Rebalancing 3.5, Backwards?

[JBiddles]

Hi everyone,

So the major problem with 3.5 is the tier system - a 20th-level Wizard and a 20th-level Fighter can't be mentioned in the same breath.

Now, this can obviously be mitigated with a bit of DM common sense - no ice assassins/wish loops/personal time-stopped planes/Incantatrix/Iot7V/metamagic shenanigans etc. - but at the end of the day, spellcasters are just more useful in most situations than martial classes.

There are attempts to mitigate this by nerfing spellcasting, but I'd be very interested in any attempt to swing it the other way. When I think of an Epic-level Fighter, I think of something between Achilles or Heracles and a Sci-Fi-style supersoldier - clogging rivers with the bodies of armies, outfighting demigods, leaping up cliffs, ignoring terminal-velocity falls, that sort of thing.

I've looked around, but I can't seem to find anything along these lines - could someone point me in the right direction, please?

Thanks!

[Jormengand]

You may be looking for these.

[Knaight]

There are also the Frank and K tomes, which include the Tome of War that has a very powerful fighter (though they still run into the limit of fighting being their one real area of expertise, even if it is now a whole bunch of different kinds of fights they excel at).

[nonsi]

.
I'm not sure about successfully landing on your feet at terminal-velocity (a-la Marvel's "The Juggernaut") without some kind of magical aid, but you might wanna take a look at my suggested Warrior class.
With the right skill-tricks and some of the feats suggested in the thread to which it belongs, it can do all the things you mentioned and a lot more.

It can probably stand up to all but the most radically optimized spellcasters - without even departing the realm of mundane.

[Grod_The_Giant]

My Myth? It's secret!

[Brova]

There are also the Frank and K tomes, which include the Tome of War that has a very powerful fighter (though they still run into the limit of fighting being their one real area of expertise, even if it is now a whole bunch of different kinds of fights they excel at).

The Tomes are excellent, but the Fighter is kind of a weak point. It's much stronger than other classes in combat, but still lacks a lot of noncombat utility. Something like the Soldier from the same site is likely to be a better fit. I do strongly recommend the Tomes for anyone who wants to balance D&D at the level of Clerics, Beguilers, or other effective classes.

[ImperatorV]

You may be looking for these.

This is what I would suggest. Jorm's "hypermundanes" as we refer to them can keep up with wizard+prestige classes in a lot of scenarios.

[7th son of sons]

Personallty, I have taken quite a shine to the Mythos Subsystem, having made a few projects within it. For your viewing pleasure: The Bellator, the Mythos version of The Fighteror, perhaps, his much, much Angrier brother, The Teramach