fighter are 6.
This means that the fighter, even if using only its BFs to combat, will still have more options than another fighting class. May be not huge, but you can certainly take one combat style and be very competent with it.

[mabriss lethe]

The Binding feats for non-binders can add versatility to a Fighter.

Seconding this. I played a goblin fighter with the Binding feats once, it was a blast.