The Quintessential Fighter - What do you all think?

[The Mariner]

I just picked this book up after pondering the purchase for quite a while.

It seems pretty cool.

What do you all think, are any of you using it or any of the Mongoose "Quintissential" book in you campaigns?

Thanks for the insight.

 

[Crothian]

I like the series. I'm using Quint Cleric for my Cleric. A friend is using Quint Wizard for his Wizard.

Quint was the first in the series, and it does have some problems. Some of the concepts give you somethng for nothing. Bascially, the cost is not anything a fighter would care about. The fighting styles are hard to qualify for with trhe need to have such a high wisdom. I'd recomend losing ionthe wisdom, and place in an XP cost. THere are people who don't like the fighting styles in any form. Fighting styles will increase the power of PCs compared to their level. I have yet to have a problem with it.

 

[thundershot]

Quint Fighter is great, especially considering it was the first in the series. Sure, a few unbalancing things, but nothing a good DM can't fix. The Fighting Styles, for instance, have HEAVY requirements, so I just make the feats that can only be taken as bonus fighter feats. So it'll take a lot of sacrifice to gain the power within those styles...


Chris

 

[Morrus]

Of the series, I've only seen Quintessential Fighter - and I have to admit that is put me off checking out the rest of the series. I found it pretty dire.

I hear Rogue by MIke Mearls is better, but I've never seen it.

 

[Dark Psion]

I've got Rogue and it is very good. The rest are on my "when I get a little spare money in a month nothing else good comes out" list.

Of course if Morrus would make sure the EnWorld store gets the Quit Psychic Warrior at the British release date, I would buy it here

 

[Crothian]

Of the Quint Series I'd have to say that Monk, Rogue, and Wizard are probably the three best in that order. Cleric has some good ideas in it, but nothing that is awe inspiring. Both dwarf and elf are decent books, but I think they tried to cover too much in to few pages.

 

[ThomasBJJ]

At a glance on the store shelf, I was put off by the Quint Fighter. The mechanics did not look sound or balanced.

I own and have read quite a bit of the Quint. Monk book, which I like quite a bit. There are a few things I thought were so-so (like the most of the character concepts), There was some things that resembled the AD&D 2E "Kits" which had a advantage and drawback - many I thought were "something-for-nothing".

But there is alot of really good ideas in this book. I love the new weapons, there are several new FEATS I like alot (and a few that need a little tweaking, but will be great when balanced), the fighting styles chapter was very inspirational. I may not use it as written, but it sure gave me lots of ideas on how to do my own version.

 

[S'mon]

I just picked this book up after pondering the purchase for quite a while.

It seems pretty cool.

What do you all think, are any of you using it or any of the Mongoose "Quintissential" book in you campaigns?

Thanks for the insight.

I like Quint Fighter a lot. Funnily enough, I like it even though my copy is covered with pencil marks changing & deleting stuff; its modular design and easy-to-read style makes it very easy to modify until you get something you like. A lot of it makes Fighters rather more powerul; not a problem in my low-magic campaign where Fighters are supposed to be the dominant class. Conversely, some of the prestige classes are rather weak; Swashbuckler is weaker than Sword & Fist duellist IMO, and Berserker is weaker than the regular Barbarian class! I've changed these two to make them slightly more powerful. I like the Legend prestige class though, it's awesomely powerful, incredibly difficult to qualify for, modelled on the likes of Samson or Gilgamesh and designed for lvl 16+ fighter types so they can stay up there with 9th-level-spell wielding spellcasters in terms of kick-assness.

Here are some of my suggested changes:
Simon’s Revisions - Quintessential Fighter

FEATS & WEAPONS

Fighter Feats

pg 36 Distract:
The target gets a Will save at DC (10 + Fighter’s CHA bonus) to negate. Once passed the target cannot again be distracted by that Fighter.
At DM’s option a scantily clad/nude female gains a Circumstance bonus of up to +4 on skill check and save DC against appropriate males when using Distract (thus justifying the picture below this Feat!)

pg 38 Fearsome Display:
This is a Standard action. The target receives a Will save to negate at DC 10 + Fighter’s Intimidate skill.

pg 38 Improved Weapon Focus:
Requires Weapon Specialisation in the chosen weapon.

pg 39 Lightning Initiatitive:
Requires DEX 13+, BAB 6+, REF save +6, Improved Init.
Gives +2 to Initiative (net +6 with Improved Init).
(This Feat was simply overpowered as +8 to Initiative at Ref save +6! +8 is more than twice as good as +4 IMO. +6 seems reasonable if the requirements are high.)

pg 39 Off-Hand Weapon Expert:
This Feat is disallowed.

pg 39 Reckless Attack:
The maximum bonus/penalty is +5/-5.

pg 41 Two-Handed Power Strike:
This Feat is disallowed.

Tools of the Trade - Weapons

Notes pgs 42-45:

Iron-Breaker: Requires STR 13+.

Pike: Using 20’ reach pike requires STR 13+. A 15’ reach pike requires STR 11+.

Pilum: Attack to disable shield is a Ranged Touch attack, - 4 vs small shields. -8 vs bucklers.

Siege Crossbow: This weapon reduces the target’s Armour/Shield or Natural Armour bonus by up to -10. It takes 1 minute to set up.

Stats pg 46:

Aclis: This is an Exotic weapon when thrown.

Flamberge: Exotic Weapon.

Flametongue: Exotic Weapon.


Gladius: Treat as masterwork shortsword. Threat range is 19-20.

Spider Throwing Knife: Critical damage multiplier when thrown is x3. In melee it is x2.

Sword Gauntlet: Threat Range is 19-20.

War-Rake: Critical damage multiplier is x2.

Staff-Sling: Range increment is 80’.

Fighting Styles
For the Fighting Styles, I suggest requiring 2 skill points per level in the style, and drop the Wis requirement to Wisdom 10+ Feat level (15 for level 5).

Feats: I've made lots of changes to these. I like some (armour specialisation), but I strongly recommend not allowing the feat that lets 2-handed weapon wielders do full x2 STR dmg bonus with every attack!

 

[Psion]

Of the Quint Series I'd have to say that Monk, Rogue, and Wizard are probably the three best in that order.

I'd say those are the best, but not in that order. To me, Wizard is the real standout, followed by Monk and Rogue.
Regarding Quintessential Fighter, I like the Open Mass Combat System save for the fact that the author does not explicitly state some important things. Of published combat systems, I think I only like the Mercenaries skirmish combat system better, but it's less scalable.

Almost every other section in the book I looked at a little leerily.

 

[mmu1]

I looked over the Quintessential Fighter back when it came out, and it put me off ever using Mongoose material in any game I run. Here's what I recall it being like:

The prestige classes were generally badly balanced and some, like the "Legend", were completely absurd. Being a legendary fighter is a freakin' class feature? Someone's really missing the point of role-playing.

The feats and PrC abilities were often grossly overpowered (I remember cringing at the amount of times I've seen abilities that seemed to be just giving away extra attacks.)

The fighter styles were implemented horribly (the Wisdom requirement didn't make sense for most of them, and was very hard to make), but at the same time, provided someone could make the requirements, were hideously overpowered, reminding me very much of 2e "kits".

Finally, the rules were also full of errors and inaccuracies that made it clear that the authors were, in some cases, either still thinking in 2e terms, or simply not familiar with 3E conventions - this compunded all the other problems...

Some of this is, of course, my purely subjective opinion, but the book does, in objective terms, break enough 3E design guidelines that I really don't think it can be called a good supplement.