PEACH: Adaptive Fighter (base class variant)

[sonofzeal]

I know there's a lot of variants out there already, but here's mine. I'm aiming for something intuitive, in-flavour, and still strongly resembling the PHB fighter. With that in mind, here's my variant.



Fighter


Alignment
Any.

Hit Die
d10.

Class Skills
The fighter’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Ride (Dex), Spot (Wis), and Swim (Str).

Skill Points at 1st Level
(2 + Int modifier) ×4.

Skill Points at Each Additional Level
2 + Int modifier.


Class Features

All of the following are class features of the fighter.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
A fighter is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with all armor (heavy, medium, and light) and shields (including tower shields).



Bonus Feats

At 1st level, a fighter gets a bonus combat-oriented feat in addition to the feat that any 1st-level character gets and the bonus feat granted to a human character. The fighter gains an additional bonus feat at 2nd level and every two fighter levels thereafter (4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 16th, 18th, and 20th). These bonus feats must be drawn from the feats noted as fighter bonus feats. A fighter must still meet all prerequisites for a bonus feat, including ability score and base attack bonus minimums.

These bonus feats are in addition to the feat that a character of any class gets from advancing levels. A fighter is not limited to the list of fighter bonus feats when choosing these feats.


Adaptive Form

At 5th level, a fighter gains the ability to retrain themself to meet new challenges. With a week's practice in the new fighting style, a Fighter can exchange any of his Fighter Bonus Feats for new ones off the Fighter Bonus Feat list. If he ceases to qualify for any other feat or Prestige Class as a result, he loses the benefit of that feat or all class powers belonging to that Prestige Class. If he later qualifies again, he regains those benefits. Training any feat that applies to a specific weapon or group of weapons (such as Weapon Focus or Improved Critical) requires access to that weapon.

At 9th level, a fighter's ability to retrain themself improves. They can now retrain their Fighter Bonus Feats with a day of practice instead of a week. At 13th level, a fighter can retrain their feats with one hour of practice. At 17th level, a fighter can retrain their feats with one minute of practice.

[Moff Chumley]

The problem here, is unless you dramatically powergame, you remain behind the full casting classes. May I recommend giving bonuses to damage and adding some way of being able to shrug off attacks?

[Pie Guy]

Yeah, because otherwise, it's like this...

You :I swing my sword
magic dude :I zap you.
You :Gah! I is dead.

[sonofzeal]

The problem here, is unless you dramatically powergame, you remain behind the full casting classes. May I recommend giving bonuses to damage and adding some way of being able to shrug off attacks?
Damage - "Martial Study: Mountain Hammer"
Defense - "Martial Study: Iron Heart Surge"

or....

Damage - "Power Attack"
Defense - "Combat Focus/Awareness/Vigor"

or...

Damage - "Robilar's Gambit + Karmic Strike"
Defense - "Shield Ward"


...with the added benefit of being able to retrain into an archery build, or a grapple build, or a whirlwind build, as appropriate to the situation.

You're right, this fix doesn't address the (non-ToB) discrepancy between melee and magic, nor does it attempt to. However, it does make Fighters into the "Wizard" of the melee classes, the one who is able to reinvent himself to deal with each new obstacle and tailor himself to match their weakness. He's not mechanically much stronger than he was before, but the ability to adapt is not to be underrated.

Fighters in Core were horribly gimped, but each new supplement has expanded their options. Even without power creep, Fighters now have far more ways to customize themself and find synergies in their feat loadout. Level 20 Fighter builds are no longer nearly the useless atrophied third-leg in the party they used to be, dragging helplessly behind the Wizard as he blasts through encounter after encounter. This variant helps unlock that potential even more, by letting the Fighter specialize to become effective against the next threat, while still keeping full flexibility for later. This also allows for some excellent group collaboration, as the Fighter's new customizability creates a plethora of new tactical options for the rest of the party to build on. One fight he could immobilize the target via grapple while the Rogue punches it full of holes; the next he could wait for the Wizard to debuff its AC before Power Attacking it into oblivion; the next he could have the Cleric buff him up and then lock down the whole battlefield with his spiked chain while the others clean up.

[sonofzeal]

Feat: Supremely Adaptive [Epic]

Benefit
You can retrain your fighter bonus feats as a full-round action, subject to the same restrictions described in "Adaptive Form"