Talk:Phalanx Fighter (3.5e Feat)

Anonymous balance concern

{{needsbalance|How can you fight in a phalanx formation alone? Overpowered. No prerequisites and around 10 feats in one.}}

There aren't supposed to be any prerequisites. Tome-style feats like this are designed to build up the mundane combat classes in order to keep them a bit more effective than in comparison to a spellcaster.

The feat isn't "Phalanx Formation," but rather "Phalanx Fighter," meaning that the combat style is one reminiscent of a phalanx. In DnD combat occurs at an individual level, rather than a unit scale level, so I would not expect the requirement of a whole military unit of similarly trained warriors in order to make effective Phalanx-style tactics. Especially not in a game where most people try and go for the Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric dynamic. Of those only the Fighter and the Cleric have a skillset that would allow for the shield wall and spear style that the Phalanx embodies.

The question you ask would remain. How can two people fight in a phalanx formation? Or three? Or four? At what point does the fighting style become realistic in number of characters to be effective? Out of those many players how many do you think will want to pool their feats and grab this thing, even with it being 'around 10 feats in one.'

The feat as stands is certainly nothing in comparison to what other characters can get by spending a feat. Oh look, the Cleric has Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell. Now he has your base attack bonus, more strength, and still has the rest of his spell list that can be burned through. The Druid can turn into a friggin' bear and does more damage than you. And he has a fuzzy mini version of you. And now that he's picked up the proper feat, he can cast spells as a bear too.

The Tome material is meant to address these power level imbalances. I presume you stumbled over this feat and the two others I've removed the deletion requests from today from one of the big category pages, rather than seeing them in their proper context with the rest of the material.

Even if you had, balance concerns are meant to be discussed on the Talk pages, not stamped with deletion requests when you have no idea about the thing you're asking to have deleted.

And honestly, hyperbole much? 10 feats in one. I count five. VK 19:28, 10 April 2012 (MDT)