What Would Persuade You To Play A Fully Classed Fighter?

[Geron Raveneye]

Can't really see a valid reason to wholesale forbid the Complete Warrior feats, to be honest...the tactical feats look especially interesting.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Personally, I give Fighters a bonus feat at 3rd, and then their other bonus feats on odd levels, instead of even levels.

I remove Improved Critical and Weapon Specialization as feats.

Fighters get Weapon Focus in one weapon for free at first. At fourth, they gain the benefits of Weapon Specialization in that weapon, plus any other weapon they've selected for Weapon Focus. At eighth, they get Improved Critical; twelfth, they get Greater Weapon Focus; sixteenth, Greater Weapon Specialization; twentieth, they improve the critical multiplier of all applicable weapons by one.

Then, at sixth and every fourth level thereafter, they may reduce the ACP of any armor they're wearing by one, to a maximum pre-Epic reduction of four.

 

[jasin]

What Would Persuade You To Play A Fully Classed Fighter?

Something that no-one else has.

That's the main problem with the fighter, IMO; the fact that anything he can get, other classes can get too. OK, almost anything; there's Weapon Specialization &c. but that's not enough, not because it's too weak, but because a simple flat bonus isn't really interesting.

I like Iron Heroes switchable feats, but you'd need to relax the prerequisits for D&D, I think. In Iron Heroes, a man-at-arms needs just Dodge 1 to eventually get access to any of Dodge 2, 3, 4, 5... as needed. In D&D, you'd need to already have Dodge, Mobility, Combat Expertise and Spring Attack to pick Whirlwind Attack as your switchable feat, which is much less useful, and has much less of a "I'm a know-it-all generalist!" feel.

BTW, there is arguably something a fighter as he is now can get, that the others can't, which might be emphasized to "fix" the fighter: great feat synergy. I played a monk 3/fighter 11 once with Improved Trip, Karmic Strike, Deft Opportunist, Defensive Throw, Elusive Target, Whirlwind Attack... while any class could have any of those with a bit of investment, no-one but a fighter could have all of them, and the whole is indeed more than the sum of its parts. How to emphasize this? Not really sure.

 

[Cabral]

Something that no-one else has.

That's the main problem with the fighter, IMO; the fact that anything he can get, other classes can get too. OK, almost anything; there's Weapon Specialization &c. but that's not enough, not because it's too weak, but because a simple flat bonus isn't really interesting.

Not mention that the rationale is weak. Why should a training based feat be restricted to one class?

Fighters need flavor. Fighters need a class feature besides bonus feats. Bonus feats are great and allow you to build flavor, but there is no flavor in the class itself.

Fighters are Dietary Supllements. Can you subsist for 20 levels on Dietary Supplements?

 

[Aus_Snow]

Turn the fighter into the prime class for temporal power it was actually meant to be.

I'm curious now: "meant to be", according to whom or what? Old AD&D books perhaps?

I am only strongly (as in, not violently ) opposed to the idea, so I'd be very interested to know what the rationale is here.



edit --- Just to clarify that further, I'm not in the least bit opposed to the idea of members of all (or most) classes gaining this kind of influence. It's mainly the bolded "prime" in that quote that I have any kind of objection to.

 

[Ranger5]

I am actually one of those playing with the Fighter getting a feat at every level. In my group I am playing a fighter that after 5th level went into the Dervish class but once I am done I will go back to Fighter. Another person is playing a straight up Fighter. We are all 13th level and we are all having fun.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Geron Raveneye -
that is a great idea - esp with the landlord feat as a backup
Due to the levels my game normally runs, I think Leadership will come free at 9th level,
and landlord if the fighter roleplays into it(prlly 11th). It doesnt hurt that my fighter player is typically more intrested in land and leading men than any of the other PCs.

It won't work with his sailor exiled to the land- he just hit 9th - but who is going to follow him?

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I'm curious now: "meant to be", according to whom or what? Old AD&D books perhaps?

I am only strongly (as in, not violently ) opposed to the idea, so I'd be very interested to know what the rationale is here.



edit --- Just to clarify that further, I'm not in the least bit opposed to the idea of members of all (or most) classes gaining this kind of influence. It's mainly the bolded "prime" in that quote that I have any kind of objection to.

And I'd be curious as to what kind of objections that would be.

My rationale...well, the simple fact that a lot (not saying most, as I haven't read ALL campaign settings for 3E out there yet ) of campaign settings portray inherent supernatural powers (opposed to external ones, like magical items) as something rare, and not always trusted by the "normal" person as long as it doesn't come from a safe source, like the gods. From his make-up alone, the fighter is a class that progresses only by training, represented by the bonus feats. It's the kind of class that everybody knows to be firmly rooted in the normal world, so it's also the class that will cause the most trust (or the least concern, whichever way you want to look at it ) in normal people.

The second reason for my opinion is that a lot of times, land has to be conquered, wars to be fought and battles to be led. Who will you find in the midst of that most often, and what class is best suited to that? The fighter. It's also a class that most rulers can depend on not to suddenly get a job from higher powers, go on an extended vacation to the outer planes for component seeking or enlightenment, or bring along a baggage of behavioral limitations. And they don't gain any kind of weird powers that might be useful to subvert their liege lords.

Of course, other classes can be easily set up to similar situations. The barbarian, who unites warring tribes through sheer force and uses them to crush the neighbourly city-states. The rogue, who turns out to be the lost son of a deceased noble and inherits his land, or who sets up his own gang and slowly starts to rule the underworld of a big city. The paladin, inspiring faith and courage in the men around him and forming a battle-hardened group of warriors against evil. The cleric, creating a theocracy under the patronage of his deity. That's all possible and can easily be done. I only have to look at the Principalities of Glantri (or Alphatia, for that matter), for a nation ruled by wizards alone. Or to the Iron Kingdoms, to find a fanatic ruling a theocracy in Sul. I'm not saying it's not possible with the other classes as well, and in fact I'd love to see career choices like that for most every base class in the PHB.

But to me, the fighter is the class that is most likely, and most suited, to take up leadership of vast amounts of normal people, and as 3E has this habit of codifying most roleplaying aspects, that is one that should be added to the class in the form of rules, or at least rule advice.

@Evilhalfling
What's to keep that sailor (fighter-class, I assume) from gathering a crew of sailors or pirates around him, and either swear loyalty to a bigger captain, or become a captain of a small fleet himself, building a small empire of ships and islands under his rule? Become a freebooter with a letter of marque from a neighboring kingdom, or sailing to a distant shore to build up his career there?

 

[Aus_Snow]

Geron, that's quite an explanation! More lucid detail than I am accustomed to reading (. . or writing) on messageboards, to be sure.

I can certainly see your point there, but I am of the opinion that the ideal core class to support the main body of said explanation is the Aristocrat, perhaps followed by the Expert (the latter, tentatively). The reason being, the nature of their extensive 'real-world' training is more likely to be directly geared to ruling (in the case of the Aristocrat), or is more at least more easily steered that way (for the Expert).

In systems other than core D&D, there are classes that might serve as well, or even better still. The various interpretations of the Noble, as an obvious example.

Historical precedent *certainly* supports the notion of the military commander rising to a position wherein they (to whatever extent) govern the populace - of course! However, I would hazard a guess that the majority of rulers within structured societies have come to be such via other means, or other fates (religion, birthright, assassination, wealth, wits, good fortune, etc.) Yes, that is bit of a dodgy, sweeping kind of 'estimate', but it er. . sounds right. . . . I think.

And of course, common soldiers (and other low status warrior-types) have - often enough - gone on to become military commanders. I can see the reasoning for the proposed Fighter progression there. Mind you, it could get back to birthright, wits, et al for the forces behind a lot of military commanders being in the positions they are. Eh, but that might be clouding the issue further.

The more I think about it, the more I realise I don't even strongly disagree with the original statement. I believe that there is a lot of room to move on this topic, and what's more, I strongly agree with most of what you've said. Particularly ". . other classes can be easily set up . ." of course!

 

[Zimbel]

High-level feats

What would persuade you to play a fully classed fighter?

More combat-based feats that are useful and only obtainable at high levels. Iron Heroes has a number of examples, as does Iron Might. There are few in most WOTC products.

As for your suggested feats, I do not like feats that tend to force a PC to 1 particular weapon (like Weapon Focus, & Weapon Spec.) Even if I liked them, I think that the fighter needs something closer to 40+ feats that are only obtainable and useful at mid to high levels. Basically, for any reasonable choice of focus for a fighter, they should have an effective feat to choose for each LV. Presently, there is little above around LV 6 to keep a fighter in the main class.