Fighter Fixes: Why I think they're not so great

[Erberor]

First things first: I have seen many great reworks of the fighter class, and people do spend quite a lot of time and effort into fixing up one of the most boring base classes in the 3.5 system. Monk may be worse, but at least it has some mildly interesting if weak abilities! Not only that, but it makes for an excellent mental exercise to see if you understand the mechanics of the game and what makes things powerful and such.

There are far too many threads titled "fighter fix" for my own taste. The problem with it is that you've already failed to capture my interest. There are so many fighter fixes, that when I see a class titled as such, I just keep scrolling. Not good.

By setting out to make a fighter fix and declaring it as such, you've severely limited your ability to create something interesting because you've pigeonholed yourself into making an entire class that has to fit within the unspeakably broad and shallow definition of a "fighter". People have many preconceptions about what is and isn't a fighter, and these preconceptions lead to unnecessary criticism that doesn't really help make the class any better. You may have thought up of an amazing ability that solves vast problems that the fighter faces, but because it doesn't fit within the general preconception of the fighter, you can't use it.

Let me make an analogy. Somewhere there is a city. In this city, there is a burgeoning, lively economy. The economy includes massive and powerful corporations, smaller businesses, retail and an old mine that has been in the city for generations. The mine once was key to commerce, but with all the towering corporations driving the economy, it has become an eyesore, and in many ways a safety hazard. Someone decides to fill the mine and try to make something useful out of it. He envisions grand plans for everything, but so many of his ideas are shot down because "It's a mine, not an office building!". Ultimately the mine becomes a museum that is fairly successful, but not nearly so much as the dreams of the creator could have been

In the same way, those who write fighter fixes are, somewhat irrationally (in my opinion anyway) forced to forget about cool ideas in favor of working with what they have.


Now, I'm not saying to throw your class out the window. No, never stop the brewing! What I'm saying is that if you want your class to be something special, something that people would want to play, don't make it a "fighter fix". Make it a Gladiator, and Hero, a Legend, an Indomitable Warrior, a Blademaster, a Master of War, a Warlord...it goes on. Make something new.

Artists don't repaint someone else's work. No, artists look to the work of others as the inspiration to create something new and spectacular.

Now get out there and brew up some awesome stuff.

NOW

EDIT: please disregard everything above. Evidently I have inadvertently offended quite a few people and would like for nothing more than for everyone to just walk away and pretend this whole thing never happened.

[Wargamer]

I think you've come at this from entirely the wrong direction.

The problem with Fighter Fixes is WotC itself deciding that every conceivable variation on a common theme has to be a class of its own. Not everyone agrees with this.

The Core Books chose their classes well. "Wizard" is any Arcane caster that prepares ahead of time. "Cleric" is any Divine caster linked to Gods (as opposed to nature / spirits; that's a Druid). "Fighter" is likewise an array of skilled, but mundane warriors. Knights? Fighters. Gladiators? Fighters. Samurai? Fighters. Cataphracts, Wrestlers, Mercenaries, Champions, Pit Fighters, Fencers, Dragoons and many more besides are all "Fighters".

This is what the Fighter Fix seeks (if done right) to encapsulate. It is a template to create any martially-focused non-caster, typically favouring heavier armour (but they don't have to).

Most 3.5 players assume automatically every campaign is being run with 30+ splatbooks, whereas the entire point of a Fighter Fix is to make the Fighter viable again in all campaigns, even ones that are Core Only.

[Eldan]

Thing is, I don't think fighter is a niche the game even ought to cover.

What is a fighters fluff? He fights. With a weapon. Thing is, so does almost everyone else. The fighter has no unique fluff.

And it gets worse. There are no fighters in fiction. Or barely any. Can you think of any character who has not a single talent or defining feature other than his ability to wield weapons? There are religious fighters, swashbuckling fighters, noble fighters, sneaky fighters, wilderness fighters, thieving fighters, raging fighters and fighters who lead armies. There's pretty much no one who's "just a fighter".

So, really, I question the need for a fighter class in the first place. There's no "reflex save master" class, why do we need a "melee attack master" class?

[Erberor]

I guess that is true, but I don't think that you can accurately make the one class than can represent absolutely everything, at least without sacrificing a lot of potential.

I should clarify that what I think is a good class is one that can support several different variations on the same theme. Like the crusader- unlike the paladin, it can support various different ways of building and playing the character (it helps that the crusader doesn't suck mechanically), but unlike the fighter it doesn't try to do everything at once, and thus feels more like a class, a profession, as opposed to a descriptor. I generally make a point of having significant choice in part of my own classes, to support different builds.

I guess the big thing that really bothers me is that people title their works "Fighter fix". It's an eyesore to look at it in my opinion, and as I said it just causes me to glaze over an otherwise rather nice work.

[drew2u]

Most 3.5 players assume automatically every campaign is being run with 30+ splatbooks, whereas the entire point of a Fighter Fix is to make the Fighter viable again in all campaigns, even ones that are Core Only.

THANK YOU.

I would also argue that any Fighter Fix would be better balanced by "fixing" the other classes at the same time. It doesn't make sense to fix one class without looking at the others and saying, "eh, those are fine." I would love to see all classes fixed together so they balance each other out.

[Seerow]

Most 3.5 players assume automatically every campaign is being run with 30+ splatbooks, whereas the entire point of a Fighter Fix is to make the Fighter viable again in all campaigns, even ones that are Core Only.

I don't think I have ever seen a core only game that accepts homebrew material from the internet.

[Eldan]

THANK YOU.

I would also argue that any Fighter Fix would be better balanced by "fixing" the other classes at the same time. It doesn't make sense to fix one class without looking at the others and saying, "eh, those are fine." I would love to see all classes fixed together so they balance each other out.

Not so difficult. In fact, you could probably do it.

Morph Bark's Homebrew Tier Compendium. Has a section for fixes.

In Tier 3, we have:

1 Psion, 2 Fighters, 4 monks, 1 sorcerer, 1 wizard, 3 soulknives, 2 marshals, 1 ninja, 1 knight, 1 ranger, 1 rogue, 1 shugenja, 1 scout, 3 swashbucklers, 1 cleric, 1 warlock, 1 warmage, 1 hexblade, 1 healer, 1 paladin

And in Tier 4:
Another bard, three fighters, 1 hexblade, 1 knight, 3 monks, 1 ninja, 2 samurai, 1 swashbuckler, 1 shadowcaster

That covers a lot of ground already. And that's without completely new homebrew classes.

[Logic]

I am pretty biased in favor of the fighter. Because of it's versatility, it is one of my favorite classes.

However, I am of the opinion that the Fighter is too easily duplicated by other party members. Too many other classes step on the fighters toes. The Paladin, Cleric and Barbarian all provide frontline support with more focused abilities, and are (arguably) better to stand in the way of the monsters trying to squish the archers and mages in the back. Even a mage (built for melee) can out-fight the fighter, and if the mage doesn't out-fight the fighter, his summoned creates will (Tangent: my main reason for disliking summoning is trivializing my three favorite classes.)

[ngilop]

Thing is, I don't think fighter is a niche the game even ought to cover.

What is a fighters fluff? He fights. With a weapon. Thing is, so does almost everyone else. The fighter has no unique fluff.

And it gets worse. There are no fighters in fiction. Or barely any. Can you think of any character who has not a single talent or defining feature other than his ability to wield weapons? There are religious fighters, swashbuckling fighters, noble fighters, sneaky fighters, wilderness fighters, thieving fighters, raging fighters and fighters who lead armies. There's pretty much no one who's "just a fighter".

So, really, I question the need for a fighter class in the first place. There's no "reflex save master" class, why do we need a "melee attack master" class?

Achilles, Heracles, Beowulf, Giglamesh, Samson, Hector, Indrajit, Lu Bu, Guan Yu, Zheng Fei, Taishi Ci, Odysseus, Persues, Thesues, Cu Chulainn, Roland, Sir Lancelot.. those are just off the top of my head of 'fictional' fighters I guess i could slap in such as Conan and fafhrd to include non mythological fighters in that.
and thats not including if I wanted to go FULLY historically accurate, id have literally scores more to add ( yes the three kingdom era people I listyed really existed, but I am referring more to their mythological tales that true to real life. I doubt Taishi Ci could have ridden for days with 100 arrows stuck in him only to say ' i failed and die')

I have to agree somewhat with the OP main point though. Unless you are trying to incorporate different archetypes of what is a fighter in your fighter fix you are really missing the point. I completely disagree that calling you class a fighter is autmatcally stupid and shoul dbe scrapped. and something as fully specific as a blade master ro gladitor should be regulated to what a PrC is supposed to represent.

Too bad that WoTC did not feel that was the case, and all to often I find the same thing on these homebrews as well.

[Eldan]

Achilles, Heracles, Beowulf, Giglamesh, Samson, Hector, Indrajit, Lu Bu, Guan Yu, Zheng Fei, Taishi Ci, Odysseus, Persues, Thesues, Cu Chulainn, Roland, Sir Lancelot

Let's see.

Demigod noble; demigod noble; barbarian; demigod, architect, king; barbarian with divine power; divinely powered king; also a spellcaster (lightning bolts); can't say enough about the Chinese characters; rogue; demigod king; very clearly a barbarian and also a demigod; Paladin (literally); Paladin.

As for Conan and Fafhrd: Barbarians, rangers, even rogues or swashbucklers, depending on the tale.

[SiuiS]

You so realize that fixing something is worlds different from creating something original, yes?

When repairing a painting that's old and disused, you don't add your own unique dramatic flair, after all. :smallwink:

[Erberor]

Eldan makes an excellent point. Even the most fighter-y of fighters are frequently better represented by other classes. This is kind of why in my campaigns, Fighter is basically an NPC class. The fighter has versatility, which is good, but it has absolutely no direction by virtue of the class itself.

EDIT:

You so realize that fixing something is worlds different from creating something original, yes?

When repairing a painting that's old and disused, you don't add your own unique dramatic flair, after all. :smallwink:

admittedly, I hadn't quite seen this side of things. I guess I'm the type of person that would rather build something new and amazing than try to make the old thing amazing. It's a matter of preference I guess. I personally think that the best way to create something amazing is to begin with a blank sheet of paper and several hundred truckloads of imagination and thought.

Incidently, I changed the title of the thread because I realize that this is at large my opinion, and the title should reflect that.

[drew2u]

My own personal take on what a fighter is capable of that no other class can do is have the ability to not have per-day features or specific-encounter abilities (see sneak attack). So while all the other classes have exhausted their top-level abilities and are resting around a campfire at night, the fighter's core abilities should still be able to be utilized when, say, a couple of oozes catch the sleeping party off-guard.


And Eldan, thanks! Is there a report on how well those classes interact with each other? (meaning do the tier 3 classes still step all over the tier 3 fighters?)

[ngilop]

Let's see.

Demigod noble; demigod noble; barbarian; demigod, architect, king; barbarian with divine power; divinely powered king; also a spellcaster (lightning bolts); can't say enough about the Chinese characters; rogue; demigod king; very clearly a barbarian and also a demigod; Paladin (literally); Paladin.

As for Conan and Fafhrd: Barbarians, rangers, even rogues or swashbucklers, depending on the tale.

Hmm, I guess we just see the fighter as completely different concepts.

on a side note, the inclusion of barbarian as a class is in my opinion superfluous, just a guy who gets mad and fights, which im assuming they just gained that inspiration from viking beserkers Not from Conan.

I just feel the concept of a fighter is more broad than big strong stupid dumb guy who swings a weapon and takes face blows all day. I looked to old mythologies and thats where I fellt eh fighter should be

I have never and will never subsribe to the the fighter is regulate dot not being able to do ANYTHING even half decent, cool ,and semi heroic becuase nobody here in the real world can.. but its Ok for a wizird to bend thevery laws of the universe to is whim right out of the gate ( at lvl 1)

Why can;t a fighter battle a diety for 3 days before finally succumbing to his wounds? why cannot a fighter do feats of myth like slaw unkillabe beasts. Ive just never understood the hate for the fighter and why everybody has such a dead set focus on preventing the fighter from ever doing anything cool, but anything else can.

[Eldan]

I'm not saying a fighter can't do that. I'm just saying that there's other classes out there who do these things already, and better.

Fighting for three days without dying? There's a crusader stance that does that. I'm not saying "mundane fighter" is a concept that doesn't work. I'm saying it's way, way too broad for a single class and there's a lot of more interesting, specialized classes within that concept.

Why do we need to "fix" the fighter if we have the knight, ranger, rogue, swashbuckler, warblade, crusader, paladin, barbarian and scout? Unlike the fighter, all of these (well, most, there's still swashbucklers) have unique and interesting mechanics, while most of them are still mostly nonmagical melee fighters. It's just that they also have other talents.

[Wargamer]

Eldan makes an excellent point. Even the most fighter-y of fighters are frequently better represented by other classes. This is kind of why in my campaigns, Fighter is basically an NPC class. The fighter has versatility, which is good, but it has absolutely no direction by virtue of the class itself.

This links back to point #1 - there are too many classes.

Wizard and Sorcerer need to be distinct because of their differing approaches to magic, but there's also a reason why there is no "Necromancer", or "Summoner" Class in the PhB; both can be represented by a Wizard / Sorcerer who is picky about his spells.

Likewise, the Rogue reflects any character who is built around being sneaky. A Rogue can be a thief who picks your pocket, or he can be an assassin who strikes from shadows. A Rogue can be a treasure-hunter, a tomb raider, an archer, a military scout or various other variations on a theme of "a guy who picks locks and stabs you in the back".

And it's no coincidence that these 'generic' classes all have their roots in the older editions of D&D. I'm lucky enough to have picked up an old (1st I think) rulebook a while back and that has the following classes: Cleric, Dwarf, Elf, Fighter, Halfling, Magic-User and Thief. So, dear reader, if you were going to play as Hercules, or King Leonidas, or Aragorn in a 1st Edition D&D Game, what Class would they be? Why, I do believe they would be Fighters!

But as I said before, 3rd Edition gave up on this concept. Classes became increasingly pigeon-holed; the core rulebook contains several classes that should arguably be either Prestige Classes, or else have their 'unique feature' stripped out and made an option in someone else's class. A Bard could easily be a Wizard-Rogue Prestige; the Paladin a Fighter-Cleric Prestige.

This trend then spiraled out of all control as more and more splatbooks came out, each providing not only new, increasingly specific Prestige Classes, but also throwing more Core Classes into the mix. The death of the Fighter can be attributed to this attitude; trying to keep a generic "broad strokes" class in a game with increasingly narrow fields of vision. Had they not gone over to 4th (and now 5th) the trend would have become so stupidly specific that they'd be giving out Core Classes to represent soldiers, wizards, rogues, etc. recruited from specific countries within a setting, or who work for specific guilds. I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but there is simply no need to divide the Celtic Berserker, Germanic Berserker and Norse Berskerer into three distinct Classes.

All of this feeds into problem #2 - as classes became more narrow in focus, they also became less special.

A friend of mine recounted a tale of how, in one campaign from the AD&D days there was a kingdom whose king was protected by a nigh on unstoppable bodyguard; an elite corps of soldiers who could smash aside all opposition. That force was a band of about a dozen Level 1 Fighters.

Player Characters are not exceptional anymore. The later 3.5 Monster Manuals stopped giving out new creatures to fight, and instead gave us existing creatures that had taken levels in classes from Complete Adventurer, or Complete Warrior, or some other splatbook. These weren't meant as the Big Bad of the campaign, or even mini-bosses; these were dolled out as standard encounters.

That attitude should tell you everything you need to know about why the Fighter seems to be failing; it's a class written with the mindset that simply being a Fighter meant you were utterly nails, a warrior of such regard that you were nigh on unmatched among the masses. That doesn't work when the guy selling you a broadsword technically has more class levels than you do.

In short, the Fighter is not so much a broken class as it is a symbol of a broken system. What 3.0 was meant to be, and what 3.5 became when it was put out to pasture (only to be sodomised by Pathfinder) seem totally at odds with one another.

This is a point I feel like the OP has totally missed. To declare you are making a "Fighter Fix" is to declare your intent that you believe classes should be generic - that you should not have twenty melee classes, but rather one melee class that can be interpreted twenty different ways. This, to me, is why the Fighter is just a collection of Feats - because in theory (not in practice, but in theory) those Feats let you build whatever you want out of them. You can be an archer, a cavalier, a dual-wield swashbuckler, a greatsword-toting behemoth or a sword-and-board tank. You can be a lone wolf or a leader of men. You can be a lightning blitzer, a glass cannon or an arrow sponge.

Does the Fighter succeed in this? Not at higher levels, and certainly not when you crush the PhB under half a ton of additional content, but the intent is very clear for anyone who actually bothers to look for it. Fighters are the product of a very different train of thought than the "Knight of the Order of St Cuthbert, Eastern Orthodox Branch" style of class.

[Eldan]

See, I think generic classes are good in rules light systems. They are fine in OD&D. But I like my highly detailed rules. It's why I still play third edition, rather than, say, FATE. In a system with as many rules as third edition D&D, I like classes who have a lot of unique class features and I like those to be as different as possible. Could I take a wizard and play him with the Binder's fluff, instead of using the Binder? Sure. Could I take a warrior (the NPC class) and play it as a warblade, saying that each attack roll I make is acutally a special maneuver I learned in a school? Damn right I can. But I don't want to. Because mechanics are fun.

[Blue_C.]

Let's see.

Demigod noble; demigod noble; barbarian; demigod, architect, king; barbarian with divine power; divinely powered king; also a spellcaster (lightning bolts); can't say enough about the Chinese characters; rogue; demigod king; very clearly a barbarian and also a demigod; Paladin (literally); Paladin.

As for Conan and Fafhrd: Barbarians, rangers, even rogues or swashbucklers, depending on the tale.

I'm with you for most of this post, but how are "Demigods" or "Nobles" better represented by other classes? I'm not saying that fighters do a great job representing these concepts, but I don't see how any class does that.

[Eldan]

Okay, demigod is probably a template, I give you that. The nobles, however, would at the very least need some skill points and probably leadership abilities, too.

[Just to Browse]

The "death of the fighter" did not occur because splatbooks edged him put, the death of the fighter happened as soon as the internet showed up and people could post their opinions on how the fighter sucks. The fighter was bad in old editions too. I think it was AD&D 2e where the druid (accepted as the weakest casting class in the game) got a class feature around level 10-15 where they obtained two treant cohorts. So the weakest caster in the game gets one class feature that individually outperforms the fighter, and all the other casters are stronger than that. However, GitP/minmaxboards/Stackexchange/tg weren't around at that time, so no one could throw their voice into the chamber. And that means that if you didn't notice mages were overpowered, you had no reason to believe it.

But in 3e, people could use the internet. And in the 2000s, people started having dialogue about how/why the fighter sucks, so now here we are a decade later. The fighter hasn't actually gone from hero to zero, hit's just that this is the Information Age so you're more likely to know about it.

[Wargamer]

Okay, demigod is probably a template, I give you that. The nobles, however, would at the very least need some skill points and probably leadership abilities, too.

You need to read more history. Power and privilege is, historically, bestowed by birth, save for when it is bestowed by killing your rival's menfolk, raping their wives and daughters and then burning down their town.

"Nobility", for all intents and purposes, means you were born to a noble family. That doesn't mean you are a talented leader, or charismatic, or even remotely capable of governance; it means you were born into a position of authority. Both history and fiction are littered with tales of inept nobles, be they selfish or stupid or just plain unfit for the task they are assigned.

Moreover, from a purely mechanics-driven perspective, leadership has no prerequisites, save perhaps for the DM to recognise your authority. Having the Leadership feat, sinking points into Charisma and blowing some skill points on Diplomacy or Knowledge skills might help, but if the DM says you are entitled to shout at people until they do what you want, you can have Charisma of 2 for all the game cares and you are still a leader.

[ngilop]

I'm not saying a fighter can't do that. I'm just saying that there's other classes out there who do these things already, and better.

Fighting for three days without dying? There's a crusader stance that does that. I'm not saying "mundane fighter" is a concept that doesn't work. I'm saying it's way, way too broad for a single class and there's a lot of more interesting, specialized classes within that concept.

Why do we need to "fix" the fighter if we have the knight, ranger, rogue, swashbuckler, warblade, crusader, paladin, barbarian and scout? Unlike the fighter, all of these (well, most, there's still swashbucklers) have unique and interesting mechanics, while most of them are still mostly nonmagical melee fighters. It's just that they also have other talents.

I feel that swashbuckler, knight/ToB crusader, cavalier, archer, Warblade, barbarian, marshal are just Fighters. but with a more specialized focus

But to make money instead of justr giving a fighter different archetypes and letting a player select one, WoTC were liek ' hey lets make different classes and take away from what we said in teh fluff a fighter was?! YAY!!!

Some subscribe to that and feel that generic classes such as a cleric, or wizard is fine but to have a generic combat class BLASHPEMY! Imaybe its becuase i just rot for the underdog or the fact that i was and still am hugely into history and mythology and to see what should be the class that represents those mythological heroes being shat upon for reasons sucha s' you are not allowed to have ncie hting, you are too generic, etcetc makes me cry inside, and outside as well.

I am trying to do what is iad in my first post with my own fighter fix (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=318268). give different archetype for the fihter so the player has a choice to speciliaze their character and not have it ofrced and shoved down theri throat ' you wanna do X YOU HAVE TO BE Y CLASS no expcetons' i hate that style of gaming and think that it just not good, though appeanrly it makes you money and i seem tobe in the minory in oppisition of it

my final point is. WHy does the guy who wants tobe a fighter not able to do anything he wants to do? why cann you just not see the the Fighter is an overarching concpe that consits of such as a swashbuckler, knight, or archer? instead of requiring one to just take an even more specilized class that is a 1 or 2 trick pony?

[T.G. Oskar]

First things first: I have seen many great reworks of the fighter class, and people do spend quite a lot of time and effort into fixing up one of the most boring base classes in the 3.5 system. Monk may be worse, but at least it has some mildly interesting if weak abilities! Not only that, but it makes for an excellent mental exercise to see if you understand the mechanics of the game and what makes things powerful and such.

There are far too many threads titled "fighter fix" for my own taste. The problem with it is that you've already failed to capture my interest. There are so many fighter fixes, that when I see a class titled as such, I just keep scrolling. Not good.

By setting out to make a fighter fix and declaring it as such, you've severely limited your ability to create something interesting because you've pigeonholed yourself into making an entire class that has to fit within the unspeakably broad and shallow definition of a "fighter". People have many preconceptions about what is and isn't a fighter, and these preconceptions lead to unnecessary criticism that doesn't really help make the class any better. You may have thought up of an amazing ability that solves vast problems that the fighter faces, but because it doesn't fit within the general preconception of the fighter, you can't use it.

Let me make an analogy. Somewhere there is a city. In this city, there is a burgeoning, lively economy. The economy includes massive and powerful corporations, smaller businesses, retail and an old mine that has been in the city for generations. The mine once was key to commerce, but with all the towering corporations driving the economy, it has become an eyesore, and in many ways a safety hazard. Someone decides to fill the mine and try to make something useful out of it. He envisions grand plans for everything, but so many of his ideas are shot down because "It's a mine, not an office building!". Ultimately the mine becomes a museum that is fairly successful, but not nearly so much as the dreams of the creator could have been

In the same way, those who write fighter fixes are, somewhat irrationally (in my opinion anyway) forced to forget about cool ideas in favor of working with what they have.

Fighter's definition being broad, AND shallow? A class with width of extent, meant to be comprehensive, mostly superficial, lacking substance and intellectually deep? Well...it fits the bill. Let's see if other classes fit the bill.

Take the Rogue, the companion sufferer of the Fighter in Core (without being an actual Fighter variant or hybrid, as the Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger). The Rogue is supposed to be the specialist in skills, but the Bard covers almost half of its skills and boosts them with magic, the Wizard eclipses the Rogue in its own niche, and the only thing that the Rogue has that's sorta unique in Core is Sneak Attack and trap disarming. Even UMD can be done by a Bard. That, and having the highest amount of skill points is the only thing that defines a Rogue. Maybe the Special Abilities can distinguish it, but one of them is shared (Imp. Evasion, with the Monk), the other is a free feat, and the remaining ones are as unique as the remainder of the Weapon Focus line for a Fighter. The Rogue's definition is broad (they encompass a good deal of archetypes) and yet also shallow (most of the archetypes are thieves of some sort, or relate to criminal acts, making the Rogue a synonym for Thief; in fact, the old-school Rogue WAS called Thief, up until 2nd Edition where it was the super-class that encompassed Thief and Bard). The Rogue, much like the Fighter, has a class that replaces it in just about everything, including its own niche (the Factotum is to the Rogue what the Warblade is to the Fighter, up to and including its very definition).

How about the Wizard? Its definition is pretty broad, and at the same time shallow: it's a Magic-User, the name it was first given. In fact, if magic was as restrained as the Fighter's feats, people would be making multitude of Wizard fixes to restore its broadness. That said, the Wizard has less archetypes than the Fighter could possibly have, by virtue of its only distinguishing thing being "I can use magic"; it just happens that "use magic" is a shorthand for "doing everything", so they end up "doing everything", up to and including conjuring a better Fighter than the Fighter and being a better Rogue than the Rogue; if it weren't because they can't heal that easily and that the Cleric has its own set of overlapping traits, it'd be a better Cleric than the Cleric.

Speaking of Cleric...that's a different monster. It's definition is pretty shallow as well: the follower of a god, who uses Divine Magic to fight for the deity's interests. That's it. Outside from its domains (the remnants of 2nd Edition's Spheres) and Turning Undead, they get nothing else. Nothing. Without magic, they fight half as well as the Fighter, but without the bonus feats (half BAB, smaller HD, limited to simple weapons plus the rare chance of having your deity's favored weapon not be a simple weapon, which means an extra weapon slot); but, when you add Divine Magic, it instantly becomes better than the Fighter. The first half of the Cleric's definition is pretty broad (someone who follows a god; that can be anything from a small town priest, a cloistered ascetic, all the way to the head of a church or a prophet), but it's the second that intentionally narrows it (since it has to fight for its deity's interests, it has to be mobile; thus, it mostly relates to the armed missionary, or the wandering prophet, or the dreaded inquisitor). After that, what's left? What makes the Cleric of Olidammara, the god of thieves, distinct from the Cleric of Pelor, the god of the sun, or the Cleric of Boccob, the god of magic itself? If you say domains, that's about the only distinction; all of them have access to the same weapons and armor (heavy armor, at that; Clerics of Olidammara don't need that, because heavy armor interferes with their already limited stealth and movement skills...which they don't exactly have, because the Trickery domain focuses on being a sort of face-based trickster, not the stealthy kind of trickster). It's worse when you have to distinguish the Cleric of Olidammara from the Cleric of...say, Chaav, the Laughing God, which is basically CG Olidammara (I kid you not).

You might go the way Wargamer mentions, where the capable iterations a Fighter can encompass have been diluted because WotC had to make a class out of every conceivable archetype of the Fighter rather than let the Fighter cover them all. The Sorcerer is an archetype of the Wizard meant to cover the magician who's born with the talent rather than learn it; the Warlock is pretty much a Sorcerer with less tricks and a forced dark atmosphere, and the Dragonfire Adept is the same, but with Dragons (and the Sorcerer is usually the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchild of a Dragon!). The Wu Jen is, almost exactly, an Asian Wizard. The Warmage is an Evoker in all but name. The Dread Necromancer is what the Necromancer specialist should be. I rarely see people protest that the Wizard's niche is being assaulted; quite the contrary, the Wizard can excel beyond what they can pull off, by far. It's the most powerful class in the game, bar none, so... When you see Wizard fixes, you see nerfs rather than buffs, unless you go Pathfinder where they get broadness of class features and nerfs to all low-level spells but leaving most of the broken high-end spells intact (with the specific distinction of Gate, the non-existing Polymorph and Shapechange; Time Stop and Wish are left intact, tho). If the problem was as Wargamer said, then you'd see the same argument used for the Wizard and the Cleric (the Cleric gets the Druid, the Shugenja, the Spirit Shaman which is a further distillation of the Druid, the Mystic from Dragonlance and the Favored Soul), but when you see why people want to fix the Fighter, the argument is rarely, if ever, used.

Why, then, people fix the Fighter? The name has traction, for once: there are great classes that don't use the name "Fighter" but are functionally Fighter fixes; take the Legend, or the War-Marked, for once. However, this leads into a slight problem; most people (myself included) consider the Warblade to be what the Fighter needed to be and more, even if its definition is pretty shallow (a glory-hound); the mechanics aren't shallow, but aren't too complex either. The techniques the Warblade has access to not only include 50 different ways to hit an enemy and deal extra damage/induce an effect, but they include stuff like blindsense (Hearing the Air), free movement (Sudden Leap), scent (Hunter's Sense), self-healing (Iron Heart Endurance, Iron Heart Surge), action economy (White Raven Tactics, Moment of Alacrity), great defenses (the Bones line, Moment of Perfect Mind, Action before Thought, Mind over Matter), and whatever I might be forgetting. Even then, there'll be people that insist the Warblade can't be a Fighter, yet also agree that the Fighter needs some help. Perhaps it's because of the name traction, perhaps it's because they believe Fighters can't be limited to techniques...thing is, most people won't agree that Warblades are modded Fighters, and they have good reasons why. These people might find "Fighters in all but name" a similar problem; perhaps the mechanics are somewhat off, perhaps they try to encompass stuff that dabbles in other classes, but there'll be this something that says "this can't be a Fighter, and I'd like to see a Fighter done right" even if that class is a Fighter done right, in the eyes of the 'brewer. The "Warblade = modded Fighter" notion is also controversial at best, because it also involves that other classes can be better versions of existing ones (Warblade:Fighter::Crusader:Paladin::Swordsage:Mon k::Factotum:Rogue). This isn't necessarily true, for different reasons: the Paladin and the Crusader are pretty distinct concepts that happen to overlap (think of the Paladin as the Divine champion of the faith, while the Crusader is the Martial champion of the faith, even if they both wield the same weapons and armor; it's the abilities where they differ), and trying to pigeonhole the Swordsage as a modded Monk is almost an insult to the broadness of the Swordsage (why they can't fight with flexible quarterstaffs, longswords or falchions, for example?), even if it does a better work (then again, Psionic Fist does an equally better work, and that's the path 4E took for the Monk).

Other people find that the existing mechanics of the Fighter work well, but need a boost. Fix the feats, and you'll see the Fighter get a pretty solid boost from its "class features" that other classes may struggle with because of their lack of feats. This is something Pathfinder did well and wrong at the same time; it allowed more feats, which means everyone isn't as starved as before, but kept feat chains as long as before, and made some feat chains even longer, leaving the advantage Fighters got in the dust. Some ACFs for Fighter are on the right track, particularly the Thug, the Dungeon Crasher and the Zhentarim Fighter: they sacrifice pretty little, add many things in exchange, and add stuff that the Fighter can do that doesn't involve Fighting (Thug gets more skill points though it loses heavy armor, Dungeon Crasher helps you in opening doors and breaking obstacles, and Zhentarim Fighter makes Intimidate a strong, long-lasting social mechanic for essentially nothing). The Thug strays a bit from the Fighter's definition, but neither the Dungeon Crasher nor the Zhentarim Fighter stray that far, and they give interesting options for the Fighter. It is certainly possible to keep the Fighter's chassis and make it interesting enough to be useful in more situations than just combat, without spreading its definition too thin to make it less of a Fighter; in fact, the mechanics can coexist with martial maneuvers, letting the Warblade and the Fighter coexist.

The reason why there's so many Fighter fixes, thus, is because of the multitude of visions regarding it, and because the Fighter is deceptively difficult to fix. Fixing the Fighter involves much less than adding class features; it involves revising feats so that the Fighter (and by extension, martial characters, which I'd dare say include the Paladin, the Ranger, the Hexblade, the Duskblade and other gishes, and even the Monk, the Soulknife and the Psychic Warrior who lack full BAB) excels at what it does best (fighting) and still get enough stuff to do outside its scale of expertise. Reaching that nirvana is more difficult than you think, and with so many different views of how to fix the Fighter, it's much more difficult.

I'd dare say that whomever makes a Fighter fix that a large amount of people agree really solves the Fighter predicament might just be the greatest fixer-'brewer of all time, and should seriously consider applying for a company.


Now, I'm not saying to throw your class out the window. No, never stop the brewing! What I'm saying is that if you want your class to be something special, something that people would want to play, don't make it a "fighter fix". Make it a Gladiator, and Hero, a Legend, an Indomitable Warrior, a Blademaster, a Master of War, a Warlord...it goes on. Make something new.

Artists don't repaint someone else's work. No, artists look to the work of others as the inspiration to create something new and spectacular.

Now get out there and brew up some awesome stuff.

NOW

That said, I find this mildly offensive. What about restorers; people who devote their lives to restore old works of art to their old glory? Most of them may be, and should be, formidable artists on their own right, but they refine their technique to restore old works of art rather than create new content. Fixing a class, like restoring an old work of art, is a work of art on its own, and requires a very different set of techniques than creating new content. In fact, at times it can be even MORE complex than creating a new work of art, even if it should be easier because you have most of the work done. Give a good look at conservation-restoration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation-restoration), for the best equivalent of what a homebrewer that specializes in fixes can pull off.


Thing is, I don't think fighter is a niche the game even ought to cover.

What is a fighters fluff? He fights. With a weapon. Thing is, so does almost everyone else. The fighter has no unique fluff.

And it gets worse. There are no fighters in fiction. Or barely any. Can you think of any character who has not a single talent or defining feature other than his ability to wield weapons? There are religious fighters, swashbuckling fighters, noble fighters, sneaky fighters, wilderness fighters, thieving fighters, raging fighters and fighters who lead armies. There's pretty much no one who's "just a fighter".

So, really, I question the need for a fighter class in the first place. There's no "reflex save master" class, why do we need a "melee attack master" class?

Because, even if there's no one whose entire specialization is in being a Fighter, it is still an important niche in roleplaying?

Same thing can be said about a Wizard. What's a Wizard's fluff? S/he casts magic. That the Wizard is the only one that can use arcane magic, while few else can? The Bard and the Assassin can also use magic (and specifically, ARCANE magic), and in the case of the Assassin using the same ability score. And trust me; an Assassin without magic is hilariously weak (PF did that; try to see if the PF Assassin is actually as useful as its 3.5 counterpart). Then again: the Wizard casts magic, and so does the Sorcerer, and so does the Wu Jen...and the differences are so minimal (one casts arcane spells spontaneously and with Charisma, the other has a few taboos, spell secrets and a different spell list but otherwise is mechanically identical) one might not even bother trying to distinguish them. However, when you need to define "someone who casts magic", your mind instantly jumps to Wizard; not necessarily to Sorcerer, or Wu Jen, but Wizard. Why? Maybe because it's iconic. Same thing for Rogue, even if it's definition is wider than it should be: when you think about a thief, what's the first thing you think? Probably Rogue. It's that iconic feel (perhaps you may call it "baggage") that makes the Fighter so essential to roleplaying, even if there's no pure Fighter.

That said: the Swashbuckler as a mere Fighter archetype...I'd say it's more of a Fighter/Rogue archetype. Notice why Daring Outlaw is so much better than its constituent parts, and usually why it's so much better than Swashbuckler? Sneak Attack is a good reason why, though there's also the free Evasion and skill points. Even Daring Outlaw takes the Swashbuckler/Rogue mix so far before it starts to falter, though (it's still pretty cool, tho).

And, last I know, Roy Greenhilt isn't based on a historical character. Argue as much how he's more than "just a Fighter", but his class is quite definitely Fighter, without dipping in PrCs or multiclassing.


[...]Samson


Let's see. [...]architect,[...]

What?

Sure, he broke the pillars he gained through his divinely-granted Strength, but I doubt he was an architect. Then again, "architect" is not a roleplaying class, but rather something you can do. An Expert can specialize in architecture, but so can a Wizard, and none of them gain class features for being an Architect.

I'd say Monk, even if he doesn't use his fists (a donkey's jawbone is an improvised weapon). Even his fit of rage might make him "Barbarian", though he's TOO Lawful to be a Barbarian. Or maybe a Paladin, because he loses his powers if he violates a code (in this case, the Nazirite code). That said, all you see him do is basically fight, so he's best suited as a Fighter, and he most definitely isn't a Demigod. He MIGHT be a Paragon of Strength, but that's mosly an NPC feature. He definitely fits the Fighter archetype, even with his fit of rage and his sacred vow.


[...]can't say enough about the Chinese characters;[...]

Swordsage does Wuxia good. The three princes of each kingdom (Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Quan) fit the Marshal archetype (and so would the strategists, like Zhuge Liang), and the more graceful ones could be Swordsages, but Lu Bu definitely doesn't fit the idea of a Marshal, and while a glory hound, he doesn't fit the idea of a Warblade either. Maaaaaaybe a PF Cavalier (if going by the Dynasty Warriors lore), but that's left to discussion.

That said, notice how all mythological fighters usually reach demigod status? Why that wasn't the Fighter's capstone (20th level: become a demigod, or discover you were one)?

[Erberor]

Words. Lots and lots of words.

Wow.

I apologize if I offended you. Art can be defined in a huge variety of different ways, and by extension so can artists. I personally find it much more fulfilling to, as I said earlier, make something new. On the other hand, one could absolutely argue that restoring and repairing something older is much more difficult than making something new, and also that it is better in general. Ultimately it all boils down to opinion. That is something I forgot when I wrote the OP.

But I must say that much of your post comes across as very aggressive. I feel as if you are attacking my opinion, which makes it hard to see what you are trying to communicate.

[Eldan]

What?

Sure, he broke the pillars he gained through his divinely-granted Strength, but I doubt he was an architect. Then again, "architect" is not a roleplaying class, but rather something you can do. An Expert can specialize in architecture, but so can a Wizard, and none of them gain class features for being an Architect.

I'd say Monk, even if he doesn't use his fists (a donkey's jawbone is an improvised weapon). Even his fit of rage might make him "Barbarian", though he's TOO Lawful to be a Barbarian. Or maybe a Paladin, because he loses his powers if he violates a code (in this case, the Nazirite code). That said, all you see him do is basically fight, so he's best suited as a Fighter, and he most definitely isn't a Demigod. He MIGHT be a Paragon of Strength, but that's mosly an NPC feature. He definitely fits the Fighter archetype, even with his fit of rage and his sacred vow.


Actually, I didn't put architect for Samson. That was for Gilgamesh. Samson was "barbarian with divine power". He's some kind of cleric, perhaps, with a really strong codex. Or, I don't know. Some kind of mystic, anyway, with list of taboos and restrictions.

As for hte wizard: yes, it's too broad, similar to the fighter. I think D&D needs one "main" spellcasting class just as little as it needs one fighting class. Which is why I tend to cut it down.

The fighter uses the same basic mechanic to fight as everyone else, the attack roll and weapon damage and it has no special fluff. The wizard has Vancian Casting and spellbooks.

The wizard has fluff features on its magic that no one else shares, except maybe the archivist. Science, basically. It is the only class that forces a kind of intellectualism on the character. You need books and writing. You need to decide ahead of time which spells you will need, forcing you to plan. That makes it different from most of the other arcane casters. And I see Vancian as one of the best mechanics D&D has, since it lends itself incredibly well to good fluff, better than most classes. I've written pages and pages of wizard fluff.

As for "gloryhound" for warblade, that's just a bit of weird WotC fluff that I think can be safely ignored, since I don't see a single mechanic in the Warblade that supports it. Nothing charisma based. Nothing that, say, let's you make your attacks extra flashy at a cost, so they look more impressive. In the end, it's just a fighter, but one that actually gets interesting mechanics.

[Blue_C.]

What?

Sure, he broke the pillars he gained through his divinely-granted Strength, but I doubt he was an architect. Then again, "architect" is not a roleplaying class, but rather something you can do. An Expert can specialize in architecture, but so can a Wizard, and none of them gain class features for being an Architect.


Pretty sure he meant Gilgamesh was an architect, not Samson. Samson was the barbarian with Divine Power.

Edit: Ninja'd.

[RedWarlock]

Wow.

I apologize if I offended you. Art can be defined in a huge variety of different ways, and by extension so can artists. I personally find it much more fulfilling to, as I said earlier, make something new. On the other hand, one could absolutely argue that restoring and repairing something older is much more difficult than making something new, and also that it is better in general. Ultimately it all boils down to opinion. That is something I forgot when I wrote the OP.

But I must say that much of your post comes across as very aggressive. I feel as if you are attacking my opinion, which makes it hard to see what you are trying to communicate.
No offense intended, but that's probably because your original post came across as an attack on everyone who homebrews such fighter fixes, and was a rather imperial command, 'don't do that ANY more!'

They're just reacting to your original tone.

Edited to add quote to which I was responding.

[Soliloquy]

Well, and this is just my opinion, I always felt like a lot of fighter fixes did sort of make a different class. If it doesn't have the fighter bonus feats, or has a lot of other more powerful abilities it feels like it's just a class with a full BAB, so I kind of agree with the OP. But I agree with T.G. Oskar that the best fighter fix would be a fighter feat fix. Also alteration. And assonance.

[Amechra]

The "death of the fighter" did not occur because splatbooks edged him put, the death of the fighter happened as soon as the internet showed up and people could post their opinions on how the fighter sucks. The fighter was bad in old editions too. I think it was AD&D 2e where the druid (accepted as the weakest casting class in the game) got a class feature around level 10-15 where they obtained two treant cohorts. So the weakest caster in the game gets one class feature that individually outperforms the fighter, and all the other casters are stronger than that. However, GitP/minmaxboards/Stackexchange/tg weren't around at that time, so no one could throw their voice into the chamber. And that means that if you didn't notice mages were overpowered, you had no reason to believe it.

But in 3e, people could use the internet. And in the 2000s, people started having dialogue about how/why the fighter sucks, so now here we are a decade later. The fighter hasn't actually gone from hero to zero, hit's just that this is the Information Age so you're more likely to know about it.

1e Fighters were awesome though, thanks to being the only ones able to use half the magic items (admittedly DM specific), and being one of the only ones to get multiple attacks. They also had more HP (in a system where something with 100 HP was really, really impressive; 3.5 has a massive HP bloat to begin with), and were just in general better with physical stuff than anyone else. Also, they had some of the best saves, iirc.

2e... well, are we talking before or after the massive bloat of entirely untested supplements? Also, Fighters were still just plain better at the whole fighting thing; it wasn't like 3.5, where most of the "unique" things Fighters got were generalized as benefits of BAB and feats.

Those Treants? Not actually replacing the Fighter at his/her job, I don't think.

Fast forward to 3.0 and 3.5; besides the fact that spellcasters got a major leg up (better spells in general, less punitive casting rules in general (I double-dog dare you to try casting spells in combat pre-3rd edition. Get hit? Lose your spell. Add in the fact that spells took time to cast, it could get nasty, especially since you were squishy.)), most of the Fighters class features were given out to everyone.

Uncapped Strength and Constitution? Everyone got 'em, and now the Wizard can have more HP than the Fighter.

Multiple attacks a round? Now everyone gets that as a function of BAB.

Unique, Fighter-only Magic Items? Now class restrictions on Magic Items are a lot looser (and it is easier to make them in general; gone are the days making magic items cost you a point of Constitution permanently.)

Weapon specialization, which handed you even more attacks, boosted attack bonuses, and extra damage? Now those are feats. Which suck due to the generally higher numbers and HP bloat. Fun.

Leadership stuff? Now anyone can take the feat.

The Fighter's niche has been opened up for everyone, and was made the core of the game; as such, the Fighter's niche is gone. I mean, imagine everyone had the ability to cast 9th level spells, which scaled as you gained levels, and the Wizard's only class features were tiny bonuses to spells.

Seriously, either put the Fighter out of his/her (hard to tell under that armor) misery, or revise how the system works so they can have a niche again (which would screw over every other combat class in the game.)

[ngilop]

Thank you for actually listing everything the old fighter used to have before the stipped the class of all abilities and gave it to every other class in the game.

I mentioned it in my firts post, but I guess its easy to dimsiss as untrue when one does not give examples.


whats the diff between 1st and 2nd ed Fighters.. I mean honeslty im looking at my books and they are identical.

[Erberor]

I have an idea.

Let's pretend this entire thread never happened, because clearly one cannot express an opinion without being vehemently assaulted by those who disagree. This thread has achieved, to my knowledge, little to nothing other than needless bickering. I wish I hadn't made this thread in the first place.

[T.G. Oskar]

Wow.

I apologize if I offended you. Art can be defined in a huge variety of different ways, and by extension so can artists. I personally find it much more fulfilling to, as I said earlier, make something new. On the other hand, one could absolutely argue that restoring and repairing something older is much more difficult than making something new, and also that it is better in general. Ultimately it all boils down to opinion. That is something I forgot when I wrote the OP.

But I must say that much of your post comes across as very aggressive. I feel as if you are attacking my opinion, which makes it hard to see what you are trying to communicate.

Chalk it up to watching this thread shortly after waking up. That, and I write up a lot. Sometimes I sound harsh, and sometimes I respond to multiple people at once, but I try to remain restrained; in fact, this is the first time someone tells me I sound offensive, when usually it's the other way around. I guess I'm the one to apologize.

That said, saying that Fighter fixes are a waste of time kinda leads to that reaction. Conservationists and renovators are academicals, people who dedicate time and study to restore works of art through combining ancient and modern techniques. They're every bit an artist as an anthropologist or archaeologist. I find 'brewers that prefer to do fixes rather than new content to approach mechanics through that aspect; while requiring less academic knowledge, you still need to develop a keen sense of balance and understand what's wrong with the class in order to make it work. Fixing may seem like the easiest form of homebrewing, but it's deceptively difficult; in fact, creating new fluff content is the easiest form of homebrewing, and in terms of making new classes, the DMG suggestions for new classes and PrCs are actually easier than going into a fix. Trying to fix mechanics themselves are the most difficult endeavors of all. And, I'd like to point out, Pathfinder is in sorts a "renovation" of 3.5s mechanics, so that'd be almost insulting them, regardless of whether you like what they do or not. It's the last bit of the language that sounds offensive, "fixing is pointless; go do something new, NOW!" can't be said in any other tone but an imperative one (it's an order, pretty much).


Actually, I didn't put architect for Samson. That was for Gilgamesh. Samson was "barbarian with divine power". He's some kind of cleric, perhaps, with a really strong codex. Or, I don't know. Some kind of mystic, anyway, with list of taboos and restrictions.


Pretty sure he meant Gilgamesh was an architect, not Samson. Samson was the barbarian with Divine Power.

Edit: Ninja'd.

Hmm...still doesn't make that much sense. In fact, Gilgamesh is less of an Architect (he's credited with the fortification through walls of his city), but he's definitely a demigod-king (at least, the mythological one). After all, he's "two-thirds god, one-third man", and a tyrant at that (at least, our current definition of tyrant). He just happens to build fortifications, which is an extension of Knowledge (architecture and engineering), but that'd be no different from a Warmage designing fortifications.

As for Samson; as I mentioned, he doesn't really fit the idea of a Barbarian, even if he raged once. Maybe a VoP Monk with a Sacred Vow of "do not cut your hair" and Vow of Abstinence?


1e Fighters were awesome though, thanks to being the only ones able to use half the magic items (admittedly DM specific), and being one of the only ones to get multiple attacks. They also had more HP (in a system where something with 100 HP was really, really impressive; 3.5 has a massive HP bloat to begin with), and were just in general better with physical stuff than anyone else. Also, they had some of the best saves, iirc.

2e... well, are we talking before or after the massive bloat of entirely untested supplements? Also, Fighters were still just plain better at the whole fighting thing; it wasn't like 3.5, where most of the "unique" things Fighters got were generalized as benefits of BAB and feats.

Those Treants? Not actually replacing the Fighter at his/her job, I don't think.

Fast forward to 3.0 and 3.5; besides the fact that spellcasters got a major leg up (better spells in general, less punitive casting rules in general (I double-dog dare you to try casting spells in combat pre-3rd edition. Get hit? Lose your spell. Add in the fact that spells took time to cast, it could get nasty, especially since you were squishy.)), most of the Fighters class features were given out to everyone.

Uncapped Strength and Constitution? Everyone got 'em, and now the Wizard can have more HP than the Fighter.

Multiple attacks a round? Now everyone gets that as a function of BAB.

Unique, Fighter-only Magic Items? Now class restrictions on Magic Items are a lot looser (and it is easier to make them in general; gone are the days making magic items cost you a point of Constitution permanently.)

Weapon specialization, which handed you even more attacks, boosted attack bonuses, and extra damage? Now those are feats. Which suck due to the generally higher numbers and HP bloat. Fun.

Leadership stuff? Now anyone can take the feat.

The Fighter's niche has been opened up for everyone, and was made the core of the game; as such, the Fighter's niche is gone. I mean, imagine everyone had the ability to cast 9th level spells, which scaled as you gained levels, and the Wizard's only class features were tiny bonuses to spells.

Seriously, either put the Fighter out of his/her (hard to tell under that armor) misery, or revise how the system works so they can have a niche again (which would screw over every other combat class in the game.)

Don't forget the perks of really-old-school Weapon Specialization. The one from Rules Cyclopedia put to shame whatever came later on.

Still: working so that the Fighter is king of physical combat without screwing up other martial classes is difficult, but not impossible. I ascribe to the theory of "effective Fighter levels" in order to boost Magic Items and allow Fighter feats to scale, and grant every martial class some effective Fighter levels, but NEVER the levels a Fighter would get. That way, the Fighter gets to use the scaling benefits of the feats first, and use magic items at its greatest potential, but the class features of the other classes will compensate. THEN, you can work on adding Class Features to make the Fighter a powerhouse without making other characters feel bad. You can also nerf Wizards and Tier 1s while at it; there's a lot of "spells" that would be better as rituals, and others would be better not existing at all (or maybe as boosts to skills, in order not to dabble on the Rogue's niche?)

Speaking of the Rogue: if the Fighter lost its niche by making D&D primarily a combat game (I believe the intention was to make D&D a small-scale combat game, since it was based on a large-scale minis game), where does that leave the Rogue, who had its niche of special skills essentially ripped off by a standardized skill system (replacing the old proficiencies of 2nd Edition)? If the Fighter is almost dying, then the Rogue should be completely dead, since aside from UMD (which a Bard can do as well), its niche is nearly non-existent...unless it's to strike from hiding, while flanking, or disarming traps (and non-Core content completely smashed that). The Factotum completely redefined the Rogue's niche, making it obsolete, but the Rogue still has traction somewhat. Even the Rogue of PF has troubles...

As for the other class features: Leadership wasn't something Fighter-exclusive. A Cleric, given the right level, could make a temple; the Thief could make a Thieves' Guild by replacing the one from the same area, the Assassin could make the same with an Assassin's Guild, the Magic-User could make its own Wizard's Tower, the Druid had the progression from Druid to Great Druid to the Grand Druid, and then stepping away to Hierophant Druid. Even the Monk had to fight its way to Grandmaster of Flowers, and that allowed you to make your own monastery. Everyone had its own way to achieve Leadership; making it a feat was the worst mistake they could make, since that's definitely something best left as fluff, or at best a roleplaying reward. Even Barbarians had their hordes...

Multiple attacks per round wasn't just something of the Fighter; the Paladin and the Ranger, by virtue of being classes of the same "super-class" as the Fighter, also had extra attacks. The big problem between 2nd Ed. and 3.x was limiting those to a full attack action, rather than making them part of standard actions. Martial characters suffer more from this than non-martial characters (Rogues, Wizards, Clerics) because that's their whole purpose. Fighters could have retained the ability to make all their attacks as a standard action and it wouldn't have made a dent, but it would have been a great bone for the class. Or to any martial character, to say the least. Attacks of Opportunity increased only by Combat Reflexes is a mistake, IMO, because it makes you dependent on Dexterity, something a heavily-armored warrior won't be able to afford or use appropriately.

Some of the changes were made because they weren't that sensible (capping levels because you're not Human? Racist! Unequal leveling? Fair, but it's better to go with a standard), but others were just done because they feared the 1st Edition Fighter and didn't really fear the Wizard in all editions. Redefining the combat mechanics and the feats meant for them would help many, MANY of the martial classes, but because of the sheer amount of feats, it'd help the Fighter the most. Working with Magic Items also helps quite a lot (and wringing their creation from the hands of spellcasters furthermore, something I must say I actually applaud PF for allowing, even if through some hurdles).

[Dienekes]

See, I think generic classes are good in rules light systems. They are fine in OD&D. But I like my highly detailed rules. It's why I still play third edition, rather than, say, FATE. In a system with as many rules as third edition D&D, I like classes who have a lot of unique class features and I like those to be as different as possible. Could I take a wizard and play him with the Binder's fluff, instead of using the Binder? Sure. Could I take a warrior (the NPC class) and play it as a warblade, saying that each attack roll I make is acutally a special maneuver I learned in a school? Damn right I can. But I don't want to. Because mechanics are fun.

Have you ever played Star Wars Saga Edition? It's based off the nice and crunchy 3.5 and it's what made me think that generic classes are much more interesting than specific. The game has only 5 classes: Soldier, Jedi, Scoundrel, Noble, Scout, but in each of those classes there are a lot of optional abilities to define the specific character.

Personally, when I brew that's what I use as a model. I'll make a Wizard, a Warrior, or an Expert, or whatever. But in each of those classes is the potential to be played as (for the warrior example), a knight, a barbarian, a commander, a soldier, a duelist, or whatever other variant you can think of.

That to me makes a far more interesting class than a pre-planned Knight class, or Barbarian class.

Now, what I will say is, if you do design a game it's probably best to pick beforehand if you want to have your classes be generalist or specific. Mixing them tends to have weird results where either the generalist has all the advantages of the specific and none of the weaknesses in lack of versatility, or all the specific classes get all the cool abilities and you're left with the most boring general class ever.

[TheFamilarRaven]

The game has only 5 classes: Soldier, Jedi, Scoundrel, Noble, Scout ...

Poor Fringer ... lost and forgotten.

[Dienekes]

Poor Fringer ... lost and forgotten.

It became a group of talents available to the Scout class. Like the Force Adept, Jedi Guardian, and Jedi Consular became Jedi, and the Tech Specialist got eaten by the Scoundrel.

[Eldan]

I have an idea.

Let's pretend this entire thread never happened, because clearly one cannot express an opinion without being vehemently assaulted by those who disagree. This thread has achieved, to my knowledge, little to nothing other than needless bickering. I wish I hadn't made this thread in the first place.

It's called a discussion. I don't appear to see either bickering or assaults.

Too lazy to multiquote.

M. Oskar:
Yeah, I just threw out some of the first ideas about the various characters there, not an in-depth build. Samson probably isn't a barbarian, but he is quite strength-focused. Some sort of vow is probably best.

[Eldan]

Have you ever played Star Wars Saga Edition? It's based off the nice and crunchy 3.5 and it's what made me think that generic classes are much more interesting than specific. The game has only 5 classes: Soldier, Jedi, Scoundrel, Noble, Scout, but in each of those classes there are a lot of optional abilities to define the specific character.

Personally, when I brew that's what I use as a model. I'll make a Wizard, a Warrior, or an Expert, or whatever. But in each of those classes is the potential to be played as (for the warrior example), a knight, a barbarian, a commander, a soldier, a duelist, or whatever other variant you can think of.

That to me makes a far more interesting class than a pre-planned Knight class, or Barbarian class.

Now, what I will say is, if you do design a game it's probably best to pick beforehand if you want to have your classes be generalist or specific. Mixing them tends to have weird results where either the generalist has all the advantages of the specific and none of the weaknesses in lack of versatility, or all the specific classes get all the cool abilities and you're left with the most boring general class ever.

Thing is, there are things that just look strange if you put them in generalist classes. At least to me.

Say, in D&D third edition, we have three generalist classes. Let's name them the Warrior, Expert and Spellcaster.

The Warrior probably works. GIve them maneuvers, feats, favoured enemy, sneak attack, unarmed attacks, rage, all those things. Maybe Incarnum, too.

The expert gets skills and skill-related abilities. Fine.

But the spellcaster? If you start putting Vancian casting, Sorcerer Casting, Psionics, Soulbinding, Truenaming and Shadowcasting all as options into one class, doesn't that just mean that you effectively choose a different class with each of those options? How would you put them all into one chassis?

And yes, you could just have one generalized way of manifesting mystical effects. But that is, at least to me, just boring in comparison. 3E is fun because it has six different systems for everything.

[T.G. Oskar]

Thing is, there are things that just look strange if you put them in generalist classes. At least to me.

Say, in D&D third edition, we have three generalist classes. Let's name them the Warrior, Expert and Spellcaster.

The Warrior probably works. GIve them maneuvers, feats, favoured enemy, sneak attack, unarmed attacks, rage, all those things. Maybe Incarnum, too.

The expert gets skills and skill-related abilities. Fine.

But the spellcaster? If you start putting Vancian casting, Sorcerer Casting, Psionics, Soulbinding, Truenaming and Shadowcasting all as options into one class, doesn't that just mean that you effectively choose a different class with each of those options? How would you put them all into one chassis?

And yes, you could just have one generalized way of manifesting mystical effects. But that is, at least to me, just boring in comparison. 3E is fun because it has six different systems for everything.

Be fair to Dienekes: going to the extents of "Warrior, Rogue, Mage" is taking it to the extremes. Think about it this way: you can only have ONE class for each of D&D's systems, and a very efficient form of multiclassing to obviate hybrids.

The Warrior would have, as a chassis, bonus feats and maneuvers (even the supernatural ones): that comprises the Fighter, the Warblade, the Crusader and the Swordsage. Add a specialization for a weapon: that adds the Monk (unarmed strikes), the Samurai (katana) and maybe even the Soulknife (mind blade), and a combat style (half of Ranger goes out; if you add Mounted Combat, that's also part of the Paladin's thing). Allow it to tap auras (that makes the Marshal and the Dragon Shaman go bye-bye). Then, add class features liberally: smites (Crusader and a bit of Paladin), rage (hi there, Barbarian; howzitgoin' Sohei), sneak attack (the Rogue's fighting style, in a nutshell), favored enemy (ranger)...if it's pretty "iconic" to the class, add it. Then, have the remaining class features act as "special abilities". That makes one heck of a complex class, but one heck of a frontliner.

The Rogue (yes, Rogue) would get its chassis almost intact, but merged with that of the Factotum (or rather: the Factotum as base, with the skill points of the Rogue). Add bardic music (that's half of the Bard's power right there), make it the only class that gets UMD at all. Anything that's a different application of a skill, it goes to the Rogue. With that...you end up with a pretty simple skillmonkey; the absolute best, but not exactly good in combat (probably outside of it), save for what you can pull off with Bardic Music and Inspiration tacked in. If you can tack a way to get Steal Spell (you're doing thievery, not necessarily an attack), you can do a Spellthief, but I think that's best for some sort of PrC/multiclassing feat.

The Mage would get all spells. Period. However, it would have to choose its spellcasting method (prepared as Wizard, spontaneous as Sorcerer or invocation-based as Warlock). Infusions and mysteries would be the portent of the Mage as well. The schools would be a bit more varied; the Conjuration (healing) line would be its own school (Healing?), and the Illusion (Shadow) line would also be its own school (Mysteries). You would choose some only from some schools, and from those you'd specialize, but you'd have to throw away other schools, and some would be antitheses of the other (Healing <-> Necromancy, Abjuration <-> Conjuration). Make Turn/Rebuke Undead akin to 4e/PF's Channel Divinity, with various options for them. The Mage would be the most powerful class, EVER.

However, its when you get to the other systems that you can justify some difference. Psionics and Magic are pretty similar, so you could take the few original powers, make Manifesting its own magic school and wrap it up. However, Incarnum is pretty unique. A meldshaper couldn't be capable of using magic at all, instead creating "magic constructs". You could potentially mix Artificer and Incarnate into a single spell, keeping Incarnum distinct. Alternatively, it'd remain something feat-based and accessible to anyone (after all, a Fighter devoting its feats to Incarnum makes for a pretty decent meldshaper, or at least one better than the Soulborn). Soulbinding merits a class of its own, since you're little more than a meat puppet for several "packages of class features", except you get some control over it (if you make a proper binding check). Truenaming...I'd make that the portent of the Rogue, because all of its powers are based on skill checks, and that's the realm of the Rogue.

That way, you get Warrior, Rogue, Mage, and MAYBE Incarnate and Binder as separate classes. The rest of D&D's systems were tucked into one of the base three, save for Incarnum and Soulbinding which are pretty distinct, enough to merit their own class. Incarnum could be a system that's independent from classes, and maybe Binding as well, much like animal companions would have to be separate class features (and Wild Shape...let's think for a moment it doesn't exist...). That could settle it up to three classes altogether, but with so many options, you could never get bored of them.

That said: I like the multitude of classes. Having only three superclasses only leads to three things: either you're happy on the medium, you take a further step and go classless, or you get so confused you make the game almost unplayable. A multitude of classes means you can work on smaller packages, even if some overlap with each other. Overlapping is important to an extent: note how a system that didn't get that much support (Auras) exists in two different classes (Marshal, which is a bit more martial, and Dragon Shaman who isn't that much of a martial character at all), and another system that got even LESS support (Ki) exists in more classes and PrCs than you'd think of (the Factotum's inspiration is like Ki, but renewable; you also get the Demonbinder's damnation points and the Hellreaver's Holy Fury points). You can make some classes with intentionally narrow focuses be wide enough (I can say that for sure with the Monk, and so does the Samurai even though it would merit a revision; obviously not speaking of the classes as presented).

[Eldan]

That was one of the things I liked in Legend, though. Paths. Those could probably be adapted back into 3E. So you could have a maneuver path for warblade-ish characters and then mix-and-match.

So, instead of a handful of basic classes from which you take abilities, you just take the abilities you want, each of which has a progression from levels 1-20. Dragon Shaman: Aura path and breath weapon path, marshal: aura path and martial path, and so on. You basically make your own class.

[SiuiS]

admittedly, I hadn't quite seen this side of things. I guess I'm the type of person that would rather build something new and amazing than try to make the old thing amazing. It's a matter of preference I guess. I personally think that the best way to create something amazing is to begin with a blank sheet of paper and several hundred truckloads of imagination and thought.

Incidently, I changed the title of the thread because I realize that this is at large my opinion, and the title should reflect that.

It's often not even trying to make fighters awesome. It's trying to patch the game with minimal effort so it doesn't look patched.

My personal fighter fix is just to give them a resource; they get BaB points each round to spend on either defense, saves or attack. Because awesome fighters in fiction are known for being hard to kill, and also very accurate. Everything else stays the same. Fini.

[Dienekes]

That was one of the things I liked in Legend, though. Paths. Those could probably be adapted back into 3E. So you could have a maneuver path for warblade-ish characters and then mix-and-match.

So, instead of a handful of basic classes from which you take abilities, you just take the abilities you want, each of which has a progression from levels 1-20. Dragon Shaman: Aura path and breath weapon path, marshal: aura path and martial path, and so on. You basically make your own class.

From what I remember of Legend and Saga, Paths and Talent Trees serve pretty much the same purpose. The differences being, Paths you can go outside the base class, but you're still locked into the standard progression. While Talents are all tied to your base class, but you can choose to take or ignore any combination of abilities from any of the available Talent Trees.

As to the multiple magic systems problem. Honestly, Wizard, Sorcerer, and Cleric casting progression could pretty easily all be tied to a level 1 talent. Psionics, Truenaming, and the like may be able to as well, but it'd be harder.

Though honestly, the magic system of Saga was never tied to a base class anyway, instead was open to every class through expending feats. You could probably make that work with each of the 3.5 spellcasting types as well. The only worrisome thing would be the spell bloat and balancing each of these systems against each other.