Fighter problems

[rbingham2000]

I like these, especially the Martial Arts school. The fighter gets Knowledge/arcana and Knowledge/religion as class skills (though I think something more physically-oriented like Jump, Balance, Escape Artist or Tumble would be a better choice for those skills myself), plus he does 1D6 damage instead of the regular (and paltry, IMHO) 1D3 damage with his unarmed strikes.

A fighter doing 1D6 damage with his unarmed strikes doesn't steal the Monk's thunder at all, especially since the Monk's also got Flurry of Blows and the Wisdom-based AC bonus at 1st level, plus the increase in unarmed damage and all those other snazzy powers at higher levels. For the fighter to deal more damage than 1D6, he'll have to go the Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization route for the unarmed strike, as well as Improved Critical for especially nasty hits.

Come to think of it, this would make a very good choice for a wrestler as well as your average pugilist.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Another idea for Fighter specific feats:
"Fighter School feats". A fighter choses a school, and depending on the school, he gains certain advantages. The schools could be created by feats.
A fighter can be "member" of multiple schools.

Yoink
This makes me happy, basically built around the concept of feat = 2 class skills & +2 to 2 different skills
they seem more powerful than other feats, but I love the flavor, and my players might abuse the concept, it gives such lovely hooks - let see the

Swashbuckling school
Tumble and Bluff become class skills
Swashbucklers get a +2 to Jumb and Climb checks

Pirate School
Balance and Tumble become class skills
Pirates get a + 2 Dodge bonus if wearing light or no armor, while on a ship

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I've rarely had problems with fighters at higher levels. Their sheer number of feats allow them to perform some nice tricks that other classes simply arent' capable of doing. Even though the wizard gets a lot more firepower as he advances, the thing people are forgetting about is base damage. Take the most damaging spell a 20th level wizard can cast and comapre it agaisnt a 20th level fighter wielding a greatsword. The fighter is almost always going to win the sheet damage ratio. Is it going to be as big a kill sweep? No, but at 1st level, he can't compare with the mage's spell sleep either so it's not a big deal.

I agree for the most part. While I think there should be some more high prereq feats, I'm not going to add them just for fighters. Fighters are powerful enough as is. I'll take a fighter for a tank before any other melee class. Boring? No. He can easily at high levels have several combat abilities that take intelegence to know when and how to use them effectivley(improved disarm, trip, sunder, whirl wind attack, power attack etc).

As for skills I allow fighters to optionally gain only a d8 HD in excahange for 2 additional skill points every level (8 at first level) and 3 additional class skills.

 

[Lord Satan]

Hmm, not a bad idea, school-specific feats with the prereqs of having to belong to that school for the basic feats, then belonging to that school and the basic school feats for the higher level school styles, have to becareful of balance though.

 

[Afrodyte]

work in progress

I'm working on importing some of the class design of D20 Modern into standard D&D. However, instead of basing each class around the 6 attributes, there are 3 generic classes (similar to those from Unearthed Arcana) with the base classes as expansions of them. Here is where you can find my preliminary work.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I like these, especially the Martial Arts school. The fighter gets Knowledge/arcana and Knowledge/religion as class skills (though I think something more physically-oriented like Jump, Balance, Escape Artist or Tumble would be a better choice for those skills myself), plus he does 1D6 damage instead of the regular (and paltry, IMHO) 1D3 damage with his unarmed strikes.

Balance, Escape Artist and Tumble are good suggestions, though I always like the idea of martial arts being more than being better in combat - it´s a philosophy. Maybe these ideas give room for more "Martial Arts school" based feats. (A real problem for the fighter will still be to get all the skill points he needs for it - though it is not always neccessary to max skills)

 

[JoeGKushner]

Not exactly true. Yes, a fighter can fo massive damage to one or two foes, but a mage can do 20d6 to all of them!

Heck, a mage can average a 30 point fiireball at 10th and do it to like 20 guys a round. That's 600 points of damagey goodness. Not to mention the mage can fly, be invis, have stoneskin....all without equipment.

But now we're talking about vagueness. If you use material components and both characters are stripped of their items, one of them is nearly worthless.

Before going there, can the mage survive his own 20d6 spell? Nope.

Fighters have their place in the game and tales of "My fighter can't take down an army of low level indvidiauls in a single round like the mage" are well, childish. There are so many feats, especially among the unofficial ones, that a fighter can actually user something like Surpeme Cleave and get a 5 foot movement in between cleave attacks up to his maximum standard movement.

Like I said, I've never had this problem with fighters. Especially if you get a fighter with spring attack who goes before a mage and whacks him for 60 points of damage while he keeps moving.

 

[BryonD]

But now we're talking about vagueness. If you use material components and both characters are stripped of their items, one of them is nearly worthless.

Before going there, can the mage survive his own 20d6 spell? Nope.

Fighters have their place in the game and tales of "My fighter can't take down an army of low level indvidiauls in a single round like the mage" are well, childish. There are so many feats, especially among the unofficial ones, that a fighter can actually user something like Surpeme Cleave and get a 5 foot movement in between cleave attacks up to his maximum standard movement.

Like I said, I've never had this problem with fighters. Especially if you get a fighter with spring attack who goes before a mage and whacks him for 60 points of damage while he keeps moving.

Agreed.
It is easy to set up scenario X and put in it a vacuum to "prove" that the wizard is better. But in actual play the fighter's always hold their own in my experience.

 

[DanMcS]

Improved Armed Combat (Fighter special ability, can be taken at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level, in place of their bonus feat).

Fighters are the kings of using weapons. For each time they take this feat, any weapon they wield has its damage increased by one die, as if it had increased in size.

I believe the progression runs:
d3-d4-d6-d8-2d6-3d6-4d6-6d6-8d6-12d6...
and the alternate progression (for a d10 base) is
d10-2d8-4d6...? Something like that.

A fighter who has IACx2 does 1d8 damage with a dagger, though it is still a light weapon for him. If he picked up a greatsword, he'd do 4d6 damage.

This could give a good generalist feel to a fighter, as opposed to the Focus-specialization-greater focus-improved crit-greater specialization feat chain typical of a fighter focused in one area.

Or, he could do some of both, and end up devestating with one weapon, good with most others, but not have many other combat tricks and feats like the Improved Maneuvers.