[3.5] Fighter Remix: Doin' it old-school

[Okuno]

Swift activation is fine, it makes sense in my mind as the fighter calling out directions as he fights, not a big deal. I perfectly agree that move/standard action is silly.

Now, about uses per day being silly: welcome to D&D. I'm sorry, you can channel energy to smite/turn/rebuke, but only X times a day. Spells likewise. And bardic muisic? Nope, you can only play so many songs a day. I play instruments, that's a total load: professionals can play for hours nonstop. Don't get me started on hit points, because they have the same root problem (see below). Per encounter is just as silly.

Truenaming works right (not in how well it can affect stuff, instead): it has unlimited uses per day, but the DC gets higher. I'd be all for the casting of spells making a sorcerer tired and less able to cast, or hp damage causing weariness effects, but at some point you'd be better off playing a different system than trying to fix D&D. Let's not toss out existing, well-known mechanics because their unrealistic just because of a single class.

Remember your priorities (as far as D&D is concerned, other systems have different priorities): 1) get it past a DM, who is likely to be lazy; 2) fluff it classy so it can duplicate known characters and archetypes, providing good creative material; 3) realism.

So that handles jirku's points (albeit through my least favorite argument tatic of tu quoque <.<), now to address Seerow's. I'm running a comprehensive match-up as I type. The spoiler's just some incomplete notes, meh:

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Countersong: the figheter's auras can't be countered as easily. (IIRC they're Ex, and I wouldn't change that to Su, either, Ex suits the fluff) The big thing that can counter the aura (Silence) counter's the bard's music, too.
Fascinate: When it works, this one is more powerful than the fighter's stuff, I'll grant that easy. OTOH, you still have to make a skill check for it to work. Requires concentration, but 1.5 times the aura range. Oh, just noticed limited targets.
Inspire Courage: Pretty nice, not min-maxable, for what that's worth. OTOH, it only helps one ally. You'd only pick up on that by noticing the use of "an" everywhere rather than single, but it's a single ally nonetheless. (Single ally for something fluffed like that is bloody ridiculous, I'm houseruling it whenever I get a bard player). Half the range of the aura, and finally, they can't use it on themselves.
Inspire Competence: Half the range of the aura and only one ally affected. Furthermore, can never be used on some skills if the DM rules so. Requires concentration.
Suggestion: Good spell to mimic, but it requires using fascinate. That totals the annoying stuff to a perform check, another use of bardic music, a will save and SR.
Inspire Greatness very useful ability, not unlocked until level 9. Limited targets buffed.
Song of Freedom: Takes a minute to use. Mimics a spell the bard can already cast by that time.
Inspire heroics: Same ally limits as greatness. Half the range of the fighter aura. Full-round activation time. Mimics two aruas, but doesn't scale.
Mass Sugesstion: Same problems as suggestion, but compounded for each creature you want to affect.

So, the results of my bard-friendly comparison:
All bardic music has the following drawbacks: the suppression of spellcasting ability and ability to activate command word items; and the an enemy's ability to countersong; required ranks in perform; at least a standard action activation time; limits on duration underneath five minutes; limits on number of uses per day.
Some drawbacks only exist on certain abilities: the requirement of a skill check on (3/8 abilities); can't buff themselves (1/4 relevant abilities); half the auras range (2/8); single target (3/8); limited targets in range (3/8); level limits to access abilities (6/8); full-round or longer activation time (3/8); will save to negate (1/4); either of two will saves negates (2/4); ability to counter using dispel magic (4/8); requires (as in it lasts less than a minute after stopping) concentration or continuous playing (4/8).
Three of the abilities grant good bonuses, when they can be used.

Lots of limits, omg lots. Average number of limits is between 6-7 (can't be botherd to calculate, so I'd guess 6.3) (and all that's for what it's worth, it's more of a qualitative number -.^) And complicated ones, too. It's a nightmare keeping them straight. I probably miscounted: I already caught myself a few times. I don't like those limits, frankly. But that's an OT conclusion.

Relevant Conclusions: The limits on the bard's abilities make the abilities' relative value too close to call in my view. Considering the bard has his stuff as a primary feature and the fighter has an aura as a secondary (I've heard no disagreement there), then too close to call is too powerful for the fighter. Let's not forget that using an aura cuts down only one swift action, allowing the fighter to continue to massacre while the bard just sits buffing.

Suggestions: I wouldn't cut the magnitude of the aura, but that's especially 'cause I'm making a quick bard rebalance when I get to it. Still, I wouldn't nerf magnitude anyway. I wouldn't change the activation time, it's fine. I might have suggested that it takes swift actions to maintain, but thinking on it, that cuts into some of the fighters main class features and would unnecessarily reduce the amount of time we would see the aura getting use. Plus, no action to sustain fits with the fluff of the fighter calling out "the armor's weak in their groins!". If the party knows, the party knows. I wouldn't limit affected allies: same reason.

You can reduce the range, and you may have to brace yourself for the admitted absurdity of times/day, but I adressed that above.

Given that you brought up the fact that a fighter can just tell the DM he re-ups when the aura comes down, here's what I'm thinking:

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• Auras last through the encounter
• An aura can be activated a number of times per day equal to (say) 1/2 fighter levels+positive CHA bonus. Fill in your own numbers.
• the range of the aura is 5ft per fighter level (that starts it at 15, brings it to 100), this would represent the fighter's ability to pay attention and pick up on more stuff in combat.
• Allies who move out of range continue to gain benefits. Allies who move into range after activation gain benefits once they do so (and keep those benefits when they move away, like normal).
• Give Weather the Storm an option for out-of-combat use as a way to mitigate the effects of tundra/desert/whatever. This would last not through an encounter, but for 1hr per fighter level. Give the range limit something generous, such as within hearing distance.
• Follow My Lead lasts for 1min per fighter level. Like Weather, a generous range limit. Possibly double the bonus, put that could put Inspire Competence to shame.

Adjust to fit. It suddenly becomes something that looks familiar to D&D players. Particularly, it'll become palatable to DMs and the class will see more use. It continues to be a useful ability, seeing practically no reduction in power if the player uses it right, and I need not mention the psychology all over again. On top of all that, it's pretty simple (unlike bardic music).

Of course, if you just wanna come out and say "aura is a tool that fills a primary fighter role", then that's your prerogative. After this much argument, you'll take it or leave it, it seems.

[jiriku]

Omigosh. Dood. No wonder you think the fighter aura is powerful. Dood. Omigosh. Inspire courage. Inspire. Courage. Man. It is party-affecting, and is easily the most min-maxable ability a bard gets. With heavy optimization, a bard can obtain values of +10 to hit +10d6 damage on all allies' attacks by 8th level. Inspire courage under heavy optimization is like crack cocaine for the whole group. It can throw the entire party completely out of the RNG for anything even remotely resembling a level-appropriate challenge. Dood. Omigosh.

[Seerow]

Now, about uses per day being silly: welcome to D&D. I'm sorry, you can channel energy to smite/turn/rebuke, but only X times a day. Spells likewise. And bardic muisic? Nope, you can only play so many songs a day. I play instruments, that's a total load: professionals can play for hours nonstop. Don't get me started on hit points, because they have the same root problem (see below). Per encounter is just as silly.

All of your examples there are supernatural in nature. Spells? Supernatural. Smite/Turn/Rebuke? Supernatural. Bardic Music? Supernatural.

A Bard can play his instrument all day long if he likes, but he can only activate the supernatural effects of his music every so often. Even so, in some cases, such as inspire competence, it lasts as long as he keeps singing, then some duration afterwards. So your bard can literally inspire courage all day if he wants, as long as he doesn't want to use a different bardic music ability or spellcasting ability.

Either way you were talking about far more restrictive durations than bardic music. Someone said something like 1 round per day per fighter level. That is absurdly low. Compare to the Bard that gets 1 use per day per bard level and each use lasts several rounds baseline, and many can be maintained longer.

Truenaming works right

No.

nspire Courage: Pretty nice, not min-maxable, for what that's worth. OTOH, it only helps one ally. You'd only pick up on that by noticing the use of "an" everywhere rather than single, but it's a single ally nonetheless. (Single ally for something fluffed like that is bloody ridiculous, I'm houseruling it whenever I get a bard player). Half the range of the aura, and finally, they can't use it on themselves.

This is laughable. If you actually think that's RAW it explains a lot about why you might think the auras are too strong. The first line says explicitly:

A bard with 3 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use song or poetics to inspire courage in his allies (including himself),

Not an ally. Not one ally other than himself. All allies and himself. In the description it is using the term "an" because if it said "All allies must be able to hear the bard sing for the bonus to take effect" someone trying to read it half as strictly as you are reading the way it is written would take it to mean if a single ally is deaf or otherwise incapable of hearing the performance then nobody in the group would get the bonus. The way it's written is everyone gets the bonus, then individuals may be excluded from receiving the bonus if they don't meet certain conditions.

Also, not min-maxable? Only if you don't try hard. There's a whole handbook full of stuff to boost this. Masterwork instruments, spells, feats, magic items, you name it there's stuff to boost inspire courage. This is literally the bard's bread and butter, and the main thing you want to compare any aura to when determining effective power of an aura.


The other bardic music abilities are pretty niche, but they're handy and give options in general, as opposed to numbers like the fighter auras here. I mean, the Bard gets the ability to charm a dozen people and start using suggestion on them, the Fighter gets the ability to gain +2 AC. The bard adds +2 to any skill check, the fighter adds +1-4 to a couple specific skill checks.


Yes, the bard has restrictions, which for the most part boil down to "Your target must be able to see and hear you" and "You can use this in total X times per day"

I believe Jiriku's fighter aura already requires targets to be able to see and hear you, if you also tacked on the uses per day, then the auras become on average far worse than bardic music in every way at every level.






Now with all of this said, I personally don't see the Fighter as a leader type, and don't think it needs the buffing ability. I just think that if jiriku's fighter is going to have that as part of its schtick, it should be decent at that schtick, not worse at it in every way than everyone else out there who also fills it.

[Gideon Falcon]

I concur. Since the Bard already beats the Combat Aura by a landslide, it's superlative. I myself (as I have mentioned before) prefer T.G. Oskar's Marshall retooling to this commending fighter anyway, and the flavor can still fit. The Marshall is the awesome fighter who leads his armies into battle, and the Fighter is that hardcore guy who is the armies he leads into battle.

[Okuno]

Oy - so much picking up on things I don't care about. I'ma attack some obvious misconceptions (and not just other peoples, let's be fair) before moving to what matters.

"Every farmer owns a horse."
Now, you might think this a straightforward (though false) claim. On the other hand, it could mean that there is a single horse which is concurrently possessed by all farmers.

If we're trying to parse the meaning of Inspire Courage off of determiners like "his" and "an", we run into ambiguity. This ambiguity lies mainly in that there is no context which can place the determiners as actual or modal. Furthermore, the quote you pulled, Seerow, is technically a fluff statement, the sort that appear all over the place right before they introduce the serious rules. You'll note that I mentioned the likelihood of ambiguity, and I now wholeheartedly maintain that such ambiguity exists after having pertinent features demonstrated.

Conclusion (I might point out from a formal systems analysis perspective): you've made an unconscious interpretation based on what makes in-world sense. I was unconsciously tripped up by the overuse of singular constructs, until I consciously considered in-world sense and made a houserule. The rules remain meaningless until an interpretation (note: interpretation is a 'special' form of houserule (I suppose that's a radical stance, but I dare you to provide a concrete differentiator (too may nested parenthesis (what is this, LISP?)))) is made on way or the other.

You should take special note that we agree on the RAI. Just wanted to clear up the idea that I can't read, kthx.

Because it is so off-topic, lemme explicate my stance on truenaming in here, since it has been so horribly misread (in no small part due to my brevity):

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Lots of abilities work by channeling supernatural powers. In-universe even, this can tire out the spellcaster/whatever. See: War of the Spider Queen with all the mage-battles between Gromph and that lich wherein the casters become more and more tired after casting. Times/day does not readily convey this tire-out effect.

With truenaming, there's no daily limit on use except insofar as it gets harder to use the more you use it. The mechanic can, with a quick re-fluff) simulate the caster becoming tired. That's what works about it: flavor.

What doesn't work is the exact numbers. The numbers being off mean the conjunction of propositions that can be called the truenaming system is broken.

We both know the system doesn't work, but that doesn't mean there are no good ideas behind it. The fact that those good ideas exist is evident in that some very surgical truenaming fixes that have been written up.

Have some measure of charity in debate, you know, if something makes no sense to you, admit to yourself that you might be reading it wrong. IIRC, that's a Grecian conversational maxim <.<

All of your examples there are supernatural in nature. Spells? Supernatural. Smite/Turn/Rebuke? Supernatural. Bardic Music? Supernatural.

Hp is supernatural? Hadn't noticed, but I didn't expand on that facet, and don't care to write the lengthy OT argument. So here's more examples, then: rage, Jiriku's own Change of Tactics feat, and even more damningly, his own Grant Move Action feat (underneath the commanding fighters style feats). I don't know you that well, but I know you have the ability to extrapolate if you care to.

With heavy optimization, a bard can obtain values of +10 to hit +10d6 damage on all allies' attacks by 8th level.

There's a whole handbook full of stuff to boost this.

Ok, so I missed all the extraneous support that music has and the fighter aura doesn't, good point. OTOH, I'll just have to keep it in mind for future critiques, since my argument is along totally different lines as I show below (and thought I had shown previously @.@)

Someone said something like 1 round per day per fighter level. That is absurdly low.

I did, before I looked up any bardic music stuff. Keep up with my revisions, my latest one is right there in the post you're responding to.

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Before it happens, 'cause all of a sudden I'm apparently really unclear: ability to revise beliefs is a good thing. If you don't think so, it's indicative of a crystalline fragility of thought. I particularly draw heavily from the eastern ideas of suspension of belief/disbelief and valuation, so my ideas tend to stay really fluid.

I believe Jiriku's fighter aura already requires targets to be able to see and hear you

...so I didn't count those restrictions because they're a noise signal, I know.

Yes, the bard has restrictions, which for the most part boil down to "Your target must be able to see and hear you" and "You can use this in total X times per day"

Actually, you'll note things like saves, activation time, and preconditions in my list.

Now with all of this said, I personally don't see the Fighter as a leader type, and don't think it needs the buffing ability. I just think that if jiriku's fighter is going to have that as part of its schtick, it should be decent at that schtick, not worse at it in every way than everyone else out there who also fills it.

So much good my prior arguments did, I guess. You know, the break-point, combined arms, role niches arguments. Whatever, in with the rest of it it's tl;dr, and I'm not making them again when I can start the argument where it would be on topic.

Now, the real junk:

they're handy and give options in general, as opposed to numbers like the fighter auras here.

Yep, yep.

No wonder you think the fighter aura is powerful.

Did I say that?


Now, I've been taught that volume does not an argument make, but since I don't appear to be heard:

• I don't think the overall power of the aura should be reduced.
• I have instead suggested, in the mix, mild increases to some aura abilities.
• I don't think the aura invalidates bardic music in sum.
• I do think there are psychological reasons to place mild time limits on the aura.
• Any limits imposed on the time available to use the aura should, through intelligent play, be able to approximate unlimited use. Intelligent here does not mean optimized, nor does it require optimization.

As mentioned above, I have revised some previous beliefs in the light of new evidence. Particularly, the fact that bardic music is supported by extensive extra-class feature rules and options has caused me to solidify my belief in list items 1 and 3. However, these belief-revisions do not affect items 4&5, which are the very items I am mainly arguing about.

Let's not forget the linchpin of my argument is best summed up:

"no-risk, good-reward" is a better trade than "high-risk, high-reward"

And this is something no one will be able to break.

Now that I've reached serious repetition, including repetition of other people, I expect I'll peace out of the aura argument.

[jiriku]

Changed key skill options for the Weapon Master Fighting Style to Balance, Concentration, Diplomacy, Jump, or Spot. These are the discipline skills for the martial disciplines available to a warblade, except for Spot, which is the discipline for the various archery-themed homebrew martial disciplines on this forum. This should enable the fighter to get better use from the Martial Study and Martial Stance feats, if he chooses to take them.

Additionally, added Intimidate as an additional key skill option for the Disciplined Fighting Style, since its Staredown and Mass Staredown features are Intimidate-based.

The witch hunter fighting style is still pending a writeup of its associated feats, which tentatively include the following ideas:

• Resists mind control
• Counters and deflects ray spells using cold iron weapons
• damages force effects using cold iron weapons
• Guaranteed chance to save against ability penalty, damage, drain, negative levels
• General bonus to saving throws, or maybe damage reduction, or maybe gain temp hp, whenever saving against magic or supernatural effects

Other suggestions for the witch hunter are welcome.

[Ziegander]

I haven't been here in a long time, but it looks like some things have changed. Why the move of the fighting styles to ACFs to be replaced by the much more bland "weapon master fighting style?"

Also, I can't see where the class is supposed to get fighter bonus feats ever anymore. Not in the table, not in the class features descriptions. Am I blind or is Martial Aptitude useless at this point?

[Seerow]

I haven't been here in a long time, but it looks like some things have changed. Why the move of the fighting styles to ACFs to be replaced by the much more bland "weapon master fighting style?"

Also, I can't see where the class is supposed to get fighter bonus feats ever anymore. Not in the table, not in the class features descriptions. Am I blind or is Martial Aptitude useless at this point?

In the table, he has a separate column for fighter bonus feats. I almost missed it as well. It should however be put into the text.

[Ziegander]

In the table, he has a separate column for fighter bonus feats. I almost missed it as well. It should however be put into the text.

Oh... well now I feel stupid. I never look before the class features column for columns other than saves or BAB. I'd put the fighter feats column after the class features, but before the auras. I don't think I'd have missed it then.

[jiriku]

This has been sitting idle for a while because I got wrapped up in other projects . Right now I'm writing a full-length adventure module and building a bunch of fighter NPCs, so I'm adding improvements as I make them. I'll continue to tweak over the next few months as playtesting from the module generates feedback.

The fighting styles have been ACF'd because several people complained the class was too long and complicated. Everything's still there, but now the tl;dr crowd can get the meat of it faster. Personally, I prefer options, but I'm trying to streamline my 'brew. The suggestions about column arrangement and a text entry for the feats are great ideas, and have been implemented.

[Mulletmanalive]

slightly random request, Jiriku, but I like to have comparables when i'm looking at things; do you reckon that you could find some fictional characters who exemplify these fighting styles [which are awesome btw].

Off hand, Matt from Wheel of Time is pretty commanding, Richard Sharpe is a rager, as is Gutz, but i struggle to come up with many others, aside from Samurai types...

[jiriku]

Hmm, interesting request.

Weapon Master Style
Maximus from the movie Gladiator
Jon Snow from the Game of Thrones book cycle

Barbaric Style
Fafhrd, from Fritz Lieber's Lankhmar series
Conan the barbarian
Kull the conqueror
Bran Mak Morn
Gotrek Gurnisson, from the Gotrek and Felix series of novels set in the Warhammer universe
Tarzan

Cavalry Style
Lessa, F'Lar, and the other dragonriders in Dragonflight, the first novel of the Dragonriders of Pern series.
Ser Loras Tyrell, from the Game of Thrones novels
The medieval French and English knights of history.
The knights of the Round Table from Arthurian legend (although not Lancelot or Galahad, who work miracles and are better characterized as paladins).

Commanding Style
Boromir, from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy
King Arthur of Arthurian legend
Winston Churchill
Commissar Yarrick from the Warhammer 40k universe
Sun Tzu

Cunning Style
Sandor Clegane from the Game of Thrones novels
Edit: I'd add Boba Fett here. A cunning style fighter makes a great bounty hunter.

Disciplined Style
Miyamoto Musashi
Yeah, any samurai really.

Watchful Style
Denethor, the Steward of Gondor, from the Lord of the Rings trilogy
Ned Stark, Lord of the North, and Jory Cassel, Captain of the Guard at Winterfell, in the Game of Thrones novels



Apart from that, I'm kind of at a loss. The influences that I draw on include Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Piers Anthony, Greg Bear, Terry Brooks, Orson Scott Card, Arthur C. Clark, Philip K. Dik, Stephen Donaldson, David Eddings, Raymond E. Feist, Robert A. Heinlein, Tracy Hickman, Robert E. Howard, Robert Jordan, Ursula K Le Guin, C.S. Lewis, H.P. Lovecraft, Anne McCaffrey, George R.R. Martin, Michael Moorcock, Larry Niven, Andre Norton, R.A. Salvatore, J.R.R. Tolkien, Margaret Weis, Tad Williams, Roger Zelazny.....

And at least a hundred others. Sometimes a feat or a class or a variant just bubbles up from somewhere and I really don't know where it's come from.


Edit: Additional change made. Condensed the Hardy Soldiers and Weather the Storm combat auras into one combat aura that provides both damage reduction and resistance to all energy types.

[General Patton]

Since I am a firm believer that every PC should attain functional immortality at some point, I came up with a Feat to fulfill that with a character archetype I've never seen in D&D.

RIGOROUS VITALITY [FIGHTER]
Prerequisite: Martial Physique, Fighter Level 12th
Benefit: On any day in which you used Martial Aptitude, you only age by a number of hours equal to 24-your character level-Con Modifier. Keep track of your actual age for purposes of calculating mental ability score bonuses, but use your modified aging rate to calculate physical ability score penalties and the age at which you die. Additionally, magical aging effects can never leave you with less than 1 year of life left.
Advancement: If your character level+Con Modifier is greater than 24, you will, in fact, age at a negative rate until you achieve the minimum age in the oldest age category to lack physical ability score penalties. Additionally, once per day, you may spend an additional hour training to grow Con Modifier number of days younger.

[Vadskye]

Jiriku, I love your True Grit idea. Do you mind if I use that for my own homebrew I'm working on?

[Zale]

Witch-Hunter looks interesting.

[jiriku]

@General Patton: A good feat idea. I'd suggest that the benefit of not aging is so slight in the typical D&D game that you could dispense with most of the complexity of that feat. For example:

RIGOROUS VITALITY [FIGHTER]
Your physical discipline grants you eternal health.

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Prerequisites: Martial Physique, Fighter Level 12th
Benefit: You no longer suffer penalties to your ability scores for aging (even magical aging). Any penalties due to aging that you may already have when you gain this feat are removed.
Advancement: If you have character level 20th or higher, you no longer die when you reach your maximum age.

@Vadskye: Feel free! The idea isn't even originally mine, but is a variation on an idea I lifted from an earlier fighter fix presented in this forum a few years ago.


@ Zale: I hope so! Sadly, its development has languished for a very long time. My current players prefer casters, so the witch hunter has moved to the back burner. I've written or coauthored seven caster classes since breaking ground on the witch hunter, but I'm currently working on a revision to my monk remix, and the witch hunter will be next after that's complete. It's probably still a few months away, but I promise that it's never been forgotten.

[General Patton]

@General Patton: A good feat idea. I'd suggest that the benefit of not aging is so slight in the typical D&D game that you could dispense with most of the complexity of that feat. For example:

RIGOROUS VITALITY [FIGHTER]
Your physical discipline grants you eternal health.

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Prerequisites: Martial Physique, Fighter Level 12th
Benefit: You no longer suffer penalties to your ability scores for aging (even magical aging). Any penalties due to aging that you may already have when you gain this feat are removed.
Advancement: If you have character level 20th or higher, you no longer die when you reach your maximum age.

How does that interact with retraining?

[Veklim]

If you have a character who takes this feat for any mechanical purpose, why on earth would you retrain out of it?!

You do raise an issue though, should some feats be 'locked', i.e. put a Special section in saying this feat cannot be retrained...?

[Zale]

I guess you'd take penalties for aging as normal.

And if you're past your maximum age, then well, you'd drop dead.

Fun stuff that.

[General Patton]

This is why my first draft of the feat was overly complicated. It allowed you to exercise to the peak of health, until you're back to the prime of your life, and then let off of the routine for a while.

Edit: By the way, part of my inspiration for this was Mighty Moe.

[jiriku]

How does that interact with retraining?

Catastrophically, I would imagine. Probably better to make it a [General] feat rather than a [Fighter] feat, then.

Edit 10/19/2012: Revamped several features for the cavalry fighter ACF.

[jiriku]

• Updated tables for new forum code.
• Minor changes to layout (removed a lot of spoiler tags).
• Updated and improved the Red Tides of War tactical feat for watchful fighters.

[jiriku]

*Casts raise dead upon the thread.*

[nonsi]

*Casts raise dead upon the thread.*

... agenda...?

[INoKnowNames]

... agenda...?

~"That would be mine" said Dumbledore, as he walked through the entrance to the Great Hall.~

I meant to drum this up a little bit ago, but I've had my eye on this homebrew for quite a while. I had a few questions related to some features of it (mostly the Weapon Master, which is the part I like the most, but I'd been wanting to look into the other variants too), but otherwise find myself HIGHLY intrigued by it. It's... almost unprecedented that I've found myself wanting to play a melee class that featured no Tome of Battle or casters/magic added onto it. Just me, mah big ol' impractically huge sword, and a very simple yet refined set of training. Let's go cut up some bad-guys!

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Fighters are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with light, medium, and heavy armor, and with shields (but not tower shields). As part of his fighting style, a fighter gains proficiency with one exotic weapon, armor, or shield (such as a tower shield).

Weapon Master Fighting Style (Ex):
Your style grants you proficiency with a single exotic weapon, armor, or shield of your choice. You also gain Weapon Focus (with a weapon of your choice) as a bonus feat.

Just being clear: does this mean that the Weapon Master Fighter has -2- Exotic Proficiencies, or is this just restating the basic Fighter Bonus Exotic Proficiency? I could see a reading saying that all Fighters get 1, and that the Weapon Master gets 2. I could also see a reading in which -just- the Weapon Master gets 1.

Exceptional Strength (Ex):

This bonus applies equally to melee, thrown, and ranged weapons, unarmed strikes, and natural attacks (if you have any), but cannot be used in conjunction with abilities that allow you to apply a different ability bonus to damage instead of Strength (such as the Shadow Blade feat from Tome of Battle).

What if, be it by item or multiclass or what have you, you gained the ability to -add- a different attribute to damage, instead of merely substitute?

Peerless Reactions makes certain choices MUCH more powerful for you than they were previously. Keep an eye out for ways to gain abilities that can be activated as a swift or immediate action, since you can now use those abilities twice as often.

I probably have not re-read enough yet, but were immediate/swift action abilities meant to be provided in chassis? Or would that be something one would be intended to grab through feats or multiclassing?

SECOND STYLE [General]
You are familiar with the basics of another fighting style.
Prerequisite: Fighter 9th
Benefit: Select a fighting style other than the one in which you are trained, and select two of the skills available as key skills to students of that style. Both of those skills are added to your fighting style and become fighter class skills for you, and you may select one of them as an additional key skill for your fighting style.

Additionally, you may now choose Style feats in the new fighting style using your fighter bonus feat slots (only), but you must reduce your fighter level by 8 when qualifying for and advancing these feats. You still use your full character level with these feats for effects that check character level.

I'm having a -little- trouble wraping my head exactly on how this works. One idea just as prevalent as the sword-lord is the badass riding utop some incredible monster, but I'm not 100% sure how this interacts with the Wild Cohort feats of the Cavalry style (and whether or not the base Wild Cohort feat could be taken as a fighter bonus feat or one of your normal feats or what have you). I assume 3rd Style is much the same, regardless.

PEERLESS EINHANDER [Fighter, Style]
You possess exceptional skill at fighting mobile battles with a weapon in one hand and nothing in the other hand.
Prerequisites: Dodge, Spring Attack, Fighter 4th, Weapon Master Fighting Style

Just out of curiosity: why does this require Dodge and Spring Attack, but seem to skip Mobility?

PEERLESS ZWEIHANDER [Fighter, Style]
You possess exceptional skill with a two-handed weapon.
Prerequisites: Power Attack, Weapon Focus with a two-handed weapon, Fighter 4th, Weapon Master Fighting Style
Benefit: When you are wielding a two-handed weapon for which you have Weapon Focus, your attacks are severely distracting; opponents you attack suffer a 20% miss chance against everyone but you. This effect applies even if you miss, and lasts until the beginning of your next turn.

Is the last part of the last line supposed to seem redundant? Or is that there in case the Fighter were to decide to change tactics after a round, I suppose?

WEAPON SPECIALIZATION [Fighter, Style]
Choose one type of weapon, such as greataxe, for which you have already chosen weapon focus. You can also choose unarmed strike or grapple as your weapon for the purpose of this feat. You deal more damage and can attack more often when using this weapon.

Is this meant to entirely supersede the regular Weapon Specialization feat, including for requirements concerning other feats along that line? Or is this Style version distinct from the vanilla version?

Benefit: When you attack with the selected weapon, you deal damage as if it was one size category larger. This benefit does not stack with other effects that cause your weapon to deal damage as if it was larger in size.

Does this stack with actually having a larger weapon, such as some medium creature wielding a Large x by virtue of Powerful Build, Monkey Grip, or Strong Arm Bracer?

Armor training will be available as bonus feats. I was going to hold this back to release with a number of other feats I'm developing/revising, but since the demand is so great, I'll go ahead and spoil it here.

I have no real comment about these other than how awesome they are. Normally I try to get the least clunky light armor I can find because I don't like what skills I do attempt to be hampered. Now, Medium -and- Heavy armor actually look tempting.

@General Patton: A good feat idea. I'd suggest that the benefit of not aging is so slight in the typical D&D game that you could dispense with most of the complexity of that feat. For example:

RIGOROUS VITALITY [FIGHTER]
Your physical discipline grants you eternal health.

Spoiler

Show

Prerequisites: Martial Physique, Fighter Level 12th
Benefit: You no longer suffer penalties to your ability scores for aging (even magical aging). Any penalties due to aging that you may already have when you gain this feat are removed.
Advancement: If you have character level 20th or higher, you no longer die when you reach your maximum age.

I noticed that you and a few others found this scary to be retrained. I'd like to note that this sort of thing very much could, if not almost should, be retrainable. I don't see a specific downside to it; it's not like someone can mind-control you to retrain a feat, and how would someone know that an epic level fighter's training made them ageless? Particularly when there are certainly other ways to accomplish this effect as to make "Push Ups, Sit Ups, and Plenty of Juice" seem impossible by D&D standards.

Spoiler: A slightly personal anecdote

Show

In fact, I'd actually come up with acute scenario with a friend involving this ability. A human fighter who had fallen in love with an Elf, and trained themselves while adventuring together, and more so even during retirement to protect their family (and still the world) until reaching this pinnacle of perfection. At which point, the fighter could live for as long as their beloved did. And when their charge finally takes their final rest, the fighter's job finally finished, they too could relax and plant their weapon in the ground one more time, before dissolving with the wind, to be with their partner in spirit forever.

[jiriku]

Just being clear: does this mean that the Weapon Master Fighter has -2- Exotic Proficiencies, or is this just restating the basic Fighter Bonus Exotic Proficiency? I could see a reading saying that all Fighters get 1, and that the Weapon Master gets 2. I could also see a reading in which -just- the Weapon Master gets 1.

the weapon master fighter get one exotic proficiency as part of his style package. Other fighter variants lose this benefit. Your default fighter has proficiency with tower shields (which I think of as an exotic shield), yet few fighters actually use one. I have generalized this proficiency to be any one piece of exotic equipment, so that it's a real benefit for every weapon master. In my house campaign, I've also restatted all the ****ty exotic weapons to be more useful, but in a general campaign there's also the additional feature that a fighter can take proficiency with a "cool-looking" but suboptimal exotic weapon without having to spend a precious feat slot.

What if, be it by item or multiclass or what have you, you gained the ability to -add- a different attribute to damage, instead of merely substitute?

Exceptional Strength only ever improves Strength. As further commentary, you do get the benefit if you can somehow use Strength for ability checks and skill checks that don't normally use it (such as some 3rd party or homebrew feat allowing you to use Strength instead of Charisma when making Intimidate checks). But you do not get it for using Strength on other rolls, even if you used some special feature to use Strength where you normally couldn't (for example, if you somehow found a way to apply Strength to Fortitude saves).

I probably have not re-read enough yet, but were immediate/swift action abilities meant to be provided in chassis? Or would that be something one would be intended to grab through feats or multiclassing?

Countering strike is an immediate action class feature provided on the chassis. But mostly what I had in mind was abilities from prestige classes and activation of magic items. The Item Compendium, for example, includes a lot of weapon abilities, armor abilities, and miscellaneous items activated this way.

I'm having a -little- trouble wrapping my head exactly on how this works. One idea just as prevalent as the sword-lord is the badass riding utop some incredible monster, but I'm not 100% sure how this interacts with the Wild Cohort feats of the Cavalry style (and whether or not the base Wild Cohort feat could be taken as a fighter bonus feat or one of your normal feats or what have you). I assume 3rd Style is much the same, regardless.

Wild Cohort is not a [style] feat, but let's use Weapon Specialization as an example. Suppose that Elric a 9th level weapon master fighter, takes Second Style and chooses the Barbaric fighting style. He now qualifies for Barbaric [style] feats as if he was a 1st-level barbaric fighter, so by training for an hour he can select Rage in one of his bonus feat slots. When the rage feat checks his character level, it sees him as 9th level, so he can rage three times per day. However, when reading the Advancement entry of the feat, Rage sees him as only a 1st level fighter. This means that while a pure barbaric fighter would advance to larger rage bonuses at 11th level, Elric won't get those bonuses until 20th level. The design principle here was to strike a balance where the fighter can't use advanced moves from his second style, but the basic moves he can use should function reasonably well. If you find that overly complicated, you could simplify and have the fighter always count as level-9 with feats from his second style, or you could drop the penalty entirely and have him always use his full fighter level.

Just out of curiosity: why does this require Dodge and Spring Attack, but seem to skip Mobility?

Mobility does not exist in D&D Remix -- it has been rolled into the Dodge feat. You'll find revised Dodge and Spring Attack feats in the Swift Hunter thread. I have also collected all the modified/new feats for D&D Remix into a MS Word document, the Book of Feats. If you'd like a copy, PM me your email address and I'll send it to you.

Is the last part of the last line supposed to seem redundant? Or is that there in case the Fighter were to decide to change tactics after a round, I suppose?

That sets a duration on the effect. As soon as you make an attack against an opponent, you debuff that opponent until the beginning of your next turn. In any round where you do not attack an opponent, you do not inflict the debuff. It's essentially a 4e-style mark that operates on a round-to-round basis to encourage your melee opponents to attack you.

Is this meant to entirely supersede the regular Weapon Specialization feat, including for requirements concerning other feats along that line? Or is this Style version distinct from the vanilla version?

Yes, the Weapon Specialization [Style] feat entirely replaces the regular Weapon Specialization feat. As you look through the support material for my Remix classes, you'll often see published feats that have been extensively reworked. As long as the name remains the same, the new version of the feat is intended to entirely replace the old. This will be true in all of my published homebrew.

Does this stack with actually having a larger weapon, such as some medium creature wielding a Large x by virtue of Powerful Build, Monkey Grip, or Strong Arm Bracer?

Yes, it stacks with actually having a larger weapon. One of the new design spaces in Remix is that there are a lot of ways to gain virtual size category increases with your weapons. This is intended to provide an alternate path for improving damage other than just pumping up a stat into the stratosphere or adding small, crappy static bonuses (it also makes the choice of weapon more relevant, whereas in stock D&D a high-level character's base weapon damage is often a trivial part of his damage output). However, in play I found that players could stack these virtual size category increases to deal grotesque amounts of damage by mid levels. The no-stack restriction was intended to close that loophole.

On a barely related tangent, I've also recently come to the conclusion that all effects which double damage should not stack with one anything except the critical hit multiplier. This closes the door on some abusive charger builds that deal hundreds or thousands of damage per round. I haven't yet taken the time to go write that into all my stuff, though.

I have no real comment about these other than how awesome they are. Normally I try to get the least clunky light armor I can find because I don't like what skills I do attempt to be hampered. Now, Medium -and- Heavy armor actually look tempting.

Thank you. :)

I noticed that you and a few others found this scary to be retrained. I'd like to note that this sort of thing very much could, if not almost should, be retrainable. I don't see a specific downside to it; it's not like someone can mind-control you to retrain a feat, and how would someone know that an epic level fighter's training made them ageless? Particularly when there are certainly other ways to accomplish this effect as to make "Push Ups, Sit Ups, and Plenty of Juice" seem impossible by D&D standards.

Spoiler: A slightly personal anecdote

Show

In fact, I'd actually come up with acute scenario with a friend involving this ability. A human fighter who had fallen in love with an Elf, and trained themselves while adventuring together, and more so even during retirement to protect their family (and still the world) until reaching this pinnacle of perfection. At which point, the fighter could live for as long as their beloved did. And when their charge finally takes their final rest, the fighter's job finally finished, they too could relax and plant their weapon in the ground one more time, before dissolving with the wind, to be with their partner in spirit forever.

Aesthetically, I struggle to imagine a guy who is hundreds of years old and in perfect health because of his phenomenal physical fitness, but is liable to die during his regular morning workout if he retrains the feat. It just seems campy. From a design philosophy perspective, I also want to encourage players NOT to take set-in-stone feat choices with their bonus feats, because inevitably someone will accidentally break his character or do something illegal when changing feats and neither the player nor the DM will notice it until months later.

Still, your example indicates that D&D is a big tent -- there is room for a variety of approaches. As with all my work, feel free to adapt it to your own game in whatever way works for your group. :)

I Hope that helps! Thanks for your interest in my work -- I still get PMs from people who are using Remix even all these years later, and knowing that people are having fun gaming with this stuff makes the hundreds of hours I spent developing it all worthwhile. :)

[tsj]

Very nice class. Are all your remix classes Tier 3?

Edit... seems the remix monk is tier 4.

You have made a lot of interesting classes. I am trying to make a list of all tier 3 classes... I want to add as many of you classes as possible to my list.

I was wondering which of your classes besides fighter are tier 3? :-)

[jiriku]

I would classify the following as Tier 3 classes:

Remixes: fighter, healer, knight-paladin, soulcrafter, swift hunter

New classes: machinist, magician, magus of blades, dawnblade, earth dreamer, emberhaunt, storm lord, wavekeeper

The shapeshifter and avatar are broken and don't really work. Revamping them is on my to-do list (but probably won't happen for several more years with my current schedule). The shadowcaster, void disciple and summoner are nominally Tier 3, but have a very high power ceiling with heavy optimization. I've significantly revised them since initial publication to simplify them and reduce their power ceiling, but they still have some big guns. The daring outlaw and monk are Tier 4 classes.

[tsj]

I would classify the following as Tier 3 classes:

Remixes: fighter, healer, knight-paladin, soulcrafter, swift hunter

New classes: machinist, magician, magus of blades, dawnblade, earth dreamer, emberhaunt, storm lord, wavekeeper

The shapeshifter and avatar are broken and don't really work. Revamping them is on my to-do list (but probably won't happen for several more years with my current schedule). The shadowcaster, void disciple and summoner are nominally Tier 3, but have a very high power ceiling with heavy optimization. I've significantly revised them since initial publication to simplify them and reduce their power ceiling, but they still have some big guns. The daring outlaw and monk are Tier 4 classes.

OK thanks :-)
High power ceiling might be OK since I recently let high tier 3 classes enter the list. So it is now mid to high tier 3 classes.

I will add the classes to the list and update it once I get some time for it :-)

My plan with the T3 list is to allow players to play any charecter concept they want using only tier 3 classes.

Atm I am depending heavily on raising and lowering core classes to Tier 3 using tiered prcs.

Only native T3 classes gets to select a single optional prc and only a prc that does not alter their tier...
In order to avoid builds breaking free of T3

Ps: cool "hammertime" avatar pic :-)

[jiriku]

One of the thing I enjoy most about gaming under my rules is that my players can play whatever concept they want without worrying about whether the concept is represented by a "bad class." The game is a lot more fun when the T5 and T1 classes are pruned out.