D&D Insider Review: Fighter, The Great Weapon
By Nick - October 13, 2009
A lot of people complained that the Fight Weapon Talents included in the original Player’s Handbook were far inferior to Martial Power’s Tempest Technique. Not only did Tempest Technique include an attack bonus, it added to damage rolls as well. Tempest Technique only looks superior if you don’t take a look at bonuses two-handed weapons offer by themselves. There’s a palpable difference between off-hand, one-handed, versatile, and two-handed weapons.
Part of what made Tempest Technique feel superior to the Fighter Weapon Talents are the sheer number of feats included in Martial Power. The Player’s Handbook didn’t include the kind of feats to put the original class options on par with the new ones introduced in supplemental rulebooks. Articles like this one are here to rectify such a void.
There’s a lot of new powers here, mostly stuff that focuses on wielding a two-handed weapon. There are a few exceptional ones that have nothing to do with wielding a two-hander. The one power worth a great deal of attention is Image of Death, a power that hits very hard with a strength and double constitution modifier bonus (which is like the equivalent of three or four d10s or d8s at level 29) and provides the nice augment of causing all of your marks to grant combat advantage.
As to be expected, the couple of paragon paths here focus on two-handers like everything else in this article. The Great Weapon master works a little more in tandem with the Fighter’s defensive capabilities while the Siegebreaker changes the Fighter into a Rogue’s best friend, giving them lots of ways to grant combat advantage and getting damage bonuses against it.
This was one of the more essential articles they needed to release for a class. The Fighter Weapon talents not only lacked the options for the new class features presented in Martial Power, they were far more bland at base. They’ve done a good job here keeping in mind the other feats that exist for non-specific two-weapon fighting as well.
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