fighter feat chains

[tsroark]

Like just about anyone else, i think the fighter could definately use some improvements. One thing i was thinking was to grant feat chains. So at level 1 he would choose the power attack line, lvl2 would pick a second chain like cleave and get improved power attack. Lvl 4 would pick chain #3 and increase previous chains.

I figure this way the fighter can afford to branch out a little and is not limited to a specific archetype or trick

Has anyone done this or anything like this? I guess it would be somewhat close to the tob stuff but a little less caster like.

[Blackhawk748]

So like a Feat Package? You pick Power attack and get the rest of the chain as you level up but can still pick up other feats and continue those chains. Sounds interesting.

[Chronos]

It'd be an improvement, of course, but it wouldn't address the real problem. The problem with a fighter is that you already run out of good feats to take very quickly, after which you're stuck taking subpar feats, or multiclassing to some other melee class with non-feat class features. If you get more feats at once, then you'll just run out of them even quicker.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Well, this could open some useful feats that one normally wouldn't touch because they are high in a feat chain with feats that suck, for example the Spring Attack Line or the Weapon supremacy line. True it still wouldn't dig the fighter out of his ditch, but it certainly helps. Plus you could also take some of the ACF like dungeon crasher to help a little.

[Flickerdart]

More feats is not the fighter's problem. Hell, even if he had all the feats at the same time he would be pretty lame. You might think "but if he had many feat chains he could be super versatile" and you'd be sort of correct. The problem is that while someone who's good at say, archery, has a lot of archery feats, taking a lot of archery feats won't make you good at archery. You also need a high Dex, a good bow, and stacks of magic arrows, and if you invest in all that, good luck being able to afford a sword, shield, and armor that's also level-appropriate, not to mention the magic items you need to accomplish crucial things like flight and immunities at later levels.

[Red Rubber Band]

Among some of the other houserules (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tDOXJlPpVFiTt64cYL7To5nD8MpSTH29eomUSwwC1sM/edit?usp=sharing) I'll be using are feat chains. Not exclusive to the Fighter though.

A couple of examples:

The feats TW Fighting, TW Defense, TW Pounce, Imp TWF, Imp TWD, Greater TWF and Greater TWD are a single feat called Two Weapon Fighting. You only get the benefits of TW Pounce and the Imp feats when you reach BAB +6, and you only get the benefit of the Greater feats when you reach BAB +11 (no extra Dex requirement).
Two Weapon Fighting gives you a +4 bonus on attack rolls at BAB +6. So dual wielding two light weapons is at no penalty
Combining Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, and the Greater versions all into a single Weapon Focus
Weapon Focus grants +1 per 4 points of BAB (round up), max +5 at BAB +17 and +2 damage per 4 points of BAB (round down), max +10 at BAB +20

[Kristinn]

I completely disagree with Flickerdart and Chronos, I think it would help tremendously. One of the problems with mundanes is that the capabilities they do have access to are incredibly fragmented. Lets say you want to build a lockdown build. Ideally you take EWP: Spiked Chain, Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes and Knock Down. That means even if you're a human Fighter, who is supposed to swim in feats, you have to use 30% (6 out of 20) of all the feats you get over your 20-level career just to have the capability of pulling of one schtick.

By alleviating the feat intensiveness you give the fighter the possibility of picking up a second schtick when the first doesn't apply (Sundering, Charging, etc.) or feats that improve the general effectiveness of the fighter (Knowledge Devotion, Weapon Focus/Specialization). Perhaps most importantly, he is able to take feats that are more than just "hit that target either differently or harder".

A good example is the feat Animal Devotion. Even if you don't have Turn Undead, it gives you the ability to once a day have flight for one minute. This is a game-changer for the fighter. If the resident Wizard is out of Fly or Polymorph spells for the day he is squarely ground-bound, which is a crippling deficiency. Other feats the fighter would love to be able to take include Nymph's Kiss (one extra skill point per level), Travel Devotion (move as swift action to Full Attack), Able Learner (to treat cross-class skills such as Tumble, Use Magic Device and all the Knowledges as class skills), Improved Initiative (going first is incredibly important), and others.

Bottom line is that the fighter would love to have more feats to spend, and granting him feat chains for the cost of just one feat slot is completely reasonable. Consider that a lvl. 1 Cloistered Cleric can have Knowledge Devotion, Animal Devotion and Travel Devotion all at lvl. 1 without touching his feat slot(s), just using one class feature, and still having Turn Undead and full casting.

[Flickerdart]

See, that's the thing though. Yes, fighters would like more feats. Everyone would like more feats. But the difference between "I can hit the thing in two ways" and "I can hit the thing in ten ways" is very limited.

[Vhaidara]

I completely disagree with Flickerdart and Chronos, I think it would help tremendously. One of the problems with mundanes is that the capabilities they do have access to are incredibly fragmented. Lets say you want to build a lockdown build. Ideally you take EWP: Spiked Chain, Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes and Knock Down. That means even if you're a human Fighter, who is supposed to swim in feats, you have to use 30% (6 out of 20) of all the feats you get over your 20-level career just to have the capability of pulling of one schtick.

You see, the thing is that everyone else has to spend 6 of the 7 feats they get to accomplish that same process. The compression of feat chains should be a general thing, not a fighter thing, because most of these feat chains were designed with the number of feats a fighter gets in mind.

Compare those 6 feats that your lockdown build needs to Natural Spell. Which causes a bigger jump in power? How about compared to Arcane Thesis? Now consider that a Wizard gets 5 more feats than the Paladin or the Barbarian.

[tsroark]

A lot of the points are valid, more feats dont make him stronger, but what about added abilities? What if every few levels he treats all his weapons as keen or vorpal, or give limited attack bonus that rival high level spells, same with armors. Of coarse it wouldnt make sense to have non physicsl or martial effects like flaming. This should help reduce dependancy on specific equipment.

Even though he still cant create a demiplane with his pinky, he should be much more effective on the battlefield and give a little leeway to take some non combative feats as well.0

[Flickerdart]

A lot of the points are valid, more feats dont make him stronger, but what about added abilities? What if every few levels he treats all his weapons as keen or vorpal, or give limited attack bonus that rival high level spells, same with armors. Of coarse it wouldnt make sense to have non physicsl or martial effects like flaming. This should help reduce dependancy on specific equipment.

Even though he still cant create a demiplane with his pinky, he should be much more effective on the battlefield and give a little leeway to take some non combative feats as well.0
This is an interesting thought, mostly because a fighter is basically obligated to throw stacks and stacks of GP at magic plusses in order to do his job. If you gave him a bound weapon and armor like the Soulknife, Soulbow, Psychic Weapon Master, Kensai, or that one Psychic Warrior ACF, he would be able to spend more of his gold on magic items and therefore become more versatile.

Something like this:
Call to the Steel (Ex): At 3rd level, a fighter and his weapon become more than just the sum of their parts. The enhancement bonus of any weapon the fighter wields increases to +1, unless it was already +1 or higher. This bonus increases to +2 at 7th level, +3 at 11th level, +4 at 15th level, and +5 at 19th level.

Weapon Trick (Ex): At 5th level, a fighter learns to bring forward the potential in any weapon. As a move action, the fighter can add any +1-equivalent enchantment to a weapon he is wielding. The fighter can only enchant one weapon at a time in this way, and the enchantment does not function for anyone but the fighter. The enchantment remains until the fighter uses another move action to change the enchantment or enchant another weapon. At level 9, the fighter can add a +2 ability or any combination of cheaper abilities that equals +2. That cap increases to +3 at level 13 and +4 at level 17.

You can limit the enchantments that can be added with Weapon Trick but there's really no point.

[Chronos]

Agreed that giving him better abilities is what's needed, but I think the way to go is to make feats that grant those abilities (which he could pick up with his abundant bonus feats), rather than to make them directly class features. I think that the idea of a modular class who picks all of his abilities is a good one; the problem is just that the abilities available mostly aren't good enough.

[Zubrowka74]

Compare those 6 feats that your lockdown build needs to Natural Spell. Which causes a bigger jump in power? How about compared to Arcane Thesis? Now consider that a Wizard gets 5 more feats than the Paladin or the Barbarian.

You are right, but this is easy to fix by changing overpowered caster feats with feat chains consisting of useless crap like the mundanes presently have.

[eggynack]

I completely disagree with Flickerdart and Chronos, I think it would help tremendously. One of the problems with mundanes is that the capabilities they do have access to are incredibly fragmented. Lets say you want to build a lockdown build. Ideally you take EWP: Spiked Chain, Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes and Knock Down. That means even if you're a human Fighter, who is supposed to swim in feats, you have to use 30% (6 out of 20) of all the feats you get over your 20-level career just to have the capability of pulling of one schtick.
Go barbarian 2/fighter 2, use wolf totem, and you can pick up all of those feats in four levels, apart from combat expertise which is only really relevant as a prerequisite anyway. This isn't a new capability for melee builds.


By alleviating the feat intensiveness you give the fighter the possibility of picking up a second schtick when the first doesn't apply (Sundering, Charging, etc.) or feats that improve the general effectiveness of the fighter (Knowledge Devotion, Weapon Focus/Specialization). Perhaps most importantly, he is able to take feats that are more than just "hit that target either differently or harder".
The aforementioned build already has pounce and power attack. Skip the spiked chain for improved bull rush, or otherwise pick up one of those with human, and you can get shock trooper at 6th without sacrificing much in the way of that AoO tripping build. Knowledge devotion doesn't really do much on this build, because of the lack of knowledge rather than the lack of feats, and weapon focus and specialization don't do much on any build, because they're bad, so I don't feel bad about losing them. Or sundering, really. The utility available to a fighter with the ability to sunder is really close to the utility available to one without.


A good example is the feat Animal Devotion. Even if you don't have Turn Undead, it gives you the ability to once a day have flight for one minute. This is a game-changer for the fighter. If the resident Wizard is out of Fly or Polymorph spells for the day he is squarely ground-bound, which is a crippling deficiency. Other feats the fighter would love to be able to take include Nymph's Kiss (one extra skill point per level), Travel Devotion (move as swift action to Full Attack), Able Learner (to treat cross-class skills such as Tumble, Use Magic Device and all the Knowledges as class skills), Improved Initiative (going first is incredibly important), and others.

Bottom line is that the fighter would love to have more feats to spend, and granting him feat chains for the cost of just one feat slot is completely reasonable. Consider that a lvl. 1 Cloistered Cleric can have Knowledge Devotion, Animal Devotion and Travel Devotion all at lvl. 1 without touching his feat slot(s), just using one class feature, and still having Turn Undead and full casting.
Seems a lot like the second thing here is a good solution to the first. Dip cloistered cleric, and then you get all of this stuff in one level. This is still all happening by six, as the build hasn't used up any actual levels to pick up shock trooper at 6th. Nymph's kiss is kinda irrelevant with the fighter's list, able learning is kinda irrelevant without more points, even with nymph's kiss, and improved initiative is decent but not critical.

Point is, basic melee characters don't need all that much in the way of extra feats. They can gain good utility from those feats, because there are lots of feats in the game, but there's nothing that increases the power level significantly above a normal fighter. A big part of the issue is that melee fellows don't have all that much to work with. Kelderath made note of natural spell and arcane thesis, but the point isn't only that caster feats aren't as chained up. It's also that druids and wizards have class features that can be improved, unlike fighters who just have a few sparse things to work with. After all, other examples of crazy caster feats include aberration wild shape and divine metamagic, two feats that take heavy taxing to function.

[ericgrau]

Narrow power boosts don't help in high optimization where everything is cranked to 1,000 already and it's only a matter of how many different things you have cranked up to 1,000. And in low optimization it'll break the game to give even one big power boost. Even if it's not cranked to 1,000 and there are more broken things out there, it can break a low op group who doesn't normally use such things.

If you want more versatility then give out more WBL. There are tons of interesting magical toys to play with which help out the mundane more, while being semi-redundant on those who are already magical.

I do think it's fine to address feat power creep though. Either nerf power creep feats and play a low op game, or allow stronger feats but give players a discount on all the weaker feats. Maybe 2 for 1. Or merging feats is fine too, just more work to organize not only the core feats but also the not-power-creep splat feats.

[Ferronach]

I had a similar idea a little while back. Feel free to take what you want. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?370686-3-5-Leveling-the-playing-field-(sot-of))
I still have not been able to get around to starting this game so if you use something please let me know how it works out :)

[ZamielVanWeber]

I think eggy hit the nail on the head: casters can take feats that boost their class features while fighters have no class features to boost. They take the strong and make it stronger and often don't have sizable chains associated with them. The fighter feats are trying to create something from nothing, but there are very few fighter only feats and they all tend to be at the end of chains, so a pure fighter is going to be having issues (not to mention the fighter only feats universally are "+x to hit/+y to damage"). What a fighter needs is class features, like tsrork mentioned.

[Cavir]

Something like this:
Call to the Steel (Ex):
Weapon Trick (Ex):

You can limit the enchantments that can be added with Weapon Trick but there's really no point.

A homebrew (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?332782-Base-Prestige-classes-%28Arcane-Archer%29) archer system using the same idea. Check out the "Enhance Arrow" and "Enchant Arrow" sections.

Enhance Arrow (Su)
At 1st level, every nonmagical arrow an arcane archer nocks and lets fly becomes magical, gaining a +1 enhancement bonus. Unlike magic weapons created by normal means, the archer need not spend experience points or gold pieces to accomplish this task. However, an archer’s magic arrows only function for her. For every two levels the character advances past 1st level in the prestige class, the magic arrows she creates gain +1 greater potency (+1 at 1st level, +2 at 3rd level, +3 at 5th level, and so on).

At 11th level, it becomes necessary to use the Enchant Arrow class feature on the Arcane Archer's arrows to prevent them being epic - that is, no arrow may have an enhancement bonus greater than 5.


Enchant Arrow (Su):
At fourth level, an arcane archer can swap part of the enhancement bonus from her arrows for a weapon for an equivalent weapon special quality. She must keep at least +1 enhancement bonus.

[ericgrau]

I think eggy hit the nail on the head: casters can take feats that boost their class features while fighters have no class features to boost. They take the strong and make it stronger and often don't have sizable chains associated with them. The fighter feats are trying to create something from nothing, but there are very few fighter only feats and they all tend to be at the end of chains, so a pure fighter is going to be having issues (not to mention the fighter only feats universally are "+x to hit/+y to damage"). What a fighter needs is class features, like tsrork mentioned.
I think another problem may be that wizards get a chapter for their class features. Things fighters can do are buried in 17 different places, with complicated rules and a guessing game at how difficult it is to use them against certain foes. You don't really know when they're a better idea than damage without the feat and with the feat.

There are ~5 different special attacks each with their own complicated rules set and yes you can use them without the feat against the right target who has low physical modifiers but you must know when that is. There are a myriad of strength checks for different reasons. It always confuses me why people make a big deal about open lock and knock when a strength check or attack works as well or better. But that's probably b/c no one knows how that works. Mounted combat rules & ride checks (2 different places eep). Special ways to ready actions. Alchemical items. Etc., etc. At most a rookie might carry a damaging alchemical item or two, while the rest is beyond his comprehension.

It would be nice if each action was packaged neatly like a spell. But what you get are a myriad of options on a myriad of different pages when only a half dozen apply in a specific situation.

[tsroark]

It would be nice if each action was packaged neatly like a spell. But what you get are a myriad of options on a myriad of different pages when only a half dozen apply in a specific situation.

Thats the part i didnt like about ToB was the similarity to casting. I really dont have a strong understanding of the book. But it always bothered me that they could only perform the maneuvers they meditated on. Sort of like 4e, "Sorry guys, I burnt up all my great cleaves and power attacks for this battle," or "I didnt prepare myself to swing my sword like that today."

I think at this point we arent talking about the fighter any more and might as well call it fighter(2). I think i am going to finish digging through all the feats available to the fighter and maybe see if i can get one of the players in my upcomming shackled city game.

I will come up with a few feat chains and maybe merge some similar together. I will also throw in some weapon effect feats and maybe just grant the weapon focus/spec line on the dead levels.

I will certainly report results, although I can not brag about system mastery.

[Flickerdart]

But it always bothered me that they could only perform the maneuvers they meditated on.
Well...not quite. Crusader's mechanic makes the most sense here - divine inspiration shows him opportunities in battle where his techniques can be applied (if you try to spam the same technique in real life regardless of circumstances, you get pummeled pretty damn fast). Swordsage does meditate, but since they're supposed to be the mystic guys and many of their maneuvers are not entirely physical, that seems okay.

Really, the idea of "I build up my ki/focus/whatever and try to pull off a particular move" is hardly alien to fiction of all stripes.

[ericgrau]

Thats the part i didnt like about ToB was the similarity to casting. I really dont have a strong understanding of the book. But it always bothered me that they could only perform the maneuvers they meditated on. Sort of like 4e, "Sorry guys, I burnt up all my great cleaves and power attacks for this battle," or "I didnt prepare myself to swing my sword like that today."

I think at this point we arent talking about the fighter any more and might as well call it fighter(2). I think i am going to finish digging through all the feats available to the fighter and maybe see if i can get one of the players in my upcomming shackled city game.

I will come up with a few feat chains and maybe merge some similar together. I will also throw in some weapon effect feats and maybe just grant the weapon focus/spec line on the dead levels.

I will certainly report results, although I can not brag about system mastery.
I was referring more to rules organization than the mechanics. It might be nice if each one was part of the character sheet somehow or on a list with a summary or on cards. Something easy to use with a constant reminder that the option is available.

[Andion Isurand]

As far as some quick improvements go, I support those who think fighters should get a d12 Hit Die, 4 + Int skill points per level, and a few more class skills.

In addition, how about altering the way that feats scale as you level up? Fighter Feat Scaling (http://magerune.blogspot.com/2014/04/fighter-feat-scaling.html).

In the initial example linked above, the fighter would be better served by getting a bonus fighter feat at every level, so their feats scale up more than they do for others do over time.

I would also make the "Weapon Groups Variant" more mainstream (if not for proficiency, then at least for feats)..... and then change all feats that apply to specifically chosen weapon groups (except Weapon Focus) so that those feats apply to all the weapons for which you have taken Weapon Focus. That way if a fighter wants to add new kinds of weapons to his or her "weapon focus/specilization/power critical/improved critical/ etc etc" scheme, they need only take Weapon Focus again.