EZ Fighter

[eyebeams]

This is just a quick little idea for a character class that let's you play a warrior-type with a minimum of fuss and feat tree planning beside players who want more complex options. Designed for novices, people who don't want to bother tracking too many AoOs and people who are more interested in the "hometown hero" style warrior than the martial artist that the 3.5 fighter really is.

The Fighting Hero

Alignment: Any.

Hit Die: d12.

Class Skills

The fighting hero’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), and Swim (Str).

Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) x4.

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save
1st	+1	+2	+2	+0
2nd	+2	+3	+3	+0
3rd	+3	+3	+3	+1
4th	+4	+4	+4	+1
5th	+5	+4	+4	+1
6th	+6/+1	+5	+5	+2
7th	+7/+2	+5	+5	+2
8th	+8/+3	+6	+6	+2
9th	+9/+4	+6	+6	+3
10th	+10/+5	+7	+7	+3
11th	+11/+6/+1	+7	+7	+3
12th	+12/+7/+2	+8	+8	+4
13th	+13/+8/+3	+8	+8	+4
14th	+14/+9/+4	+9	+9	+4
15th	+15/+10/+5	+9	+9	+5
16th	+16/+11/+6/+1	+10	+10	+5
17th	+17/+12/+7/+2	+10	+10	+5
18th	+18/+13/+8/+3	+11	+11	+6
19th	+19/+14/+9/+4	+11	+11	+6
20th	+20/+15/+10/+5	+12	+12	+6

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the fighting hero.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A fighting hero is proficient with all simple, martial and exotic weapons and with all armor (heavy, medium, and light) and shields (including tower shields).

Exotic Weapon Proficiency: As noted, a fighting hero can use any weapon with proficiency, including the most unusual types. Extraordinarily unusual weapons, whose means of operation are not immediately apparent, might require a study period to use, but once studies, the weapon can be used with full proficiency.

Fighter Feat Access: A fighting hero can acquire feats that are normally restricted to fighter characters (such as Weapon Specialization), but does not gain bonus feats like a fighter.

Talented Guard: Fighting heroes perform bull rushes, disarms, overruns, sunders, trips and unarmed strikes without provoking attacks of opportunity. The fighting hero does not automatically gain feats that grant similar abilities (such as Improved Unarmed Strike), and must take them to gain the prerequisites for other feats that might require them.

Talented Guard comes from the fighting hero’s raw instincts and direct experience rather than systematized study and training. If a fighting hero adopts another character class, it blunts his instincts. Thus, the fighting hero loses this ability whenever he acquires more levels in another character class than the fighting hero class.

Comments

[the-gamestas.livejournal.com]

Did you use any existing engine to build this or is it just balanced to taste? Does Talented Guard start from the beginning?

[eyebeams.livejournal.com]

It's tweaked from the fighter with improved HD, saves and exotic WPs. You get Talented Guard right away, which is why it goes away if you stray too far from the class. I think it's a tad overpowered, but that's intentional, since it's geared to allow casual gamers to compete with highly optimized characters.

[(Anonymous)]

Aren't the exotic weapons a bit at odds with the hometown hero theme? Except for maybe the bastard sword the exotics seem like much more of a heavy-training martial artist thing. (Well, the bastard sword and the racial weapons, but those aren't exotic if you're from the right race anyway.)

[gloombunny.livejournal.com]

Um, that was me. Forgot I wasn't logged in.

[eyebeams.livejournal.com]

You get exotic weapons so you never have to deal with remembering non-proficiency penalties. It's more of an ease of play thing, though to be honest, the racial weapons are so idiotic anyway no amount of martial arts really justifies them. Conversely, learning to use a sword is usually the only "training montage" but in fantasy anyway, and if we bypass that in favour of pure gumption, I'm happy to bypass kung fu training in the glaive-guisarme heavy spiked double axe urgosh thingy.