High-level fighters: are better feats the solution?

[CRGreathouse]

I've added many higher-level fighter feats to my campaign -- probably 40 or 50 feats for hiogher-level figher types. I have to say it solves most of the problems: fighter is very popular, although dedicated characters of other classes can go for most of these feats (just not as many as the fighter).

 

[the Jester]

In my epic campaign there was an npc fighter with the group for a long time (from about 16th-24th levels). He never felt underpowered, although there was a period when he really needed some kind of flying item to increase his mobility.

 

[Tonguez]

So suppose you threw out that option. You might instead require lots of (specifically) fighter levels, as with the Weapon Specialization chain. To begin with, this seems a little weird, conceptually -- what's so special about your new feats that makes them signature to fighters? But suppose we ignored this consideration (we might not care about conceptual weirdness, or think it's weird, or be able to give a good answer, anyway); we're still faced with a deeper problem: high-level fighters now have a big incentive to ignore the multitude of feats available to them and just take the super feats. Essentially, it's as though fighters have to sets of bonus feats available to them: one for low-to-mid levels, and one for high levels, and a high-level fighter who takes feats from the former list does so at his own peril. The experienced swordsman has a strong incentive to take high-level feats that improve his swordsmanship, rather than taking low-level feats like Point Blank Shot or Rapid Shot that would allow him to branch out into archery. Or, the same swordsman can't flesh out his fighting style with a broad array of relatively basic feats: the rules would instead encourage him to take the newer, higher-level ones. Moreover, unless you design a wide range of interesting high-level feats (which would be hard, but possible), you're also probably dramatically reducing a fighter's options -- there might just be a small number of feats that would really be interesting to the sort of fighter he'd want to be. So, it seems to me as though this solution gives up desiderata (b) and (c)..

Personally I don't see the problem with this option it fits my sense of logic that a high level fighter who has progressed himself as a Swordsman ought to be able to take Super Swordsman feats like 'Whirling Death Storm' or somesuch.For that character to decide to suddenly pick up pointblank shot is not a logical step at high levels imho.
Also keeping the High level feats themed to Fighting 'Styles' makes it easier to design a wide range of feats for all occasions along with a few Meta-weapon feats (eg Penetrating Weapon - which overcomes DR, or Energized Weapon (which has the weapon take on an energy type in the hand of the skilled master) etc et

 

[Evilhalfling]

Yeah, the "combat rites." I addressed this at the bottom of my original post, actually.

I really disliked the rites when I read them - but I may have misread the way they are used.
I read it as you gained access to every rite of a certain level, but had limited uses per day.
this means you have to memorize all the effects, or have a printed list on hand when you want them? this would so screw up my record keeping.

I did like the abilities, it just needed better implementation.
If Im wrong about the way they are used, please let me know.

 

[Terath Ninir]

You can use any rite of the levels you know, with limited uses at each level (for most characters -- really high level ritual warriors start getting unlimited uses for their low-level rites). You do need to consult the list when you want to use them, but I imagine that would become routine after a session or two.

 

[comrade raoul]

I've added many higher-level fighter feats to my campaign -- probably 40 or 50 feats for hiogher-level figher types. I have to say it solves most of the problems: fighter is very popular, although dedicated characters of other classes can go for most of these feats (just not as many as the fighter).

Neat! Feel like posting or linking to them?

 

[Li Shenron]

If you simply require a high base attack bonus...

You might instead require lots of (specifically) fighter levels...

Now let's consider a third solution -- suppose our high-level fighter feats had a lot of *feat* prerequisites...

I think there could be still a 4th option for designing high-level feats, which you might want to think about:

REQUIRE A MINIMUM NUMBER OF ANY FEATS FROM THE FIGHTER BONUS FEAT LIST

For instance you could design a very good feat which requires "Any 6 feats from the Fighter bonus feat list" (even if they're taken as regular feats).

A non-Fighter non-human character has 6 feats in the span of 20 levels and will not qualify until level 21st. If he's a human, he can have such a feat only at 18th level, and only if all his previous feats were combat-related (i.e. present in the fighter list).
A character with some fighter levels can qualify earlier.
A single-class fighter (human or not) can potentially qualify for such a feat at level 6, which is definitely mid-low!

Note that these feats requirements represent a generic but intensive training in combat. Something that possibly only a full-focused combat character (i.e. the fighter) only can achieve before non-epic levels.

I would suggest that a real feat of this kind still has a couple of specific feats as requirements in this format:

Example Feat (defense-related)
Requisite: Dodge, Combat Expertise, plus any other 4 feats from the fighter bonus list
Benefit: bla bla bla whatever...

So if you design those high-level feats with a similar requirement (it could be more than 6 if you absolutely want them Fighter-only and high-level only), what happens to your problems?

Presumably, you want to ensure that (a) fighter levels have an increasing marginal utility (have an incentive to stick with the fighter class rather than taking levels in barbarian, rogue, or some prestige class), (b) high-level fighters have multiple viable choices when selecting bonus feats, and (c) high-level fighters can viably develop a broad range of combat styles.

(a) The more fighter level, the more "any" feat from the fighter bonus list; after some point you have enough of these to qualify for all those high-end feats (and you get more of them if you keep getting fighter levels). It's still possible that at some point one prefers levels in another class, unless there are enough high-end feats worth taking, which becomes the key task.

(b) with "plus any other X feats from the fighter list" you should qualify for more choices, as long as the fixed feats required aren't too many. However a big problem of the current feat tree is that is has "more roots than leaves" (the end-branch feats are usually not more than 1-2), so if you want more options, you have to provide more high-end feats which share the same requirements.

(c) again this should improve when requirements are flexible and let someone qualify with MORE feats overall, but more freely chosen

 

[comrade raoul]

I think there could be still a 4th option for designing high-level feats, which you might want to think about:

REQUIRE A MINIMUM NUMBER OF ANY FEATS FROM THE FIGHTER BONUS FEAT LIST

For instance you could design a very good feat which requires "Any 6 feats from the Fighter bonus feat list" (even if they're taken as regular feats).

This indeed didn't occur to me, and I think it's very clever and really cool. Given the right array of feats, it just might do the trick.