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## [3.5E] A Fighter With Some Nice Things

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JonSetanta
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Post by JonSetanta » Sat Mar 03, 2012 9:00 pm

> ModelCitizen wrote: Would you have a problem with it if it could only be done with a +1 or better weapon? A fighter should have one of those by level 3 or 4 anyway, so that restriction wouldn't be a huge deal I don't think.

The ability should be independent from what kind of weapon they use.
It's bad enough that a mundane weapon can be Shattered. No need to punish them further.
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...You Lost Me
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Post by ...You Lost Me » Sun Mar 04, 2012 7:16 am

I dunno, I like it. It defies reality in its own "Fuck you I'm a badass" way.

> DSMatticus wrote:Again, look at this fucking map you moron. Take your finger and trace each country's coast, then trace its claim line. Even you - and I say that as someone who could not think less of your intelligence - should be able to tell that one of these things is not like the other.

> Kaelik wrote:I invented saying mean things about Tussock.

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JonSetanta
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Post by JonSetanta » Sun Mar 25, 2012 12:19 am

OK Schwarz, I've read it thoroughly this time.
It seems like a better team player than my Easy Fighter or the vanilla version, but not as big of a canceller as Tome Fighter.
There's mobility and by level 5 they do get nice things in armor, which is good because any tanker worth something will be decked out in Full Plate by then.
By level 10 they get even better mobility, DR, various special combat actions that rival good feats, and it all stacks up to something that can bounce around the frontline without getting hurt too much.
I'd say you've succeeded the Same Game Test somewhere between the Fighter and Rogue level. Damage output isn't so great but there's always Power Attack.
One ironic note; you threw in a Bonus Feat every level like I did, although if you did back to my designs about a year ago I did something called "class compression" wherein I squashed all noncaster classes into half as many levels, giving Fighter 10 all the feats of a Fighter 20. A lot of Tome fans hate that since it's not compatible but it is necessary otherwise.
We came to the same (non-Tome) realization that either feats need to be better, or give more of them... so we did the latter.
Last edited by JonSetanta on Sun Mar 25, 2012 12:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Dean
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Post by Dean » Wed Mar 28, 2012 9:18 pm

Ok, lets throw down some knowledge on this.
First of all your "ignore armor check penalty" powers should cut out the part about swimming. That is text that doesn't add anything valuable and WILL be forgotten. It would be in all ways an improvement to cut that out. Secondly those powers need better, calmer names. Not every class feature should be "Brilliant Omniscience of War" some should just say "Remove Penalty: Medium". It saves mental space and makes reading the class easier as well as talking about the class possible at all so I would recommend that like now.
I also want to know if Acrobatic charge is meant to let you charge through Force Walls/Cubes. I don't have a problem with that, I just want to know if you know that that's true. Because as it stands that's some decent teleportation. It also makes this fighter suddenly and miraculously make the "Goggles of x-ray vision" actually good.
Finally I might recommend the possibility of making his damage reduction 2 per level. DR 8 is a joke where DR 16 wouldn't be. But that's just something to think about.

> DSMatticus wrote:Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I am filled with an unfathomable hatred.

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Neurosis
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Post by Neurosis » Thu Mar 29, 2012 12:40 am

I don't know, the idea of someone having the power to not sink like a stone while wearing full plate doesn't just seem unrealistic to me (which I don't care about) it seems Genre-Unrealistic to me. For some reason I'm fine with a guy in full plate making a flying leap over a mountain, but I have a real problem with the ability "don't sink" being non-magical. Idk, call it a block. I don't think it's a huge deal either way. Also I do believe that armor should have some drawbacks, no matter how small.
I rather like (most of) the ability names although I was kind of running out of creativity with the later level ones, but if you (or anyone) was paying me to write this class, I'd certainly change them. : ) FWIW I do kind of see your point.
Acrobatic charge is not meant to let Fighters automagically phase through Walls of Force. It has been too long since I wrote this for me to remember how I meant the power to interact with ACTUAL walls, but I think it's just meant to ignore all the annoying, finnicky requirements of charging, like not being able to do it through difficult terrain, or enemies. It's more about jumping over the mooks in your way before laying the smackdown on the big bad than it is about actually teleporting. Uncanny Sprint on the other-hand IS teleportation. Anyway I'll toy with the phrasing of Acrobatic Charge.
I completely agree with you about the Damage Reduction but I wouldn't go as far as 2 per level (DR20 by Level 10 actually makes you immune to MOST ordinary attacks). However, I DO think I am going to double it at every level where he gets it, because yeah, at level 16 DR 8 is really, really not cutting it.
Remember, one goal here is to create something that's not (much) better than the Dread Necromancer assuming an equivocal level of optimization.
Last edited by Neurosis on Thu Mar 29, 2012 12:44 am, edited 2 times in total.
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> Trank Frollman wrote:One of the reasons we can say insightful things about stuff is that we don't have to pretend to be nice to people. By embracing active aggression, we eliminate much of the passive aggression that so paralyzes things on other gaming forums.

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JonSetanta
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Post by JonSetanta » Thu Mar 29, 2012 1:43 am

DR usually starts off at 5 with some bypass method, or scales like Barbarian, but I recommend at least DR = level.
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Dean
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Post by Dean » Thu Mar 29, 2012 9:12 am

5+level seems a really nice and functional middle ground for damage reduction. Maybe even 5 point increments to keep it simpler for people. DR 5 at first level, DR 10 at 5th, DR 15 at 10th, DR 20 at 15th, and DR 25 at 20th.
Last edited by Dean on Thu Mar 29, 2012 9:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

> DSMatticus wrote:Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I am filled with an unfathomable hatred.

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JonSetanta
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Post by JonSetanta » Thu Mar 29, 2012 7:36 pm

> deanruel87 wrote:5+level seems a really nice and functional middle ground for damage reduction. Maybe even 5 point increments to keep it simpler for people. DR 5 at first level, DR 10 at 5th, DR 15 at 10th, DR 20 at 15th, and DR 25 at 20th.

I did that for a Fiend class I wrote two years ago, and it's either too powerful if you give DR 5 to a level one character without bypass method, or outright worthless if it can be bypassed by magic at higher levels.
DR X/magic AND alignment is somewhat good, but very exclusive to which faction you're fighting, and typically reserved for powerful celestials and fiends.
My favorite would be the DR X/material type because you can just Sunder or Shatter the weapon and your DR is back online.
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Dean
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Post by Dean » Thu Mar 29, 2012 8:36 pm

I consider levels 1 and 2 unplayable as written honestly. So I'm not really concerned with how it affects that balance. But I would find it totally acceptable to gain DR 10 at level 5 and keep gaining after that.

> DSMatticus wrote:Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I am filled with an unfathomable hatred.

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Bihlbo
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Post by Bihlbo » Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:15 am

What about starting the DR off as x/magic, then upgrading it to x/— by about level 5? At level 4 some stuff you fight will bypass it, most likely, and having at least one level of lusting for the upgrade sounds like a good idea.

> deanruel87 wrote:5+level seems a really nice and functional middle ground for damage reduction. Maybe even 5 point increments to keep it simpler for people. DR 5 at first level, DR 10 at 5th, DR 15 at 10th, DR 20 at 15th, and DR 25 at 20th.

I loathe slingshot upgrades like that. If it's a good idea to have DR 15 at 10th and DR 20 at 15th, then it's good to have DR 17 at 12th. Nothing about that lacks simplicity, especially for a DR value that stacks with other DR you may gain.
Speaking of which, you might want to assume a certain amount of stacked DR as the fighter levels, since everyone will be looking for that. It might be better just to make the fighter DR equal your fighter level, since I'm sure most fighters are going to hit your target of DR 15 by level 10 without really trying.
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Bihlbo
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Post by Bihlbo » Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:52 am

There's no reason for Second Skin, Flash of Chain, and Steel Blur to be separate entities. It's not like you're going to make a class later that gets "Flash of Chain, just like the fighter class feature of the same name." They all do the same thing, with upgrades that could easily be written as a single ability that looks like this:

> Second Skin (Ex): A fighter ignores the armor check penalty to all skills but Swim for wearing light armor and using bucklers or light shields. The armor check penalty for Swim from light armor, bucklers, and light shields is halved, i.e. not doubled.
> At 5th level, this ability applies to light armor, medium armor, light shields, and heavy shields. Additionally, the fighter's speed is not reduced by wearing medium armor.
> At 9th level, a fighter is no longer fatigued for sleeping in armor.
> At 12th level, this ability applies to all armor and shields. Additionally, the fighter's speed is never reduced by wearing any armor.

In the chart, each time a new portion of the feature comes into play it just says "Second skin", just like it simply says "Bonus feat" every time you benefit from that one class feature. It doesn't need to explain anything else at all, it just needs to point the reader to the ability so they know something's been upgraded.
Mechanically, I'm not a fan of this feature. The only fighter who is wearing light armor at level 1 is the dex-based archer fighter, so it's a non-ability at that point for most characters. For the dex-based archer fighter, it grants a bonus of 1, because that's all the benefit you'll ever get with masterwork light armor. Applying it to light armor is totally pointless. I would start it with medium armor, move the no-fatigue to 5th, and apply it to all armor at 9th. For most characters, even that would be crappy since they've spent 4 levels wearing nothing but heavy armor and gaining no benefit from the class feature.
Honestly, if your fighter, even the dex-based one, isn't wearing heavy armor most of the time, why is heavy armor even in the game? Who should be wearing it more than the fighter should? Currently the game strongly encourages fighters to boost their Dex as much as possible, regardless of the build, which simply serves to relegate heavy armor to low levels. ACP is the tip of the iceberg.
If I were writing it I'd lean more to a PF-like solution. Ignore the ACP for all armor/shields up to a certain value that scales with level. Like this:

> Second Skin (Ex): A fighter reduces the armor check penalty to all skills but Swim. The amount reduced is equal to the fighter's class level. The armor check penalty for Swim is halved, not doubled.
> At 5th level the fighter's speed is not reduced by wearing armor, the fighter is no longer fatigued from sleeping in armor, the time required for the fighter to don armor is cut in half, and the fighter need not have help to don heavy armor.
> At 9th level the fighter adds a +1 bonus to the maximum Dex bonus listed for any armor that was not donned hastily. This bonus improves by +1 every 2 levels after 9th level (11th, 13th, 15th, 17th, and 19th levels).

This means the fighter doesn't suffer ACP at all by level 6, or 7 if you add a MW heavy shield. At level 5 the speed boost is great, and the rest is fluff in most games. At level 19 in +5 full plate with a high Dex a fighter's armor and dodge bonus to AC equals +21 (5+9+7 instead of 5+9+1 without that ability). Big whoop, when do you even need AC at level 19? If you do, how do the other sources of AC not blow that out of the water anyway?
Edit: another armor idea - what if the fighter gets an ability that allows them to benefit from armor regardless of their physical form? It gives a reason for the wizard, who normally doesn't need anyone but himself to get a beat stick, to change the fighter into a hydra instead, since his AC is going to be way higher.
Last edited by Bihlbo on Wed Apr 11, 2012 4:07 am, edited 3 times in total.
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