Quick idea for a melee fix

[TSED]

Have NOT thought it through, so let's see the implications!

Basically, the problem with fighters or melee in general is that feat chains are underpowered and set in stone, while spellcasters can adjust to any changes given 8 hours notice.


What would happen if any [fighter] feats can be changed to any other [fighter] feat (that you qualify for) given 8 hours rest? Any feats you no longer meet the prerequisites for must also be changed, naturally.

[J.Gellert]

That would be pretty interesting, actually. It's not going to unbalance anyone. And as someone who hates the roleplaying/IC aspect of preparation ("Oh, yesterday I could cast that/use that feat, today I've... forgotten.") I will leave it at that.

[TSED]

You could justify it by 'preparing a certain combat style.' Or something.

Fluff can be easy to justify (at least depending on the character), you just need to make sure the crunch won't explode.

[TSED]

No one has any ideas for the repercussions?

I'd really like to see if this would cause any problems...

[Foryn Gilnith]

The thing is, Martial Study and Martial Stance are [fighter] feats. So you've just gone to "preparing" Determined Creeping Enervation Two-Shadow Strike or something. Which feats you can swap out like this ought to be more limited.

[Selrahc]

Well it would certainly make fighters more useful, but it wouldn't make things balanced. Because even if the fighter has the perfect set of feats for the job (Lockdown chain fighter against group of humanoids for example) then the wizard is still going to be more useful. It fixes the "situational" aspect of feat chains, but leaves in place the "underpowered" aspect.

Hmmm... what else. I guess the fact that different equipment is needed for different feat chains is a problem. A chain lockdown specialist would buy different items from a two handed leap attacker who'd buy different items from a steed fighter who'd buy different things from a dungeoncrasher who'd buy different things from a grapple specialist. And without intense specialization, a lot of the tricks of the feat chains become less effective. EDIT: And not just items, but also stat allocation.

It also makes fighters pretty much entirely the same as each other. Plus y'know, weird fluff justification.

[elliott20]

doesn't work that well for me. Feats are meant to represent a specialized training that is in-grained into a warrior's skill set. Allowing people to simply switch out feats on the fly like that doesn't really make sense in that respect anymore and it takes away the specialization aspect.

Plus, it doesn't really solve the caster - melee disparity. to bridge that, you need to give melee people ways to deal with the primary advantages that casters have. i.e. flight, force fields, etc.

better way to do this? make feats more powerful and have more options in them.
in most cases, feats do two functions

1. make you better at something
2. give you more options with a particular ability

there are problems in implementation with both though

[Partysan]

Well, it doesn't solve the problem of power, but it gives more flexibility.
However, I think it is a bit too unrealistic for a fighter to have learned a fully different combat style overnight.

A better concept that I have read somewere is "stance feats", meaning that you have a number of stances and every stance has its own set of feats. That way you could have a reach weapon stance, a twohanded fighting stance and a two weapon stance or something like that. You don't get to use more feats at the same time, but you ave three interchangeable feat sets with different trees.

In my private fighter fix I use this concept together with the option to switch out fighter bonus feats when gaining a level (originating from Szatany's ultimate fighter that I'm partially using) or when exclusively training for one month.
To balance out feat power, I'm also using Szatany's Fantastic Feat Fix (modified it a bit) which I just love^^

[elliott20]

Well, it doesn't solve the problem of power, but it gives more flexibility.
However, I think it is a bit too unrealistic for a fighter to have learned a fully different combat style overnight.

A better concept that I have read somewere is "stance feats", meaning that you have a number of stances and every stance has its own set of feats. That way you could have a reach weapon stance, a twohanded fighting stance and a two weapon stance or something like that. You don't get to use more feats at the same time, but you ave three interchangeable feat sets with different trees.

In my private fighter fix I use this concept together with the option to switch out fighter bonus feats when gaining a level (originating from Szatany's ultimate fighter that I'm partially using) or when exclusively training for one month.
To balance out feat power, I'm also using Szatany's Fantastic Feat Fix (modified it a bit) which I just love^^
this I like. It's kind of like combat style feats that you see in the complete warrior books.

[TSED]

Martial Study and equipment / stat allocation disparities are good points.

Hmmm.


Yeah, basically won't help much because of that. On the other hand, if the fighter's only a little behind on the curve (maybe you're finally wrapping up the campaign around level 11 or so) you might be able to introduce it for a few sessions to help them keep up.

Might seem kind of arbitrary though. "Hey, you can rebuild your fighter now that you're almost done with him!"


I'll keep it in mind, though.

[Yakk]

So I tossed together a stance fighter based on this concept.

The character had a set of stances -- stances where collections of feats. The fighter could change between stances initially slowly, but then would gain fast changes (1/day, 2/day, 3/day, then 1/encounter).

I think it was:
1: 2 stances, change as standard action
3: 1/day quick change
5: 3 stances
7: change as move action
9: 4 stances
11: 2/day quick change
13: 5 stances
15: 3/day quick change
17: 1/encounter quick change
19: change as swift action

Each new stance would start out as a copy of an existing stance, with 1/2 (rounded up) the feats changed. Only fighter bonus feats would be stance feats.

At each level that you don't gain a stance feat, you can change 1 feat in each stance to another one. Note that each stance feat collection must maintain prerequisites.

Each stance feat earned could be given a completely different feat for each stance.

Fighter feats like improved toughness would not qualify as stance feats, so you'd have to buy it as a non-stance feat 'for every stance'.

Quick changes are swift actions.

...

What this does is it gives fighters a collection of options, but they are not unlimited so you don't have to pull out rulebooks in the middle of a game.

...

Sadly, the polished versions of this where erased with the great board purge.