Returning the Fighter to relevance.

[Cosi]

I've heard it phrased as: "Just because the problem can be fixed by houserules doesn't mean there isn't a problem."

Yes. There's another quote to the effect of "Rule Zero is the best solution for a game, but the worst solution for the game". If the Fighter at your table has problems, you should absolutely give them a totally arbitrary artifact sword that has whatever powers they need to be competitive. However, when talking about how the game should work, that kind of thing needs to be explicit in the rules of the class.

I don't think much of the 'spotlight balance' thing. Using that logic, someone could play a Commoner, and get the spotlight with their inept flailing. Great, but it doesn't make the Commoner any more useful to have around.

Spotlight balance is an important tool for game balance. If characters have different abilities, designing encounters around the capabilities of a specific character can be a good way to address game specific imbalance (poor build choices, less player skill). It's not a panacea, and as you point out there are levels of inequality it can't cross, but it's definitely a tool the game can and should support.

1st question is: why is the planeshifting dragon a threat?
I would guess because it is causing trouble in the material plane and somebody asked the party to deal with it.

What if it's causing trouble on any other plane? There are dozens of those things, and many of them are home to people with cooler stuff than you.

Still, different classes have different specialisations and planar travel is not the fighter's specialisation, doing and taking damage and being able to bring the heat after all other classes have used up their spels/dailies is.

So what is the Fighter's specialization? Where do I say "boy, I'd like a Fighter here"? Bear in mind that "combat" is not a good answer, because everyone is expected to contribute in combat, and making the Fighter mandatory for that just recreates the Cleric problem.

[Morphic tide]

So what is the Fighter's specialization? Where do I say "boy, I'd like a Fighter here"? Bear in mind that "combat" is not a good answer, because everyone is expected to contribute in combat, and making the Fighter mandatory for that just recreates the Cleric problem.

The Fighter's specialization is fighting 'till they drop. That's... About all a Fighter can have as a proper specialization, because the ideal Fighter could use basically any type of combat style that doesn't flatly require magic to exist. Replace short range Teleports with Jumping Charges and you have that crazy manoeuvrability style available. So... Horde of Arbitrary Number of Kobolds? Where nobody else in the party can hope to last the fighting long enough for help to arrive? I mean, you'd need a fairly specific magic item for draining life, but there are ways to pull that off (particularly if you make a Use Activated Psionic Item for one of the life drain things Psychic Warriors have). The Fighter has no uses-per-day limit to hold them back from fighting 'till their HP runs out.

So, Fighters are the endurance combat class. No uses limit, high(ish) HP, potentially bull**** AC... They can fight really freaking long as is, especially if they have some form of continuous healing.

[Arbane]

So, Fighters are the endurance combat class. No uses limit, high(ish) HP, potentially bull**** AC... They can fight really freaking long as is, especially if they have some form of continuous healing.

Unfortunately, they don't really have the saving throws or touch AC for that to be a good role. (PF has done some things to help the saves, at least.)
A Paladin can get just as good an AC, unless I've missed something, and they or the Barbarian can hit just as hard. (Barbs don't HAVE to use Rage all the time...)

[Karl Aegis]

The Fighter's specialization is fighting 'till they drop. That's... About all a Fighter can have as a proper specialization, because the ideal Fighter could use basically any type of combat style that doesn't flatly require magic to exist. Replace short range Teleports with Jumping Charges and you have that crazy manoeuvrability style available. So... Horde of Arbitrary Number of Kobolds? Where nobody else in the party can hope to last the fighting long enough for help to arrive? I mean, you'd need a fairly specific magic item for draining life, but there are ways to pull that off (particularly if you make a Use Activated Psionic Item for one of the life drain things Psychic Warriors have). The Fighter has no uses-per-day limit to hold them back from fighting 'till their HP runs out.

So, Fighters are the endurance combat class. No uses limit, high(ish) HP, potentially bull**** AC... They can fight really freaking long as is, especially if they have some form of continuous healing.

Shrink Item deals with your arbitrary horde of kobolds. Place something between the horde and you and you don't have to waste anything else on them. Something heavy enough that it'll take a while for a low strength small race to move. Then you don't have to deal with Favored Class: Sorcerers shooting Magic Missile until you drop.

[Keltest]

What if it's causing trouble on any other plane? There are dozens of those things, and many of them are home to people with cooler stuff than you.

Counter question: If its not on the same plane as me, why is it my problem? Since this is predicated on the fighter not having access to plane shift, there cant be anything he really cares about on the other planes since he's never been there to form an attachment to anything.

The only reason I can think of is that the fighter has a beef with this particular dragon, at which point "i need to go to this exact location on this exact plane at this exact time" seems a specific enough circumstance that its acceptable for the plane shift to not come built into his kit.

[Zale]

Still, different classes have different specialisations and planar travel is not the fighter's specialisation, doing and taking damage and being able to bring the heat after all other classes have used up their spels/dailies is.

I mean, I honestly feel like Fighters will run out of health before the spellcasters do magic.

And by the we're plane shifting, the Druid probably spends all day as a Dire Paragon Sharktopus or something.

Druids man, they're ridiculous.

The Fighter's specialization is fighting 'till they drop. That's... About all a Fighter can have as a proper specialization, because the ideal Fighter could use basically any type of combat style that doesn't flatly require magic to exist. Replace short range Teleports with Jumping Charges and you have that crazy manoeuvrability style available. So... Horde of Arbitrary Number of Kobolds? Where nobody else in the party can hope to last the fighting long enough for help to arrive? I mean, you'd need a fairly specific magic item for draining life, but there are ways to pull that off (particularly if you make a Use Activated Psionic Item for one of the life drain things Psychic Warriors have). The Fighter has no uses-per-day limit to hold them back from fighting 'till their HP runs out.

So, Fighters are the endurance combat class. No uses limit, high(ish) HP, potentially bull**** AC... They can fight really freaking long as is, especially if they have some form of continuous healing.

So the class without any native healing access is your go-to fighting endurance class?

[stanprollyright]

Counter question: If its not on the same plane as me, why is it my problem? Since this is predicated on the fighter not having access to plane shift, there cant be anything he really cares about on the other planes since he's never been there to form an attachment to anything.

The only reason I can think of is that the fighter has a beef with this particular dragon, at which point "i need to go to this exact location on this exact plane at this exact time" seems a specific enough circumstance that its acceptable for the plane shift to not come built into his kit.

Yeah, if you can get within range and stop it from plane shifting that should be enough. Getting to the dragon is a plot point. It's specific enough that ranks in UMD and/or Diplo can be the best tools you have to throw at it.

[digiman619]

Counter question: If its not on the same plane as me, why is it my problem? Since this is predicated on the fighter not having access to plane shift, there cant be anything he really cares about on the other planes since he's never been there to form an attachment to anything.

Are you unfamiliar with the concept of raids and skirmishes? The dragon doesn't have to live on the material plane to go raiding and **** up all your stuff. It's not staying on a different plane, it's just using plane shift as an eject button. It can jump out as soon as thinks start to go south, wait a bit to heal up and come back again. Unless you have an answer, that dragon can mess you up at-will and there is nothing you can do about it.

[Morphic tide]

I mean, I honestly feel like Fighters will run out of health before the spellcasters do magic.

And by the we're plane shifting, the Druid probably spends all day as a Dire Paragon Sharktopus or something.

Druids man, they're ridiculous.



So the class without any native healing access is your go-to fighting endurance class?

Because healing access is the only thing it should need to fight constantly without stopping(minus bodily needs). No uses limit on any effect,(as it should be, ToB betrayed Martials by using a spell-like system. Yes, it's encounter based limits, but that is an out of universe construct.) no need for magic to have some function, no strict need for anything that can be taken away. Especially if they go for an unarmed and unarmored build, then they don't even need physical equipment to work! Being useful is another question, but VoP type effects let you work around that. And no, I don't think VoP type effects should be able to fully fill in the need for magic items. Otherwise there's no reason not to get a VoP type effect Psion, who then needs absolutely no items ever.

[Zale]

Because healing access is the only thing it should need to fight constantly without stopping(minus bodily needs). No uses limit on any effect,(as it should be, ToB betrayed Martials by using a spell-like system. Yes, it's encounter based limits, but that is an out of universe construct.) no need for magic to have some function, no strict need for anything that can be taken away. Especially if they go for an unarmed and unarmored build, then they don't even need physical equipment to work! Being useful is another question, but VoP type effects let you work around that. And no, I don't think VoP type effects should be able to fully fill in the need for magic items. Otherwise there's no reason not to get a VoP type effect Psion, who then needs absolutely no items ever.

I don't know if you're being sarcastic. I mean that in the best possible way, it's just the structure of your sentence suggests sarcasm; also, because initiators can recover their expended maneuvers in combat.

A crusader can out endurance basically anything because of that, as they'll just recover maneuvers for as long as the fight goes on.

[Lans]

They are valid options. Beguiler has a class skill (and some help). Druid has a class feature (and some help). Your proposed solution of "nothing (and some help)" is not the same.

The full outline for my fighter fix is 4 more skill points a level, a choice of 2 additional class skills*, some number of feat chains that can be traded out for the swashbucker, marshal, knight or samurai class features, and the choice of a mental stat to damage at 3rd. Would a fighter getting UMD, knowledge planes** and and ability to boost those skills satisfy your requirement?

*This was part of a global patch where me and my DM decided to give the tier 5 classes this across the board.

**We are going to allow locating and opening portals to other planes with this skill.

[Zale]

As far as fixing fighters goes, I'm partial to stealing a mechanic for this and making it a fighter class feature that they can just purchase additional feats with gold/exp.

It wouldn't make them great, but it would at least allow for a bit more flexible growth. So instead of being forever useless when faced with something like a flying foe, a fighter can just go train for a week with some elves or something and come back with five archery related feats.

It also would give them a niche at least, in that eventually they can just master every single style of combat by slowly buying all the feats and growing horizontally such that they actually have some in-combat versatility.

But even with every feat the qualify for, Fighters would still have problems competing with the power of magic.

[Ivogel]

For healing, a fighter could take the combat vigor feat (with combat focus feats, which are good) for fast healing 4.

A keen bodyfeeder falchion (crit range 14-20) could give massive temp hp with every crit when used with power attack and other damage boosters.

Also healing hp should not be a problem for a level 20 party.


In regards to the planar thing, a planar fighter gets this (from planar handbook)

Aura of Stability (Su): As a standard action, a planar fighter of 12th level or higher can activate a dimensional anchor effect on himself with a duration of a number of rounds equal to his class level. In addition, anyone with whom he is grappling is likewise affected by the dimensional anchor ability while they are grappling. Spell resistance applies, and the caster level of the ability equals the fighter's class level.
This benefit replaces the bonus feat gained by a standard fighter at 12th level.

So you could make some kind of grapple monstrosity i guess to grappke a freaking but i don't think that would be very good.

[Keltest]

Are you unfamiliar with the concept of raids and skirmishes? The dragon doesn't have to live on the material plane to go raiding and **** up all your stuff. It's not staying on a different plane, it's just using plane shift as an eject button. It can jump out as soon as thinks start to go south, wait a bit to heal up and come back again. Unless you have an answer, that dragon can mess you up at-will and there is nothing you can do about it.

If the dragon is retreating to go heal, its more like the dragon can get itself messed up by me at will. I don't need to actually kill the dragon to solve the problem here, just convince it that continuing to raid and pillage in this plane is going to be more trouble and pain than its worth.

[Milo v3]

If the dragon is retreating to go heal, its more like the dragon can get itself messed up by me at will. I don't need to actually kill the dragon to solve the problem here, just convince it that continuing to raid and pillage in this plane is going to be more trouble and pain than its worth.

Because all fighters have alignments that support the mindset of "Evil is fine as long as it's not in my backyard"?

[Dr.Samurai]

The cliff notes was:
A party might not have a class but should still be able to overcome the obstacle, even if not in the same way. (Ex: The 4 Warriors of Renown go off to slay the Balor)
A member of the party should be able to participate in every encounter, even if not in the same way or at the same value added. (Ex: The Fighter should be able to contribute to a dialogue even if they would never be able to succeed themselves.)

So: Lacking a class does not invalidate an adventure and being a class does not mean forced to sit out of an encounter.

I'm not convinced that this is the right way to "balance" the class, but I understand the thinking behind it, and it's a fair enough design goal. So that I have an idea of what you guys are thinking, how are we imagining traps being dealt with by anyone that doesn't have Trapfinding?

The Oberoni Fallacy reference was to "Since I, the DM, can give the Fighter a magic item to solve the issue, there is no issue". Nobody in this thread said that, although the closest was "The Fighter can go on a quest for a Harness of No Planeshifting or something".

Thank you. I think probably where there would be most disagreement is on what qualifies as a "problem". As in, some people might think the fighter being unable to follow threats to other planes, or prevent them from escaping to other planes, is a problem in the design or balance of the class. I don't know that everyone would agree to that. So if someone says "no problem, if the lich lives on the Negative Plane of Energy, the party caster will take us, or if we don't have one we'll just pay a wizard to take us there, or quest to Necropolis and step through the Ebon Crypt gates, which is actually a portal, etc, etc." Some people might call that Oberoni, while others would think it perfectly reasonable and expected.

So, if someone were to cite the fallacy, they'd need to demonstrate why the issue is a "problem" in the first place. I'm not sure that the game assumes a fighter should be able to hop the planes through his own native abilities, so the onus is on others to prove this point, and then hover over it with the Oberoni Fallacy card.

[Cosi]

Horde of Arbitrary Number of Kobolds?

First, that's a combat problem, and orthogonal to the question of what non-combat problems you want a Fighter to solve. Before you ask "he's so good at fighting he doesn't need non-combat options" is not a solution, because it breaks the game as so as you deviate from the testing mix of combat/non-combat encounters, forces half the party to sit out every encounter, and encourages disruptive play.

Second, I don't see why the Warmage's blasting or the Necromancer's minions wouldn't be an effective solution there, and those guys (theoretically) get non-combat abilities too.

So, Fighters are the endurance combat class. No uses limit, high(ish) HP, potentially bull**** AC... They can fight really freaking long as is, especially if they have some form of continuous healing.

Sure. What do they do outside combat?

Counter question: If its not on the same plane as me, why is it my problem? Since this is predicated on the fighter not having access to plane shift, there cant be anything he really cares about on the other planes since he's never been there to form an attachment to anything.

That's circular. "The Fighter doesn't care about other planes because he can't go there, the Fighter doesn't need to go to other planes because he doesn't care about anything there." Also, planar travel is one of the hallmarks of high level play

So that I have an idea of what you guys are thinking, how are we imagining traps being dealt with by anyone that doesn't have Trapfinding?

Summon something to trigger the trap. Damage the trap till it can't function. Avoid the trap. Tank the trap. Find someone who knows how to bypass the trap and get them to tell you.

So if someone says "no problem, if the lich lives on the Negative Plane of Energy, the party caster will take us, or if we don't have one we'll just pay a wizard to take us there, or quest to Necropolis and step through the Ebon Crypt gates, which is actually a portal, etc, etc." Some people might call that Oberoni, while others would think it perfectly reasonable and expected.

The problem isn't that the Fighter can't hop planes, or can't raise the dead, or can't scry, or can't summon allies. It's that he can't do anything to solve high-level non-combat problems. The Wizard can't raise the dead, and that's totally fine because he can summon demons or scry or create things from nothing.

[John Longarrow]

Nice. Will you share it here when you have a final draft?

Not a final draft, but my work in progress is here.

[Keltest]

That's circular. "The Fighter doesn't care about other planes because he can't go there, the Fighter doesn't need to go to other planes because he doesn't care about anything there." Also, planar travel is one of the hallmarks of high level play

No it isn't? maybe if you had said "the fighter cant go to other planes", but the second is not a logical requirement of the first, or vice versa.

Because all fighters have alignments that support the mindset of "Evil is fine as long as it's not in my backyard"?

You have a point, which I addressed earlier when I mentioned that a fighter needing to hunt down this particular dragon for whatever reason is a specific enough circumstance that the solution does not wholly need to be baked into their class kit.

Furthermore, the multiverse is big. Like, really big. Any character hunting down evil for the cause of Good is, by necessity, going to have to start with the stuff closes to them. The Prime Material Plane has plenty of evil for them to fight for the rest of their life if that's their only goal.

[Dr.Samurai]

Summon something to trigger the trap. Damage the trap till it can't function. Avoid the trap. Tank the trap.

Well, without Trapfinding, you can't actually find the traps. Assuming high level (which we are for the current conversation), chances are the DCs are higher than 20. So you'll need Trapfinding to even search for them. And if they're magic, forget about trying to disable them.

So you don't know where the traps are. So you're just constantly summoning things to walk in front of you and step on every tile and touch every stone on the walls? And open every chest? And manipulate every lever and object in the dungeon?

It seems like the idea is really just "tank traps" at this point.

Find someone who knows how to bypass the trap and get them to tell you.

How is this not a "problem"? Why aren't we asking ourselves why the fighter can't natively deal with traps? Should the fighter natively be able to just handle being constantly withered by setting traps off in a dungeon, because his handle on the problem is to just tank it? Should the fighter fix ensure that he is still up to fight threats in the dungeon after taking damage from several different traps? Should he be able to natively heal himself from that trap damage without relying on gear? If he can't disarm traps like a rogue, should he then be able to natively deal with whatever the trap sets off (poison gas cloud, crushing walls, forcecage, etc)?

I don't particularly mind that the game assumes you need a trap specialist. But if the fixers in this thread are aiming to have everyone be able to "deal" with everything, I'd like to understand exactly to what extent.

The problem isn't that the Fighter can't hop planes, or can't raise the dead, or can't scry, or can't summon allies. It's that he can't do anything to solve high-level non-combat problems. The Wizard can't raise the dead, and that's totally fine because he can summon demons or scry or create things from nothing.

Has a list already been compiled in this thread of what these high-level non-combat problems are?

[Flickerdart]

So you don't know where the traps are. So you're just constantly summoning things to walk in front of you and step on every tile and touch every stone on the walls? And open every chest? And manipulate every lever and object in the dungeon?

Traps are on things that are worth protecting. It's not too hard to figure out what portions of an area would be worth trapping. It's not like a character with Trapfinding searches every single 5ft square the party walks through. That would take forever!

[Keltest]

Traps are on things that are worth protecting. It's not too hard to figure out what portions of an area would be worth trapping. It's not like a character with Trapfinding searches every single 5ft square the party walks through. That would take forever!

Isnt that sort of the point of the traps?

[Flickerdart]

Isnt that sort of the point of the traps?

If you put your traps far away from the stuff you're guarding, you raise the chances that a thief will find an alternate means of ingress and bypass your expensive gadget entirely.

[Dr.Samurai]

Traps are on things that are worth protecting. It's not too hard to figure out what portions of an area would be worth trapping. It's not like a character with Trapfinding searches every single 5ft square the party walks through. That would take forever!

Ok, so then it's not that we have a perfect solution to Trapfinding, but rather, "We're assuming traps are near things that someone would obviously protect. In those instances, I'll burn a spell slot to summon something to walk/manipulate/open in case there is a trap. In the event of trapped corridors or random pressure switches throughout the dungeon, we're flying by the seat of our pants. And in the event of traps that trigger things like the room filling with water, or the walls closing in to crush us, we recognize that a damage soak like a summoned creature might not be a reliable workaround."

That's fine. I'm just trying to gauge the level of competency we're looking for in replacing these roles/features.

[Flickerdart]

That's fine. I'm just trying to gauge the level of competency we're looking for in replacing these roles/features.

I'm typically happy with "during all encounters, the player's character can contribute something towards resolving them throughout the encounter." No class has to win every fight by themselves, but there needs to be something to do.

[Karl Aegis]

Ok, so then it's not that we have a perfect solution to Trapfinding, but rather, "We're assuming traps are near things that someone would obviously protect. In those instances, I'll burn a spell slot to summon something to walk/manipulate/open in case there is a trap. In the event of trapped corridors or random pressure switches throughout the dungeon, we're flying by the seat of our pants. And in the event of traps that trigger things like the room filling with water, or the walls closing in to crush us, we recognize that a damage soak like a summoned creature might not be a reliable workaround."

That's fine. I'm just trying to gauge the level of competency we're looking for in replacing these roles/features.

We have Shrink Item to work around those weird traps that don't really make sense in context. Cast it last week, solve every problem this week.

[OldTrees1]

I'm not convinced that this is the right way to "balance" the class, but I understand the thinking behind it, and it's a fair enough design goal. So that I have an idea of what you guys are thinking, how are we imagining traps being dealt with by anyone that doesn't have Trapfinding?

That's fine. I'm just trying to gauge the level of competency we're looking for in replacing these roles/features.

How do I imagine people not skilled in Traps would interact with Traps?

I mentioned 2 balancing criteria:
1) That a group without a competent Xer will not be stopped by Xs
2) That someone that is not a competent Xer can still contribute while the competent Xer is excelling in their field

So Traps,
1) A group of all Fighters (no trap competent Fighters in this example) is faced with a trap filled corridor. They might find some of the decoy traps or luck out and find one of the real traps, but that is not what I was talking about. No what I was talking about was merely the Fighters making it from one end of the corridor to the other. In the case of traps the ability to "trigger the traps, and survive the corridor but be severely depleted" would satisfy desire #1.

2) A Fighter is in a group of Trapsmiths of various descriptions. They also find a trap filled corridor. The Trapsmiths alone could disarm the entire corridor given time, however the Fighter's presence can make it just a bit faster/safer. In other words the Fighter can contribute a significant amount but still nowhere near as much as having another Trapsmith. Here I see the Fighter helping get the Trapsmiths into better locations, stabilizing them while they work, or even shielding them or throwing/pulling them out of harms way if a trap gets sprung.

2B) Of course there are other classes than just Fighters that might also not be Trapsmiths. A Cleric could help by ounces of preventative or pounds of cure. A Wizard could help scan with extrasensory measures and let the Trapsmiths work with the information.

Not a final draft, but my work in progress is here.

Thank you

[Flickerdart]

How do I imagine people not skilled in Traps would interact with Traps?

I mentioned 2 balancing criteria:
1) That a group without a competent Xer will not be stopped by Xs
2) That someone that is not a competent Xer can still contribute while the competent Xer is excelling in their field

For scenario 1, we could give a fighter the ability to create a tortoise formation of some sort. Every participant huddles into a Large-sized space, every participant receives some kind of defensive bonuses, but movement speed is 5ft per round. Multiple fighters could grant multiple benefits - one could guide the party's shield wall to boost AC, one could bolster their morale to increase Will saves. This formation can trundle down a corridor of traps and set them off at their leisure, since they are well-defended. At high levels, this ability might even do things like treat the group as 1 creature for the purpose of AoE effects, or pool HP (so nobody is dead unless everyone is dead).

[javcs]

This is something I said on a discussion about Caster/Noncaster Disparity (of which the Fighter is a victim), and it applies here as well:

"Mundane" is the province of low-level non-adventurer NPCs.
Adventurers (PC or otherwise) are extraordinary people by definition - a cut above the common man, so to speak - and face extraordinary threats, and should have the innate capabilities to match.
In order to succeed (or just survive) as an adventurer, you need magic or something that can provide similar/equivalent capabilities, and some way to deal with hostile magic/equivalents.


If one lives in a world that works the way the rules describe, learning a few magic/magic related skills/tricks is in one's own long-term self-interest. That's if you're not an adventurer. If you are an adventurer, learning a few magic/magic related skills/tricks is a survival imperative.
And, it's a fantasy world, mid-high level class abilities shouldn't be tethered to hard realism on what a person can physically accomplish in the real world. That means fantastic (Ex) abilities, and even some (Su) ones.


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The magical stuff you have may be limited, and your knowledge may be purely on a practical or applied level with little or no theoretical knowledge, but still.

Oh, sure, there are a few cases where a nominally non-magical class is better than magical ones (ToB classes compared to T4/lower magical classes), but those are exceptions. And some of the maneuvers are (Su), even if most are (Ex). And maneuvers are basically a variety of non-magical magic.

--


Combat feats (and their feat chains) should auto-scale as prereqs are met, thus Fighters less of a one-trick pony in combat, which would also let them spend their non-fighter bonus feats on expanding their noncombat versatility. Admittedly, that pretty much helps all noncasters, but that's not a bad thing either. That's in addition to upgrading the Fighter in general.
Actually, I think one might make some progress by combining the Fighter and the Unearthed Arcana generic Warrior class. One would have to expand the abilities list, of course. Still woefully inadequate, but slightly less so.
Of course, my "quick fix" is all T4/lower classes with full BAB get the Fighter grafted onto them wholesale (basically gestalt, but with additive skill points) with a Fighter feat at every level, and can freely use Fighter variants and ACFs instead of the standard Fighter, and Monk and Marshal have full BAB. I'm undetermined about grafting Adept or Magewright on as well, or grafting Warmage to classes with Martial Proficiency and Shadowcaster to classes with the Hide and Move Silently skills, and Healer to classes with the Heal skill.


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As for the Trapfinding discussion, there exists a spell called "Find Traps". In Core. For Magical Traps, there's Detect Magic, and at higher levels, Arcane Sight, and then to deal with it, Dispel Magic, or possibly counterspelling the trap. Also Core.
I believe that there's a Vestige that gives Trapfinding. And there's the elemental summoning Reserve feat, Bag of Tricks, etc.
Or, if one doesn't mind taking a little longer, and/or breaking things a bit more, a Warlock (with an AoE Blast Invocation) or Dragon Shaman/Dragonfire Adept, can lay down the damage before you advance down hallways.
There are other options too, some that are less appropriate for some groups than others.

The point is, there are a variety of ways around lacking a trapfinding skillmonkey class in the party. Some work better than others. Some are messier than others.

[OldTrees1]

For scenario 1, we could give a fighter the ability to create a tortoise formation of some sort. Every participant huddles into a Large-sized space, every participant receives some kind of defensive bonuses, but movement speed is 5ft per round. Multiple fighters could grant multiple benefits - one could guide the party's shield wall to boost AC, one could bolster their morale to increase Will saves. This formation can trundle down a corridor of traps and set them off at their leisure, since they are well-defended. At high levels, this ability might even do things like treat the group as 1 creature for the purpose of AoE effects, or pool HP (so nobody is dead unless everyone is dead).

I would be careful not to overdo it. A party of Fighters should not make it though nearly as easily as 3 Fighters and 1 Rogue which should not make it through as easily as 4 Rogues. Niche protection should still be a beneficial design, just not as strong of a niche protection that a role becomes required or that only players of that role get to play at that time.

In the case of Fighters and traps, I think they currently fit rather well and incidental buffs to this area via buffing other areas (like combat economy & mobility) should be more than sufficient.