Why core-only 3.5 makes noncasters cry

Let's try to make a level 10 core-only fighter optimized for hitting things really hard...insofar as it's actually possible to "optimize" a fighter using core content only.

Using 4d6-drop-lowest to assign stats, I rolled two 15s, two 13s, and two 11s. Not a terrible spread. Let's go with a half-orc for race; human is usually considered pretty good due to the bonus feat, but as we'll see shortly you literally have more feats than you know what to do with (there simply AREN'T ENOUGH WORTHWHILE FEATS in core only), so half-orc it is.
We'll put the 15s in Str and Con, the 13s in Int and Wis, and the 11s in Dex and Cha. After racial modifiers, that gives us:
Str 17
Dex 11
Con 15
Int 11
Wis 13
Cha 9

We'll put a point in Str at level 4, and one in Con at level 8, giving 18 and 16 (respectively) in those by level 10.

Really, the only feats that actually help hit harder are Power Attack, Weapon Specialization, and Improved Critical. There's simply nothing else available in core to a level 10 fighter that helps him hit harder. Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Focus will help hit more reliably, and past that point...well, there's not much. So, let's fill in the gaps with Iron Will (since fighters have crappy Will saves and a failed Will save is often very bad news indeed), Cleave & Great Cleave (not that they'll be much use unless your DM is throwing you a bone with fights against mobs of enemies that you dramatically outclass...and even against these, it's more efficient for the party wizard to just chuck a fireball at them...but you've got the feat slots to burn, so what the hell), and...uh...well crap, you're really out of useful options to speak of, so let's go with Improved Initiative, why not, maybe it'll let you go earlier a bit more often. It's pretty much that or Toughness and...you should never take Toughness. Ever. Not even in a core-only game. Not even if you're a level 1 elf wizard with a Con penalty and you know the game's just a one-shot and you won't have to worry about kicking yourself for the dead feat slot later on, because even at level 1 Toughness is a dead feat, because whether you have 3 hp or 6 hp you're still a squishy target ripe for one-shotting.

So anyway, your feat spread will look like this:
Level 1: Power Attack, Cleave
Level 2: Weapon Focus (greatsword)
Level 3: Iron Will
Level 4: Weapon Specialization
Level 6: Great Cleave
Level 8: Improved Critical (greatsword)
Level 9: Greater Weapon Focus
Level 10: Improved Initiative

At level 10, you should have 49,000 gp to spend. A good way to allocate that on core-only options would be:
Belt of Giant Strength +4: 16k gp
+3 Greatsword: 18.35k gp
+3 full plate: 10.5k gp
Cloak of Resistance +2: 4k gp

That leaves roughly 150 gp left over for miscellaneus small-budget adventuring gear. Tent, rope, a tool or two, maybe a potion.

For your defenses, you have ~95 hp (assuming average rolls for hp at each level beyond level 1, where you get maximized hp), AC 21, and saving throw bonuses of Fort +12, Ref +5, Will +8.

Your attack bonus is a total of +21 (+10 BAB, +6 Str, +3 enhancement, +2 Greater Weapon Focus). If you full attack, you get a second attack at -5, and you can use Power Attack to take a penalty of up to -10 on your attack rolls and gain double that amount as a bonus to damage. Since most enemies at your level don't have much more than 20 AC to begin with, you should be able to take -3 for Power Attack as a matter of course with no change in hit rate on your first attack (natural 1s automatically miss regardless), and still hit quite reliably even taking a larger penalty. Your damage assuming the minimum -3 Power Attack is 2d6+20 (+9 Str, +3 enhancement, +2 Weapon Spec, +6 Power Attack), for an average of 27 damage per hit. You threaten a crit on a natural roll of 17-20, 20% of the time.

The formula to determine the statistical average damage output for an attack is (a-(at))W + atCW, where:
	a = chance to hit (for this character, 0.95 against a typical AC 20 target, since he'd only miss on a natural 1 if he's not using Power Attack)
	t = chance to roll within the threat range (for this character, 0.2)
	W = average weapon damage (27 here)
	C = critical multiplier (2 here)

Thus, for the first attack, the average expected damage (accounting for chances to miss and crit) is 30.78. The second attack in a full attack is made at a -5 penalty, so t for that second attack is reduced by 0.25, making the average expected damage for the second attack 22.68. Altogether, the expected damage for a full attack is 53.46.


Let's compare that to some monsters you might face at level 10. A dire bear is CR 7, meaning it should be a reasonably easy fight for a 4-man party at your level. It should take 2 or 3 dire bears to even begin to challenge you. A dire bear has 105 hp and only AC 17, so you can afford a somewhat higher Power Attack penalty. However, even with bigger Power Attack, it'll still take you 2 turns to drop a dire bear unless you really go all in and get lucky. In between, that dire bear is going to maul you with 2 claws (hitting effortlessly for 15 average damage apiece) and a bite (65% chance to hit for 14 average damage). If that bite hits, the bear gets a free grapple attempt and in that case...you're screwed. Hardcore. A dire bear has a +23 grapple bonus, whereas you only have +16. You only have about a 20% chance of winning that opposed check, and if you fail then you're grappled and can't do anything on your next turn except try to escape the grapple (with your same measly 20% chance of doing so). Have fun!

Another "relatively easy" encounter for a level 10 party is a mind flayer. CR 8, only a bit tougher than a dire bear. They're pretty squishy, with only 44 hp and AC 15. You should be able to one-shot it...if you can catch it. Thing is, mind flayers can levitate. You can't. You might be able to jump, if you invested your skill points in that, but even if you did you only have a +19 Jump bonus, which gets you all of a 7-ft vertical leap, on an average roll. The mind flayer can easily be beyond that height. And while it sits up there out of reach of your feeble flailings with your quaint little metal stick, it's going to wrap your puny little half-orc mind around its finger. It can stun you with a Mind Blast, make you his best friend with Charm Monster, or give a psionic Suggestion for you to go do something stupid -- any of which you have only a little better than a 50% chance of successfully resisting. And that's despite having invested a feat in improving your Will save.

How about something that's supposed to be tough? Say...an 11-headed pyrohydra? At CR 12, it shouldn't be boss-tier difficulty, but it should give you a run for your money.
And by "run for your money", I mean it one-shots you -- the big stupid fighter, the toughest guy in the party (presumably) -- with its fire breath on the first round. With your pitiful Reflex save, you're not very likely to be able to save for half, and you're looking at 11 blasts of 3d6 each. Statistically speaking, you can expect to take damage pretty much exactly equal to your full hp total on the first round unless your party has anticipated this fight and the casters have given you some fire resistance buffs or something to that effect. And this being an area effect, it's possible that others could be caught in the blast as well. If you happened to get caught with your group all in a cluster, you probably just got TPK'd. If you do survive the initial blowtorching, the hydra's fast healing is going to pretty much completely undo one of your hits every turn, taking you around 4 turns to get through its hp without help from your allies. During that time, it can attack with each of its heads every round, dealing relatively low damage per hit but hitting fairly reliably, and that'll add up. Plus it can use its fire breath again after 1d4 rounds, if you haven't killed it yet by then.

What I'm getting at here is, your damage is frankly not all that impressive. At all. It's alright, but it's nothing spectacular. And that damage output is ALL that you bring to the table. You have jack all for skills (I gave you the 13 in Int to offset the racial penalty so you don't lose skill points, but as a fighter you still only get 2 skill points per level, and even if you had more there's not really much of value you can do with them given your class skill selection anyway), you don't have any class features besides bonus feats, and your feats don't offer any useful or interesting capabilities to speak of whatsoever (the most interesting thing you have Great Cleave, but it's simply not that often that you'll find yourself surrounded by enemies with one-shottable hp totals). You can't trip, grapple, bull rush, or do any other combat maneuvers worth a damn, because if you want to have a hope of using those maneuvers effectively you need to invest feats in them, and frankly it's just not worthwhile or feasible. Trip is off-limits to you, because Improved Trip requires Combat Expertise which requires 13 Int which you don't have because you're a half-orc. Improved Grapple requires Improved Unarmed Strike, and Improved Unarmed Strike is a pretty useless feat unless you're building your whole character around unarmed combat, and besides which you can't grapple with a greatsword anyway, and ultimately when you get right down to it you're not going to be very good at grappling even if you did take the feat. Improved Bull Rush and Improved Sunder you could have taken, but bull rush (much like grapple) is something you're just not going to be any good at or get any value out of using, and sunder is something you should never, ever do unless you're in an absolutely dire scenario because sundering means destroying loot you could have gotten, and in 3.5 loot is directly convertible to character power thanks to the magic item system.

TL;DR -- if you're a fighter in a core-only game, you are a one-trick pony at best, and your one trick is not at all impressive. With other sourcebooks available, you could have access to more effective and useful feats, and potentially even fighter class variants that offer you useful and interesting abilities (such as the dungeoncrasher fighter variant in Dungeonscape, which lets you smash traps and crush people against walls for pretty good damage). But with only the core books, you're a joke.

Other martial classes in core have it somewhat better than the fighter, since they at least get some useful class abilities and (except for paladins) skills to speak of, but they're still held back considerably by the absolute dearth of useful feats in core. Meanwhile, casters have a very solid and diverse base of spells to work with, and most of their best feats are actually in core to begin with. You can do a lot with a caster in a core-only game, but noncasters have very little in the way of decent options.