Yeah, i'd like to know that, too. i don't know of any protagonists without out-of-combat abilities.
They should have something they do beyond swording, I'm hard pressed to think of one, because that doesn't really make sense.
There aren't really stories feature guys who all they can do is "Sword" well there are but those guys are NOT the protagonist of the stories.
Even the people with the "I'm the best there is at what I do" do other shit when they're not all "Snikt, stab stab." thats why I always found the skill assignments for classes so unsatisfying in D&D. So...wait, I'm a barbarian so I can't take diplomacy... ever? Wtf?
I guess so... still
I think the tome guys could do it pretty well.
Even if they're not perfect, they're on the right track, for the archetype.
If they're really good at swording things, then allotting options for them to not suck outside of combat, shouldn't be beyond reach.
On another note... random ideas...
Since people keep mentioning 4th, having a mandatory, you are no longer playing as the fellowship of the ring, but now as the justice league... might have not been a bad idea. Same as with the 10 level knight class in the tome but well... everybody. Its stops a lot of bullshit, that we jerk hard and all night too, like "...distinctly low level concept..."
etc etc. It allows for a lot when at level "X" everyone is getting into new digs. Everything else about 4th kinda gargled cock though, not a bad concept for diffusing shit like this thread.
I'm too tired too do it right now but I want a tome skill feat for:
Spritual Journey
"It be dee, sauce Mon... it be openin' doors to other worlds..."
The use of this feat requires inhalation or ingestion of some materials
the cost for the materials is negligent unless noted otherwise.
Benefits: This is a skill feat that scales with your ranks in Survival.
-0 ranks: You can replace any Knowledge: Arcana, Dungeoneering , Geography, planes, Nature, or Religion check with a survival check.
-4 ranks: You gain a spirit animal guide. You can summon a spirit animal guide that only you can see and functions as the spells: Unseen servant, Comprehend languages, and locate object. (The animals is always chosen by the dm, because you can't always get what you want)
-9 ranks:
-14 ranks:
-19 ranks: You can planeshift as the spell. Using this feat in this way consumes 25gp in "incense", "ungents" "herbs" and/or "powders".
Since I'm pretty much happy with the "Tome Style" feat answers having skill feats that give you non combat shit to do works well form being the team player.
A friend of mine who in many ways can pass for a grognard, mentioned to me that, the worst thing they did was do away with non-weapon proficiencies instead of "making them relevant".
His argument was similar to many people here, "Its nothing to make a killing machine in D&D, but you should be able to make a character that is actually useful outside of combat without taking a serious hit to your character. A good example is how Money~power, so you (Midnight_v) will never buy a boat and be a pirate captain, even if you want to because its eating into that next +1 on your sword.... that just sucks from a story perspective"
The second part got a hard looking at with all the economic talk from the tomes onward. "3 or so economies".
The non-weapon profs. . . I had to look up, and I think that effective warriors can reach a level of effectiveness and take a skill feat here and there to represent that.
However, as long as a "Fighter" has to use every resource to do is job, then it'll be a problem.
Point: A tome fighter, Hell the tome barbarian, can actually afford to take skill feats, and be useful out of combat, if we increase the number of skill feats, and also supernatural feats. Mostly, because they don't "NEED" to Sword things with math any harder.
Though thankfully the option is till there if they want to be:
Kenpachi: "Tome barbarian"
etc.