Automatic Feat Progression

[Pleh]

Not a Fighter Fix. I've come to terms with the fact that giving Fighter more feats will not actually fix the Fighter since there are too many bad feats and they all cost way too much and they can't be swapped out daily like spells.

This is not so much a Fight Fix to make it viable as an idea for a houserule to make playing a Fighter more appealing when standing next to Barbarian. Like putting salt on a bland, flavorless portion of food on your plate to help pull in some simple flavor.

My idea is to give the Fighter an actual Class Feature: Automatic Feat Progression. Along the same line of thought as the Ranger's Combat Style, but less structured to offer a wider degree of options. In my mind, I'm making the Fighter more fun to play, if not particularly more viable in the grand scheme of the Tiering system. You know, playing around with options in the T5-T3 realm of the game.


To each Fighter Dead Level, they gain Automatic Feat Progression. They may pick any feat that has as a prerequisite one of the Fighter Bonus Feats the Fighter has already selected, and take that feat. All feats gained through a Fighter's Automatic Feat Progression obey restrictions on Base Attack Bonus and Feat requirements, but ignore all others. If multiple feats are eligible to be taken through Automatic Feat Progression, the Fighter chooses one.

So if the Fighter takes Combat Expertise as a 2nd level Fighter Bonus Feat, they could take Improved Disarm, Improved Feint, or Improved Trip at 3rd level (their first Dead Level), but not Whirlwind Attack (since it has other Feat and BAB prerequisites the Fighter doesn't meet).

Do note that this incidentally makes the Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization feats accessible at much earlier levels (though only through Automatic Progression, taking them as a regular Bonus Feat still has to manage prerequisites). Considering that their bonuses were really only substantial at lower level anyway, I don't see this as being particularly gamebreaking.

I dunno. Just a strange thought popped into my head this morning. What do you think? I'm hoping it makes some of those feats that are nice, but overpriced a little more accessible, specifically through Fighters, who are supposed to be the Feat Guys.

[weckar]

Would this allow them to take feats that normally would not be FBFs?

[Pleh]

I can't quite see what you're asking. Which feats are you thinking about?

[martixy]

Why not PF fighter?

Has actual class features, that are not feats.

[weckar]

There are feats that are not Fighter Bonus Feats with Fighter Bonus Feats as prereqs. By your current wording, you could take those.

[Psyren]

Why not PF fighter?

Has actual class features, that are not feats.

This, combined with some of the feat consolidation listed in the "Feat Taxes" link in my sig. So stuff like "Vital Strike" and "Improved Grapple" would auto-advance as you gained the necessary BAB for them to do so, without costing additional feats.

[Pleh]

Why not PF fighter?

Has actual class features, that are not feats.

Because I don't play PF or have enough friends that do to start.

:P


There are feats that are not Fighter Bonus Feats with Fighter Bonus Feats as prereqs. By your current wording, you could take those.

And can you see any problem with this happening? I'm having trouble recalling any feats matching your description.

Last I checked, Fighter can use all the help it can get anyway

[Zaq]

It's not the worst band-aid I've seen stuck on a Fighter. I still wouldn't choose to play one over a class that gets options on a round-by-round basis (though I guess maybe enough levels of this might make you have SOMETHING more interesting than "I hit it again," but I'd still rather just go straight for a Warblade if I felt beatsticky), but I doubt it'd be crazy overpowered, and it at least is a slightly more interesting take on their initial shtick.

Part of me wonders how overpowered/underpowered it would be to just literally slap the 4e Fighter's mark-and-punish mechanism onto the 3.5 Fighter, but that's probably a tiny bit more involved than what you're describing here. (Not that much more involved, though.)

[angelpalm]

Luckily for pathfinder players instead of giving fighter more feats you can take away all of them by using Dsp's Myrmidon archetype mixed with either the Coiled Blade archetype from SoM or their other cool archetypes from SoP like War Hero and Spirit-Wielder that stack together to make you an aura radiating, awakened weapon using rockstar. Also your weapon can cast sphere spells and your aura's don't take any actual actions to use. You just do your normal fighter stuff and they turn on because you are being awesome lol. Add that to maneuvers and there you go.

[Coretron03]

If pathfinder 3rd party is on the table, Taking Martial master and Coiled blade you can pick up any Sphere of talent on the fly, especially if legendary talents are available. From the Athletics sphere alone you can pick up flight, burrowing or the ability to move X10 your speed while running if you gotta go fast. Need to fight unarmed? Pick up open hand and kick some ass. Gotta shoot stuff well? Pick up barrage or sniper and knock'em dead. Need to stealth or diplomance people? Pick up Scout or Warleader for skill ranks equal to your hitdie. Hell, if you have the berserker base sphere and are level 11, you can gain the ability to teleport 100 miles/level. Basically, its what I feel the fighter should have been. Have a look at Spheres of might sometime, even if you don't play pathfinder. You can read most of it ffor ree too, here http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com.