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View Full Version : Your Opinions of Fighter Feats & Stats [3.5]



Deepblue706
2008-12-13, 12:58 PM
To obtain a better understanding of what people think of most Fighter feats, I'd like to ask you to consider the Core list below, and tell me how often each can be applied (specific examples are appreciated), how effective they are when they work, and your overall feeling about it being a feat. I also welcome any further comments, and you may also make mention of other feats you think worthy of consideration, although this is not necessary.

Cleave
Deflect Arrows
Great Cleave
Improved Bull Rush
Improved Disarm
Improved Grapple
Improved Initiative
Improved Overrun
Improved Sunder
Improved Trip
Quick Draw
Mobility
Whirlwind Attack

As far as Stats go, I would simply like you to make the best level-one 28 point-buy Fighter you can (although starting at level 1, preparing for a full-length game), using any non-LA race. This example of a Fighter need not be Core. This isn't as important as the Feat part, so if you really don't feel like doing it, that's fine.

The reason I would like to know what everyone feels about these feats and how they allocate attributes is that although I believe the Fighter is a weak class, I think there may be a possibility that some think it weaker than it truly is; possibly because they do not fully understand how a Fighter was "meant" to be played (which may or may not be their fault). In learning more about what people have to say, then they may confirm or dispel that theory. In short, this project is being done to shed any illusions you or I may have.

Yukitsu
2008-12-13, 01:09 PM
Cleave, great cleave, improved trip, improved initiative. The first two let you get more actions, which are the games most powerful resource. The third also lets you get more actions, and the last lets you get that action first. Other feats I commonly see are improved bullrush and mobility, but only as prerequisites.

The best build I can manage on short notice is combat reflexes, Robilars gambit, snap kick, dodge, mobility, elusive target, cleave, great cleave, improved trip, improved initiative, improved unarmed strike, superior unarmed strike, stand still, mage slayer, pierce magical concealment, and the last three for qualifying for thicket of blades. Stat array is high strength, meh dex, medium con, low int, medium wis, low cha.

I get 4 attacks whenever I provoke an attack of opportunity, and I can lockdown fairly well. Not as well as a true lockdown build that is using decisive strike, but well enough. Weapon is a guisarme and kicks. Tactics is to literally wade into the midst of the enemy, getting 4 attacks for every single attack of opportunity that they get, then making sure they don't move anywhere.

Problem? Item dependant as all get out, not all that powerful, even though he's very good at what he does, and lastly, I do this build better with other classes instead of fighter.

Deepblue706
2008-12-13, 01:11 PM
Hmm.

I edited the OP to be more specific.

Did you have any thoughts on the rest of those feats?

Yukitsu
2008-12-13, 01:12 PM
They are prereqs at best.

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-12-13, 01:17 PM
To obtain a better understanding of what people think of most Fighter feats, I'd like to ask you to consider the Core list below, and tell me how often they can be applied (specific examples are appreciated), how effective they are when they work, and your overall feeling about it being a feat. I also welcome any further comments, although they are not necessary. Okay, here's my opinions on them


Cleave Somewhat useful against mooks you can one-shot, but worthless without Greater Cleave

Deflect Arrows Pointless for a Fighter because you have to have one hand free to use it.

Great Cleave Useful against mooks you can one-round who swarm you, otherwise worthless.

Improved Bull Rush Useful as a prerequsite for Shock Trooper, but otherwise useless

Improved DisarmOnly useful against opponents who are wielding obnoxious weapons and who don't have obnoxious natural weapons. Usefullness is highly situational, and by no means guarenteed as opponents get to oppose.

Improved Grapple Only useful against casters who do not have access to Dimension Door or Still Spell to keep them from casting. Assuming you can close with them before they hit you with will or dex save-or-loose effects

Improved Initiative Very handy feat. Going first is good, it means not getting surprised and sneak attacked.

Improved Overrun Overrunning is quite possibly the most convoluted and worthless combat option in the game.

Improved Sunder Yes, let's destroy loot... that's likely to win friends and influence people...

Improved Trip Situationally useful, although a lot more situations make it useful than with Disarm. When combined with a spiked chain or a Glaive, it becomes worth it.

Quick Draw Fire first round and switch to melee weapons? Other than that, not much point to it. Most fighters don't want to be changing out weapons in the middle of combat. Most useful for rogues who specialize in throwing stuff

Mobility Not terribally useful since your job is not to have AoO provoked on you, but to provoke AoO on others. You're the tank, you don't need to be getting into the middle of everything, you're supposed to keep them from getting into the middle of us.

Whirlwind Attack Almost never worth it. This is a full-round attack, so you're needing more opponents around you than you have attacks for it to be worth it. If you're that badly surrounded, either you've been swarmed by mooks, in which case Great Cleave is better, or you're royally screwed, in which case it is better to focus on one opponent than be a minor inconvenience to all of them.


As far as Stats go, I would simply like you to make the best level-one 28 point-buy Fighter you can, using any non-LA race. This isn't as important as the Feat part, so if you really don't feel like doing it, that's fine.

The reason I would like to know what everyone feels about these feats and how they allocate attributes is that although I believe the Fighter is a weak class, I think there may be a possibility that some think it weaker than it truly is; possibly because they do not fully understand how a Fighter was "meant" to be played (which may or may not be their fault). In learning more about what people have to say, then they may confirm or dispel that theory. In any case, this project is being done to shed any illusions you or I may have.

Okay, here are a couple of decent 1st level Fighter builds:

1) Human Fighter 1. Stats: Str 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 9, Cha 8
Feats: Power Attack, Exotic Weapon Proficency (Spiked Chain), Combat Expertise

Pros: He's set up to go into the 'gattling tripper' build, and still is useful. Spiked chain is a 2d4 2h weapon, which he can power attack with for double effect.
Cons: Not as much Con as a typical 'tank', although respectable. Because he wanted to qualify for a number of feats with stat requirements, he couldn't min-max as much.

4th level: improve Wis to 10. Extra feats: Improved Trip, Improved Initiative, and Cleave

Now he's got some utility vs slaughtering mooks. Improved Trip works very well against humanoids, but only middling well against sure-footed animals.

6th level: Gains Improved Bull Rush and Shock Trooper. He can now Ubercharge.

10th level: Point goes into Str, making it a 17. Now gets Leap Attack, Improved Initiative, and Robliar's Gambit.

15th level: Point into Str to increase it to 18. Feats are now irrelevant because you've gotten all the meaningful ones.

2) Half-Orc Fighter 1. Stats: Str 20, Dex 12, Con 15, Int 6, Wis 8, Cha 6
Feats: Power Attack, Improved Initiative

Pros: Thog Smash. Use a Greatsword. Start of an Ubercharge build.
Cons: Weak mental stats in general will leave vulnerabilities later on. Definately min-maxed. Not much good for anything other than Ubercharging.

Flickerdart
2008-12-13, 01:20 PM
First of all, Sunder is frowned upon because it's essentially destroying your own potential loot. Mobility, I believe, is also considered useless, namely because you need Dodge to qualify for it and it's a pretty lame feat.

Quick Draw can be (ab)used by builds with Gnomish Quickrazors and Iajutsu Focus that deal massive damage by constantly drawing and sheathing their blades as free actions.

Great Cleave is useful in a situation where you are surrounded by several low-HP enemies, perhaps softened up by a Fireball or two. So is Whirlwind Attack.

Improved Grapple is generally not used because grappling rules are unnecessarily complex, and since there are usually more enemies than there are PCs, trading your own actions just to lock down another is considered a sub-par strategy.

Improved Trip is a valuable feat for spiked chain or guisarme control Fighters that focus on tripping people all around them. Since an important role has been, since 1e, to stop baddies from hitting the Wizard in the face, the Trip Fighter fills it well.

Disarming is a nice strategy against humanoids, as unarmed strikes tend to suck, but not so great against a dragon or zombie because they don't have anything to disarm.

Eldariel
2008-12-13, 01:21 PM
I'll be brief:


Cleave

Fighters, properly buffed, can deal lots of damage, so this is applicable almost whenever fighting multiple opponents. It's usually worth getting as it is like to get you at least one extra attack per combat, and vastly increases your effectiveness vs. mobs.


Deflect Arrows

Requires IUS, which pretty much kills it. Other than that, arrows alone don't generally deal a lot of damage and the thing that kills you is the swarm. Further, archers are a specific subset of a specific subset of a subset (non-caster weapon wielders opting for ranged attacks), so ones of relevant challenge (e.g. ones with more than 5% chance of hitting you, and that may deal more than 4-6 points of damage per hit) are rare enough. Not worth it.


Great Cleave

Only useful against mobs - it's extremely unlikely that you'd kill two guys in a row against relevant opponents. If you fight against nothing but mobs entire campaign and they try to swarm you for whatever reason, it may have uses. In normal D&D though, no. Besides, the Wizard can do this better than you.


Improved Bull Rush

In Core, PC Bull Rush doesn't actually do anything. Sure, if you're polymorphed into a Minotaur or something, but even then it's somewhat found lacking. The only use for this is to go for something that makes Bull Rush worthwhile (Dungeoncrasher) or to use it as a prerequisite.


Improved Disarm

Better than Deflect Arrows in that it works against all armed opponents. Still, that's a pretty small subset, and many of the ones it does work against have Locked Gauntlets or similars making it relatively useless there. Also, some specifically Disarm-geared weapons have size penalties to it, so it's mostly there for Spiked Chain-wielders. Even they shouldn't bother unless there're literally tons of armed Humanoids around.


Improved Grapple

A fair feat, to be honest. The question is if it's worth a feat. Later on, opponents are either too big or immune, but early on, if you fight against single opponents, it can be decent. Still, against casters, you can generally Grapple them even without this (Str doesn't tend to be their prime priority and their attack stats tend to be too low to reliably hit you on the AoO even if they didn't blow the AoO already) and against others, you rarely want to Grapple them even with this. Mostly an Arena-feat and one for Wildshapers and the like, who get huge Str-bonuses and larger sizes easily.


Improved Initiative

Always good filler, especially handy for arenas, less handy for encounters where you expect for the battle to last a bit. Still, being able to charge Flat-Footeds is always nice as is acting first to position yourself properly to take full advantage of your control abilities.


Improved Overrun

Let's just say, PCs rarely can use it and even more rarely are benefitted by doing so. Leave it to big animals. This doesn't even remove the associated AoO. Nor allow you to deal damage through Overrun.


Improved Sunder

You're killing your WPL with this. D&D characters are looters. In arenas, it's fine. Still, it requires opponent to have equipment and it requires them to be hurt by losing the said equipment. It has its uses, but rarely often enough to be worth picking in a normal game. Handy with Hydras and the like though - which is the problem with them, since they're the only time you really want this feat, you generally don't have this when facing them.


Improved Trip

A great way to debuff the enemy and control the area without losing damage with a relatively easy check. By far the best combat maneuver in 3.5; they're pretty much forced to provoke AoO in addition to all the penalties.


Quick Draw

Handy when you don't want to walk around armed, but still be ready. Handy when you need multiple different weapons while still using full attacks. Handy when making full ranged attacks with thrown weapons (makes it possible). Great for anyone interested in Wand-use. All in all, some characters absolutely need this (throwers mostly), while for others, it's a filler like Improved Initiative. You'll generally use this constantly, but the difference it makes each time is rarely huge.


Mobility

Waste of feat. You strive not to provoke AoOs in the first place, and since you're the fighter, there's little reason for your movement to. Further, if you wanted to avoid those AoOs, you could just pump up Tumble. This doesn't even apply to other AoOs (when it could actually do something - like with untrained Grapple, or against Robilar's Gambit or such). An absolutely worthless feat. If it said +4 vs. AoOs, some specialized builds that can pump AC high enough later on could maybe want it in games allowing Gambit. Right now? A huge, huge waste.


Whirlwind Attack

You need to be fighting more opponents than you've got attacks for this to be worth it. Further, you can't focus on dropping one opponent but rather have to hit them all. Even Enlarged Half-Ogre with a Spiked Chain (Reach 30') is hardpressed to use this practically ever. Great Cleave is almost strictly better, and god knows Great Cleave sucks.


As far as Stats go, I would simply like you to make the best level-one 28 point-buy Fighter you can, using any non-LA race. This isn't as important as the Feat part, so if you really don't feel like doing it, that's fine.

16 Str, 14 Dex, 14 Con, 14 Int, dump, dump. Alternatively, pump the Str (17, 12, 14, 13), as it's what you use for all your checks. Orc is of course the best race for a Fighter given some means to negate the light issues (needs one extra point of Int though). Otherwise, Human and Dwarf are both solid (Human, the perennial +1 LA race, is surprisingly poor for warriors in Core since the quality of feats is very, very low while acquiring feats is easy). On level 1 especially, I'd definitely pick Combat Expertise > Improved Trip as 1st level sees relatively few Large opponents. Power Attack if I have a leftover feat from Human. Then EWP: Spiked Chain on 3, and Cleave and so on. At that point, I'm pretty much done with the worthwhile core feats (I'd pick Quick Draw to draw additional Chains if my Trips fail though).


Fighter's problem is actually the crappiness of the core feats, as shown above. Only Tripping out of the maneuvers is worth it in Core outside very Humanoid-centric campaigns (Bull Rush gets its day in the sun with Dungeoncrasher), and there're no Tactical Feats or such to add to your versatility. So you'll just pick fillers with the rest of your feats.

Draz74
2008-12-13, 01:30 PM
Pretty standard opinions here, I think. On a scale of 1-5,

Cleave: Reasonably good effect (3), applies reasonably often (3).

Deflect Arrows: Reasonably good effect (3), applies reasonably often (3). The prereqs are the main reason for its unpopularity. If you have them for some reason, it's a pretty good feat.

Great Cleave: Great feat (4), in the extremely rare situation that you really get to use it well (1). Even in that situation (swarms of mooks), your party is going to win whether or not you have this feat. What's more, you can duplicate this feat pretty well with some items ...

Improved Bull Rush: Reasonably good effect (3), but comes up a little rarely (2). Bull rushing usually just isn't as good a use of your actions as attacking, which is why people only take this as a prereq.

Improved Disarm: Great effect (5) if you're fighting humanoid warriors, which in most campaigns is a relatively rare kind of encounter (1).

Improved Grapple: It's a powerful effect (4), but if you start being successful with it, most DMs will probably start nerfing your opportunities to grapple, either through very large critters or through Freedom of Movement. Hence I'll rate it a (2) on applicability. The fact that the prereq of Improved Unarmed Strike (and Dex 13 for that matter) is pretty useless to many builds doesn't help, either.

Improved Initiative: The effect isn't really all that battle changing (2), but the fact that this comes in handy every single encounter (5) makes it a somewhat worthwhile feat. Unlike the rest of this list, this feat is just about equally good for warriors, Rogues, and casters alike!

Improved Overrun: Overrunning isn't that great even when you try it and it works (2), and situations where you want to Overrun are seldom (1).

Improved Sunder: A terrible effect if you use it on obvious targets, meaning your foes' good magic items, because it means you can't pillage said items after the battle. The ability to use it on holy symbols, spell component pouches, and other less-expensive targets brings its effect up to a (3). However, like Improved Disarm, most campaigns don't feature too many encounters where it applies (1).

Improved Trip: Tripping is a pretty good effect, and the way you even still get to attack when you trip someone means this feat's effect is a (5). Downside is, you don't get to use it all that often in many campaigns past the early levels, due to creatures that are either gigantic or have magical flight (2).

Quick Draw: Unless you're doing a throwing build, this effect is pretty much just flavor, with very small benefits (1). However, this flavor is applicable almost every battle! (5) You could see this the other way around -- on the rare (1) occasions where you need to pull out a new weapon and still have all of your turn available, it's a great (5) effect. But the total score comes out the same. Throwing builds, of course, turn this feat into a total necessity (5 and 5).

Mobility: +4 to AC vs. opportunity attacks is kinda underwhelming, especially compared to the immunity you can get through Tumbling (2). And even if you can't tumble, you shouldn't have to provoke attacks that often (2).

Whirlwind Attack: Quite similar to Great Cleave. Somewhat better effect (5), since you can improve your reach and hit quite a big area, but again, you usually just don't face this many monsters at once in D&D, and if you do, they're easy to mow down anyway (1). What it gains over Great Cleave in power, it loses by having more/dumber prereqs than Great Cleave.

So a number of things depend on your specific build and the specific style of your campaign, but in general, I classify these feats into three basic categories:

Pretty Decent: Improved Trip, Improved Initiative, Cleave
Mediocre: Improved Bull Rush, Improved Grapple, Deflect Arrows, Improved Disarm
Weak: Quick Draw, Great Cleave, Mobility, Whirlwind Attack, Improved Overrun, Improved Sunder

As far as stats go, it really depends on your build. INT is either crucial or near-negligible, depending whether you're going to try for the Combat Expertise line of feats. But for a core-only Fighter, say a Dwarf, I'd go with something like this:

STR 16
DEX 12
CON 14+2
INT 14
WIS 10
CHA 8-2

I hate to be the cliche CHA-dumper, but let's face it, every other stat is more important to your typical Fighter.

EDIT: If I had to make a Core-Only (not even the rest of the SRD), Fighter-Only, 20-level build, with no Leadership, I'd do the above dwarven stats, and the following feats. (And equipment that boosts my DEX as early as possible.)

L1: Combat Expertise, Improved Trip
L2: Combat Reflexes
L3: Power Attack
L4: Cleave
L6: Iron Will, Improved Initiative
L8: Exotic Weapon Proficiency (spiked chain)
L9: Improved Critical (spiked chain)
L10: Weapon Focus (spiked chain)
L12: Weapon Specialization (spiked chain), Greater Weapon Focus (spiked chain)
L14: Greater Weapon Specialization (spiked chain)
L15: Quick Draw
L16: Improved Disarm
L18: Improved Critical (falchion), Blind-Fight
L20: Improved Bull Rush

This build will be very weak at high levels. And how could it not be, when it gets everything that's really important by Level 6? But that's Core Fighters for you.

mikej
2008-12-13, 01:33 PM
Not to sound rude, but Whirlwind Attack blows ( no pun intended ) a lots. Great Cleave is pushing it but a Fighter should focus primary on one foe and let someone else handle the fodder.

Previous poster already mentioned Improved Grapple, not a waste of a feat earlier on in my opinion but completely useless later when things are twice your size. Also I dislike IUS.

I dislike pretty all the Core only Fighter feats with the exception of Power Attack, Improved Initiative, and Combat Reflexs.

Keld Denar
2008-12-13, 02:02 PM
Cleave
Often enough good. Typically at low levels, you can drop a foe in one hit, meaning that this feat lets you drop a 2 foes per round. Wisely positioning yourself so that you get cleave is the key, so always check out what your move or 5' step actions are. Feat gets TONS better with a reach weapon, and with one you should qualify for the extra attack each round. At mid to high levels, it becomes a little less useful, due to depenance on full round attacks. Still good with reach, and you can usually cleave 2/3 rounds in typical (non-single foe) combats. Thats worth a feat, given that PA(prereq) is the most important feat for a fighter.


Deflect Arrows
Crap. You should have both hands on your weapon, so you don't have a the freehand open to use this.


Great Cleave
Crap. Cleave is great, because on a full round attack you can typically take out about 1 foe per full attack at an even CR. You typically CAN'T take out more than one foe, and this is primarily because you never want to be adjacent to more than 2 foes at any given time. With reach, cleave you will use about 2/3 combat rounds, great cleave you will use maybe 1/10. Not worth a feat unless the WHOLE game is centered around fighting hoards of gobos.


Improved Bull Rush
Poor as a feat alone, but prereq for Shocktrooper (CWarrior) and useful if you are a Dungeoncrasher type fighter, especially if you have Knockback (RoStone) or Driving Attack (PHBII).


Improved Disarm
Usually crap. If you are fighting a lot of human(oid)s, has some merit, but against anything with spellcasting or natural weapons, worthless. Typically best if you build around it.


Improved Grapple
Again, only really useful if you build around it. Don't just take it idly.


Improved Initiative
Solid feat. Take it if its a prereq, or if you have an open feat. Going first means you can close on a spellcaster to pressure them, or use a delay action to wait for your party spellcaster to open combat so you can act immediately after. Not critical, but often VERY nice.


Improved Overrun
Bad. Bad. Bad. Poorly written rules, poorly written mechanic. Don't ever take it unless its a prereq, and even then, SERIOUSLY consider if whatever its a prereq for is worth it. It probably isn't.


Improved Sunder
Similar to Improved Disarm, except it screws your party. Sundering denies the party loot, which, worst case gets sold off or "disenchanted" by a crafter/artificer, best case is useable by you or your party. Don't take it unless its a prereq.


Improved Trip
Often cited here as a good feat, but I personally don't like it. Because its not BAB dependant, it only scales with str, size, stability, and misc modifiers. The d20 looms heavily over any trip roll, and getting countertripped (or disarmed if you trip with a weapon) sucks. Its decent at low levels, and in hugely human(oid) dominated campaigns, but only if the character is built around doing it better. Monsters often scale in size and str faster than PCs, so you'll be at a disadvantage against most things that aren't humanoid.


Quick Draw
Bad. Unless you have a dagger throwing build, you shouldn't have more than 1-2 weapons. One primary, and one DR cracker. Typically you have your primary weapon out at the start of the encounter, and can drop it and swap to backup(if needed) in the first round when you typically can't get a full attack anyway. Typically melee characters I make only have one weapon, and its lock gauntleted to their arm, making it tough to disarm. If you are not an archer specialist and wielding a bow, you are probably Doing It Wrong(TM). This is especially true at high levels, when you won't do any noticable damage, and you should wait for caster support to help you fulfil your role (doing damage).


Mobility
Bad, unless its a prereq. Some of the stuff you can get from it is ok, but most of its bad. Elusive Target is pretty good, and Dervish is ok, but there is no reason you can't buy ranks in Tumber crossclass as a fighter if mobility is important to you. Again, completely useless in most situations if you move and use your actions tactfully.


Whirlwind Attack
A great admiral once said "ITS A TRAP". Requires 4 feats to be useful, most of which are crap. Then, requires you to be in a situation where you are partially or mostly surrounded, which is crap. Then, you only partially hurt a bunch of guys who are surrounding you, rather than killing 1-2 of them, which is crap. Dead foes do 0 damage per round, but even foes with 1 hp left still do 100% damage.


As far as Stats go, I would simply like you to make the best level-one 28 point-buy Fighter you can (although starting at level 1, preparing for a full-length game), using any non-LA race. This isn't as important as the Feat part, so if you really don't feel like doing it, that's fine.

The reason I would like to know what everyone feels about these feats and how they allocate attributes is that although I believe the Fighter is a weak class, I think there may be a possibility that some think it weaker than it truly is; possibly because they do not fully understand how a Fighter was "meant" to be played (which may or may not be their fault). In learning more about what people have to say, then they may confirm or dispel that theory. In any case, this project is being done to shed any illusions you or I may have.

As a fighter, your number one role is to do damage. Thats all you really can do. There is a possibility to od a bit of control, using Combat Reflexes and a reach weapon, but in Core only, thats not very reliable (due to lack of Standstill, Imp Trip is NOT reliable). So, you are dependant on your casters a lot of the time to fulfil this role. I've played a melee character in Living Greyhawk from 1 to 15 (about 300+ hours actual game time) and I've played with good casters and bad casters. The best casters are the ones who disable your foes (you can do damage without as much fear of being killed back), cripple your foes (you can PA for more, doing more damage and hopefully killing whatever it is in one round), crowd control your foes (you fight 1-2 foes in a round, so you never get surrounded/flanked/dead), buff you (Haste, GMW, Inspire Courage, Recitation, Rightous Wrath, etc) and enable you to reach your foes (Fly, teleporation effects like Benign Transposition or a Dim Door carry-along). Thats the fullest potential of a fighter. You are the ultimate mop-up character. How exactly you do it depends on your build, but it typically includes PA and a big 2hander. Charging is optional. This is what it has boiled down to in most LG games I've played. If you have a helpful caster, your life is easy. Just roll d20s and rack up the damage meter. If you don't have helpful casters, there is a good chance you'll wind up dead or worse.

Seriously, I once played with a guy who played a wizard, and we were playing APL14 (Average Party Level 14, so average encounter being EL16-18). I told him to memorize Dim Door for almost all of his 4th level slots. We started most encounters in close formation, won init (thanks to Chained Nerve Skitter + Marshall aura), and the 2 fighters delayed for the wizard who Dim Doored the 3 of them up to 5' away from the baddie, and watched as the 2 fully buffed and fully opimized fighters full attack PAed the baddie into a fine red mist. That guy swears to this day that Dim Door is the highest damage wizard spell ever written, just because he was able to allow the fighters a full attack in the opening round of combat. This was in LG, where most forms of pounce are banned. Obviously, pounce negates the need for most forms of tactical movement.

Gardakan
2008-12-13, 02:04 PM
A fighter base is own power on the attacks he can do. Attacks of opportunity are the best way to improve your power...

Deepblue706
2008-12-13, 03:27 PM
To be clear, I'm not looking for Core-only Fighter examples. I just selected for readers to review some Core feats, since these are the easiest to gain access to (as they are in the SRD). If anyone would like to list examples of other feats they think are also worth mentioning, in addition to what's posted above, feel free.

bosssmiley
2008-12-13, 03:31 PM
Caveat: it's a matter of record that I consider the Fighter feats in the PHB weaksauce beyond the bounds of toleration. Half the stuff written up as feats should just be handed out along with your weapon/armour proficiencies IMO.

Cleave
.....Great Cleave
..........Whirlwind Attack
These should just be a single feat that scales up as a character gains more bonus attacks thanks to their BAB.

Deflect Arrows
It's ok. You get to ignore one missile attack/rnd. Doesn't say if it applies to things like giant-thrown rocks though. :smallconfused:

Improved Bull Rush
Improved Disarm
Improved Grapple
Improved Overrun
Improved Sunder
Improved Trip
If you're a fighter-type you should just get situational stuff like this as class abilities (pick 1 every dead level or something...). Ability to ignore an AoO when you perform a special action would actually encourage people to use these actions; not being able to avoid cheap shots just makes the "master of weapons" character crap at his job (front line slugging).

Improved Initiative
It's nice to go first. I'd actually spend a feat on this in a Core-only game.

Quick Draw
It's ok, but too situational to be worth actually spending a feat on. Might be worth it for a throwing-knife monkey.

Mobility
The +4 dodge bonus is nice, but it's a bit situational. Tumbling rogues and monks (the apparent target market), would probably just go *meh*.

Personally I don't even look at the SRD fighter feats any more. I use the Tome scaling feats (fighter feats that actually measure up to Metamagic? Yes please!) and some of Upper_Krusts ideas on metamartial feats (take TH penalty to inflict level-and-weapon-appropriate status effects) instead.

Take it as read: Core hates fighter-types like Skip hates Sorcerers.

Animefunkmaster
2008-12-13, 04:38 PM
Cleave:
Not needed but nice. The chances of you utilizing this feat for anything worthwhile is low, but still nice.

Deflect Arrows
Cruddy prereq, not useful in most situations (encounters with monsters). Depending on your game this might be fun, but generally this is on the unwanted list for me.

Great Cleave
Even more unnecesary then cleave. The only reason to gnab this is frosting on the cake of a charger.

Improved Bull Rush
Surprisingly fun, and underused tactic, and good synergy with dungeoncrasher fighter variant. At low levels this feat can provoke a handful of AoOs for your allies to whack your opponents. In rare situations you can use the environment for your advantage. Above level 6 this is far less useful without the knockback feat from races of stone.

Improved Disarm
Needless. You don't need this feat to be a good disarm-er. You can replace this with a reach weapon and Improved trip

Improved Grapple
Quintessential if you want to be a grappler...grappling isn't the best tactic and will often slow your game down. But it could be very useful.

Improved Initiative
Great Feat, especially for a dip. If there is room and you have nothing else to get, gnab improved initiative.

Improved Overrun
I have never found overrun to be that good so I don't tend to take this feat.

Improved Sunder
Very useful. Some say you shouldn't sunder because you are destroying your loot. I tend to think the opposite. It has been my experience in my games that DMs with PCs that sunder often give out more loot or rewards because so much of it has been destroyed. Also sundering is so far away from reality that it is just badass. This can be good with minimal feat investments

Improved Trip
Great tactic. A good feat, impedes movement, generally causes them to spend an action on there next turn, gives penalties, gives allies free AoOs on a foe, and unlike the other "improved feats" you get a free attack afterward.

Quick Draw
Good for throwers, otherwise if you have bab of +1 (cough you do) this becomes less useful. But in those rare occasions that you need to draw a weapon and full round attack, this is good. I feel the core only, fighter should take a serious look at this feat so they can swap weapons quickly (like to throw nets for entangle, grab a kama to trip, go back to the bastard sword for damage, go to your composite long bow to ping some shots on approaching monsters, then end with spiked chain to threaten an area for AoOs... obviously not all at once). Swapping weapons can be useful if you have many weapons.

Mobility
Useful, but there are other ways to pump your AC, if you plan on running through the enemy line, then this could be good... but I only see this as a pre req feat.

Whirlwind Attack
Good feat with spiked chain and size increments, not a good feat otherwise. Too many pre reqs, and it has been my experience that you will never EVER be completely surrounded by more than 4 enemies. Also, without trips/bullrush/disarm/sunder one attack on an enemy won't make a whole lot of use.

Ones you didn't mention:

Combat Reflexes:
Good feat, the only way a fighter can control anything... AoOs.

Exotic Weapon Prof:
There are some mighty good things you can do with some (not most) exotic weapons out there. In core: the spiked chain and the bastard sword are my favorites. I tend to use nets even though I am not proficient with it, you have to hit a touch AC anyway. Exotic Weapon Prof lets you effectively wield a bastard sword one size category larger than you for a -2 (If I wield a bastard sword, I want to be power attacking with two hands).

Improved Shield Bash:
There is some really good gems you can do with shield bash (not specifically in core only, but PHB2 is a good start). Otherwise this is not worth it.

Spirited Charge:
Good reason to take fighter 2 as a paladin, great for mounted warriors

Power Attack:
I don't feel like I need to explain why this is good.

Rapid Shot:
good for throwers with twf.

Keld Denar
2008-12-13, 05:01 PM
Exotic Weapon Prof:
[snip] Exotic Weapon Prof lets you effectively wield a bastard sword one size category larger than you for a -2 (If I wield a bastard sword, I want to be power attacking with two hands).

Where does it say this? No, without EWP, a BS is a 2handed weapon, with EWP, a BS is either a 2handed weapon or 1handed weapon as the wielder chooses at the moment. Since 3.5 came out, in no way does wielding a 1hander one size up make it a 2hander.

The ONLY purpose [mechanically] of a Bastard Sword in 3.5 is to wield it with both hands to gain Uncanny Blow from the class Exotic Weapons Master. Otherwise use a Great Sword (2handed, better base damage) or a Long Sword(1handed, only loses 1 base damage, no feat needed though), or something else. Bastard Swords are BAD.

Oh, another thing about Quickdraw that makes it bad. Quickdraw doesn't allow you to sheath a weapon as a free action, only draw. Dropping a weapon is a free action, so you could drop and draw, but that leaves you with the problem that the dropped weapon is now unavailable for the rest of your fight, unless you burn a WHOLE STANDARD ACTION to bend down and pick it up, which provokes. So yea, as written, Quickdraw is really bad, unless you are a thrower and have a bandoleer of 100 daggers strapped all over your body.

AslanCross
2008-12-13, 05:29 PM
Cleave: Situational. Its utility depends entirely on you being able to kill an opponent and having another one nearby. Without other tactical feats to set up such a scenario, you're not likely to see this even once every encounter.
Deflect Arrows: There are better ways to protect yourself from ranged weapons, like having high AC.
Great Cleave: Will almost never happen.
Improved Bull Rush: I cannot say that it's very effective in a core-only game. You may be able to move enemies around, but without other feats to take advantage of that ability, it doesn't give much utility. However, the upside is that you can use it in almost any battle as long as you can physically overpower your opponent. The problem is that there aren't many ways to optimize a bull rush without non-core material.
Improved Disarm: Pretty interesting, especially if you're in a campaign vs. humanoids. If you're out hunting aberrations, however, not likely to be very useful. The upside is that there are more ways to get bonuses to disarm rolls: two-handed weapons, plus certain chain weapons give additional bonuses.
Improved Grapple: Honestly I don't think it's so bad. I've found that grappling has its uses. Biggest problem: Its requirement is the completely, utterly worthless Improved Unarmed Strike, which IMO is the worst feat in the game. "I can punch faster than you, whee! I should just be wearing spiked gauntlets if I want to punch you and actually hurt you! What? Yes, I burned a feat on this!"
Improved Initiative: Icing on the cake. I usually just take this when I have nothing else to take. The +4 is helpful, but in my experience the d20 roll for initiative has a much bigger impact than the bonus.
Improved Overrun: Prerequisite at best. Overrun isn't a very viable tactic unless you're large or have a very high strength.
Improved Sunder: Okay, you broke his rusty greataxe. He's unarmed. You could've just shanked him and gotten over with it. Without tactical feat or Tome of Battle support (Combat Brute or Stone Dragon maneuvers), it doesn't really impact the battle much.
Improved Trip: Really good, though it takes a devoted build to maximize. Lots of ways to give bonuses to it too. If you throw in ToB, you get even more ways to do use it.
Quick Draw: IMO its only point is if you're planning to do a lot of throwing weapon full-round attacks. The "draw with a move action" rule negates its use for the most part.
Mobility: There are many ways to avoid AOOs. Prerequisite at best.
Whirlwind Attack: Its benefit doesn't really justify the prerequisite cost. Three feats to get an attack you probably won't use much (being surrounded by multiple enemies is either outright suicide or the DM telling you the encounter will be really easy. Either way I'd rather get OUT of that swarm (flanking + sneak attack, oh my!) than try to cut my way out. Tome of Battle gives much better scaling variants in the form of the Mithral Tornado and Adamantine Hurricane maneuvers. (Both are standard actions and give bonuses to the attack roll, Adamantine Hurricane hits each enemy twice.)

The Chain Shocker: Human Fighter
28 points:
16 Str (10 pts)
14 Dex (6)
14 Con (6 pts)
14 Int (6 Pts)
Wis 10
Cha 10

Total ability scores:
STR 16
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 14
WIS 10
CHA 10

Feats:
1 Power Attack
1B Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Spiked Chain)
1B Combat Expertise
2B Improved Trip
3 Improved Bull Rush
4B Combat Reflexes
5 --
6 Hold the Line
6B Shock Trooper
....
Everything else is just icing. This build prevents your fighter from becoming a one-trick pony who does nothing but trip. Shock Trooper will allow you to bull rush enemies into one another and trip them at the same time. While they're down, you can afford to take a larger penalty on your Power Attack due to their penalty to AC. Or you could just go with the "ready action to trip when they stand up" trick.
Alternatively, you could just keep using Heedless charge.
I never thought the fighter was horribly sucky, but if you're limited to core, there aren't many ways to make him excellent* apart from the trip monkey build. There just aren't enough feats that give meaningful benefits.

*I mean on paper. I've heard stories of some really good sword/board fighters, and an NPC in an adventure I ran that used the Trip Monkey build just got creamed with a sneak attack by the party rogue despite my Cunningly Set Up Ambush. :smallsigh:

RandomLunatic
2008-12-13, 05:45 PM
A BS is a one-handed exotic weapon. Wielding a weapon designed for a creature larger than you imposes a -2 penalty and moves the weapon's type up by one category (light>1H>2H) per categroy of difference. So yes, you can wield a Large 2d8 Bastard Sword in both hands with a -2 penalty.

Or, you can put that penalty into Power Attack with a Greatsword, which deals more damage and saves a feat. In only Exotic Weapon in core (and one of the few in general) worth dropping a feat on is the Spiked Chain.

OP:

Cleave
Requires some advance planning, but generally a solid feat.

Deflect Arrows
Requires IUS, you have to leave an open hand, and only negates a fairly rare form of attack. Single arrows are never problem anyway-it is when they number enough to blot out the sun that they are problems, and blocking one shot a round when this happens is not going to help any.

Great Cleave
Useless. Anything you can consistantly one-shot is not a threat in the first place. And the mage does crowd control better anyway.

Improved Bull Rush
Useless on its own. Lots of fun to be had if paired with Shock Trooper or Dungeoncrasher.

Improved Disarm
Can be used to devastating effect on Large or smaller weapon users. Absolutely useless agaisnt everything else. Highly campaign-dependent.

Improved Grapple
See above.

Improved Initiative
Going first is always nice.

Improved Overrun
I have yet to encounter a situation in an actual game where I needed to Overrun somebody. Anything that only boosts a useless move is useless.

Improved Sunder
AKA 'Improved Break Own Treasure' or 'Improved Shoot Yourself in the Foot'. Suffers the limitations of Improved Disarm, with the added penalty of hurting your bottom line.

Improved Trip
Even more devastating than Improved Disarm, without the weapon restriction, but non-weapon wielders tend to be so much bigger and stronger than you that it is useless agaisnt them anyway. Like Disarm, highly campaign-dependent.

Quick Draw
Good for parlor tricks. Bad for non-thrown weapons builds.

Mobility
Worthless. AC is useless unless you build for it, in which case you can Tumble and negate the AoO completely. And you have to take Dodge to get it. Only redeeming grace is Elusive Target.

Whirlwind Attack
In the same boat as Great Cleave-the people it actually works on are not threats anyway, and thus not worth spending a feat slot on-and certainly not four (Combat Expertise does not count as wasted here, as you need that for a few useful feats.)

AslanCross
2008-12-13, 06:27 PM
A BS is a one-handed exotic weapon. Wielding a weapon designed for a creature larger than you imposes a -2 penalty and moves the weapon's type up by one category (light>1H>2H) per categroy of difference. So yes, you can wield a Large 2d8 Bastard Sword in both hands with a -2 penalty.


Just take Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Fullblade). Fullblades deal 2d8 damage 19-20. No penalty that way.

Keld Denar
2008-12-13, 06:50 PM
A BS is a one-handed exotic weapon. Wielding a weapon designed for a creature larger than you imposes a -2 penalty and moves the weapon's type up by one category (light>1H>2H) per categroy of difference. So yes, you can wield a Large 2d8 Bastard Sword in both hands with a -2 penalty.


No no no. Not any more. This WAS the rule in 3.0, but never carried over to 3.5. They changed weapons from size dependant to effort regardless of weapon size. So a large 1handed weapon is a 1handed weapon for a medium creature, not the same a medium 2handed weapon.

Eldariel
2008-12-13, 06:58 PM
All 3.5 WoTC books would have me make a build along the lines of:


1, H, F. Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip
2F. Dungeoncrasher
3. Improved Bull Rush
4F. Combat Reflexes
5. Improved Sunder
6, F. Shock Trooper, Dungeoncrasher
8F. Resolute
9. Combat Brute
10F. Martial Study: Foehammer
12, F. Robilar's Gambit, Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades
14F. Mage Slayer
15. Pierce Magical Protection
16F. Overpowering Attack
18, F.
20F.


Hum S/D/C/I/W/Ch 16/14/14/14/8/8

You could toss Knock-Down in there, I suppose, along with Leap Attacks and what-have-you. That's a solid pure Fighter 20 with enough tricks to keep you from not getting bored like hell, and quite the decent power. Too bad Imperious Command requires Cha 15; that feat would be cool and add to the versatility. You can cram Cleave, Blind-Fight/Pierce Magical Concealment, Combat Form, Weapon Mastery-line, etc. to those last slots.

Basically, it's just competent lockdown, charger and a plain combatant. Also Trip, Power Attack, Combat Expertise, etc. allow free switching of roles. Thicket of Blades, Overpowering Attack, Improved Trip and Combat Reflexes makes for fine control, Power Attack, Shock Trooper, Combat Brute, etc. help with charging and Dungeoncrasher works in functional environments.


This isn't an optimized Fighter:
-You'd need more multipliers for a true Charger (Leap Attack, prolly Mounted Combat, Pounce, etc.).
-You'd need Knockback [Large only] or Driving Attack [PHBII - requires Melee Weapon Mastery], preferably Knockback, for true Dungeoncrashery.
-You lack Karmic Strike and High Sword Low Axe/similar AoO booster for better standup/counterstrikery.
-You'd want Deft Opportunist for a controller.
-You'd want Pierce Magical Concealment for better caster killing.

It's pretty good at everything, but there simply isn't room to max everything out and since doing one thing all the time is really boring, rather versatilize the build to make it entertaining to play. You can Crash, you can Charge, you can Trip, you can Sunder (yea, when you meet that Hydra, send him my regards), you can control, and you'll usually make your Will-saves (thanks to Resolute).

ericgrau
2008-12-13, 07:04 PM
In general, I find that feats that don't give a +X all the time are lousy in general, but valuable if the situation that they do apply to comes up all the time.

Breakdown spoilered if you really need it; but this really is that simple.

Cleave: You'll use it often if you fight lots of little monsters with low HP (and it's worth it), rare otherwise (and it's not worth it)
Deflect Arrows: Again, depends if you face archers a ton. But most fighters don't have a free hand (at least for most of the fight), so probably fairly useless for them.
Great Cleave: Similar to cleave, but requires even more low HP monsters in close proximity. Again, most of the time, not just sometimes or it's not worth it.
Improved Bull Rush: Bridges? Open windows? Ledges? Narrow archways? Pits? Lava pools? Not common in a lot of campaigns, but if it happens a lot this'd be a nice insta-kill to have.
Improved Disarm: Likewise a lot of monsters don't have weapons, but you can get a +8 to +16 vs. your enemy without too much trouble, so it can be quite effective if lots of baddies you face do have weapons. Remember that this takes an attack action, not a standard action.
Improved Grapple: Again, depends.
Improved Initiative: Similar to having 0.4 more rounds (really 1 more round 40% of the time, or etc.). Usually worth it, especially if you've already gotten the other flat +X bonuses. So, unlike the others, this one is not situational and is almost always worth it unless you really need certain situational feats or still need the other +X feats (like the fighter tree).
Improved Overrun: Again, depends.
Improved Sunder: Again, depends, but make sure disarming isn't easier.
Improved Trip: Again, depends. Quite popular when it works.
Quick Draw: Not usually. You can often draw a weapon during your move anyway. But if you have a reason to use it all or almost all the time, again yes.
Mobility: I can't think of a good use of this for a fighter. I mean, you certainly shouldn't be the one getting away from the tougher melee opponent (and if you are, switch from THF to sword-and-board and/or combat expertise: you'll do far more damage-before-you-die if dying was an issue with THF). Maybe you always need to rush the back line targets? But then I'd go with a faster medium or light armor class like a barbarian or ranger. All this has nothing to do with dodge, btw. The value of +1 AC, -1 AB to your opponent, +7% to 20% miss chance for you, is highly underappreciated. Though other +X feats, except maybe improved initiative, are better.
Whirlwind Attack: Again, requires frequently running into clustered targets.


The answer for all except improved initiative and mobility was "Only if you use it in most (not just some) combats". Otherwise get the +X feats instead (including the fighter tree, improved crit and improved initiative). If you don't face any situation a lot and you've run out of +X feats to choose, even the weaker +X feats - like improved initiative and even dodge - might be better, or maybe pick a feat for a situation that you kinda sorta face a lot.


No no no. Not any more. This WAS the rule in 3.0, but never carried over to 3.5. They changed weapons from size dependant to effort regardless of weapon size. So a large 1handed weapon is a 1handed weapon for a medium creature, not the same a medium 2handed weapon.


Inappropriately Sized Weapons

A creature can’t make optimum use of a weapon that isn’t properly sized for it. A cumulative -2 penalty applies on attack rolls for each size category of difference between the size of its intended wielder and the size of its actual wielder. If the creature isn’t proficient with the weapon a -4 nonproficiency penalty also applies.

The measure of how much effort it takes to use a weapon (whether the weapon is designated as a light, one-handed, or two-handed weapon for a particular wielder) is altered by one step for each size category of difference between the wielder’s size and the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed. If a weapon’s designation would be changed to something other than light, one-handed, or two-handed by this alteration, the creature can’t wield the weapon at all.
The 3.5 FAQ clarifies the same thing. You can wield a large one handed weapon as a two-handed weapon at a -2 penalty to AB. The real question is whether or not +2 damage vs. a greatsword (on average) is worth -2 AB and a feat. Even the -2 AB by itself would usually make the +2 damage not worth it.

Deepblue706
2008-12-14, 01:00 AM
This has been pretty interesting, so far. Let's keep it going!

I would think ericgrau has the closest opinion to mine, if anyone was wondering.

Stephen_E
2008-12-14, 06:43 AM
I'd note that while the comments about Great Cleave are reasonable there is a combo that makes it work reasonably well.

Great Cleave, Improved Trip, Knockdown. You hit them, make a trip attack, if successful hit them again. If this reduces them to neg hps then you can cleave off and do it again. If combined with Righteous Might from a ring of spellstoring, a Warchanter (CW) Reckless Song and Power Attack then you can convert AC to damage at a 1-2 rate using a Spiked Chain and even medium weight mooks go down in a massive great cleave.

Quick Draw is extremely useful in any trip build. You will have to drop your weapon to avoid getting tripped back, and this means you can whip out a 2nd (or 5th) spiked chain with no loss of attacks.

Fighter Build
Race = Orc
Str 20, Dex 10, Con 15, Int 13, Wis 6, Cha 6
1st - Exotic Weapon- Spiked Chain
1st - Combat Expertise
2nd - Improved Trip
3rd - Knockdown
4th - Cleave
6th - Great Cleave
6th - Quick Draw
8th - Power Attack
Your Party should always have Prot from Evil/Good available to be cast on you.This build does benefit a lot from 1st lec = Barbarian. The boost from Rage is a boon to the Trip cycle.

Outside the scope of the OP but people might find it interesting.
Ranger
Race = Ogre
Str 28, Dex 12, Con 18, Int 4, Wis 8, Cha 4
4 Levs Ogre
2 Lev Adj
2 Levs Ranger
2 Levs Fighter

1st - Cleave
3rd - Power Attack
4th - +1 Str
6th - Weapon Focus - Morningstar
7th - Imp Bullrush
8th - Three Mountains Style
8th - +1 Str
6th - Two Weapon Combat (Ranger)
5th - Track (Ranger)
ECL 10

BAB +7
Full Att with standard Morningstar/Med Morningstar- +15, +13, +10
Damage 2d6+9, 1d8+5, 2d6+9
If you hit something twice in the same round it must make a DC 24 Fort save (10 + 1/2 char lev + Str mod) or be Nauseated for one round (can do no action other than a single move action).

Stephen E

Fishy
2008-12-14, 07:10 AM
Incidentally, how good are Weapon Spec/Greater Weapon Focus/Greater Weapon Spec? Are they worth it in a hypothetical TWF build or something?

Eldariel
2008-12-14, 07:34 AM
Fighter can't TWF proficiently. You need sources of extra damage (mostly Skirmish or Sneak Attack, but other sources such as the Stormguard Warrior, or Inspire Courage exist) and the Spec-line doesn't cut it even with Melee Weapon Mastery added to the mix. That said, if Melee Weapon Mastery is allowed, the Weapon Specialization-line turns from bad into decent +3/+4-returns are far greater than any of the Weapon Spec-line (although Weapon Supremacy may be fun in some builds, but it has so heavy prerequisites, and comes so late that meh - melee is way past its prime at that point).

Ranged Weapon Mastery is a different matter and indeed, ranged characters can make better use out of the line due to the lack of a solid source of bonus damage in Power Attack. Weapon Focus > Weapon Spec > Ranged Weapon Mastery is a solid line for any ranged combatant.

Fishy
2008-12-14, 07:55 AM
So... Hypothetically. If you had a Rube-Goldberg build that had TWF, full sneak attack, and *also* qualified for the Weapon Supremacy tree, would that be worth it?

>.>

Eldariel
2008-12-14, 08:46 AM
If he had the feats to afford them and the TWF-line along with the essentials (Double Hit, Robilar's Gambit, etc.), sure. Although he gets the least out of Weapon Supremacy since it effectively only boosts two attacks; TWF has more attacks, but each of them does little so getting a boost to two attacks hardly benefits you at all (compared to THF Power Attacker). Like anything Goldberg, too complex :P

Fishy
2008-12-14, 09:12 AM
Yeah- and it's a build that was more fun to design than it would be to play.

Ninja/Swashbuckler, if anyone's interested. Ninja 2/Swashbuckler 1 qualifies for Martial Stalker, Ninja 4 and Martial Stalker qualifies for Weapon Spec. Then you can slap Daring Outlaw and Daring Warrior on the same character, and be advancing three sets of class features with each swashbuckler level. Cute, but starved for feats and probably not worth it.

AslanCross
2008-12-14, 09:20 AM
Outside of the OP's request, but I'd like to demonstrate how Bull Rush might become useful.
Here's a character I'm using in an Eberron game. Not optimized, but he's been pretty effective so far.

Flamberge Two, Warforged Ftr 2/Warblade 3.
Str 18, Dex 13, Con 18, Int 15, Wis 10, Cha 9

Feats:
1 Adamantine Body
1B Power Attack
2B Improved Bull Rus
3 Brute Fighting

Martial Maneuvers:
Wrb 1: Charging Minotaur, Moment of Perfect Mind, Steel Wind. [Punishing Stance]
Wrb 2: Emerald Razor
Wrb 3: Stone Vise

The biggest problem with Bull Rush is that killing your enemy is much easier than pushing him around. However, if you can get Bull Rush to kill your enemy for you...
Enter Charging Minotaur, a charge bull rush maneuver that actually deals damage. (2d6+Str mod) Also, when you win the check to push, you don't have to move with the opponent. You simply end up knocking back while your movement ends at the end of your charge.

The Brute Fighting tactical feat gives damage bonuses against enemies you've bull rushed or overrun in the previous round. Overrun is out of the question, so let's stick to Bull Rush.

1. Charging Minotaur the enemy. This knocks him back, setting yourself up for another charge considering he doesn't close the distance to you on his turn.
2. Next round, charge again with Power Attack. You get a damage bonus from Brute Fighting's Dispatch the Fallen tactic.
3. If that isn't fatal, Emerald Razor (make a single melee attack against touch AC instead of full AC) + Power Attack with a two-hander is DEVASTATING.

I've tested the build in actual gameplay, and it works quite well. I can't wait to get to Lv 6. And Shock Trooper.

Eldariel
2008-12-14, 09:21 AM
Or just go Dungeoncrasher.

RebelRogue
2008-12-14, 09:49 AM
Out of the list of Core Fighter Bonus Feats, there's one good one I think was left out, namely Blind-Fighting: negating sneak attacks from invisible foes and getting to reroll for concealment, while situational, are really good when you need them.

KIDS
2008-12-14, 10:32 AM
As a disclaimer, I would like to point out that, while the core fighter sucks, it has been improved with various splatbooks (whereas these are core-only feats).

Cleave - very situational, nice at very low levels. If your DM uses critical fumbles, then this feat actually increases your chance to cut yourself or whatnot. 4/10

Deflect Arrows - how many successful arrow attacks is your PC going to eat during his career? Enough to make this worthwhile. It's not a powerhouse, but if you can have a hand free it has its uses. Kudos for being automatic. Roleplaying wise, it is much more "manga" than any ToB maneuver. 6/10

Great Cleave - completely pointless, even with reach weapons. If you are surrounded by mooks that all go down in one hit, you probably don't need it anyway. Some PrCs can give it worthwhile uses. Can produce a "wow" moment like once every 100 levels. 1/10

Improved Bull Rush - so-so. It's not a powerhouse, bull rushing is pointless as it is but if you want to push someone off the cliff or whatever... too rare to be useful. Prerequisite for some better feats. 4/10

Improved Disarm - situational from absolutely useless to massively overpowered. It's worth taking and shines at lower levels with a 2H reach weapon but not much otherwise. Some of it should be a part of core disarm. Less useful at higher levels. Makes you a one-trick pony. 7/10

Improved Grapple - same as improved disarm, can be useless or "omg wtf" powerful. Again, some of it should have been core grapple. Useless at high levels. Makes you a one-trick pony. 6/10

Improved Initiative - it's good. The fact that most monsters automatically have it forces you to take it to even the playing field. It scales nicely with all levels and is always useful. 8/10

Improved Overrun - so pointless that words can't describe it, just like the original overrun. Uses for this come once in a lifetime. Maybe as a mount feat... 1/10

Improved Sunder - apart from destroying your own treasure, can be good with a big 2Hander. Some of it should have been core sunder again. Note that to snap wands, lanterns, potions or other most-useful-to-sunder items you don't need it. 3/10

Improved Trip - pure brokenation with its extra attack. One of the only worthwhile strategies in core that is a nightmare with spiked chain. It's either 100% win or 100% lose, depending on the situation, which is what a feat shouldn't be. Still, very valuable even if not as good at high levels. One trick pony suck again. 9/10

Quick Draw - very situational and should be errataed to wands, potions, sheathing etc. As it is, it's rather poor and doesn't provide much benefit though it is useful. 3/10

Mobility - absolutely pointless - a +4 AC bonus will rarely stop anyone from hitting you. If it were from all AoOs it might have been better, this way it is just a necessary waste for other feats and PrCs. 2/10

Whirlwind Attack - a once in a lifetime feat that is useless most of the time, particularly after you get more than one attack. Sucks even with a reach weapon and has many drawbacks, particularly for its ludicrous requirements. 0.5/10

My idea of a quality non-core fighter, focused on having many viable strategies:

ELF FIGHTER 20 (STR 14, DEX 14, CON 12, INT 14, WIS 13, CHA 8)

(one flaw, Vulnerable for example, would be ideal to allow you to grab everything. Or be a human. Elf has its benefits for a fighter.)

1. Combat Expertise
1. Improved Disarm
2. Dodge
3. Karmic Strike
4. Power Attack
6. Improved Unarmed Strike
6. Mobility
8. Improved Bull Rush
9. Shock Trooper
(Spring Attack from Flaw?)
10. Leap Attack
12. Combat Reflexes
12. Robilar's Gambit
14. Elusive Target
15. Close-Quarters Fighting
16. Improved Trip (Overpowering Attack!)
18. Combat Focus
18. Combat Vigor 20. Combat Defense 20. (F) Improved Grapple (switch last 2 levels for Swordsage for versatility)

-disarm
-unarmed
-trip
-fast healing 4
-immune to power attack
-auto-trip
-retaliation 1
-retaliation 2
-double damage AoOs
-immune to grapple or grappling to death
-triple damage charge