So with the last fighter discussion around, something ocurred to me. Most fighter fixes involve geting new abilities to the fighter, but then most people end up wondering "why not ToB class/psychic warrior then?".
The vanilla Fighter's theme after all is feats. So why not build around it I ask? Now somebody will scream "rargh feats aren't class features", but to those people I point the wizard, wich has no actual class features. A wizard just cast spells and gets some bonus feats. But he gets a damn lot of spells with little restrictions. And that's more than enough to put him at tier 1. So clearly what the Fighter needs is to be really good at geting feats. And sensing other people's feats. Then nullifying them.
So let's start filling all those empty fighter levels.
Brawn over Brains: Where others rely on fancy tutelage and natural talent, a Fighter compensates the lack of those things with hard work. At 3rd level the Fighter may ignore any skill points or ability score requisites on feats he picks. If a feat's effect would be based on a skill or ability score, the fighter may replace it by another skill or ability score of his choice.
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Wizards can totally know all spells basing them solely on intelegence and spellcraft. Well why shouldn't the fighter be able to learn combat reflexes with his muscles and riding with intimidation ability then?
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Sixth Sense:At 5th level a Fighter can evaluate an oponent's prowess with just a glance. The Fighter automatically knows all the feats of other creatures he can see whose CR is equal to his fighter level or lower. If they're higher CR, the Fighter must fight with them for a number of rounds equal to the CR-level diference to gain this benefit.
In addition, as an immediate action, the Fighter may nullify one feat one oponent has for 1 round by using his superior feat knowledge to counter them with minimal effort. The feat must belong to the fighter bonus feat list, and the oponent loses all benefits of the feat for 1 round. If the feat was a requisite for some prestige class or special ability the oponent has, it cannot use those special abilities while the feat is nullified, including special abilities from the prestige class. Oponents with the same number of fighter levels or higher than you are immune to this ability. You need to know your oponent's feats to use this ability.
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So the wizard can identify spells and items with a glance? So it's only fair the fighter can do so as well in relation to feats. Identifying your oponent's feats is precious intel.
As a bonus and a way to use your swift/immediate action to remove the feat of an oponent. Making them lose all other related stuff may be a little too much, but I kinda wanted to make a big "screw you" sign to all the characters who claim they can take feat chains easily as well.
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Improvise: A fighter can quickly adapt to any situation. At 7th level as an immediate action, they may gain any feat for wich they meet the requisites. This feat lasts for 1 round.
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As we reach higher levels I start to raise the stakes. Spammable self-heroics is pretty neat, and hopefully won't slow down the game as much as "replace X feats every ecounter" like was sugested here and there. Notice that since it burns your immediate action you can't use it with Sixth Sense's second ability on the same turn.
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Feat Chainer: At 9th level, whenever the Fighter gains a feat that has another feat as requisite, he gains one extra feat. That extra feat cannot have other feats as requisites. This is ability is retroactive, so the Fighter gains the bonus for feats with other feats as requisites that he had already gained. This bonus doesn't apply to temporary feats like the ones gained from the heroics spell and Improvise, neither to retrained feats.
In addition, when using his Sixth Sense ability, the fighter may remove two feats from his oponent, and he can now remove any feat that is given as a bonus by any other class or prestige class. Plus the feats are nullified for 4 rounds instead of 1. Multiple uses of this ability on one oponent stack. The clause for not being able to use abilities that relied on the removed feats still applies, wich includes nullifying magic items crafted by the oponent if you removed the respective item creation feat. Spells prepared with metamagic can't be cast either.
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Quantity has a quality of his own, specially when it's stackable. This makes it easier to pick all those more situational non-feat chains that still have uses and you probably couldn't afford otherwise.
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Impossible Feat: At 11th level, if some ability would specifically stop a fighter feat from doing anything at all in a situation it should, then it works normally instead.
Examples:
-An oponent has freedom of movement, a fighter with improved grapple can still grapple them just fine.
-An oponent casts wind wall, a fighter with archery feats can shoot arrows trough it just fine.
-An oponent uses an ability that inflicts a status whitout save. If the fighter has any save-boosting ability, he may roll a save to prevent the effect anyay. If he has boosts to diferent saves, he may choose wich one to use.
-An oponent is immune to fear. The fighter can still demoralize/shaken them if he has intimidate-boosting feats.
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This one could use a better wording, but I believe you get the idea. Wizard says "lolno" to something, then the fighter says "lolno" in return.
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Combat Experience: At 13th level, when using his Sixth Sense ability, the fighter may remove three feats from his oponent, and he can now remove any feats, plus the feats are nullified for 1 minute. Multiple uses of this ability on one oponent stack. The clause for not being able to use abilities that relied on the removed feats still applies.
In addition, when using improvise, the Fighter now gains two extra feats instead of one.
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[spoiler] Losing power attack is a major hit for other melees. The wizard can't read the extra scrolls he wrote. The artificer's pimped gear all jams. No metamagic shenigans anymore. Everybody says feats are too weak. Well I guess they won't mind losing them right?
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Expanded Feats: At 15th level, the fighter can count himself as having all the class abilities of a member of other class of same level as the fighter for purposes of qualifying for feats. So a fighter would count as having full Iniator level for Martial Study and meeting other maneuver requisites. He could learn warlock invocations with the Extra Invocation feat.
If he learns a metamagic feat, he may apply them to his attacks by taking a penalty on to-hit rolls equals equal to double the metamagic modifier. So a fighter with Still Spell could attack whitout moving by taking a -2 penalty to attacks for example.
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Another of the big strenghts of casters is the ability to blatantly steal abilities from other stuff, be it summoning/calling, mindraping slaves or polymorph/shapechance shenigans. So I guess its not asking too much the fighter can pick other people's feats.
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Combat Master: At 17th level, when using his Sixth Sense ability, the Fighter may nullify four feats, plus he may target a number of creatures up to his fighter level and the feats are nullified for 1 hour. Multiple uses of this ability on one oponent stack. The clause for not being able to use abilities that relied on the removed feats still applies
In addition, when using improvise, the Fighter now gains four extra feats instead of two.
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Ok, I'm kinda running out of ideas here. Sue me.
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Sacrifice Feat: At 19th level, the Fighter may supress any feat on himself for 1 minute as a free action to re-roll a 1d20 he just rolled after knowing the result. This ability can be used even on others turns, and multiple times in a single turn, while the fighter has un-supressed feats.
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And the almost-capstone, burn feats for re-rolls. Wich isn't that shabby since you can actually roll saves against no-save abilities now.
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Toughts/comments welcome.