Martial Adept Fighter

[dangerprawn]

Martial Adept Fighter

Hey all, I had an idea on how I'd like to rework the Fighter class in 3.5, so I decided to register an account here and share it with you all.

Most of the Fighter remains the same. Base attack bonus, saves, bonus feats, those don't change. The difference is the addition of a small number of maneuvers and stances and a few skill changes.
Class Features:

Skills: Fighters receive 4 skill points per level. Balance and Martial Lore are added to the Fighters class skill list. In addition the key skill of the Fighters chosen discipline is added to his or her list of class skills.

Maneuvers: The Fighter knows one martial maneuver at first level, chosen from the disciplines available to him or her. All Fighters know the Stone Dragon discipline, in addition to one other discipline of their choice. Once chosen this discipline may not be changed.

The Fighter learns additional maneuvers at higher levels, as shown on the table. Upon reaching 4th level, and at every even-numbered Fighter level after that, the Fighter may choose to learn a new maneuver in place of one he or she already knows. This functions as the Warblade ability, on pg 21.

Maneuvers Readied: The Fighter may being an encounter with a certain number of maneuvers readied, according to the table.

Maneuver Recovery:When a fighter uses a maneuver, that maneuver is expended and must be readied again before use. The Fighter uses the Warblade recovery mechanic, as listed on pg 22.

Stances Known: A Fighter starts with knowledge of one stance, chosen from his or her known two disciplines. At 5th, 11th, and 16th level the Fighter may choose additional stances. This follows the rules of stances on pg 22.

Maneuvers and Stances Known
{table=head]Level| Maneuvers Known|Maneuvers readied|Stances Known

1st|

1

|

1

|

1

2nd|

1

|

1

|

1

3rd|

2

|

2

|

1

4th|

2

|

2

|

1

5th|

3

|

3

|

2

6th|

3

|

3

|

2

7th|

4

|

4

|

2

8th|

4

|

4

|

2

9th|

5

|

5

|

2

10th|

5

|

5

|

2

11th|

6

|

6

|

3

12th|

6

|

6

|

3

13th|

7

|

7

|

3

14th|

7

|

7

|

3

15th|

8

|

8

|

3

16th|

8

|

8

|

4

17th|

9

|

9

|

4

18th|

9

|

9

|

4

19th|

9

|

9

|

4

20th|

9

|

9

|

4

[/table]

Explanation of Concept: I've liked the idea of maneuvers and stances ever since Tome of Battle came out. My biggest concern was that none of these things were readily available to be used by the core Fighter. The Martial Stance and Martial Study feats are poor fixes to allow the Fighter to compete with the power of the martial adept classes.

My view of the Fighter is that he or she is the basic foundation for all martial combat. The Fighter isn't inherently specialized like the Ranger or Knight are. The Fighter's strength is in his or her options of bonus feats and basic combat prowess. Through a careful selection of feats the Fighter can do things with a blade that even a primary caster couldn't replicate. For an example of this, search the Wizards CO boards for a build called Jack B. Quick.

The problem is that the three martial adept classes can do the job of a Fighter as well as, or even better than, the actual Fighter. By allowing the basic Fighter access to maneuvers and stances, the Fighter maintains his or her credibility among the warrior classes without forcing any particular Fighter to change the way he or she fights.

I chose only two disciplines for this reason. The Stone Dragon discipline is one of the most basic of the disciplines and available to all martial adepts. The fundamentals of the discipline are 1) stand tough and 2) hit stuff hard. Those are basic combat skills. The second discipline of choice allows the Fighter to decide which type of Fighter he or she wants to be, much like the selection of feats does.

The Fighter knows a small selection of maneuvers, but they are constantly available to him or her, just like any other basic combat options are available to any character (attack, charge, disarm, trip, etc).

The Fighter's maneuvers may also be thought of as an extension of those basic combat options. The Fighter has the opportunity to specialize in advanced combat options (maneuvers) and once he or she does they are always ready to use.

Conclusion: Any comments or critiques are welcome. Thanks to Fax Celestis for the table code; I found it in your thread Guide to Homebrewing.

Edit: Added the Warblade Recovery Mechanic. Adjusted the levels at which the Fighter learns a new maneuver. Increased the total number of Maneuvers known by one to accommodate new progression.

Added table entry for number of Maneuvers Readied.

[Ouranos]

Possible for infinate manuvers to become overpowered, not real well versed on them. I would suggest an extremely low number of readied, but high known, making him really pick and choose. Possibly even limit his known disciplines to make him focus. make him more like a wizard, who beats things to death instead of casts a fireball. takes the same amount of training, knowledge and pre work, but in differant areas.

[Krazddndfreek]

Yea... this could be really overpowered... by the time he gets to 3rd level, he can use Greater Invisibility as the spell every turn. Granted, it lasts only during his turn, but still, no AoOs and attack flat-footed AC every turn. Combine that with Emerald Razor, we're looking at attacking 10 > AC every turn. Combined with Assassin's Stance, he even gets +2d6 sneak attack without being a rogue at fifth level. I'm sure there are many worse abuses, but that's just one of them.

[Shyftir]

A Warblade can keep up nearly infinite use with just a bit of feat selection, and really its not like fighters aren't underpowered the higher you go anyway.

Edit!
As long as he is restricted to just stone dragon and any ONE other school it shouldn't get too crazy but I'm not familiar with all the useful maneuvers in all the schools so maybe I'm missing some obvious problems.

[Krazddndfreek]

Warblade? Do you mean Swordsage? But the point is if you can keep using the same maneuver every round, especially if its a boost, it could get broken. At least with Swordsage or Warblade, you can use a maneuver every round, but you can't spam the same ones over and over again.

EDIT: Ok, I didn't read the whole thing and didn't realize that they only get access to two different disciplines. So the full extent of that exploit isn't completely viable, but still, being able to attack invisibly every round is pretty crazy if you're only 3rd level (Cloak of Deception is a second level maneuver). Not sure how bad it would be compared to spellcasters though.

[Shyftir]

You ready your chosen maneuver multiple times, then use the warblades ability to recover all maneuvers with a single simple attack round and you are back to using your chosen maneuver repeatedly.

I built a fighter/warblade character to do this easily.

I used the Adaptive Style Feat to switch to whatever maneuvers I thought most useful with one round of consecration then was able to spam my chosen maneuver for the vast majority of a combat.

[Krazddndfreek]

You can't ready a maneuver multiple times. It doesn't work even by RAW.

[...]When you initiate a maneuver, you expend it for the current encounter, so each of your readied maneuvers can be used once per encounter (until you recover them, as described below).

So technically you can actually ready the maneuver multiple times but whenever you initiate the maneuver, you can't use it again during the encounter unless you recover them. So you can's spam it over and over again.

[Gpope]

You ready your chosen maneuver multiple times, then use the warblades ability to recover all maneuvers with a single simple attack round and you are back to using your chosen maneuver repeatedly.

Didn't like the very first Q&A after Tome of Battle was released say you can't ready additional copies of a maneuver?

Anyhow, I'm not sure being limited to 2 schools is much of a balance against infinite boosts, since they can take the Martial Study feat to cherry pick whatever they want. And if there's one thing fighters have, it's feats.

[Shyftir]

I read that as being like readied spells, once you use it its gone til you rest, but a wizard can ready magic missile in all his slots and use it repeatedly.

I didn't have the FAQ just the book when I was playing. By the book I seemed fine, everybody else agreed.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I would probably say "any two disciplines from the Warblade list"

Because I just don't see a Fighter with anything from Setting Sun or Shadow Hand or even Devoted Spirit...

[Krazddndfreek]

Well martial study isn't the problem because it says that if you don't have a recovery method available to you, then you can't recover the maneuver. The problem is you can do all sorts of abuses if you have the ability to perform a maneuver every round with no disbenefits.

EDIT: @^: Fighter was always made to fill the role of any type of fighting man. Being able to wield a bow, or finesse weapon better than a rogue or ranger is fully within the Fighter's power, given his vast repretiore of options. And I could definitely see a Fighter in the most traditional sense using Devoted Spirit style attacks.

[hiryuu]

I read that as being like readied spells, once you use it its gone til you rest, but a wizard can ready magic missile in all his slots and use it repeatedly.

I didn't have the FAQ just the book when I was playing. By the book I seemed fine, everybody else agreed.

By the book, maneuvers you know have three states: Readied, Expended, and Unreadied. If a maneuver is Readied, it can't be put in that state again. What's so complex about that?

[Shyftir]

If maneuvers are read as similar to spells, (Which is what I was doing.) It made sense to be able to ready multiple copies of a maneuver, just like you can spells.

So we were playing that each maneuver was completely separate from other copies of itself. The difference was less than clear because the book tends to use correlations to spells to explain the system in the first place. I don't have the book on me right now. It's one owned by another part of my gaming group.

Without the Q&A, our understanding made perfect sense. Now that I know of the Q&A, I wouldn't do it this way, but the reading was obviously something that needed clarifying of they'd not have covered it in the Q&A.

[dangerprawn]

Krazddndfreek Good catch on the Martial Study and no recovery clause.

ShneekeyTheLost I envision Fighters of every discipline. A Fighter with access to Devoted Spirit would be a powerful and versatile melee combatant, just as Crusaders are. If a player wanted a Sneaky Fighter they could choose Shadow Hand, or a Fire based Fighter might go with Desert Wind.


I am a little wary of the possibilities for abuse. Greater Invisibility every round at 3rd level does invite abuse. The problem is how to limit this. Is the general reaction that some kind of recovery mechanic is necessary?

If so, what if there were a 1 round recharge type of thing, where the Fighter had to wait a round before using the maneuver again. It's similar in effect to the Warblades recovery mechanic, but requires no action. Or would it be simpler to just use the Warblades recovery mechanic, but have the Fighter limit of readied maneuvers equal his or her number of known maneuvers?

How about the number of maneuvers known and the progression at which the Fighter learns them? Any ideas/problems/flaws with that?

[Shyftir]

Right now the class seems to out shine the warblade iirc, pretty handily. More versatility outside of maneuver system, fewer maneuvers LOTS more feat variety. The Skill points are equal, the Hd is slightly smaller.

It's pretty close to right. Maybe it should be limited on max level maneuvers that can be learned. Or be designed like a half-casting class.

Also since the number of maneuvers known/readied is small. Warblade style recovery makes good sense. Limits you to spamming it every other turn (or so) instead of every turn.

[Krazddndfreek]

Yea, maybe the warblade mechanic would probably work best, though you might be able to experiment with a recharge system the same way they have for monsters in 4e. A roll of 5 or 6 recharges it the next round (?). Or how the dragon's breath weapon works.

Also, I don't think it would be too horrid to grant fighters the ability to take maneuvers at the level they get new ones. Though they only get 8? I guess that's fine. As long as it has the same ability as martial classes to retrain them.

[dangerprawn]

Shyftir The Warblade still has things to separate it from the Fighter. In my view the two most important are the Warblades greater selection of maneuvers and the Weapon Aptitude, allowing the Warblade to switch feats.

Krazddndfreek I think I had meant to modify the Warlock progression to fit with the level at which new maneuvers are gained, but I forgot. I will fix that.

It seems as though the Warblade recovery mechanic is being favored. I would rather go with that than create another system. The idea of a random recharge, like a breath weapon, doesn't feel like it would fit, for me at least.

[Shyftir]

See the Weapon Aptitude is one of those things I forgot, because I don't have the source materials right in front of me.

In that case, it seems pretty well balanced as is, that is with a warblade's recovery method.

[Scow2]

I hate any "Fix"/Change to a class that is Better Across the Board than the original class... The original fighter can be finessed in ways to outshine the ToB classes. Also, no Martial Adept is proficient in ranged weaponry for a reason... Any suggestions I'd have for fixing it, though, would just make it a Warblade/Fighter hybrid.

The proper solution to get a powerful melee fighter is just to multiclass between Warblade and Fighter, focusing on whichever aspect appeals to you more...

The fighter is a specialist, the Warblade is a Generalist.

And fighter levels increase Initiator Level by half for the purpose of determining maneuvers available, so you don't get gimped that way... And you can change your known maneuvers every four Fighter levels...

I say make a Class Synergy feat to reduce penalties of the multiclassing between them...

[Scow2]

My above rant aside, I actually think I approve of the change. As long as it doesn't overpower the Warblade, I can respect and love it because it makes the Fighter Class fun...

Of course, that said, I already have a Variant: The Brigand, for lack of a better term. It's essentially the Thug variant of this Martial Adept Fighter, loosing Medium and Heavy Armor proficiency in exchange for replacing automatic access to the Stone Dragon school with access to the Iron Heart school... If the loss of armor proficiency isn't enough, I'd also suggest sacrificing the first Fighter bonus Feat... but that probably should be sacrificed anyway for the extra skill points. With the loss of the first Fighter Bonus Feat out of the way, we can pay lip service to saying "It's a Variant, not Superioriant!"

I can't imagine fighters being able to freely choose Shadow Hand, since that seems to be for more cowardly types, like the swordsage.
Maybe I just want to play an agile fighter with almost free access to Desert Wind and Iron Heart schools... Mutually incompatible by normal ToB rules, but perfect for a Desert Brigand-type...

[Tackyhillbillu]

...that is a terrible, terrible idea.

Shadow Hand/Desert Wind, Iron Heart, and Devoted Spirit were all kept seperate for a very simple reason. They are the best schools. They define their respective classes. Death Mark and Iron Heart Surge? Sign me the hell up.

Stone Dragon is the worst school in the entire set. Letting a Variant drop it for the far more powerful schools is an extrodinarily bad idea.

[Scow2]

I have my answer...

[Tackyhillbillu]

Also, Danger, if I may make a suggestion, make a maneuvers readied column, and set it to the same number as maneuvers known. Otherwise the feat Martial Study becomes insanely good for this class.

It becomes two feats in one, duplicating the effects of Extra Readied/Extra Granted Maneuver, and Martial Study. As it stands, a Martial Adept Fighter can have a total of 28 Readied Maneuvers at the beginning of Combat, outstripping the Swordsage, who was intended to be the class with the most readied maneuvers. It has 2 less stances, but the Warblade Recovery method, making it a better Swordsage then the Swordsage itself.

[Scow2]

I... agree with that restriction.

[pyrefiend]

Seems strange to me that you'd choose Stone Dragon... I'd have gone with Iron Heart, as it seems to have the most appropriate flavor- i.e. mastery of non-supernatural swordplay.

And I also tend to think that certain powerful disciplines should be restricted, if only for flavor purposes. If you want to shoot fire with swords, that's cool, but be a mystical ninja guy. Don't play the quintessential basic melee class.

I'd allow for Iron Heart automatically plus Diamond Mind, Stone Dragon, White Raven, or Tiger Claw. There's also a lot of great homebrew disciplines on this forum, particularly Demented One's stuff.

[Tackyhillbillu]

I think the reason he went with Stone Dragon was A) it is generally agreed to be the weakest of the Schools, and B) every Martial Adept in the ToB class has access to it.

---

And glad to hear it Scow. I thought it seemed pretty logical, given the way the feats were intended to work.

[dangerprawn]

Also, Danger, if I may make a suggestion, make a maneuvers readied column, and set it to the same number as maneuvers known. Otherwise the feat Martial Study becomes insanely good for this class.

It becomes two feats in one, duplicating the effects of Extra Readied/Extra Granted Maneuver, and Martial Study. As it stands, a Martial Adept Fighter can have a total of 28 Readied Maneuvers at the beginning of Combat, outstripping the Swordsage, who was intended to be the class with the most readied maneuvers. It has 2 less stances, but the Warblade Recovery method, making it a better Swordsage then the Swordsage itself.

Good Catch. Consider this implemented until I have time to update the post.

[Tackyhillbillu]

Good Catch. Consider this implemented until I have time to update the post.

Thank Scow. He reminded me of Martial Study, which I tend to forget as a feat. It's good, but I usually don't take it, out of personal preference. Started me thinking about the feat, and after that, the math kind of worked itself out.

[Arbitrarious]

Also, Danger, if I may make a suggestion, make a maneuvers readied column, and set it to the same number as maneuvers known. Otherwise the feat Martial Study becomes insanely good for this class.

It becomes two feats in one, duplicating the effects of Extra Readied/Extra Granted Maneuver, and Martial Study. As it stands, a Martial Adept Fighter can have a total of 28 Readied Maneuvers at the beginning of Combat, outstripping the Swordsage, who was intended to be the class with the most readied maneuvers. It has 2 less stances, but the Warblade Recovery method, making it a better Swordsage then the Swordsage itself.

Is that assuming they take Martial Study as their bonus feat at every level?

Also a suggestion for a recovery mechanic. You recharge 1 maneuver each round automatically with a 1 round delay before a maneuver can be recharged. For example if you use White Raven Tactics and Mountain Hammer on turn 1 of combat, 1 of those maneuvers (your choice) would recover on the turn after next (1 round cooldown). A careful fighter can have infinite maneuvers but it would also be possible to burn out. You could just say any maneuver recovers after the 1 round cooldown, but considering they are keeping their feats I would say let them be more cautious or take Adaptive Style and burn a full round if they want to spam Martial abilities.

[jiriku]

I would second the suggestion that Iron Heart is a better choice to represent the "default discipline" than Stone Dragon.