What would it take to make the Fighter a Tier 3 class?

[Bortasz]

Gestalt together Fighter, Monk, Swashbuckler and Paladin? Maybe throw CW Samurai to the mix?

To expand on my earlier idea:
Fighter gets a number of bonus feats equal to half his fighter level, rounding up. So 1 on 1st, 1 on 2nd, 2 on 3rd, 2 on 4th, 3 on 5th, etc.

Guys look. There is NO FUCKING WAY. that increasing amount of Feat will increase Tier of the Fighter. Feats are to weak for that. Increasing his Skills and skill points well don't solve the problem either.

The best way is Reducing amount of Feats and give instead a Unique class abilities... I don't know, you ignore ideas of Extraordinary so maybe some Combat Style, Fighting technique, Orders? Battle Cry? Auras? Some sort of mystical war mediation?

But that won't be a Fighter anymore. You can take Warblade or Crusader for that.

Aleksander of course it not be a Fighter you know. We have to change him to order to compete witch Warblade and Crusader... We have now Fighter. very good design of class that can take many many roles. That class can be Gladiator, pirate, Bandit, Boxer, Swordsman, Knight, Footsoldier, archer, Crossbowman, and many many more.
The problem is that When you select the Role. It's end. You cannot changed. That's lot of Flexibilities add the start of creation, zero flexibility after several lvl.
We have to create New class witch will have the best of old Fighter, (Ability to feet in many roles) and in the same time be quite more Powerful, and useful out of Combat.
PS. Dobrze czuje ze rozumiesz co pisze?

Lans i Doubt that having feat on every lvl will put Fighter in tier 4. Especial sins like somebody point, there are not so much good feat to take. Add best Fighter will be able to become Charger and tripper add some point.

Sunfire I agree witch you.

[Bester]

Wow, this thread has grown.  I have noticed much love for fixing the Fighter.
Sinfire's bullet post has had every point touched upon so far.  My question is, who is going to post a new fighter based on what's been discussed so far?  Goddamn fighter was a start, but we need something more refined.  Get Down!

[lans]

Lans i Doubt that having feat on every lvl will put Fighter in tier 4. Especial sins like somebody point, there are not so much good feat to take. Add best Fighter will be able to become Charger and tripper add some point.

Neither will taking away his feats, dropping him to a two thirds BAB, and stripping him of skill points.

Also, there are a lot of good feats to take, expecially if your getting two hundred or so choices.

[Rejakor]

Name 30.

Oh, and justify.  You can use the baseline as the best maneuvers of an equivalent level.

Oh, and no double dipping!  You don't get to assume a 2nd level fighter has PBS, precise shot, and far shot for prereqs AND weapon finesse, two weapon fighting, and two weapon defense.

EDIT:  Hell, name 20 that are as good as good maneuvers.  Good enough that the normal feat slots+warblade bonus feats aren't enough to take them all.

[JohnnyMayHymn]

I like the exponential fighter, 1 bonus feat @  first up to 20 feats at 20th level, just allow any feats he qualifies for, not just fighter feats.
Maybe bump skills to 6 + int and let him pick a certain number of skills to be class skills (people fight in many different ways, and it keeps changing through the ages)

With this sheer number of feats you can get alot of things.

EDIT: 4 + int skill points I think is better

[JaronK]

If nothing else, the archery feats taken together as a whole can do quite a lot with a decent bow.  Combine that with the charging feats (you'd want a pounce dip of course) and that should make a character that's useful in virtually every fight... T4 right there.  Now slap on Imperious Command (to combo with Zhentarium Fighter 9) to get an attack that doesn't hit AC... might as well get the trip and AoO feats too so you can target touch AC... now you've got something.

Now you can target will saves, touch AC, AC up close, and AC from long range.  You'll instant kill if you can charge them, do a ton of damage if you can't, and you can debuff enemies (which is basically what tripping is).  Compare that to, say, a Barbarian.

JaronK

[Rymosrac]

Give the Fighter the Sculpt Self feat and 10x the artificer's XP pool to spend on it.

Only a step in the right direction, but a measureable, and simple one.

(Sculpt Self is from Dragon 304, mentioned in one of the handbook threads on dragon content, forget which)

[Bortasz]

I was Thinking.

Ad First lvl Fighter will have

Technique aptitudes: Fighter can change Feat from the Fighter feat list to others Feat from that list, as long he have match the Prerequisite.

What do you sat about this?

[Tshern]

So a Fighter could at any time change any of his Fighter bonus feats to another feat that is on the list of Fighter bonus feats? Sounds like this just encourages dipping and still doesn't solve the problem that Fighters do not have many worthwhile feats.

[Bester]

So a Fighter could at any time change any of his Fighter bonus feats to another feat that is on the list of Fighter bonus feats? Sounds like this just encourages dipping and still doesn't solve the problem that Fighters do not have many worthwhile feats.

I mentioned earlier that a fighter could just be given every fighter(combat) feat as long as he meets the level requirement.  The way to discourage dipping is to treat it the old way if you multiclass out.  Kind of like a job training system in JRPGs.  As long as you are the class, you get all the benefits.  Then, when you want to be something else, you only remember so much.

I'm starting to the think that alternating feats and class features at odd and even levels is the way to go.  The feat levels could also get something to help with armor and weapon focus.  That way you wouldn't need to mess around with the feats.  The class features would deal with the issues in sinfire's post.

[Lycanthromancer]

This was a post what dealt with fighters vs psychic warriors, and comparing where the fail lies between the two, but it should be fairly adequate for this discussion, as it does grant a reasonable idea of how the psywar overcomes these issues.

This particular topic (Psychic Warrior vs Fighter) is certainly a useful one for determining the strengths and weaknesses of both classes, and comparing the two and how they deal with various situations. Personally, I can see the psychic warrior being a superior class to the fighter in a number of ways (though it, too, has its own problems).

[spoiler]Gear Dependency: Fighters have this in spades. They're completely mundane, and have no magical abilities of their own. All they get for class abilities is wholly mundane feats, and in a game where magical abilities have the market cornered for power and flexibility, this means the fighter has to spend huge amounts of money on magical gear. Thus, it's not so much the fighter that's doing anything at mid-to-high levels; rather, it's his gear that's pulling the weight, with naught but a few feats and hit points to back it up.

Psychic warriors, in general, have far less gear dependency (though this varies by build). They can use their psionics for offense and defense, if need be, and don't absolutely have to have a specific weapon or armor. Claws of the beast/bite of the wolf/call weapon/dissipating touch/hammer/dissolving touch/psionic minor creation/metamorphosis/etc can all be used if the psychic warrior is stripped of his gear. This mostly means that he's not straight-jacketed into buying everything he needs, and can buy stronger equipment, or equipment a fighter would never consider using (because it'd be no use to him, generally).

MAD: I often see people touting the psychic warrior's MAD (Multiple Ability Dependency) as being a detriment to psychic warriors, and being a plus for fighters. This is flat-out wrong.

Fighters have to have Str, Dex, and Con all three in order to function (barring very specific builds), but also need Int for several feats, and Wis to shore up their horrible Will saves. They're all desperately needed for the vast majority of fighter builds, while you can sometimes get away with leaving one of those lagging, it'll bite you on the rear more than once during the campaign. Fighters are one of the most MAD classes in the game, since they have no other ways to shore up their offenses or defenses outside of gear.

Psychic warriors can have MAD too, but they don't have nearly as much of it. The reason? They can substitute well-used powers for high ability scores, or use them to enhance their original scores, without needing to spend huge amounts of money on magical equipment to do the job. They have powers that enhance accuracy and damage, powers that boost saves, and so on. This is something fighters just can't do.

Out of Battle Utility: This is a well-known deficiency of the fighter (and one of the more glaring ones, in my opinion). It gives practically nothing for a player to do outside of combat. In kick-in-the-door dungeon crawls this is fine, but many games have up to 90% of the game outside of combat, which leaves the fighter doing virtually nothing. They have Intimidate (which is useless, given that Cha is the fighter's dump-stat, and they really don't have the skill points to invest in it), Climb (which is invalidated at low levels by all sorts of magic), and...that's about it.

Psychic warriors have numerous options for things to do outside a fight. They get more (and more useful) skills (and have other uses for Int, so more skill points serves them well), which already allows them to occasionally shine. Autohypnosis alone is worth the price of a higher Int score. They also get a Knowledge skill (psionics), and Search, so they get far more out of their skills than fighters do.

Also, several of the abilities they get for boosting their warrior's capabilities can be easily adapted to utility purposes. Psicrystal Affinity, for instance, is one of the most versatile feats in the game. Any given psicrystal can act as a universal translator, scout, night watchman, alarm clock, (they never sleep), guard, long-distance communications device (up to 1 mile), skill booster (see Aid Another), etc. And with the right suite of powers, they can be so much more: mobility enhancer (see dimension swap), mount (metamorphosis), makeshift arcane lock (see immovability), assassin (see truevenom and psionic minor creation (poison)), and so much more. That's not even including access to the Expanded Knowledge feat, and everything that brings to the table.

All of this, and it doesn't decrease the psychic warrior's in-combat abilities at all.

Dead Levels: Fighters get more dead levels than any other non-NPC class in the whole game. A whopping 9/20 levels (45%) give the player nothing that the NPC warrior class doesn't get.

Psychic warriors? Not a single dead level anywhere, all the way through 20. You ALWAYS get something new, every level. And every psionic power you get is worth a feat (even if it's "only" Expanded Knowledge).

Build Flexibility: A given fighter pretty much has to choose one or two tricks, then spend his very-limited-in-scope feats to build on them. This leaves a fighter a one-or-two trick pony, and it's easy to get into a situation where the fighter's tricks are useless; a lot of them can be accidentally nullified by terrain or enemies with large size, or with any tricks that make the fighter's "I-hit-its-AC" schtick invalid. Since few feats actually scale to any degree, the fighter has to make a choice between taking feat trees and risk being a one-trick pony, or branching out and having a bunch of useless tricks that aren't powerful enough to make a difference. This is a problem.

Also, every choice a fighter makes each level he's stuck with for the entire rest of his career. He has no ability to swap his feats out, so if he makes a bad choice at any time, he's screwed.

The psychic warrior, however, gets the same feats that a fighter does (barring Weapon Specialization, which sucks anyway), with the option to take psionic feats, too. They also get powers which scale, and which are powerful and flexible, and are often useful throughout the psywar's career. They also get access to psychic reformation through Expanded Knowledge, which allows them to undo any mistakes they might have made at earlier levels, or to upgrade to abilities that might be more useful today than they were yesterday. Definitely a plus for any warrior-type class.

Stamina: Here's where the fighter shines. He gets to use his feats all day long, and never runs out. However, due to the way that 3.5 is designed, his actions rarely have the punch of a limited-use ability, and so tend to be a bit on the bleh side (because abilities you can only use so many times per day are supposed to be stronger to balance the fact that at-will abilities can be used whenever; though this 'balancing mechanic' tends to break down very quickly).

Psychic warriors have a very low limit on the power points they get. This decreases their 'full power' stamina considerably. However, since they get nearly as many feats as the fighter does, and can get psionic feats that are 'unlimited use' (so long as they use their psionic focus judiciously), a psychic warrior can have enough stamina to keep up with the fighter, using the unorthodox methods provided by his unique class abilities to cover his comparative deficiencies (such as using Fell Shot to cover his lower BAB, for instance).

BAB, etc: Fighters do have a higher BAB, which allows them to take certain feats more quickly than psychic warriors, and slightly more feats, which allows them to qualify for feat chains and PrCs more quickly, as well. This is one of the fighter's strengths, though I don't believe it's great enough to make up for all their deficiencies. Psychic warriors can qualify for more feats and more PrCs, and their relatively minor limitations on numbers of feats and BAB, I think, are more than made up for by their strengths.

Agree or disagree, as you will.[/spoiler]

[lans]

Name 30.

Oh, and justify.  You can use the baseline as the best maneuvers of an equivalent level.

Oh, and no double dipping!  You don't get to assume a 2nd level fighter has PBS, precise shot, and far shot for prereqs AND weapon finesse, two weapon fighting, and two weapon defense.

EDIT:  Hell, name 20 that are as good as good maneuvers.  Good enough that the normal feat slots+warblade bonus feats aren't enough to take them all.

I don't know what you mean by double dipping, and I never said they were as good as manuevers by them selves, which is why I suggested a couple hundred feats, and other people suggested exponential amounts.

Boomerang Daze, Boomerang Richochet, Standstill, 4 heritage feats, shocktrooper, rapid shot, item familiar,
3-4 Devotion feats, wild cohort, spirited charge, draconic aura, imperious command, vestige binding chain,  karmic strike, R.Gambit, Shield slam, shield charge, elusive target, three mountains style, Brutal throw, combat  form feats, I could find more if you want.

[Bozwevial]

Guys, I know we're just throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks, but the answer is definitely not giving fighters hundreds of feats. That's just an obscene amount of bookkeeping for relatively little benefit and is going to make fighters look even more like carbon copies of each other.

[Lycanthromancer]

Guys, I know we're just throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks, but the answer is definitely not giving fighters hundreds of feats. That's just an obscene amount of bookkeeping for relatively little benefit and is going to make fighters look even more like carbon copies of each other.

True, though changing it to where fighters get something every level, and can use their bonus feats for any feat they qualify for are certainly options I'd consider a given.

Also, let them choose their own skills (barring only UMD and UPD).

[lans]

Guys, I know we're just throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks, but the answer is definitely not giving fighters hundreds of feats. That's just an obscene amount of bookkeeping for relatively little benefit and is going to make fighters look even more like carbon copies of each other.

Its about twice what it takes for the sorcerer, so its not too obscene.

[awaken DM golem]

... responding to SinFire ... Bullrush


Knock 'em Into The Next County (ex):

Minimum 2 squares to get going, near auto-hit mechanic
Punch Pushes like the Hulk bashing someone through the air.
Range Short (increasing with level)
Range Medium
Range Long
Range Sight
Range semi-planar
Range trans-planar (plane shift effect)
Range really bad planar location.
... lands for extra damage, on leveling up at some point.


or


Bury The Dead Early (ex) :

Same ranges as above, but knocks dude into the dirt (stone, whatever).
Takes 1 round to extract self. Then prone condition.

etc ...

[AleksanderTheGreat]

Well, giving fighters that many feats is a little ridiculous. Let us better just stick to normal fighter feat progression or maybe change for bonus feat every level, but that should be enough. Instead lets make class features that EXPAND on feats. I would imagine a fighter like that:
Skills: 4 + Int mod. per level (x4 at 1st). Balance, Bluff, Climb, Craft, Diplomacy, Escape Artist, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Jump, Listen, Profession, Ride, Sense Motive, Spot, Swim, Tumble and Use Rope.
HD: d10.
BaB: Good.
Saves: All good.
Levels:
1st - bonus feat, weapon apptitude, combat adaptability;
2nd - bonus feat;
3rd - bonus feat, combat skill;
4th - bonus feat, combat prodigy;
etc.
Weapon Apptitude (Ex): Gains at 1st level. The same feature as Warblades.
Combat Adaptability (Ex): Every level a fighter can swap 1 fighter feat for another fighter feat that he meets prerequisits for.
Combat Skill (Ex): At 3rd level a fighter adds half his fighter level (rounded down) to any fixed, numerical modifiers gained from a fighter feat. 1st Example: Improved Trip would give +4 +1/2 fighter level to trip attempts, but no additional attacks. 2nd Example: Weapon Focus would give +1 +1/2 fighter level to attack rolls.
Combat Prodigy (Ex): At 4th level a fighter is treated as having ability scores and BaB 4 points higher for the purpose of meeting fighter feat requirements. On 8th level this number rises to 6, on 12th to 8 and on 16 to 10.

Thats just a rough idea.

[veekie]

Like has been said many times, it wouldn't change much, the Fighter gets numbers, but hes always had the sheer numbers. You might make it a T4 from sheer blunt trauma, but thats as far as it gets and it's broken in the power sense while STILL failing to attain the breadth needed for T3.

[Jopustopin]

In order for me to play a straight fighter I would need Iron Heart Surge-like abilities.  The worst part of playing with a fighter in the group (when I was a wizard) was that he was constantly disabled in the first two rounds with fear or entanglement (etc).  I imagine a fighter being someone you can't get off your back.

I made this as an example but it's based on something that reminds me of how the hero always breaks free of the enchantment at the last second and surges forward surprising his enemy.  Furthermore having these abilities allows a fighter to be less reliant on magical items.

Heroic Willpower: (For Will Saves) At 8th level a fighter may, as an immediate action, select any effect that is currently affecting him and has a duration expressed in rounds.  With a successful saving throw (at the original DC): this affect ends immediately and then the fighter may take a move action as part of this action.  If the fighter moves five feet or less during his move action then it does not provoke an attacks of opportunity.   (Example: Hold Person)

Heroic Reflexes: (For Reflex Saves) At 2nd level a fighter may, as an immediate action, select any effect that is currently affecting him and has a duration expressed in rounds.  With a successful saving throw (at the original DC): this affect ends immediately and then the fighter may take a move action as part of this action. If the fighter moves five feet or less during his move action then it does not provoke an attacks of opportunity.   (Example: Entangle)

Heroic Fortitude: (For Fortitude Saves) At 6th level a fighter may as an immediate action, select any effect that is currently affecting him and has a duration expressed in rounds.  With a successful saving throw (at the original DC): this affect ends immediately and then the fighter may take a move action as part of this action. If the fighter moves five feet or less during his move action then it does not provoke an attacks of opportunity.  (Example: Fuse Flesh (although one would have to make the second fortitude save))

[kremti]

Guys, I know we're just throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks, but the answer is definitely not giving fighters hundreds of feats. That's just an obscene amount of bookkeeping for relatively little benefit and is going to make fighters look even more like carbon copies of each other.

I think part of difficulty is that the way OP stated, which is "we want to preserve the semblance of what Fighter Class was presented in PHB (Not Warblade, not Hood, etcs)".  The defining characteristics of that PHB class is the feats they get.  So we can't really deviate from that for the purpose of this discussion.  Then there are only a few things we could do and one of the most obvious thing is to give them handreds of feats (Mechanically, letting them switch around the feats on the fly is very similar as well). 

Another is to rewrite the feats themselves...which sounds like lots of work.

It might be that the answer really is "It's not really possible without making the class look nothing like PHB Fighter".  At which point, people will just grab ToB and say "Hey, I'm just going to use Warblade and call it the day.  All the jobs have been done by someone else already."...

-K