Returning the Fighter to relevance.

[PacMan2247]

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?

Good questions. To respond the second one first, I'd say that's not really the issue here. If people want to get upset because a previously dismissed class is suddenly respectable, that's their problem.

The first question is really the point of the thread. There have been a couple of suggestions for more unique options that are only available to fighters, and for more options that aren't related to combat, and I'd agree on both of those counts.

As far as skills go, I've always disliked the idea of cross-class skills. By all means, limit certain skills to particular classes (it's a rare non-caster that would have much use for Spellcraft, for instance), but beyond something that's a part of specialized training, why limit it? It's like saying an accountant is going to be a crap mountain climber, or a plumber is going to be a terrible painter; individual interests are more relevant that professional training.

As far as unique options specifically related to the martial training a fighter gets, I'd love to see some spitballing. Maybe make fighters an exception to the rule that Keen and Improved Critical don't stack, for instance, or even give them access to improved crit modifiers. The 'bonus feat every level' thing isn't actually a terrible idea- it creates space for covering not just offensive feat trees, but would allow a fighter to use armor-related feats and tactical feats more broadly.

The idea isn't to make fighters outshine anyone else, but to give them back a little glow themselves. Starting from "why bother?" doesn't help that.

[Grod_The_Giant]

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?

Well, you can do A. (Or at least get close to it; it's probably healthiest to ignore outrageously broken stuff like Shapechange). You have to go deep, deep into the superhero end of mythology, but you can do it. I'm talking things like cut a castle in half with a sword, rebuild it in an hour, single-handedly, then turn an army of peasants into skilled warriors to man it. Then when a wizard shows up to take it back, you deflect his (non-touch-attack) spells back at him, follow his teleport-retreat by jumping halfway across the plane in a single bound, chop through his defenses with nothing but steely determination, and "unseam him from nave to chops". It's doable, but it looks silly as all get-out and kind of invalidates any other existing "mundane" type character.

[Troacctid]

5e kinda does it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

A.) The fighter class needs to have useful and level appropriate class features at every level that properly scale, along with its bonus feats (and to fill in the dead levels that comprise 45 friggin' percent of its totals). Use those to shore up its massive weaknesses, such as its total reliance on magic items for practically everything. Access to a class-granted flying mount or carpet or the ability to perform an anime-esque mighty leaping double-jump, or something, as examples. You could even choose one of several trees of abilities, depending on which direction you want your character to go in (such as the heavily armored mounted charger, archer, light cavalry, swashbuckler, etc).

B.) The bonus feats it gets need to scale well and increase both its power and versatility beyond "I hit it in a slightly DIFFERENT way! I even get a massively huge +2 to it!" Dodge, for instance, should apply to all enemies you're aware of, should grant +1 plus 1 at 3rd and each odd level after, and it should allow you to take an immediate action to take a 5' step some time during the round which does not affect your normal ability to move or take a 5' step for the round. I would totally consider taking it, if only for the immediate action 5' step. Such bonus feats should also be anything the character qualifies for that could conceivably be a martial combat feat (so no [item creation] or [metamagic] feats).

C.) There should be a ton of fighter-only feats that require effective fighter levels as prereqs, and these should be really, seriously great feats. Less Weapon Specialization, more Improved Whirlwind Attack and Shock Trooper.

D.) Two good saves, or some option to improve them. Everyone knows that the mundane guy who doesn't cast spells is easily dominated, so change that around. If you can pick two good saves, that covers everything from a swashbuckler to a knightly type.

E.) Widely expanded class skill list, 4 skill points per level, and options (and major benefits) for having Int-focus, if you choose to go that way. Can choose to add +Str, +Dex, +Int, +Wis, or +Con (perhaps through Concentration) to attack and damage, for instance, to reduce MAD. Have a lot more mental skills and feats that indicate discipline and a wide study of war and types of enemies. It's sad that fighters don't have a single skill that lets them know about fighting. They often don't even know how to ID enemies, including those of their own race. This could easily be covered with Knowledge skills and a class feature that acts like bardic lore, but it acts to ID enemies and to recount tactics and strategies used in historical battles, as well as helps with seeking advantageous terrain and whatnot. Call it War Lored.

I think that, with all of that covered, the fighter would be considerably more interesting, if nothing else. You'd actually have reasons to take the class to level 20, rather than our current cap of 2 (or maybe 4/6/9, if you take ACFs).

[Vaz]

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?

Be a Warblade.

[Lans]

Instead of more bonus feats have you thought about giving him feat chains like the ranger? Give him like 5 chains from a list of at least 8, that are each 5 feats deep over the 20 levels.

Also just back port the pathfinder on top of that and give him 6 skill points with listen, spot, and 2 of his choice.

[John Longarrow]

Instead of more bonus feats have you thought about giving him feat chains like the ranger? Give him like 5 chains from a list of at least 8, that are each 5 feats deep over the 20 levels.

Also just back port the pathfinder on top of that and give him 6 skill points with listen, spot, and 2 of his choice.

I looked at pathfinder's solution and some of the "Feat chain" methods people use with monks and I kept coming back to one singular issue I have with all of them; they are one writers attempt to support a given concept.

I'd much rather the player have as many options available to build the character they want rather than saying "OK, pick from one of X ways I think you should play your character".

For the concept of being able to change out feats / fighting styles, why not just let them have access to all of them all the time? Functionally its about the same.

[OldTrees1]

For the concept of being able to change out feats / fighting styles, why not just let them have access to all of them all the time? Functionally its about the same.

Initially I thought the same as you on the concept of floating feats vs more feats. The difference is that floating feats places a lower at-one-time limit so it can limit the depth of feat sets while still allowing the Fighter access to many different feat sets.

Imagine(in a hypothetical system) there are 20 fighting styles, each of which has roughly 20-30 applicable feats that combine to create and advance the fighting style thought the levels 1-20.

If I wanted to make a 10th level Fighter class under this system, I would want them to be able to access multiple fighting styles at level appropriate strengths without being able to overspecialize to the point that they are as strong as a 20th level Fighter by only having 1 fighting style. By giving the Fighter 10 floating feats they can change between 10th level fighting styles but do not have the feat slots to construct a 20th level fighting style.

Of course this works in my hypothetical system where I can make lots of baseless presumptions. You would have to alter D&D's feats a lot to reach something comparable.

[Grod_The_Giant]

For the concept of being able to change out feats / fighting styles, why not just let them have access to all of them all the time? Functionally its about the same.

The more feats you have, the more complexity. If you have twenty feats all working at the same time, it's easy to start drowning in them.

I looked at pathfinder's solution and some of the "Feat chain" methods people use with monks and I kept coming back to one singular issue I have with all of them; they are one writers attempt to support a given concept.

I'd much rather the player have as many options available to build the character they want rather than saying "OK, pick from one of X ways I think you should play your character".

But, I mean... this is a game; there will always be limits at some point, even if you're talking something like GURPS or M&M. One serious problem with trying to create an effective Fighter is how broadly defined the class is; it's very different to create an effective class if it doesn't have an identity to hang things off.

[OldTrees1]

The more feats you have, the more complexity. If you have twenty feats all working at the same time, it's easy to start drowning in them.

I don't know if that is a good argument against feats. You are talking about a class whose defining class feature is one about choosing perks from a list of perks. IMHO it is a class designed for complexity and having 20 feats does not seem unreasonable. Swordsages are running around with at least 20 things to remember already(7 feats, 12 available maneuvers, 1 current stance).In context, 27 feats at 20th does not sound that bad to me.

[John Longarrow]

The more feats you have, the more complexity. If you have twenty feats all working at the same time, it's easy to start drowning in them.

If the character has 20 feats then the player has been playing that character for a while. Character would be a 14th level human (Human bonus, 5 from leveling, 14 from fighter) so they should have a really good idea how to use the feats they have. Its also a LOT less work than the poor casters who have entire lists of spells they can choose from. I really don't think complexity would be a problem.

Note: If I could switch between 14 different trees of feats on a turn by turn basis, it may be a bit too complex, but that would be mostly a "DM's Headache" issue similar to tracking multiple status effects at the same time.

[Arbane]

. It's sad that fighters don't have a single skill that lets them know about fighting. They often don't even know how to ID enemies, including those of their own race. This could easily be covered with Knowledge skills and a class feature that acts like bardic lore, but it acts to ID enemies and to recount tactics and strategies used in historical battles, as well as helps with seeking advantageous terrain and whatnot. Call it War Lored.

I laugh at your pun, and then I agree with you. Having a way to size up enemies beyond 'see what they need to roll to hit me' is something fighty-types should have access to.

Well, you can do A. (Or at least get close to it; it's probably healthiest to ignore outrageously broken stuff like Shapechange). You have to go deep, deep into the superhero end of mythology, but you can do it. I'm talking things like cut a castle in half with a sword, rebuild it in an hour, single-handedly, then turn an army of peasants into skilled warriors to man it. Then when a wizard shows up to take it back, you deflect his (non-touch-attack) spells back at him, follow his teleport-retreat by jumping halfway across the plane in a single bound, chop through his defenses with nothing but steely determination, and "unseam him from nave to chops". It's doable, but it looks silly as all get-out and kind of invalidates any other existing "mundane" type character.

By the high levels, wizards are making pretty much every pre-D&D legendary wizard look like amateurs, so I've got no problem with needing to steal from Celtic myth & similar for the fighters.

I've also got no problem with invalidating the other 'mundanes'. Which is what, rogues? They need help too.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I laugh at your pun, and then I agree with you. Having a way to size up enemies beyond 'see what they need to roll to hit me' is something fighty-types should have access to.

It's nice to see someone taking notice.

By the high levels, wizards are making pretty much every pre-D&D legendary wizard look like amateurs, so I've got no problem with needing to steal from Celtic myth & similar for the fighters.

I've also got no problem with invalidating the other 'mundanes'. Which is what, rogues? They need help too.

This kind of stuff is doable in the system, but it's generally done via tons of optimization and magic (and not all of it is spellcasting, either). Even warriors should have innate skills that break reality; not all of those with supernatural skill should be spellcasters, and once you hit a certain level, even the mundanes aren't exactly mundane anymore, nore should they be.

[Lans]

I looked at pathfinder's solution and some of the "Feat chain" methods people use with monks and I kept coming back to one singular issue I have with all of them; they are one writers attempt to support a given concept.

I'd much rather the player have as many options available to build the character they want rather than saying "OK, pick from one of X ways I think you should play your character".

The idea is that its easier for new people, and raises the floor of suckitude. You can even ask your player what he wants to do and make chains based around that. You are already working in the confines of the fighter bonus feat list, it should't be hard to make chains that can cover the bases with 11 additional bonus feats, expecialy if you build several of the chains on what your players want.

[John Longarrow]

Just wondering how building "Chains" is better than letting the players work out what they want. I don't think its actually easier that asking what feat they want at each level.

If you want a chain of feats, you can work it out ahead of time. This is equally valid with bonus feats. Just take feat X at level Y and be done. Personally I like being able to customize more than that.

For new people using some stock builds makes sense until they learn the system. Course if you say "OK, here's the beginners builds, you'll be playing them any time you play the game" seems to miss the point of making the character the player wants to play.

[Lans]

It reduces the chances that a player makes a major mistake with his character, and forces a bit of diversity in the build so his class abilities are useful in more situations. I think it will be better for newer or less skilled players, and by spreading out the feats in chains you can spread the power out. Giving access to feat chains this way is less vertical power and more horizontal power.

[John Longarrow]

It reduces the chances that a player makes a major mistake with his character, and forces a bit of diversity in the build so his class abilities are useful in more situations. I think it will be better for newer or less skilled players, and by spreading out the feats in chains you can spread the power out. Giving access to feat chains this way is less vertical power and more horizontal power.

So your proposing this as an aid to new gamers and a way to reduce the ability of fighters to maximize their combat potential?

As an aid that can be followed for new gamers, this makes a lot of sense. A "If you want a build that is defensive, choose "A". If you want a good two weapon fighter, choose "B". If you want an archer, Choose "C". No problem with that.

As far as trying to give versatility at the expense of top end ability, that is pretty much the opposite of what I'm looking for. Reducing power would mean players simply don't use the class, especially if its stuck with 'feat chains' that don't come on line quickly.

A 6th level fighter should be able to do something really really well. If they can't, why take any levels in fighter? If you can choose from a dozen other melee classes that work better than a fighter the class is less relevant. I'd never play a fighter when there is an intent to make them less capable at their signature function.

[OldTrees1]

As far as trying to give versatility at the expense of top end ability, that is pretty much the opposite of what I'm looking for. Reducing power would mean players simply don't use the class, especially if its stuck with 'feat chains' that don't come on line quickly.

A 6th level fighter should be able to do something really really well. If they can't, why take any levels in fighter? If you can choose from a dozen other melee classes that work better than a fighter the class is less relevant. I'd never play a fighter when there is an intent to make them less capable at their signature function.

I am not sure it is the opposite of what you are looking for. Fighter currently suffers in both the vertical and horizontal departments. The most consistent way to increase the vertical issue is to give it more feats (and write feats with the design in mind). However this leads to the balance issue where Fighters become one trick ponies in order to reach the balance point you intended. By also including mechanics to force horizontal improvements (floating feats or feat chains) you can make Fighters relevant both vertically and horizontally.

Imagine the skill system as an analogy for a moment. Each skill represents a fighting style and each skill point is a bonus feat. Currently Fighters get too few points and thus they end up too weak even if they overspecialize. If we give them more fighting style points, then they would spend them all in one fighting style in order to reach level appropriate amounts of power. However that is like a rogue with max ranks in Search & no other skills at all. However if we increase the number of points further they will continue to invest in that single fighting style even beyond level appropriate amounts. However if we add a maximum rank system, then we could give the fighter more than 1 fighting style's worth of points and not risk them overspecializing to the point of being overpowered.

In order to make Fighter relevant you need to give them more power than the minimum to make 1 fighting style powerful enough to be level appropriate, but without resulting in Fighters becoming overpowered. So some limit other than scare resources needs to prevent overspecialization.

Although I am not a fan of using feat chains to that end. The feat retraining / floating feat idea seems nicer.

[Morphic tide]

I'll give my ideas on fixing Fighters:

1. Integrate some CW Samurai things. No, I'm not joking, there are builds that pull DC 43 Intimidate, with Panicked on failure, using CW Samurai. This is save or suck AoE on a martial class with existing rules. The situational feat equivalents also give a place to start with more concrete character choices, like Ranger's Fighting Styles. Generally, look at the things in below-t3-classes and see what fits the mundane classes.

2. Give options for doing things that are useful outside combat, like counting Intimidate as half-ranks in Diplomacy, with a limit of your actual Diplomacy ranks to this bonus. Furthermore, giving more stuff to do with Intimidate than just inflict some debuffs would make Intimidate catch up with Diplomacy, by extension making the typical Diplomancer less ahead of Intimidate. Stuff like Moral minuses to Will and Ref, or AC.

3. Disables. We lack some iconic dirty fighting tricks of history in D&D, like attempting to cut often exposed tendons and muscles to cripple. Knocking prone can be made easier. Cutting arteries is a magic item effect(well, Wounding just makes the wound bleed more, but it's the same result), why not make it a feat? Generally, a bunch of injury based debuffs that need varying levels of magic to heal.

4. Make TWF worth it. Why does TWF only add one extra attack? The disadvantages of TWF should be accuracy penalties to all attacks, with the advantage being multiplied attacks, at least at higher levels. Turn TWF into a tree, rather than just a chain. You have the basic accuracy penalty negation, you can get more attacks, you can have effects built around the issues of dodging so many attacks.

5. Make ranged weapons worth it. Multishot in particular can be adjusted around TWF's reworked attack multiplying, perhaps making it so that no one shot can hit the same target. This would neatly give you something to build on, as you now have something to work with for a chain. Increased accuracy, limitation bypasses, added effects and so on, based on what Multishot does. Namely fill the air with well aimed shots.

6. To retain balance, give two handers stuff that has similar effects to attack multiplying. Multiplied damage, AC bypass, Strength to damage boosts and so on as feats, arranged in a chain. The difference between AC bypass and to-hit bonus is that AC bypass only goes up to the target's AC for effect, while to-hit directly counters penalties. And AC bypass can be type limited, like only reducing Dex and Dodge bonuses to AC.

7. Turn the Weapon Focus stuff into a tree, instead of a lengthy chain. You start at weapon focus, get your specialization tree separately with only the base weapon focus needed, add some general attack boosting stuff in there and giving stuff like Lightning Mace for more broad weapon types, like Bows, Swords, blunt-things-in-general and so on. More effects based on damage type than weapon type, really...

8. Make armor-based feats. Lowered Armor Penalty, added AC of various types, doing stuff with shields outside of just having it for AC, bonuses based on what the type of armor is and so on. Stuff like Dodge AC and added to-hit in Light Armor, gaining bonuses to various effects for having a shield locked behind feats, extra penalty reduction in Heavy Armor and so on.

9. Remove the Fighter level requirements from feats. The Fighter will be using their bonus feats to buy stuff on the level of class features by sheer number of feats, leaving the feats open to other classes lets them share the bounty of being able to buy useful abilities that come with high feat taxes that only Fighters can treat as casual. The Fighter can afford to grab a lot more than them, and those other Martial classes have their own feat taxes...

[Morphic tide]

I am not sure it is the opposite of what you are looking for. Fighter currently suffers in both the vertical and horizontal departments. The most consistent way to increase the vertical issue is to give it more feats (and write feats with the design in mind). However this leads to the balance issue where Fighters become one trick ponies in order to reach the balance point you intended. By also including mechanics to force horizontal improvements (floating feats or feat chains) you can make Fighters relevant both vertically and horizontally.

Imagine the skill system as an analogy for a moment. Each skill represents a fighting style and each skill point is a bonus feat. Currently Fighters get too few points and thus they end up too weak even if they overspecialize. If we give them more fighting style points, then they would spend them all in one fighting style in order to reach level appropriate amounts of power. However that is like a rogue with max ranks in Search & no other skills at all. However if we increase the number of points further they will continue to invest in that single fighting style even beyond level appropriate amounts. However if we add a maximum rank system, then we could give the fighter more than 1 fighting style's worth of points and not risk them overspecializing to the point of being overpowered.

In order to make Fighter relevant you need to give them more power than the minimum to make 1 fighting style powerful enough to be level appropriate, but without resulting in Fighters becoming overpowered. So some limit other than scare resources needs to prevent overspecialization.

Although I am not a fan of using feat chains to that end. The feat retraining / floating feat idea seems nicer.

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to pick at this. Fighters are already able to get close to level relevant amounts of direct combat power as-is. It's that they have almost nothing in terms of non-combat things, and several types of fighting just don't work well enough to be worth it. The best Fighter build in core is a two hander wielding charger that SPINS TO WIN/runs to cut off heads once they hit the charge. Nothing else works properly at the level needed to be relevant, but that's not as much of a problem.

The problem, again, is that Fighters have literally nothing in-class for non-combat focuses. There are a tiny number of skills with non-combat uses that the Fighter has, and most are travel mechanics skills. Give skill synergy feats as an option to everyone, give feats that allow for using alternate attributes for skills and loosen the limits on what the Fighter can grab as bonus feats. Then, the Fighter can grab feats that give them some capacity in non-combat things.

For the example of skill synergy feats I'll go with, let's use Intimidate as an example. In this case, the first one would make you have a +2 in Diplomacy, Bluff and Sense Motive, while giving you a +2 bonus to Intimidate for each one of those that is above 5, except for Bluff. Essentially, the first feat makes these skills two-way synergies. This is already a notable boost to the Fighter's out of combat stuff. The second feat, however, would replace that effect for bonus to Intimidate counting as half-ranks in the linked skills. This makes it so that a Fighter is functionally maxing out these linked skills if they can invest max skill ranks in them all. Or, more accurately, has half the proficiency in those three other skills that they have in Intimidate, with any insane boosts counting. Of course, this makes Glibness even more insane...

As for feat chains, I prefer feat trees, where you have a base feat chain that branches out into several chains and single feats, all linked together thematically.

[Lans]

So your proposing this as an aid to new gamers and a way to reduce the ability of fighters to maximize their combat potential?

As far as trying to give versatility at the expense of top end ability, that is pretty much the opposite of what I'm looking for. Reducing power would mean players simply don't use the class, especially if its stuck with 'feat chains' that don't come on line quickly.

A 6th level fighter should be able to do something really really well. If they can't, why take any levels in fighter? If you can choose from a dozen other melee classes that work better than a fighter the class is less relevant. I'd never play a fighter when there is an intent to make them less capable at their signature function.

I'm not looking at reducing top level ability, they still would get the 11 bonus feats, so at 5th they would have 2 styles with 2 feats each, and 3 bonus feats. At 10th they would pick up a new style gain 3 feats for that style, and gain a feat for each of the previous styles, and a regular bonus feat. If you think thats not enough you can give a style every 3 or 4 levels and make them 6 or 7 feats deep.

Edit- I would also re tilt the chains so they are only 7 feats deep.

[Metahuman1]

Spoiler: Length.

Show

On phone sorry for spelling.






First Level Class Features:

Chassie: Full BAB. D10 HD. All Good Saves.


Proficenty: A fighter is proficient with ALL Armors, Shield's and Weapons. Including Improvised weapons.

Skills: 4 + Int Mod. Choose one of three class skill packages. 1: Search. Hide. Slight of Hand. Escape Artist. Move Silently. Survival. 2: Diplomacy. Bluff. Sense Motive. Gather information. Forgery. Disguise. Slight of Hand. 3: Spell Craft. All Knowledge Skills. (If in a game were specialized skills are used for certain information, like Martial Lore in a Tome of Battle Enabled Game, those are also part of this package. )


Mighty Range: A fighter uses his choice of Strength or Dex and adds it to both attack and damage rolls when throwing a weapon. Further, a fighter using a bow or cross bow or other none thrown ranged weapon can apply power attack to shots taken with it, and his ?Str Mod to damage, even if the weapon normally does not allow this. He also adds an additional 20ft of range to the weapon if it is not a Composite Bow.

Note: This helps keep the ranged attack users in the game.

Trained charge: A fighter who charges can, at the end of the charge, preform a full attack action. This works as the Pounce Ability.

Decisive Blow. Works as the monks Decisive Strike Class feature. However, it can be used in conjunction with other full round actions, such as full attacks or charges. And it can be used on any weapon the fighter is proficient with. It Multiplies damage from extra weight or falling if improvised and/or thrown weapons in use.

3rd Level: Uncanny dodge.

Evasion.

Foot Work: A fighter may use his swift action to move up to the distance he could using a move action and any form of movement he has access to.

5th Level: Aptitude: A fighter may spend one full round action retraining a feat for another that he otherwise meets the prequiqisies for. He can do this on as many feats as he wishes when ever he makes use of this class feature.

Play to your talents: A fighter can Assign a none standard attribute to one save, group of skills (Group defined as skills that use the same attribute for the purposes of this class feature.), feat dependent on an attribute (such as Combat Reflexes.) or to there armor class or initive checks, for every 3 fighter levels he has. For example, a fighter can choose to base his reflex save on constitution, initive on strength, or Combat Reflexes uses per round on Intelligence.

Once picked these cannot be changed until the next level is gained.

7th Level: Metal.

Improved Uncanny dodge.

Improved Decisive Blow: You may now use this feature on or with your choice of a standard action or full round action attack.

9th Level: Defensive Roll.

Sturdy: A fighter may treat himself as One size Category larger then he really is for Combat maneuver's and other situations were being larger is beneficial (such as resisting swallow whole.), for every 2 fighter levels he has, up to a maximum of colossal + Size category. This does not increase Reach, attributes, weapon damage size/size of weapon that may be used, or space taken up by the fighter.

11th level class features. Improved Evasion.

Superior Decisive Blow: You may now use decisive blow on any attack with out expending actions.

13th level class feature: Improved Sturdy: A fighter, in addition to the described bonuses on combat maneuver checks from Sturdy, gains a +4 per size category bonus he has unlocked. Once he is gaining bonuses equal to Size category Colossal +, he does not keep gaining improvements to this extra bonus.

15th Level class feature: Tactical movement. Through bursts of adrenaline, you may move supernaturally fast. You may, as a swift action, teleport up to as far as you could with a move action. This effect is supernatural, and countered by Dimensional Anchor, Anticipate Teleport, and Antimagic Field, as if it were a spell.

17th level class feature: Customization. A fighter may spend an hour, focusing his near super human understanding of combat, to infuse normal weapons and armor with magical properties. If he sells these items, the link is broken by the symbolic action, and they become mundane again. This feature otherwise works as the Kensai's signature weapon ability, but can be applied to as many weapons and armors as the fighter wishes.

20th level class feature: Devastating accuracy. A fighter may take 20 on attack rolls. They may choose to take this even after they have rolled a given attack roll. by taking 20, they forgo the benefits of a critical hit for that given attack.



Assume a normal fighter bonus feat progression in play.

[OldTrees1]

Sorry for the double post, but I wanted to pick at this. Fighters are already able to get close to level relevant amounts of direct combat power as-is. It's that they have almost nothing in terms of non-combat things, and several types of fighting just don't work well enough to be worth it. The best Fighter build in core is a two hander wielding charger that SPINS TO WIN/runs to cut off heads once they hit the charge. Nothing else works properly at the level needed to be relevant, but that's not as much of a problem.

Do not confuse the damage per hit of the single fighting style for being able to reach level relevant amounts of power in that or other fighting styles.

1) You have to reach your foe before an attack roll is even relevant (I have not seen a transdimensional aerial charge). Then you need to make sure that the offense you deal is productive (sometimes raw damage is not enough to defeat a foe).
2) And yes, it is a problem for there to be only 1 fighting style that gets even close to relevant. If this were a static class like Barbarian or Monk it would be less of a problem. However Fighter chooses its perks so it must have multiple viable fighting styles or we would be betraying the player by giving them false choices.

The problem, again, is that Fighters have literally nothing in-class for non-combat focuses.

True but not their only problem. Why not solve both?

[arkangel111]

I am extremely confused. To me it seems the easy fix is to drop fighter and add ToB/PoW to your game. Yet every time it's brought up in the thread it's either shot down or completely ignored. ToB/PoW are both great options for making a better fighter yet instead you seem to WANT to do a complete overhaul of the system that will have far more impact than you can foresee.
To me it seems easiest to use ToB/PoW and add some maneuvers and stances to reach your flavor of campaign/character.
My home games will never have fighter as an option, the class is irrelevant and only a major overhaul of the entire game will fix it (and you'll likely end up similar to ToB/PoW anyway), I see an easy fighter fix (remove it) that requires almost 0 effort to throw into a game. I personally always feel feat starved anyway so likely will just give all martials fighter bonus feats anyway.
My $.02

[John Longarrow]

I am extremely confused. To me it seems the easy fix is to drop fighter and add ToB/PoW to your game. Yet every time it's brought up in the thread it's either shot down or completely ignored. ToB/PoW are both great options for making a better fighter yet instead you seem to WANT to do a complete overhaul of the system that will have far more impact than you can foresee.
To me it seems easiest to use ToB/PoW and add some maneuvers and stances to reach your flavor of campaign/character.
My home games will never have fighter as an option, the class is irrelevant and only a major overhaul of the entire game will fix it (and you'll likely end up similar to ToB/PoW anyway), I see an easy fighter fix (remove it) that requires almost 0 effort to throw into a game. I personally always feel feat starved anyway so likely will just give all martials fighter bonus feats anyway.
My $.02

I already use ToB. I'm not looking to simply drop the class entirely as it does something different than ToB.

No ToB build makes for a great archer for example. Likewise the feats available to a fighter should give them a lot of options that ToB doesn't emphasize.

EDIT:
Likewise just saying "Play a GISH/CODZILLA" isn't the intent either. Those can blow any ToB build out of the water anyway, but are not in line with what I'm looking for.

[NerdHut]

I already use ToB. I'm not looking to simply drop the class entirely as it does something different than ToB.

No ToB build makes for a great archer for example. Likewise the feats available to a fighter should give them a lot of options that ToB doesn't emphasize.

EDIT:
Likewise just saying "Play a GISH/CODZILLA" isn't the intent either. Those can blow any ToB build out of the water anyway, but are not in line with what I'm looking for.

This is why I want to fix the fighter. It's versatile in-combat, it just lacks power and versatility out-of-combat. I've been working on a rework of Fighter that will make it more fun. It's actually strongly based on PF's Fighter class, just tweaked to fit back into 3.5.

People like Fighter. It means something to us in terms of roleplay. That's why we want to fix it. ToB classes don't feel the same.

[JoshuaZ]

There have been a bunch of different good suggestions here. I'd like to note that if one doesn't want to have fighters do martial initiating, then one may want to check out Sir Percival's Bladecraft system which he's still adding options on but is essentially playable in its current form. It is a very original take and seems to help a lot with making fighters feel relevant while still probably not feeling "too Wuxia" for the people who dislike that.

[Seerow]

This is why I want to fix the fighter. It's versatile in-combat, it just lacks power and versatility out-of-combat. I've been working on a rework of Fighter that will make it more fun. It's actually strongly based on PF's Fighter class, just tweaked to fit back into 3.5.

People like Fighter. It means something to us in terms of roleplay. That's why we want to fix it. ToB classes don't feel the same.

The Fighter does not have versatility in combat. That's the fundamental disconnect we're running into. You can design a Fighter to have combat versatility [Shameless Plug], but by default it does not have that.

[NerdHut]

The Fighter does not have versatility in combat. That's the fundamental disconnect we're running into. You can design a Fighter to have combat versatility [Shameless Plug], but by default it does not have that.

I mean in the sense that you can build a two-weapon fighter, a two-handed fighter, sword-and-board, heavy armor specialist, etc. Each individual fighter doesn't have much wiggle room, but the fighter chassis allows for several different styles.

[Cosi]

I mean in the sense that you can build a two-weapon fighter, a two-handed fighter, sword-and-board, heavy armor specialist, etc. Each individual fighter doesn't have much wiggle room, but the fighter chassis allows for several different styles.

Uh, sure? So does the Warblade, the Cleric, and every other character you might build to do physical combat. That's not by any means an uniquely Fighter capability.