A Fighters skill points....

[Ridley's Cohort]

And Lord Pendragon IS silly for arguing that a fighter should invest in skill feats to make up for a rules problem.

I agree there. I am certainly willing to 'waste' a feat to round out a character concept. But I do not see that one or two feats from the PHB will go far.

I have seen reasonably good results with Cosmopolitan, but that is not core. IMO Cosmopolitan is more than twice as good for mid-level characters as the run of the mill +2 & +2 feats, and it scales with level.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

And Lord Pendragon IS silly for arguing that a fighter should invest in skill feats to make up for a rules problem.

And I find the people in this thread who believe the fighter is underpowered to be equally silly.

Now can we stop with the sniping, or are you just looking for a fight?

 

[Steverooo]

First of all, the Multiclassing rules just don't work. There... I've said it!

A 4th level Ex-Barbarian/Fighter/Paladin/Ranger has the Fortitude save of a 12th level Fughter, as well as +2 Reflex. Obviously, this is wrong!

The LN Level Two Druid/Monk isn't quite as bad, but has no weakness, like the above's +0 Will. Again, this is a problem.

The "fix" is to lower DCs, and make "Good" saves +1 first level. Then this problem will be no more. Maximum gain/level is +1, for all classes.

Now the Fighter's skills... IMHO, ALL classes need more skill points, and I see no reason why any class should have a mere +2/level, so I support a boost for all. For the Fighter's skills, let me digress, for a moment...

Remember 1e? No one but a THIEF could climb walls, or Move Silently/Hide in Shadows, and even a Ranger had to rely on his better Surprise dice? Now Fighters have climb! Why?

Because they're big and strong, and Climb/Jump/Swim are STR skills. Oh, sure, their archetype doesn't really call for a lot of climbing (although the DC:15 climb check to get up or down a non-knotted rope, when it's away from a wall (IIRC), is annoying), and sure, his armor penalty is working against him, as well as his shield penalty, but oh well, at least he has it!

Now, onto the DEX-based skills, especially Move Silently & Hide... Seems to me that the same applies here. Fighters need DEX & CON, let'em have these skills, too. Sentry-stalking is - most assuredly - primarily a military art! Again, the average Fighter's Armor & Shield Check Penalties will be working against him, so the ROGUE will still be better (as will the Ranger), but that's all well and good, too.

Next, Spot & Listen. The military is, and almost always HAS BEEN the primary producer of "trained observers". There are many in the airline industry, today, but still, unless I miss my educated guess, I'll bet the military still outnumbers them by a wide margin. Besides... If I were a Fighter assigned to stand Sentry duty, and I thought someone was stalking me, you betcha I'd develop some Listen skill!

If I were running D&D (and I'm not), I would look carefully at classes to see what skills they needed to do their jobs. Then, I'd make sure they had them. I would then see what Professions and Crafts would also fit, and add them to the list (instead of the more general list). I would bever entertain the idea that a Fighter needed to multiclass in order to be a good sentry, or a good commando, or mounted archer, or any other Medieval military roll. If he has to, then the D&D Fighter is flawed, and needs fixing.

The same is true with ALL classes.

"So, Steverooo, what's YOUR Fix?"

First of all, see above...

Next, EVERY class gets either Special Class Abilities, OR their choice of Special Class-Only Feats from a list, at EVERY level. For the Fighter, for example, one of these might be:

Officer
You have ascended to high Rank in the military.
Effects: Diplomacy, Knowledge (Local), and Knowledge (Nobility and Royalty) are added to your class skills. Skill points/level are increased by two, but these points can only be used for these three skills.

For Druids, Rangers, and perhaps Monks, special extensions to the Improved Unarmed Strike chain could be added, to let their hand(s) do slashing damage. In general, though, MOST of the selectable Feats should be non-combat-oriented (as opposed to now, when many, if not most, are)!

Gaining new abilities at every level would make more people want to stick with a base class. There's another thing that would help, though...

The DMG-stated FACT that Prestige Classes are more powerful than "normal" PHB Classes is just wrong, IMHO. I hate that. I would much rather see the following (in 4.0+):

There are no more Prestige Classes, as such. Instead, all of the PHB PC Classes have a wide variety of Class-only Feats at higher levels (such as the Rogue's), which allow them to be customized to become the equivalents. Clerics/Paladins or Druids/Rangers might share some Feats/Special Abilities, but then, they do now, so so what? In 4.0, you can gain the abilities of the Prestige classes through selecting the Feats or Class-Only Feats that you need to gain the abilities.

Another way to do that same thing would be to assign an XP cost to each ability, and then MULTIPLY that by a certain amount, depending upon what level it was gained at...

For instance, gaining 1D6 worth of backstab (uh, I mean Sneak Attack!) might cost, say, 500 XP, times the level. 500 XP at first, 1,000 at second, etc. (Yes, yes, I know that someone could stay first level and pick up a lot of stuff, but think about it... low saves, low HP, etc. Perhaps a limit of "no more XP in special abilities than in your class" could fix that?)

Anyway, just some ideas. Until the PHB Classes are as powerful as the Prestige classes, this problem will only continue...

 

[FrankTrollman]

Now can we stop with the sniping, or are you just looking for a fight?

I'm not especially looking for a fight, but I can't stop sniping you either.

You see, your two "solutions" to the Fighter problem were:

1> Spend a couple of feats on Cosmopolitan.
or
2> Multiclass.

Right.

---

For the first one, let's look at a 3rd level Fighter:

The only class features of the whole class so far, has been the gaining of 2 bonus feats. If I spend two feats that I otherwise would not have to get a couple of Cosmopolitans, I then have to spend those 2 bonus feats on the combat feats I otherwise would have without taking any class at all.

So the net result: I get +2 to two skills, and have the lowest possible number of skill points and no class features at all for three levels. Do I have to draw you a diagram?

---

For the second one:
[sarcasm]
Gosh, you're right! If I don't take Fighter Levels at all, my Fighter Levels won't drag me down! Why didn't I think of that?

Of course, I can make up for the shortcomings of the Fighter class by not taking Fighter Levels. That solves everything.
[/sarcasm]

Of course, that's just like saying "The Sorcerer's power and diversity problems are completely solved by just taking your first level as Wizard and taking all of your subsequent levels as Wizard."

That's basically so irrelevent to the discussion that I can't even tell if it's "true" or "false". Any problems with a class can, of course, be removed by taking your levels in some other class - that's not a helpful suggestion.
----


So yes, pendragon - your suggestions are comical to the point where you are the comic relief of this discussion. We can't take you seriously. That's why we make fun of you.

-Frank

 

[Norfleet]

The only class features of the whole class so far, has been the gaining of 2 bonus feats. If I spend two feats that I otherwise would not have to get a couple of Cosmopolitans, I then have to spend those 2 bonus feats on the combat feats I otherwise would have without taking any class at all.

Sorry, Chief, but don't think that actually works. Cosmopolitan, IIRC, is NOT on the list of fighter bonus feats. That, unfortunately, means a fighter CAN'T take them as fighter bonus feats, although if he's a human, he can take two using his standard and racial feats at first level....which is probably the only time you SHOULD take them, since otherwise, you won't actually have any skillpoints to put in them, or will have already burned the skillpoints on cross-class penalties.

But yeah, two skillpoints per level, plus an abyssally bad skill list, does sort of suck. And Spot and Listen aren't even on the class skill list. If a fighter happened to learn his fighting art in a jungle climate, I seriously doubt riding would be high on his list of things-to-know, whereas spotting and listening for enemies hiding in the trees would certainly be on the list of things-to-know.

That, and the idea of spot and listen as skills that one trains in at the expense of something else is a little weird: You don't become WORSE at other skills or lack them entirely because you were observant: In fact, you would become BETTER at other skills, because you were observant and could therefore learn them in less time than others! I'm a fairly observant person: I probably have a decent spot skill (although as a fine connoisseur of explosions, my listen skill undoubtedly suffers): This didn't happen because I spent my time staring into space trying to practice spotting things: It was more or less an innate aptitude, which improved with practice....and you can't really NOT practice them unless you walk around blindfolded with earplugs...which arguably is a great way to practice one's Balance skill.

 

[BMF]

Sorry, Chief, but don't think that actually works. Cosmopolitan, IIRC, is NOT on the list of fighter bonus feats... .

That's not what he said.

If you jack up the Fighter's Skill points to 4/level, and you give the Fighter a bonus feat every level from first level through twentieth, they still don't do all that well in that kind of analysis..

That shows a flaw in your analysis. I submit exhibit A:

1 Bonus Feat
2 Bonus Feat
3 Bonus Feat
4 Bonus Feat
5 Bonus Feat
6 Bonus Feat
7 Bonus Feat
8 Bonus Feat
9 Bonus Feat
10 Bonus Feat
11 Bonus Feat
12 Bonus Feat
13 Bonus Feat
14 Bonus Feat
15 Bonus Feat
16 Bonus Feat
17 Bonus Feat
18 Bonus Feat
19 Bonus Feat
20 Bonus Feat

I would never allow someone to play a fighter with that many feats. Clearly, they would be more powerful than any barbarian or paladin or ranger. You are making a dubious association between class abilities and feats. You also disregard the flexibility and versatility that comes with the fighter's broad selection of feats.

I agree that fighters don't get enough skills to choose from. I hesitate to give them more skill points though. I don't think they should get Spot, Listen, Hide, AND Move Silently (or Sneak). That is a sweet skill set that is the domain of rogues and other extremely alert characters. Perhaps one or two of those. Spot being my personal choice.

Knowledge (tactics) from d20 Modern would be good too.

Can you show how a 20th level barbarian is clearly more powerful than a 20th level fighter (like you did with the prestige classes above)?

 

[Silverglass]

Adding good feats to possible feat choices in no way balances the Fighter.

You can take 20 levels of Combat Classes and Prestige Classes without taking more than 2 levels of any class. With no more than 2 levels in any class you take no XP penalty regardless of what your favored class is, and regardless of whether you use the stupid 3.r typo that PrCs can cause XP penalties.

Without stretching yourself, you can get at least 20 Bonus Feats by 20th level.

So the "Fighter" class is, in fact, NINE FEATS IN THE HOLE at 20th level.

And the Fighter is also supposed to get worse skills to pay for having only slightly more than half the minimum bonus outlay of a multiclassed character with the same BAB and combat role?

How does that work?

<snip>
-Frank

And of those 9 extra Feats that you have got by having 10 classes you will have spent how many that are of limited use in meeting the pre-requisites to take the 5+ prestige classes you have? The probable net result after removing these feats is parity or a net loss. And of all those extra skill points how many have you been forced to spend to meet pre-requisites.

When it comes down to it you seem to want a Fighter that is good in combat and out, well that is what the core classes give you. Take a Fighter 18/other class 2 (Expert, Bard or Rogue are all good).

Ok you might sacrifice a point of BAB, a Feat and 5 or 6 hit points - but in return you get those extra skills you desire so much. Thereby meeting the principle that this character is fractionally worse in combat than a PC with 20 Fighter levels but better in non-combat situations.

You complain that this proves that Fighters are "broken" because to get a maxed diplomacy and sense motive they have to multi-class. But so would a Wizard who wanted a high diplomacy and sense motive, or a cleric who wanted to track as well as a ranger. The principle holds true across the classes so I can't see how you can use this as an argument that it breaks the Fighter class.

Sorry but I dont agree that the Fighter Class (not a PC who is has the role of fighter) needs more skill points or a wider skill list. That is what multiclassing, skill boosting feats and cross-class skills are for.

EDIT

Just for comparison with an INT 10 non-human (although you would probably have better INT if you wanted to be a skilled fighter.

Fighter 20

114 HP, BAB +20, Fort +12, Ref +6, Will +6, 18 Feats
40 Skill Points on Fighter skills

Fighter 16, Rogue 4

106 HP, BAB +19, Fort +11, Ref +9, Will +6, 16 Feats
32 Skill Points on Fighter skills
32 Skill Points to spend on any rogue skill.

So that would give this fighter 16 ranks each in Diplomacy and Sense Motive and 2d6 Sneak attack, evasion and uncanny dodge.

 

[The_DarkAngel]

To some degree everyone has a valid arguement however, my great concern for balanced pc classes is because of one simple reason: I dont like prestige classes (well a good many of them). This doesnt mean I dont use them in my campaign I just limit them.

Personally Id rather have more veristile and balanced character classes then a ton of unbalanced prestige classes. As Ive said before, I broke down each class and its abilities from 1st to 20th level, and I find the fighter and the sorceror slightly lacking. Apperently Im not the only one. I want to play with balanced class.

The new house rule in regaurds to the Fighter Class is thus follows:

Class skills: in addition the Fighter can choose 3 class skills from the following list: Bluff, Heal, Knowledge (any except arcana unless he has a really good reason), listen, profession, Search, Sense motive, or Spot.

Class Abilities: 11th level Fighter Feat.

Al the rest remains the same including class skill points.

Next up is the sorceror and 2 new Fighter variant classes one Dex bases, one Skill based similiar to Unearthed Arcana.

DA

 

[FrankTrollman]

Can you show how a 20th level barbarian is clearly more powerful than a 20th level fighter (like you did with the prestige classes above)?

Yes and no. While I can show that a 20th level Barbarian moves faster, hits more often, has more hit points and does more damage - I don't think that's what people are looking for out of a comparison.

---

The thing is, Fighters are not versatile and customizable. They don't have "any bonus feat you want". They have a single feat, every other level, which doesn't change.

While the class says:

1 Bonus Feat
2 Bonus Feat
3
4 Bonus Feat
5
6 Bonus Feat
7
8 Bonus Feat
9
10 Bonus Feat
11
12 Bonus Feat
13
14 Bonus Feat
15
16 Bonus Feat
17
18 Bonus Feat
19
20 Bonus Feat

In reality, a specific Fighter might get:

1 Power Attack
2 Weapon Focus
3
4 Great Cleave
5
6 Weapon Specialization
7
8 Mounted Combat
9
10 Spirited Charge
11
12 Improved Initiative
13
14 Expertise
15
16 Knockdown
17
18 Improved Overrun
19
20 Improved Disarm

Looks a lot less impressive, doesn't it? You don't get to switch your bonus feats. Once you've selected them, they aren't "customizable" at all. So if the Fighter is paying anything for his "customizability" (and he he seems to be), then he's paying too much - because he doesn't actually get to enjoy any of it.

Or to put it another way:

Sooner or later you are going to want Rapid Shot if you ever intend to fight with a bow. You could take two more levels of Fighter and get Rapid Shot, 4 skill points, and 2 BAB.

Or you could take 2 levels of Ranger and get Rapid Shot, 12 skill points, a Favored Enemy Bonus, Track, Wild Empathy, a bonus to your reflex saves, and 2 BAB.

As long as you haven't taken 2 levels of Ranger, there's no reason to take 2 more levels of Fighter. And so on, for all the combat classes.

---

Now, the warrior classes also have their own problems - which is that they also have sharp drop-offs where there's no good reason to take them. The Barbarian, for example, is also half as good per level after level 2 than it is at the beginning. The Ranger and the Paladin don't get good things after level 5.

But these classes also start off getting more stuf than the Fighter does. Rage is better than Weapon Focus. By really a whole lot.

And of those 9 extra Feats that you have got by having 10 classes you will have spent how many that are of limited use in meeting the pre-requisites to take the 5+ prestige classes you have?

I don't know. How much do you value Weapon Focus? I think it sucks, and so I am annoyed when a Prestige Class demands that I take it. If you were going to take it anyway (perhaps because you are trying to make use of the Fighter's "ability" to take Weapon Specialization) then that's no cost at all.

On the other hand, I really like the 3.5 Endurance feat. And of course it comes with a level that has 6 skill points, which is practically a feat in and of itself. So I really don't mind getting Endurance as a bonus feat instead of not getting a bonus feat like I would be getting from taking Fighter levels (since it comes on an odd level). The fact that it is used as a prereq certainly doesn't make it worse.

-Frank

 

[takyris]

The thing is, Fighters are not versatile and customizable. They don't have "any bonus feat you want". They have a single feat, every other level, which doesn't change.

Frank, I'm not sure that I agree with you here. I don't think people were under the impression that they could change their bonus feats at will. I think that what people were saying was that the bonus feats allow you to make whatever type of fighter you want. The feats allow you to make an archery specialist, a hit-and-run expert, a two-handed-weapon monster, or a guy who dabbles in a bunch of fields. In that respect, it IS customizable -- it's the same level of customizability as the wizard, who gets to choose his spells and really has nothing but spells to go with, or the rogue, who gets to choose his skill points and is not a power-contender in most areas beyond skill-usage.

The wizard is the customizable guy with spells. The rogue is the customizable guy with skills. The fighter is the customizable guy with the best BAB.

I've found with fighters that what i end up valuing are not so much the bonus feats themselves, which tend to be the stuff I'd take anyway if I were playing a ranger or a paladin -- but the ordinary feats, which I can use for stuff I wouldn't have room for if I weren't playing a bonus-feat-heavy class.

For what it's worth, I personally agree with you that Weapon Focus/Specialization is not the way to go. I HATE having to rely on a single weapon, when that weapon could be disarmed or sundered -- or when I might find a much better weapon of a different type. I personally never take that feat when playing a PC. On the other hand, enough people DO take that feat chain that it apparently IS valuable in somebody's eyes -- just not in ours.

On another side note: You're making a lot of good rules points on these boards, but people are responding more to your tone than to your points. If you were a little more diplomatic, you'd probably have a lot more supporters.

EDIT: Got rid of rest of Frank's post, which I'd quoted.