Don't Fix the Fighter...Fix the Feats (D&D 3.5 Exponential Feats)

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

So the fighter is weak/lacks options and so forth. But it's real problem is that feats, no matter how many, don't scale anything close to spells.

Enter this concept: Exponential Feats.

Feats come in 7 Ranks, beginning at rank 1 (at 1st level). Every additional three levels (4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19) a character can take the next rank of feats. Epic extends this further, but that's not important right now.

What does this mean? Scaling feats...not quite as good as spell scaling, but still useful...and more of a renewable, constant benefit. Additionally, each rank gets increasingly stronger, for added fun and profit. Rank 7 feats are often comparable to some higher level spells, although none can hope to match 9th level spells.

Here's an example of what I have planned. Critique is appreciated.


The Weapon Focus Line

Weapon Focus (Rank 1, Fighter)
Requirements: Character Level 1st+
Benefit: You gain a +1 Bonus to attack rolls with a single weapon of your choice.
Advancement: When you gain access to Rank 3 feats (and again at every second rank after that), you gain an additional +1 Untyped bonus to attack rolls with your chosen weapon, and you may choose an additional weapon to apply this benefit to. For example: a character with access to Rank 5 Feats gains a +3 Untyped bonus to attack rolls with up to three chosen weapons.

Improved Critical (Rank 2, Fighter)
Requirements: Character Level 3rd+, Weapon Focus
Benefit: The threat range of your chosen weapons increases by one number (20 becomes 19-20, 19-20 becomes 18-20, and so on).
Advancement: When you gain access to Rank 5 feats (and again at every third rank after that), the threat range of your chosen weapons increases by an additional number.

Weapon Specialization (Rank 2, Fighter)
Requirements: Character Level 3rd+, Weapon Focus
Benefit: You gain a +2 Untyped bonus to your base weapon damage with your chosen weapon.
Advancement: When you gain access to Rank 4 feats (and again at every rank after that), increase this damage by +2.

Power Critical (Rank 3, Fighter)
Requirements: Character Level 5th+, Weapon Focus
Benefit: You gain a +4 Untyped bonus to your attack roll when confirming critical hits with your chosen weapon.
Advancement: When you gain access to Rank 4 feats (and again at every rank after that), increase this bonus by +1.

Weapon Bond (Rank 3, Fighter)
Requirements: Character Level 5th+, Weapon Focus
Benefit: Increase all bonuses gained from Fighter Feats by +1 when wielding your chosen weapon. This applies only to numerical bonuses written in the feat description as a +X bonus.
Advancement: When you gain access to Rank 6 feats (and again at every third rank after that), increase this bonus by +2.

...And so forth, up to things like the following...

Lethal Focus (Rank 5, Fighter)
Requirements: Character Level 13th+, Weapon Focus
Benefit: Once per encounter, you may force an opponent you have successfully struck with your chosen weapon to make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 your Base Attack Bonus + your bonus from the Weapon Focus feat) or be instantly slain. A successful saving throw leaves them Stunned for 1 round. You may only use this ability once per round.
Advancement: When you gain access to Rank 6 feats (and again at every rank after that), you may use this ability an additional time per encounter.

Follow-up Strike (Rank 6, Fighter)
Requirements: Character Level 16th+, Weapon Focus
Benefit: Whenever you score a critical hit against an opponent, you may make an immediate free attack against that opponent at your highest base attack bonus.
Advancement: When you gain access to Rank 7 feats, this ability activates any time you threaten a critical hit.

Staggering Blow (Rank 7, Fighter)
Requirements: Character Level 19th+, Weapon Focus
Benefit: Whenever you score a critical hit against an opponent, that opponent must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 your Base Attack Bonus + your bonus from the Weapon Focus feat) or be immediately dropped to 0 hit points. Regardless of the success of this saving throw, the victim is limited to a single standard action or single move action during his or her next turn.

*****

Thoughts?

[Catch]

The concept is solid, though the save DCs for Lethal Focus, Follow-up Strike and Staggering blow could use some deflating. 10 + Strength modifier + Weapon Focus bonus would be a more balanced, I think. Maybe the enhanced version of Weapon Finesse would allow substitution of Dex for saves and damage, scaling with Feat Ranks.

Essentially, if you're creating feats that function like ToB maneuvers or 4e encounter powers, that would certainly bring the Fighter's power up to compete with other characters with a rationed amount of extra clout. Allowing the Fighter to induce status effects and deal extra damage with "special" attacks will go a long way toward replacing the general attack routine of a 3.5 tank.

"I full-attack." *sigh* "Again."

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

The concept is solid, though the save DCs for Lethal Focus, Follow-up Strike and Staggering blow could use some deflating. 10 + Strength modifier + Weapon Focus bonus would be a more balanced, I think. Maybe the enhanced version of Weapon Finesse would allow substitution of Dex for saves and damage, scaling with Feat Ranks.

Crap...I messed up those saves. It's supposed to be (10 + 1/2 your Base Attack Bonus + Weapon Focus Bonus). My bad...

Although Strength Bonus instead of Weapon Focus bonus might be better...

And yes...the basic idea is to hand the fighter options that make those feats into something actually useful. It's vaguely Tome of Battle-ish, but more of these are static options, not one-shot (albeit recoverable) abilities.

[AstralFire]

Improved Critical bothers me in its design since, if I'm not mistaken, it favors weapons with heavier crits (larger base damage or higher multiplier) over those with a large critical range and lesser damage to begin with.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Improved Critical bothers me in its design since, if I'm not mistaken, it favors weapons with heavier crits (larger base damage or higher multiplier) over those with a large critical range and lesser damage to begin with.

True...for the following reason: look at all the other feats that trigger on criticals or critical threats. Follow-up Strike and Staggering Blow are incredible with a high threat weapon...and, in my mind, incredible enough to justify the lesser damage and lesser multiplier. There will be more like them.

[Gnomo]

True...for the following reason: look at all the other feats that trigger on criticals or critical threats. Follow-up Strike and Staggering Blow are incredible with a high threat weapon...and, in my mind, incredible enough to justify the lesser damage and lesser multiplier. There will be more like them.

Yes, you can fix the fighter by fixing the feats... but it's more work than it's actually worth it, that's why people prefer to just fix the fighter class.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Yes, you can fix the fighter by fixing the feats... but it's more work than it's actually worth it, that's why people prefer to just fix the fighter class.

True. But this was entertaining...and also helps all non-casting classes.

[Lord_Gareth]

That reminds me, Djinn - are we ever doing those Vow feats?

[Mr.Moron]

Won't this just mean that in any given area of focus, a character with actual class features can still pick up the feats (with advancement) along with their features?

A fighter might be able to explore a few different feat areas/lines, as-is but he's still going to be behind where it counts.

To make only having bonus feats meaningful, you either need more fighter-only feats (at this point, why not just give it class features?). Or you need to extend feat trees so deep, only fighters can reap their full benefits. At which point you risk either making lower end feats worthless for non-fighters or run into the same "Why not just give class features?" problem.

I think the idea that the fighter is someone who just gets larger number of something anyone else can get is fundamentally flawed. At any given task, it is just the same as any other BaB +1 class, sans the relevant class features. Even with this it's still just a class you dip until it nets you the extra feats you need (and only if your build is feat-starved).

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Stuff.

Somewhat. The difference being that these feats are actually of a power high enough to be class features in and of themselves. 11 additional feats is a huge bonus when each one becomes a progressively strengthening ability. Additionally, classes without free bonus feats will be unable to pick up more than a single feat from any rank...and only the fighter can snag those Rank 7 feats without multiclassing specifically for that purpose.

Yeah, it gives all classes a bit of a boost...but the fighter doesn't, I don't think, lose out as much as he did before by any means.

That said, this was primarily a thought exercise and a form of entertainment during work, so I readily admit that it does have several flaws in it's concept.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I love the idea. Making them mostly static options keeps bookkeeping down, which is a good thing in my book(-keeping).

If everything scales, you might want to have a shorthand of some sort to represent the ranks; for instance, Improved Critical improves at every third rank after 2nd, so having the feat say

Benefit: The threat range of your chosen weapons increases by +1/3R (20 becomes 19-20, 19-20 becomes 18-20, and so on).

would mean it goes up every 3 ranks as it does now, but it's much easier to judge how well it scales at a glance, just like "1d6/2 levels damage" is quicker than "deals 1d6 damage, plus an additional 1d6 damage at 3rd level and every odd level thereafter". If you have to write everything out, it's harder to judge what a character could expect at a given level.

[Gnomo]

You can create a pseudo-exponential growth for fighter feats, you just give the fighter more feats and offer new tree ending feats based on BAB growth:

Fighter
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special

1st|

+1

|

+2

|

+0

|

+0

|Bonus feat

2nd|

+2

|

+3

|

+0

|

+0

|Bonus feat

3rd|

+3

|

+3

|

+1

|

+1

|Bonus feat

4th|

+4

|

+4

|

+1

|

+1

|Bonus feat

5th|

+5

|

+4

|

+1

|

+1

|Bonus feat

6th|

+6

|

+5

|

+2

|

+2

|Bonus feat

7th|

+7

|

+5

|

+2

|

+2

|Bonus feat

8th|

+8

|

+6

|

+2

|

+2

|Bonus feat

9th|

+9

|

+6

|

+3

|

+3

|Bonus feat

10th|

+10

|

+7

|

+3

|

+3

|Bonus feat

11th|

+11

|

+7

|

+3

|

+3

|Bonus feat

12th|

+12

|

+8

|

+4

|

+4

|Bonus feat

13th|

+13

|

+8

|

+4

|

+4

|Bonus feat

14th|

+14

|

+9

|

+4

|

+4

|Bonus feat

15th|

+15

|

+9

|

+5

|

+5

|Bonus feat

16th|

+16

|

+10

|

+5

|

+5

|Bonus feat

17th|

+17

|

+10

|

+5

|

+5

|Bonus feat

18th|

+18

|

+11

|

+6

|

+6

|Bonus feat

19th|

+19

|

+11

|

+6

|

+6

|Bonus feat

20th|

+20

|

+12

|

+6

|

+6

|Bonus feat[/table]

Devastating Critical
Your attacks are overwhelmingly powerful
Prerequisites: Weapon focus (any weapon), Improved Critical (any weapon), BAB +8.
Benefit: When confirming a critical hit with a weapon which you benefit from the Weapon Focus feat and the Improved Critical feat you gain a bonus to confirm said critical hit equal to half your Base Attack Bonus.
Special: A fighter can take Devastating Critical as a fighter bonus feat.

Perfect Weapon Focus
Your attacks are overwhelmingly precise
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus (any weapon), Fighter level 10th, Greater Weapon Focus (any weapon).
Benefit: You add a bonus to attack with a weapon from which you benefit from the Weapon Focus and the Greater Weapon Focus feats equal to a third of your Base Attack Bonus, this replaces the bonuses of the Weapon Focus and the Greater Weapon Focus feats.
Special: A fighter can take Perfect Weapon Focus as a fighter bonus feat.

Improved Dodge
Your dodge is overwhelmingly effective
Prerequisites: Dex 13, Dodge, Mobility, Base Attack Bonus +6
Benefit: The bonus to AC granted by the Dodge feat changes to a third of your Base Attack Bonus and you can now choose two enemies to benefit from it.
Special: A fighter can take Improved Dodge as a fighter bonus feat.

Perfect Weapon Specialization
Your attacks are overwhelmingly damaging
Prerequisites: Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus, Fighter level 14th, Greater Weapon Specialization.
Benefit: You gain a bonus to damage with weapons in which you benefit from the Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Specialization feats equal to half your your Base Attack Bonus, this bonus replaces the one granted by the Weapon Specialization and Greater Weapon Specialization feats.
Special: A fighter can take Perfect Weapon Specialization as a fighter bonus feat.

Powerful Mind
Your force of will is overwhelmingly resistant
Prerequisites: Wisdom 13, Iron Will, Base attack bonus +9.
Benefit: The bonus to Will Saving throws from the Iron Will feat is now a third of your base attack bonus instead of +2.
Special: A fighter can take Powerful Mind as a fighter bonus feat.

Swift Reactions
Your reflexes are overwhelmingly fast
Prerequisites: Dexterity 13, Lightning Reflexes, Base attack bonus +9.
Benefit: The bonus to Reflexes Saving throws from the Lightning Reflexes feat is now a third of your base attack bonus instead of +2.
Special: A fighter can take Swift Reactions as a fighter bonus feat.

Amazing Vitality
Your vitality is overwhelmingly resilient
Prerequisites: Constitution 13, Great Fortitude, Base attack bonus +9.
Benefit: The bonus to Fortitude Saving throws from the Great Fortitude feat is now a third of your base attack bonus instead of +2.
Special: A fighter can take Amazing Vitality as a fighter bonus feat.

And so on.

Spoiler

Show

Attack Bonus
Combat Mastery
Prerequisites: Fighter level 20th.
Benefit: You gain 1 point of Base Attack Bonus.
Special: A fighter can take Attack Bonus as a fighter bonus feat.

[AstralFire]

True...for the following reason: look at all the other feats that trigger on criticals or critical threats. Follow-up Strike and Staggering Blow are incredible with a high threat weapon...and, in my mind, incredible enough to justify the lesser damage and lesser multiplier. There will be more like them.

This is true, but it still bothers me somewhat because you're penalizing (by opportunity cost) those rapier and scimitar wielders a lot until they work their way up a few tiers. If you could offer options for them earlier on, I think it would be better.

[Bergor Terraf]

Why not make the ranks unlock based on BAB instead of character level? This way, it won't change a thing for the fighter, but still limit the "power boost" other less combat-focused class could gain from these feats.

[Ouranos]

Good point. Lets fighters, barbarians, rangers, and paladins all have good access to em, but say a cleric or monk would get lesser benefit.

[Lappy9000]

I'd suggest checking out Fax's Investing Feats and make full use of Prowess in your classes.

Works great for my party.

[Pramxnim]

I suggest checking out Iron Heroes and what they did with Mastery Feats. It's nothing short of redesigning the whole feat system, but you could cherry pick a few elements from there (their mastery system is quite similar to the ranking system you're trying to use here after all).

[Set]

Monte's Book of Experimental Might 2 does something similar. Each of the fighter-y Feats has normal effects, and special effects that only apply if they are taken as Fighter bonus feat. So a Monk or Wizard might take Combat Expertise, but he'll only get the standard benefits of that feat, while a Fighter who takes it with a Fighter bonus feat will get to ignore the +5/-5 cap and might get some scaling bonuses later, depending on the feat in question.

This would leave the base feats available straight out of the PHB for everyone else, and allow the Fighters specialized training to give them more bang for the same buck.

[Cieyrin]

I suggest checking out Iron Heroes and what they did with Mastery Feats. It's nothing short of redesigning the whole feat system, but you could cherry pick a few elements from there (their mastery system is quite similar to the ranking system you're trying to use here after all).

Damn, I was gonna mention this. Too slow, my typing fingers be. =p

[Telonius]

Good point. Lets fighters, barbarians, rangers, and paladins all have good access to em, but say a cleric or monk would get lesser benefit.

As long as you make it explicit that BAB gained from any other method than levelling is disallowed (i.e. Cleric can't suddenly use it if they cast Divine Power).

[PairO'Dice Lost]

As long as you make it explicit that BAB gained from any other method than levelling is disallowed (i.e. Cleric can't suddenly use it if they cast Divine Power).

Just make it based on "permanent BAB"--divine power, Kensai, Warchanter, etc. are all temporary boosts--and you'd disallow those while leaving open the option of a feat that increases BAB or counts it higher for prerequisites or the like.

[Gnomo]

I think this idea has a lot of promise, is just that, talking honestly, how many DMs successfully have added homebrew feats into their campaigns?

My experience is that, as a DM, I successfully has added class improvements and items into my campaigns, more than anything else. Most homebrew feats and spells are ignored by my players. What's your experience?

[AstralFire]

I think this idea has a lot of promise, is just that, talking honestly, how many DMs successfully have added homebrew feats into their campaigns?

My experience is that, as a DM, I successfully has added class improvements and items into my campaigns, more than anything else. Most homebrew feats and spells are ignored by my players. What's your experience?

Homebrew feat trees? Rarely. Homebrew feats that are a one-feat bandaid for an area? All the time.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I think this idea has a lot of promise, is just that, talking honestly, how many DMs successfully have added homebrew feats into their campaigns?

*raises hand*

Now, generally I'll make sure to point them out to my players when they coincide with their character ideas, but in general before a game I lay out all of the homebrew/house rules I have, and people usually take a feat or two and often a class.

[Partysan]

Have you ever read Szatany's Fantastic Feat Fix?

[Nanan]

I do agree with much of your altered fighter feats but like others have said making them based on BAB instead of level will balance them out better for other classes to take.

I have felt rather under whelmed with the fighter in 3.5 in terms of damage output and tanking ability. Casters gain an extra dice for levels yet fighters do not gain any sort of damage increase for leveling, this seems a bit off. In terms of balance I would go so far as to say that fighters should gain either full BAB or BAB/2 in damage for attacks to help balance out the disparity.

[cfalcon]

True...for the following reason: look at all the other feats that trigger on criticals or critical threats. Follow-up Strike and Staggering Blow are incredible with a high threat weapon...and, in my mind, incredible enough to justify the lesser damage and lesser multiplier. There will be more like them.

Actually, they aren't better with high threat weapons than not.

A brief explanation: let's assume that you write down all the values you can "hit" with. Put a dot on each of them. So if you hit an opponent on 11 or better, you have, say, 10 dots.

Then factor in that you can critical, lets say, times 2, only on a 20. Maybe you are swinging your fist here. Put an extra dot over the 20. Twenty is a "two dot" number. 19 and below are "one dot".

This weapon has "one crit dot"- because when you roll a 20, you deal double damage (when you confirm of course).

Now, take a sword. This will have 19-20 x2. This is a second dot above the nineteen. This weapon has "two crit dots"- because when you roll a 19 or 20, you deal double damage (again, when you confirm). Whatever their AC is, whatever your Attack is, this weapon will deal double the damage in critical strikes than the fist.

Now take an axe. This will have 20 x3. This is a THIRD dot above the twenty- for two total dots this weapon ALSO has "two crit dots". On average, if it has the same damage dice, it will deal the exact same damage as the sword listed above.

Now take a high threat weapon, like a rapier. This will have 18-20 x2. This is a second dot above the 18. This weapon has "three crit dots". If it has the same damage dice as the above weapons (and it usually won't), then it will deal 50% extra damage in critical strikes compared to them, on average.

Now take a high multiplier weapon, like a scythe. This will have 20 x4. This is a FOURTH dot above the twenty, for a total of "three crit dots". It will deal the same average damage as the high threat weapon- though it will be very bursty about it.

Improved critical doubles the number of dots. It takes your fist from one dot to two, usually not a great deal. It takes the axe from two dots to four (two dots above the 20, two dots above the 19). It takes the sword from two dots to four (one dot each above 17, 18, 19, 20).

This is the SAME improvement. It doesn't *favor* the sword over the axe.

What it DOES favor is weapons that make extra crit DOTS, like the rapier or the scythe- for those it doubles it from three to six dots.



Your feat doesn't double the dots on a longsword or a rapier, but it DOES double the dots on an axe, or a scythe. Then it uses that number as a base and trebles, then quadruples. By the time a fighter has that a few times, his scythe is one shotting things a lot, but if he took rapier it has increased his damage only slightly.

In other words: it favors an axe. It favors a sythe more than anything else. If something also increases the multiplier later, then those two together will be milked to multiply out to the most crit dots. Since the game is honestly sort of wacky at 6, going to 12 or 16 will see crazy stuff happen.

[I_Got_This_Name]

Why not make the ranks unlock based on BAB instead of character level? This way, it won't change a thing for the fighter, but still limit the "power boost" other less combat-focused class could gain from these feats.

Yeah, and you could also make them mostly give abilities you care about intrinsically instead of tiny numerical modifiers that do something cool when you stack enough of them, to make bookkeeping even easier: it's just "do you have this ability Y/N," no need to add any numbers to any die rolls. Then you'd have a [i]url=http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Races_of_War_(3.5e_Sourcebook)/Warriors_with_Style#The_Failure_of_Feats]similar project to draw on[/url].