Pathfinder fighter and the limitations of the class.

[vasilidor]

With no magic items to use, what do you think is the most powerful creature a level 20 fighter could be a significant threat to?
Other restrictions include first party only stuff for feats. assume 25 point buy for attributes.
Personally I think this would be some high CR animal creature.

[Eldonauran]

You'd need to give a bit more clarification. There is an absolute plethora of things that a Fighter can do with 20 levels, no magic items, and 25 point buy to make itself a threat to just about anything.

You've already said no magic items, but are alchemical items available? What kind of wealth are we allowed to play around with? What races are we allowed to play around with? Are we limited to just the Core books or can we venture into the other books? Which archetypes are allowed/not allowed?

A class is merely a chassis and you can absolutely turn a fighter into something to fear.

[SimonMoon6]

Personally I think this would be some high CR animal creature.

I would imagine more of a medium to low CR animal or vermin.

One of the things that creatures with no special abilities get in order to increase their CR is just plain Hit Dice (and therefore Base Attack Bonus and feats). Those are the things that fighters get as they level up. But the difference with monsters and fighters is very different.

For example, a Tyrannosaurus is CR 9, but it has 18 HD. It is effectively an 18th level fighter with no magic items, but it only counts as CR 9. The only difference between it and an 18th level fighter is the magic items that a fighter would get. (I mean, technically, there are some slight other differences, but nothing too significant.)

This difference is much worse in 3rd edition but Pathfinder seems to have balanced things a bit better. For example, in 3rd edition, a colossal monstrous centipede has 32 HD but is only CR 8. Most animals/vermin of enormous size in Pathfinder seem to have their CRs and HDs matching more closely.

[Thunder999]

So the good news is that we can actually get around the no magic item nonsense with the right class features

Veteran of Endless War alternate capstone raises our Weapon Training bonus to +6

So with Warrior Spirit we can turn our mundane weapon into a +5 weapon with a further +1 of special abilities, there's some interesting stuff you can do here, but I'd say Bane will probably serve us well. We can grab Cyclonic for fighting stuff with wind effects though.

So we have a functionally +7 weapon, enough to handle any form of DR.

Oh our weapon is made from Horacalcum for a +1 circumstance bonust to hit.

Our armour is made of Noqual, for a +2 resistance bonus on saves vs spells and the always nice +2 max dex bonus.

15 strength, 18 dex to start, a + dex race, 1 in strength, 4 in dex from levels.
Orc Hornbow (we can spare the feats or just be a half-orc)
+40/+40/+35/+30/+25 to hit for 2d6+18+2d6 damage
Deadly aim would be -6 to hit for +12 damage.

If archetypes are in the picture I say go Trench Fighter with a rifle to target touch AC out to 400ft. Not accounting for natural 1 or crits that'd average 192.5 DPR (since you hit touch on a 2 against most things even with only a +19 on the last attack), 209.8 with crits.

So theoretically you 2 round a CR 21 Ancient Infernal Dragon if it doesn't kill you first.

[Maat Mons]

Is there any particular reason the Fighter doesn’t have access to magic items? The Fighter can easily craft magic items himself. The Master Armorer option for Advanced Armor Training gives a built-in way to craft magic armor starting at 3rd level. Anyone can take the Master Craftsman feat to get the ability to craft certain types of magic item starting at 7th level. Anyone can also take the Signature Skill feat to get the ability to craft certain types of magic item starting at 20th level.

If the above options are too limited, the Child of Acavna and Amaznen archetype is cruddy, but allows the Fighter to take whatever magic item creation feats you want. Though Brew Potion, Craft Staff, Craft Wand, and Scribe Scroll would be of extremely limited use. In any case, the Fighter can craft for themselves all the usual magic items, so I’m not seeing the rationale in them being unavailable.

If the Fighter is, for some reason, forbidden from using magic items in spite of being able to craft them, I suppose the only choice is the Gloomblade archetype. That lets you conjure, for example, a +5, Ghost Touch weapon whenever you want. So you can bypass any sort of DR and damage incorporeal foes. Of would the prohibition against using magic items also apply to the weapons conjured with the Shadow Weapon class feature? In that case, I guess you’d need to use the Warrior Spirit option for Advanced Weapon training. That lets you temporarily turn a non-magical wepapon into, say a +5, Ghost Touch weapon for 1 minute. Or would the Fighter cease to be able to use the weapon during that minute? Because it’s temporarily a magic item, and the Fighter isn’t allowed to use magic items?

Edit: Ninja'ed

[Particle_Man]

A duplicate of the same fighter (perhaps via mirror of opposition). Presumably the fighter only has a 50% chance of winning this fight. Anything tougher and the fighter will more than likely lose. Anything weaker and, well, it is weaker.

[AvatarVecna]

So I'm just gonna set aside the "why can't we use magic items" question and just engage with the prompt. I do think it's kinda silly that fighter is being denied items when he lives in a world with a magic item economy and also can easily create them himself without any outside assistance, but whatever.

Human Fighter 20
Skill FCB 20
Capstone: Perfect Body, Flawless Mind (Str +8)

Attributes (lvl 1 pre-race): 16/14/16/7/12/12
Human: Str +2
HD: Str +5
Attributes (lvl 20): 31/14/16/7/12/12

Armor Training:
3: Armor Training +1
7: Armor Specialization (Heavy)
11: Armored Confidence
15: Armored Juggernaut

Weapon Training:
5: Weapon Training (Axes)
9: Armed Bravery
13: Dazzling Intimidation
17: Fighter's Reflexes


Feats:
HD 1: Intimidating Prowess
Human 1: Skill Focus (Intimidate)
Fighter 1: Improved Initiative
Fighter 2: Power Attack
HD 3: Persuasive
Fighter 4: Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Butchering Axe)
HD 5: Signature Skill (Intimidate)
Fighter 6: Weapon Focus (Butchering Axe)
HD 7: Toughness
Fighter 8: Weapon Specialization (Butchering Axe)
HD 9: Additional Traits
Fighter 10: Greater Weapon Focus (Butchering Axe)
HD 11: Lightning Reflexes
Fighter 12: Greater Weapon Specialization (Butchering Axe)
HD 13: Iron Will
Fighter 14: Improved Critical (Butchering Axe)
HD 15: Dodge
Fighter 16: Dazzling Display
HD 17: Mobility
Fighter 18: Penetrating Strike
HD 19: Spring Attack
Fighter 20: Greater Penetrating Strike


Skills (+BGS):
Acrobatics 20
Craft/Alchemy 20
Intimidate 20
Perception 20
Profession/Adventurer 20


Traits:
Campaign: Love Lost (Intimidate)
Combat: Reactionary
Racial: Auspicious Tattoo
Faith: Unnatural Presence


Items:
Adamantine Full Plate
Adamantine Butchering Axe
Badass Shades (MW Tool of Intimidate)

AC 27 (Armor +14, Dex +2, Dodge +1), flat-footed 24, touch 13

20d10+80 HP (avg 190 HP)

Fort +15/Ref +14/Will +15

DR 11/-

Init +8

Intimidate +56 (unchained, demoralize as move, works on animals/vermin)

Attack: +37, 3d6+23 (19-20/9d6+69)

Attack (PA): +31, 3d6+41 (19-20/9d6+123)

Full Attack: +37/+32/+27/+22, 3d6+23 (19-20/9d6+69)

Full Attack (PA): +31/+26/+21/+16, 3d6+41 (19-20/9d6+123)

No magic items. Adamantine weapon is auto-MW so attack +1 enhancement from that. Not sure if that counts as magic for purposes of bypassing DR/magic or hitting ghosts, but it's something. Oh yeah and Craft/Alchemy +18. Can probably pull some shenanigans with that?

[Kitsuneymg]

So the good news is that we can actually get around the no magic item nonsense with the right class features

Veteran of Endless War alternate capstone raises our Weapon Training bonus to +6

So with Warrior Spirit we can turn our mundane weapon into a +5 weapon with a further +1 of special abilities, there's some interesting stuff you can do here, but I'd say Bane will probably serve us well. We can grab Cyclonic for fighting stuff with wind effects though.

So we have a functionally +7 weapon, enough to handle any form of DR.

Oh our weapon is made from Horacalcum for a +1 circumstance bonust to hit.

Our armour is made of Noqual, for a +2 resistance bonus on saves vs spells and the always nice +2 max dex bonus.

15 strength, 18 dex to start, a + dex race, 1 in strength, 4 in dex from levels.
Orc Hornbow (we can spare the feats or just be a half-orc)
+40/+40/+35/+30/+25 to hit for 2d6+18+2d6 damage
Deadly aim would be -6 to hit for +12 damage.

If archetypes are in the picture I say go Trench Fighter with a rifle to target touch AC out to 400ft. Not accounting for natural 1 or crits that'd average 192.5 DPR (since you hit touch on a 2 against most things even with only a +19 on the last attack), 209.8 with crits.

So theoretically you 2 round a CR 21 Ancient Infernal Dragon if it doesn't kill you first.

Don’t forget Barroom brawler and abundant tactics to abused item mastery. Your warrior spirit gives you the magic weapon you need to pull it off I think.

[AvatarVecna]

Could also just use that Automatic Bonuses Progression option.

[Gnaeus]

I don't think this premise is at all silly. AMFs are a thing. Being captured by enemies is a thing which occurs in several published adventures and I have also experienced more than once in homebrew games. Maybe he got caught after the murderhobos burned down that orphanage and now he is getting some quality time in a dungeon. And while I am at least as pro item crafting as the next guy, I have been in campaigns where there wasn't time/conditions to craft. Minimal/no gear play is a thing that PCs sometimes have to deal with.

My question would be whether the replies are actually answering the OP. When you ask about a fighter without magic items, do you mean a fighter who is built normally and finds himself without items, or a fighter who is built for a low magic item environment? I suspect the results will vary significantly.

[AvatarVecna]

I don't think this premise is at all silly. AMFs are a thing. Being captured by enemies is a thing which occurs in several published adventures and I have also experienced more than once in homebrew games. Maybe he got caught after the murderhobos burned down that orphanage and now he is getting some quality time in a dungeon. And while I am at least as pro item crafting as the next guy, I have been in campaigns where there wasn't time/conditions to craft. Minimal/no gear play is a thing that PCs sometimes have to deal with.

My question would be whether the replies are actually answering the OP. When you ask about a fighter without magic items, do you mean a fighter who is built normally and finds himself without items, or a fighter who is built for a low magic item environment? I suspect the results will vary significantly.

I don't really have an answer to the question as much as just tried to provide a mostly-complete build actually showcasing numbers and junk. I find that discussions like this tend towards a "schrodinger's character", where there's a theoretical build that could do X to defeat monster Y, and a theoretical build that could do A to defeat monster B, but the two builds are incompatible, and yet that gets glossed over. I feel like the statement "for any given monster, there is a fighter build that can beat it without magic items, therefore the fighter winrate is 100%" is waaaaaaaay less fitting than something like "this particular fighter can probably win against basically anything CR 14 or lower, so call that a fighter winrate of 70%".

I also tried to make it as normal of a fighter as I could for the most part. I don't think if I was building a Fighter with items I'd go quite this hard on Intimidate (the trait letting you intimidate animals/vermin would be gone, bare minimum), I'd probably skip Acrobatics since I took that because of the lack of flight, I might take the basic Capstone instead of Str +8, and I'd probably skip the Reflex weapon training thing for an Initiative boost if I had items (trusting a +Dex and +Saves item to cover me there), but the rest feel like pretty brain-dead classic fighter choices. I don't think it'd necessarily be a good build, but it's most definitely a straightforward fighter build that happens to not have magic items, rather than a fighter built around a lack of magic items.

And I think he does pretty well, at least for what he is. Intimidate is gonna render a lot of would-be enemies cowering for a few rounds (only those with tons of HD, a great Will save, or good die luck avoiding it), and his attack routine is pretty solid. Defenses are pretty good - probably the weakest is gonna be saving throws, but they're not bad, merely okay (at least for his level), so they'll serve him well against underleveled threats.

[Coeruleum]

Fighter could be a threat to anything. Pathfinder feats are broken, especially once you get 3pp feats. Sure, I'd rather play the caster or manifester at that level, but it's not like the fighter is a useless toddler once you stack them up with feats and maybe take a nice archetype.

[Eldonauran]

Fighter could be a threat to anything. Pathfinder feats are broken, especially once you get 3pp feats. Sure, I'd rather play the caster or manifester at that level, but it's not like the fighter is a useless toddler once you stack them up with feats and maybe take a nice archetype.3rd party feats (and other material) are a whole other issue entirely, and the OP specified 1st party only, so we don't have to worry about it.

Either way, they haven't responded at all, so its likely going to be another dead thread.

[Thunder999]

The solution to an antimagic field is usually to stand 10ft away from whoever cast it and shoot them, that way you get to keep all the boosts from your gear.
Now admittedly there are some hard to handle AMF related threats, mostly in the form of something that has non-magical flight, but also a grappling monster (since by the level we're discussing the only real way to handle most of those is to just negate them with Freedom of Movement, you can't realistically compete with the inflated CMB/CMD they have and will just get pinned and whittled down)

[Eldonauran]

Gilman: Add +1 to the fighter’s CMD when resisting two combat maneuvers of the character’s choice.
Human: Add +1 to the fighter’s CMD when resisting two combat maneuvers of the character’s choice.
Halfling: Add +1 to the fighter’s CMD when resisting a trip or grapple attempt.
Nagaji: Add +1 to the fighter’s CMD when resisting a grapple or trip attempt.
Ratfolk: Add +1 to the fighter’s CMD when resisting a bull rush or grapple attempt.
Tengu: Add +1 to the fighter’s CMD when resisting a grapple or trip attempt.It can be ... quite easy to keep up with Grapple checks as a Fighter. Passively, that can be a 10 (base), +20 from your levels, +20 from your BAB, +?? from other feats invested, +5 from your Strength, +?? from your Dexterity. That's easily 55 CMB vs grapple, or we can round it up to a smooth 60 if you didn't dump dex and took at least one decent feat to help out. An Ancient Red Dragon is going to need to roll a 17 or higher to grab you.

Combat Maneuvers can be child's play with barely ANY attention paid to them for a fighter. You simply pick what you want to be good at and, there you go.

[Maat Mons]

Wouldn’t Magicbane Bandersnatch (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/bandersnatch/bandersnatch-magicbane/) be a more apt monster to compare to? Anyway, the fact that Fighters who don’t take that FCB are screwed against grapplers (barring a Ring of Freedom of movement) doesn’t speak well of the mechanics. It makes it less an option and more-so mandatory.

[Gnaeus]

The solution to an antimagic field is usually to stand 10ft away from whoever cast it and shoot them, that way you get to keep all the boosts from your gear.
Now admittedly there are some hard to handle AMF related threats, mostly in the form of something that has non-magical flight, but also a grappling monster (since by the level we're discussing the only real way to handle most of those is to just negate them with Freedom of Movement, you can't realistically compete with the inflated CMB/CMD they have and will just get pinned and whittled down)

So a common solution to a single reason for "why a fighter doesn't have magical items" is "do a thing most fighters aren't built for". Not wrong, but hardly persuasive.

[Thunder999]

It's not a fighter specific issue, Pathfinder is a very high magic game, few characters actually function particularly well when Antimagic Fields show up, all of the ones that do basically rely on ranged attacks that aren't stopped by it.

And archery is honestly one of the best fighter builds by default, it's extremely reliable with high damage output.

[Eldonauran]

And archery is honestly one of the best fighter builds by default, it's extremely reliable with high damage output.Archery is great, until you start paying close attention to carry weights, ammo usages, weather conditions, light levels, and any number of other bits of the game that are often overlooked. Then it is merely good or completely shut down with the equivalent of a 2nd or 3rd level spell.

This is why I ask every want-to-be archery in my games, "So, what's your other fighting style? Cause your archery is probably going to be useless about 30% of the time." To be fair, I also ask a similar question of everyone that shows even the hint of hyper-focusing in one method of dealing damage. A common one is: "So, what happens when you get grappled and can't use your big weapons? Do you just get eaten?"

[Gnaeus]

It's not a fighter specific issue, Pathfinder is a very high magic game, few characters actually function particularly well when Antimagic Fields show up, all of the ones that do basically rely on ranged attacks that aren't stopped by it.

And archery is honestly one of the best fighter builds by default, it's extremely reliable with high damage output.

But anti-magic fields are only a subset of the problem "Can a fighter operate without gear". Which is a much more common problem and is strawmanned by specific arguments re anti-magic fields. Most characters function better than fighters without magic items. Honestly, if the AMF is spell based and just 10 feet around an enemy, most T1 casters have better options for dealing with enemy in an AMF than a fighter does.

Archery is an acceptable fighter build by default, basically dropping half the fighter's job of being the front line in exchange for decent DPS. It gave up being a fighter in the chargen stage. If we optimistically give it a 95 on doing damage, and optimistically give it a 20 on holding the line, if fails at being a fighter with about 57%. But more importantly, "Shoot it to death" isn't actually a thing most fighters are good at. It is a thing the small% of fighters built around archery is good at.


Archery is great, until you start paying close attention to carry weights, ammo usages, weather conditions, light levels, and any number of other bits of the game that are often overlooked. Then it is merely good or completely shut down with the equivalent of a 2nd or 3rd level spell.

Also this.

[Drelua]

For example, a Tyrannosaurus is CR 9, but it has 18 HD. It is effectively an 18th level fighter with no magic items, but it only counts as CR 9. The only difference between it and an 18th level fighter is the magic items that a fighter would get. (I mean, technically, there are some slight other differences, but nothing too significant.)

Animals and vermin have 3/4 BAB, so 18 animal HD does not make you effectively a Fighter 18. The T-Rex would have 13 BAB, which is equivalent to a level 9 Fighter with gloves of dueling. The problem isn't the HD as much as the ability scores and AC scaling with level in a way that the PCs don't. The Tyrannosaurus has 14 natural armor and 32 Strength, which a Fighter can keep up with if they have good gear on top of their class features, but with just class features and full plate they'll fall way behind at higher levels.

[Thunder999]

Just get cyclonic on your bow, or even a Silver Knocking Point before you can afford it and you ignore all those silly wind effects.
Even in the ludicrous scenario here you just Warrior Spirit it onto your bow.

[vasilidor]

Been a bit busy with family stuff, but I am trying to get a gauge of what the character class can accomplish within its own merits.
Yes, Archetypes are a part of that conversation.
Alchemical Items? not so much.
Also trying to come to grasp with how much of a characters power comes from magic items in the game, as a side issue.
There being gear dependent means that they do need some to function.

[Thunder999]

At level 20 magical gear is representing at minimum: +15 AC, +8 to hit and damage, +5 saves, the ability to handle incorpreal creatures, the ability to ignore most DR (The exceptions being DR/- and DR/Piercing, Bludgeoning and Slashing).
Obviously there's going to be a huge number of less numerical benefits, but they vary much more by class. A fighter is likely enhancing his weapon training (which can do a lot more than just damage and attack bonus with the right feats) with gloves of duelling, a wizard probably has some metamagic rods, most people have 1 free revive/day in the form of Determination on their shield or armour etc. Magic items also probably solve any problem your character seems to have, if there's something class features don't do, you can probably get an item for it.