Ashiel's Fighter Redux - 2018

[Ashiel]

Been a while since I stepped onto this board, but I've been hanging out with some folks on Discord, talking about Fighter things. One of the things I often hear as a complaint with fighter fixes is that people appreciate the Fighter's "simple" charm (even though its a class you will utterly ruin without being highly competent with the system), and didn't really want to deal with things like maneuvers and stances, and stuff like that. So in response, I made a fighter that's still focused on feats but is generally more competent at being the heroic mundane guy.

Core Design Considerations

Narrative power aside (because some people don't care about it much), the biggest issue I saw the fighter having was that his class feature is primarily "the feat guy". Problem is, feats by large tend to be worse than actual class features, and Fighter doesn't get many of them to begin with (most classes receive as many class features in addition to their other useful class features), and the ones he does get he must balance qualifications and feat chains. Making a fighter was an annoying mess most of the time.

I also kind of disliked how Fighters aren't very good team players (in a regular party they're equivalent to an animated minion, and just soak up healing and buffs, contributing to shorter adventuring days rather than helping the party carry forward as the class with no resources other than HP), and had no way of buffing or supporting their allies.

Finally, tower shields are garbage outside of a very limited set of circumstances. They actually reduce your armor class at most levels because they're the only shield with a Max Dex and the Pathfinder Armor Training feature has no effect on shields, only armor. Since tower shields are sort of a fighter perk (the only class that's proficient in them by default) I wanted them to actually be a viable option.

Fighters also lost a lot of their saving throws going into 3E. Their defenses were garbage, and as the quintessential mundane warrior they also had a pathetic number of skill points. These were both simply revised to good-levels of both, making their saves generally decent across the board, but still noticeably lower than a Paladin's (or a Barbarian w/ Superstition), and higher than a Ranger's (but a Ranger has in house access to things like freedom of movement, resist energy, delay poison, etc).


The Result
The result is a Fighter I made that gets a total of 36 feats from a wide selection of amazing feats, which he doesn't have to qualify for, 5 teamwork feats (which he does have to qualify for), and some very simple but useful class features that allow him to shrug off a little damage (making him need healing a bit less), provide orders for his team, and generally fight more competently. He still feels much like the core fighter, but is much harder to screw up and doesn't have to juggle feat prerequisites all over the place.

Ashiel's Fighter Redux - 2018 PDF (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sOGN9WDedN8yI9bd1kZzpltBqoav2MuQ)

[khadgar567]

so all in all lets give fighter more skill points so he can contribute the rest of the game like others. I suphose all professional optimizers still want to keep status quo by not addressing the real culprit of the caster martial disparity.

[Zilrax]

Addressing casters to nerf them requires fixing the entire magic system. Making the fighter better means just fixing the fighter. One requires basically making an entirely new game, the latter is not nearly as complex.

Hmm. It's interesting. I mean I care about narrative power, but I'll need to give this a test myself. I've got a few games going right now so it might give me a chance to get some feedback going. I've got all sorts of odd sorts so something might pop up in play. That temp hp would make a Lifesurge weapon pretty attractive to make the temp hp go further.

[khadgar567]

Addressing casters to nerf them requires fixing the entire magic system. Making the fighter better means just fixing the fighter. One requires basically making an entirely new game, the latter is not nearly as complex.

Hmm. It's interesting. I mean I care about narrative power, but I'll need to give this a test myself. I've got a few games going right now so it might give me a chance to get some feedback going. I've got all sorts of odd sorts so something might pop up in play. That temp hp would make a Lifesurge weapon pretty attractive to make the temp hp go further.
you dont need to fix every caster class just one solid nerf to wizard and few uber mages and you are golden. If you ask me cleric and druid dont need to much nerf the mane problem to fighters uselessness is gaygax's favorite child wizard just reign in its power enough like make sure it dont qualify prestige classes earlier then others and remove the his bigest i win button at 1st level called scribe scrool. Then fighter becomes much more usefull then you realy think.

[Ashiel]

I actually don't have much issue with casters being casters. I was more bothered by Fighters next to Paladins, Rangers, Barbarians, and Bards.
Edit: Insofar as all those other martial classes are competent warriors while also having a great mixture of problem solving abilities, options for strong defenses, powerful offenses, and so on. Fighters didn't really compare on any realm. Not even things like damage (Paladins can get access to Divine Power for +6 hit/damage before smites, Rangers get instant enemy for +10 hit/dmg vs anything, etc).

[khadgar567]

I actually don't have much issue with casters being casters. I was more bothered by Fighters next to Paladins, Rangers, Barbarians, and Bards.
Edit: Insofar as all those other martial classes are competent warriors while also having a great mixture of problem solving abilities, options for strong defenses, powerful offenses, and so on. Fighters didn't really compare on any realm. Not even things like damage (Paladins can get access to Divine Power for +6 hit/damage before smites, Rangers get instant enemy for +10 hit/dmg vs anything, etc).
speak for your self mate in my society group they are dealing enough damage to make wizards useless and they contribute with no problem. but any table i play with wizard or hear their damned plans to optimize they overshadow any one with out giving inch of chance to contribute the game. they have lot of skills then they need it suppose they have 2 skills per level + their int but when you not look at them for a second that number magically changes to 12+int per half level then its kinda history. this is why we have the caster martial disparity in pathfinder and d&d so we need to nerf the wizard to atleast sorcerer level maybe lower then that to adress the gaygax's accursed legacy.

[obexpe]

I very much appreciate that you managed to put all of this on a single page. So many homebrew writers feel the need to overload their classes with needlessly long descriptions and far too many abilities. This alone makes this one of the best Fighter fixes I've seen.

Nitpicks:
-Gaining three feats at one level is fine balance-wise, but a bit awkward player-wise. At level 20 you'd have to pick six feats! That's a lot of homework for the Fighter player.
-I'm no master at Pathfinder optimization but I think this Fighter vastly outpaces most other martials, and most certainly outpaces the Barbarian, Paladin, and Ranger on direct comparison between their chassis. Which means that you'd have to buff those martials to match this Fighter.

[Ashiel]

I very much appreciate that you managed to put all of this on a single page. So many homebrew writers feel the need to overload their classes with needlessly long descriptions and far too many abilities. This alone makes this one of the best Fighter fixes I've seen.

Nitpicks:
-Gaining three feats at one level is fine balance-wise, but a bit awkward player-wise. At level 20 you'd have to pick six feats! That's a lot of homework for the Fighter player.
-I'm no master at Pathfinder optimization but I think this Fighter vastly outpaces most other martials, and most certainly outpaces the Barbarian, Paladin, and Ranger on direct comparison between their chassis. Which means that you'd have to buff those martials to match this Fighter.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

I wasn't too worried about Paladins, Rangers, and Barbarians because they get a lot of love in Pathfinder (they are the classes I always played instead of Fighter). Paladins and Rangers for example get absolutely amazing defenses (divine grace, the option to cast bestow grace on themselves, Fey Foundling + Lay on Hands makes for seemingly endless hit points; rangers are amazing strike-vanishers, have smite-everything as soon as they get instant enemy or a wand, have access to cheap resist energy and similar effects, etc). Barbarians I'd like to raise to 6 skill points / level, but they also get access to things like superstition, a few options for rage-cycling, pounce, etc. There's also a ton of item support for those classes (rangers can get boots that give them every terrain favored, barbarians get big mileage out of furious and courageous weapons), and junk like that.

I actually made a couple fighters to test it after writing it up and since you don't have to fiddle with feat prerequisites, I found selecting extra feats at even 16th level mark really easy and quick, and when I didn't have any feats I wanted or ran out due to overlapping styles I just deep specced a few weapons (weapon focus + greater w. focus + w. specialization + greater w. specialization).

So I haven't completely written off the other core martials yet. :smallcool:

[Belial_the_Leveler]

feats by large tend to be worse than actual class features, and Fighter doesn't get many of them to begin with
Several years ago I made a class solely based on feats for test purposes. The result was that feats are about as good as spells, provided that there are as many and as variable as the spellcaster's spells. I.E. a wizard gets 50+ spell slots and can change them so a class that does the same with feats would be fine.


I also kind of disliked how Fighters aren't very good team players

Combat Drills [Ex]
Through precise, repetitive exercises, a fighter can grant others feats or proficiencies they have. One feat or proficiency per day can be granted to anyone participating in an hour-long morning drill overseen by the fighter, to a maximum of 1 per 2 fighter levels. Granted feats/proficiencies fade without fighter-overseen drills at a rate of 1 per day.
Inspiring Commander [Ex]
The fighter and all those under his command get 1 point of morale bonus per fighter feat as long as the fighter is active in the battle. The bonus is split between attack, melee damage, ranged damage, fortitude saves, will saves, reflex saves, armor class, or temporary hit points, at the fighter's choice. All bonuses except temporary hp cap at +5. Temporary hp are restored at the beginning of each round.

[TheGrimPeddler]

Hey Ash is back! Your ask anything thread wound up full of people worried about ya.

In any case, diggin' the redesign. I'm gonna have to give this one a go. My favorite ability by far is that combat stamina one. I'd probably homebrew a feat to bump it up. Perhaps equal to constitution bonus, or score. Then again I've always been a fan of really durable characters.