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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other [Random Thought] Stronger Fighter Feats



Jakinbandw
2014-03-12, 06:47 PM
So here's a random thought, why don't we design fighter feats to be half again as powerful as a spell at the same level. The fighter gets this boost because they lack the varity of the spell casters. The fighter can use said feat at will as well. The only prerequisite should be fighter level, so that the fighter can vary their abilities.

So for example
Precise strike [fighter]
Prerequisite: fighter level 1
As a standard action deal melee weapon damage + strength to one target within melee reach. This does not require an attack roll.
At every second level of fighter increase the damage by 1d6. Ie; 3rd, 5th, 7th and so on.

Defensive Fighting [Fighter]
Prerequisite: fighter level 1
Gain +4 untyped AC. Your touch AC now also includes any armor bonus, shield bonus, or natural armor bonus.

Oppressive Aura [Fighter]
Prerequisite: fighter level 1
As a swift action, choose up to 4 HD + 1 per level of creatures. These creatures must make a will save equal to your 15 + 1/2 your level, or cower till your next turn. Cowering creatures are considered helpless.

Fast Movement [Fighter]
Prerequisite: fighter level 1
Your base movement speed triples. This is an untyped bonus.

Squire [Fighter]
Prerequisite: fighter level 1
You get a squire. He is equal to your level, any race you wish, and his class is Warrior (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/npcClasses/warrior.htm). He has 14 str, 12 con, 10 dex, 10 int, 10 wis, and 10 Char. You must equip him with your own gold.


This is based on magic missile. It's a bit more powerful, but it can only be used at close range.

TheFamilarRaven
2014-03-12, 06:56 PM
Because I believe that's what Stances and maneuvers are meant to do.

Also, it would require either re-writing a bunch of feats, or designing a whole slew of new ones.

Also, there already are feats that give you spells as SLA's. And it would be eventually get impossible to keep such feats as your example on par with high level spells without diverging from the original flavor of the Fighter, which is, a non-supernatural guy who fights.

What you're describing may be a decent class feature. But as a feat system, it seems clunky

drew2u
2014-03-12, 07:12 PM
If spells were nerfed, then yes, I can see this method working.

Jakinbandw
2014-03-12, 08:33 PM
Because I believe that's what Stances and maneuvers are meant to do.

Also, it would require either re-writing a bunch of feats, or designing a whole slew of new ones.

Also, there already are feats that give you spells as SLA's. And it would be eventually get impossible to keep such feats as your example on par with high level spells without diverging from the original flavor of the Fighter, which is, a non-supernatural guy who fights.

What you're describing may be a decent class feature. But as a feat system, it seems clunky

May I ask why it's clunky as feats? I thought feats were supposed to give characters new options. Am I missing something?

As for needing more I'll knock out a few more tonight. They are fairly simple to do, since I'm basing them off of spells, just buffing them, re-fluffing them a bit, and making them either at will or permanent.


[Edit] Added 4 more lvl 1 fighter feats based on different spells.

TheFamilarRaven
2014-03-12, 10:02 PM
As I've said before, maneuvers and stances accomplish relatively the same thing, and once you start saying "slice between dimensions and teleport", effectively emulated the dimension door spell ... you've stepped out of fighter territory. Put another way ... you'll be hard pressed to match anything other than pure damage spells (includign a few ability score damaging spells), and a few [fear], [mind-affecting] and self-buffing enchantments thrown in as well. You might think that's all you need, but given how many feats a fighter can get ... plus the fast movement one you came up with is a little ridiculous, it's a slap in the face to any class that gets progressively faster, Barbarian, Monk, etc.

Also, so far, these have no limited uses ... that may be fine for emulating low level effects, but what if you were emulating disintegrate? And if you start emulating spells like fly, Dimension Door, Scorching Ray, Touch of Idiocy, where is the incentive to play any other melee class, or take any other feats for that matter? "Rage? I got a feat for that ... Smite Evil? I got the Divine Power feat. Haste? You bet, I can move twice my current speed, which totals to 180ft."

Once again, stances and maneuvers from the Tome of Battle already do a lot of what you want to do.

I don't think any of these abilities are bad ... I just think they'd be better off as class features, and look at it this way. You can keep all of these abilities as .. I don't know ... let's call them Combat Prowess for fun ... Then you redesign the fighter so that every odd level he gets to choose a Combat Prowess, and keeps his regular bonus feat progression?

Yitzi
2014-03-12, 10:14 PM
Other classes would still be able to take them.

I think a better approach is to make them of highly variable strength (i.e. any one will be extremely strong in some situations, and useless in others), and make sure the fighter has enough feats to take enough that he can spread out and always have some feats to use in any given situation...but a class with fewer feats to spend has to choose between power and reliability.

TheFamilarRaven
2014-03-12, 10:30 PM
Other classes would still be able to take them.


that might be better, but so far they're all have fighter as a prerequisite

Jakinbandw
2014-03-12, 10:56 PM
As I've said before, maneuvers and stances accomplish relatively the same thing, and once you start saying "slice between dimensions and teleport", effectively emulated the dimension door spell ... you've stepped out of fighter territory. Put another way ... you'll be hard pressed to match anything other than pure damage spells (includign a few ability score damaging spells), and a few [fear], [mind-affecting] and self-buffing enchantments thrown in as well. You might think that's all you need, but given how many feats a fighter can get ... plus the fast movement one you came up with is a little ridiculous, it's a slap in the face to any class that gets progressively faster, Barbarian, Monk, etc.

Also, so far, these have no limited uses ... that may be fine for emulating low level effects, but what if you were emulating disintegrate? And if you start emulating spells like fly, Dimension Door, Scorching Ray, Touch of Idiocy, where is the incentive to play any other melee class, or take any other feats for that matter? "Rage? I got a feat for that ... Smite Evil? I got the Divine Power feat. Haste? You bet, I can move twice my current speed, which totals to 180ft."

Once again, stances and maneuvers from the Tome of Battle already do a lot of what you want to do.

I don't think any of these abilities are bad ... I just think they'd be better off as class features, and look at it this way. You can keep all of these abilities as .. I don't know ... let's call them Combat Prowess for fun ... Then you redesign the fighter so that every odd level he gets to choose a Combat Prowess, and keeps his regular bonus feat progression?

Honestly I'm not sure. My basic idea was to create a list of feats for any tier 5 class to take. However I'm really not sure how to handle that in the prerequisites (Base class much suck this much to take this feat?). Either way the idea was that they could use abilities at will. The Wizard would have more breadth, but would be limited in times per day, while the feats here would allow for focused abilities. The lack of options are why they are stronger than an equal level spell.

As for other spells like Fly, and Disintegrate. I think disintegrate is an awesome power for a fighter to have, you hit your opponent so hard they disintegrate. As for fly, it's primarily used for getting places or staying out of reach. The idea I had for emulating the idea was that the fighter could move his base movement speed times his level as a swift action, or a move action. Any type of movement could be taken with this, such as climbing or swimming. It would allow both the mobility, and the ability to stay out of combat like fly has.

This was more a random thought than anything though. I was talking with a friend just now and they said that even getting near infinite stat increases does nothing for the fighter because a wizard is always better, and if a fighter ever does anything better than a wizard, then they are no longer a fighter. Like a wizard that can cast any divination spell is unbeatable because the future has to conform to the results of their divination no matter what (Even the dice rolls have to change to match what the divination said), and if a fighter was outside of the effect of that, then they are no longer a fighter.

I'm really not sure how I feel about that.

TheFamilarRaven
2014-03-12, 11:18 PM
I've never heard of this "alter future" spell. that .... seems more a Cleric thing anyway...

The way I see it, magic is overpowered because REALISTICALLY (weird right?) it would be. As an amateur homebrewer and analyzer, I can debate theory all day, and in theory, wizards and clerics are the best classes, they are the "glass ceiling" so to speak of homebrew, because since wizards/clerics are "the best", nothing should be better than them. On the other hand, as a DM and a player, I ask myself ... Can, at any given level, a straight up fighter beat a straight up wizard. And the answer is ... yes. because DnD involves dice, so anything can happen. Like I can throw a vorpal chakam, get a 20 (confirm it) and kill a wizard in one round. It CAN happen, and in all of my games that I've run/played, melee fighter types and rogue types do just fine, even with a wizard or cleric in the party, both in, and out of combat.

This is not to say we shouldn't find ways too improve "mundane" classes. (funnily enough, we classify "mundane" classes as classes that rely heavily on "extraordinary" abilities). But designing a class from the get-go to compete with full on casters is difficult without the use of spells, or supernatural powers, and without being insanely overpowered/ridiculous (i.e, said class would have to combine essentially every mundane class in the game).

There is a way to fix the fighter/monk/rogue/what have you, but it's not by bringing them up to the level of full-caster. All that's required to make a fun class is interesting fluff, for it to be competent in combat, and in some areas outside.


Sorry, I took that time to rant .... what was the question? :smalltongue:

Just to Browse
2014-03-13, 01:17 AM
Using feats/abilities that emulate spells is a decent idea and is also a common (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209661) solution (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Races_of_War_(3.5e_Sourcebook)) for a lot of fighter fixes. However, it will not solely fix fighters, because if you offer awesome fighter-only feats then fighter are encouraged to spend all their feats (class-derived and otherwise) on fighting or else they feel gypped, but if you improve all feats to alleviate that problem, then the wizard who gets 12 feats is outshining the fighter all over again.

Improving feats is a good idea, and it makes mundanes feel more useful, but it is not the be-all and end-all of fighter fixes by any means.