A Fighter remodel x 2 [Archive] - Wizards Community

A Fighter remodel x 2 [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
ZombieDragon
02-01-07, 03:51 PM http://ffmedia.ign.com/dnd/multimedia/dnd-arenberg.jpg
This picture just makes me giggle.

Yes yet More attempts at making a tougher fighter that isn’t a dip class.
Maintaining the overall flavor of the fighter, while giving it something unique and fighter only.

I gave them a better BaB and better overall saves, average on all saves. I didn’t add a fifth attack as the game was designed around 4 attacks max.
Average save goes:
Fort, Ref, and Will BaB / Fighter Edge = total Special
1 : +1 (1 5/12) 1 / 0 = 1 bonus feat
2 : +1 (1 10/12) 2 / 0 = 2 bonus feat
3 : +2 (2 3/12) 3 / 0 = 3 +1 to spot, listen, and search
4 : +2 (2 8/12) 4 / 0 = 4 bonus feat
5 : +3 (3 1/12) 5 / 0 = 5 +1 to spot, listen, and search
6 : +3 (3 6/12) 6 / 0 = 6 / 1 bonus feat
7 : +3 (3 11/12) 7 / 0 = 7 / 2 +1 to spot, listen, and search
8 : +4 (4 4/12) 8 / 0 = 8 / 3 bonus feat
9 : +4 (4 9/12) 9 / 1 = 10 / 5 Fighters Edge +1(bab)
10 : +5 (5 2/12) 10 / 1 = 11 / 6 / 1 bonus feat
11 : +5 (5 7/12) 11 / 1 = 12 / 7 / 2 +1 to spot, listen, and search
12 : +6 (6) 12 / 1 = 13 / 8 / 3 bonus feat
13 : +6 (6 5/12) 13 / 1 = 14 / 9 / 4 +1 to spot, listen, and search
14 : +6 (6 10/12) 14 / 1 = 15 / 10 / 5 bonus feat
15 : +7 (7 3/12) 15 / 1 = 16 / 11 / 6 / 1 +1 to spot, listen, and search
16 : +7 (7 8/12) 16 / 1 = 17 / 12 / 7 / 2 bonus feat
17 : +8 (8 1/12) 17 / 1 = 18 / 13 / 8 / 3 +1 to spot, listen, and search
18 : +8 (8 6/12) 18 / 2 = 20 / 15 / 10 / 5 Fighters Edge +2(bab)
19 : +8 (8 11/12) 19 / 2 = 21 / 16 / 11 / 6 bonus feat
20 : +9 (9 4/12) 20 / 2 = 22 / 17 / 12 / 7 bonus feat

Bab F R W Special
1 + 1 2 1 0 My weapon, One fighter one weapon + 1 / + 0
2 + 2 3 1 0 Heightened retort + 1
3 + 3 3 2 1 Fighter feat
4 + 4 4 2 1 One fighter one weapon +1 / + 1
5 + 5 4 3 1 Fighter feat
6 + 6 / 1 5 3 2 Heightened retort +2
7 + 7 / 2 5 3 2 Fighter feat One fighter one weapon + 1 / + 2
8 + 8 / 3 6 4 2 Sway the Battle (1d12 1/day)
9 + 9 / 4 6 4 3 Fighter feat
10 + 10 / 5 7 5 3 One fighter one weapon + 2 / + 2 , Heightened retort + 3
11 + 11 / 6 / 1 7 5 3 Fighter feat
12 + 12 / 7 / 2 8 6 4 Sway the battle (1d12 2/day)
13 + 13 / 8 / 3 8 6 4 Fighter feat One fighter one weapon + 2 / + 3
14 + 14 / 9 / 4 9 6 4 Heightened retort + 4
15 + 15 / 10 / 5 9 7 5 Fighter feat
16 + 16 / 11 / 6 / 1 10 7 5 One fighter one weapon + 2 / + 4 , Sway the battle (2d12 2/day)
17 + 17 / 12 / 7 / 2 10 8 5 Fighter feat
18 + 18 / 13 / 8 / 3 11 8 6 Heightened retort +5
19 + 19 / 14 / 9 / 4 11 9 6 Fighter feat One fighter one weapon + 3 / + 4
20 + 20 / 15 / 10 / 5 12 9 6 Sway the battle (2d12 3/day)

Skill points 4 + Int bonus (x4 first)
Skill set : Balance , Climb , Craft , Escape Artist , Gather Information , Handle animal , Heal , Intimidate , Jump , Listen , Ride , Search , Sense Motive , Spot , Tumble , Use Rope

My weapon : A fighter chooses their signature weapon at first level. This is not the only weapon they use, but is their favorite.

One fighter one weapon : The fighter favorite weapon (my weapon) improves over time and use. The first number is a bonus to hit and the second number is a bonus to damage ( + X to hit / + Y to damage ). This replaces weapon focus, greater focus, weapon specialization, and greater specilization and counts as having those feats at level WF(1st), GWF(10th), WSp(7th), and GWSp(16th).

Heightened retort : the fighter gets better at taking the battle to the enemy. This is a bonus to initiative.

Sway the Battle : An extraordinary ability to end a conflict in one round. This bonus is to damage for the round.
Repeekluos
02-01-07, 04:06 PM A bonus feat at first and second?
Looks like a dip class to me.
ZombieDragon
02-01-07, 04:14 PM Didn't want to hurt the bottom end. Making them too weak to at low levels.
Thought
02-01-07, 04:15 PM I do like giving fighter's an increased BAB (after all, they are the best of the best in that regard yet mechanically they are on par with a fair number of other classes). But other than that there really isn't much. If you want to see fighters in epic levels, you'd need to include a class ability that scales (since such abilities continue and nearly everyone gets a lot of feats at epic levels anywho).
ZombieDragon
02-01-07, 04:27 PM The fighters edge would scale coming in again at 27th and making it one of a few ways to increase BaB in epic play.

Should it scale faster ?
Would starting at 9th and every 5 levels look better?
I just don't want to start it too early or give more than say a +3 prior to 20th.

The Barbarian still seems to get the best of this fighter in head up fights.
Repeekluos
02-01-07, 04:28 PM Didn't want to hurt the bottom end. Making them too weak to at low levels.

I can understand this, but it still makes it a dip class:(
Ghenesh
02-01-07, 04:29 PM Although i'm not into features that would escape from system balance (like giving a BAB superior than what's accepted as the maximum), i like this fix, but i have a question what's with the bonus on Spot, Listen and Search... wouldn't be easier to increase the skill points per level and add Spot, Listen and Search as class skills?

I can understand this, but it still makes it a dip class
What makes the Fighter a dip class is not that the two first levels are good, is that the following 18 are not worth it. And this variant makes it worth it, although not in a way i would allow in my game.
ZombieDragon
02-01-07, 04:35 PM Ghenesh
Those aren't class skill yet seem like they should be. The way I did it no matter what you do with the int score you get the same as every other fighter. You over time get better at spoting trouble, and searching for answers. I use fighters not warriors as my NPC guards, it's a little of a carryover of what a guard should be able to do. Being that they are still cross classed skills it really isn't a breaking point at +7 and leaves room to customize with the remaining skills alotted classwise.
Repeekluos
02-01-07, 05:20 PM What makes the Fighter a dip class is not that the two first levels are good, is that the following 18 are not worth it. And this variant makes it worth it, although not in a way i would allow in my game.

I dont completely disagree with this.
I think that a 20 level playable fighter would still be used as a dip class.

There are always going to be builds that require a lot of feats, and as long as fighter (No matter how good) has feats at first and second level, it will be a dip class.

I'm just saying...
Ghenesh
02-01-07, 05:39 PM Repeekluos, you're completely right, but in that position every single base class is a dip class... some have more "dip potential" than others, like Fighter or Sorcerer, while others give such unique and synergic abilities that is hard to go out of the class (even prestige out), like rogue and druid. Regardless of the "Dipability" of a class, there are classes that are simply not worth (mechanically speaking) to level up beyond certain level (Fighter and Sorcerer i'm looking at you two!), for those classes to multiclass (usually taking prestige class/es) is the obvious following step, when i look a variant that tries to deal with this i agreed with a class with enough features to make the player doubt onto multiclassing... as Tempest Stormwind said, when you taste the indesicion, that's balance.
Repeekluos
02-01-07, 06:13 PM Ghenesh.
True enough. I come from the school that doesn't think anything is wrong with the way fighter is built though. I think the fighter just needs better feats, something that WotC is working on, and might actually fix with their upcoming complete whatever.

PHB 2 did a world of good for the fighter, and it still wasn't enough, but at least it happened. Given time, I think that fighter will be good enough to play. Slip in a few amazing feats that fighter level reqs, and we'll see.
Ghenesh
02-01-07, 06:30 PM Yes, better feats sounds good for the class who can pick more feats than anyone, but there's something you're not taking into account, versatility.

We all agree that the Fighter is one of the (non-spellcasting) classes with the greatest versatility to build, but one with a very low versatility during play time, simply cause the quantity of feats it's not enough to take the Fighter out of the "one trick pony" position. I know this is caused by the min-maxing/optimization trend that has overtaken DnD in the last years (and the inmense quantity of feats available supporting this trend), but as "better" feats appear in the new books the versatility of the Fighter decays, how's this? imagine a classical tripper build, now let's say that there's a new feat that lets you trip opponents two size categories larger than you rather than just one... it obviously become one of the "must have" feats and the versatility of our "optimized" fighter lessens. Tony Vargas stated this a while ago and i concur with the statement.

It's my opinion that a Fighter variant must have more feats, that's why i firmly support the 14 feats fighter.
Repeekluos
02-01-07, 07:50 PM Ghenesh.
I totally understand that. That is why I support a feat system similar to the one Szatany, Myself, Squangos...and other names were working on. I think Scaling feats, that interact well with other types of feats really did a great job for the fighter. I dont know if you ever saw any of the threads, but I playtested almost every feat in it. After there were about 20 feats in each tree, I built up several fighters, that were:
1. Versatile.
2. Balanced.
3. Fun.
4. Competitive.

By Competitive, I mean, stood the test at high levels. Could a 20 level build fighter take out a straight caster? No. Not much can though, and personally I dont care about that, because that is not D&D. What they could do though, was offer a strong melee presence at all levels, and have a relatively decent role outside of combat. (Talent feats went a long way to help that)

All of that was done without changing the class "Fighter" one bit.

BTW, I did not mean to sound smug there, but I think I did.
ZombieDragon
02-02-07, 05:44 PM My sister pointed out that this becomes the anti-dip class. With up to two dips into other classes that start at +0 Bab, you can still end up with a +20 Bab at 20th.
She built a Psy warrior 1 / Psion 1 / Fighter 18 that was finally able to stand toe to toe with the Barbarian.
Cleric instead of Psion would have better healing and not need a 11 Int (Wis synergy). A rogue dip nets sneak attack and nice starting skill points.
Ghenesh
02-02-07, 05:47 PM How, exactly, is this an anti-dip measure?
Repeekluos
02-02-07, 07:47 PM Not getting a +1 to bab is a drawback, but I dont see it out weighing 2 feats.
ZombieDragon
02-02-07, 08:24 PM I guess I should have put it reverse dip. It was how it was phrased to me.

I was still having a problem with the one on one and my sister wasn't.

She actually pulled an Expansion and manuevers with an array of feats. Dip into swordsage and psychic warrior more than balanced the one on one. It only losses out on 1 feat. She did use one feat to boost points and put a 14 in wis.
ZombieDragon
02-03-07, 12:13 AM Added my sister and my dad's collaboration. A truly flavorful beast.

Question my dad asked :
1) Should Sway the Battle be for the whole round or just a single hit ?
His gut feeling is the whole round.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ZombieDragon 02-01-07, 03:51 PM	http://ffmedia.ign.com/dnd/multimedia/dnd-arenberg.jpg This picture just makes me giggle. Yes yet More attempts at making a tougher fighter that isn’t a dip class. Maintaining the overall flavor of the fighter, while giving it something unique and fighter only. I gave them a better BaB and better overall saves, average on all saves. I didn’t add a fifth attack as the game was designed around 4 attacks max. Average save goes: Fort, Ref, and Will BaB / Fighter Edge = total Special 1 : +1 (1 5/12) 1 / 0 = 1 bonus feat 2 : +1 (1 10/12) 2 / 0 = 2 bonus feat 3 : +2 (2 3/12) 3 / 0 = 3 +1 to spot, listen, and search 4 : +2 (2 8/12) 4 / 0 = 4 bonus feat 5 : +3 (3 1/12) 5 / 0 = 5 +1 to spot, listen, and search 6 : +3 (3 6/12) 6 / 0 = 6 / 1 bonus feat 7 : +3 (3 11/12) 7 / 0 = 7 / 2 +1 to spot, listen, and search 8 : +4 (4 4/12) 8 / 0 = 8 / 3 bonus feat 9 : +4 (4 9/12) 9 / 1 = 10 / 5 Fighters Edge +1(bab) 10 : +5 (5 2/12) 10 / 1 = 11 / 6 / 1 bonus feat 11 : +5 (5 7/12) 11 / 1 = 12 / 7 / 2 +1 to spot, listen, and search 12 : +6 (6) 12 / 1 = 13 / 8 / 3 bonus feat 13 : +6 (6 5/12) 13 / 1 = 14 / 9 / 4 +1 to spot, listen, and search 14 : +6 (6 10/12) 14 / 1 = 15 / 10 / 5 bonus feat 15 : +7 (7 3/12) 15 / 1 = 16 / 11 / 6 / 1 +1 to spot, listen, and search 16 : +7 (7 8/12) 16 / 1 = 17 / 12 / 7 / 2 bonus feat 17 : +8 (8 1/12) 17 / 1 = 18 / 13 / 8 / 3 +1 to spot, listen, and search 18 : +8 (8 6/12) 18 / 2 = 20 / 15 / 10 / 5 Fighters Edge +2(bab) 19 : +8 (8 11/12) 19 / 2 = 21 / 16 / 11 / 6 bonus feat 20 : +9 (9 4/12) 20 / 2 = 22 / 17 / 12 / 7 bonus feat Bab F R W Special 1 + 1 2 1 0 My weapon, One fighter one weapon + 1 / + 0 2 + 2 3 1 0 Heightened retort + 1 3 + 3 3 2 1 Fighter feat 4 + 4 4 2 1 One fighter one weapon +1 / + 1 5 + 5 4 3 1 Fighter feat 6 + 6 / 1 5 3 2 Heightened retort +2 7 + 7 / 2 5 3 2 Fighter feat One fighter one weapon + 1 / + 2 8 + 8 / 3 6 4 2 Sway the Battle (1d12 1/day) 9 + 9 / 4 6 4 3 Fighter feat 10 + 10 / 5 7 5 3 One fighter one weapon + 2 / + 2 , Heightened retort + 3 11 + 11 / 6 / 1 7 5 3 Fighter feat 12 + 12 / 7 / 2 8 6 4 Sway the battle (1d12 2/day) 13 + 13 / 8 / 3 8 6 4 Fighter feat One fighter one weapon + 2 / + 3 14 + 14 / 9 / 4 9 6 4 Heightened retort + 4 15 + 15 / 10 / 5 9 7 5 Fighter feat 16 + 16 / 11 / 6 / 1 10 7 5 One fighter one weapon + 2 / + 4 , Sway the battle (2d12 2/day) 17 + 17 / 12 / 7 / 2 10 8 5 Fighter feat 18 + 18 / 13 / 8 / 3 11 8 6 Heightened retort +5 19 + 19 / 14 / 9 / 4 11 9 6 Fighter feat One fighter one weapon + 3 / + 4 20 + 20 / 15 / 10 / 5 12 9 6 Sway the battle (2d12 3/day) Skill points 4 + Int bonus (x4 first) Skill set : Balance , Climb , Craft , Escape Artist , Gather Information , Handle animal , Heal , Intimidate , Jump , Listen , Ride , Search , Sense Motive , Spot , Tumble , Use Rope My weapon : A fighter chooses their signature weapon at first level. This is not the only weapon they use, but is their favorite. One fighter one weapon : The fighter favorite weapon (my weapon) improves over time and use. The first number is a bonus to hit and the second number is a bonus to damage ( + X to hit / + Y to damage ). This replaces weapon focus, greater focus, weapon specialization, and greater specilization and counts as having those feats at level WF(1st), GWF(10th), WSp(7th), and GWSp(16th). Heightened retort : the fighter gets better at taking the battle to the enemy. This is a bonus to initiative. Sway the Battle : An extraordinary ability to end a conflict in one round. This bonus is to damage for the round.
Repeekluos 02-01-07, 04:06 PM	A bonus feat at first and second? Looks like a dip class to me.
ZombieDragon 02-01-07, 04:14 PM	Didn't want to hurt the bottom end. Making them too weak to at low levels.
Thought 02-01-07, 04:15 PM	I do like giving fighter's an increased BAB (after all, they are the best of the best in that regard yet mechanically they are on par with a fair number of other classes). But other than that there really isn't much. If you want to see fighters in epic levels, you'd need to include a class ability that scales (since such abilities continue and nearly everyone gets a lot of feats at epic levels anywho).
ZombieDragon 02-01-07, 04:27 PM	The fighters edge would scale coming in again at 27th and making it one of a few ways to increase BaB in epic play. Should it scale faster ? Would starting at 9th and every 5 levels look better? I just don't want to start it too early or give more than say a +3 prior to 20th. The Barbarian still seems to get the best of this fighter in head up fights.
Repeekluos 02-01-07, 04:28 PM	Didn't want to hurt the bottom end. Making them too weak to at low levels. I can understand this, but it still makes it a dip class:(
Ghenesh 02-01-07, 04:29 PM	Although i'm not into features that would escape from system balance (like giving a BAB superior than what's accepted as the maximum), i like this fix, but i have a question what's with the bonus on Spot, Listen and Search... wouldn't be easier to increase the skill points per level and add Spot, Listen and Search as class skills? I can understand this, but it still makes it a dip class What makes the Fighter a dip class is not that the two first levels are good, is that the following 18 are not worth it. And this variant makes it worth it, although not in a way i would allow in my game.
ZombieDragon 02-01-07, 04:35 PM	Ghenesh Those aren't class skill yet seem like they should be. The way I did it no matter what you do with the int score you get the same as every other fighter. You over time get better at spoting trouble, and searching for answers. I use fighters not warriors as my NPC guards, it's a little of a carryover of what a guard should be able to do. Being that they are still cross classed skills it really isn't a breaking point at +7 and leaves room to customize with the remaining skills alotted classwise.
Repeekluos 02-01-07, 05:20 PM	What makes the Fighter a dip class is not that the two first levels are good, is that the following 18 are not worth it. And this variant makes it worth it, although not in a way i would allow in my game. I dont completely disagree with this. I think that a 20 level playable fighter would still be used as a dip class. There are always going to be builds that require a lot of feats, and as long as fighter (No matter how good) has feats at first and second level, it will be a dip class. I'm just saying...
Ghenesh 02-01-07, 05:39 PM	Repeekluos, you're completely right, but in that position every single base class is a dip class... some have more "dip potential" than others, like Fighter or Sorcerer, while others give such unique and synergic abilities that is hard to go out of the class (even prestige out), like rogue and druid. Regardless of the "Dipability" of a class, there are classes that are simply not worth (mechanically speaking) to level up beyond certain level (Fighter and Sorcerer i'm looking at you two!), for those classes to multiclass (usually taking prestige class/es) is the obvious following step, when i look a variant that tries to deal with this i agreed with a class with enough features to make the player doubt onto multiclassing... as Tempest Stormwind said, when you taste the indesicion, that's balance.
Repeekluos 02-01-07, 06:13 PM	Ghenesh. True enough. I come from the school that doesn't think anything is wrong with the way fighter is built though. I think the fighter just needs better feats, something that WotC is working on, and might actually fix with their upcoming complete whatever. PHB 2 did a world of good for the fighter, and it still wasn't enough, but at least it happened. Given time, I think that fighter will be good enough to play. Slip in a few amazing feats that fighter level reqs, and we'll see.
Ghenesh 02-01-07, 06:30 PM	Yes, better feats sounds good for the class who can pick more feats than anyone, but there's something you're not taking into account, versatility. We all agree that the Fighter is one of the (non-spellcasting) classes with the greatest versatility to build, but one with a very low versatility during play time, simply cause the quantity of feats it's not enough to take the Fighter out of the "one trick pony" position. I know this is caused by the min-maxing/optimization trend that has overtaken DnD in the last years (and the inmense quantity of feats available supporting this trend), but as "better" feats appear in the new books the versatility of the Fighter decays, how's this? imagine a classical tripper build, now let's say that there's a new feat that lets you trip opponents two size categories larger than you rather than just one... it obviously become one of the "must have" feats and the versatility of our "optimized" fighter lessens. Tony Vargas stated this a while ago and i concur with the statement. It's my opinion that a Fighter variant must have more feats, that's why i firmly support the 14 feats fighter.
Repeekluos 02-01-07, 07:50 PM	Ghenesh. I totally understand that. That is why I support a feat system similar to the one Szatany, Myself, Squangos...and other names were working on. I think Scaling feats, that interact well with other types of feats really did a great job for the fighter. I dont know if you ever saw any of the threads, but I playtested almost every feat in it. After there were about 20 feats in each tree, I built up several fighters, that were: 1. Versatile. 2. Balanced. 3. Fun. 4. Competitive. By Competitive, I mean, stood the test at high levels. Could a 20 level build fighter take out a straight caster? No. Not much can though, and personally I dont care about that, because that is not D&D. What they could do though, was offer a strong melee presence at all levels, and have a relatively decent role outside of combat. (Talent feats went a long way to help that) All of that was done without changing the class "Fighter" one bit. BTW, I did not mean to sound smug there, but I think I did.
ZombieDragon 02-02-07, 05:44 PM	My sister pointed out that this becomes the anti-dip class. With up to two dips into other classes that start at +0 Bab, you can still end up with a +20 Bab at 20th. She built a Psy warrior 1 / Psion 1 / Fighter 18 that was finally able to stand toe to toe with the Barbarian. Cleric instead of Psion would have better healing and not need a 11 Int (Wis synergy). A rogue dip nets sneak attack and nice starting skill points.
Ghenesh 02-02-07, 05:47 PM	How, exactly, is this an anti-dip measure?
Repeekluos 02-02-07, 07:47 PM	Not getting a +1 to bab is a drawback, but I dont see it out weighing 2 feats.
ZombieDragon 02-02-07, 08:24 PM	I guess I should have put it reverse dip. It was how it was phrased to me. I was still having a problem with the one on one and my sister wasn't. She actually pulled an Expansion and manuevers with an array of feats. Dip into swordsage and psychic warrior more than balanced the one on one. It only losses out on 1 feat. She did use one feat to boost points and put a 14 in wis.
ZombieDragon 02-03-07, 12:13 AM	Added my sister and my dad's collaboration. A truly flavorful beast. Question my dad asked : 1) Should Sway the Battle be for the whole round or just a single hit ? His gut feeling is the whole round.