Making the Fighter Playable Again (proper place this time ;)

[AngelAndrius]

As more and more supplements come on the scene, it becomes more and more impossible to play a fighter and feel on the same level as the rest of the party. Some examples I'm using for this argument are:
1) Feat Rogue- d6 hp, so what??? skills and evasion and trap sense AND feats....
2) Warblade (Book of Nine Swords) d12 hp, full bab, awesome maneuvers...
3) Monk- evasion, diamond everything, flurry of blows, speed etc...

So I decided to try to add classa bilities to the fighter in order to make it appetizing once again (I haven't checked other threads, but I feel very original )
Anyways, here goes

1-Brawn over Brains
2
3
4
5
6-Disciplined Training
7
8
9
10-Battle mastery
11
12-Improved Disciplined Training
13
14
15
16
17
18- Greater Disciplined Training
19
20-Imroved Battle Mastery

Brawn over Brains: Whenever a fighter would gain an ability score increase due to leveling, she recieves an additional +1 to that ability score so long as the ability score increased was Str. Dex. or Con. and all her levels are fighter.

Disciplined Training: A fighter of 6th level recieves a +2 competence bonus on all Str. and Dex. skills and ability score checks. This bonus increases to +4 at 12th level and +6 at 18th level.

Battle Mastery: A fighter of 10th level and higher weilding a weapon may damage opponents using the damage from that weapon's next highest size category without penalty. For example, a fighter using a medium longsword (d8) would deal that weapons Large size damage (2d6). At 20th level, a fighter uses 2 size categories higher than the weapon itself (3d6).


Welp, I hope this helps to balance the fighter.

I would love some feedback!!!

[Baron Corm]

i'm just wondering how +to a couple skill checks and some increased damage compares to the unique and flavorful class abilities that the other classes you mentioned get?

[AngelAndrius]

I wasn't so much trying to increase the unique flavor of fighter, there's so many different ways to RP a fighter and archetypes to follow that flavor is not what the fighter lacks.

I was just trying to make it so that taking 20 levels in fighter wouldn't be the dumbest idea in the world (power-wise) compared to the other three classes I mentioned.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

How about flat removing Fighter and replacing it with Warblade? That ought to simplify things...

[Caewil]

I disapprove of "brawn over brains"

Fighter's shouldn't have to be stupid.

[Corncracker]

Indeed, no Brawn over Brain.

As an alternative,

Extensive Training: Be it of physical or mental, the Fighter trains hard to improve his abilities. At First level, increase any stat by 1. The fighter may also increase any stat by 1 at Fifth level, and then again every 5 levels in fighter. (10th Level, 15th Level, 20th Level, ect.)

[Dryad]

Ehm...

I just have to get this off my chest: Non caster classes, like fighter, are NOT a whole lot less powerful than full casters.
The only full caster that really need it's head blown off is the Cleric. I mean: An extreme amount of both healing, buffing and damage spells, a 3/4 b.a.b and a d8 HD, with armour, shields, ánd weapons.

The Fighter as is is is the most powerful melee class. Why make it even more powerful? Okay; the cleric is a more competent melee class than the fighter, but the cleric just needs to be taken down. A wizard isn't more powerful; it has half B.A.B, d4HD, no armour, little weapons, and a maximum amount of spells. All a fighter really needs is something that grants her SR 11+char lvl, and the fighter can simply kill any full caster without much difficulty. Except, of course, for the cleric.

Please; Fighters have ALL these combat feats! Isn't that enough already? You can completely customise your fighter! My fighter, at the moment, is a grapple specialist, and it servers her well enough. Caster? Oh, well. Grapple. Sure; it's hard against other melee classes, and large monsters, but it's so cool!
Build:
Improved unarmed strike
Weapon proficiency: Bladed Gauntlets
Improved Grapple
Earthern Embrace
Weapon focus: Bladed Gauntlets
Two weapon fighting.

All this at lvl 4! And as soon as I get her Armour Spikes, I deal 1d12 + 1d3 +3(bludgeoning) +1d6(piercing) damage for each round I hold a pin. Perhaps not at all that much damage in the long run, but with the pin added to it, rendering your opponent immobile, it has something for it.

Any fighter should be origional. And fun! What's DnD without something completely different, but fun all the same?
Of course, there is the spike chain-build, but for that, all I can say is: No chronicle I've ever played in would allow for that. It's just stepping out of line, really.

[Matthew]

Dryad, you're misunderstanding the problem here. Full Spell Casters are in the long run much more powerful than Non Spell Casters, it's just the nature of the game. Being able to do a bunch of damage during a Grapple at Level 4 doesn't mean much, nor is an 'original combat style' the same thing as an original Character. At Level 4, I can build a Fighter capable of doing a silly amount of damage via his Great Sword and with a rack of AC, but he still isn't any better at not getting zapped with Spells or capable of flight.

[ZeroNumerous]

All a fighter really needs is something that grants her SR 11+char lvl, and the fighter can simply kill any full caster without much difficulty.

Forcecage. Done.

[Dryad]

Mageslayer feat. Done.

I didn't just mean a great deal of damage via grapple, I meant diversity. Fighters have that; you can develop them any way you want! Spellcasters, on the other hand, are very much the same. Defensive buff-up followed by offensive spells. Then, you're out of spells. A fighter can dodge, disarm, trip, AoO, smash, grapple, all those things... All day long! See; that's the thing underestimated here: Limitation. A full caster has very powerful spells, but can only cast so much before she runs out of them. One encounter usually takes up much of the spells you prepare, or can cast spontaneously. Of good levels. But a fighter can keep up encounter after another, as long as her HP is sufficient to remain standing.
I agree that a cleric is overpowered, because they can do all the things mages can, and can do nifty tricks that allow them to smash like a fighter along that.. Even better than a fighter.
But the focus to it is duration. And a fighter has durability, while an arcanist does not. Yes, at the first few levels, fighters make short work of mages. At later levels, when things like incinerate kick in, this is practically out of the question. But the balance is very fragile. Protect the fighter from magic, by buffs, like Spell Resistance, Resist Elements, Freedom of Movement and the like, means the fighter can just charge in and kill people. Ghost touch weapon to ignore AC-bonusses from Mage Armour and Shield effects, and start chipping that stone-skin away.. Which works miraculously with a nice power attack and strength buffs. Of course; this relies on a spellcaster to back you up, but let's face it: The other group will have a melee guard to back her up, aswell.
I've played a couple of full casters. One of them was an 12-lvl conjurer. And a very good one, too. But she got ripper to shreds by any melee class. (Of course; she was a true wizard... Combat..? *trembles* Hey; she spent all her time in a study..) But she could conjure up creatures, and near instantly buff them to do over sixty damage per round. Without evocation and necromancy to do some extra damage, I relied on conjuration-dmg for back up, but there's something about incinerate that says: 'lvl 12? that's 24d6 fire, that is!'
Even with that spell, she couldn't beat the paladin, combat cleric, ranger/wizard, barbarian or monk. The only class she could deal with was full casters like: Wizards and Sorcerers. And she took those out with relative ease.
Those are my experiences with full arcanists. (The other full casters I've played were all druids.. And you really can't call them overpowered, unless you use all the compendium spells.)

[Matthew]

Here's the thing. Hit Points are a limited resource, much moreso than Spells, especially considering their relative rates of recovery. Fighters are fine up to a point, but their adaptability is limited at higher levels. They just cannot begin to emulate the power available to Wizards / Full Casters. Now, if you take away the Wizard's Spells, then of course he's going to suck, but Wizards are rarely without their Spells. Wands, Scrolls and all manner of other items mean that a Wizard is rarely without the appropriate Non Combat Spell (and the way experience works by RAW, they easily catch up what they spend, ridiculous, I know). Sure, it's possible to play a Full Spell Caster of similar power levels to a Fighter (or other Non Full Spell Caster), but it's their potential power that is the problem. Even a moderately 'tricked out' Spell caster is going to outstrip a fully 'tricked out' Fighter. It's not Player versus Player that is the problem, but rather what the Spell Caster can contribute to a solving a problem versus what a Non Spell caster can.

Really, though, there are so many Threads about this over on the Gaming Forum, it's hardly worth repeating the discussion here. I'm not sure when the last one was, but I'm willing to bet it was less than a week ago...

[Edit] Ah look, it's the duplicate of this Thread: Making the Fighter Playable Again (Gaming Forum) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44495&page=2). Perhaps we should move any further discussion there, so that discussion here remains focused on what the Original Poster has presented by way of Homebrew?

[Dryad]

Okies! Will do!

[AngelAndrius]

Yes sorry all!!!

I had reposted this but then when I went back to the original post, people were already discussing things, please move all discussion there :). The link is a couple posts above you :)