Chaosmancer
Legend
No, they can't. 3e Fighter bonus feats are specifically limited to ones that make them better at fighting. I mean, they could use their regular feats for the other stuff, but not the fighter bonus feats.
Well OK, they can be used to get better at riding horses, but only in the context of mounted combat.
Sorry, I'm not super familiar with 3.5, and my books are in storage. Are we saying that the Fighter feats were a curated list that the players had to choose from? It just said "bonus feat" on the Wiki.
And if they are all just a curated, fighter-only list of abilities.... why are they feats?
It means that with the same starting resources, a paladin that's any good at paladinning will be less good at fighting, because the paladin stuff costs resources that could otherwise be used for fighting.
I suppose if Fighters are restricted to only taking feats that make their numbers better, this could be true in 3.5
Is it true in 5e? No.
They have to take those feats. I mean, they could do dumb stuff like taking widely disparate feats that don't synergize with one another or with their stats, but we usually assume that people don't actively aim for their feet when shooting.
I've often been tempted, in certain games, to take abilities that make a thing I am bad at, less bad. And a few times, I have been told "no, this makes you worse, because the game assumes you must take the abilities that make you better at what you are good at"
It does not help to assume everyone will play "the right way" because they may interpret the information differently than an expert does.