Expanded fighter bonus feats

[Inevitability]

The fighter discussion in an adjacent thread had me thinking: what feats would you add to the list of fighter bonus feats, if any? Endurance seems like a no-brainer to me, just because a lot of martial PrCs require it. Same reasoning for the save-boosting feats.

The weapon and armor proficiency feats are corner cases, but there's enough ways to get fighter bonus feats as non-fighters that I feel good about listing those here as well.

[Gnaeus]

Diehard and Toughness definitely.

Maybe also leadership would be in line with the fighter from previous editions.

Definitely the Mage Slayer line. I actually thought they were fighter bonus feats because they show up on some bonus feat lists and it seemed so obvious I never checked

[Twurps]

Without giving it too much thought and without playtesting: What would break if you changed 'fighter bonus feats' to just 'bonus feats'?
(Then work backwards from there and ban whatever makes the game break. so maybe no metamagic feats?)

As for 'what would fit thematically' I feel that about 90% of feats would fit, and the rest will never be useful for the fighter anyway.

[pabelfly]

Shock Trooper.

Multiweapon Fighting line.


Without giving it too much thought and without playtesting: What would break if you changed 'fighter bonus feats' to just 'bonus feats'?
(Then work backwards from there and ban whatever makes the game break. so maybe no metamagic feats?)

I don't imagine too much would break. If you're taking Fighter and getting generic feats you're not taking class levels and getting caster levels and spell slots. There are a few classes that let you lose a caster level for bonus feats and no-one takes them now. Any specific broken feats like Leadership and Item Familiar are still broken when taken regularly.

[Gorthawar]

Without giving it too much thought and without playtesting: What would break if you changed 'fighter bonus feats' to just 'bonus feats'?
(Then work backwards from there and ban whatever makes the game break. so maybe no metamagic feats?)

As for 'what would fit thematically' I feel that about 90% of feats would fit, and the rest will never be useful for the fighter anyway.

I pretty much allow free feat choice for fighter feats or feats gained through the spell-less ranger / paladin as long as they make sense. Same for warblade or knight bonus feats. Never had any problems with that. But I also tend to do away with some feat taxes for PRCs after discussions with my players at times.

[loky1109]

Stunning Fist line.

[Biggus]

Without giving it too much thought and without playtesting: What would break if you changed 'fighter bonus feats' to just 'bonus feats'?
(Then work backwards from there and ban whatever makes the game break. so maybe no metamagic feats?)

As for 'what would fit thematically' I feel that about 90% of feats would fit, and the rest will never be useful for the fighter anyway.

You could say "anything that requires abilities the Fighter doesn't have to be able to take or use". So nothing that requires or works specifically on rage, spells, psionics, bardsong etc. Would prevent multiclass/gestalt abuse while still being a very simple rule.

[Yogibear41]

The variant fighter subclasses in dragon magazine have alternative fighter feats such as track, endurance, toughness, iron will etc.

[False God]

Without giving it too much thought and without playtesting: What would break if you changed 'fighter bonus feats' to just 'bonus feats'?
(Then work backwards from there and ban whatever makes the game break. so maybe no metamagic feats?)

As for 'what would fit thematically' I feel that about 90% of feats would fit, and the rest will never be useful for the fighter anyway.

There's an awful lot of general combat feats that can work for a fighter that aren't on the generic Fighter Bonus Feat list, so I'd argue in favor of your approach for the OP: just let fighter's pick whatever provided they meet the pre-requisites.

It would also let them open themselves up a bit to doing things beyond simply being better at hitting things.

I'd even go as a far to say that if someone wanted to take Fighter levels just for extra bonus feats to trick out some other class, they're still going to be losing a lot more power than they'll realistically be gaining.

[Malphegor]

Without giving it too much thought and without playtesting: What would break if you changed 'fighter bonus feats' to just 'bonus feats'?
(Then work backwards from there and ban whatever makes the game break. so maybe no metamagic feats?)

As for 'what would fit thematically' I feel that about 90% of feats would fit, and the rest will never be useful for the fighter anyway.

Nothing. Generic Warrior does that, from UA. It’s pretty solid and is a good full bab ‘filler’ level for when one really needs a feat for a specific level.

[smasher0404]

...
I don't imagine too much would break. If you're taking Fighter and getting generic feats you're not taking class levels and getting caster levels and spell slots. There are a few classes that let you lose a caster level for bonus feats and no-one takes them now. Any specific broken feats like Leadership and Item Familiar are still broken when taken regularly.

Assuming that it changes everything that currently operates off of Fighter Bonus Feat lists to work with every feat, then it makes the Wizard variant that trades Scribe Scroll out for a Fighter Bonus Feat a lot better (use it to get a metamagic feat or specific prerequisite, or even just Spell Focus for a +1 to DC)

[pabelfly]

Assuming that it changes everything that currently operates off of Fighter Bonus Feat lists to work with every feat, then it makes the Wizard variant that trades Scribe Scroll out for a Fighter Bonus Feat a lot better (use it to get a metamagic feat or specific prerequisite, or even just Spell Focus for a +1 to DC)

If it applies to any offer of a Fighter bonus feat, rather than specifically a character taking Fighter levels, Wizard gets a couple of decent extra feats before they take their prestige class. It's better, sure, but Wizard is already ridiculously OP that a bonus feat or two doesn't change much.

[Thurbane]

Definitely the Mage Slayer line. I actually thought they were fighter bonus feats because they show up on some bonus feat lists and it seemed so obvious I never checked

They are fighter bonus feats, but its easy to miss.

In Complete Arcane, Mage Slayer, Pierce Magical Concealment and Pierce Magical Protection have a superscript 1 next to them. On page 75, 1 is denoted as "A fighter may select this feat as one of his fighter bonus feats."

The original printing of Mage Slayer in Miniatures Handbook lacked any such note.