Fighter fix (yay)

[gooddragon1]

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[Zale]

We need to convince the princess that we are the good guys and she can come out of the tower the evil sorceress has placed her in.

How does this fix make a fighter more helpful than they were before at fixing this situation?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Useless. It looks useless. (At anything but extremely low-op levels). Hitting and dealing damage have never been problems for the fighter. Even without ubercharger cheese, a full attack with a greatsword will hurt plenty. It's everything else that needs fixing.

Not to mention that the bonuses are weak. If you take everything, you'll get +10 attack and damage, +11 HP, and +6 Fortitude. Those are... pretty small, compared to a 20th level character. (OK, the attack-damage buff is solid, but not when it's spread out over 4 feats).

[VoxRationis]

Don't get us wrong; the bonuses are good, and many would argue needed. They just don't make the fighter capable of doing anything but rolling attacks.

[ben-zayb]

I agree with the above. But if we were to go your route of only static bonuses, I suggest looking for some other feats else to add it on. Something like:

The following feats from PHB can be taken by a fighter using his fighter bonus feat, with the following additional effects (like how you worded yours):
Acrobat (and similar feats that adds skill bonus, like Alertness): This bonus increases by +2 per 5 fighter class levels. You may select this feat up to two times, and the bonuses stack.
This way your fighter can specialize on certain skills that he feels he needs.
Cleave: The amount of extra attacks increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Combat Reflexes: The additional amount increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Deflect Arrows: The deflection per round increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Dodge: This bonus increases by +1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Far Shot: The range increment increases further by one-half per 5 fighter class levels.
Great Fortitude (as well as Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will): This bonus increases by +1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Now includes the other two feats
Improved Bull Rush (as well as Improved Disarm/Grapple/Overrun/Sunder/Trip): This bonus increases by +4 per 5 fighter class levels.
Improved Initiative: This bonus increases by +1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Point Blank Shot: This bonus increases by +1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Spring Attack: The amount of attacks increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Two-Weapon Defense: This bonus increases by +1 (+2 if fighting defensively or total defense) per 5 fighter class levels.
Two-Weapon Fighting: The penalties reduced increases by +2 per 5 fighter class levels.
Whirlwind Attack: The amount of attacks increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.

These additions don't really solve the fighter's problems, but they provide tools for the fighter to make certain fighting styles viable and give him some skill specialization as he sees fit.

[gooddragon1]

Useless. It looks useless. (At anything but extremely low-op levels). Hitting and dealing damage have never been problems for the fighter. Even without ubercharger cheese, a full attack with a greatsword will hurt plenty. It's everything else that needs fixing.

Not to mention that the bonuses are weak. If you take everything, you'll get +10 attack and damage, +11 HP, and +6 Fortitude. Those are... pretty small, compared to a 20th level character. (OK, the attack-damage buff is solid, but not when it's spread out over 4 feats).

Not every DM wants to run a high-op game. These bonuses are just to make the Fighter better than merely summoning some elder earth elementals (or at least approaching the same viability). If you want a high-op fighter there are some wonderful fixes by a poster named zeigander (I think).

[drew2u]

I agree with the above. But if we were to go your route of only static bonuses, I suggest looking for some other feats else to add it on. Something like:

The following feats from PHB can be taken by a fighter using his fighter bonus feat, with the following additional effects (like how you worded yours):
Acrobat (and similar feats that adds skill bonus, like Alertness): This bonus increases by +2 per 5 fighter class levels. You may select this feat up to two times, and the bonuses stack.
This way your fighter can specialize on certain skills that he feels he needs.
Cleave: The amount of extra attacks increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Combat Reflexes: The additional amount increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Deflect Arrows: The deflection per round increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Dodge: This bonus increases by +1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Far Shot: The range increment increases further by one-half per 5 fighter class levels.
Great Fortitude (as well as Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will): This bonus increases by +1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Now includes the other two feats
Improved Bull Rush (as well as Improved Disarm/Grapple/Overrun/Sunder/Trip): This bonus increases by +4 per 5 fighter class levels.
Improved Initiative: This bonus increases by +1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Point Blank Shot: This bonus increases by +1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Spring Attack: The amount of attacks increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Two-Weapon Defense: This bonus increases by +1 (+2 if fighting defensively or total defense) per 5 fighter class levels.
Two-Weapon Fighting: The penalties reduced increases by +2 per 5 fighter class levels.
Whirlwind Attack: The amount of attacks increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.

These additions don't really solve the fighter's problems, but they provide tools for the fighter to make certain fighting styles viable and give him some skill specialization as he sees fit.

Wow, I thought I was the only one with this idea to help fix the fighter. For me, these look fine and are the direction I would take.
(I'd also nerf spellcasters, especially druids and clerics, along with anything that fixes the fighter but that's just me)

[ben-zayb]

Wow, I thought I was the only one with this idea to help fix the fighter. For me, these look fine and are the direction I would take.
(I'd also nerf spellcasters, especially druids and clerics, along with anything that fixes the fighter but that's just me)

I'd like to clarify that my above suggestions doesn't really fix the Fighter, it was more of a simple Fighter Upgrade/Buff to at least give it more options and tools to work with.

Personally, partially based on what I've seen ITP, I've come to the conclusion that "the Fighter" is actually unfixable.

[Composer99]

Even in a low-op scenario, is it really too much to ask for the Fighter to be able to do social encounters competently (if the player wishes to build such a Fighter without multiclassing to Bard, Cleric, Paladin, or Sorcerer) or infiltration competently, out of the box?

[toapat]

I agree with the above. But if we were to go your route of only static bonuses, I suggest looking for some other feats else to add it on. Something like:

The following feats from PHB can be taken by a fighter using his fighter bonus feat, with the following additional effects (like how you worded yours):
Acrobat (and similar feats that adds skill bonus, like Alertness): This bonus increases by +2 per 5 fighter class levels. You may select this feat up to two times, and the bonuses stack.
This way your fighter can specialize on certain skills that he feels he needs.
Cleave: The amount of extra attacks increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Combat Reflexes: The additional amount increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Deflect Arrows: The deflection per round increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Dodge: This bonus increases by +1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Far Shot: The range increment increases further by one-half per 5 fighter class levels.
Great Fortitude (as well as Lightning Reflexes and Iron Will): This bonus increases by +1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Now includes the other two feats
Improved Bull Rush (as well as Improved Disarm/Grapple/Overrun/Sunder/Trip): This bonus increases by +4 per 5 fighter class levels.
Improved Initiative: This bonus increases by +1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Point Blank Shot: This bonus increases by +1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Spring Attack: The amount of attacks increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.
Two-Weapon Defense: This bonus increases by +1 (+2 if fighting defensively or total defense) per 5 fighter class levels.
Two-Weapon Fighting: The penalties reduced increases by +2 per 5 fighter class levels.
Whirlwind Attack: The amount of attacks increases by 1 per 5 fighter class levels.

These additions don't really solve the fighter's problems, but they provide tools for the fighter to make certain fighting styles viable and give him some skill specialization as he sees fit.

Acrobat: This feat and its series should scale for everyone and grant the skills it boosts as racial class skills.
Cleave, Spring Attack, Farshot, Whirlwind attack: Your sugested changes dont mechanically function at all. the closest is Farshot but that a multiplier to the range of a ranged weapon's range increment.
The rest are basically broken barring dodge. You can fix feats but you can also go too far. Which is the same problem as Gooddragon went with in the OP

[Drako_Beoulve]

I'm doing something similar for my fighter retooling:


Battlelust: At level 3 the Fighter gets +1 to all feats that provide numerical bonuses and +5ft to feats that grants speed or distance bonuses and all feats that imposes numerical penalties are reduced by 1 (min. 0), speed or distance penalties are lessen by 5ft (min 0). This bonus increases in 1 at every 3 levels thereafter (+2 at 7th, +3 at 11th, +4 at 15th, +5 at 19th)

I'm thinking on giving battlelust bonus only to Fighter feats but for now it covers all Feats

[gooddragon1]

Even in a low-op scenario, is it really too much to ask for the Fighter to be able to do social encounters competently (if the player wishes to build such a Fighter without multiclassing to Bard, Cleric, Paladin, or Sorcerer) or infiltration competently, out of the box?

Short: Yes imo.

Long: That's why you don't play just fighters. You have a rogue who does social interactions and infiltration. If you want to do those then as you said, you multiclass. Classes have roles and while it does seem that other classes can broach into those roles it isn't always necessary in my opinion as a design feature. The fighter fights. The rogue does the derring doo (probably incorrectly spelled).

[ben-zayb]

Acrobat: This feat and its series should scale for everyone and grant the skills it boosts as racial class skills.
Cleave, Spring Attack, Farshot, Whirlwind attack: Your sugested changes dont mechanically function at all. the closest is Farshot but that a multiplier to the range of a ranged weapon's range increment.
The rest are basically broken barring dodge. You can fix feats but you can also go too far. Which is the same problem as Gooddragon went with in the OP

You can make a separate thread if you want further discussion about this. But you seem to miss my point: I am not fixing (or intending to fix, at least right now) anything in this thread. These are straight up fighter numberpiling, some of which are even anathema to the Fighter's fluff.

[toapat]

Short: Yes imo.

Long: That's why you don't play just fighters. You have a rogue who does social interactions and infiltration. If you want to do those then as you said, you multiclass. Classes have roles and while it does seem that other classes can broach into those roles it isn't always necessary in my opinion as a design feature. The fighter fights. The rogue does the derring doo (probably incorrectly spelled).

and the only healthy fighter fix for the game is to delete it

theres a thread on the 3.5 subforum talking about the perceived fighter hate. In it seerow basically laid out why the fighter as a concept ultimately doesnt work. You can have a completely mundane class, but you cant actually exclude any part of a mundane is.

You can make a separate thread if you want further discussion about this. But you seem to miss my point: I am not fixing (or intending to fix, at least right now) anything in this thread. These are straight up fighter numberpiling, some of which are even anathema to the Fighter's fluff.

no, Gooddragon was trying to justify some of the feats which are utter ****. you just broke everything else.

[ben-zayb]

no, Gooddragon was trying to justify some of the feats which are utter ****. you just broke everything else.

Compared to most used "fighter fixes" by most "reputable" brewers? Hardly. It's not even par for the course, considering the vast majority of these fixes aim to at least be able to have a fighting chance against a halfway-competent T1. If you meant compared to Core Fighter and feats related to them, then sure. And no, let's not pretend that I'm actually "breaking" the feats themselves. The upgrades were specifically aimed for fighters, so this actually belongs to the dubious "just improve the fighter's feats instead of giving them actual class features" design philosophy, if anything..

[Composer99]

Short: Yes imo.

Long: That's why you don't play just fighters. You have a rogue who does social interactions and infiltration. If you want to do those then as you said, you multiclass. Classes have roles and while it does seem that other classes can broach into those roles it isn't always necessary in my opinion as a design feature. The fighter fights. The rogue does the derring doo (probably incorrectly spelled).

Well, I think I'm done here, especially given:

The fighter fights.

Therein lies the problem with this fix.

[gooddragon1]

Well, I think I'm done here, especially given:



Therein lies the problem with this fix.

And I respect your opinion on the matter. This fix is for those with a like mindset so not everyone will like it.

[1pwny]

One thing to be taken into account is that you do what, 45 damage with no Power Attacking, or so? Multiply that by 4, because your probably hitting them four times with a full-round action. That suddenly boosts you to 200+ damage.

[gooddragon1]

One thing to be taken into account is that you do what, 45 damage with no Power Attacking, or so? Multiply that by 4, because your probably hitting them four times with a full-round action. That suddenly boosts you to 200+ damage.

You're forgetting that everyone and their mother has DR 10 or 15 at this point.

[Totema]

I don't have any issue with fighters being meat-headed sword toters. My issue with these is that, while they make the fighter a stronger attacker, they don't make him a better attacker. Fighters don't have a hard time dealing good damage at high levels, they have a hard time being able to deal damage in the first place. Everything the party encounters has flight, invisibility and other sources of concealment, reach, teleportation... everything that makes it hard (or even nigh impossible) to just run up to a thing and hit it. Not to mention that fighter are really vulnerable to anything that starts with "will" and ends with "save", and that's throughout their whole career. Any fighter fix ought to address those before simply upping the numbers.

[Equilibria]

Short: Yes imo.

Long: That's why you don't play just fighters. You have a rogue who does social interactions and infiltration. If you want to do those then as you said, you multiclass. Classes have roles and while it does seem that other classes can broach into those roles it isn't always necessary in my opinion as a design feature. The fighter fights. The rogue does the derring doo (probably incorrectly spelled).

I heartily agree with you sir.. A fighter shouldn´t be able to do everything well. That being said, I always thought that the fighter deserves more than just numerical upgrades. he needs options

So the best course of action (imo) would be to sit down and define what the fighter should be... In AND out of combat (a likely thing to happen, I know)

- A fighter that uses his intelligence
- A leader in battle
- A generic sword and board type melee tank

Or something else entirely... Actually, I think those sound like entirely different classes to me. Make several classes and then everyone can have their vision of the fighter fulfilled.

The only problem is that as long as the spellcasters are so impossibly overpowered, the fighter (if he is to compete) needs to have class features that negates the FEEL of the fighter. NERF the casters... NERF them HARD.

[gooddragon1]

I heartily agree with you sir.. A fighter shouldn´t be able to do everything well. That being said, I always thought that the fighter deserves more than just numerical upgrades. he needs options

So the best course of action (imo) would be to sit down and define what the fighter should be... In AND out of combat (a likely thing to happen, I know)

a- A fighter that uses his intelligence
b- A leader in battle
c- A generic sword and board type melee tank

Or something else entirely... Actually, I think those sound like entirely different classes to me. Make several classes and then everyone can have their vision of the fighter fulfilled.

The only problem is that as long as the spellcasters are so impossibly overpowered, the fighter (if he is to compete) needs to have class features that negates the FEEL of the fighter. NERF the casters... NERF them HARD.

a=swashbuckler
b=marshal (maybe crusader or warblade with some stances)
c=crusader

However, I do agree the fighter needs options perhaps. I feel those options should be in the form of bonus feats that do stuff, but I don't have the creativity to make them at the moment. As for the: invisibility, flight, teleportation, etc... items. Unfortunate that they have to do that to be relevant but that's the way it looks to be. Also a DM should take into account the optimization level of the players such as the fighter and rather than throw something with teleportation or invisibility they might give it a breath weapon or overrun for example (or something completely new). I'm probably committing that one fallacy that says the DM can fix stuff though. What I think could be cool is to allow fighters to take TOB stances as bonus feats without meeting any prerequisites except Initiator level (counted as their fighter level).

This reminds me of a difference between morrowind and skyrim I noticed: Levitation is available because you need it to get to some places but it can let you just ignore some things outright. Skyrim dungeons often have a back way that you unlock by getting through the dungeon or that is at a higher elevation that you wouldn't normally get to or notice and that you exit from conveniently near the entrance (thus it uses the inability of the player to fly in it's architecture). However, I like those things like invisibility and whatnot when they're used artfully. The key is that the system slaps those things on lots of monsters. Still, it's not like you're playing the game on the computer... the DM ultimately decides what encounters are comprised of but perhaps altered versions of the problem abilities for the monsters that use them which don't outright require magic items to deal with them might be the way? Teleportation... with channeling, invisibility that gives a bonus to AC against targets (rather than a miss chance) that can't see through it but make a DC 20 spot check, Dragonrend for the fighter... (have I been playing too much skyrim?)

[Grod_The_Giant]

- A fighter that uses his intelligence

Fighter//(Factotum-Arcane Dilatte and Opportunistic Piety)

- A leader in battle

Fighter//Marshal (with, perhaps, Grant Move Action usable per-encounter instead of per-day)

- A generic sword and board type melee tank

Fighter//...actually, there really isn't anything to put on the other side of this one. Barbarian works for a non-combat-style-specific tank, I suppose.

[Equilibria]

Fighter//(Factotum-Arcane Dilatte and Opportunistic Piety)

Fighter//Marshal (with, perhaps, Grant Move Action usable per-encounter instead of per-day)

Fighter//...actually, there really isn't anything to put on the other side of this one. Barbarian works for a non-combat-style-specific tank, I suppose.

Yeah i don´t think a fighter should be able to cast spells, but sure the fluff would work. I just wan't an intelligent fighter that feels like a fighter.

Leader in battle: That would work. I just never liked the marshal much... But if one used the marshal as a template it would fit the bill.

Generic sword and board: But a barbarian is not a fighter. I could see a fighter doing awesome things with sword and shield if they just had the options.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Yeah i don´t think a fighter should be able to cast spells, but sure the fluff would work. I just wan't an intelligent fighter that feels like a fighter.

I agree. I meant fighter//factotum minus Arcane Dilettante and Opportunistic Piety. My bad for the miscommunication.

Generic sword and board: But a barbarian is not a fighter. I could see a fighter doing awesome things with sword and shield if they just had the options.

Sword and Board is a combat style, though. It shouldn't be a class in and of itself, any more than TWF or THF should be.

But I forgot the Knight. The Knight is... well, he's halfway to a defensive fighter type. Give him 4+Int skill points/level, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive as class skills... some bonus damage against challenged opponents (Knight level + Cha ought to do it)... trade the mounted combat feats out for a more generic list of bonus feats every 3-4 levels...

[Equilibria]

I agree. I meant fighter//factotum minus Arcane Dilettante and Opportunistic Piety. My bad for the miscommunication.


Sword and Board is a combat style, though. It shouldn't be a class in and of itself, any more than TWF or THF should be.

But I forgot the Knight. The Knight is... well, he's halfway to a defensive fighter type. Give him 4+Int skill points/level, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive as class skills... some bonus damage against challenged opponents (Knight level + Cha ought to do it)... trade the mounted combat feats out for a more generic list of bonus feats every 3-4 levels...

Oh, ok. Well then it could work.

I completely agree with you that fighting styles shouldn´t be classes. I guess i miswrote.

The changes to the knight would definetly make it way more useful.

So i quess we are in agreement