Houserule non-ToB Fighter Fix

[Zaydos]

I wanted to try as to make fighters stronger without using anything Tome of Battle related. So far I have a slight modification to Two-Weapon Fighting feat tree a few new feats, and granting the fighter a special ability every level. How I made it fighters can eventually get pounce ability, and two abilities that allow them to chain attacks (one functions using critical hit mechanics, and the other is simply based on hitting well enough).

Mostly I just want an idea how powerful this will be before I implement it. Most of my players aren't optimizers, or fail dreadfully at it when they try. One of them does have a tendency to break classes, but does so using bluff and diplomacy, so I'm not the most worried about optimized builds but I wanted to make fighters fun to play especially at higher levels. This is still a work in progress and I intend to work on it further. I simply like the idea of the fighter as the guy who gets a lot of attacks every round yet can do enough damage to make it worth while.
/end rant

Before anyone comments about this making fighter better than barbarian (which I hope it does), I intend to do a similar thing to Barbarian, Swashbuckler, Monk, Paladin, Knight and maybe even Hexblade, but decided to start with fighter (because they're my favorite non-caster class).

New Fighter Abilities

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Level Special
3rd Target
5th Dodge Bonus +1
7th Chain Blow, Double Strike
9th Dodge Bonus +3
11th Pounce
13th Dodge Bonus +4
15th Supreme Combo (full attack)
17th Dodge Bonus +6
19th Supreme Combo (standard action)

Target: As a swift action once per encounter a fighter may designate one creature as his target. He gains a +2 to Attack and Damage against this target till the end of the encounter.

Dodge Bonus: A fighter gains the listed dodge bonus to AC.

Chain Blow: When making a full-attack, if the fighter hits a creature and the attack would have been a critical hit if his weapon had a 19-20 base crit range then he may make a free attack at the same BAB, he may not move in any way between these attacks. If the creature is immune to crits and he would have scored a threat if his weapon had a 19-20 base criit range then he still rolls to confirm crit to determine whether Chain Blow activates.

Double Strike: A fighter may make two attacks as a standard action or on the end of a charge; the second attack does suffer a -5.

Pounce: As the creature ability; a fighter gains the ability to make a full attack at the end of a charge.

Supreme Combo: When making a full-attack if you hit by 5 or more you may immediately make an extra attack at -5 to hit. You can continuously chain these but the modifier to attack stacks. This is -5 to whatever attack you had just used (if the attack was a smite the combo-strike is also a smite) and these attacks are in addition to your normal attacks for the round (so if you have +40/+35/+30/+25 and rolled a 19 with your last attack to hit AC 39 you’d get another attack at +20 to hit; meanwhile if that had been your first attack and you rolled a 4 you’d get one at +35 to hit and could then with a roll of 9 get another at +30 to hit, if this was a 9 you’d not get another bonus attack but get your 2nd normal attack at +35 to hit). You may even use these with the bonus attack from cleave, or other sources. Starting at 19th level you may use this ability with a standard attack action

New Fighter Feats:

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Two-Weapon Fighting Feat Tree:
Prerequisites: Reduce all Dexterity prerequisites to 13+ Dex.

Combat Expertise and Feat Tree:
Prerequisites: Remove Int prerequisites.

Supreme Weapon Training:
Prerequisites: Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization and Improved Critical in chosen weapon, Fighter level 15+.
Benefit: You gain a +4 to hit with the chosen weapon and +8 damage. In addition the critical damage multiplier of the chosen weapon is increased by 1.

Dual Weapon Mastery:
Prerequisites: Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Greater Weapon Specialization.
Benefit: If you have Greater Weapon Specialization in both weapons you wield, you gain an additional +2 to attack with said weapons, and should you hit with both weapons gain an extra attack at your highest attack bonus -5.

Fatal Chain:
Prerequisites: Supreme Combo.
Benefit: You deal +5 damage with any hit that triggers your Supreme Combo ability and on the bonus attack from your Supreme Combo ability.

Heavy Armor Mastery:
Prerequisites: Improved Heavy Armor Optimization, Fighter Level 6+.
Benefit: You gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC when in heavy armor you are proficient with, and can ignore its ACP. The max Dex bonus of any heavy armor you wear and are proficient with is increased by +1.

[deuxhero]

Nope, still linear scales.

Even if the Fighter got the ability "I win" that killed anyone they hit, they would still fail to hit a wizard (He is flying just above him, and that is if you are generous enough to start nearby you instead of nukeing you from a distance.).

[ericgrau]

Ya. Fighters already have plenty of hits/AB/damage and AC. Increasing that already high amount to one shot kills and physically invincible, doesn't address the common complaints of versatility. Not to mention some munchkin builds already give them crazy stats... which only ends up making them one trick ponies and screws over versatility.

I actually just came up with a versatile fighter build to use in a future campaign. Deals damage well enough yet maintains plenty of interesting situational options (nothing requiring heavy feat/gear investment). But I know if he was put in a heavily powergamed group alongside uberchargers he'd be hosed.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

There are three ways one can improve the fighter in homebrew, just by tinkering with feats.

1. Give them even more feats. Such as at every level.

2. Fix existing feats by doing such things as converting chains into feats that scale with level. Ex:

The Two-Weapon Fighting feat chain would become Two-Weapon Fighting:
Whenever you make an attack with your primary hand, you may also make an attack with your off hand. (Thus, a level 6 Fighter with Two-Weapon Fighting gets: 4 attacks in a full-attack action, the ability to hit with both weapons as a standard action or at the end of a charge, and the ability to make two attacks whenever a creature provokes an AoO.)

3. Make Fighter feats something actually impressive. Ex:

Kensai:
Benefits: Your equipped weapons are treated as having an enhancement bonus equal to one half your Fighter level (rounded down).

Mystical Kensai:
Prerequisites: Kensai
Benefits: As a swift action, all but one point of the enhancement bonus granted to your equipped weapons by Fighter levels can traded for special abilities of equal value. (Thus, the aforementioned lvl 6 fighter could take the +3 enhancement granted to equipped weapons and, instead, treat them as +1 Keen and Thundering.


In additon, I'm all for fighters having a high Wis save as well as a high Con. Hell, allowing the player to pick two good saves is even better as it would allow for a wider variety of charater types under the blanket 'fighter' title.

[Doc Roc]

Hadrian, your propositions also scale linearly, offering only a few more options to the fighter. The exception would be the fixed feats, which are already executed by the excellent Tome series.

@OP: I think you will find that this version simply hits harder now and then, which is just not enough to make the fighter fun to play and relevant on the 3.5 battlefield. I've spent a tremendous amount of time thinking about this, but it's hard for me to articulate what I mean, so I apologize if I come off as brusque. Suffice to say that this has been a huge concern in the test of spite.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I was just tossing out ideas. Most of the problem with putting melee against magic is that magic is broken. Instead of turning it into an arms race, the goal is to bring casters back down to a reasonable level.

[Doc Roc]

I was just tossing out ideas. Most of the problem with putting melee against magic is that magic is broken. Instead of turning it into an arms race, the goal is to bring casters back down to a reasonable level.

I definitely understand your perspective. The downside is that slinging crazy mojo is HUGE fun.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

No doubt. Warping reality with but a wiggle of one's fingers is good times for sure. However, imagine trying to balance the game to all the worst holes and loops in the rules. Staying on par with Pun-Pun, Omni, the X of smack, and all the rest of the insanity one can pull is a self defeating purpose. A 'fix' is literally a means by which one attempts to take those glaring holes, and patch them up so that the system can function properly.

[Doc Roc]

No doubt. Warping reality with but a wiggle of one's fingers is good times for sure. However, imagine trying to balance the game to all the worst holes and loops in the rules. Staying on par with Pun-Pun, Omni, the X of smack, and all the rest of the insanity one can pull is a self defeating purpose. A 'fix' is literally a means by which one attempts to take those glaring holes, and patch them up so that the system can function properly.

It's easy... Almost... Like I... Like I might run the Test of Spite, and have spent months compiling such fix-lists?

:))

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Test of Spite? I'm afraid I have no idea what that is.

[Doc Roc]

It's The Other GitP arena. :))
We allow all books open, ECL 13, and standard starting wealth. It's been going since around june, at this point, so it's still fairly young, I suppose. We use a much wider ban\fix list than the GitP arena, due to the higher starting level. It's something we refer to as the 3.51 fix list.


/thread derail

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Interesting. I'll have to look it up at some point.

[AgentPaper]

Hrm, in the vein of making fighters scale better, perhaps you can make it so that each fighter feat scales with BaB to improve over time, as well as you getting more of them, and some better ones that require high BaB. For example:

Two-Weapon Fighting: The attack penalty for using two light weapons is reduced to -2/-4 (or whatever the normal one does, I forget)
BaB 3: You gain a 1 AC shield bonus while dual-wielding.
BaB 6: You gain a second off-hand attack.
BaB 8: You gain a 2 AC shield bonus while dual wielding.
BaB 11: You gain a third off-hand attack.
BaB 13: You gain a 3 AC shield bonus while dual wielding.
BaB 16: You gain a fourth off-hand attack.
BaB 18: You gain a 4 AC shield bonus while dual wielding.
BaB 20: Any one-handed weapon is treated as a light weapon while you dual-wield it.


Weapon Focus: Pick a weapon type. You are proficient with that weapon and you treat that weapon as one size category larger for the purpose of damage.
BaB 2: You deal 1 additional damage with your selected weapon.
BaB 4: You gain a +1 bonus to hit with your selected weapon.
BaB 6: You deal 2 additional damage with your selected weapon.
BaB 8: You gain an additional +1 bonus to hit with your selected weapon.
BaB 10: You deal 1 additional damage with your selected weapon.
BaB 12: You gain an additional +1 bonus to hit with your selected weapon.
BaB 14: You deal 1 additional damage with your selected weapon.
BaB 16: You gain an additional +1 bonus to hit with your selected weapon.
BaB 18: You deal 1 additional damage with your selected weapon.
BaB 20: You gain an additional +1 bonus to hit with your selected weapon and you double your critical threat range while using the selected weapon.

[DragoonWraith]

My issue with this is that the main complaint against Warblade is that it's "not mundane enough", but if you're still bound by the laws of physics after level, say, 12, you're basically a cripple...

[Godskook]

My issue with this is that the main complaint against Warblade is that it's "not mundane enough", but if you're still bound by the laws of physics after level, say, 12, you're basically a cripple...

I'd say the primary 'feature' of the fighter is his 'genericness'. Warblade isn't generic, he's an intelligent leader-type character. Although, I could see how people would think 'mundane' when they're meaning 'generic'.

[tyckspoon]

Warblade isn't generic, he's an intelligent leader-type character.

Except he's.. not. You only get a real leader-type if you decide to make White Raven a focus. Make a Tiger-Claw-centric Warblade, and you get a bestial berserker sort. Stone Dragon lends itself to somebody who is Just That Tough. Diamond Mind gets you a Zen-like swordsman who can do the one-cut duel thing. Iron Heart.. doesn't really have a feel to me; you can blend it into pretty much any other concept, along with the more generic maneuvers from the other disciplines- White Raven Hammer could pretty easily be a Stone Dragon strike instead, for example. Which is nice, because you can't really make a Warblade by picking maneuvers from only one discipline.

@Zaydos:
Assuming you want to maintain a relatively low-powered Fighter, you still have a couple of problems. You give Double Strike and Pounce much too late, especially Pounce. I would move Double Strike down to 7th and probably put Pounce at 11th. Chain Blow is just kind of confusingly worded- I'm pretty sure I understand what you meant, but there's a lot of text to get there. Does "When the Fighter crits an opponent, he may immediately make another attack against that opponent at the same BAB. This effect happens even if the opponent is immune to critical hits" basically cover it? I would also scale the Dodge bonus a little faster, but I suspect this one is mostly a matter of personal preference.

[imperialspectre]

AgentPaper: The idea of helping beatsticks by making feats do more has already been explored in a great deal of depth here. Check out Races of War, specifically, if you wish to explore this avenue further. It will serve you well.

Some of us don't feel that that particular approach works best, but if you like boosting feats and making them scale, the Tomes did that approach quite well. Tide's recommendations are more or less spot-on.

[Zaydos]

@Zaydos:
Assuming you want to maintain a relatively low-powered Fighter, you still have a couple of problems. You give Double Strike and Pounce much too late, especially Pounce. I would move Double Strike down to 7th and probably put Pounce at 11th. Chain Blow is just kind of confusingly worded- I'm pretty sure I understand what you meant, but there's a lot of text to get there. Does "When the Fighter crits an opponent, he may immediately make another attack against that opponent at the same BAB. This effect happens even if the opponent is immune to critical hits" basically cover it? I would also scale the Dodge bonus a little faster, but I suspect this one is mostly a
matter of personal preference.

Ultimately I'm aiming at a fighter which is worthwhile to play in game, but by no means the equal of a wizard, druid, cleric since they just get ridiculous; so yeah fairly weak. Really I want it to feel like a fighter, and not a supernatural warrior like warblade ultimately feels like when I've played it; which still equals out to weak.

As for your suggestions I moved pounce to 11th, and double strike to 9th (giving you some reason to full-attack for a few levels). I'd make Chain Blow that simple, except that would just lead to everyone using 18-20 rapiers so I made it treat the weapon's crit range as 19-20 before modifiers so that it didn't favor any specific weapons. I tried to rephrase that in a simpler manner but I don't know if I succeeded. And I made the dodge bonus reach +6 increasing it by 50%.

Finally I gave them Supreme Combo with a full attack action at 13th level, and made it apply to standard attacks at 19th. This should still leave them as a weak class, but hopefully they'd now be at least tier 4 (hopefully a strong tier 4) instead of tier 5.

I intend to work over feats some more, but first I'm going to try and beat my insomnia.