The Failure of the Fighter Class

[Waker]

I'll just come right out and say it. I really hate the Fighter class. It helped lead to the imbalances of the game and shouldn't even be a PC class.
Whoa, whoa, quite an aggressive claim, huh? My disdain for the class can be centered mostly on two major points.
1. You Should Be An NPC Class- Looking back at the PHB, some of the classes could be described as streamlined and free of clutter. Or if you are less generous they have little going on in their class table. Despite their respective powers, Clerics, Sorcerers and Wizards have rather blank tables. This is misleading of course since they have spells located elsewhere.
Fighters are the king of boring though. The entirety of their class features can be summed up as d10HD, full BAB, good Fort, 2 skill points, equipment proficiencies and feats. This does have one advantage, not for the players, but for the DM. If you need to whip up an NPC super quick, you can do this in under a minute. Because of the easy to remember method of gaining bonus feats, I don't even need to consult the table to know when the class is awarded them.
I mean hell, even the name is about the laziest thing you could call the class (I know this is an artifact from earlier editions), but how can you take yourself seriously as an adventurer when your class is called Fighter. Not Warrior, Soldier, Champion or something with zing, but Fighter, ie a guy who fights. From a viewpoint of mechanics, you are just an upgrade to the NPC Warrior class, similar to how an Aristocrat or Expert could be viewed as upgrades to a Commoner.

2. Feats Are Bad Because You Exist- Take a quick look at the feats in the PHB and try to count how many of them have other feats as prerequisites. Now how many of those feat chains were intended for spellcasters? A whopping two, right? The Greater versions of Spell Focus and Penetration, which didn't exist back when 3rd ed first came out. Every other feat chain is related to mundane combat and can probably be blamed on the Fighter.
This is a theory, but bear with me. When the designers were gathered around making up the rules and were creating the feats, they came to a startling conclusion. Fighters get tons of bonus feats as their sole class feature, meaning they could nab way more feats than anyone else. If left as is, Fighters could utterly dominate the game and rule D&D forever! Ah ha! But what if instead we made mundane feats really stupid and put in a bunch of dumb prerequisites? Like needing Power Attack to Bullrush, Point Blank Shot to Far Shot, making Dodge a prereq for everything and creating a chain of feats for iterative attacks in two-weapon fighting? Now in order to get those super sweet feats, Fighters have to invest in unrelated abilities first. D&D is saved!
And of course once the precedent was set, later splatbooks and editions (3.5 and PF) continued the trend.

Also please don't waste time talking about how things were in 1st and 2nd ed. My griping is focused on how Fighters in 3rd ed make the game bad for everyone.

[stanprollyright]

There never fails to be a Fighter-bashing thread on the first page of this subforum.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Umm... yes? Pretty sure this has all been commonly accepted* for a while now.


*Insofar as anything is among nerds.

[TheIronGolem]

I'll just come right out and say it. I really hate the Fighter class.

Careful there buddy, you might burn yourself with that hot take.

[Guizonde]

i uh... i'm kind of at a loss for words. it seems you've got more of a beef with the 3.X system than with that class since you could spin that argument to knock on the ranger class just as much.

i've always seen the fighter as a blank slate that allows you to custom-build your vision of a beatstick in armor (unlike the barbarian, who's fighting in his undies). are you fundamentally against the martial aspect of roleplay combat or is the fact that the fighter template is so vast? i don't understand your argument of the fighter being an npc class. why is that? just because it's an easy build for npc's? it's a straightforward build for players, and not all players enjoy playing wizards or rogues. dnd is nothing if not varied, so i challenge by saying "why not"? there are other martial classes, but either by fluff or crunch are leagues away from the fighter. sometimes, you just want to play a hammer. can it be better? obviously, and a lot of threads on this forum are dedicated to that. but just because it could be better is no reason to take it out of the game for players.

i have a problem with feats (and the d20 system in general), so i get where you're coming from, too. however, i don't think it's inherently ruined the game to have feat chains. it's a progression that is understandable fluff-wise (you need to know how to hit hard before you hit so hard you knock down someone), and crunch-wise it gives a power-progression. does it lead to specialization? of course. is that a bad thing? i don't think so. as you've said, most feat chains are for martial adepts, so how did that ruin the game for everyone, since only two (i'll take your figure for it) chains affect casters? do you mean it's ruined the martial classes in general forcing optimizers to go arcane or leave the game?

[ryu]

I mean... Your opinion is objectively correct Waker, but hardly novel. I'd hazard a guess at roughly 90-95% of people on this forum hold it.

[noce]

It could have been a really versatile and powerful class if more fighter-only feats existed, and if they were much stronger.

The problem is not fighter chassis: casters get a spell level every two levels, he gets a feat instead.
The problem is: those feats are weak compared to spells.

(mundanes cannot have nice things)

[Waker]

There never fails to be a Fighter-bashing thread on the first page of this subforum.

Really? I don't think I recall seeing any thread specifically about the topic. Certainly if someone is talking about ToB it comes up.

I know. My post completely blew your minds. No, I wasn't trying to explain something that you guys have never realized before. Mostly it was a way to have my views stated outright in written form so that whenever I talk to someone about the topic, I can just post a link and say, "There ya go." It can be bothersome having to restate the same points over and over.

i've always seen the fighter as a blank slate that allows you to custom-build your vision of a beatstick in armor (unlike the barbarian, who's fighting in his undies). are you fundamentally against the martial aspect of roleplay combat or is the fact that the fighter template is so vast? i don't understand your argument of the fighter being an npc class. why is that? just because it's an easy build for npc's? it's a straightforward build for players, and not all players enjoy playing wizards or rogues. dnd is nothing if not varied, so i challenge by saying "why not"? there are other martial classes, but either by fluff or crunch are leagues away from the fighter. sometimes, you just want to play a hammer. can it be better? obviously, and a lot of threads on this forum are dedicated to that. but just because it could be better is no reason to take it out of the game for players.

The gripe about the Fighter being an NPC is one part fluff, one part mechanics. The fluff argument was mostly spurious. The mechanics aspect though is due to the fact that a Fighter has nothing going on aside from its chassis and feats. If it had more skill points or a real skill list, some kind of actual class features, practically anything, I could maybe take it seriously.
I'm not a player who likes super complicated builds. And were I introducing the game to a new player, Fighter would be fine just so they could get a feel for the game.

of course. is that a bad thing? i don't think so. as you've said, most feat chains are for martial adepts, so how did that ruin the game for everyone, since only two (i'll take your figure for it) chains affect casters? do you mean it's ruined the martial classes in general forcing optimizers to go arcane or leave the game?

My argument is that the existence of Fighters necessitated the feat chains, which screwed every other mundane class over. Almost any non-skill monkey mundane build practically requires a dip in Fighter to make it work, since getting enough feats is otherwise impractical or outright impossible. Whether you wanna specialize in a combat style or take many PrCs, Fighter is practically a given, which is bothersome.

[Gullintanni]

I mean... Your opinion is objectively correct Waker, but hardly novel. I'd hazard a guess at roughly 90-95% of people on this forum hold it.

...If, perhaps, an iota or two less zealously.

Fighters are awful, but I've always had a lot of fun playing them. I kind of like them despite their weaknesses.
(That said, I typically played with people who couldn't optimize their way out of a paper bag, while I optimized to reasonably high levels, so I was keeping up with the Tier 1s and 2s in terms of output. Unoptimized Blaster wizards and healbot clerics.)

[Kitsuneymg]

Take a gander at this thread. It's over a decade old, but seems to be what you're getting at. It and its related threads also fix martial characters (if your definition of fix is make them play on the same level as the wizard and sorcerer.)

[Doctor Awkward]

My argument is that the existence of Fighters necessitated the feat chains, which screwed every other mundane class over. Almost any non-skill monkey mundane build practically requires a dip in Fighter to make it work, since getting enough feats is otherwise impractical or outright impossible. Whether you wanna specialize in a combat style or take many PrCs, Fighter is practically a given, which is bothersome.

I think you have that backwards.

For one, feat chains weren't created because Fighters exist. The skills and feats in conjunction with a character's ability scores were designed to attempt to model reality. Two-Weapon Fighting is a huge chain because learning to fight effectively with a weapon in each hand is absurdly difficult (in exactly the same way learning to juggle is difficult). Same thing with learning to fight effectively from the back of a horse while simultaneously keeping it under control in the chaos of battle. And the same thing with learning how to reliably shoot a bow at a mobile aerial target hundreds of feet away.

Two, fighters can't simply take any old feat they feel like. Their bonus feats are limited to the specific Fighter bonus feat list. Now coincidentally the majority of fighter bonus feats are part of combat-related feat chains, but a Soulbow build that wants to dip into Shiba Protector is not going to be at all helped by a Fighter dip because Iron Will is not a fighter bonus feat. Nor will it help the character meet the Dexterity requirements for the higher level archery feats, which brings me to point number three...

Lastly, in most cases it's not prerequisite feats in chains that are the issue. It's the ability score requirements to get them that will hamper builds more often than not having enough feat selections. Improved Trip isn't annoying because it requires Combat Expertise, which itself isn't necessarily a bad feat for a tanky build. It's the fact that Combat Expertise requires an Intelligence of 13 that hampers a build that is already wanting Strength to do good damage, Dexterity for extra attacks of opportunity, and Constitution for not dying. The same thing goes with the aforementioned hypothetical Soulbow build. It's not that there are too many archery feats to take, it's that a Wisdom base character will have a much hard time meeting the Dexterity requirements to take them.

[Calthropstu]

Fighters perform perfectly fine in my games. Always have. Pathfinder fighters do pretty damn well actually.

So if you hate playing fighters, don't play them. Problem solved.

[stanprollyright]

Really? I don't think I recall seeing any thread specifically about the topic. Certainly if someone is talking about ToB it comes up.

Many of them are bashing martials in general, or how to fix the fighter, or how to fix martials, or how to nerf casters so they are closer in power to martials, or why ToB is better, or how to make a fighter build that reaches a desired tier...

I've actually not been here for several months - my post was about how it seemed right and proper for this thread to be the first one I see after a long haitus.

[Calthropstu]

Many of them are bashing martials in general, or how to fix the fighter, or how to fix martials, or how to nerf casters so they are closer in power to martials, or why ToB is better, or how to make a fighter build that reaches a desired tier...

I've actually not been here for several months - my post was about how it seemed right and proper for this thread to be the first one I see after a long haitus.

My response to them is: Go play 4th edition.

[Florian]

That´s more to do with the nature of feats changing. Originally, they were meant to let you specialize a bit in some things, things that were already part of the overall class frameworks, like hitting a bit harder, meta-magic. Feat chains originate from a sense of verisimilitude, like needing to learn to "hit hard" before you can "push hard". Attribute prereqs are part of the same mentality that led to that design decision. This also led to statements like SKR saying that a skill focus is a powerful feat.

[bekeleven]

For one, feat chains weren't created because Fighters exist. The skills and feats in conjunction with a character's ability scores were designed to attempt to model reality. Two-Weapon Fighting is a huge chain because learning to fight effectively with a weapon in each hand is absurdly difficult (in exactly the same way learning to juggle is difficult). Same thing with learning to fight effectively from the back of a horse while simultaneously keeping it under control in the chaos of battle. And the same thing with learning how to reliably shoot a bow at a mobile aerial target hundreds of feet away.

Count the number of feats in the player's handbook 3.0 and realize how many relevant ones the fighter can take: Nearly everything in the combat maneuver tree, power attack tree, archery tree, and probably the weapon focus tree and the endurance tree if he throws his normal feats in and is a human.

I guarantee that feats were added specifically to make sure high level fighters didn't instantly run out of content. For further demonstration of this effect, look at pathfinder, where a level 20 fighter got 3 extra feats and, look at that, improved trip is 3 feats now! And so is improved bull rush!

[Eladrinblade]

I'll admit that in many ways, fantasycraft has done what D&D should have done, including making the fighter into a class that can do more than swing a sword, be athletic, make mundane gear, train/ride animals, and scare people (in addition to unquestioningly being the best at fighting). Put simply, the fighter could be a more adequate class. They also made feats better, like you've mentioned should be the case.

However, in core D&D, I find fighters to be good. Oh sure, you could gestalt them with expert or something to make them a more viable class overall without seriously stepping on toes, but if you want to be the well-armored, strong, tough, meatshield blocker type, the fighter does it well. Especially if you consider that buffing a mundane is often a better use of a spellslot than casting an offensive spell (often, not always). In a delayed gratification sort of way, you'll probably get more damage out of a hasted fighter than a fireballed enemy, and haste is useful in just about any fight whereas fireball is only situationally good, so you're probably better off preparing a haste for your fighter or rogue than a fireball. Likewise, with minimal spell support, many of the fighters weaknessed are overcome: enlarge person fixes many issues, prot vs evil protects him from summoned monsters (including a druids bears) and mind control, grease keeps him from being grappled to death, etc.

Most adventures should contain dungeons, and most dungeons should limit movement (that's the point of a dungeon, right?). A fighter is a godsend in a dungeon. In tight quarters, he can control the battlefield, and hold off strong enemies while the rest of the party prepares or focuses fire. If nothing else, he wastes the enemies actions for a round or two, without much risk to himself (most other classes can't say that).

However, most people don't care for (or don't have patience for) all the rules, especially the nitty gritty ones. Hell, most DM's barely even use dungeons. Many people assume a practically unlimited magic mart economy, assume their spells will always be available when they need them and that they'll always have the right ones somehow, and assume that their spells will always go off without a hitch. Really it all comes down to what kind of game you're playing in, because most games seem like they're trying to be like a movie or a cinematic video game, rather than, well, D&D, and if you're playing in one of those games, fighter is not a good choice for you. Most games also tend not to emphasize party teamwork in more than the most basic ways. I've played in games where classes like fighters and paladins never get to do anything except make maybe one or two basic attacks per fight. I've played in others where the fighter felt like the most important person in the party (though only in dungeons).

All this said, I have to acknowledge it's been argued to death for 17 years and everything has been said a thousand times already. It's like politics where people are just gonna think what they think and there's no convincing them otherwise. I just wish people would be a bit more respectful of those who disagree with them.

[Doctor Awkward]

Count the number of feats in the player's handbook 3.0 and realize how many relevant ones the fighter can take: Nearly everything in the combat maneuver tree, power attack tree, archery tree, and probably the weapon focus tree and the endurance tree if he throws his normal feats in and is a human.

I guarantee that feats were added specifically to make sure high level fighters didn't instantly run out of content. For further demonstration of this effect, look at pathfinder, where a level 20 fighter got 3 extra feats and, look at that, improved trip is 3 feats now! And so is improved bull rush!

I wouldn't be so quick to conflate Paizo's designer intent with the likes of Skip, John and Monte. I would never include Sean Reynolds or Jason Bulmahn on the same list as those three.

Furthermore, when you compare the design choices of 3rd Edition to splat books from the previous edition, the influence and inspiration becomes rather obvious. The fact that the vast majority of feats appear on the fighter bonus list is incidental to the fact that virtually all of the feats in the Player's Handbook increase the effectiveness of combat maneuvers (Trip, Disarm, Bull Rush), are combat related (Dodge, Mobility, Improved Initiative), or otherwise concomitant to things you do in combat (punching, swinging swords, or shooting bows).

[icefractal]

I dislike the "Voltron" model of feats too, but I don't know if you can blame Fighters for it. I think it's something the started in 3.0 for somewhat simulationist reasons without regard to how well it played, and then kept and amplified in Pathfinder because it made splatbooks easy to produce.

To clarify, what I'm referring to is the model where feats are individually small and many of them are crappy, but if you combine enough of them together, maybe with some items for spice, the cumulative effect is reasonably powerful.

As opposed to the model non-damaging spells use - each spell is an individual thing that works on its own, and neither needs to or in many cases can be combined into part of a large combo. Take Web. You cast it, people get stuck, and you don't need any other spells or feats or items to have that happen. Someone can pick spells fairly arbitrarily and the good spells will still be good (as with feats, there are a lot of chaff spells; something that started pretty much by accident and is maintained for commercial reasons). Damaging spells fall into the feat trap, since metamagic becomes a critical factor in their effectiveness.

5E seems to have more the right idea about feats - bigger, more self-contained - but that does come with having less of them. Five feats at 20th level is fine, if those feats all add an entire capability, but having to wait until 4th to get one sucks. IMO, having a half-dozen feats at all levels (maybe barring the first few), and as you level up you replace feats instead of purely adding more would give the best play experience, but it does have some flavor disconnect.

[kinem]

Fighters make the best archers due to the need for feats.

The PF fighter class may not look like much, but once I built one, it made sense. That class allows you to build up your numbers. With the extra feats you can afford things like Iron Will, Shield Focus, Toughness, Weapon Focus, etc. that you wouldn't bother taking with another class.

[ryu]

Fighters make the best archers due to the need for feats.

The PF fighter class may not look like much, but once I built one, it made sense. That class allows you to build up your numbers. With the extra feats you can afford things like Iron Will, Shield Focus, Toughness, Weapon Focus, etc. that you wouldn't bother taking with another class.

Pretty sure that actually belongs to the clerics.

[Jon_Dahl]

I think that there might have been a major boost for the Fighter Class if there had been very powerful fighter-only or 'fighter-oriented' feats through levels 13 to 20. It would have not saved the fighter, of course, but now it just seems to futile to play a fighter beyond 12th level. Pointless. And I'm talking about Core.

[Clistenes]

Well, my theory has always been that the game designers wanted to give players the chance to play both reality-altering demigods and relatively normal guys (well, as normal as somebody who is stronger than a rhino and can survive falling from a plane can be...).

You can roleplay a party of warrior/thief types, or you can have a faerunian party of high Tier munchkins.

D&D is not a competitive game, it's a roleplaying game. You can roleplay guys with different levels of power trying to survive and contribute each in their own way.

It can be frustrating if your are a Fighter in a medium to high level party with high Tiers, but you can just discuss and decide the tier of the game so everybody is roughly at the same level.

[Lans]

Pretty sure that actually belongs to the clerics.

Depends on how you measure it, on one hand the fighter edges out a cleric until level 12 by increasingly smaller margins in the role of archery. On the other you have the full cleric chasis minus 3 spells and domain choices

[Inevitability]

No, the best archers are elven generalists who dipped arcane archer, because 9th-level spells.

[Waker]

I think you have that backwards.

For one, feat chains weren't created because Fighters exist. The skills and feats in conjunction with a character's ability scores were designed to attempt to model reality. Two-Weapon Fighting is a huge chain because learning to fight effectively with a weapon in each hand is absurdly difficult (in exactly the same way learning to juggle is difficult). Same thing with learning to fight effectively from the back of a horse while simultaneously keeping it under control in the chaos of battle. And the same thing with learning how to reliably shoot a bow at a mobile aerial target hundreds of feet away.

Two, fighters can't simply take any old feat they feel like. Their bonus feats are limited to the specific Fighter bonus feat list. Now coincidentally the majority of fighter bonus feats are part of combat-related feat chains, but a Soulbow build that wants to dip into Shiba Protector is not going to be at all helped by a Fighter dip because Iron Will is not a fighter bonus feat. Nor will it help the character meet the Dexterity requirements for the higher level archery feats, which brings me to point number three...

Lastly, in most cases it's not prerequisite feats in chains that are the issue. It's the ability score requirements to get them that will hamper builds more often than not having enough feat selections. Improved Trip isn't annoying because it requires Combat Expertise, which itself isn't necessarily a bad feat for a tanky build. It's the fact that Combat Expertise requires an Intelligence of 13 that hampers a build that is already wanting Strength to do good damage, Dexterity for extra attacks of opportunity, and Constitution for not dying. The same thing goes with the aforementioned hypothetical Soulbow build. It's not that there are too many archery feats to take, it's that a Wisdom base character will have a much hard time meeting the Dexterity requirements to take them.

1. If you want to model how learning a specified type of combat is difficult, you take a feat. The end. Needing a feat chain is for two-weapon fighting is asinine because you are still taking penalties. And for further insult to injury, if you want to get iterative attacks, you need to take another feat every 5 BAB.
2. That...is not really related to anything I'm talking about. Yes, I am aware that Fighter Bonus feats don't encompass any feat that a character might ever need. However they do include a great deal of the combat feats (and combat is a huge part of the game), not to mention that they help establish a baseline for what could be appropriate for a mundane feat.
3. You aren't really doing anything other than proving my point. Why does Improved Trip need Combat Expertise as a requirement? Combat Expertise is entirely about fighting in a defensive manner, how is that any way related to being able to effectively trip someone? Why is Point-Blank Shot, a feat for shooting at close-range targets, the gateway feat needed for increasing the accuracy of a target far away (Far Shot) or being able to quickly fire successive shots (Rapid Fire)?


One of the biggest motivators for starting this thread wasn't to make you all think I just had an eye-opening moment and suddenly realized Fighters are bad after a decade and a half of playing 3rd ed. Nor was it to recruit anyone on the sidelines still unconvinced. Mostly it was catharsis. Just the need to gripe and blow off some steam after getting in arguments with people who think anything stronger than a Fighter is OP munchkin nonsense and if you like ToB or anything other subsystem than you are a filthy powergamer. Sometimes I just wanna set up a nice strawman and take him out in a joust. Then I remember how bad the mounted combat rules are and instead settle for complaining on the forum.

[stanprollyright]

Archery stops mattering around level 6, so the best archer is whoever is best prior to that. Fighters take the cake there.

[Arbane]

I think you have that backwards.

For one, feat chains weren't created because Fighters exist. The skills and feats in conjunction with a character's ability scores were designed to attempt to model reality. Two-Weapon Fighting is a huge chain because learning to fight effectively with a weapon in each hand is absurdly difficult (in exactly the same way learning to juggle is difficult). Same thing with learning to fight effectively from the back of a horse while simultaneously keeping it under control in the chaos of battle. And the same thing with learning how to reliably shoot a bow at a mobile aerial target hundreds of feet away.

Just for sake of comparison, how difficult is it to THROW A FIREBALL by wiggling your fingers and chanting gibberish?

I think FrankTrollman made a good point about the Fighter's 'concept' in another post:

It's phrased in all kinds of different ways. Fighters shouldn't be too "anime". Or maybe Fighters should be more Conanesque. Or whatever. But it's actually really common that people think of a "Fighter" and they think of some fictional character who is like 4th level. Mad Martigan from Willow, Conan from Conan, Gimli from LotR, or whatever. That's their concept of a Fighter, and they don't want their character to do anything that character does not do.

Where this gets problematic is when it bumps right next to their next demand, that the party is hitting 5th level and they still want to be limited to a benchmark that is essentially 4th level. And while at that point you can in fact keep things kind of hobbling along with the same character with bigger numbers, after a few levels of that it becomes untenable. When the player is asking for their character to be archetypically identical to a 4th level concept and asking to be mechanically balanced with 9th level casters, you're up **** Creek.

That was the horrible revelation that was caused by the Tome Fighter. The harsh reality is that Mad Martigan is a 4th level character and the people who hold up Mad Martigan as the example are seriously not saying that they want higher level abilities that happen to be skinned as guts and luck, they are literally saying that they want to be quintessentially 4th level characters while being balanced with 9th level characters. It's an actually and actively contradictory thought pattern and there is no solution.

Contrariwise, the Tome Monk get accepted with hardly a blip. Some people quibble about it being overpowered. Some people even helpfully informed us that it was more powerful than a Core Monk. But people didn't tell us that any of it was out of theme. Because the Monk theme is one which can in fact continue growing until it's Goku. Similarly, "Wizard" is a character concept that just keeps growing forever. Your summoner summons electric rat, and then he summons a storm crow, and then he's summoning a thunder dragon. No one bats an eye at this poo poo.

But Fighter players seriously do get annoyed and even offended when their character can beat up an elephant with their bare hands. Also they get annoyed and offended when they notice that the other characters are more powerful than they are. It really is cognitive dissonance, and the solution is to force people to abandon the Fighter concept after a few levels. Mandatory PrCs is the only way to get people to accept their own character having level appropriate abilities at high level.

There's also the fact that Fighters kinda suck at doing anything but Fighting. I know, I know, it's right there in their name and all, but consider the capabilities of a competent real-world soldier: They have to be able to get through an obstacle course (Climb, Balance, Jump, Swim), see or hear their enemies coming (Spot, Listen, etc), care for their own gear (Craft), possibly ride a horse (Ride, Handle Animal), march cross-country, build a camp & a fire (Survival, Use Rope)... have fun trying to be good at all of these with 2+int skill-points per level, doofus!

[Gildedragon]

So my thoughts on fighters:
They should be able to draw attacks to themselves and shrug off effects.

To some extent I like the idea of having only 3ish base classes (fighter, expert, spellcaster) with prcs kicking in around lvl 3 for stuff like monk, paladin, ranger, bard, shapeshifter (ie druid)...

[bekeleven]

Just for sake of comparison, how difficult is it to THROW A FIREBALL by wiggling your fingers and chanting gibberish?

I've never seen someone fumble it.

Juggling, though, that should probably take 4 or 5 feats.