Fighter Fixes

[God_of_Awesome]

This is just some ideas and I hardly believe this entirely covers it but here goes:

My Armor Actually Protects Me (Ex): At 1st level, the Fighter gets damage resistance equal to their armor's armor bonus. At 5th level, their AB x2, at 10th x5, at 15th x10 and at 20th x20.

A Sword To The Stomach Hurts More Then A Fireball To The Face (Ex): At 1st level, the Fighter multiplies any damage with a weapon by their Strength modifier (Or Dexterity if they have Weapon Finesse). Every odd level, they multiply that by another magnitude (3rd x2, 5th x3, 7th x4, etc, etc).

Hero's Grace (Su) (Or (Ex) if that offends your sensibilities): At 2nd level, as Paladin's Divine Grace.

Hero's Luck (Su): Every level, the Fighter has a chance of finding a magic item in one treasure hoard per level, that is level appropiate and for some reason only they can use it.

[Surgo]

What are we fixing, exactly?

[ubernoob]

What are we fixing, exactly?

Fighter doesn't get big enough numbers, obviously.

[God_of_Awesome]

I was shooting for fixing a Fighter's usefulness in combat at later levels.

Edit: Of course, I thought of this in the shower. So yeah, not really leaning too hard on this.

[Surgo]

No, that doesn't really answer the question.

Specifically, what class are we fixing? There's a lot of "fighters" out there at this point. More specifically, what is each ability designed to address?

[RobbyPants]

While bigger numbers certainly make it better, I don't think it addresses a lot of other fighter issues, other than maybe the magic item clause. I suppose getting more magic items helps you hit ghosts, fly, and the like.

Of course, now you have to fix the paladin.

[Juton]

As mentioned above, this fix makes the Fighter better at fightan, but it doesn't make it that much more of a valuable party member. It should dominate any stupid monster without any meaningful SLAs, but a cunning enemy can still rock this Fighter because it doesn't do anything different.

Everybody knows that to be worth your share of the XP at higher levels (7+) you need magic or something magic-like. We generally don't want to give a Fighter spells, but we could at least give him UMD. For instance you let his relevant gear (sword, bow, armor + misc AC items) auto-upgrade so that they can spend their remaining GP on magic items that let them do something other than stab people in the face.

[Itay K]

A fighter fix would obviously be to make it an NPC-only class, and explicitly declare that in D&D it is near-impossible to tell the story of an ordinary dude that facestabs beings with power of reality itself. Limit the fighter class to 3 or 5 levels to protect players insistent on smearing suck all over their characters.
..
Or you could go the 4e route and make everyone have disbelief-shattering superpowers (healing surges) but no power over the setting except waste-it-with-crossbow.

[Psychic Robot]

My Armor Actually Protects Me (Ex): DR 260/--.

A Sword To The Stomach Hurts More Then A Fireball To The Face (Ex): 40d6 + 250 damage.

Hero's Grace (Su) (Or (Ex) if that offends your sensibilities): +0 bonus to saves.

Hero's Luck (Su): What.

[Mask_De_H]

As mentioned above, this fix makes the Fighter better at fightan, but it doesn't make it that much more of a valuable party member. It should dominate any stupid monster without any meaningful SLAs, but a cunning enemy can still rock this Fighter because it doesn't do anything different.

Everybody knows that to be worth your share of the XP at higher levels (7+) you need magic or something magic-like. We generally don't want to give a Fighter spells, but we could at least give him UMD. For instance you let his relevant gear (sword, bow, armor + misc AC items) auto-upgrade so that they can spend their remaining GP on magic items that let them do something other than stab people in the face.

This pretty much. To that end:

Class Skills: The Fighter gains UMD as a class skill.

Try Hitting It: At Xth level (maybe 7th?), the Fighter may use his Strength or Dexterity for UMD instead of his Charisma.

Scavenger-Survivor: Through jerry-rigging common items found during adventures, the Fighter can get the most out of any equipment. The fighter gains an enhancement bonus to any weapon or armor he is currently wearing equal to 1/3 his character level. If he gains a new weapon or armor, he loses the bonus unless he takes an hour to acclimate himself with the new items.

Also, Tome Fighter sans Tome Feats.

[Lokathor]

Hero's Grace should be Con to saves. Because Row Row Fight The Power, and such.

[Red_Rob]

Also, Tome Fighter sans Tome Feats.

How good is the Tome fighter without Tome feats? Or with Tome feats but without Problem Solver (as it gives the Tome Fighter access to every feat ever made)?

I'm interested in getting a 3.5 campaign started and Ive heard Tome Fighter is somewhat overpowered, however most of the same game test examples start with "use Problem Solver to get the best feats for the situation". Would removing that class feature tone it down enough? Or maybe make it take 10 mins to shift the feat, so it allows the Fighter to adjust his style but not on the fly?

[Judging__Eagle]

D&D isn't about reality.

It's about fantastic things. Magic isn't the only thing that's fantastic.

The Metabarons, John Carpenter of Mars, type things.

Shooting beams out of your eyes is that high level peopls seriously do.

All talk of aliens aside, Superman looks like a very average human, and he treats all humans as his equals. For all intents and purposes, he's a human, with a lot of class abilities, making him an 'alien' (both in a normal sense, and in an extraterrestial sense).

Batman, is likewise a "high level" human, who is not a wizard; in fact, there actually are wizards in the DC setting, and they are different from how the non-wizards act.

The thing people need to seriously get rid of, is their mental baggage when it comes to explaining what a non-caster should look like.

They should move across a busy city, chasing Idol-theives like Ong-Bak, and chop down mountains to slow down an enemy army, like Roland.

They should be able to pass (diplomacy, sneakiness, bluffing; conbination of all) or fight through a room of enemy guards every time they face one (Conan, comics, books, 90's cartoon TV show, Mission Impossible, The Matrix, A-Team, Sneakers).

Seriously, they will be a wide range of characters, but each one will be different than an other.

B.A. Barakus doesn't need charm person. He just has an ability (that he picked) called "Large and in Charge", and he's stacked up stuff to increase his str and 'apparent' size; so he is more intimidating that you'd think.

Of course, Mr. T's character is probably... level 5, max. He never jumped the shark, or driven his van to Japan. Of course... he has in fan fiction; the place where every character either gets emotions (pr0n/wangst), or gets a level (of cool/awesome/lame).

The level 6 human fighter is the guy who beat up two guys at the same time. So, think Bruce Lee, or better.

Seriously, even Jackie Chan can't fight more than one person at a time; most of his fights have him acting defensively or feinting in order to get an opening on a single target.

Now, think of watching someone, who fights better than Jackie Chan. Seriously, someone that can punch one guy; while blocking an other guy from hitting him (2nd attack? How about Full Expertise muthefucka'!) at the same time.

Eventually the 'speed' of fighting gets into J-manga levels of speed; with people having 'special' 300 PPS (punches per second), or 30,000 PPS 'turbo' modes.

[God_of_Awesome]

You know, I keep hearing the words RNG, UMD and MAD.

I am tired of being too embarassed to ask what those mean and not understanding the well worded advice you guys are obviously giving me.

[koz]

You know, I keep hearing the words RNG, UMD and MAD.

I am tired of being too embarassed to ask what those mean and not understanding the well worded advice you guys are obviously giving me.

RNG - Random Number Generator; specifically, this is to do with 'staying on the RNG', which means 'not giving out bonuses so huge that the result of the RNG becomes unimportant'.

UMD - Use Magic Device; a DnD skill.

MAD - Multiple Attribute Dependency; the need of a class or concept to have more than one ability score high in order to function in a level-appropriate way.

Hope that helps.

[Parthenon]

RNG: Random number generator. In this case, the D20 die. The numbers for bonuses and targets should not vary by more than the RNG because then it makes some actions automatic and some impossible.

UMD: Use Magic Device. The skill. See: Players Handbook. Or the online Systems Reference Document (SRD).

MAD: Multiple Attribute Dependancy. Where a character requires several attributes to contribute. e.g. Paladin needs Strength and Con to fight, Wis to cast spells and Cha for saves and turning, so needs four attributes and has MAD. Compare to Single Attribute Dependancy (SAD), where a character only needs one attribute. e.g. Wizard only really needs Intelligence and if careful doesn't really need anything else.

Edit: beaten by a minute.

---

Reading this thread I see the same things come up again and again. And it just makes me think of actual abilities that could make the Fighter usable.

They have trouble grappling big monsters, and so get this ability:

More Limbs == More Useful (Ex): At 7th level the Fighter grows three long tentacles from their body. This gives them a bonus equal to their BAB to grapple checks and climb checks. The player decides where the tentacles grow from and what they look like.

And they often have problems with enemies kiting them or going around them when they try to tank, so get this ability.

I have the high ground (Meta): At the beginning of any combat, the player of the Fighter has two minutes in which they can redraw or add details to the combat map. This can include adding walls or buildings, or even removing sections. However any structures must be supported, however tenuously, and the general region must stay similar.

This means that the fighter can always choose where they fight. Intelligent or directed creatures can't ignore them and attack the wizard and they can escape any closet trolls, making the Fighter incredibly useful in a party.

[Judging__Eagle]

AMD is also thrown around.

But, that's b/c our resident Koumei is an abusive, abusive, bitch; and she makes magic items know who's the boss (Tony Danza!).

[God_of_Awesome]

And what's AMD?

[Thymos]

Biggest problem with the fighter is that he can one hit anything with his sword and still be useless.

Why? Because Mages still have teleport, incorporeal, scry, finger of death (stone gaze, or some equivalent to this), fly, invisibility and all such things that the fighter will never get no matter high his damage is.

Fighters need to be getting the same magical effects that wizards get at their levels, or something equivalent.

[God_of_Awesome]

Hm, I know I suggested this before but... magic items as a class feature?

[Vnonymous]

Hm, I know I suggested this before but... magic items as a class feature?

Except people already get that.

[FatR]

All the super-high numbers on melee characters do is making them impossible to challenge with tamer monsters and forcing GM to rape them with opponents that abuse magic or otherwise are really good at rocket launcher tag. And getting super-high numbers on melee characters is not hard anyway.

[Roy]

All the super-high numbers on melee characters do is making them impossible to challenge with tamer monsters and forcing GM to rape them with opponents that abuse magic or otherwise are really good at rocket launcher tag. And getting super-high numbers on melee characters is not hard anyway.

No, here is what happens:

When faced with monsters that have tricks, you lose. Regardless of whether you are flailing for piddly shit, or doing enough average damage to one shot Big T (and quite a few attacks to do that with).

When faced with monsters that don't have tricks, they curbstomp you anyways as they have better numbers and will therefore win any and all auto attack contests. If however your numbers are high enough to one round them and to go first you can safely walk away from these.

The higher level you get the more enemies fit into category 1 and not 2. So while you can try to be useful by getting your damage into the hundreds a round, even that will save you less and less... Still better than never, but doing say... 400 damage a round at level 20 is the absolute minimum to even consider playing the game, much less actually being useful and worth a share of the treasure.

[Judging__Eagle]

AMD - abuse magic device

[Nicklance]

I like swords (Ex): You are never encumbered by swords, not are you affected by sword sizes when it comes to wielding them. You are effectively the appropriate virtual size when it comes to wielding any sword you are likely to own or encounter. Have fun.

Sword-chucks yo! (Ex): You gain Two Weapon Fighting as a bonus feat. If you already have this feat, you may take another [Combat] feat. Woohoo !

Katanas are better (Ex): Any katana or sword that looks like one (come on, every sword is a Katana anyway right?) enjoys a double threat range and double critical damage from its base stats. Shing !

Swords will fucking cut you wide open (Ex): You deal double damage with swords. Booya !

P.S: Flu meds, whoopdeedoo