[3.5] Fighter Mix Fix - a little Pathfinder, a little Dungeonscape...

[Rogue Shadows]

I know weapon mastery is gained at 20th level... but it doesn't get ToB maneuvers... it seems alright. Go go scythe master?

I dunno, I grabbed it from Pathfinder.

Is there anything beyond Improved Dungeon Crasher? What about a superior dungeon crasher at 16th or so?

Dungeon Crasher is, of course, from Dungeonscape. Normally Dungeoncrasher is an alternate class feature that replaces your 2nd level bonus feat, and Improved Dungeon Crasher is just a part of it (gained at 6th). In this case I divided it into two abilities for aesthetic reasons more than anything; it still functions the same though is grabbed a little later.

Nevertheless, Dungeon Crasher as an ability bumps the regular Fighter up to Tier 4 all by itself, and there is no "Greater" version of it that I'm aware of.

Do you think I should try my hand at making one?

Physical prowess seems...to not quite work. It seems like too small a bonus to get periodically, but not interesting or varied enough to show up 9 times.

Grabbed from this Wizards of the Coast Article, which set out to fill in the dead levels of each class with flavorful but mechanically weak abilities.

I view it as a fluffy ability that will come into play every now and then, but is really just there for the sake of adding to the "feel" of the class. Like the druid's Nature Sense and Timeless Body, or the Monk's...um...well, the Monk's class features.

Elusive Attack is way cool. Combine with Combat Reflexes and Robilar's Gambit (PH 2 pg 82) for sheer awesomeness.

Grabbed from PHB 2, so it makes sense that it's cool.

Does Overpowering Attack stack with criticals? You might want to add those rules in for clarification (I assume it does), because multipliers in D&D are wonky in that (Z x2)x2 --> Zx3. Restrictive math is confusing. Anyways, you might want to clarify there.

I...don't actually know. It's another ability grabbed from the PHB 2, which does not itself clarify. I'd assume yes as well? Anyway, I'll add in a line that says "yes."

Quick off the cuff observations:
-I'd make elusive attack a miss chance rather than an AC bonus. It's cool in concept, but the bonus to AC doesn't make a huge difference, especially at the cost of a full attack. Make the miss chance 10%x the AC bonus you have currently (so start at 20%, end at 60%)

Will do.

-Tough defense I'd cut down the uses to 1/4th fighter level, but let it be encounter based. Makes them more useful out of combat (combine with dungeoncrasher and you have a guy who just bullrushes his way through traps), and makes people less leery of using it in combat waiting to save it for that save or die 2 encounters down the road.

Eh...I dunno, I've never liked per-encounter abilities for some reason, at least not in 3.X. They seem...arbitrary.

Certainly, if I ran this Fighter class, though, I'd make a bonus feat that gave you additional uses of Tough Defense per day.

-Counter Attack is once again too little benefit for giving up a full attack. Remember, you're forcing the fighter to stand in one place for a full round making only a single attack. If you want the effects to be as weak as they are, you should make them a standard action. But as a full round action, I'd change it from being an immediate action (of which the fighter gets only one per round, so you're trading a full round of attacks for a single counter attack) to a free action, or attack of opportunity. Attack of Opportunity is more standard, but there's actually already 2 feats that do basically this without costing you a full round action.

I think I prefer this to the upgrade of Elusive Attack, so I'll go and implement it as a standard action.

-Overpowering Attack is again not worth giving up a full round attack for. Just make this one a standard action and it's halfway decent, but basically a feat from pathfinder available 10 levels earlier and considered mediocre at best. As a full round action it's useless.

Will also revise it as a standard action.