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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 7960094" data-attributes="member: 93670">I think that the fighter's biggest problem here is that it's not like the other 11 classes but 5e doggedly tries to pretend otherwise. Ad&d is just too different with different experience tables, ability requirements for some classes, & so on for a good comparison..  4e is just too different & not an area of deep knowledge for me.  3.5 is a good comparison though because fighter was kind of a dual role class<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A trap for well meaning newbies who didn't put any planning into what feat chains & prc they were aiming for until they were spread too thin.  Usually someone (the gm or another player) would try to help these people but they tended to be rare from what I remember.  The fact that it also got a bonus feat at 4/6/8/10/etc made it easier to recover from heavy investment in zany feats like skill focus basket weaving  and pointless skills like knowledge french omelette history.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">a two level dip for level 1 & level 2 bonus feats along with 1/1 BaB progression & good fort save.  This made it a great way to shave off some weaknesses, qualify for a PrC needing certain feats more quickly, or bring a feat based concept online faster.</li> </ul>Sure there were plenty of purely martial <a href="https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Prestige_Classes" target="_blank">prestige classes</a>, but the critical difference wth 5e is that you would go into them around level 5 & the entire PrC was probably onlt 5-10 levels of rapidfire cool stuff to create an interesting concept thematically & mechanically different from other martial PrCs.  Now in 5e you have archetypes that try to split off from the main core of fighter into interesting little niches, but that appens at level 3 & is spread out across the next 17 levels between core fighter class features.  The blandness of fighter shouldn't be surprising when you consider how many of the battlemaster  maneuvers were just a special attack action anyone could take in place of any other attack.[spoiler="for example"][ATTACH=full]120762[/ATTACH] [/spoiler]It's not helped by the fact that there used to be feat chains that would alter improve & enhance those special attacks to a significant degree.  There are a lot of interesting abilities  fleshed out to varying degrees, I suggest creating a new class without the lead weight of the fighter core.  Maybe add some or many of the abilities (as is or weakened) already fleshed out to the core class & instead of fighting the schizophrenic too many directions feel then pick a couple directions those can be grouped into  for a collection of archetypes that sprout from the core class.  Using that route you don't need to worry about splitting the development of those forks with the development of a core class & can have most if not all of the post-split levels devoted to taking a forking deer path into an eight lane highway complete with streetlights & all that is not getting dragged down trying to be an almost but crappy version of some other archetype?Also... just like the maneuvers, some of the fighting styles are especially bad & they are rarely interesting ("ooooh" +1 with X)..  The default protection fs is in an especially eggregious example.  Whenever I see someone at one of my AL my tables with defensive style I 100% know it because they are constantly reminding the group that if they stay within 5 feet he/she can use it to help defend them & rarely does anyone take them up on it. By comparison when a player finds out another player is running a paladin "do you have  your aura?" & "what does your aura do" are almost always quickly raised questions.  a much better version of defensive style might be something like:     you actively thwart attacks from opponents within your reach*.  As long as you are conscious and able to take reactions any hostile opponent within  your reach making one or more attacks directed at an ally of yours suffers a -2(-1d4?) penalty on those attacks.*  Is this wording odd compared to "five feet"?  sure  for a human with a 5 foot reach, but a bugbear has a 10 foot reach as does a medium sized PC who is enlarged.  Not having the ability accommodate for such things is silliness that might as well get corrected if it's being tweaked</blockquote>[/QUOTE]

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