Enhancement feedback project, volume 7: Fighter

[HatsuharuZ]

Oh, I'm halfway done! Woohoo!

Anyhow, this thread is for fighter enhancements. Any comments are appreciated. I'd especially welcome suggestions for possible changes to formatting. I hope this is easy for everyone to read.

Also, please note that not *all* fighter enhancements will be listed here, just the ones that are significant in some way. There is no point in making comments on Action Boosts or skill-increasing enhancements, for instance, since everyone knows what they do, and most of the time they work. The only enhancements I'll talk about are the ones I think need to be changed, or are especially useful or interesting.

Kensei

Comments: This tree was clearly made with the intention making synergy between monks and fighters. However, the benefits for going pure fighter instead are very few. There is no Damage Boost present.

[Core Abilities]

1) Kensei Focus

Comments: Nice how they give *groups* of weapons instead of single weapons.

2) Spiritual Bond

Comments: The enhancement bonus is an insight bonus, thankfully.

3) One Cut

Comments: I don't think I'd want to spend an action boost on this. The "Vorpal" effect only happens randomly, while, say, Damage Boost has an immediate and noticeable effect.

4) Alacrity

Comments: There are a lot of passive effects here, but most of them are offensive in nature. A defensive ability, like extra dodge or "You do not fail reflex saves on a 1" would be nice additions.


[Tier 1]

1) Exotic Weapon Mastery

Comments: A fighter already has to use up a feat for exotic weapons. Is this really necessary? If not, this would be a perfect spot to put in a Damage Boost.

2) Reed In The Wind

Comments: Considering that it costs a feat, this enhancement should be a bit more powerful. Perhaps add a temporary bonus to reflex saves and AC?

[Tier 2]

1) Improved Dodge

Comments: Not only does this have a feat requirement, it only applies in light or no armor. This enhancement is in a class tree for fighters, which have heavy armor proficiency. I think that the enhancement should apply regardless of the type of armor worn.

2) Weapon Meditation

Comments: Interesting. However it has Action Boost as a prerequisite. Not really necessary for the enhancement itself.

3) Ascetic Training

Comments: This is a very versatile multi-enhancement selector.

[Tier 3]

1) Shattering Strike

Comments: This ability is only practical if one is planning to multiclass into monk or some other class that uses wisdom. Since this is in a fighter class tree, I would suggest giving it the option of adding the user's strength modifier to the DC.

[Tier 4]

No comments

[Tier 5]

1) A Good Death

Comments: This enhancement gets more useful as one gets into higher levels.

2) One With The Blade

Comments: The sheer number of prerequisite enhancements and feats needed to get this is impressive. It's worth it, however.

3) Deadly Strike

Comments: This isn't worthwhile, in my opinion. While it gives you an automatic critical hit, the 500 extra damage on vorpal still only happens 5% of the time. Furthermore, this ability only has 8 uses per rest, unless you are a pure fighter with the kensei capstone, in which case you get 10 uses per rest.


[Stalwart Defender]

Comments: This tree is really messy. To be more specific, all of the enahncements in this tree need to be moved to different positions in order to make this tree less expensive and easier to use. Now, the design of the tree makes it possible to possible to get the entire defensive stance with only 6 fighter levels. This makes it expensive though, and forces the player to pay for abilities that cannot be used until level 6. This design is very counterintuitive. Finally, I think this tree is too focused on defense. At some point defense becomes useless if it prevents the player from taking part in combat offensively. More doublestrike, please.

Additional Suggestions:

1) Make Stalwart Defense a first level core ability.

2) Give increasing benefits from the SD stance with each core ability. Then, program the stance to that it only gives half benefit when the player is not using a shield.

3) Do not make players pay for threat generation alone, if possible. Threat generation does not contribute to the player's survival in any way, it simply makes it easier for enemies to agro on the player.

4) Reduce the number of abilities that use action boosts in the SD tree.

5) Make Block & Cut a first, second or third tier ability. Rogues get a similar enhancement in the Thief-Acrobat tree that does the exact same thing, except with quarterstaves.

6) In my opinion, shields are not practical to use as weapons. There are no randomly-generated DR-breaking shields, and I have never seen a shield drop that has the same item mutations as a mainhand weapon. For those reasons, replace Shield Striking with an enhancement that increases doublestrike % while a shield is equipped, and turn Overbalance into an ability that can stun an enemy on a vorpal strike *while* a shield is equipped.

7) Add an AoE melee attack that can trip enemies in a cleave-shaped area, which can only be used with a shield.

[ComicRelief]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

Fighter is arguably *THE* most flexible build, yet the new EN system basically says "only 'specialists' (kensei) or a 'sword & board' (stalwart defender) fighters are worth our time and effort."

What about THF builds? or TWF builds? or even ranged-focus builds? (not sure why anyone would really want a ranged-focus fighter, but hey! it is still an achievable option and there are some who do.)

I have a TWF, "non-specialist" fighter build (L20+) that still has over *HALF* of the available AP because there is nothing available that's worth spedning them on - and that even after using a bunch in the (quite unimpressive, as far as I'm concerned) human racial tree.

I was not alone in this opinion, either, but it was all ignored during "alpha" and even more so in "beta". Guess all they really wanted to do was have kensei-monks (as far as I can tell, kensei is *THE* only PrE that was specifically designed to accommodate a different class than the class 'tree' it's a part of) and stalwart defenders. Which is extremely short-sighted. I lost a lot of potency on my fighter(s) with the new ENs; I am still hopefull that maybe - just maybe - there will be "more" for the other builds.

But then, I'm an optimist...most of the time.

[Mosasi]

Stalwart Defender is poorly set up, valid point. The kensei tree has tier1 haste boost, and tier2 tactical melee attack DC boost, but beyond that very little that drew my attention. I keep coming around to the idea of making a fighter focused character, but really, there are very few enhancements between the fighter trees worth selecting.

The melee attacks that kensei offers should be unlimited uses with a short cool down, and really, it could use another one or two attacks. I would also have thought that fighters would gain some kind "specialty focus" into glancing blows and/or off hand attack chance.

Basically... fighters should be great at fighting, and their trees really don't do that. The way the trees are set up, and the enhancements available in them make them perfect for multi-classing, which is cool, but there is very little in the trees to merit pouring points into the trees.

Tier4 in Kensei currently has a two open spots where stuff could be added. I would consider tossing in a cleave-type attack, and something similar to the Ninja Spy ability Shadow Double (Maybe a "multiple enhancement selector" offering boosts to doublestrike or glancing blow damage?).

Tbh, so far, I have yet to explore the stalwart defender tree as nothing about it has presented as very interesting.