Solider vs. Barbarian

[grizzly ruin]

It is true that high level Barbarians versitality ability works like a greater critical feat. On the other hand for a solider at the same level can certainly have greater critical,

The soldier *could* have greater critical with 1, maybe 2 weapons. (costing him 2 bonus feats per greater critical).

The barbarian will have greater critical with every single weapon in the game, and with any item he seems fit to use as a weapon.

So you can't really compare those two things, they aren't remotely close to being equal.

but also some feats unavailable for high level barbarian... Don't have my book here right now, but greater weapon focus + greater weapon specilization comes in my mind.

A barbarian over 7th level may not have
Weapon Focus
Greater Weapon Focus
Weapon Specialization
Greater Weapon Specialization
Intricate Sword Play
Improvved Critical (irrelevant)
Greater Critical (irrelevant)

Aside from intricate swordplay, which grants a parry bonus based on charisma and is hardly suitable to the barbarian (both mechanically and concept wise), I do agree that the other 4 feats are quite valuable feats to have access to.


At the same time those feats are not built into the soldier class nor are they his province alone, and are only an option, also at the highest levels the solider will not have access to +6 points to initiative, which puts him in the same initiative range as only the scholar and the noble.

 

[Anonymous]

At the same time those feats are not built into the soldier class nor are they his province alone, and are only an option

Actually, to get greater weapon focus, weapon speciality or greater weapon speciality, you must have certain solider levels. (IIRC 4, 8 and 12 levels).
They are not build into solider class as a automatic feats but definetly you must be solider to get these feats.

High level versitality allows you use any weapon and at higher levels it gives you increased crits with any weapon... But IMO this is effective only rarely, in situation where solider for some reason is not able to use his favoured weapon. If we want to include every possible situation, then soliders overall defence is better than barbarians (PV +15 /DV +10 vs. DV+15 / PV +7), which makes solider more versilate in situations when your favoured method of defence is getting a penalty. (for example, trying to dodge when you have not enough room for it).
For most situations parry is IMO better than dodge because it can be easily improved by having a shield... Parry won't help you against ranged weapons, but solider's dodge ability + large shield gives him almost as good protections vs. ranged weapons as barbarian got... And on a close combat your total defence will be higher.

Of course, barbarians versitality is useful in situations where you are unarmoured and unequipped and you have only some kind of unfamiliar or improved weapon available... If you have your weapons and armour available, solider will rock. And IMO this is the biggest difference (in combat situation) between these two classes.
Solider is professional whose training is more focused on "having the right tools for a job". Solider is warrior from the civilized realms where military forces are usually specialized in certain duties (archers, infantry, cavalry etc.) and whole unid is equipped in a similar fashion.
On the other hand, barbarian warriors usually have to use whatever weapons they are able to find.

 

[Anonymous]

you must have certain solider levels. They are not build into solider class as a... But IMO this is effective only rarely, in situation where solider for some reason ... soliders overall defence is better than barbarians, which makes solider more versilate in ... but solider's dodge ability... If you have your weapons and armour available, solider will rock.

Solider is professional whose training is more focused on "having the right tools for a job". Solider is ...

I have started to get used to people calling rogues "rouges", but why are so many people calling soldiers "soliders"? (Including the title of the thread).

 

[Anonymous]

I have started to get used to people calling rogues "rouges", but why are so many people calling soldiers "soliders"?

Well, English is not my native language...

 

[grizzly ruin]

I have started to get used to people calling rogues "rouges", but why are so many people calling soldiers "soliders"? (Including the title of the thread).

The title thread was a typo.

High level versitality allows you use any weapon and at higher levels it gives you increased crits with any weapon... But IMO this is effective only rarely, in situation where solider for some reason is not able to use his favoured weapon. If we want to include every possible situation, then soliders overall defence is better than barbarians (PV +15 /DV +10 vs. DV+15 / PV +7), which makes solider more versilate in situations when your favoured method of defence is getting a penalty. (for example, trying to dodge when you have not enough room for it).
For most situations parry is IMO better than dodge because it can be easily improved by having a shield... Parry won't help you against ranged weapons, but solider's dodge ability + large shield gives him almost as good protections vs. ranged weapons as barbarian got... And on a close combat your total defence will be higher.

Those sound like really good points. I didn't see that.

 

[Anonymous]

Okay, now when i have my core book available, i have made some examples...

If you are Solider with favoured class
Feats:
1,3,6,9,12,15,18
Bonus feats:
1,5,10
Class:
1,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20

=> Total 21 feats

If you are barbarian with favoured class
Feats:
1,3,6,9,12,15,18
Bonus feats:
1,5,10

=> Total 10 feats + Track(1), Endurance(3), Mobility(5), Diehard(6)
and barbarian class features. (Versatility counts as a Improved critical at lvl 14 and greater critical at lvl 20)


Okay, let's see when these characters are able to get certain abilities:

----------
2x critical range
=> Soldier (Improved critical, with weapon of choice): lvl 8
=> Barbarian(Versatility, with all weapons): lvl 14

3x critical range
=> Soldier (Improved critical, with weapon of choice): lvl 16
=> Barbarian(Versatility, with all weapons): lvl 20
----------

Weapon Focus + Specialisation:
=> With his weapon of choice Solider can get +1 attack at level 1, +2 damage at lvl 4, +2 attack at lvl 8 (or lvl 9 if you want to get improved critical first) and +4 damage at level 12.

Barbarian can resist this extra damage with his Damage Reduction ability, which gives him 2AP at level 13 and 4AP at level 19...

----------
Lvl 4 Barbarian will have uncanny dodge that lets him dodge or parry.
Solider must wait until lvl12 to get Reflexive Parry (similar effect, but parry only)

----------
At level 5 solider can get Web of Death, which allows him make AOO:s against enemies who attack against him while using total defence.
(+4 defence, you can make AOO against anyone who attacks you)

Barbarian can also get this ability but he loses it at lvl7. Withouth Web of Death you can not attack or have AOO:s if you ude total defence.

----------
Solider can get Whirlwind attack feat at level 4 (Preq: Combat expertice at lvl1, Dodge at lvl 2 and Mobility at lvl 3). He will still have 2 feats (1st lvl) left for other abilities.

Barbarian can get Whirlwind attack at level 5. He will have 1 feat left for other abilities.

----------

well, there are lots of other combinations... and solider will get most of those feat combos earlier than any other class. Also, he have more feats available, so he can have more feat combinations than other classes.
Greater weapon focus, weapon specialisation and greater weapon specialisation are feats that are only available for soldiers...

 

[Anonymous]

Okay, now when i have my core book available, i have made some examples...

If you are Solider with favoured class
Feats:
1,3,6,9,12,15,18
Bonus feats:
1,5,10
Class:
1,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20

=> Total 21 feats

If you are barbarian with favoured class
Feats:
1,3,6,9,12,15,18
Bonus feats:
1,5,10

=> Total 10 feats + Track(1), Endurance(3), Mobility(5), Diehard(6)
and barbarian class features. (Versatility counts as a Improved critical at lvl 14 and greater critical at lvl 20)

What level are they? Both 20th?

Your examples really help your point by the way, appreciate it.

I suppose one of the things that seemed over the top to me was Improved mobility and greater mobility.

So a 10th level babrarian never suffers any attacks of opportunity and has improved uncanny dodge. At 15th level he can pretty much run around the field with impunity. It's basically a supercharged version of spring attack.

Add to that that he will actually have his own built in damage reduction, which wouldn't normally be a problem except the entire armor system in this game is based on damage reduction. Granted he will wait a long time to have all of these abilities come to fruitition.

So although he is a dodge based class and may not always be able to use his dodge bonus, the other abilities would seem to help keep that disadvantage to a minimum.

I'd also like to ask your opinion on

1)Barbarian, Borderer, Nomad, Thief and Pirate will (at endgame) have a +6 higher bonus to initiative over the soldier.

2) The Soldier is the only class to get a measly 2 skill points per level. I haven't seen anything that suggests Soldiers should have as little skills as possible. And I put no stock in the "He dedicates himself to fighting so he doesn't get as many skills". Every other class except the Noble will eventually have more special abilities than the Soldier, so why then should he be penalized with a lack of skills as well?

 

[grizzly ruin]

The last post was mine again.

Why do these message boards keep signing me off so fast. Bloody annoying.
:x

 

[Belkregos]

in my opinion figthing madness is better than weapon focus and weapon specialization
granted you can't use it all the time but you use it when it counts,
and greater crimsom mist i think is better than greater weapon focus and greater weapon specialization,

i started having my PC being a soldiers but the more iplay a barbarian the more i think ill stay with the barbarian

 

[Anonymous]

Don't get me wrong here, i am not trying to say that Solider si somehow best class available in Conan rpg. My opinion is just that he can stand on his own against other classes.

What level are they? Both 20th?

Well, i listed all feats to lvl 20, level by level. So, you can easily check out how much feats there are available on lower levels.

I suppose one of the things that seemed over the top to me was Improved mobility and greater mobility.

So a 10th level babrarian never suffers any attacks of opportunity and has improved uncanny dodge. At 15th level he can pretty much run around the field with impunity. It's basically a supercharged version of spring attack.

IIRC, those affect only AOO:s that he provokes while moving squares threated by opponents...

I'd also like to ask your opinion on

1)Barbarian, Borderer, Nomad, Thief and Pirate will (at endgame) have a +6 higher bonus to initiative over the soldier.

That is true... Soldier is slower than any of those. On the other hand, in d20 initiative is not very critical factor... At endgame you will anyways have tons of hit points and because of that it is quite rare that you could kill your opponent before he can act. All of those classes are based mostly on mobility and light/medium armour when soldier is focused on heavier armour and equipment... So IMO they certainly should have better reflexes.
IMO, in the Conan RPG, Barbarian, Borderer, Nomad and Soldier are all different variants of your basic "Fighter -class", with slightly different focus on their abilities. Solider is kind of a "gadget guy" of this came, who is more focused on his equipments than the other classes. He is kind of a execpted to have heavier armour and equipment than other warrior types.

If you want your character be a lightly armoured skirmisher, your first choise should be borderer... or barbarian (or multiclassed character).
Other option (for single class solider) is that you boost your abilities with improved initiative and lightning reflexes. Because you have lots of feats available, you can easily pick those.
(Those feats are available for other classes, but they have fewer feats available. Also, It is true that there is no way your soldires initiative can match against, for example, a pirate with imp. initiative and lightning reflexes, who is making a ferocious attack.)

 

[AZZA]

]

That is true... Soldier is slower than any of those. On the other hand, in d20 initiative is not very critical factor... At endgame you will anyways have tons of hit points and because of that it is quite rare that you could kill your opponent before he can act. All of those classes are based mostly on mobility and light/medium armour when soldier is focused on heavier armour and equipment... So IMO they certainly should have better reflexes.

If it were standard D20 I would agree with you. But Conan D20 is different. If the soldier is beaten to the punch initiative wise he can be killed way easy no matter how many HP's he has. If he hasn't got the reflexive parry feat his defense when flat footed is 10.... In standard D20 when you are flat footed you still get armor, shield natural armor and deflection bonus so a fighter of moderate level in platemail could still easily have an AC of 20+ after a few levels. In Conan it is effectively 10. So what does that mean? The 11th level Thief beats the 11th level Soldier to the initative. The soldier is wearing platemail and has a large shield and full helm. With his 18+ Dex(lets face it he could have raised it 4 times!) and +8 base attack the thief will only miss the soldier on a 1. Stabs he soldier with his Arming Sword doing d10+6d8+STR. Sure the soldier has a DR of 12 but the average damage on this is around 33 pts for a net of 21, and this is were we come to the crux of the matter. Death saves when taking over 20 pts of damage! Even with a Con of 18 the soldier only has a 50% chance of making this roll!
What if the Thief has Power Attack and decides to boost his damage a bit?
What if he finesse attacks? The thief has a 50% chance of ignoring the soldiers armor completely forcing, again on average, an impossible Death save. And even if the Thief doesnt roll high enough to bypass the armor where back to example one.
Nobles suffer in this area as well.

 

[Anonymous]

"Stabs he soldier with his Arming Sword doing d10+6d8+STR. Sure the soldier has a DR of 12 but the average damage on this is around 33 pts for a net of 21, and this is were we come to the crux of the matter. Death saves when taking over 20 pts of damage!"

Actually, i don't think that this means Soldier being underpowered but Thieves ability to sneak attack against anyone who is flat footed is overpowered. Thief can get a huge damage bonus against _anybody_ he is able to flank or caught flat footed. This means he is able to kill anyone withouth reflexive parry or same kind of the feat.
Borderer, Noble and Barbarian have better reflex bonuses than solider does, but their initiative bonuses are still about evenly matched with a thiefes reflexes, which means that thief would win initiative against them about 50% of the time.

 

[sbarrie]

If a barbarian beats a soldier in initiative, the barbarian can attempt a massive power attack and virtually guarantee a massive damage save. Initiative is very important even without sneak attacks.

Reflexive Parry is a must-have for a Soldier.

 

[AZZA]

Thieves ability to sneak attack against anyone who is flat footed is overpowered. Thief can get a huge damage bonus against _anybody_ he is able to flank or caught flat footed. This means he is able to kill anyone withouth reflexive parry or same kind of the feat.

Except Barbarians and pirates who get Uncanny Dodge and are therefor not denied their dex bonus so presumably are immune to this killer attack.

If a barbarian beats a soldier in initiative, the barbarian can attempt a massive power attack and virtually guarantee a massive damage save. Initiative is very important even without sneak attacks.

But the reverse is not true if the Soldier beats the barabarian, again assuming he is 4th level, as he has his entire defense even when caught flat footed.

Reflexive Parry is a must-have for a Soldier.

I agree but I don't like that there is a must have feat in the game. If its a must have it would, IMO, be better served as a class ability.

Hmmm. maybe that is something I might add to my game at some point.

 

[grizzly ruin]

IIRC, those affect only AOO:s that he provokes while moving squares threated by opponents...

I don't have my rulebook handy but I had thought it meant the barbarian also did not suffer an attack of opportunity against trying any combat moves.

So he could bull rush, trip, charge, sunder, etc. without suffering an attack of opportunity.

If that is true (I may be wrong) that is INCREDIBLY powerful, and goes WAY beyond the scope of any 2 or 3 bonus feats a soldier could ever hope to acquire.

And it's not even restricted only to the barbarian...

That is true... Soldier is slower than any of those. On the other hand, in d20 initiative is not very critical factor... At endgame you will anyways have tons of hit points and because of that it is quite rare that you could kill your opponent before he can act. All of those classes are based mostly on mobility and light/medium armour when soldier is focused on heavier armour and equipment... So IMO they certainly should have better reflexes.
IMO, in the Conan RPG, Barbarian, Borderer, Nomad and Soldier are all different variants of your basic "Fighter -class", with slightly different focus on their abilities. Solider is kind of a "gadget guy" of this came, who is more focused on his equipments than the other classes. He is kind of a execpted to have heavier armour and equipment than other warrior types.

I have to agree with Azza on this one. Initiative is always important.

And we aren't talking about a little bit of initiative. We are talking about 6 points of initiative just at the base. And this goes to 4 out of 5 classes who end up in melee.

Now consider that those classes are pretty much mobility based. All of them. Which means they will probably have significantly higher DEX scores.

This makes the solider heinously slower than nearly everyone in the game with the exception of the scholar and the noble...

Yes the soldier can take 2 feats to try and even the score. Lets keep in mind that the soldier only gets 11 bonus feats. Out of 20 levels. Every other class (except Noble) gets more class features. They recieve, almost across the board, 1 feat every single level and quite often 2. They also get 2 extra skill points per level.

Those feats are available for other classes, but they have fewer feats available. Also, It is true that there is no way your soldires initiative can match against, for example, a pirate with imp. initiative and lightning reflexes, who is making a ferocious attack.)

That's alright, everyclass should have something available to them to put them above other classes in one way or another.

The problem is that 5 out of 7 other classes can defeat the solider this way. In combat. His one and only specialty (combat). It's the only thing he is designed for.

Actually, i don't think that this means Soldier being underpowered but Thieves ability to sneak attack against anyone who is flat footed is overpowered. Thief can get a huge damage bonus against _anybody_ he is able to flank or caught flat footed. This means he is able to kill anyone withouth reflexive parry or same kind of the feat.
Borderer, Noble and Barbarian have better reflex bonuses than solider does, but their initiative bonuses are still about evenly matched with a thiefes reflexes, which means that thief would win initiative against them about 50% of the time.

There's some merit to that argument except...

Except Barbarians and pirates who get Uncanny Dodge and are therefor not denied their dex bonus so presumably are immune to this killer attack.

Thus putting the Barbarian way ahead of the game. Again.

I agree but I don't like that there is a must have feat in the game. If its a must have it would, IMO, be better served as a class ability.

Hmmm. maybe that is something I might add to my game at some point.

Exactly, this is how I feel about it.

The other classes get special abilities. These are usually equal time, and sometimes better than the feats available.

The soldier has access to nearly none of that. And I'm still not the biggest fan of formation combat. The only special ability he gets, requires other people to use?

Leading off of that, perhaps it's time to get constructive.

Somethings I had considered tweaking. I don't have free companies so some of this may be moot.

1) The weapon focus, weapon specialization, and their greater upgrades are built directly into the class. i.e. the soldier automatically gets them.

2) Upping the skill points to 4, but 2 of those points must go into a choice of say 4 skills. Possibly (Ride, Knowledge, profession etc.) Similar to how the Scholar must use 4 out of his 8 skill points per level.

3) Some kind of leadership or group morale based bonus. This may step on the nobles "Lead by Example" and "Rally" a bit too much.

4) "Riposte" (perhaps also available to the Noble). Perhaps a feat? A Soldier/Noble who makes a successful parry may use a single attack of opportunity and make a riposte at their highest base attack bonus. They may only do this once per round, even if they have more than one AOO.

Just some starting ideas.

 

[SableWyvern]

Although I have stayed out of this discussion up until now, I have been following it with some interest.

Initially, I sided with those who thought the Soldier was not significantly outclassed.

However, there have been some excellent arguments to the contrary, mainly in the last few posts. Now, I am leaning heavily towards GR's suggestions, that the Fighter gets a few fixed feats in addition to his bonus feats.

Off the top of my head:

1: Parry
5: Combat Expertise (Improved Disarm, Feint or Trip if already have Combat Expertise)
9: Reflexive Parry
13: Any Soldier feat (ignore pre-reqs)
17: Any Soldier feat (ignore pre-reqs)

Oh, and at least 3, probably 4 skill points/level.

 

[madwill]

]

That is true... Soldier is slower than any of those. On the other hand, in d20 initiative is not very critical factor... At endgame you will anyways have tons of hit points and because of that it is quite rare that you could kill your opponent before he can act. All of those classes are based mostly on mobility and light/medium armour when soldier is focused on heavier armour and equipment... So IMO they certainly should have better reflexes.

If it were standard D20 I would agree with you. But Conan D20 is different. If the soldier is beaten to the punch initiative wise he can be killed way easy no matter how many HP's he has. If he hasn't got the reflexive parry feat his defense when flat footed is 10.... In standard D20 when you are flat footed you still get armor, shield natural armor and deflection bonus so a fighter of moderate level in platemail could still easily have an AC of 20+ after a few levels. In Conan it is effectively 10. So what does that mean? The 11th level Thief beats the 11th level Soldier to the initative. The soldier is wearing platemail and has a large shield and full helm. With his 18+ Dex(lets face it he could have raised it 4 times!) and +8 base attack the thief will only miss the soldier on a 1. Stabs he soldier with his Arming Sword doing d10+6d8+STR. Sure the soldier has a DR of 12 but the average damage on this is around 33 pts for a net of 21, and this is were we come to the crux of the matter. Death saves when taking over 20 pts of damage! Even with a Con of 18 the soldier only has a 50% chance of making this roll!
What if the Thief has Power Attack and decides to boost his damage a bit?
What if he finesse attacks? The thief has a 50% chance of ignoring the soldiers armor completely forcing, again on average, an impossible Death save. And even if the Thief doesnt roll high enough to bypass the armor where back to example one.
Nobles suffer in this area as well.

to simulate the regular d20 armor bonus when flat-footed i have thinking about this alternate way to approach sneak attack: the damage bonus from the sneak attack is added AFTER the normal weapon damage is rolled. if any damage gets through the DR of the target or a finesse attack was sucessful then the sneak attack damage is rolled. that way a heavily armored warrior has a chance for his armor to stop a sneak attack.

 

[grizzly ruin]

Although I have stayed out of this discussion up until now, I have been following it with some interest.

Initially, I sided with those who thought the Soldier was not significantly outclassed.

However, there have been some excellent arguments to the contrary, mainly in the last few posts. Now, I am leaning heavily towards GR's suggestions, that the Fighter gets a few fixed feats in addition to his bonus feats.

Off the top of my head:

1: Parry
5: Combat Expertise (Improved Disarm, Feint or Trip if already have Combat Expertise)
9: Reflexive Parry
13: Any Soldier feat (ignore pre-reqs)
17: Any Soldier feat (ignore pre-reqs)

Oh, and at least 3, probably 4 skill points/level.

Hey I'm making progress!

I like those ideas too.

You know, having given this further thought I went and looked at the "Formation Combat" bonuses.

Any bonus is a welcome bonus really. But I've come to look at these bonuses as quite low in value to a player character.

To begin with, not only do you need to have 2 other characters with you who have selected the same formtaion combat as you. You must all be wearing the same type of armor. :?

So let me get this straight. I'm now an 8th level Soldier. I have access to a wide array of armors. And yet, what I'm going to do is take off my breastplate (my 2 friends also) this way we can get a +1 to our parry bonus...

What would be the point of this? I mean sure, the parry bonus is nice. But considering that the Soldier pretty much survives off of his armor and little else (no movement based bonuses, poor reflex saves, no uncanny dodges, poor initiative) who in their right mind would do this?

I really don't see this coming into play enough to warrant it. The only times it would, might be in an all soldier military campaign or if a character never fights without his followers (and doesn't feel like wearing armor).

Heavy Cavalry grants a really juicy +1 to AP bonus. Which is fantastic. Except if there are three of us, and Johnny the Nemedian has forgotten his scale mail and only has leather, wel that's it - no bonus for you.

I'm thinking of changing these, but I'm not sure how yet.

I might like to make them work like their real world ancient equivalents did.

ex: Light Infantry often fought hit and run style using ranged weapons to keep their enemies at a distance.

Or perhaps gives players the option of taking a bonus feat in lieu of one of these.

Or I might just make a few homebrew abilities to replace them.

 

[AZZA]

I was thinking of adding something to the Formation Combat ability. I was thinking of giving the character an extra choice at 5th level. I was also thinking of making up a 5th style, perhaps an archery style. Once the character had two basic formation combats he can choose to "individualise" a formation combat style. This would mean that as long as he is still fulfils the equipment requirement he does not need the two similarly equiped allies to gain the bonus.
A soldier may not choose to individualise all the formation styles he knows, he must always have at least one basic formation style. So at 7th level when he gets his 3rd choice he could individualise as he still would have one basic style. To individualise another style he would have to wait until he got to 11th level.
The fifth style would allow a soldier who doesnt wish to specialise to learn all the available styles by 20th level. Formation mastery would give the appropriate bonus to any formation styles the character knows.

As an extraordinary ability at 4th level a Soldier equiped with a shield may apply 1/3 of his Parry bonus to her defence when caught flat footed.
At 9th level the character may apply 2/3 of his parry bonus and at 17th his full bonus. Against missile attacks the soldier may apply 1/3, 2/3 or full dodge bonus as above.
This will give the soldier some defense when caught flatfooted but if he doesnt want to use a shield he should still get reflexive parry.
At 13th level, just so the soldier now gets something every level, he gets Endurance feat. This is much later than the other fighter classes but reflects the toughness of a very seasoned campaigner who now enjoys the benefit of sleeping in mdeium armor. If he already has Endurance then he gets Diehard. If he has both he gains no bonus at this level.

These are my ideas at the moment. Nothing to earth shattering and not top loading the soldier but it gives him something every level.

The one house rule I am using at the moment that slightly reduces the barbarians and pirates ability is allowing them to only use their dodge bonus when employing their Uncanny dodge ability. If they want uncanny parry then they can choose the Reflexive Parry feat.

 

[OggSmash]

Head to head Barbarian vs Soldier the soldier is at a disadvantage, i dont have a big problem with this.

Something I do have a problem with is being flat footed in ALL lose initative situations. I do not see any reason for a char to be flat footed in a situation where he and his opponent are aware of one another, and NO sneak attacks should be allowed.

I have seen this argued both ways, the argument for flat footedness existing being based on say a fencing match where one guy gets the lunge on the other guy and he gets caught flat footed. Well that IMHO is a bad example, a fencing match has more in common with a point fight in Karate than a life and death struggle. I think it more like boxing, that although at the start of a match my opponent may initiate attack, I am alert to his presence and am moving my feet and my hands are up, not hands in pockets flat footed hoping he wont hit me.

The flat footed rule on all iniative losses is the base of the soldiers problems and it is too broad to make a combatant flat footed in EVERY iniative situation. Two guys running into one another around a corner is more the situation where the flat footed rule is meant to be ( at least the spirit) , not two wary, experienced warriors facing one another down.

I could even make a case for flat footed if the combatants reaction was unexpected, a good example when Conan gets medieval on the guardsmen who expect him to surrender in "God in a Bowl".

But use some sense and allow the situation to determine if a char should be flat footed on iniative loss and a bunch of the soldiers woes will go away.