Project Phoenix fighter discussion (Forked from: Feat Points)

[Eldritch_Lord]

And for all that, he's also utterly boring, obviously magical, and totally tied to an Eastern mystical flavored combat that I would have thought had gone the way of the dodo when Bruce Lee utterly ripped it apart, to say nothing of UFC and how MMA exposed it's silliness.

I won't comment on your assessment of the warblade's power level, since its relative power depends on how your group plays other martial characters, but I do object to this characterization of it as some sort of "weeaboo anime class" that seems to be all over the place. The swordsage is most definitely anime-inspired and Eastern-flavored because it's the monk replacement of the book. The warblade? It's the pseudo-fighter, and it doesn't have a single magical/supernatural ability on its maneuver list except for a few from one discipline that it shares with the swordsage.

Rant[sblock]It has access to five disciplines--Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, White Raven, Tiger Claw, and Stone Dragon--which are flavored as, respectively, "I'm really skilled and hit things hard," "I'm really skilled and hit things multiple times," "I'm really skilled and help out my allies a lot," "I'm really skilled and hit things with two weapons," and "I'm really skilled and can ignore damage reduction and bull rushes."

Character A focuses all his strength into a powerful blow, sacrificing his accuracy for a decisive swing.
Character B focuses all his strength into a powerful blow, sacrificing his accuracy for a decisive swing.

Which one just used the Power Attack feat, and which one just used the Mountain Hammer strike while in the Punishing Stance?

Character A swings his blade in a wide arc, cutting through one foe and cleaving into another.
Character B swings his blade in a wide arc, cutting through one foe and cleaving into another.

Which one just used the Cleave feat, and which one just used the Steel Wind strike?

Character A thrusts his blade forward, under his opponent's swing, twists his blade and pulls up, deftly wrenching his foe's blade out of his grip.
Character B thrusts his blade forward, under his opponent's swing, twists his blade and pulls up, deftly wrenching his foe's blade out of his grip.

Which one just used the Disarm action, and which one just used Disarming Strike?

Character A makes a running leap and thrusts both blades into his opponent.
Character B makes a running leap and thrusts both blades into his opponent.

Which one just used the Leap Attack and Two-Weapon Fighting feats, and which one used the Sudden Leap and Wolf Fang Strike maneuver?

Damn Tome of Battle classes and their crazy anime magic. Like nothing ever seen before in D&D.[/sblock][/rant]

 

[Celebrim]

The swordsage is most definitely anime-inspired and Eastern-flavored because it's the monk replacement of the book. The warblade? It's the pseudo-fighter, and it doesn't have a single magical/supernatural ability on its maneuver list except for a few from one discipline that it shares with the swordsage.

Sorry, but the entire core mechanic of the book - 'stances' and 'strikes' - is inherently Eastern flavored. Eastern martial arts are characterized by the study and repetition of certain forms, usually in a set of sequences, and by the adoption of different stances having various circumstantial benefits. These stances and forms are given a variaty of poetic names which are themselves a form of ritual magic invoking the power contained in the name. This is why Eastern martial arts are so conducive to cinematic representation. They are highly visual and involve (in theory) a dramatic sequence of martial events almost like a story unfolding, "Boar Charges Down the Mountain and meets Tide Flowing out of the Bay. Silk Cord Snaps meets The Ancient Oak." And so forth.

Its rooted down deep in the mechanics of Bo9S - not one particular manuever or one particular discipline. The warblade goes over and meditates practices his forms for 5 minutes. Now, even though he had practiced some combat technique daily for 5 years, he forgets how to do it and learns a new pattern of forms. That's ritual magic - not martial skill.

There is nothing wrong with that if you want Eastern flavored martial combat in your game. If you don't, its impossible to extricate it from the mechanics.

 

[Runestar]

To be honest, I know nothing of eastern or western fighting styles (barring what I have seen from comics/anime/wuxia flicks - which I profess to being a fan of). Nor do I attempt to make this distinction in my games whatsoever. All I know is that tome of battle helped made melee fun again by allowing my warblade options beyond what a fighter was normally capable of.

Is the ability to say, deal double, quadruple or +100 damage as a standard action that big of a deal that it cannot be seen as being anything else other than anime/wuxia'ish? It shouldn't be that difficult to reflavour it as simply being an equivalent/variant of the full-attack routine a fighter typically takes. Consequences like dr applying just once or only 1 attack roll being made are really metagame concepts which can be glossed over.

Or say charging minotaur. What difference is it from a fighter making a bull-rush, fluff-wise?

A warblade simply moves and attacks as a standard action. A fighter also moves and attacks. I am really failing to see the distinction between the two.

There used to be a thread on gleemax explaining how ToB could be used to simulate mundane fighting styles (like staff-fighting/greatsword etc) but regrettably, it was pruned some time ago.

 

[Kerrick]

“interesting” amounts to the question "is it interestingenough"

Right... so what do you think? Are they interesting enough?

“viable” is relevant to the entire set of rules and DM-players expectation level.

Just as it is in any game.

In case anyone cares, I use a formula for figuring out skill points.
I don’t see this approach as relevant. SkPts/level should be derived from 2 factors:

1. Overall balance against the other classes.

2. How many would be required (on the average) to assume the different roles the class is tailor made for, or in general, to be interesting enough.

The reason I used a formula, as opposed to just eyeballing every class, is so they ARE balanced against each other. If everyone uses the same formula, there can be no claims of favoritism (unless you want to say that some class got more/fewer skills than it deserved). In point of fact, almost all the classes have exactly the same number of skill points as before. All the ones who got 2 + Int now get 4 + Int (except the wizard, for obvious reasons); bards get 8 + Int because their skill list expanded, and rogues get 6 + Int because theirs contracted.

Which leads to my second point. I made several changes to the skill system: First, I eliminated cross-class skills, a la Pathfinder (though I came up with it before they did); second, I condensed a lot of the skills on the list. The rogue was the one most affected by these changes; they lost about a third of their list, but with all skills costing 1 point/rank, I felt comfortable dropping them a couple skill points/level.

Barbarians were difficult to do at first - they were little more than a raging fighter with more hit points. I must confess, I seriously considered ditching the class entirely and making the rage abilities into a feat chain.
You should’ve done that.

The reason I didn't is because I didn't want to eliminate an entire base class. Unlike PrCs, which many DMs restrict or outright prohibit, base classes are very rarely not made available unless the campaign dictates it. Thinking about it now, though, I could see multiple benefits for doing away with the barbarian:

1) Fighters could take the rage feats. Imagine a Wolverine (or even Bear) Style fighter with several rage feats. *shudder*

2) Rangers could get the totem abilities, with some adjustments. See below for more details.

3) If you really wanted, you could make a Berserker PrC that requires one or more rage feats (and/or grants abilities that would take the place of some of the higher-level ones like Chaotic Rage) and grants d12 HD and fighter BAB.

Being more or less a 1-trick pony in battle and very little outside of it indicates this quite clearly. Furthermore, I never liked the fact that one learns to get “really really angry” and gain ever increasing stat boosts from it. Getting mad helps when there’s nothing else useful that you know. IRL, the one that keeps cool is the one having the edge.

Ever seen someone on PCP? They're monsters - immune to pain, immensely strong, and with massive endurance. It's not just about getting really mad - it's about sending yourself into a different level of consciousness, where pain doesn't matter, physical limitations don't exist, and you're effectively invincible (at least until the rage wears off), but you don't think clearly and you aren't as concerned with protecting yourself as you are killing someone else. This is modeled by the increase in Str and Con and the reduction in Will saves and AC. By your argument, there's no need even for rage feats. By mine, they at least have a justification.

Bards badly needed an overhaul (and probably still need some work)
I couldn’t agree more.

Which part - needing the overhaul or still needing work?

Not exactly. Fascinate is not a combat option and buffing is not meaningless.

True, but having a skill check be a DC for a save is overpowered. Buffing is certainly not meaningless... but that's all they do. I tried to diversify their repertoire so they could be more effective in a support role - healing, buffing, hindering enemies, etc.

and said songs were granted at the exact same level, ensuring that pretty every much every bard was like every other bard (not to mention that you could tell a bard's level just by hearing what song he was singing).

1. Spells, skills & feats are more than enough to establish variations.

I wouldn't call that "more than enough". Sufficient, maybe. But what's wrong with adding more songs, with the ability to choose between them?

2. And how could one determine that the Bard he’s fighting would always choose to start the encounter with the highest bardic music he possesses? The most you can deduce is a minimum figure (not really helpful).

Well, yeah. I messed up, anyway - levels are an abstract concept, and thus the PCs likely wouldn't be able to figure out how powerful another bard was by listening to him sing anyway (I suppose a DM could allow a Perform check to ID a song; I've never heard of anyone doing it, though).

bardic knowledge got beefed up, and I gave them some language skills

beefed up too much in my view. Way too much. This practically makes failure an impossible outcome when maximizing Knowledge ranks.

Hmm... you're right. I could just drop the bonus and leave the other part...

As for the language skills... what’s wrong with expending some skill points for any language you think you might need in the future? Isn’t that exactly what you’re trying to avoid – making all of them the same?

I just don't like the "either you know it or you don't" thing 3.5 has. I like the concept of "well, I know some of this, and some of that, and a lot of the other". For example:

(The PCs are in an old tomb).

DM: You see some writing on the wall. Can anyone here read Old Sanskrit?

Player A (the rogue): I can! (He's proficient)

DM: Give me a check, then.

Player A: *makes his roll*

DM: It looks like a recipe for noodle soup.

Player B (the bard): *sigh* Let me look at it, you nitwit. I'm at least passably fluent (conversant). *makes a roll*

DM: It's instructions on how to mummify a corpse and prepare it for the afterlife.

See... under the old binary system, someone could just read it and that would be the end of it - no suspense, no potential for humor or roleplay. Under the new system, you could potentially insult the orc warrior by accidentally calling his mother a gutter whore instead of complimenting him on his sword technique.

The formula I used for determining the bardic song DCs is 11 + class level +(class level/3).

Ok, imagine spellcasting with 25% failure chances (on the average).

Sure, if you didn't have max ranks and bonuses to boot. Those DCs were determined for a bard with, IIRC, 3/4 max ranks for the given level. Quite deliberately, obviously - one of the common complaints about the bard was having to max out Perform to gain new songs. This rewards bards who want to max out their skill while not penalizing those who don't - the first bard can reach higher levels, gaining greater benefits, while the other can still diversify his skill portfolio without feeling like he's ineffective at his job.

Cleric domains - they get one at 1st level and another at 10th.

This makes them even more uniform at levels 1 – 10 and changes nothing when they join the CODZILLA club.

Ignoring for the moment that I made many changes to spells (which may or may not inhibit the CoDzilla phenomenon), I recently added an alternative domain system whereby domain spells go away - instead each domain grants a number of abilities, along with a granted power. It's an optional system, mainly because I never fleshed out all the domains; I only added it by request. Under this system, you'd get a new domain every 5 levels.

Furthermore, I see no justification in invest an effort in reinventing the domain mechanics (the overall effect always ended up negligible no matter how it chose to go at it).

Negligible how?

In my book, AD&D’s sole justification for existence was that it gave birth to the concept of feats. It was a lame attempt of making things seem more realistic than in OD&D. given AD&D’s level of complexity and how little it felt more realistic on so few aspects – I see it as almost a perfect failure.

AD&D was also 1E, not just 2E. I was confused what you meant until I figured that out. I'm assuming, however, that you're referring to lesser and greater domains?

And what about the other domain – do they also have other powers with similar mechanics (level-dependant that is)?

Technically, this is incorrect - I wrote this when I had planned an earlier version of the domain system, then later dropped it and forgot to change the discussion. Turning, as it stands now, is available to all clerics. Under the revised system, however, only Good and Sun domains get turn undead, and only Death and Evil can turn/rebuke. Several other domains have the ability to turn other creatures, but like I said - it's an incomplete system. If I ever go back
to it, adding in a similar power for each domain would be nice.

finally… the Extra Domain feat lets you:

So now a single feat covers multiple domain-related abilities? Seems too much for a feat to me.

Not if it doesn't exist! Seriously - I didn't add it for some reason, probably because it was intended for use with the system that never came to be.

I had nothing until I saw an idea someone else shared with me - masteries.

I find the general idea quite nice, but given the majority of benefits amount to some sort of numbers augmentation, I find the execution somewhat lacking.

I'm assuming by "numbers augmentation" you mean something other than simply adding bonuses, but I can't imagine what.

so it was fairly easy to come up with four paths - nature, elements, weather, and animals - and split up their abilities a bit.

I just don’t get why weather is separated from elements.

Just because bad weather is referred to as "the elements" doesn't mean it has anything at all to do with primal elemental forces, which is what the Elemental Mastery is. Elemental Lords control Earth, Fire, or Water; Storm Lords control Air.

Not really. Wildshape with spells + companion + nature’s ally – that’s what’s too much. Given you limited variety, your players just need to invest just a bit more minmax effort.

Natural Spell is part of what made druids so broken; the wildshape subsystem was the other. I ditched the first one and altered the other so that forms are based on ECL, not HD - a much more balanced solution. Sure, you can still buff up, wildshape, and have your companion, but that would make you effective in battle, not a CoDzilla. (Disclaimer: I haven't playtested the druid, so my claims may be false; finding a group in my area is about as easy as finding a virgin in a harem. I would, however, love to see some playtest reports on this to see how it works).

As for Hibernate... I find it meaningless (and if it could have some usefulness, it’d probably have little to no relevance at level 20).

Yeah... I wasn't too enthusiastic about that one either. It was really hard to fill that slot, and that was the best I could come up with.

Fighters were fairly easy to work with, and fairly hard

Of all the Fighter shortcomings, your version managed to fix only the perception issue.
It’s still boring.
It still loses the action economy.
It still has no edge at enduring hardships
It still has no combat options that are totally beyond the reach of other classes.

1) Boring how?

2) Loses the action economy?

3) If you mean overcoming hazards, I addressed that in an earlier post.

4) The base fighter can gain WF in multiple weapons at once (granted, not hugely powerful) and gets WS in multiple weapons for free. Each combat style also has several unique abilities that enable him overcome foes or set them up for teammates to handle.

What annoys me is that people who criticize the fighter seem to think that he should be able to handle all threats on his own. Last time I checked, D&D is a game centered around teamwork, not solo play. Every class has a role to play, and when done well, a party can overcome any threat, obstacle, or hazard with a minimum of effort.

So, I decided to remake the monk. First, I needed an archetype. Martial artist worked well enough, and could be divorced from the Oriental flavor/baggage that has always seemed to weigh it down (why do martial artists HAVE to be Oriental?

A generalized warrior could be a great martial artist. The oriental theme is the only thing that justifies it being a separate class.

True. The monk was intended to be the "unarmed fighter". It could be considered nothing more than a martial arts subsystem, I suppose... but when you add in things like the Wis bonus to AC, ki powers, and such, it really is best served as a separate class. Speaking of unarmed fighters... do you think giving the monk full BAB would be too much? I considered it a couple times, but eventually decided not to.

The Avatar cartoon is quite nice. I just started watching it myself. But...:
1. I personally don’t like anime in RPG, but that’s just me I guess.

A good designer uses any influence he can find and twists it to his own ends. I don't much care for anime either, but this isn't anime - it's simply a system based off a cartoon.

2. What is the 4-elem approach if not oriental?

I could have named the styles after animals, flowers, the seasons, or whatever, and it could still be called "Oriental" simply because the Chinese and Japanese gave everything poetic names based on any or all of those (and technically, Oriental elements include Metal and Wood). The elemental trope is an old favorite of mine that I've revisited time and again - the Elementalist PrC, for example. It has nothing to do with an Oriental influence; that's just coincidence.

The extra attack from the flurry was dropped - 5 attacks/round at 2d10 each was a bit much, IMO

And still, on the overall, the Monk is probably the weakest base class ever (when you get familiar enough with the game rules & options).

Now that I look at the 2d10 damage, it was pretty balanced - compare to a rogue's +8d6 SA or a fighter's four attacks/round with a greatsword for 2d6 + bonuses each

Each class feature should have significance and not be just filler. If you’re short on ideas, steal from others – there’s no shame in it when it comes to homebrewing.

Try telling that to Celebrim. He claims that the fighter is just fine with nothing but bonus feats. I could have just left those as dead levels, but I thought style-specific bonus feats (similar to a fighter's bonus feats) would be more useful. Thus, they're not filler, but serve a useful purpose.

In general, a significant improvement to the core, but that’s easy – I think it’s actually a challenge to change the Paladin without improving it.

I also agree that a dedicated woodman-warrior class doesn’t go well thematically with TWF and that they need to have an extra edge in their home turf. However, I see no justification for this mongrel class (a Fighter, but less. Has spells, but less. Has companion, but less. Has good skills, but less.......) to exist. As far as I’m concerned, this one is the Barb’s equal partner in not having enough justification t exist.

You just described the paladin, but you didn't say that one should go too.

I envision rangers as the paladin's equivalent for nature - that is, "knights of the earth". They're protectors of nature, given the ability to hunt down and kill those who despoil it. In effect, they're martial druids, just like paladins are martial clerics. Now, as I was saying earlier under the barbarian: I was thinking about this earlier, and I came up with an idea: Why not take the barbarian's totem abilities and give them to the ranger? Rename them as "Aspect of the xxx", tweak the abilities a bit, and add some flavor about the ranger bonding with/subsuming the spirit of/etc. a creature native to his favored terrain. For example: a ranger of the plains could have Aspect of the Lion; he'd get lion's roar, the charge ability, and the ability to converse with cats, and maybe even a minor shapeshifting ability (claws, for example).

I never liked the Sorc/Wis split (for so many reasons), but keeping the core classes, of all your modified classes, you did more than a decent job with this one...

Thanks. Like I said, this was one of my favorites.

...except for the intrinsic metamagic stuff. If the class is supposed to improve metamagic usage, then it should at least have bonus metamagic feats as a class feature (mastering something you never took in the first place (a viable option) just seems too odd).

I originally had bonus MM feats every 5 levels, then I replaced them with the metamagic mastery abilities. You do have a point, though...I could add them at 4th, 9th, 14th, and 19th.

Still the strongest base class.

Ah... don't say that until you see the spells. I've nerfed or removed outright some of the most egregious offenders, though I probably have a bit more work to go.

Also, I never liked all that specializing stuff. I always preferred to think of a caster as specialized or generalized as the collection of spells available to him.

Eh. YMMV. I added the extra abilities mainly because wizards have none. It's why players jump ship for a PrC with full (or even half) spellcasting ability at first chance - they keep getting spells along with cool abilities. Besides which, adding abilities to the base class a) eliminates the need for many PrCs with the same thing, and b) opens up the possibility of PrCs that build off said abilities. This is the reason the Archmage, Blackguard, Dragon Disciple, Duelist, Eldritch Knight (well, maybe not), Hierophant, and Thaumaturgist are gone. Well, okay, the Thaumaturgist got cannibalized for the Planar Binder, but still - same idea.

And on the overall:
You sure have managed to enable a bit more build-time versatility, but to my better judgment, most of the post-build results are actually less game-time versatile in he aftermath.

What’s with the non-standard saves?

I assume you mean the sorcerer? I think that was some oddball idea I had that sorcerers, since they're generally more used to "roughing it" than wizards, deserve a slightly higher Fort save. I changed it back to a low save.

What’s with the negligible changes to spells-per-day? What does this change come to serve?

Eh? You mean sorcerers?

I don’t want to get into specifics, but there are some inaccuracies/inconsistencies in the discussions document.

I took a look through it and didn't notice anything obvious, beyond the cleric stuff I noted above. If you don't feel like posting it here, send me a PM so I can fix it. Most of those came about because I made changes to the class after writing the discussions and simply forgot to update the appropriate discussion section.

 

[Kerrick]

Here is the basic gist of a warblade.
Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords

If you want to know what maneuvers he gets, you can consider looking though the maneuver cards here (bearing in mind the warblade gets access to diamond mind, iron heart, tiger claw, white raven and stone dragon).
Maneuver Cards -- A Web Enhancement for Tome of Battle

That is the closest I can come to explaining what he does without breaking any copyright issues.

To start off, d12s, ample skill points, decent skill list, flavourful class features, weapon aptitude. And that is before getting to maneuvers - the meat of the class.

Thanks. I'll take a look at that.

 

[Celebrim]

Is the ability to say, deal double, quadruple or +100 damage as a standard action that big of a deal that it cannot be seen as being anything else other than anime/wuxia'ish?...

For me, it's not necessarily the game effect that is at stake here when I consider the the mechanic to simulate wuxia. It's a combination of the flavor and mindset of the mechanics.

To begin with, the Bo9S is explicitly about blade magic. It's a book of martial magic. If you choose your spells right and pointedly ignore the spell-like basis of the mechanics, you can sort of pretend that they aren't spells but the book itself makes little effort to do that. The classes are sort of interesting and a campaign where the only base classes allowed were Bo9S classes would be interesting (the classes appear to be balanced with each other as best as I can tell).

But as I said, it's more about the mindset here. The approach to combat simulated by the mechanics, that of stances and of strikes and of secret techniques is even when stripped of all flavor still inescapably wuxia/anime. If you watch a few movies, you'll hear characters talk about their 'Flying Gullitine Manuever' or their 'Crouching Toad' stance or whatever and as the battle rages back and forth the characters will move through a series of poses and strikes. Finally, at some point in the battle the hero will decide to make use of his highest level manuever, perhaps even announcing his intention to do so. Then things will go slow motion and their will be a mighty clash. This is the world described by having mechanics like stances and strikes. It's a world that ought to be familiar to anyone that has seen Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.

The western approach to combat is not that you decide now, "I'm going to use my Hammerhand Strike now!" Western combat is all about a natural flow. It's formless. Western styles don't teach you a set of forms. In Western combat you are taught to create and exploit openings. The idea is a series of reactions and counterreactions until someone makes a mistake and fails to defend themselves quickly enough. A mechanical system that modeled this idea of combat would have some manuevers perhaps ('trip', 'bullrush', etc.), but mostly it would be reactive. You might have a super combat technique that dealt 100 damage, but you wouldn't choose when you could use it like you were casting a spell, but it would be something that you did in responce to something that the opponent did - an opening.

I think the heart of the system would be 'Attacks of Oppurtunity' - the idea that you can exploit weaknesses based on what the opponent is doing.

It shouldn't be that difficult to reflavour it as simply being an equivalent/variant of the full-attack routine a fighter typically takes.

Yes, it is. You have to throw out the entire idea of 'stances' and 'strikes' as they exist and create something entirely new. You might have a stance, but it would be more like, "If you are in this stance, and the opponent attempts a trip attack, you can make an attack of oppurunity and if the attack succeeds the trip attack is countered." Mostly what you'd have is reactions. The counters, properly considered and reflavored, are about the only thing you could salvage from ToB. I think you'd pick up alot of conditional immediate actions, and alot of things along the lines of, "If you are in this circumstance, every attack you make that hits automatically threatens a critical hit."

But really, I think all of this misses the point. What the fighter really needs isn't better attacks or better ability to deal damage in combat. What the fighter really needs is better ability to defend himself. If anything needs to be a class ability for fighters, it's some mechanic which relates to the fighter defending himself.

That, and some problimatic spells need to be fixed so that they keep their flavor and 'wow' factor, without being absolutes. Games deplore infinity, and that's what an absolute mechanic like, "You die" or "Immunity" means.

 

[Sylrae]

The reason I didn't is because I didn't want to eliminate an entire base class. Unlike PrCs, which many DMs restrict or outright prohibit, base classes are very rarely not made available unless the campaign dictates it.

The idea has merit. Barbarians are low versatility fighters. Paladins are good-only multiclass fighter clerics, except that the fighter-cleric will be better all around. Both could be dropped and replaced with a feat or couple feats.

Thinking about it now, though, I could see multiple benefits for doing away with the barbarian:

1) Fighters could take the rage feats. Imagine a Wolverine (or even Bear) Style fighter with several rage feats. *shudder*

2) Rangers could get the totem abilities, with some adjustments. See below for more details.

3) If you really wanted, you could make a Berserker PrC that requires one or more rage feats (and/or grants abilities that would take the place of some of the higher-level ones like Chaotic Rage) and grants d12 HD and fighter BAB.


Ever seen someone on PCP? They're monsters - immune to pain, immensely strong, and with massive endurance. It's not just about getting really mad - it's about sending yourself into a different level of consciousness, where pain doesn't matter, physical limitations don't exist, and you're effectively invincible (at least until the rage wears off), but you don't think clearly and you aren't as concerned with protecting yourself as you are killing someone else. This is modeled by the increase in Str and Con and the reduction in Will saves and AC. By your argument, there's no need even for rage feats. By mine, they at least have a justification.

Quite Cool.

I just don't like the "either you know it or you don't" thing 3.5 has. I like the concept of "well, I know some of this, and some of that, and a lot of the other". For example:

(The PCs are in an old tomb).

DM: You see some writing on the wall. Can anyone here read Old Sanskrit?

Player A (the rogue): I can! (He's proficient)

DM: Give me a check, then.

Player A: *makes his roll*

DM: It looks like a recipe for noodle soup.

Player B (the bard): *sigh* Let me look at it, you nitwit. I'm at least passably fluent (conversant). *makes a roll*

DM: It's instructions on how to mummify a corpse and prepare it for the afterlife.

See... under the old binary system, someone could just read it and that would be the end of it - no suspense, no potential for humor or roleplay. Under the new system, you could potentially insult the orc warrior by accidentally calling his mother a gutter whore instead of complimenting him on his sword technique.

That's pretty schwey.

True. The monk was intended to be the "unarmed fighter". It could be considered nothing more than a martial arts subsystem, I suppose... but when you add in things like the Wis bonus to AC, ki powers, and such, it really is best served as a separate class. Speaking of unarmed fighters... do you think giving the monk full BAB would be too much? I considered it a couple times, but eventually decided not to.

Trailblazer handled this one well IIRC. They gave virtual BAB like the rogue. When fighting monkish, you get virtual BAB. its the same for all purposes except you dont get additional attacks at the higher rate.

A good designer uses any influence he can find and twists it to his own ends. I don't much care for anime either, but this isn't anime - it's simply a system based off a cartoon.

Based off ACTUAL fighting styles.

I could have named the styles after animals, flowers, the seasons, or whatever, and it could still be called "Oriental" simply because the Chinese and Japanese gave everything poetic names based on any or all of those (and technically, Oriental elements include Metal and Wood). The elemental trope is an old favorite of mine that I've revisited time and again - the Elementalist PrC, for example. It has nothing to do with an Oriental influence; that's just coincidence.

Isn't it because the fighting styles we came up with were based on the martial arts used in Avatar? Which are already themed the appropriate elements? The different things you get for the different schools reflect the different sorts of techniques the different styles have. Theyre set up for different strengths. Eath, is Hun-Gar. Strong Stances, with hard punches. Fire, is Northern-Shaolin. Powerful strikes, quickly, with a loss to defense. Water is Tai-Chi. Flowing attacks, and many redirection techniques. Air is Ba-Gua, which is hugely about evasion. Shadow style is based on pressure points and locks, and has many things meant to disable the opponent in some way or another.

I remember all the discussions from when we were putting the class together. And I remember tweaking the AC Progressions to get the exact spread we wanted for different schools.

Have I mentioned I love this class?

In my current PF Game, we have one of your druids and a monk. Mountain Style. For Monk weapons, he has 'Dwarven Weapons' & 'Improvised Bar Items'. He runs in with no shirt on, and beats the crap out of people using dwarf weapons and his fists, and barstools. It's pretty sweet.

 

[Kerrick]

For me, it's not necessarily the game effect that is at stake here when I consider the the mechanic to simulate wuxia. It's a combination of the flavor and mindset of the mechanics.

Same here.

But as I said, it's more about the mindset here. The approach to combat simulated by the mechanics, that of stances and of strikes and of secret techniques is even when stripped of all flavor still inescapably wuxia/anime.

Fencing uses positions/stances, though they don't have flowery names.

A mechanical system that modeled this idea of combat would have some manuevers perhaps ('trip', 'bullrush', etc.), but mostly it would be reactive. You might have a super combat technique that dealt 100 damage, but you wouldn't choose when you could use it like you were casting a spell, but it would be something that you did in responce to something that the opponent did - an opening.

Interesting concept, but I think the best overall system would be one that combined both offensive and defensive maneuvers - then you could play a "pure offense" fighter (two-hander), a "pure defense fighter" (sword/board), or something in between. You have, however, given me some food for thought. I think I could keep the fighting styles as-is, but simply add some stances/counters to them - a Gorgon fighter, for example, could counter Bear Style or Wolverine Style more easily than a Cat fighter. A Cat fighter could make counterattacks if an opponent misses him by a certain number.

BTW, isn't a counter just another variation of "hitting something"? It just requires specific conditions to make it work, which makes it less useful than an offensive maneuver, which is useful all the time.

But really, I think all of this misses the point. What the fighter really needs isn't better attacks or better ability to deal damage in combat. What the fighter really needs is better ability to defend himself. If anything needs to be a class ability for fighters, it's some mechanic which relates to the fighter defending himself.

Against what?

That, and some problimatic spells need to be fixed so that they keep their flavor and 'wow' factor, without being absolutes. Games deplore infinity, and that's what an absolute mechanic like, "You die" or "Immunity" means.

Yup. I've already beaten those with the nerf stick, for the most part.

The idea has merit. Barbarians are low versatility fighters. Paladins are good-only multiclass fighter clerics, except that the fighter-cleric will be better all around. Both could be dropped and replaced with a feat or couple feats.

Except the fighter-cleric doesn't have smite, lay on hands, or auras.

Quite Cool.

Thanks. The rage thing was off the top of my head, but I'm rather proud of that description myself.

That's pretty schwey.

See? That's what I'm aiming for - players to look at something, see the potential for fun gameplay, and say, "Wow, this is cool!"

Trailblazer handled this one well IIRC. They gave virtual BAB like the rogue. When fighting monkish, you get virtual BAB. its the same for all purposes except you dont get additional attacks at the higher rate.

That's what I heard. Given that monks are effectively unarmed fighters, it might not be too unbalancing to simply give them a straight-up good BAB; 6 attacks at 2d10 is 66 points of damage/round, which is pretty impressive output for a meleer and would enable them to hold their own with a fighter.

Isn't it because the fighting styles we came up with were based on the martial arts used in Avatar? Which are already themed the appropriate elements?

You know, I think you're right. It was sort of a confluence of ideas there - my original idea was to use Sun/Moon, Heavens, Twilight, and a couple more, but then I got hooked on Avatar and made a bunch of changes.

The different things you get for the different schools reflect the different sorts of techniques the different styles have. Theyre set up for different strengths. Eath, is Hun-Gar. Strong Stances, with hard punches. Fire, is Northern-Shaolin. Powerful strikes, quickly, with a loss to defense. Water is Tai-Chi. Flowing attacks, and many redirection techniques. Air is Ba-Gua, which is hugely about evasion. Shadow style is based on pressure points and locks, and has many things meant to disable the opponent in some way or another.

I meant to mention this earlier, but I forgot. And, Shadow Style most closely resembles Jujitsu/aikido.

Have I mentioned I love this class?

Me too.

In my current PF Game, we have one of your druids and a monk. Mountain Style. For Monk weapons, he has 'Dwarven Weapons' & 'Improvised Bar Items'. He runs in with no shirt on, and beats the crap out of people using dwarf weapons and his fists, and barstools. It's pretty sweet.

Ooh... how are they working out? I'd especially like to hear about the druid.

 

[Celebrim]

Fencing uses positions/stances, though they don't have flowery names.

I've got about 30 weeks of fencing training so I'm no expert, but I have to say, 'Not so much'. Fencing basically uses one stance, 'One-handed fighting'. There are some older schools that used different stances, and they are not surprising things like 'two-handed fighting' (Florentine, sword & dirk, etc.) and 'sword and board' (sword and buckler). Longsword has a couple of stances, but you aren't expected to fight in them, they are more like opening positions in chess in that you are trying to set the mode of the engagement when it begins. Again, those stances are about openings, drawing out an opening, and faking an opening when you believe that you have the capacity to close it unexpectedly.

Interesting concept, but I think the best overall system would be one that combined both offensive and defensive maneuvers - then you could play a "pure offense" fighter (two-hander), a "pure defense fighter" (sword/board), or something in between.

I don't think you are getting it at all. Some 'counters' would be offensive in nature - you exploit an opening to make a strong attack. Put into the language of D&D, they might be something like:

'Beat Down'
"If you score a critical hit, then if your next attack in the same round hits the same target, it automatically threatens a critical hit."

-OR-

'Watch your head, fool'
"If your opponent attempts to trip you and fails, you take advantage of the opening to attack his exposed head and neck. You may make an immediate attack and if it succeeds, it automatically threatens a critical hit."

-OR-

'Back and forth'
"If you are flanked, you may lunge at one of your flankers. If this first attack succeeds, you may immediately wheel and make a full attack on the opposite flanker."

Or whatever. I'm just making these up as I go.

In fact, in Western combat there is very little distinction between being on offense and being on defense. Every defence is expected to have an accompaning attack. In fact, a defensive style is defending yourself with attacks - in fencing this is called 'intercepting' and in boxing 'counter-punching'. Likewise, boxers are taught to defend themselves with flurries of jabs. Still, defensive manuevers might be:

Parry
"If you are attacked and the attack succeeds by 4 or less, you may spend an available attack of oppurtunity to counter the attack."

Or

Wary Combatant
"You aren't easily fooled twice. If an opponent has attempted a trip, bullrush, [insert long list here] already in this combat, you gain a +5 bonus to counter such manuever if they use it a second time."

The main thing is that:

1) These would be used 'at will'. If you knew how to do them, you could use them in every circumstance that they applied. You don't forget how to do them to learn to do something else. You aren't rendered unable to do them just because you used them a second ago.
2) They aren't Vancian spells. You prepare a certain number that you know for the day. You have access to all of them all the time.

BTW, isn't a counter just another variation of "hitting something"?

Yes. As I said, its not combat that is really the problem. The above stuff is just 'frosting', and if it makes combat more interesting for you and the fighter less boring then great, but it doesn't make the fighter more playable.

It just requires specific conditions to make it work, which makes it less useful than an offensive maneuver, which is useful all the time.

Yes. Situationally useful is not only more realistic IMO, but it balances against the assumption of useable all the time that I'm insisting on to avoid the spell-like flavor that ToB uses to achieve balance with something that is selectively usable. So I say, "You need specific conditions, but you can always use it." as opposed to, "You can choose when to use it, but you can't always use it." In practice, both systems might end up with roughly the same number of 'times you can do something extra', but the flavor is very different.

Against what?

Losing the action economy: The fighter needs more defenses against things that steal actions from him. Some of this has to be done at the spell end, for example by giving force effects some (not necessarily alot but some) vulnerability to mundane damage, by making save or die have a built in 'second chance', and so forth. Some of it has to be done on the fighters end, for example by giving the fighter SR against targeted attacks at high levels, by giving fighters defenses similar to (but not copies of) the rogues defences like 'Improved Evasion' and 'Slippery Mind', so that it isn't not as easy to take the fighter out for a long period. I've been trying to do this with feats, however, if the fighter needs any class abilities at all, this is where I'd be going because at high levels the need to take defensive feats to stay in the game becomes essentially a feat tax.

All the above combat manuevers are fine as feats or base manuevers (trip or disarm, for example, in the RAW). For example, parry is a base manuever in my game, and you can take feats to improve it. All of your combat style class abilities are fine as feats. If you really want to silo some abilities for the fighter, I can see two areas: defensive abilities ('parry spell', 'improved mettle', whatever) and bonus attacks of oppurtunity (so that you don't have to be high dex as a fighter to heavily participate in the 'attack economy').

Invisibility: A fighter has decent ability to deal with invisible melee attack through high AC and the blindfight feat. However, its got poor ability to detect things at range and/or deal with surprise. It needs some sort of compensation, although I'm not sure what as 'uncanny reflex' is more the rogues schtick. My general thrust would be toward the fighter being better than other classes at guessing the square of an invisible foe, and I'm open to mechanical suggestion. Again, this is the sort of thing that I'd expect to see make 'class ability' status, not bonus feats in disguise.

Weapon Dependancy: A fighter is in much more serious trouble than any other class if they lose their equipment, especially at high levels. A mage still has his prepared spells. A cleric can get by. A sorcerer might not even be particularly disadvantaged. A fighter needs better ability to be the cool rather than his equipment.

Addionally, the fighter needs more abilities to 'be cool' other than hitting things. In particular, I think you ought to be able to build a 4 edition style 'Warlord' and do some measure of battlefield control with a 3rd edition fighter.

Finally, this isn't an improvement to the fighter directly, but the DC of all effects at high levels needs to decrease across the board. Your attempt to fix the problem by making the weak save advance relatively faster doesn't address the real problem, which is, at high level, even your good save isn't necessarily that good without min/maxing your magical defenses because the ability to increase the DC of an attack outstrips the ability to increase the save. It isn't just that its almost impossible to make your bad save, it's that your good save still fails a significant portion of the time. In high level play, this is unacceptable because the consequences of failure are becoming higher and higher as the effects become stronger and stronger.

 

[Sylrae]

Except the fighter-cleric doesn't have smite, lay on hands, or auras.

Even without them the fightercleric is better and has better spells to back him up.
Lay on Hands should be a divine feat
Auras could be a feat chain, with *ability to cast first level spells* as a prereq.
Smite: A feat with *ability to cast divine spells* and *BAB x* as prereqs.

Much better paladin. Tada!

*Edit* They dont have the magic horse. Not that it matters. lol.