Bringing non-PoW martials up to PoW power levels

[Dr_Dinosaur]

In the set of houserules I'm compiling for use in my home games, Dreamscarred Press + Spheres of Power is essentially my core. However, as neat as the classes therein are, I still want to have Brawlers, Barbarians, etc. around since not everyone is going to want a martial character with the stance/maneuver system. So the obvious solution in my mind is to bring these classes up to the new standard of power by some combination of folding in archetypes, taking inspiration from other editions, and in one or two places combining classes wholesale. So I'm looking for suggestions so as to not overload these classes and accidentally make them too good, or completely miss what makes them bad.

My ideas so far:
*Combine Swashbuckler and Rogue, shifting the more explicitly trap/assassination focused Rogue abilities to an archetype that loses some Swashbuckler stuff.
*Combine Monk and Ninja, and make them Psionic. Two of the three "asian"-flavored classes, both focused on mobile combat and non-magical magic tricks.
*Combine Fighter and Brawler, add Combat Stamina for even more feat shenanigans.
*Barbarian also gets 5e stuff. They may now choose between normal Rage and all the 3.5 variants.
*Samurai is getting rebuilt from the ground up, focused on being a lone implacable force in battle on foot as opposed to its counterpart's team support and horsemanship. Yes, I know samurai also rode horses, but why not just make it a Cavalier archetype then?

It should be noted that in these houserules, iteratives work as in 5e and all the different "Talents" pools (including Vigilante) are combined into one generic "Edges" pool with a few exclusive options for each class. The Monk/Ninja class has access to Ki Powers but can take an archetype to replace them with Edges if they choose.

[Xerlith]

My personal take:


For Rogue - Keep the Unchained class as-is,but give them 4th level Investigator Extracts (using the Ranger spells/day list as extracts/day).
Unchained Monk works for Monk, I think.
Fold Cavalier and Swashbuckler together or Fighter and Swashbuckler together (simply gestalting them and giving a choice for a heavy/light version)
Unchained Barbarian works surprisingly well, but there's also the Bloodrager to pick up the slack. Maybe fold it with Brawler for some fun.


And slap the Initiator Balance Rule (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19980904&postcount=1) on top of those.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

My personal take:


For Rogue - Keep the Unchained class as-is,but give them 4th level Investigator Extracts (using the Ranger spells/day list as extracts/day).
Unchained Monk works for Monk, I think.
Fold Cavalier and Swashbuckler together or Fighter and Swashbuckler together (simply gestalting them and giving a choice for a heavy/light version)
Unchained Barbarian works surprisingly well, but there's also the Bloodrager to pick up the slack. Maybe fold it with Brawler for some fun.


And slap the Initiator Balance Rule (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19980904&postcount=1) on top of those.

Hmm, not sure about extracts. They always struck me as an odd choice for the base Investigator, and the Rogue is even less tied to them. Investigator itself might be worth looking at though. I hadn't considered Brawler/Barbarian and Fighter/Swashbuckler though. The latter has a lot of similarities to the Battle Master from 5e, which is everyone's favorite archetype there.

I love the IBR, but the idea here was to make classes stronger without initiating, because a lot of people I know don't want it.

[Starbuck_II]

Hmm, not sure about extracts. They always struck me as an odd choice for the base Investigator, and the Rogue is even less tied to them. Investigator itself might be worth looking at though. I hadn't considered Brawler/Barbarian and Fighter/Swashbuckler though. The latter has a lot of similarities to the Battle Master from 5e, which is everyone's favorite archetype there.

I love the IBR, but the idea here was to make classes stronger without initiating, because a lot of people I know don't want it.

Follow the adjusted BAB rules but grant any combat feat (which includes Martial Training). So this buff up non Initiators (and somewhat casters).

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Oh, that works!

[Krazzman]

My ideas so far:
*Combine Swashbuckler and Rogue, shifting the more explicitly trap/assassination focused Rogue abilities to an archetype that loses some Swashbuckler stuff.
*Combine Monk and Ninja, and make them Psionic. Two of the three "asian"-flavored classes, both focused on mobile combat and non-magical magic tricks.
*Combine Fighter and Brawler, add Combat Stamina for even more feat shenanigans.
*Barbarian also gets 5e stuff. They may now choose between normal Rage and all the 3.5 variants.
*Samurai is getting rebuilt from the ground up, focused on being a lone implacable force in battle on foot as opposed to its counterpart's team support and horsemanship. Yes, I know samurai also rode horses, but why not just make it a Cavalier archetype then?

It should be noted that in these houserules, iteratives work as in 5e and all the different "Talents" pools (including Vigilante) are combined into one generic "Edges" pool with a few exclusive options for each class. The Monk/Ninja class has access to Ki Powers but can take an archetype to replace them with Edges if they choose.

The barbarian idea seems nice. Unchained rage would probably be better save for whirling frenzy but is pretty awesome.

While I applaud your choice to rebuild the samurai remember that they were a head cult. And as far as I believed it was an alternative to the cavalier which was made into a class for itself since it changed more than an archetype would. But go ahead... they should be excellent switch hitter though since a samurai used probably the bow the most. The Katana was often times only a status symbol for a samurai.

Good luck.

[Powerdork]

Follow the adjusted BAB rules but grant any combat feat (which includes Martial Training). So this buff up non Initiators (and somewhat casters).

ANY combat feat, I could see being a bit problematic. Any combat feat you qualify for? Nowhere near as useful or as strong as it could be. The speed on this is pretty slow and its effects are rare to see over the course of 3 consecutive level gains (a good gauge for "is this alteration to the advancement rules impactful?"). The most effective (though most difficult to implement) approach to boosting martial classes is to instead open up the door into Actual Good Combat Feats.