Flynn said:
Starting Skills/Ranks Per Level: 5 + Int modifier (or 4 + Int modifier if non-human). {As an aside: In my game, skill lists are based on background, not class.}
Question: What happens then if someone grows up a peasant farmer, then gets conscripted into the military by his local Lord, and over time becomes a military regular, a professional soldier? Or when a rogue gives up his wicked ways and joins a respectable wizard's academy to put his wits to good use? Or when a middle-aged samurai retires to life in a monastery, practicing martial arts and scholarly pursuits? Or any other time when an individual changes his/her path in life and tries to pursue a different trade/whatever?
Starting Features
In addition to the two feats all characters get at 1st character level (one feat if non-human), a Fighter begins play with four (4) Weapon Group Proficiency feats, Armor Proficiency (light, medium and heavy), Shield Proficiency and one Fighter bonus feat.
Another question: does Shield Proficiency in your campaign include tower shields? And if not, has the Tower Shield Proficiency feat been added to your Fighter's bonus feat list? Cuz if anyone should be able to learn to use a tower shield without having to waste one of their precious few normal feat slots, it would be Fighters.
* Bodyguard: If the Fighter is within 5 ft. of any ally who takes damage from an attack, he may spend an action point at the time of the attack to switch positions with the ally and take all the damage and any associated effects instead.
This needs clarification. Must they declare use at the time they learn their ally is stricken, or can it be after they learn how much damage their ally would have taken (and thus, whether or not it would've killed or KO'd the ally)? Your wording in the beginning and middle parts of the description are kinda contradictory and thus leave it uncertain.
* Canny Defense: The Fighter gains a +1 dodge bonus to AC while wielding a melee weapon and not wearing armor or using a shield. If the Fighter is caught flat-footed or otherwise denied his Dexterity bonus, he also loses this bonus. This war talent may be taken up to five times, and its benefits stack.
I would at least add a restriction that this War Talent does not stack with any other class' abilities by the same name. Ergo, if a Fighter multiclasses into Duelist later, they would use whichever Canny Defense ability granted the higher bonus, rather than stacking them.
Since you're using D20 Modern's class defense bonus, you should recognize the fact that getting to stack lots of AC bonuses together is a Bad Thing when several of those can be quite high (like your Fighter's class defense bonus). D20 Modern itself has far fewer sources of AC/Defense than D&D 3E does (even if using FX in the game, they have a smaller range of FX items and smaller bonuses on some stuff).
* Extreme Effort: The Fighter can push himself to make an extreme effort related either to a Strength check (such as forcing a door or bending the bars of a jail cell) or a Strength-based skill check. The Fighter must decide to use this ability before making the check. The effort requires a full-round action and provides a +2 bonus on the check. This war talent may be taken multiple times, and its benefits stack.
I'd limit this to 5 copies at maximum, or 3 copies like in D20 Modern. Regdar the upper-level human Fighter
probably shouldn't be bending/snapping adamantine jail cell bars with his bare hands, however unlikely it is that anyone would find a lot of good uses for such inhuman Strength checks. Though, if you limit it to 3 copies, it might be balanced with a +3 bonus per copy instead of +2, given its limited usefulness most of the time.
* Ignore Hardness: The Fighter can ignore 2 points of an object’s hardness when making a melee attack to break it. This war talent may be taken multiple times, and its benefits stack.
Similarly, this should be limited to maybe 5 copies at maximum, or perhaps 3 copies. 10 copies would allow a Fighter to chop adamantine objects in half pretty easily, while 5 copies would still be a large boon to those who like to break things but wouldn't necessarily be too powerful.
* Improved Carrying Capacity: The Fighter may treat his Strength ability score as if it were two points higher only for the purposes of improving his carrying capacity. This war talent may be taken multiple times, and its benefits stack.
I would make it an effective +3 Strength for carrying capacities instead of +2. Also, I think you need to note whether or not this affects pushing/pulling capacities. And again limit it to 5 copies, cuz it would be wierd for a high-level but low-strength (archery and weapon finesse oriented) Halfling Fighter to be lugging around dead ogres on his back.
* Improved Reactions: The Fighter gains a +2 competence bonus on initiative. This war talent may be taken multiple times, and its benefits stack.
Waaaaaay too good. Initiative can be quite important for multiclassed rogue-types and caster-types, as well as any kind of high-level character. Limit this to 3 copies at most, and add a prerequisite of, like, 4 Fighter levels per copy (so 4th-level minimum to gain 1 copy, 8th minimum to gain a 2nd copy, and 12th minimum to gain a 3rd copy). This is better than the Duelist prestige class' ability, and 10 copies for +20 Initiative would be scary, especially with Improved Initiative and good Dexterity. Heck, 5 copies with a multiclassed Fighter 9/Rogue 11 could be sick.
* Magicbane: The Fighter gains a +2 competence bonus on saving throws against spells and spell-like effects.
This ability essentially makes the other few save-increasing War Talents comparatively sucky and worthless for a while (and far less cost efficient).
This is effectively the same as giving them Great Fortitude, Iron Will, and Lightning Reflexes all at once, except that it stacks with those feats and there are just a few things it won't apply against. Generally just some poisons (works against the Poison spell though), some diseases (works against the Contagion spell though), and Stunning Fist, plus maybe the occasional minor thing.
Reduce the bonus to +1.
You could add a separate, Greater Magicbane ability though, with prerequisites of Magicbane and Fighter level 11+ or something, that increases the bonus from Magicbane to +2.
* Men-At-Arms: The Fighter can raise a group of fighting men (and women) from the surrounding area. To do so, the Fighter must spend 2d4 days doing nothing but spreading the word in the local region and rallying interest. On the morning following his efforts, the Fighter will have gathered together a fighting force of an Encounter Level (EL) equal to his Fighter class level plus his Charisma bonus. The Fighter is responsible for food and supplies for these men, and they will follow him so long as they are treated well. Prerequisite: 7th level Fighter.
I'm not sure there's any way to make this balanced. So essentially it's like the Leadership feat, but stacks with that feat, and is much more vague, mentions no limits or possible difficulties in raising such a force, has no limits on how many such fighting forces he or she can gather and keep around, says nothing about what kind of a fighting force this is (warriors, fighters, whatever; 1st-level folks, 5th-level folks, a mix of stuff; same race, different races, same alignment, mixed alignments, same cause/affiliation, different causes/affiliations, allied lands, enemies' lands, etc.), and is basically just terribly vague and open to both rampant abuse and harsh adjudication.
I'm not even sure there's any reason for this ability to be there. Why not just add Leadership to the list of Fighter bonus feat options if you want them to be capable of gathering a force of allied warriors?
* Mettle: If the Fighter is exposed to any effect that would normally allow him to attempt a Fortitude saving throw for partial damage or effect, he suffers no damage or effect if he makes a successful Fortitude saving throw. Mettle cannot be used while unconscious or sleeping. Prerequisite: 5th level Fighter.
I would raise the prerequisite to 9th-level Fighter or so. Depends a little bit on whether or not you change the description to also apply against effects that allow a Fortitude save to negate. If not, then it may be fine at 5th-level Fighter as a prerequisite.
See, Mettle, even when limited for some strange reason as your version is, is generally used to oppose save-or-die effects, save-or-be-taken-out-of-the-fight effects, and save-or-be-seriously-weakened effects.
Evasion is used to simply reduce damage (there is little if anything that Evasion applies against that is not either primarily or entirely damage-dealing). Damage is a much easier to deal with effect, and all kinds of other things can reduce or remove it. It's rather much harder to get back up and fight when you fail a Fortitude save against death effects or petrification or whatnot. Of course, this ability applies when making the save, I dunno, I don't have time right now to check everything for whether or not any Fort-for-partial stuff is still fairly nasty when saved against.
I noticed some other strange differences in your version of Mettle. It says it applies only against stuff with a Fortitude save for partial damage or effect. Normally, Mettle applies against stuff that allows a Fortitude save
or a Will save for partial effect
or no effect. I'm not sure if this is intentional on your part or not (it does seem intentional that you left out Will saves, but I'm not sure about the rest).
* Melee Smash: The Fighter receives a +1 bonus on melee damage. This war talent may be taken multiple times, and its benefits stack. Prerequisite: 5th level Fighter.
Limit this like in D20 Modern. 3 or 5 copies at maximum. Also, should probably be limited to affecting melee damage with weapons, unarmed strikes, natural weapons, and grapple checks (so as not to affect stuff like Shocking Grasp from a multiclassed fellow, which would be kinda wierd when you can't hit stuff harder when you're just tapping them with an electrified finger).
* Shield Guardian: If the Fighter is within 5 ft. of any ally, he may spend an action point at any time to grant his ally a shield bonus to AC equal to one the Fighter possesses, until the beginning of the Fighter's next turn. This bonus stacks with any shield bonus the ally might have.
This may or may not be too strong, depending on what kinda action points you're using (frex, D20 Modern's action point rules/allotment are different from Eberron's and others, for instance). I dunno, may be alright even if you get a bundle of AP each level,
maybe.
