* combat exploits (except Cleaving Strike)
This would be one of those times I should have included a design note-- but the note is longer than the rules change.
"Cleaving Strike" is more important than you may think.
One of the problems with fighters (and I include all melee classes under that term for now) is that as they increase in level, they don't gain anywhere near the same effectiveness
per action as the spellcasters.
I cannot emphasize this enough (though it shows up in my thinking on elite and solo creatures): There is no single factor more important to balance in D&D than the
economy of actions.
[sblock]The economy of actions is also one of the advantages behind the "Big Six;" as (I think it was) Andy Collins rightly pointed out. The Big Six are great choices because they do what they do without you having to spend an action to activate them. They are always on, always working for you.[/sblock]
This ultimately relates back to Lanchester's Square Law (and I'm working on a long design primer on that, for folks who are interested); and it's related to one of the idiosyncrasies of hit points: a creature with 1 hit point is as effective and deadly as a creature at full health.
So when the fighter spends his one and only action to attack that creature at death's door, any damage above and beyond what's necessary to drop the creature is wasted.
If you're following me so far, you should be ahead of me at this point.
In order for the fighter to get the full benefit of his action (and then some), it's important that he get another attack when he drops a creature.
In fact, if I had my druthers, ALL characters would get Power Attack and Cleave for free. But barring that, the combat exploits that "duplicate" a gimped version of these feats are really more important than you might think.
(Power Attack works similarly, in that as a fighter levels up, his attack bonus outstrips what is necessary to strike most of his foes; if he has no way to convert that extra attack bonus into damage, then his BAB increase is of no value to him.)
How do you think the TB classes compare to the PF one?
I never actually went through a rigorous analysis of the PF classes. I think there's a philosophical difference in the design: the PF classes add more interesting options that are divergent from the existing core rules (rage or ki points as an early example); whereas I tried to expand the classes first along the spine, and then primarily using the same design "language" that already existed (bonus feats, expanding existing class features from class to class, etc.).
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