I'm running a 3.5e game, and one of the things I'd like to do is give martials more options to remain relevant in combat longer relative to their spellcasting counterparts. I already have snagged a few feats from Pathfinder or other sources (including homebrew) to beef up damage output or make them more resilient. Now what I'm specifically looking for are options that provide more tactical options or battlefield control abilities. Does anyone have any suggestions for good sources of these types of feats/ideas? Note that I'm generally fine with a feat designed for late game that is substantially above the power curve of existing 3.5e feats. I want gaining high levels as a martial to be as fun and exciting as gaining a high level as a caster.
Looking for more combat feats
Greenfield
Adventurer
We used a different solution than more or better feats. After all, even though Fighters get a mountain of them, they still have enough to really follow only one, maybe two feat trees to the end, where the real benefits come into play.
Our approach was to make a change in the iterative attack rules. Instead of getting an extra attack every five BAB points, we changed it to every four.
While this applies "equally" to every class, some are far more equal than others. Higher BAB classes get the most advantage.
Consider the Fighter or Barbarian:
Under standard rules they get an extra attack (at a cumulative -5) at 6th level, 11th level and 16th level.
Under our modded rules they get an extra attack (with a cumulative -4) at 5th level, 9th level, 13th level and 17th level.
Both sequences would get another at 21, if you got those in the epic range, but you don't.
So at about the time where the Wiz is getting his Fireball and Lightning Bolt, the Fighter gets his first iterative attack. At about the point where the Cleric is getting raise Dead, the Fighter is getting his second iterative attack.
It tilts their power advancement curve up a little steeper, without warping much of anything else and keeps them relevant that much longer.
Our approach was to make a change in the iterative attack rules. Instead of getting an extra attack every five BAB points, we changed it to every four.
While this applies "equally" to every class, some are far more equal than others. Higher BAB classes get the most advantage.
Consider the Fighter or Barbarian:
Under standard rules they get an extra attack (at a cumulative -5) at 6th level, 11th level and 16th level.
Under our modded rules they get an extra attack (with a cumulative -4) at 5th level, 9th level, 13th level and 17th level.
Both sequences would get another at 21, if you got those in the epic range, but you don't.
So at about the time where the Wiz is getting his Fireball and Lightning Bolt, the Fighter gets his first iterative attack. At about the point where the Cleric is getting raise Dead, the Fighter is getting his second iterative attack.
It tilts their power advancement curve up a little steeper, without warping much of anything else and keeps them relevant that much longer.
[MENTION=6669384]Greenfield[/MENTION] That's an interesting approach, thanks. I may steal it. Did you do anything about the huge discrepancy between full attack and move/attack at higher BABs? I'm considering something like the following:
"As a standard action, you can make a full attack as if your BAB was 5 points less."
This way a fighter with BAB of +12 could choose to either move and single attack at +12 or move and double attack at +7/+2. It really becomes relevant with things like Whirlwind Attack or dual-wielding, but I'm not real thrilled with it yet. Another thing I've considered is just giving every character the equivalent of Vital Strike from Pathfinder.
"As a standard action, you can make a full attack as if your BAB was 5 points less."
This way a fighter with BAB of +12 could choose to either move and single attack at +12 or move and double attack at +7/+2. It really becomes relevant with things like Whirlwind Attack or dual-wielding, but I'm not real thrilled with it yet. Another thing I've considered is just giving every character the equivalent of Vital Strike from Pathfinder.
Greenfield
Adventurer
Hmm.
One thing about the rule I proposed: It applies equally to all classes. A Wizard gets an extra attack when BAB hits 5 too, just like the Fighter.
Your rule seems class specific. Can a Wizard do a move, followed by a full round spell if they make the right Concentration or Spellcraft check, or is this benefit only for fighter types? Or is it only for Fighter class characters? (which I think is worse.)
One thing about the rule I proposed: It applies equally to all classes. A Wizard gets an extra attack when BAB hits 5 too, just like the Fighter.
Your rule seems class specific. Can a Wizard do a move, followed by a full round spell if they make the right Concentration or Spellcraft check, or is this benefit only for fighter types? Or is it only for Fighter class characters? (which I think is worse.)
It's not class-specific, but it is action-specific. Any character would be able to move and then do a full attack action as if their BAB were 5 lower. Or, depending on which option I go with, any character would be able to attack as if he or she had the Vital Strike feat. Again, my motivation is to keep martial classes more relevant at higher levels. I'm not convinced either of these options would be effective or accomplish what I'm going for, so I'm open to feedback or other suggestions.
Greenfield
Adventurer
Consider an alternative: Many monsters have an ability called Pounce. it lets them take all their natural weapon attacks as part of a Charge.
So create a Feat that allows PC types to do the same. Maybe make it part of the Mobility feat tree. Charge conditions have to be met, and they suffer the associated -2 to AC during the following round.
So create a Feat that allows PC types to do the same. Maybe make it part of the Mobility feat tree. Charge conditions have to be met, and they suffer the associated -2 to AC during the following round.
Celebrim
Legend
I think you are looking at the problem wrong. Martials remain relevant in combat relevant to spellcasters for a pretty long time, especially if you are careful about limiting the spell lists and not bring in every single published spell.
The problem is largely that martials do not remain relevant outside of combat compared to spellcasters very quickly. This is because martials are limited generally to doing what is realistic while spellcasters are allowed to break the rules of reality. This means that martials are very poor problem solvers outside of combat.
The second big problem martials have is that absolutist nature of 3.X especially at high levels. Typically, the DC of a saving throw (or grapple check) vastly outstrips the ability of a PC to make such saves while at the same time the consequences of failure are steadily decreasing. At low levels a PC might have a 50% shot of avoiding a save or suck effect, while at higher levels they might only have a 25% chance of avoiding a save or die effect. This is a problem unique to 3.X (in 1e and 2e, with effectively static DCs, high level PCs and high level fighters especially rarely failed saving throws). The solution high level characters have to adopt is powerful magical defenses like Mindblank, Death Ward, Freedom of Action, and Heroe's Feast. But this means that spellcasters are self-reliant whereas martial classes are reliant on spellcasters to be effective. This is a disparity that is increasingly felt over time.
So what is needed is making skills aggressively useful by lowering the DC of epic skill usage to reflect the idea that anyone above 6th level is a superhero so that skill investment can compare with spell ability. This may necessitate adding skill points and new skills to the fighter class and to martial classes generally. Likewise, you need feats or simply built in abilities that give martials the ability to be more self-reliant both in and out of combat and not simply means of increasing the damage that a martial class can do in combat because being relevant in combat is rarely the problem with a well built martial class.
So think about what problems a fighter actually has and fix those.
a) Fighters need ways to recover hit points (or equivalently avoid damage) without relying on magical healing. Can you think of ways to do that without breaking verisimilitude and simply making all class spell-casters? (That is, avoid the 4e solution.)
b) Fighters need ways to recover from bad saving throws and shorten or mitigate conditions that are inflicted on them. Mind effecting abilities are particularly important here - ways to break domination or paralysis and so forth are needed.
c) Fighters need ways to overcome or environmental hazards.
d) Fighters need to become more and more tank like superheroes at higher levels, with increased movement rates and mobility, and the ability to inflict damage on their environment or otherwise shape their environment in the way spellcasters can.
e) Fighters need ways to mitigate their reliance on magic or buffing by being always self-buffed.
At the same time, you have to keep firmly in mind that every spell in your spell-list is a new class power you are granting a spellcasting class and you want to in particular avoid introducing spells that obsolete and replace the abilities you are giving to martials.
The problem is largely that martials do not remain relevant outside of combat compared to spellcasters very quickly. This is because martials are limited generally to doing what is realistic while spellcasters are allowed to break the rules of reality. This means that martials are very poor problem solvers outside of combat.
The second big problem martials have is that absolutist nature of 3.X especially at high levels. Typically, the DC of a saving throw (or grapple check) vastly outstrips the ability of a PC to make such saves while at the same time the consequences of failure are steadily decreasing. At low levels a PC might have a 50% shot of avoiding a save or suck effect, while at higher levels they might only have a 25% chance of avoiding a save or die effect. This is a problem unique to 3.X (in 1e and 2e, with effectively static DCs, high level PCs and high level fighters especially rarely failed saving throws). The solution high level characters have to adopt is powerful magical defenses like Mindblank, Death Ward, Freedom of Action, and Heroe's Feast. But this means that spellcasters are self-reliant whereas martial classes are reliant on spellcasters to be effective. This is a disparity that is increasingly felt over time.
So what is needed is making skills aggressively useful by lowering the DC of epic skill usage to reflect the idea that anyone above 6th level is a superhero so that skill investment can compare with spell ability. This may necessitate adding skill points and new skills to the fighter class and to martial classes generally. Likewise, you need feats or simply built in abilities that give martials the ability to be more self-reliant both in and out of combat and not simply means of increasing the damage that a martial class can do in combat because being relevant in combat is rarely the problem with a well built martial class.
So think about what problems a fighter actually has and fix those.
a) Fighters need ways to recover hit points (or equivalently avoid damage) without relying on magical healing. Can you think of ways to do that without breaking verisimilitude and simply making all class spell-casters? (That is, avoid the 4e solution.)
b) Fighters need ways to recover from bad saving throws and shorten or mitigate conditions that are inflicted on them. Mind effecting abilities are particularly important here - ways to break domination or paralysis and so forth are needed.
c) Fighters need ways to overcome or environmental hazards.
d) Fighters need to become more and more tank like superheroes at higher levels, with increased movement rates and mobility, and the ability to inflict damage on their environment or otherwise shape their environment in the way spellcasters can.
e) Fighters need ways to mitigate their reliance on magic or buffing by being always self-buffed.
At the same time, you have to keep firmly in mind that every spell in your spell-list is a new class power you are granting a spellcasting class and you want to in particular avoid introducing spells that obsolete and replace the abilities you are giving to martials.
I definitely agree about the dichotomy between being confined by or able to break the rules of reality, and good point about out of combat. Thanks!
Again, 100% agree with these points. I've added a few options to address some of these in limited fashion, although I'm not sure if I've gone far enough. For example, Heroic Resilience allows a character the chance to make a second saving throw against an ongoing magical effect in the following round. Is it enough? I haven't seen it in play yet, and I'm leery of tilting too far in one direction. Close quarters fighting (AoO against all grapple attempts) should help characters avoid the peril of the many creatures with Improved Grab, but again, I don't know if that goes far enough.
I like the idea to make skills more generally useful, so that's something I'll think about. It would go a long way toward providing non-spellcasting classes more out of combat flexibility.
I don't really have a fix for this right now, but I'm not convinced it's the most important thing to solve right away.
This, on the other hand, is huge. As I mentioned above, I have a few options I'm working with right now, but I'll need some in-game feedback before determining if it does enough.
Yes! I don't want want to focus just on damage, and as the OP says, I'm really looking for additional tactical options. A wizard's ability to, say, cast a Wall of Stone and completely divide the battlefield is pretty powerful. While a high-level martial shouldn't be able to raise a stone wall, maybe things like creating a kill zone with ranged attacks, or stunning all opponents in a limited area, or a frenzied charge with a free overrun+attack against everyone in your path, etc, would be sufficient to make a martial feel like they had some more influence over the tactical situation than just dealing damage.
As for overcoming environmental hazards, that's one area I haven't given much thought to. It seems that skills could help here (jump, climb, balance, escape artist, etc).
Again, this is definitely what I would like to see.
A high-level fighter (or paladin, or rogue, or ranger, or barbarian, or scout, or...) should be able to do things that truly amaze the common person without the aid of magic.
"Thorvald scrambled up the 10' wall and leaped across the 15' chasm to pull himself up onto a ledge above the floor, all the while dodging the flying sorcerer's bolts of enervation. He turned to face a rushing contingent of orcs but a slam of his hammer on the stone sent shards in a blinding spray, and they reeled backwards. Safe for the moment, Thorvald turned and made a flying leap to grapple the sorcerer and bring him crashing to the ground. He stood up from the crumpled corpse of mage and inspected his armor. Seeing that the kneeplates were scuffed, he cursed under his breath." - That's the stuff of heroes.
I don't know if I said it explicitly, but I'm not interested in nerfing spell-casters, so the solution is that the non-casters need some more options.
Celebrim
Legend
Close Quarters Fighting is an example of something that fighters absolutely need to stay relevant, but it brings up an important point here and that is feat tax. If you can compose a list of feats a fighter absolutely has to have to stay relevant, then you are actually creating a count of how many feat slots the fighter is short of in its design to being balanced. You have to either grant these feats as class abilities or else add that many slots to the fighter if you are going to go this route. My rebuilt fighter gets 17 bonus feats and six class abilities compared to the 11 bonus feats of the stock fighter, filling in for what I feel is a short fall of 12
feats.
The rebuilt fighter also gets 4 skill points and access to four new skills: leadership, tactics, porter, and run. The first two let you do minor buffs in combat and remove morale debuffs, plus open up feat trees to make you good at that stuff (like using them as free actions). The second two grant you flat bonus to your carrying capacity and base movement rate, both of which give you problem solving ability. In the long run I also intend to tie tactics and leadership to a mass combat system, so that fighters naturally excel other classes in leading armies in battle.
It's more important than you think. If you have a 1e background, you'll note that spellcaster's didn't outshine fighters at least (thieves were another matter) so completely in earlier versions of the game. One of the reasons was the math of hit points. In early editions, fighters (and fighter sub-classes) had about twice as many hit points as other classes - 5.5 per level versus 2.5 per level. Bonus hit points from CON were fairly rare, but if they did exist fighters got a hidden class feature of getting roughly twice as much advantage out of high CON as other classes. Fighter with 18 CON could get +4 bonus hit points, but all non-fighter classes were capped at a maximum bonus of +2. The result was that fighters were very durable. But in 3.X, CON bonuses are quite common and further commonly buffed. If a Wizard and a Fighter both have effectively 20 CON, then the relative durability of the Wizard has gone way up - 10.5 per level versus 7.5 per level is a much smaller relative gap. In essence, spellcasters were made much less squishy while martial classes were given no compensating bonus. Further, this just feeds into the fact that spellcasters are self-reliant and martial classes are not, because divine spellcasters can repair their wounds, effectively tanking better than the martial classes.
Two numbers that are very important in this discussion are base Fortitude save bonus and base attack bonus. What you want to do is introduce feats that both require good base numbers in these categories but also scale with those numbers. As a small hint, the way the Toughness feat works in my game is it grants you your base Fortitude save bonus + 3 bonus hit points. Thus, a wizard that takes the feat at first level gets +3 hit points, but a fighter gets +5. Further, at 20th level, the feat now grants the 20th level fighter +15 hit points. And the feat Great Fortitude increases your base Fortitude save bonus directly, so as a small side effect, if you have both feats you also gain +2 hit points.
Imagine for example a feat that says, "If you suffer a condition like dazzled, stunned, dazed, blah blah blah, that condition automatically lasts 1 round less". If that doesn't go far enough, you could just flat out half the duration of the conditions (rounding down).
It's one of those nigh game breaking abilities to change the rules of reality. You are going to have a hard time matching that and not turning a martial character into a spell-caster. It's not just the ability it grants in combat, but the fact that it is a massively powerful problem solver for a wide variety of out of combat situations.
You keep focusing on dealing damage in combat as if that's the real problem martials face. It's not. The real problem is what does a martial do in response to a wall of stone or more to the point a wall of force being raised in their face. And that points to general problems that extend outside the area of the martial class design, like the fact that wall of force is written to have no responses to it other than equally powerful magic. It's written in absolute language and without any sort of quantification. It would be one thing if it said, "The wall of force has hardness 100." Instead, it has immunity. If you want martials to compete with spellcasters, one area you have to start dealing with is the fact that spellcasters get agency without qualification or quantification.
Survival, heal, endurance. The Endurance feat can be very powerful if you have a hazards system well tied to it, and I've even considered turning Endurance into a skill. You have to start making skills matter in very tangible ways, and if that means things like allowing the Heal skill to heal wounds via first aid in some limited way, then you need to go there. Of course, skills don't always just help martials, but if you start looking at martials get more skills than spellcasters and the fact that spell-casting itself is a skill sink (concentration, spellcraft and in my game scry) then you can start getting more balance going.
I don't know what you mean by nerf, but you have to be very careful about increasing the available spells or you will never get balance. And you have to really pay close attention to how spells work. Spells like Spider Climb and Jump in and of themselves go a long way to making Martials second class citizens because they let you do things as a low level character or with a trivial exercise of power that martials would struggle to do as a high level character.
Greenfield
Adventurer
To pick a nit, Run doesn't add to your base movement ability. It adds to your multiplier when doing a full run.
Since a full run (4x move) happens so rarely, and may in fact be impossible for some who prefer heavy armor, bumping that potential to 5x isn't such a big thing as one might think.
Consider that the Ranger is also a fighter type, one who gets things like Heal in class, and has class abilities that functionally increase his base movement (Woodland Stride). Many of these abilities essentially take the place of the bonus Feats that Fighters have, and some of them can be replicated with Feats. But some can't.
In PCs I'll often mix and match some Ranger levels in with my Fighters. More skills, two good saves, full BAB progression, heightened movement in some terrain, and even if they never get any spells, they can now use some magic items that the pure Fighter can't. They give up the ability to use heavy armor, but Mithral helps address that by making even full plate into a medium armor.
By the way, Wall of Stone is imposing, but not actually that much of an obstacle.
At 20th level, it's 5 inches thick. At 10th level it's 2. Hardness of 8, 15 hp per inch for every five foot section. Most spells do fractional damage to inanimate objects. Swords, maces etc. do full. So this particular obstacle is one you really want a fighter type to handle.
So your fighter Power Attacks the wall (can't hardly miss so you might as well go all in), and he can be through it in a round or three. Less if they have a two handed weapon, since Power Attack doubles for that.
Most other Wall spells flat out fail if there's anything in the way, so they can be shut down with a little planning. You can effectively "Counterspell" them simply by observing when they cast and moving into the target zone. Takes a held action, but then so does counterspell.
Now don't get me wrong, walls spells are great battlefield control. But they aren't the be-all and end-all that some see them to be.
Over all, there are a lot of skills and feats in the books, and it's unrealistic to suggest that every fighter type will have all of them. Some are essential for specific situations, but not every campaign includes all those situations.
Also remember that there is another "fighter" class that many of these are aimed at: The Warrior. The Warrior is the NPC class, the combat type who stands in a shield wall, or wields pikes or spears as part of a group maneuver. Fighters are a PC class, the individual hero rather than the city guard or footman in the infantry. The roles aren't the same and the requirements aren't the same.
One player in my group has all of her character's feats, class, prestige class and skill choices already made, levels one through twenty. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but as the campaign develops some of those planned choices may be rendered irrelevant. The Mounted Combat series, for example, is really nice. Unless the campaign ends up doing a lot of dungeon delving, or traveling by sea, or adventuring in town, or... You get the picture.
Because the campaign doesn't always involve all aspects of play equally, and may have some so thoroughly minimized as to be insignificant, the need for all of those "essential" feats and abilities just migh not be there.
Since a full run (4x move) happens so rarely, and may in fact be impossible for some who prefer heavy armor, bumping that potential to 5x isn't such a big thing as one might think.
Consider that the Ranger is also a fighter type, one who gets things like Heal in class, and has class abilities that functionally increase his base movement (Woodland Stride). Many of these abilities essentially take the place of the bonus Feats that Fighters have, and some of them can be replicated with Feats. But some can't.
In PCs I'll often mix and match some Ranger levels in with my Fighters. More skills, two good saves, full BAB progression, heightened movement in some terrain, and even if they never get any spells, they can now use some magic items that the pure Fighter can't. They give up the ability to use heavy armor, but Mithral helps address that by making even full plate into a medium armor.
By the way, Wall of Stone is imposing, but not actually that much of an obstacle.
At 20th level, it's 5 inches thick. At 10th level it's 2. Hardness of 8, 15 hp per inch for every five foot section. Most spells do fractional damage to inanimate objects. Swords, maces etc. do full. So this particular obstacle is one you really want a fighter type to handle.
So your fighter Power Attacks the wall (can't hardly miss so you might as well go all in), and he can be through it in a round or three. Less if they have a two handed weapon, since Power Attack doubles for that.
Most other Wall spells flat out fail if there's anything in the way, so they can be shut down with a little planning. You can effectively "Counterspell" them simply by observing when they cast and moving into the target zone. Takes a held action, but then so does counterspell.
Now don't get me wrong, walls spells are great battlefield control. But they aren't the be-all and end-all that some see them to be.
Over all, there are a lot of skills and feats in the books, and it's unrealistic to suggest that every fighter type will have all of them. Some are essential for specific situations, but not every campaign includes all those situations.
Also remember that there is another "fighter" class that many of these are aimed at: The Warrior. The Warrior is the NPC class, the combat type who stands in a shield wall, or wields pikes or spears as part of a group maneuver. Fighters are a PC class, the individual hero rather than the city guard or footman in the infantry. The roles aren't the same and the requirements aren't the same.
One player in my group has all of her character's feats, class, prestige class and skill choices already made, levels one through twenty. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but as the campaign develops some of those planned choices may be rendered irrelevant. The Mounted Combat series, for example, is really nice. Unless the campaign ends up doing a lot of dungeon delving, or traveling by sea, or adventuring in town, or... You get the picture.
Because the campaign doesn't always involve all aspects of play equally, and may have some so thoroughly minimized as to be insignificant, the need for all of those "essential" feats and abilities just migh not be there.
