Returning the Fighter to relevance.

[John Longarrow]

With the myriad books that have come out many classes have received boons in one form or another. The fighter has more feats to select from for their bonus feats but, unlike some other classes, has not stood the test of time well. I do have a couple changes that should return the fighter to its original role, master of melee, and allow it to return as a viable straight build.

The Four changes I'm considering for my next table top game are;
1) Bonus fighter feat every level (previously taken can be changed on even levels, so long as they are not required for another feat).
2) Fighters do not need to meet stat requirements for bonus feats. As such a Dex 8 fighter CAN go all the way up the TWF tree.
3) Fighters get 4 + int skill points / level with the following skills added to their list; Listen, Spot, Survival.
4) If using Tome of Battle, each level in Fighter counts as an initiator level for any maneuver using class, including fighters who use bonus feats to take maneuvers and stances.

The change to skills isn't a lot but should make for a more rounded character. The other three should let them really stay relevant.

Can anyone see anything majorly overpowering about these changes?

[OldTrees1]

Can anyone see anything majorly overpowering about these changes?

I see nothing overpowering, however I recommend you keep going.

1a) This Fighter2.0 still presumes that the feats in question with be worth a level's worth of class features. There are some feats(several even on the small Fighter Bonus feat list) that are so worthy. However I am of the opinion that the Fighter will run out of such feats or be otherwise forced to take lesser feats as prerequisites.

1b) There are some abilities Fighters would certainly want that were not yet made into [Fighter] feats (or even feats at all). This is a topic best left in the abstract because concrete arguments about it has derailed threads like this before.

3) You might want to expand that skill list a bit more. The Fighter's base skill list is ridiculously short. The low skill points per level and lack of skill focused class features will prevent them from threatening the skill mastery niche of the Skill Monkey base classes.

[Tohsaka Rin]

Making the Fighter relevant again.

Step 1: Read Pathfinder.
Step 2: Backport the Pathfinder Fighter to 3.x
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit!!! Enjoy DnD.

[Troacctid]

Your fixes are almost exactly the same as mine. HOWEVER, after testing out the initiator level rule, I removed it because it ended up being more of a buff to initiators than to fighters.

[stanprollyright]

The Four changes I'm considering for my next table top game are;
1) Bonus fighter feat every level (previously taken can be changed on even levels, so long as they are not required for another feat).

This just frontloads the class IMO, as you get your feat chain sooner and then have little else to do. I personally would like it if Fighters got a few floating feats to go with their bonus feats and/or could select talents that give you whole feat chains. Like if you take Weapon Focus you get Weapon Specialization at level 4 and greater versions later, or you get take TWF and get Improved and Greater as you get more iterative attacks.

2) Fighters do not need to meet stat requirements for bonus feats. As such a Dex 8 fighter CAN go all the way up the TWF tree.

Yep. Also, see above.

3) Fighters get 4 + int skill points / level with the following skills added to their list; Listen, Spot, Survival.

I'd add Diplomacy to that list, for "leader of men" types.

4) If using Tome of Battle, each level in Fighter counts as an initiator level for any maneuver using class, including fighters who use bonus feats to take maneuvers and stances.

Yep.

[Vaz]

Play a Warblade, or play 5th edition.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Don't give fighters feats every level. They get plenty as is. Instead give them class features in those dead levels so they feel like fighters.
Also use the wagon group rules; those favor mundanes a bit and fighters are the only class to get 4+Basic

Some thoughts: reduce or even remove non-proficiency penalties; the ability to take 10/20 on an attack roll; the ability to swap weapons more freely, including faster stowing; anything that rewards them for taking large feat chains beyond the feats themselves.

[Flickerdart]

Let fighters do things beyond attacking. Attacking is boring and easily countered.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Can anyone see anything majorly overpowering about these changes?

Nope. I also don't see anything tremendously useful about the changes either, apart from the skill boost which should be a universal rule. As stanprollyright mentioned, all it really means is that you get your schtick early. There might be some sweet spot where you've taken your first schtick as far as you can go within level-based limits and the second one you've started on isn't obsolete yet, but...

The best easy thing to do with the Fighter, in my opinion, is to gestalt it with another crappy martial class. Cross them with a Marshal and now you have an actually respectable battlefield leader type; cross them with a Knight (and take Wild Cohort) and you have a very well-rounded mounted tank; heck, cross them with a Monk and you have... well, okay, it's still pretty crappy, but it's at least a marginally more capable brawler.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Nope. I also don't see anything tremendously useful about the changes either, apart from the skill boost which should be a universal rule. As stanprollyright mentioned, all it really means is that you get your schtick early. There might be some sweet spot where you've taken your first schtick as far as you can go within level-based limits and the second one you've started on isn't obsolete yet, but...

The best easy thing to do with the Fighter, in my opinion, is to gestalt it with another crappy martial class. Cross them with a Marshal and now you have an actually respectable battlefield leader type; cross them with a Knight (and take Wild Cohort) and you have a very well-rounded mounted tank; heck, cross them with a Monk and you have... well, okay, it's still pretty crappy, but it's at least a marginally more capable brawler.

This, really.

If you want to stay with semi-official 'fighter' abilities, you can have some fun by giving all fighters every ACF at once (as a pseudo-gestalt of variant fighters), including useful abilities such as Dungeoncrasher, Hit-and-Run, Zhentarim fighter, dead level improvements, Thug variant, sneak attack variant, Exoticist and Kensai variants, and all other stuff you can accumulate from various obscure sources. That gets you a pretty decent chassis, though it's still not exactly top-notch.

[Flickerdart]

This, really.

If you want to stay with semi-official 'fighter' abilities, you can have some fun by giving all fighters every ACF at once (as a pseudo-gestalt of variant fighters), including useful abilities such as Dungeoncrasher, Hit-and-Run, Zhentarim fighter, dead level improvements, Thug variant, sneak attack variant, Exoticist and Kensai variants, and all other stuff you can accumulate from various obscure sources. That gets you a pretty decent chassis, though it's still not exactly top-notch.

Then you end up with a fighter that's really really good at damage, but the fighter has no problem being good at damage. Making it too good at damage just makes the DM more likely to use encounters that "walk up and gank" doesn't solve. And this fighter is not really better than the regular fighter at addressing those encounters.

[Pleh]

Don't give fighters feats every level. They get plenty as is. Instead give them class features in those dead levels so they feel like fighters.
Also use the wagon group rules; those favor mundanes a bit and fighters are the only class to get 4+Basic

Some thoughts: reduce or even remove non-proficiency penalties; the ability to take 10/20 on an attack roll; the ability to swap weapons more freely, including faster stowing; anything that rewards them for taking large feat chains beyond the feats themselves.

I really like some of these thoughts. Taking 10/20 on an attack roll is very interesting, since normally for skills it means you keep trying until you eventually succeed. For attacks, this would mean you literally attack 10 times to take 10, assuming that with 10 tries, you will get the result of a 10 once.

I can see this as almost like a martial strategy of swinging wildly and aggressively, but in a controlled and tactical manner that only trained experts can manage. You know that 90% of your attacks will fail, but 1 of them will absolutely land (assuming you only need to roll 10 to hit). This puts pressure on your enemies in a similar sense that Swarms do to players. Any round they don't actively avoid being too close to you, you can auto hit them just by incessantly attacking them.

I was taught similar tactics in soccer, where half the point in provoking the enemy had less to do with actually taking the ball and more to do with putting pressure on the opponent to make them mess up and lose control. Kind of reminds me of the Mageslayer feat, which you could bundle into this as an advancement on this class feature.

For example, at level 3 fighters can take 10 on attacks (assuming they full attack). At 5th level, they get Mageslayer if they take 10 on attacks. At 7th level, they can take 20 on attacks. At 11th level, they can take 10 as a standard action (because they have enough attacks from BAB to justify this many attacks per round anyway). And so on and so forth.

[stanprollyright]

I really like some of these thoughts. Taking 10/20 on an attack roll is very interesting, since normally for skills it means you keep trying until you eventually succeed. For attacks, this would mean you literally attack 10 times to take 10, assuming that with 10 tries, you will get the result of a 10 once.

That's...not how taking 10 works.

[Grod_The_Giant]

This, really.

If you want to stay with semi-official 'fighter' abilities, you can have some fun by giving all fighters every ACF at once (as a pseudo-gestalt of variant fighters), including useful abilities such as Dungeoncrasher, Hit-and-Run, Zhentarim fighter, dead level improvements, Thug variant, sneak attack variant, Exoticist and Kensai variants, and all other stuff you can accumulate from various obscure sources. That gets you a pretty decent chassis, though it's still not exactly top-notch.

Dungeoncrasher + Zhentarim + Thug + Dead Levels, especially if you ignore the usual tradeoffs, gives you a pretty solid character for the first ten levels or so. Trails off at the end, but not terrible at the start-- you have a special attack, good intimidation, some decent skill points and charisma skills.

[stanprollyright]

+ free skill tricks. Perfect!

[Âmesang]

There's also the Complete Champion ACFs which, as far as I can tell, would stack with at least Zhentarim and Dungeoncrasher (and Thug if you don't take the sneak attack variant).

To add in a bit of AD&D flavor I suppose one could give the fighter Leadership as a bonus feat.

[Pleh]

That's...not how taking 10 works.

Eh, I was thinking of Taking 20 rules and how it was described to me by other players.

Taking 20 [SRD]
When you have plenty of time (generally 2 minutes for a skill that can normally be checked in 1 round, one full-round action, or one standard action), you are faced with no threats or distractions, and the skill being attempted carries no penalties for failure, you can take 20. In other words, eventually you will get a 20 on 1d20 if you roll enough times. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, just calculate your result as if you had rolled a 20.

Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding. Taking 20 takes twenty times as long as making a single check would take.

Since taking 20 assumes that the character will fail many times before succeeding, if you did attempt to take 20 on a skill that carries penalties for failure, your character would automatically incur those penalties before he or she could complete the task. Common “take 20” skills include Escape Artist, Open Lock, and Search.

You're right that Taking 10 isn't worded this way. I had just misremembered that they don't both work this way.

[John Longarrow]

OK, ignoring most of the posts that don't answer the question posed, the biggest change should be in class skills to allow more non-combat options? Cool.

[Flickerdart]

OK, ignoring most of the posts that don't answer the question posed, the biggest change should be in class skills to allow more non-combat options? Cool.

Skills are rubbish, the fighter needs class features that do unique stuff.

[John Longarrow]

Skills are rubbish, the fighter needs class features that do unique stuff.

Such as?

I'm going with a bonus feat every level since most "class features" for melee combatants are focused on doing more in melee. I'm letting players choose how they want their fighter to progress instead of taking pathfinders "Better with armor / better with weapons" class features ever odd level.

[Troacctid]

Then you end up with a fighter that's really really good at damage, but the fighter has no problem being good at damage. Making it too good at damage just makes the DM more likely to use encounters that "walk up and gank" doesn't solve. And this fighter is not really better than the regular fighter at addressing those encounters.

Strongly disagree. The biggest problem with Fighter is that it doesn't excel at its niche. Pushing its combat power is the best thing you can do for the class. (Also more skill points and class skills.)

And Fighters do have problems dealing damage reliably. They're MAD, they need a full-round action for everything, and don't even talk to me about archery or TWF, they're so nerfed it's just sad.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Such as?

I'm going with a bonus feat every level since most "class features" for melee combatants are focused on doing more in melee. I'm letting players choose how they want their fighter to progress instead of taking pathfinders "Better with armor / better with weapons" class features ever odd level.

Depends; are you looking for quick-ish tweaks ("gestalt with the Marshal") or full rewrites?

[John Longarrow]

Depends; are you looking for quick-ish tweaks ("gestalt with the Marshal") or full rewrites?

I'm looking for something that will let a player build the melee combatant they want without forcing them into some hard coded path where some of the AFCs don't match their character concept so become useless.

If you want to build a fighter who doesn't use armor but dual wields being given something that helps with armor is useless an effectively a dead level.

Being a fighter who uses two handed weapons but receiving a class feature that helps with shield is a dead level.

Most of the "Fixes" I see don't let players build what they want or push when they get it to the point its not very relevant.

I'm all for letting my players build what they want. My next big project is going to be adding additional feats to the fighter bonus feat list. I don't want them to feel they have to build something because that is how the class features go.

[Ruslan]

The best easy thing to do with the Fighter, in my opinion, is to gestalt it with another crappy martial class. Cross them with a Marshal and now you have an actually respectable battlefield leader type; cross them with a Knight (and take Wild Cohort) and you have a very well-rounded mounted tank; heck, cross them with a Monk and you have... well, okay, it's still pretty crappy, but it's at least a marginally more capable brawler.

I have always felt that the Fighter should not really exist as a standalone class, and this ^^^^^ is the right solution for it. It's just not interesting enough. In fact, my attempt at "fixed D&D" had three martial classes: Templar (which is really Paladin//Fighter), Berserker (which is really Barbarian//Fighter without heavy armor) and Hunter (which is really Ranger//Fighter without heavy or medium armor). The Marshal//Fighter class is a great idea, I should have added it in there!

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm looking for something that will let a player build the melee combatant they want without forcing them into some hard coded path where some of the AFCs don't match their character concept so become useless.

So... you want a Fighter rewrite with a very broad chassis that can be used for virtually any sort of martial combatant? My fix (linked earlier) might or might not be to your taste, then; you do pick between being a perceptive, intelligent, or charismatic fighter, each granting access to different pools of special abilities, but the base chassis is more of a "I can do all the mundane fighty things" with bonuses to all physical actions and the ability to switch between different sets of bonus feats. Jiriku's version might fit a bit better, though; it pairs a general chassis upgrade with a bunch of new archetypes and a crapton of new, Fighter-specific feats.

[John Longarrow]

For my personal style of character creation I look at classes as 'mechanics that can be added to a character concept'. I never make any character a straight class mostly because none fit a theme I'd want to play.

With fighter, the 9 levels where you receive no addition beside BAB, HP, and a small number of skill points don't help with most character concepts so I rarely see more than 2 levels in "Fighter" for builds I play or for those in the groups I've played in.

This isn't because no one would want to play a melee-centric build, its because getting those builds to work by a reasonable level doesn't include more than two levels in fighter. If your builds is feat-centric, most often you will shop for classes (base or prestige) that give you those feats early.

[Nifft]

Remove the Fighter from the game entirely.

Give all the "martial" classes a bunch of bonus feats.

[Arbane]

Skills are rubbish, the fighter needs class features that do unique stuff.

I'm not disagreeing, but what class features can a 17th level Fighter have that will

a: Be even vaguely close to the Win Button capacity of 9th-level spellcasting and
b: Not outrage the Caster Supremacy fans?

[PacMan2247]

Such as?

I'm going with a bonus feat every level since most "class features" for melee combatants are focused on doing more in melee. I'm letting players choose how they want their fighter to progress instead of taking pathfinders "Better with armor / better with weapons" class features ever odd level.

There's always the 2nd ed. answer of giving them a keep at tenth level (or thereabouts, you'd probably want it on an odd-numbered level); works particularly well if you take the suggestion of Leadership as a bonus feat. I've had the misfortune of being involved with a lot of murderhobos who get upset when the DM decides to have something come back around to bite them in the backside; despite following the story development and making long-term plans for things they want to do to NPCs, they're never really invested in the world and are always surprised when their actions have consequences. I'm a fan of getting players invested by making them design part of the world.

[DMVerdandi]

Things I would do:

Make the fighter the wizard of melee/martial adepts.

1. Give them their own initiator progression. with maneuvers prepared, rather than maneuvers known. Have maneuvers prepared max out at ten. Then have maneuvers readied stop at 5, and stances prepared end at two. Also have it so that the fighter cannot benefit from the feats "Adaptive style, Extra granted maneuver, Extra readied maneuver, Martial Stance, and Martial Study"

Spoiler

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Level	Maneuvers Prepared	Maneuvers Readied	Stances prepared	ROLLING BONUS FEATS
1	3	3	1	1
10	5	5	2	5
20	10	5	2	10

2. Give them the capability to learn martial maneuvers from doing a martial lore check with a martial script, just as wizards are able to With spells. Also give them scribe martial script at level 1.


3. Do not increase fighter feats, but instead make the feats that they get rolling feats(changeable every day after rest). And give them the ability to purchase any feat they qualify for, not just bonus fighter feats.

Spoiler

Show

4. 4+ int skills with these skills
Climb,Craft,Diplomacy,Hide,Intimidate,Jump,Listen, Martial Lore, Move Silently,Ride,Spot,Survival,Swim,Tumble,Use Rope,Heal,
Knowledge(War,Weaponry,Tactics,Dungeoneering,Geogr aphy,)

Voila.