Fighters? Nah

Slaved · Mar 6, 2007

Assuming that fighters are no more in the game world what would people think about a feat such as this.

Fighter feats (general)
You are especially well trained in the arts of fighting.
Prerequisite: This feat may only be chosen with a feat derived from hit dice
Benefit: Gain 2 feats that are designated as fighter bonus feat options.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times.

Any thoughts about it? Improvements to be made? Further limitations or perhaps starting off small and growing with time or extra purchases?

Stalker0 · Mar 6, 2007

So now I can play a barbarian with twice the number of normal feats? Heck ya!!

Aka, I think this feat is too strong, the fighter feats were the fighter's ONLY class abilities, you can take on near the same anount with a whole bunch of other class features and expect it to balance. This is especially true for humans, a 1st level barbarian could have 4 feats, more than a 1st level fighter!!

Lackhand · Mar 6, 2007

1) That's a lotta feats -- at twentieth level, that's 14 feats on top of normal class features. Specifically for characters that are already somewhat melee focused -- rogues or clerics, for instance, are just plain frightening.
Because everyone can do it, "balance" isn't really an issue as such; however, I'd be really surprised if there were characters who didn't take this feat (and probably multiple times).

Are you still using rangers and paladins? What class (if any) are you going to use for roles like weaponmaster, or retired soldier, and so forth?

Technik4 · Mar 6, 2007

Bad Idea. If you want to remove fighters, do so. Then just make Weapon Spec a generic feat with req BAB +4 and Weapon Focus. It worked just fine in Arcana Evolved.

A feat that gets you 2 feats? Errr. Bad design.

awayfarer · Mar 6, 2007

Can I designate this feat as a fighter bonus feat?

Nifft · Mar 6, 2007

Yeah. You can't wish for more wishes, and you can't ... er ... feat for more feats.

Cheers, -- N

Ilium · Mar 6, 2007

One alternative (which will make your PCs more powerful) is to make everybody a "fighter." Say that everyone has access to the fighter-only feats, and every character can select one every X levels (maybe every 3rd level starting with 1st, so 1st, 4th, 7th, etc.). This will give you a more martial set of characters (since even wizards will have several Fighter feats) and eliminates the fighter as a class.

It's definitely power creep, though, especially for the remaining martial classes. If you're OK with that, I think it could work.

Herzog · Mar 6, 2007

How about changing it to:

Fighter feats (general)
You are especially well trained in the arts of fighting.
Benefit: Gain access to feats that are normaly reserved for fighters. (such as weapon specialization)
Special: The fighter level requirement for those feats is changed to BAB requierement of the same amount (i.e.: Fighter lvl 4+ becomes BAB 4+ )

This would allow non-fighters to take weapon specialization without houseruling it completely away.

Herzog

papastebu · Mar 6, 2007

To answer your question, it seems like you'll be amping up the power level of any game quite a bit. Also, such a change would pretty much wipe out some choices that players might make for their characters' feats, simply because a combat-minded player is going to be rolling in murderous capability, and the clerics, wizards, sorcerers, etc, are going to be way outclassed once they run out of magic. Also, the players are going to be having their characters throw all their heaviest spells at these living tanks in hopes of killing them fast, if the rules count for NPCs also. Even if they don't, the fighters of the PCs are going to be wading in and taking all the fun out of combat from those who like using spellcasters. It seems like the fighter as a class would go away, but the fighting capability of a character, any character, would take on a whole other significance. That said, what about this?

If you throw out the fighter, then why not throw out all the classes?

Just make every feat available to every character, throwing away any references to "X-class, level-X" when listing prereqs. Certain class abilities, such as Wild Shape and arcane spellcasting could be available with the proper prerequisites--"Natural Selection" or "Wizard Sight" as example names, respectively--taken at first level. To get these you'd have to have a 12+ in the current ability score for the class--wisdom or intelligence, respective of examples--and possibly something else.

It would be a whole lot of work, but it sounds like fun. I'm going to try and work something like that out. I already have most of the class abilities and feats in a list, anyway. Thanks for the neat idea.