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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Class Fighter Fix, as a PrC! (3.5)



Carl
2014-07-18, 08:39 AM
So had the crazy idea late last night to turn the Fighter into a PrC, this is what I’ve come up with on the quick and dirty. Consider the Weapon Specialisation/Weapon Focus chain to be non-existent and all other Fighter only feats to lose that limitation.



Fighter

GAME RULE INFORMATION

Fighter 's have the following game statistics.

Entry Requirements: At least 2 Base Classes and Character Level 10th
Alignment: Any
Hit Die: d10

Class Skills
The Fighter 's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are: Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str)

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier

CLASS NAME


Level
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Special
Extended Progression


1st

+1

+2

+2

+2
Extended Feats, Improved Attacks

+0


2nd

+2

+3

+3

+3
Bonus Feat

+1


3rd

+3

+3

+3

+3
Weapon Specelisation

+1


4th

+4

+4

+4

+4
Bonus Feat

+2


5th

+5

+4

+4

+4
Improved Armor Use

+2


6th

+6

+5

+5

+5
Bonus Feat

+3


7th

+7

+5

+5

+5
Improved Shield Use

+3


8th

+8

+6

+6

+6
Bonus Feat

+4


9th

+9

+6

+6

+6
Greater Weapon Specelisation

+4


10th

+10

+7

+7

+7
Bonus Feat, Greater Improved Attacks

+5



Class Features
All of the following are class features of the Fighter.

Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: The Fighter is proficient with all Armor and Shields, (including Tower Shields).

Extended Feats (Ex 1st): Starting at 1st level a fighter automatically gain’s any feats which have a requirement of another feat which the fighter already possesses, (this may be a feat granted by this class feature). Any other requirements except BAB restrictions are ignored.

Improved Attacks (Ex 1st): The minimum BAB for any attack you make is equal to 5 + Fighter Class Level. This applies to any form of attack, (Sequential, Monk’s Flurry, e.t.c.), and overrides any other stated value.

Extended Progression (Ex 2nd): At 2nd Level and every even numbered level thereafter you gain class ability progression in any two base classes. These do not have to be the same each time and a given class may be chosen only once per even numbered level. Note that this provides progression in class abilities only, it does not provide spell slot or spell known progression, improve caster level, maneuvers, invocations, or psionic powers known or any form of progression thereof. Only items listed in the special ability section of the class sheet and progression tables for those features progress, not other lines or columns within the class table.

Bonus Feat (Ex 2nd): At 2nd level and every even numbered level thereafter the Fighter gains a bonus feat, this feat may be any he meets the requirements of.

Weapon Specialization (Ex 3rd): Starting at 3rd level any weapon wielded by a fighter rolls treble the normal number of Base damage dice, (e.g. a Greatsword would increase from 2D6 to 6D6).

Improved Armor Use (Ex 5th): Choose one type of armor, (Light, Medium, or Heavy). All armor of this type no longer possesses an armor check penalty and the maximum dexterity bonus is now infinite, (i.e. there is no dex cap). Finally depending on the type of armor you gain an additional benefit:

In Heavy Armor you now retain the AC bonus vs Touch and Ranged Touch attacks.

In Medium Armor you now gain a bonus to your DR equal to the Armor’s AC rating. If you have no existing DR, treat your existing DR as zero for this purpose.

In Light Armor the AC bonus granted by the armor is trebled.

Improved Shield Use (Ex 7th): Choose one of the Following types of Shield: Buckler, Light, Heavy, Tower. Treat any shield who’s type you cannot determine as a Light Shield The selected type regardless of material construction possesses no armor check penalty and the maximum dexterity bonus is now infinite, (i.e. there is no dex cap). Finally depending on the type selected you gain an additional benefit:

Bucklers now provide their AC bonus even when using the hand to wield a Weapon. If not wielding a Weapon in the carrying hand, use the Light Shield benefit bellow.

Light Shields provide 5 times the AC bonus.

Heavy Shields grant a bonus to your DR equal to the Armor’s AC rating. If you have no existing DR, treat your existing DR as zero for this purpose.

Tower Shields lose the attack roll penalty, have their weight for all purposes reduced by half and you retain the AC bonus vs Touch and Ranged Touch attacks.

Greater Weapon Specialization (Ex 9th): The bonus from Weapon Specialization is increased to a 5 times multiplier.

Greater Improved Attacks (Ex 10th): All forms of extra attack improved by the Fighter class feature “Improved Attacks” are now made at full BAB, this replaces the Improved Attacks feature.

Since this is quick and dirty I’m not going to drop detailed design notes in yet, need to get back to my base class contest entry, but give thoughts please.

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-22, 05:34 PM
This is horribly broken at almost every level. If you want, I can go into more detail but it's basically going to just me pointing at every feature and saying it's to broken and possibly explaining why.

Also, for future note, your auto correct might be acting up; trebled isn't a word, but tripped is.

Carl
2014-07-22, 06:37 PM
I'd like the explanations of why yes, though i did spot the issue with Extended Feats a few hours after posting this, i just didn't get round to coming back to it.

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-22, 07:02 PM
Extended Feats (Ex 1st): Starting at 1st level a fighter automatically gain’s any feats which have a requirement of another feat which the fighter already possesses, (this may be a feat granted by this class feature). Any other requirements except BAB restrictions are ignored.
You get all the feats, or near enough that it doesn't matter. If you have a root level feat, you get all of it subsequent feats and then all of their
subsequent feats and so on. You get those feats even if you don't qualify for them. This would be broken enough if you just got the first level feats and had to qualify, but with the those two clauses it's beyond the pale. For perspective, point blank shot has 45 feats the require it. With this one level you gain more then 6 times a normal characters entire allotment of feats from that one feat. There is no reason an archer multiclass would not take a level dip in this class.



Improved Attacks (Ex 1st): The minimum BAB for any attack you make is equal to 5 + Fighter Class Level. This applies to any form of attack, (Sequential, Monk’s Flurry, e.t.c.), and overrides any other stated value.
I don't think this one is particularly broken, but it does do odd things to the bab progression. It's also poorly worded and I'm not sure how it interacts with iteratives or abilities that give you extra attacks but cause a penalty.


Extended Progression (Ex 2nd): At 2nd Level and every even numbered level thereafter you gain class ability progression in any two base classes. These do not have to be the same each time and a given class may be chosen only once per even numbered level. Note that this provides progression in class abilities only, it does not provide spell slot or spell known progression, improve caster level, maneuvers, invocations, or psionic powers known or any form of progression thereof. Only items listed in the special ability section of the class sheet and progression tables for those features progress, not other lines or columns within the class table.
I'm not sure if this is incredibly under powered or overpowered, depending on your classes, you either give up nothing for taking fighter or this feature is worthless to you. If your classes don't rely on any of the unsupported advancements and you were planning to progress two classes anyways, you lose literally nothing by taking fighter levels. You gain all of the benefits of taking fighter along side all of the benefits of alternating the two classes you were going to advance anyways.

As for the unsupported things... Those tend to be the main points of those classes, so it's a bit pointless, though it is worth noting that most of them mention their extra abilities in both the special abilities section and their own columns.


Bonus Feat (Ex 2nd): At 2nd level and every even numbered level thereafter the Fighter gains a bonus feat, this feat may be any he meets the requirements of.
Normal fighter bonus feats. Distinctly not broken.


Weapon Specialization (Ex 3rd): Starting at 3rd level any weapon wielded by a fighter rolls treble the normal number of Base damage dice, (e.g. a Greatsword would increase from 2D6 to 6D6).
Treble doesn't make sense in this context (it references to high pitched sounds), so I'll assume you mean triple. If that's the case, you just tripled a characters weapon damage with a 3 level investment. If they're using a weapon that already has high damage values or high crit values then you've added a crazy amount of damage to a full attack.


Improved Armor Use (Ex 5th): Choose one type of armor, (Light, Medium, or Heavy). All armor of this type no longer possesses an armor check penalty and the maximum dexterity bonus is now infinite, (i.e. there is no dex cap). Finally depending on the type of armor you gain an additional benefit:

In Heavy Armor you now retain the AC bonus vs Touch and Ranged Touch attacks.

In Medium Armor you now gain a bonus to your DR equal to the Armor’s AC rating. If you have no existing DR, treat your existing DR as zero for this purpose.

In Light Armor the AC bonus granted by the armor is trebled.
You've removed the only distinction between the different armor types beyond which has the highest base AC. There is almost no reason to not take mountain plate or something equally ridiculous. This boosts a character's AC through the roof AND makes the game blander.


Improved Shield Use (Ex 7th): Choose one of the Following types of Shield: Buckler, Light, Heavy, Tower. Treat any shield who’s type you cannot determine as a Light Shield The selected type regardless of material construction possesses no armor check penalty and the maximum dexterity bonus is now infinite, (i.e. there is no dex cap). Finally depending on the type selected you gain an additional benefit:

Bucklers now provide their AC bonus even when using the hand to wield a Weapon. If not wielding a Weapon in the carrying hand, use the Light Shield benefit bellow.

Light Shields provide 5 times the AC bonus.

Heavy Shields grant a bonus to your DR equal to the Armor’s AC rating. If you have no existing DR, treat your existing DR as zero for this purpose.

Tower Shields lose the attack roll penalty, have their weight for all purposes reduced by half and you retain the AC bonus vs Touch and Ranged Touch attacks.
See improved armor. Also, those bonuses are crazy.


Greater Weapon Specialization (Ex 9th): The bonus from Weapon Specialization is increased to a 5 times multiplier.
See weapon specialization, only now it's a 5x multiplier.


Greater Improved Attacks (Ex 10th): All forms of extra attack improved by the Fighter class feature “Improved Attacks” are now made at full BAB, this replaces the Improved Attacks feature.
Well, pretty much all of your attacks now hit and, depending on how this is read, you should stack every method of getting extra attacks you can, because those penalties don't matter anymore.

Carl
2014-07-22, 07:33 PM
Extended Feat: Yeah like i said i spotted this later. I wrote the thing in 30 minutes in my head while on an SRD wiki walk and was thinking in terms of core feat chains only ;).

Improved Attacks: it basically caps your minimum BAB for any attack at a value equal to 5+class level. Almost all forms of bonus attacks that aren't made at BA = 3/4 character level or better are considered pretty much junk as far as usefulness around here. This actually forces their minimum value up enough that if combined with two full BAB base classes they'll probably stay relevant regardless of how many you get or the penalties.

Extended Progression was aimed specifically a none ToB martial classes. All of which are routinely panned as poor on the power scale, (for varying reasons mind). If it was tacked onto two T3 or better base classes that benefited from it, sure it would be insane. But it's meant to tack onto say a Rouge/Monk hybrid. Or other double T4/T5 combination. It gives a greater number of low to mid level class features, thus hopefully extending the list of things the final result is capble of and pushing it closer to T3.

Weapon Spec: And Power attack with a valorous greatsword with stormtrooper is 4*class level (for full BAB classes), on a charge attack, that's a bonus of around 52 points at this level. This feat at best offer 14 extra points. The Strength modifier is probably bigger than that at mid levels of optimization for Barbarian based classes. It's far weaker than even the basic optimization level for any kind of existing martial melee. I just don't see the issue. It's huge by current fighter/barbarian/Ranger/Paladin levels, but pretty weak next to a rouge's 6D6 sneak attack never mind what actual T3's can do.

Improved Armour: How about the fact that Medium can boost an allready modest DR to quite high levels and Light armor actually has the highest AC of the three now? There's still a difference, but now light isn't the automatic choice because any numpty that doesn't want wizard's hitting them on anything but a natural 1 and failing most of their skill checks needs a decent dex modifier applying and a low armor check penalty, (not to mention Heavy's WBL issues).

Improved Shields; If shields weren't allready truly irredeemably awful you might have a point, but again it's a question of AC, vs. attack power, vs DR, vs touch AC. There's a genuine tradeoff here, you just don't have shields so weak they're not even worth looking at.

Grtr Wep Spec: Basically everything i said about Wep Spec applies here.

Grtr Imp Atacks: Well that's kinda the point, sure a super ubercharger could abuse this, but uberchargers already trivially overcap themselves on single attacks. This makes none uberchargers capable of serious, (albeit likely not as extreme), damage outputs whilst having feats and class ability choices that can be focused on covering all the other area's that lock them out of T3.

Hope that explains my thinking.

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-22, 08:20 PM
Improved Attacks: it basically caps your minimum BAB for any attack at a value equal to 5+class level. Almost all forms of bonus attacks that aren't made at BA = 3/4 character level or better are considered pretty much junk as far as usefulness around here. This actually forces their minimum value up enough that if combined with two full BAB base classes they'll probably stay relevant regardless of how many you get or the penalties.
There are plenty of builds that work with 2 weapon fighting or volley archery, so I'm not buying this. Power attack might be king, but the other things work.


Extended Progression was aimed specifically a none ToB martial classes. All of which are routinely panned as poor on the power scale, (for varying reasons mind). If it was tacked onto two T3 or better base classes that benefited from it, sure it would be insane. But it's meant to tack onto say a Rouge/Monk hybrid. Or other double T4/T5 combination. It gives a greater number of low to mid level class features, thus hopefully extending the list of things the final result is capble of and pushing it closer to T3.
ToB is actually very well balanced compared to most other martial endeavors.
Leaving that aside. Trying to stealth fix poorly designed classes with a PrC is a terrible idea. It might work fine if you assume they'll do something like monk/whatever, but chances are that players will pick something markedly more powerful or synergistic (particularly when you factor in the additional abilities from fighter). These chances increase dramatically as new sources and homebrew are considered. This is a bad idea.


Weapon Spec: And Power attack with a valorous greatsword with stormtrooper is 4*class level (for full BAB classes), on a charge attack, that's a bonus of around 52 points at this level. This feat at best offer 14 extra points. The Strength modifier is probably bigger than that at mid levels of optimization for Barbarian based classes. It's far weaker than even the basic optimization level for any kind of existing martial melee. I just don't see the issue. It's huge by current fighter/barbarian/Ranger/Paladin levels, but pretty weak next to a rouge's 6D6 sneak attack never mind what actual T3's can do.

Huge great(axe/swords) go from an average of 14 damage per swing to 42 damage per swing. That is easily achievable with monkey grip and some form of size increase. This, of course, stacks with any power attack shenanigans, which does not help your case. Of course, they can probably go larger, since you're capping attack penalties...

Note, this also drastically increases the damage from a crit.


Improved Armour: How about the fact that Medium can boost an allready modest DR to quite high levels and Light armor actually has the highest AC of the three now? There's still a difference, but now light isn't the automatic choice because any numpty that doesn't want wizard's hitting them on anything but a natural 1 and failing most of their skill checks needs a decent dex modifier applying and a low armor check penalty, (not to mention Heavy's WBL issues).
DR doesn't matter if you don't get hit or they use energy damage.
A chain shirt will, now, give you an AC of +12.
Mountain plate is +9, Mechanus Gear is +10 and there's apparently something called Thaalud Stone Armor* at +12. That means heavy armors are giving as good or nearly as good a bonus, but also applying it to touch AC. I know that AC lagged behind at upper levels, but I'd be interested to see the odds of an average monster actually hitting one of these characters at mid levels. I suspect this is likely to encourage rocket tag.

*It's from Anauroch the Empire of Shade.


Improved Shields; If shields weren't allready truly irredeemably awful you might have a point, but again it's a question of AC, vs. attack power, vs DR, vs touch AC. There's a genuine tradeoff here, you just don't have shields so weak they're not even worth looking at.
Trying to stealth fix a broken item type/combat style with a PrC is not a good idea. I'd also be interested to see what this does to monster's ability to hit. Once again, since the rest of the system is left unchanged, I suspect it's likely to push things towards rocket tag.


Grtr Imp Atacks: Well that's kinda the point, sure a super ubercharger could abuse this, but uberchargers already trivially overcap themselves on single attacks. This makes none uberchargers capable of serious, (albeit likely not as extreme), damage outputs whilst having feats and class ability choices that can be focused on covering all the other area's that lock them out of T3.

I'd be more concerned about an archer firing off a 32 round volley or someone with sneak attack and a large number of hits at full BAB. Also, on it's own, this class doesn't do a very good job of adding choices. For the most part it just creates bigger numbers and flattens choices.

Composer99
2014-07-23, 03:06 PM
Nothing to say about the class, just wanted to note that "treble (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/treble)" (as a verb) is a word.


treble verb

: to cause (something) to become three times as great or as many
: to become three times as great or as many

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-23, 03:17 PM
Nothing to say about the class, just wanted to note that "treble (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/treble)" (as a verb) is a word.

Why? There is already a distinkt word for that. It even sounds similar. Gargh. English, why do you!?:smallfurious: