The Fighter's Identity

[Klaus]

One of the problems with giving the fighter the warlord's debuffs is this is still stuff from the combat pillar. He really needs some stuff to help in the other two pillars.

There is combat stuff, but if we accept that the Fighter has the best tactical mind, and an innate understanding of strategy and weaknesses, where would that lead in the Exploration and Interaction pillars?

Exploration: keep the group defensible while travelling, improving endurance and rationing of supplies, avoiding surprise.
Interaction: seeing through the BS of diplomats and politicians, befriending the rougher folk.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

One of the problems with giving the fighter the warlord's debuffs is this is still stuff from the combat pillar. He really needs some stuff to help in the other two pillars.

Yep. If you can make the core fighter abilities helpful in the other two pillars, then you are at least haflway there. So Str and Con need to matter for exploration and interaction.

I think part of the problem historically has been that it is difficult to make Str and Con matter outside of combat, much. Thus the focus on bending bars, opening doors, etc.

 

[jadrax]

There is combat stuff, but if we accept that the Fighter has the best tactical mind, and an innate understanding of strategy and weaknesses, where would that lead in the Exploration and Interaction pillars?

Some of of 'command' skill for knowing about how to deal with Soldiers and other military personnel would be a start. When you hit town and the Wizard heads the Mage's Guild, the Rogue to the Thieves' Guild and the Cleric to the Temple for support and roleplay, the Fighter really should be able to go to the Barracks or Watch House for the same.

 

[Klaus]

Hercules, Aragorn, Lancelot, D'Artagnan, Conan, Li Mu Bai, Riggs and Murtaugh, and every Jet Li character ever created are fighters,

If you cut through the differences in style and time period, what do all of these characters have in common? They just *keep on going*.

Conan, a savage Cimmerian, had such a keen understanding of fighting that he was put in charge of ships, armies and eventually a kingdom, and did as good a job in leading men as he did in cleaving skulls.

Aragorn was a ranger of the North, but was also the rock around which the Fellowship (and eventually Gondor and the entire West) rallied to.

Riggs and Murtaugh, although sometimes "too old for this ****", just kept on going, had good instincts and their hunches usually paid off.

D'Artagnan, although a slight, quick Gascon, rose to be the commander of the Musketeers in The Man In The Iron Mask. Along with his three friends, he had a knack for maneuvering foes into disadvantageous positions.

And etc.

 

[Minigiant]

Perhaps instead of gaining followers, the fighter's naturally talents and leadership just give his followers and allies bonus.

Dragon: Mwahahaha! You cannot defeat me. You cannot fly and my breath will burn your army to ashes.
Fighter: My men get to add my Intelligence Mod+2 to their initiative. We go first. My 4 throwing axes plus their 100 bows.
Dragon: What?! X_X
Fighter: Bounded Accuracy for the win.

 

[Remathilis]

I'd like to see the fighter be an "action hero". Tough as nails, able to fight with any weapon and take advantage of any situation. In game terms, he should have bonuses to maneuvers (and perhaps the option to take advanced maneuvers that are fighter only), have some sort of hp recover mechanic or DR mechanic (for those "I ain't got time to bleed" moments) and get extra actions to do things willy-nilly. I also have no problems with some sort of augmented attacks (such as the knight or slayer got in essentials) to add to his attacks.

For the other pillars; I'd like to see fighters have some sort of danger-sense that reduces being surprised or snuck up on. I also don't mind the idea of fighters granting boosts to morale and having the option of attracting additional warriors to his cause.

 

[CleverNickName]

Dragon: Mwahahaha! You cannot defeat me. You cannot fly and my breath will burn your army to ashes.
Fighter: My men get to add my Intelligence Mod+2 to their initiative. We go first. My 4 throwing axes plus their 100 bows.
Dragon: What?! X_X
Fighter: Bounded Accuracy for the win.

I'm not trying to tell you how you should play your game, but dude...that sounds more like a round of Magic: the Gathering than a round of Dungeons & Dragons.

 

[Stormonu]

Yep. If you can make the core fighter abilities helpful in the other two pillars, then you are at least haflway there. So Str and Con need to matter for exploration and interaction.

I think part of the problem historically has been that it is difficult to make Str and Con matter outside of combat, much. Thus the focus on bending bars, opening doors, etc.

Hmm... perhaps one special skill/ability we could give to the fighter is an advantage to busting down locked/barred doors or other barriers - giving the fighter a leg up on the rogue (who can unlock doors/chests) and the wizard (with his knock spell). Something above and beyond the normal chance of beating such things in (like a "in one blow") sort of ability.


Overall, I really think someone on the deisgn team ought to sit down, make a big 'ol list of what type of activities fall under each pillar and then look at the classes and see what activies each class ought to be good at - and make sure each class is getting some sort of ability. It'd be nice to find out they've already done this, but I sometimes worry they seem to think that the exploration and roleplaying pillars will "work themselves out on their own."

 

[Votan]

I rather like the leader angle and it seems to fit with a lot of the action hero types (most of them act as inspiration of some kind). Even characters like Rambo seem to be able to take command of a situation out of an innate charisma. That isn't a bad niche for a class to have, even in a very socially focused game. It's been more recently held by the Bard (for rather unclear reasons) and the Warlord. But I think it is a nice way to balance the classes.

 

[Dragoslav]

As a huge fan of the Warlord class, I'm not averse to this idea, but I think it would be difficult to iron out.

If you want to add inspirational-type features to the Fighter as class features, then you make it so that any Fighter you build has to have a high charisma, intelligence, or wisdom or else he's not going to be effective with his basic features. Whereas if you put those features in a separate class, then you don't have that problem.

Alternatively, if you have "battlefield command" as a theme/feats for someone who wants a high-cha/int/wis character, then you're making it something that anyone can take and thus going against the whole premise of making this something an inherent part of the Fighter. You also run into the problem that you have anytime you try to split a class's inherent definition off into a theme/feats: instead of those abilities being the baseline, defining abilities of that class, you have to get them slowly over the course of 20 levels to the exclusion of everything else.

Here are a couple ideas I just came up with:
1) Give the Fighter a "scheme" like the Rogue gets, with the difference being that the schemes grant different martial practices, so you could have, for example, a "Resourceful Tactician" scheme (gives abilities that are based on Int), a "Battlefield Bravo" scheme (abilities based on Cha), or "Force of Destruction" scheme (extra abilities based off Str/Con).
2) Give fighters an extra theme (double the number of feats). However, this could be really overpowered.