PDA

View Full Version : D&D 3.x Class Fixing the Underpowered Class #1: The Fighter



yarrowdeathbloo
2019-06-18, 02:20 AM
This is gonna be the first in a series of posts where I attempt to reduce the power gap in the classes within the 3.5e system and I figured where better to start then with the fighter. The goal of this series is not tomake every class as powerful as wizards clerics and druids (that would be silly) but rather to make each class sufficiently competent at it's role for martial characters this will be defined as being able to kill a balor demon 1 on 1 atleast 75% of the time only using materials from the PHB and the sourcebook the class comes from. I will also be going out of my way to devalue magic vs player characters with my tweaks to the martial classes as a minor way to nerf magic (and by extension psionic) users.

The Problems
So the fighter has a fair number of thing holding it back as a class most notably

Lack of class features
9 Dead levels
Lack of ways to contribute meaningfully outside of combat


While the last problem isn't exactly unique to fighters it is exasperated by the fact the fighter slowly becomes a subpar combatant at higher levels instead of feeling like a character who is more skilled at fighting than usual warrior.


Tweaks
Since the problem with the Fighter is a Lack of class features I suggest the following:

Opportunist: at 3rd level, 7th level, 13th level, 19th and 20th level you gain an additional attack of opportunity each round.

Parry: At 5th level you learn how to better avoid getting hit. When you are attacked by an enemy you are aware of you may use an attack of opportunity to roll you weapons base damage dice(as in no enchantments) and add the result to your ac against that attack.

Counter Blow: Also at 5th level you learn how to better punish your opponents mistakes in combat, whenever an enemy you threaten misses an attack against you, you can make an attack of opportunity against that creature.

Combat alertness: at 7th level you gain a +1 dodge bonus to AC and a +1 bonus to initiative checks this increases to +2 at 15th level and +3 at 19th level and +4 at 20th level.

Shift:Starting at 9th level as an immediate action you can give up an attack of opportunity for the round to move 5ft.

Spell Resistance: Starting at 11th level you gain spell resistance equal to your fortitude saving throw bonus this is added on to any spell resistance you already have or gain.

Mettle: at 13th level you gain evasion as the crusader.

Supremacy(ex): Starting at 15th level Creatures you threaten take a -1 penalty on attack roles, saving throws, caster level, and ability checks. This is increased to -2 at 17th level and -3 at 19th level.

Overwhelm: Starting at 17th As a swift action you can make a Trip, Grapple, Disarm, Sunder attempt.

Martial Mastery (ex): Starting at 19th level your threat range is doubled.

Finishing Strike(Ex): When you damage a creature with less than half it's maximum HP that creature must make a fortitude saving throw with DC equal to the damage taken or be reduced to 0 0hp.

MeimuHakurei
2019-06-18, 02:58 AM
What kind of competency level are you aiming at? Depending on how much you want, the Warblade or Frank Trollman's Tome Fighter more or less already provide a useful boost to the Fighter class.

Eldariel
2019-06-18, 03:21 AM
This definitely seems like a topic more worthy of the Homebrew forum. Also, I think this fails to address the lack of non-combat functionality for the class. Fighter should, at the very least, have access to Knowledge: History (includes Warfare), Engineering (includes Fortifications), Geography (includes Terrain), etc. (probably Nobility & Royalty too; not every Fighter is a lone samurai), Spot, Listen, and probably some social skills. And sufficient skill points. And on top of that, perhaps some long duration skill usage like the Zhentarim Fighter subs (improves Intimidate), and definitely all sorts of leadership stuff. Nothing is more strongly associated with heroic Fighters in literature (everyone from Boromir to Achilleus/Hector/etc.) than their ability to inspire entire armies, maintain the hope of defeating an overpowering enemy, kind of innate gathering of followers, etc.

Power is inspiring and a hero (or an anti-hero) from legends should be able to motivate, inspire and draw more out of their allies (or underlings) than they could ever hope to bring out alone. White Raven stuff from ToB is a good start, but honestly, there should be more. Fighters should have class features that make them able to do stuff with skills that other classes are unable to, and those should most certainly at least enable leadership, tactics, strategy, etc. and how it influences their allies. Giving out the ability to perform feats, for example.

ThatMoonGuy
2019-06-18, 05:30 AM
Funny that you mention lack of out of combat usefulness and then does nothing about that.

I would agree with people above and say that a great warrior should be a tactician master. So maybe give some our of combat abilities tied to that, like being able to bolster other players checks or just gaining bonus to a roll when taking time to study.

As for the combat options, the ones you put are cool but sort of too specific. And the crit one is really that good? I mean, there are a lot of ways to get increased critical range so doubling it is either not very good if it doesn't add up and obscenely good if it does.

Kurald Galain
2019-06-18, 06:24 AM
Well, the straightforward approach is to use Paizo's fighter, which (among others) can get more skills, the tactical ability to share feats with his allies, and the ability to parry spells with his weapon.

That said,

Opportunist: This is just the Combat Reflexes feat. If there's one thing the fighter does not need, it's additional feats.
Parry: That's pretty weird, why would a weapon's damage die add to your armor class?
Counter Blow: That's a decent ability.
Combat alertness: At the levels that people actually play at, these modifiers are too small to matter.
Shift: Too complicated as written.
Spell Resistance: Your fort save is generally lower than your level. That means it'll also be lower than the caster level of most enemies you'll face, meaning this ability doesn't work.
Mettle: What's a crusader?
Supremacy(ex): At the levels that people actually play at, these modifiers are too small to matter.
Overwhelm: That should be a MUCH lower level ability.
Martial Mastery: This is just the Improved Critical feat. If there's one thing the fighter does not need, it's additional fets.


And I note that none of these changes help against your third issue, i.e. Lack of ways to contribute meaningfully outside of combat.

Eldariel
2019-06-18, 06:52 AM
Well, the straightforward approach is to use Paizo's fighter, which (among others) can get more skills, the tactical ability to share feats with his allies, and the ability to parry spells with his weapon.

That said,

Opportunist: This is just the Combat Reflexes feat. If there's one thing the fighter does not need, it's additional feats.
Parry: That's pretty weird, why would a weapon's damage die add to your armor class?
Counter Blow: That's a decent ability.
Combat alertness: At the levels that people actually play at, these modifiers are too small to matter.
Shift: Too complicated as written.
Spell Resistance: Your fort save is generally lower than your level. That means it'll also be lower than the caster level of most enemies you'll face, meaning this ability doesn't work.
Mettle: What's a crusader?
Supremacy(ex): At the levels that people actually play at, these modifiers are too small to matter.
Overwhelm: That should be a MUCH lower level ability.
Martial Mastery: This is just the Improved Critical feat. If there's one thing the fighter does not need, it's additional fets.


And I note that none of these changes help against your third issue, i.e. Lack of ways to contribute meaningfully outside of combat.

Paizo's Fighter is a good starting point but more realistically I'd go with the PoW variant and then condense it all to 10 levels. Then homebrew more epic stuff for the second 10 levels and the progression could be rather on par with the higher echelons of the game. One of the big problems with the 3.5/PF paradigm is that much of the cool stuff martials get comes so late that nobody cares since casters are already binding demons and teleporting around the world and such much earlier. Like I love the Dervish class but you get One Thousand Cuts on level 15 when casters have 8th level spells and one of those things is not like the other. Same with most 3.5 martial PRCs and Pathfinder progression abilities. The only realistic solution to that (aside from just rewriting the casting classes from the ground up) is to condense the basic stuff the warriors get to the levels where they are actually meaningful and then giving them stuff that's meaningful in the post-magic ascension world for the other half. Level 10 is a good approximation since the game-changing spells come as level 5 spells (Lesser Planar Binding, Teleport, Contact Other Plane, etc.), which are gained on level 9-10 depending on if you're playing a caster or a gimp. Level 10 martial should thus be about peak martial and then begin doing epic stuff from then on.

Gallowglass
2019-06-18, 08:22 AM
This is gonna be the first in a series of posts where I attempt to reduce the power gap in the classes within the 3.5e system and I figured where better to start then with the fighter.

Well this seems familiar


The goal of this series is not tomake every class as powerful as wizards clerics and druids (that would be silly)

Okay


but rather to make each class sufficiently competent at it's role for martial characters this will be defined as being able to kill a balor demon 1 on 1 atleast 75% of the time

Stop listening there. A fighter can already kill a balor 1 on 1 75% of the time. What a fighter can't do is, you know, non-combat things. That's where their weakness is. Why can't people get that? Every day there are fifteen posts that go "A fighter is underpowered! Lets fix it by making them hit more or do more damage or blah blah blah"

THAT MISSES THE POINT

You want to "improve" the fighter. Okay. What do you mean by that.

You want it to be a better combatant (as you are measuring his **** versus fighting a balor) why? why why why?

You want it to hold up at higher levels verses the overpowered classes? Then you dont' need to improve its combat ability, you need to make it more versatile. Because THAT is what detracts it at higher levels.


only using materials from the PHB and the sourcebook the class comes from.

Mettle: at 13th level you gain evasion as the crusader.

Just wanted to shove these together



I will also be going out of my way to devalue magic vs player characters with my tweaks to the martial classes as a minor way to nerf magic (and by extension psionic) users.


I legitimately can't parse this sentence. magic vs player characters? Do you mean PvP? How does that nerf anything?



The Problems
So the fighter has a fair number of thing holding it back as a class most notably

Lack of class features
9 Dead levels
Lack of ways to contribute meaningfully outside of combat


While the last problem isn't exactly unique to fighters it is exasperated by the fact the fighter slowly becomes a subpar combatant at higher levels instead of feeling like a character who is more skilled at fighting than usual warrior.


Tweaks
Since the problem with the Fighter is a Lack of class features I suggest the following:

Opportunist: at 3rd level, 7th level, 13th level, 19th and 20th level you gain an additional attack of opportunity each round.

Parry: At 5th level you learn how to better avoid getting hit. When you are attacked by an enemy you are aware of you may use an attack of opportunity to roll you weapons base damage dice(as in no enchantments) and add the result to your ac against that attack.

Counter Blow: Also at 5th level you learn how to better punish your opponents mistakes in combat, whenever an enemy you threaten misses an attack against you, you can make an attack of opportunity against that creature.

Combat alertness: at 7th level you gain a +1 dodge bonus to AC and a +1 bonus to initiative checks this increases to +2 at 15th level and +3 at 19th level and +4 at 20th level.

Shift:Starting at 9th level as an immediate action you can give up an attack of opportunity for the round to move 5ft.

Spell Resistance: Starting at 11th level you gain spell resistance equal to your fortitude saving throw bonus this is added on to any spell resistance you already have or gain.

Mettle: at 13th level you gain evasion as the crusader.

Supremacy(ex): Starting at 15th level Creatures you threaten take a -1 penalty on attack roles, saving throws, caster level, and ability checks. This is increased to -2 at 17th level and -3 at 19th level.

Overwhelm: Starting at 17th As a swift action you can make a Trip, Grapple, Disarm, Sunder attempt.

Martial Mastery (ex): Starting at 19th level your threat range is doubled.

Finishing Strike(Ex): When you damage a creature with less than half it's maximum HP that creature must make a fortitude saving throw with DC equal to the damage taken or be reduced to 0 0hp.

Okay so, honest critiques.

All you've done is take some of the feats that a fighter can take and weld them in as permanent and inflexible features. You could have just replaced most of them with "you get another bonus feat" and had the same effect only giving the player more options.

Also you've incentivized not taking certain feats earlier because you are going to get them as welded on features later on. Why take combat reflexes at 1st level when you get it for free later on. So already 75% of fighters start with power attack and now you've completely devalued anyone being in the other 25%.

What you've done with giving them a pool of attacks of opportunities to trade for other things makes dexterity even more powerful than strength. Which is already was. Which is further hilarious because nothing on your tweak list helps a ranged fighter. At all. In any way. So you've basically aimed at making the power-attack melee bruiser better... who was already the best build over the other fighter builds.

Also, Paizo does it different with armor training and weapon training. You should look at those.

Nothing on your tweak list aims at addressing Lack of ways to contribute meaningfully outside of combat at all.

Nothing on your tweak list is going to make any difference in that target battle versus the balor. Having combat reflexes for free, being able to trip a bit better or having a few more attacks of opportunity... none of htat actually improves that combat. Because the combat at 20th level is "roll initiative. survive the first attack. power attack it to death."

I recommend doing some forum delving before you go further. Because you are treading long trodden trails and there is a wealth of ideas out there to mine. But You really need to start with a meaningful goal.

Is it "to make the fighter a better combatant." Okay, cool. then you have slightly improved its combat ability and given the player a dozen more things to keep track of.
Or is it "to make the fighter more fun at high levels."
Or is it "to make the fighter worth playing at high levels."

Each of those require different rebuilds.

I'm being unnecessarily harsh with this critique because I really want you to understand. This is but a fraction of the vitriol you will get from this forum, which is sad, but true.

But just remember. if your actual goal is "a fun thought exercise for my own self-interest" then I think you have a fun start, but need more work.

yarrowdeathbloo
2019-06-18, 01:25 PM
What kind of competency level are you aiming at? Depending on how much you want, the Warblade or Frank Trollman's Tome Fighter more or less already provide a useful boost to the Fighter class.

competency level: I would ideally like to get the fighter to be roughly in the same group as the spirit shaman and bard.

I'll take a look at the tome fighter in between working on this and doing other things thanks for telling me that's a thing.


This definitely seems like a topic more worthy of the Homebrew forum. Also, I think this fails to address the lack of non-combat functionality for the class. Fighter should, at the very least, have access to Knowledge: History (includes Warfare), Engineering (includes Fortifications), Geography (includes Terrain), etc. (probably Nobility & Royalty too; not every Fighter is a lone samurai), Spot, Listen, and probably some social skills. And sufficient skill points. And on top of that, perhaps some long duration skill usage like the Zhentarim Fighter subs (improves Intimidate), and definitely all sorts of leadership stuff. Nothing is more strongly associated with heroic Fighters in literature (everyone from Boromir to Achilleus/Hector/etc.) than their ability to inspire entire armies, maintain the hope of defeating an overpowering enemy, kind of innate gathering of followers, etc.

Yeah that's a good point maybe 4+int skills and expand the list to include diplomacy, hide, a few knowledges, listen spot and survival?


Power is inspiring and a hero (or an anti-hero) from legends should be able to motivate, inspire and draw more out of their allies (or underlings) than they could ever hope to bring out alone. White Raven stuff from ToB is a good start, but honestly, there should be more. Fighters should have class features that make them able to do stuff with skills that other classes are unable to, and those should most certainly at least enable leadership, tactics, strategy, etc. and how it influences their allies. Giving out the ability to perform feats, for example.

Maybe filter through these to find which ones would be okay for lower levels and then make the higher level ones be thing that increase the Fighter's ability to influence thing that they are currently not beating the tar out of?


Funny that you mention lack of out of combat usefulness and then does nothing about that.

Yeah tbh I figured just turning the fighter into the best possible combatant would be enough to make up for that but maybe not.


I would agree with people above and say that a great warrior should be a tactician master. So maybe give some our of combat abilities tied to that, like being able to bolster other players checks or just gaining bonus to a roll when taking time to study.

As for the combat options, the ones you put are cool but sort of too specific. And the crit one is really that good? I mean, there are a lot of ways to get increased critical range so doubling it is either not very good if it doesn't add up and obscenely good if it does.

Yeah it adds up because I think it's weird how improved critical and keen don't stack so I figured I would help crit fishers a little bit and critting works well with the capstone I made.


Well, the straightforward approach is to use Paizo's fighter, which (among others) can get more skills, the tactical ability to share feats with his allies, and the ability to parry spells with his weapon.



That said,

Opportunist: This is just the Combat Reflexes feat. If there's one thing the fighter does not need, it's additional feats.
Parry: That's pretty weird, why would a weapon's damage die add to your armor class?
Counter Blow: That's a decent ability.
Combat alertness: At the levels that people actually play at, these modifiers are too small to matter.
Shift: Too complicated as written.
Spell Resistance: Your fort save is generally lower than your level. That means it'll also be lower than the caster level of most enemies you'll face, meaning this ability doesn't work.
Mettle: What's a crusader?
Supremacy(ex): At the levels that people actually play at, these modifiers are too small to matter.
Overwhelm: That should be a MUCH lower level ability.
Martial Mastery: This is just the Improved Critical feat. If there's one thing the fighter does not need, it's additional fets.



Okay so for Opportunist it is similar to combat reflexes except it doesn't care about your dex mod which is nice cause most of the class features I made are based on AOO's.

Parry adding damage dice to ac: the idea is since it's possible to **** up while parrying an attack and bigger weapons have more surface area and can't be used with a shield then partially for balance and partially for a weird logic they can block more things. Also it's intended to make the fighter as a class feel more involved.

Combat alertness: fair I might swap it out for overwhelm

Would there be a better way to write shift down?

I wasn't sure if the spell resistance would be a little much with mettle but when you put it that way I guess I could buff it a little more.

Mettle: fair I'll write the whole ability down.

Supremacy: I'll probably be replacing it with a good non beat the tar ability.

Overwhelm: yeah probably gonna move it to level 7.

Martial mastery: it should be mentioned it stacks with improved critical.



Paizo's Fighter is a good starting point but more realistically I'd go with the PoW variant and then condense it all to 10 levels. Then homebrew more epic stuff for the second 10 levels and the progression could be rather on par with the higher echelons of the game. One of the big problems with the 3.5/PF paradigm is that much of the cool stuff martials get comes so late that nobody cares since casters are already binding demons and teleporting around the world and such much earlier. Like I love the Dervish class but you get One Thousand Cuts on level 15 when casters have 8th level spells and one of those things is not like the other. Same with most 3.5 martial PRCs and Pathfinder progression abilities. The only realistic solution to that (aside from just rewriting the casting classes from the ground up) is to condense the basic stuff the warriors get to the levels where they are actually meaningful and then giving them stuff that's meaningful in the post-magic ascension world for the other half. Level 10 is a good approximation since the game-changing spells come as level 5 spells (Lesser Planar Binding, Teleport, Contact Other Plane, etc.), which are gained on level 9-10 depending on if you're playing a caster or a gimp. Level 10 martial should thus be about peak martial and then begin doing epic stuff from then on.

Thanks for the idea I'll look into and see if I like it.



Well this seems familiar



Okay



Stop listening there. A fighter can already kill a balor 1 on 1 75% of the time. What a fighter can't do is, you know, non-combat things. That's where their weakness is. Why can't people get that? Every day there are fifteen posts that go "A fighter is underpowered! Lets fix it by making them hit more or do more damage or blah blah blah"



Rude phrasing aside if the DM plays the balor as smart as you would expect one to be the fighter is usually only able to kill the balor 1v1 because it nearly murdered the party first and got a little to cocky and let the fighter get in close while on lowish hp. purely from the perspective of the balors kit vs a fighter the fighter usually only wins through sheer luck at least as far as I've seen from my PC's fighters.



You want to "improve" the fighter. Okay. What do you mean by that.

You want it to be a better combatant (as you are measuring his **** versus fighting a balor) why? why why why?

You want it to hold up at higher levels verses the overpowered classes? Then you dont' need to improve its combat ability, you need to make it more versatile. Because THAT is what detracts it at higher levels.



Appreciate the enthusiasm but you make a fair point as stated above I'll probably give the fighter new tricks in the next version of my rework.



Just wanted to shove these together

as I said earlier will be fixing that small issue.



I legitimately can't parse this sentence. magic vs player characters? Do you mean PvP? How does that nerf anything?


okay that was honestly badly phrased by vs player characters I meant versus PC classes because a lot of my higher level npc classes tend to be kitted similarly to PC's again this is kinda specific to my campaigns but I'm sure quite a few DM's also do this.



Okay so, honest critiques.

All you've done is take some of the feats that a fighter can take and weld them in as permanent and inflexible features. You could have just replaced most of them with "you get another bonus feat" and had the same effect only giving the player more options.

Also you've incentivized not taking certain feats earlier because you are going to get them as welded on features later on. Why take combat reflexes at 1st level when you get it for free later on. So already 75% of fighters start with power attack and now you've completely devalued anyone being in the other 25%.

What you've done with giving them a pool of attacks of opportunities to trade for other things makes dexterity even more powerful than strength. Which is already was. Which is further hilarious because nothing on your tweak list helps a ranged fighter. At all. In any way. So you've basically aimed at making the power-attack melee bruiser better... who was already the best build over the other fighter builds.

Also, Paizo does it different with armor training and weapon training. You should look at those.

Nothing on your tweak list aims at addressing Lack of ways to contribute meaningfully outside of combat at all.

Nothing on your tweak list is going to make any difference in that target battle versus the balor. Having combat reflexes for free, being able to trip a bit better or having a few more attacks of opportunity... none of htat actually improves that combat. Because the combat at 20th level is "roll initiative. survive the first attack. power attack it to death."

I recommend doing some forum delving before you go further. Because you are treading long trodden trails and there is a wealth of ideas out there to mine. But You really need to start with a meaningful goal.

Is it "to make the fighter a better combatant." Okay, cool. then you have slightly improved its combat ability and given the player a dozen more things to keep track of.
Or is it "to make the fighter more fun at high levels."
Or is it "to make the fighter worth playing at high levels."

Each of those require different rebuilds.

I'm being unnecessarily harsh with this critique because I really want you to understand. This is but a fraction of the vitriol you will get from this forum, which is sad, but true.

But just remember. if your actual goal is "a fun thought exercise for my own self-interest" then I think you have a fun start, but need more work.

I think I addressed most of this in my responses to other people so I'm not gonna bother retreading that but wonderful personality aside I do appreciate the honest criticism and advice.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2019-06-18, 03:45 PM
The class itself has something at every bonus feat level, and something good at 2nd and 6th if you take Dungeoncrasher, and maybe at 4th (Specialization, for Melee Weapon Mastery) and 18th (Weapon Supremacy). So the levels with something good are seriously lacking, and the levels with something are decent early, but not worth sticking around for.

So the class needs something good that scales with your class levels, and it needs something good/big often enough that the class is worth sticking with.

Considering a given character should go for all the necessary magic item effects (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items), you shouldn't need to gain any of those things from class features.

Here's what I would do to fix the class:


Increase the base skill points to 4 per level (this should honestly be done with nearly every class that only gets a base 2 skill points per level), and increase the class skill list. Include Balance, Tumble, Listen, Spot, Sense Motive, Profession, and Knowledge (Architecture/Engineering, Local, Nobility/Royalty).

Make the Zhentarim Soldier (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a) class features default for the base class. That's Skill Focus: Intimidate at 3rd, Extended Intimidation (noncombat use) at 5th, and Swift Demoralization at 9th.

Make the Dead Levels (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20061013a) class features default for the base class.

Athletic Affinity (Su): Beginning at 3rd level, when you have an Enhancement bonus to one or more of your physical ability scores (Str, Dex, Con), that Enhancement bonus is increased by 1/3 of your Fighter class level. This only benefits the bonuses granted to your character's physical ability scores, even if the effect that grants the enhancement bonus would benefit other ability scores or other characters.

Practical Gains (Ex): At 5th level, you gain your choice of the Powerful Build trait or the Slight Build (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a) trait. If you select Powerful Build, your Strength score increases by two points. If you select Slight Build, your Dexterity score increases by two points.

Weapon Affinity (Ex or Su): Beginning at 5th level, when you wield a weapon that has an Enhancement bonus to attack and/or damage, that bonus is increased by 1/5 of your Fighter class level for attack and damage rolls you make with that weapon. This is an extraordinary ability if the enhancement bonus is nonmagical (masterwork weapon), otherwise it's a supernatural ability.

Defensive Affinity (Su): Beginning at 7th level, if your armor or shield has an Enhancement bonus to the AC bonus it grants you, and/or if you have a Resistance bonus to one or more of your saving throws, each of those bonuses is increased by 1/6 of your Fighter class level for your character.

Martial Prowess (Ex): At 11th level, your base attack bonus increases by one additional point, and your iterative attacks are made at a cumulative -4 penalty instead of the normal -5 penalty. At 19th level, your base attack bonus increases by one more additional point, and your iterative attacks are made at a cumulative -3 penalty instead. These reductions to iterative attack penalties can cause you to gain additional iterative attacks sooner than normal, and you can have more than four attacks per round from iterative attacks.

Spell Resistance (Ex): Beginning at 13th level, you gain spell resistance equal to double your Fighter class level. You may choose to have harmless spells ignore this spell resistance at any time, this does not require an action and this decision can be made even when you're unconscious, disabled, or not in control of your own actions.

Mettle (Ex): At 15th level, you gain Mettle.

Evasion (Ex): At 15th level, you gain Evasion. This functions regardless of the type of armor you're wearing, or your current encumbrance.

Versatile Resistance (Ex): At 17th level, when you roll a saving throw, you may choose to use your Fortitude, Reflex, or Will saving throw bonus in place of the one called for.

Improved Affinity: At 20th level, your Athletic Affinity class feature improves to 1/2 your Fighter class level, your Weapon Affinity class feature improves to 1/3 of your Fighter class level, and your Defensive Affinity class feature improves to 1/4 of your Fighter class level.

ThatMoonGuy
2019-06-18, 05:17 PM
The issue with everything feeding on aoos is that you can get extra aoos (and thus extra uses of the abilities) by getting Combat Reflexes and having high dex. This makes Dexterity builds stronger, specially the ones based on reach. And given you also give the class a very, very big crit range things can escalate pretty wildly.

You mentioned your reasing for damage to ac was that bigger dice = larger weapon. Which is not necessarily true and doesn't necessarily mean much in martial arts terms. A styrofoam hammer and an iron hammer may be the same size but have very different damage and a shield may cause far lower damage than a spear but has larger area. The area of a weapon, while useful for defense, isn't also the only criteria for making it good at parrying. How easy it is to maneuver and how it's shaped also enter into play. All around, wouldn't it make more sense to have BAB be added to your AC instead of weapon damage dice?

In a more general sense, I don't think it's hard to make a fighter who deals a lot of damage and can take down big monsters. In terms of raw damage, a properly built two handed fighter should already be able to do a lot. Focusing even more on that just doesn't add up much to the class gameplay as a whole. The defensive options are interesting and the idea of having a reserve that resets every turn is good I just don't think it needs to be tied to aoos. Given, aoos are already in the game and tackling a mechanic to it is pretty easy but the problem lies in that this can be exploited.

I think a lot of what you may be feeling comes from a certain standpoint in how you play the game so let me suggest something as an experiment. I like playing martials and often like playing more investigative and social campaigns. From my perspective, your modifications to the class don't change much. I can already make a Fighter that's good at fighting but what I have a hard time doing is a Fighter who's not a dead weight when the party is trying learn the identity of a serial killer or trying to silently break into a mansion to extract a target. Perhaps those are some places you should think about too?

Anthrowhale
2019-06-18, 06:48 PM
The Generic Warrior (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/genericClasses.htm#warrior) seems useful here. The choose-your-class-feature and choose-your-skill aspects are both helpful in making the class less boring.

yarrowdeathbloo
2019-06-18, 07:39 PM
The issue with everything feeding on aoos is that you can get extra aoos (and thus extra uses of the abilities) by getting Combat Reflexes and having high dex. This makes Dexterity builds stronger, specially the ones based on reach. And given you also give the class a very, very big crit range things can escalate pretty wildly.

yeah I figured it wouldn't be too much of an issue unless there is already a build that can start getting crits on 14 or lower I think that should be fine, also from what I know about this game so far (it's been a little while since I played) dex builds tend to either be archers or use low damage die weapons so I figured the power disparity wouldn't be too much between fighters with high dex and combat reflexes and other builds but I always can be wrong.


You mentioned your reasing for damage to ac was that bigger dice = larger weapon. Which is not necessarily true and doesn't necessarily mean much in martial arts terms. A styrofoam hammer and an iron hammer may be the same size but have very different damage and a shield may cause far lower damage than a spear but has larger area. The area of a weapon, while useful for defense, isn't also the only criteria for making it good at parrying. How easy it is to maneuver and how it's shaped also enter into play. All around, wouldn't it make more sense to have BAB be added to your AC instead of weapon damage dice?

I get that there's more to parrying than size of a weapon but that was just the simplest way I could think of without the number getting arbitrarily high. maybe instead make it your bonus to hit with the weapon without your base attack score would be more reasonable?


In a more general sense, I don't think it's hard to make a fighter who deals a lot of damage and can take down big monsters. In terms of raw damage, a properly built two handed fighter should already be able to do a lot. Focusing even more on that just doesn't add up much to the class gameplay as a whole. The defensive options are interesting and the idea of having a reserve that resets every turn is good I just don't think it needs to be tied to aoos. Given, aoos are already in the game and tackling a mechanic to it is pretty easy but the problem lies in that this can be exploited.

I know fighters can do alot of damage but the problem is they just get shown up by casters in like 90% of situations later in the game, and that just doesn't sit right. As for the attack of oppurtunity thing maybe I could replace it with "tactics points" and add a few more utility options at levels 3 and 7?


I think a lot of what you may be feeling comes from a certain standpoint in how you play the game so let me suggest something as an experiment. I like playing martials and often like playing more investigative and social campaigns. From my perspective, your modifications to the class don't change much. I can already make a Fighter that's good at fighting but what I have a hard time doing is a Fighter who's not a dead weight when the party is trying learn the identity of a serial killer or trying to silently break into a mansion to extract a target. Perhaps those are some places you should think about too?

hmmm yeah okay Fighter definitely have a really hard time in those campaigns, I have an updated version here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?590686-Fixing-the-Underpowered-Class-1-1-the-Fighter that kinda helps fix the issues you mentioned (most notably by giving more skill points) and I'll post an even further updated version sometime next week when I get the chance.

Haruki-kun
2019-06-18, 09:02 PM
The Winged Mod: Thread moved to Homebrew Design.

Carry on.

Rebel7284
2019-06-18, 09:54 PM
I think the issue with fixing the fighter is that the class _should_ be able to do many things, but giving it ALL the class features makes it overwhelming and complicated.

I would approach it by giving it something like this. Start with the base fighter and then do this:
Add extra skill points/class skills.
In addition, at level one chose one of the following archetypes and gain all the benefits at the indicated levels.
Commander: gain bardic music as bard, with all abilities at the appropriate levels. Maybe some Marshal abilities too.
Combat Brute: gain pounce, mountain rage as Goliath Barbarian, damage reduction as barbarian, dungeon crusher
Mage Slayer: gain evasion at level 3, mettle at level 5, divine grace based on your constitution at level 7, non-detection at level 9, spell resistance at level 11, the whole mage slayer line of feats as bonus feats. etc
Archer: Not sure how to make archery not suck. Always on skirmish? Arcane Archer abilities?
Knight: Gain special Mount as Paladin, Knight's Challenge from the knight class, free mounted combat feats, maybe Paladin spells.
Tactician: Gain maneuver progression as a Warblade of half your level (or full level if aiming higher.)
Gish: Gain powers as a psychic warrior of half your level (or full level if aiming higher.)
Terror of the battlefield: Gain Zhentarim Sub levels, frightful presence, Reflective Fear as Dread Witch, any armor you wear gets the fearsome property.
Thug: Gestalt with Rogue.
Blacksmith: Ironsoul Forgemaster features.

etc.

Also, you can adjust it by tier if you want.
Tier three party? Chose one of the options.
Tier two party? Chose two of the options.
Tier one party? Chose three of the options.

Also, here is a bonus ACF for you:
Dual Path Fighter:
A dual path fighter does not gain a bonus feat at first level and every even level. Instead chose an extra path and gain all benefits of that path.

pabelfly
2019-06-19, 09:42 AM
To give fighters more to do outside of combat, I'd give the fighter a choice of one of the following sets of class skills for free at level 1. I'd also give them 4 + INT for skill points/level:
1: Diplomat Fighter: Gains Diplomacy, Gather Information, and Sense Motive as class skills. The Diplomat Fighter will try to talk through, understand and de-escalate dangerous situations first before fighting.
2: Crafter: Gains Craft: Armorsmithing, Craft: Bowmaking and Craft: Weaponsmithing as class skills. The crafter is skilled in the forge and is able to craft weapons and armor as well as use those weapons in combat.
3: Learned Fighter: Gains four Knowledge skills of choice as class skills. The learned fighter learns skills to help make tactically-sound choices in and out of combat and to understand his surroundings.
4: Survivalist: Gains Listen, Spot, Survival, and Use Rope as class skills. The Survivalist learns skills and abilities required to survive in wild areas in and out of combat.

This hopefully gives players more to do outside of combat, but moreover, suits a wide variety of fighter character that the player wants to create that still maintain the idea of a martial artist who does not wield any special abilities or magic. If you think this is a good idea, feel free to edit and amend this as you see fit for your proposed class fix.