What I believe is the problem with Fighter fixes.

[Amechra]

They all end up... fiddly.

Fighters are not just supposed to be the class that you take to play Conan or Arthur, but it is also the kind of class you can hand a newbie and have them play without much trouble.

Consider this Knight fix.

It's simple, customizable, and ultimately does give you options in combat. I still would mix in some stuff that the Pathfinder Knight has (maybe that "as long as we are in a friendly kingdom, I can get room and board anywhere for free" ability would be in flavor), to add some more out of combat utility, but the class is, in and of itself, the kind of thing I would want to see a Fighter fix look like.

Namely, something simple and easy to work with, which gives you a warrior that fits the general idea of a skilled weapon-master.

I might as well go write that class right now, but yeah, for me, the problem with almost all Fighter fixes is that they don't feel like a Fighter.

[sirpercival]

My fighter fix should work ok for those purposes... it's pretty simple.

[FlaminCows]

it is also the kind of class you can hand a newbie and have them play without much trouble.

I disagree. This is a terrible place to put a class, especially one that is so iconic and a cornerstone of fantasy stories.

If you must create a "training wheels" class it should be a separate thing, with the main Fighter being built solely for fun and representation of the archetype in general use. The newbie class would be an easier-to-use version, and it should also have some basic spellcasting ability and something like the Bardic Knack ability so that the new player can try the other mechanics as well. The last thing the Fighter class needs to feel like is a newb class. It should be just as attractive to veterans as any other class in the game.

[Amechra]

To be fair, I really think that you should be able to hand ANY class to someone, and have them useable without too much explanation.

And another point to the "newb class" using Fighter idea is... I think the Fighter should be intuitive to use.

[Garryl]

To be fair, I really think that you should be able to hand ANY class to someone, and have them useable without too much explanation.

And another point to the "newb class" using Fighter idea is... I think the Fighter should be intuitive to use.

I disagree. Well-made complex mechanics can be tons of fun, even if they aren't newbie friendly. Take Incarnum and Binders, for example.

I see something similar to the Warblade as a good newbie-friendly class. Easy to play, little to keep track of, and enough options from turn to turn to keep things interesting without being overwhelming. When building the character, there are also a variety of options to take, but they are all still good enough to be worthwhile even if selected almost randomly. I wouldn't hold the Warblade up as the best that can be, but it's a very good choice. I'd also mention Dragonfire Adepts as probably a good option, although I have less experience with them.

[veekie]

Theres different types of complexity in play anyway.
I'd say if you want a newbie-oriented class, then you need to have low tactical complexity and medium strategic complexity. It needs to be easy to play, in combat you are to be working with discrete rulesets, while at chargen more experienced players can help walk you through creation, which allows for more variety.

The Fighter is not low tactical complexity. You have a ton of feats and an array of combat modifiers that new players tend to simply forget to factor in, while EACH special attack has its own ruleset, further modified by the monster-versions of these rulesets. Power Attack as the bread and butter of the Fighter suffers from needing to be able to, on the fly, gauge the best trade-off to get more damage.
The fighter has medium strategic complexity. You can't just pick up feats as you go along, you need to plan out your character advancement or be utterly incompetent.

For a newbie class, a sorceror focusing on direct spells(Not BFC) is almost ideal. Tactically, all your abilities are in discreet block describing exactly what they do. Your resources are for the most part, one pool. Theres no circumstantial effects for the most part, all the rules you need are in the spell itself or the condition inflicted. The problems are if you pick out battlefield control spells, which require tactical skill to place correctly, a badly played God-caster is as much a hindrance to his own party as the enemy, or spells which are not discrete(Binding, Polymorphs and Shadow <foo> give absurd variety, Black Tentacles introduces you to the grapple rules)
Strategically it is also favorable, you have low planning requirements, as spells don't have any dependencies, you just pick the spell that interests you the most each level, and spellcasting feat chains are short enough that you can acquire them with minimal fuss. Of course, you can flat out pick bad spells, but this is easy to remedy with an experienced player at hand.

The ranger likewise fits, while it has as much tactical complexity as the fighter, strategically it provides the basic layout and path your advancement would follow built in.

[midnight_v]

Echoing that the fighter is not the newbie class. Like AT ALL...

Let me go on record as saying this:

"The PROBLEM with most fighter fixes is that most people who try to fix it either:
A. Have no perspective on what the real problems concerning the fighter might be.
B. Have not done ANY research on what fighter fixes came before, good, bad, or indifferent.
C. Do not have the system mastery to sync the fluff of the fighter to the mechanics of a class "non-magicall" (which seems to be the cornerstone to many people of what defines fighter."

TLDR?  The problem with fighter fixes is that they are largely created without, perspective, research, or system mastery.
------------------------------------
People make fighter fixes that work for them. Its very hard to make a fighter fix that is widely accepted as "THE DEFINITIVE" fighter fix, because of unwillingness to share conceptual space.

For example as trite as this sounds  "the warblade" IS "the fighter" in everything but name alone.

Can we repost the fighter fluff from the Phb 1 and 2 vs the Warblade w/o infringing? I'm thinking I'm allowed to do that if I cite the works and no one will get sued.

[Zionpopsickle]

The problem with most fighter fixes is that the don't actually address the real problem with martial characters.  Most are attempts to buff up the chassis of the fighter but the chassis of the fighter is actually pretty good.  D10 hit die, full BAB, and a bucket load of feats isn't bad.  They could use some slightly better save progressions and a better skill set and skill points per level but this is minor.  The real issue is that what the fighter is trying to do isn't that great and it has large problems generating action advantage.

Let's examine what good fighters tend to do, get martial study and stance to get thicket of blades.  Why?  Because it gives them a hard area control which helps to generate action advantage.  Otherwise they are left with crappy action advantage generators like cleave.  Compare with the Warblade who can replace saves (thus avoiding save of loses), buff AB (thus making its attack actions worth more), use White Raven to debuff opponents (thus making their actions worth less), etc. 

Simply put, the fundamental way to win a battle in D&D is to generate as much action advantage as possible so that at some point you are getting a ridiculous number of successful actions for each action the opponent succeeds at.  Wizards, Clerics, Druids, Warblades, etc. all do this very well.  Fighters don't.  The real solution is that fighters need more fundamental combat options which allow it to generate action advantage.  Things similar to Rogue ambush feats, cloudy conjuration, or maneuvers.

To restate it simply, fighter fixes fail because they are attempting to correct the wrong problem.  The fighter needs to be more powerful at gaining action advantage not at fighting.

[EjoThims]

The problem I see with Fighters isn't that they are not balanced.

It's that they are no fun to play, as even the most well designed dictates your actions far more than other character types and leaves you with a play style of either "full attack" or "move and (full) attack" no matter the situation or opponent.

Fighters being weak is a handicap to any who want to play them.

Fighters being boring is a problem that causes no one to want to play them.

[midnight_v]

The problem I see with Fighters isn't that they are not balanced.

It's that they are no fun to play, as even the most well designed dictates your actions far more than other character types and leaves you with a play style of either "full attack" or "move and (full) attack" no matter the situation or opponent.

Fighters being weak is a handicap to any who want to play them.

Fighters being boring is a problem that causes no one to want to play them.

Hmm... I see.
   
    Well, when I compare it to some of the other options say for instance the psywar, I have to say  you're right. Im certain that the fighter is SUPPOSED to be doing thing wtih things like trip, bullrush, charge etc. . . Though honestly thats a pretty small repartoire.
  On the other had you have things like the tome fighter. Which from all accounts is "broken" but really was designed to be tier 1-2 in Jaron terms, and it isn't boring. It has foil, and extra actions, feat juggling and a wide variety of skill points.
   
  Also the fact that feats aren't as powerful as spells is another issue.
Having feats that do interesting and good things makes it not boring. 
 
  Though yeah, even though I like the concept of the fighting man, full attacking ad nauseum, because thats all you have to do can get hahaha "laggy"

[DDchampion]

The problem I see with Fighters isn't that they are not balanced.

It's that they are no fun to play, as even the most well designed dictates your actions far more than other character types and leaves you with a play style of either "full attack" or "move and (full) attack" no matter the situation or opponent.

Because barbarians are renowed for their combat versatility, yessir.

Honestly, a lot of the complains here apply to other non-caster classes as well. Even the warblade at the end of the day is still rolling against AC to deal basic damage, just in slightly diferent ways.

[phaedrusxy]

  Also the fact that feats aren't as powerful as spells is another issue.
Having feats that do interesting and good things makes it not boring. 

THIS is the core of the problem right here, and unless you want to just get rid of the fighter class entirely and replace it with something completely different (i.e. warblade), the only solution is to make really powerful fighter-only combat feats. (The other melee classes aren't much better off. Really feats just need to be better in general, which is why Races of War is so awesome.)

If you do anything else at all, you're not "fixing" the fighter, you're making up an entirely different class.

This is what I tried to do with my fighter fix, but I won't claim to have succeeded spectacularly. Honestly I never had anyone playtest it to give feedback. So I never really went back and revisited it much after creation. It is also a derivative of the Races of War fighter in many aspects, including me stealing wholesale the Foil ability (but putting a per day limit on it, and making it into a feat instead of a base class feature).

[midnight_v]

  Also the fact that feats aren't as powerful as spells is another issue.
Having feats that do interesting and good things makes it not boring. 

THIS is the core of the problem right here, and unless you want to just get rid of the fighter class entirely and replace it with something completely different (i.e. warblade), the only solution is to make really powerful fighter-only combat feats. (The other melee classes aren't much better off. Really feats just need to be better in general, which is why Races of War is so awesome.)

If you do anything else at all, you're not "fixing" the fighter, you're making up an entirely different class.

This is what I tried to do with my fighter fix, but I won't claim to have succeeded spectacularly. Honestly I never had anyone playtest it to give feedback. So I never really went back and revisited it much after creation. It is also a derivative of the Races of War fighter in many aspects, including me stealing wholesale the Foil ability (but putting a per day limit on it, and making it into a feat instead of a base class feature).

I think you touched on this with me before. I'll take a look at it.
Just that snipit though makes me uncomfortable, I don't think that should be a feat. I think it tied into that vision of the fighter class too well. Perfectly infact. uses per day is likely a good thing.
Uses per encounter is likely the best.  Again though, I'm sad you haven't gotten anyfeed back. If you really started there and made something derivative that works, I'll give it my full attention.
Thanks.

[EjoThims]

The problem I see with Fighters isn't that they are not balanced.

It's that they are no fun to play, as even the most well designed dictates your actions far more than other character types and leaves you with a play style of either "full attack" or "move and (full) attack" no matter the situation or opponent.

Because barbarians are renowed for their combat versatility, yessir.

Actually Barbarians are known for being only slightly less boring (and are nearly as low powered), especially at later levels when they can go through practically every encounter without being rageless.

That's why my fixes (which I admit could probably use another eye for mechanical balancing) focus on giving different options in a round of combat.

[littha]

The problem I see with Fighters isn't that they are not balanced.

It's that they are no fun to play, as even the most well designed dictates your actions far more than other character types and leaves you with a play style of either "full attack" or "move and (full) attack" no matter the situation or opponent.

Because barbarians are renowed for their combat versatility, yessir.

Actually Barbarians are known for being only slightly less boring (and are nearly as low powered), especially at later levels when they can go through practically every encounter without being rageless.

That's why my fixes (which I admit could probably use another eye for mechanical balancing) focus on giving different options in a round of combat.

Your sarcasm detector is defective I feel.

[EjoThims]

The problem I see with Fighters isn't that they are not balanced.

It's that they are no fun to play, as even the most well designed dictates your actions far more than other character types and leaves you with a play style of either "full attack" or "move and (full) attack" no matter the situation or opponent.

Because barbarians are renowed for their combat versatility, yessir.

Actually Barbarians are known for being only slightly less boring (and are nearly as low powered), especially at later levels when they can go through practically every encounter without being rageless.

That's why my fixes (which I admit could probably use another eye for mechanical balancing) focus on giving different options in a round of combat.

Your sarcasm detector is defective I feel.

No... It works just fine... I was just playing it straight to demonstrate that I did not find his point (which he used sarcasm to emphasize) to be valid.