How to Fix the Fighter Class

[NewDM]

A lot of people have been describing the fighter class as lackluster but effective.

How would you fix the fighter class?

The way I would fix it would be to:

Give it Expertise on Athletics and Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity saving throws, and give it 1/2 proficiency in everything else. In earlier editions the "Fighting Man" could do a lot of physical activities reliably and had the best saves in the game.

Allow it to trade out an attack (not an action) to perform any of the actions listed in the combat section.

After a certain point give it resistance against non-magical weapon damage while wearing armor and holding a weapon and not incapacitated or paralyzed. Fighters should be the most survivable class in the game (7th).

Give it resistance to damage caused by successful Strength, Constitution, or Dexterity saving throws (5th).

Grant it a choice of one of the armor mastery feats once during its career (13th). Fighters are meant to be the best class at wearing armor and using weapons.

Grant it a weapon based feat such as Defensive Duelist, Dual Wielder, Great Weapon Master, Pole Arm Master, Sharp Shooter, and Shield Master after a certain level (10th).

[Grod_The_Giant]

As I understand the Fighter does quite well in terms of combat- they get the most attacks, the most ASIs (and thus either the best abilities or the most feats), and good tanking in the form of Second Wind and Indomitable. They mostly just lack non-combat/flavor abilities. I'd concentrate on that part, rather than trying to boost already-excellent combat skills.

Edit: You also have to remember that there are other martial classes. The Barbarian's schtick is being the strongest and toughest; the Paladin's is being the inspiring leader, the Rogue's/Ranger's is being the most skillful skirmisher. The Fighter's primary niche is as a TECHNICAL fighter, methinks. More feats, more attacks, more fighting styles, that sort of thing. Go down that rabbit hole instead of stealing from others.

The "trade attacks for other options" is great, for instance, though I feel like there are a bunch of things you can already trade attacks for. Still, expanding that list would be a very Fighter thing. Ditto Armor Mastery, though that seems less necessary power-wise. I could also see moving the Champion's jack-of-all-trades ability to the main class and giving the subclass something in return.

[Zman]

A lot of people have been describing the fighter class as lackluster but effective.

I doubt there is any kind of consensus that the Fighter needs a Fix. It is well balanced and thanks to bounded Accuracy, skills, and backgrounds I personally have not seen Fighters as lackluster.

How would you fix the fighter class?

Don't believe it needs it. Maybe some very minor tweaks for subclasses, but they aren't necessary.

The way I would fix it would be to:

Give it Expertise on Athletics and Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity saving throws, and give it 1/2 proficiency in everything else. In earlier editions the "Fighting Man" could do a lot of physical activities reliably and had the best saves in the game.

No class has Expertise on Saves and they are unnecessary and break bounded Accuracy. They'd be making these saves on anything but a 1 after a while. 1/2 Proficiency on other saves could work but is unlikely to be needed. Expertise in Athletics shoehorns a concept. The Fighter also already has Indomitable.

Allow it to trade out an attack (not an action) to perform any of the actions listed in the combat section.

Absolutely not. Breaks action economy and is significantly better than Cunning Action.

After a certain point give it resistance against non-magical weapon damage while wearing armor and holding a weapon and not incapacitated or paralyzed. Fighters should be the most survivable class in the game (7th).

Ehh, don't see a need. They are already supremely survivable.

Give it resistance to damage caused by successful Strength, Constitution, or Dexterity saving throws (5th).

Not really necessary, only occasional effect. Most times will be forgotten.

Grant it a choice of one of the armor mastery feats once during its career (13th). Fighters are meant to be the best class at wearing armor and using weapons.

They already have this through being granted the greatest number of ASI in the game. Also, Feats are an optional rule that shouldn't be tweaked into a base class.

Grant it a weapon based feat such as Defensive Duelist, Dual Wielder, Great Weapon Master, Pole Arm Master, Sharp Shooter, and Shield Master after a certain level (10th).

They already have this through being granted the greatest number of ASI in the game. Also, Feats are an optional rule that shouldn't be tweaked into a base class.



These proposed changes would take a well balanced class and break the game over its knee. Completely unecessary, worst of all these changes do nothing for "lackluster" complaint as I believe you are using it, otherwise saying "lackluster but effective" is contradictory and makes no sense.

[Giant2005]

I would create a homebrew setting rife with censorship; where freedom of speech wasn't even imagined as a possibility, and then get all meta and insist that my players live by the rules of that setting at all times so they can better immerse themselves.
With their freedom of speech being suppressed, they wouldn't baselessly criticize the fighter, or any other class.

[Regitnui]

The "trade attacks for other options" is great, for instance, though I feel like there are a bunch of things you can already trade attacks for.

Aren't grapples, disarms and other combat manoeuvres all replacements for attacks? Think of a lvl20 Fighter disarming, grappling and pinning the same opponent in one turn (that's all in six seconds or less real time) after bashing their face in, and it sure doesn't sound like they're lackluster to me.

[Logosloki]

The biggest fix I would make would be to make a unified martial power pool. I would personally call it Martial arts or Martial discipline, mostly because I associate martial arts with any form of combat rather than merely eastern or unarmed but martial disciplines is probably better semantically. This power pool would be the companion to the magical power pool (spells). It doesn't have to ape the magic pool mechanically but I can see the for the purposes of balance it might be of use to do so.

Personally I would look at something like an amalgam of the warlocks invocations (a mix of always on, short rest, long rest and conditionals of all levels) and superiority dice (a good idea for the 'spellcasting' for martials). This however would require the most amount of work.

Outside of a complete paradigm shift (which is what is needed) the fighter could do with some more ways of bypassing something that would normally be handled by magic.

Things I would consider:

Moving the fourth attack to level 17 and making a new capstone. Whilst it is a dumb idea I have a certain fondness for the idea of the fighter capstone being that they get a bit of everything from each subclass (one more action surge, one more superiority die, a cantrip from the wizard list and maybe a ritual or two from a specific list of rituals).

Moving the superiority dice feature to replace action surge as the class's overall feature, moving action surge to champion, moving the fighter archetypes to level one start rather than level three and giving eldritch knight better spell progression (possibly even moving them to half caster, which is like adding a fourth and a fifth slot to them, not much in the grand scheme of things). Battlemaster would know all manoeuvres, have a larger dice pool and more economical ways to recharge their dice pool so they are the go to for "accentuate the class feature" subclass.

Expanding fighting styles to include some weapon property styles (all slashing, all finesse, etc).

Give the Fighter or at least the champion some sort of superior physique feature (bonuses to jumping, climbing, running, swimming and breahholdering).

Giving the fighter some way of bypassing non-magical immunity. This could probably come online later (level 11 or 16) but apply to anything they have at hand (including their hand). Either that or give the fighter some way to resist magical damage.

Big one would be to make the archetypes start at level one, which is something I think all classes should do. That of course would require effort to balance out but given that most magical classes frontload their archetypes already I don't see the problem.

[Tanarii]

These proposed changes would take a well balanced class and break the game over its knee. Completely unecessary, worst of all these changes do nothing for "lackluster" complaint as I believe you are using it, otherwise saying "lackluster but effective" is contradictory and makes no sense.Got to agree with this. Adding mechanical advantages, especially even more ones that are decision-making free, just adds unnecessary power while doing nothing in terms of adding either fluff or resource management.

If you feel Fighters aren't fluffy enough, do something about that. If you feel they don't have enough resource management or options, do something about that.

Of course, the Dighter was intentionally designed to be a mostly fluff free, mostly resource management free, low-options Archetype. So I'd say it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Harks back to the Fighting Man really ... the baseline character.

[NewDM]

As I understand the Fighter does quite well in terms of combat- they get the most attacks, the most ASIs (and thus either the best abilities or the most feats), and good tanking in the form of Second Wind and Indomitable. They mostly just lack non-combat/flavor abilities. I'd concentrate on that part, rather than trying to boost already-excellent combat skills.

Edit: You also have to remember that there are other martial classes. The Barbarian's schtick is being the strongest and toughest; the Paladin's is being the inspiring leader, the Rogue's/Ranger's is being the most skillful skirmisher. The Fighter's primary niche is as a TECHNICAL fighter, methinks. More feats, more attacks, more fighting styles, that sort of thing. Go down that rabbit hole instead of stealing from others.

The "trade attacks for other options" is great, for instance, though I feel like there are a bunch of things you can already trade attacks for. Still, expanding that list would be a very Fighter thing. Ditto Armor Mastery, though that seems less necessary power-wise. I could also see moving the Champion's jack-of-all-trades ability to the main class and giving the subclass something in return.

Yes, but what should I fighter be able to do out of combat? Maybe a 'how you became a fighter' feature?

Fighter Training
At 1st level choose how your character became a fighter, and gain the associated benefits:

City Guard
You trained and worked under the City Watch and have picked up skills associated with that particular vocation.

You gain expertise in Perception because you have trained and gained experience being watchful of others and your environment.
You have advantage on insight checks used to determine if someone is lying to you. Your experience as a city guard has taught you to see through lies.
You have learned to work as a team. You gain a +1 bonus to attack against enemies when you have an ally within 5 feet of you that has attacked the same target on their last turn.


Military
You joined a military and have worked within the rank and file for many years picking up group tactics and hardiness.

You can travel twice as many hours during a forced march before having to make a saving throw and any allies you interact with during that time gain advantage on their saving throws to avoid gaining a level of exhaustion.
Your training on the military battlefield has shown you how to take advantage of the skills of others. If an ally uses an Attack action against an enemy with advantage on all or some of the rolls, you also gain advantage against the same enemy on your next turn when you use an Attack action to attack them.
If any number of allies within 5 feet of you is using a shield and you also use a shield, you and them gain cover against non-magical ranged weapon attacks.


Wandering Loner
In your youth, you have wandered the wilderness alone fighting bandits and monsters alone and have honed your instincts to a fine edge on the whetstone of survival.

You gain Expertise in the survival skill and can allow an ally to use your expertise bonus when gathering food, making shelter, or surviving in the wilderness.
When you spend hit dice during a short rest to heal yourself, the die size you use increases by 1 size from 1d10 to 1d12.
When you have no allies within 5 feet of you, you gain resistance against damage dealt by beasts.


Did I miss any ways that characters could become fighters?

[Regitnui]

Yes, but what should I fighter be able to do out of combat? Maybe a 'how you became a fighter' feature?

Fighter Training
At 1st level choose how your character became a fighter, and gain the associated benefits:

City Guard
You trained and worked under the City Watch and have picked up skills associated with that particular vocation.

You gain expertise in Perception because you have trained and gained experience being watchful of others and your environment.
You have advantage on insight checks used to determine if someone is lying to you. Your experience as a city guard has taught you to see through lies.
You have learned to work as a team. You gain a +1 bonus to attack against enemies when you have an ally within 5 feet of you that has attacked the same target on their last turn.


Military
You joined a military and have worked within the rank and file for many years picking up group tactics and hardiness.

You can travel twice as many hours during a forced march before having to make a saving throw and any allies you interact with during that time gain advantage on their saving throws to avoid gaining a level of exhaustion.
Your training on the military battlefield has shown you how to take advantage of the skills of others. If an ally uses an Attack action against an enemy with advantage on all or some of the rolls, you also gain advantage against the same enemy on your next turn when you use an Attack action to attack them.
If any number of allies within 5 feet of you is using a shield and you also use a shield, you and them gain cover against non-magical ranged weapon attacks.


Wandering Loner
In your youth, you have wandered the wilderness alone fighting bandits and monsters alone and have honed your instincts to a fine edge on the whetstone of survival.

You gain Expertise in the survival skill and can allow an ally to use your expertise bonus when gathering food, making shelter, or surviving in the wilderness.
When you spend hit dice during a short rest to heal yourself, the die size you use increases by 1 size from 1d10 to 1d12.
When you have no allies within 5 feet of you, you gain resistance against damage dealt by beasts.


Did I miss any ways that characters could become fighters?

Good feat idea, but isn't that what Backgrounds are for? The fighter doesn't need to double up, since every class gets a Background that can offer them minor out of combat abilities.

[smcmike]

Yes, but what should I fighter be able to do out of combat? Maybe a 'how you became a fighter' feature?

Fighter Training
At 1st level choose how your character became a fighter, and gain the associated benefits:

City Guard
You trained and worked under the City Watch and have picked up skills associated with that particular vocation.

You gain expertise in Perception because you have trained and gained experience being watchful of others and your environment.
You have advantage on insight checks used to determine if someone is lying to you. Your experience as a city guard has taught you to see through lies.
You have learned to work as a team. You gain a +1 bonus to attack against enemies when you have an ally within 5 feet of you that has attacked the same target on their last turn.


Military
You joined a military and have worked within the rank and file for many years picking up group tactics and hardiness.

You can travel twice as many hours during a forced march before having to make a saving throw and any allies you interact with during that time gain advantage on their saving throws to avoid gaining a level of exhaustion.
Your training on the military battlefield has shown you how to take advantage of the skills of others. If an ally uses an Attack action against an enemy with advantage on all or some of the rolls, you also gain advantage against the same enemy on your next turn when you use an Attack action to attack them.
If any number of allies within 5 feet of you is using a shield and you also use a shield, you and them gain cover against non-magical ranged weapon attacks.


Wandering Loner
In your youth, you have wandered the wilderness alone fighting bandits and monsters alone and have honed your instincts to a fine edge on the whetstone of survival.

You gain Expertise in the survival skill and can allow an ally to use your expertise bonus when gathering food, making shelter, or surviving in the wilderness.
When you spend hit dice during a short rest to heal yourself, the die size you use increases by 1 size from 1d10 to 1d12.
When you have no allies within 5 feet of you, you gain resistance against damage dealt by beasts.


Did I miss any ways that characters could become fighters?

These are just backgrounds. Backgrounds are already in the game, and are a very good way to make your fighter more interesting.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Yes, but what should I fighter be able to do out of combat? Maybe a 'how you became a fighter' feature?

That's a neat idea. Really helps differentiate different fighters, too. Maybe identify it as a Profession rather than a Background, to differentiate them a bit- what you do vs what you did. Not sure where to slot it in, though; seems like it should replace fighting styles but it would feel weird for fighters not to get those.

[Fighting_Ferret]

Ok, first the ranger is too focused and specialized outside of combat and needs help to keep up with the other martial classes in DRP. Now the fighter isn't good enough outside of combat and needs help because being the absolute best at combat is just not enough?

You do realize that you control ability point allocation and feat choices if allowed, and that a fighter gets more than anyone else, right? Want more skills... take the Skilled feat, three more skill proficiencies. Want to be able to talk... don't make charisma an 8. Want some magic without going the EK route... take magic initiate feat or the ritual caster. Want to be a wilderness fighter... be a ranger.

Stop thinking that just because someone does something they have to be the absolute best at it... some of your ideas completely break other classes... your wilderness fighter, for example would give expertise to survival, which a ranger doesn't even get access to... the ability to get food and water in the wilderness is already covered by the outlander background feature wanderer, which also grants proficiency in survival... no need to start tossing around expertise just to say you are good at something... that is what proficiency is for.

[NewDM]

Ok, first the ranger is too focused and specialized outside of combat and needs help to keep up with the other martial classes in DRP. Now the fighter isn't good enough outside of combat and needs help because being the absolute best at combat is just not enough?

Yes, every other class gets a kind of specialization outside of combat except the fighter. The two points you bring up are not mutually exclusive. They can both be true, neither of them can be true, or one can be true while the other is not. They have nothing to do with each other.


You do realize that you control ability point allocation and feat choices if allowed, and that a fighter gets more than anyone else, right? Want more skills... take the Skilled feat, three more skill proficiencies. Want to be able to talk... don't make charisma an 8. Want some magic without going the EK route... take magic initiate feat or the ritual caster. Want to be a wilderness fighter... be a ranger.

Many players feel the need to use anything they can on combat resources since combat is the most detailed part of the game. If you don't give them a choice and say "take some of these non-combat features" then they are more likely to have out of combat features that define their character.


Stop thinking that just because someone does something they have to be the absolute best at it... some of your ideas completely break other classes... your wilderness fighter, for example would give expertise to survival, which a ranger doesn't even get access to... the ability to get food and water in the wilderness is already covered by the outlander background feature wanderer, which also grants proficiency in survival... no need to start tossing around expertise just to say you are good at something... that is what proficiency is for.

Sadly, the developers seem to have created Expertise specifically to say that some classes are better at some things than others, and that's after they made the breakthrough about all classes progressing on their proficiency bonus at the same rate. I'm simply applying it to things the specific type of Fighter should be good at.

I agree that the Wanderer overlaps other things, but what could I replace it with?

[Tanarii]

Many players feel the need to use anything they can on combat resources since combat is the most detailed part of the game.

That kind of thinking can get players killed in the wrong campaign.

In AL it'll take you pretty far though.

[NewDM]

Good idea about changing it to profession! I removed combat benefits and stuck strictly to social and exploration benefits.

Fighter Profession
At 1st level choose how your character does what they do as a fighter, and gain the associated benefits:

City Guard
You trained and worked under the City Watch and have picked up skills associated with that particular vocation.

You gain expertise in Perception because you have trained and gained experience being watchful of others and your environment.
You have advantage on insight checks used to determine if someone is lying to you. Your experience as a city guard has taught you to see through lies.


Military
You joined a military and have worked within the rank and file for many years picking up group tactics and hardiness.

You can travel twice as many hours during a forced march before having to make a saving throw and any allies you interact with during that time gain advantage on their saving throws to avoid gaining a level of exhaustion.
Your training on the military battlefield has shown you how to take advantage of the skills of others. Anytime you perform the Help action, you can roll the same skill or ability check as they do and use the best result.


Wandering Loner
In your youth, you have wandered the wilderness alone fighting bandits and monsters alone and have honed your instincts to a fine edge on the whetstone of survival.


You gain Expertise in the survival skill and can allow an ally to use your expertise bonus when gathering food, making shelter, or surviving in the wilderness.
Instead of using passive perception to detect nearby enemies, the DM automatically rolls your perception check. You take your passive perception or perception check results whichever is higher.


Yeah, I'm not going to nerf the Wandering Loner just because the Ranger does not have what many classes already do: A greatly improved chance of using a skill that is iconic to the class.

Treasure Hunter
You venture into ruins, temples, and tribal sacred grounds in the search for treasure. You have honed your senses to detect danger in these situation.


While you cannot disable a trap unless you are a proficient in thieves' tools, you can avoid the negative effects of traps and help others do the same. If you know where a trap is and what it does, you take only half damage on a failed saving throw. On a successful saving throw you take no damage and gain no conditions from the trap. In addition if you explain where the trap is and how to bypass it to allies they gain advantage on any checks or saving throws related to the trap.
Instead of using passive perception to detect traps and natural hazards, the DM automatically rolls your perception check. You take your passive perception or perception check results whichever is higher.


Think Indiana Jones for the above.

[smcmike]

Treasure Hunter
You venture into ruins, temples, and tribal sacred grounds in the search for treasure. You have honed your senses to detect danger in these situation.


While you cannot disable a trap unless you are a Rogue with proficiency in thieves' tools, you can avoid the negative effects of traps and help others do the same. If you know where a trap is and what it does, you take only half damage on a failed saving throw. On a successful saving throw you take no damage and gain no conditions from the trap. In addition if you explain where the trap is and how to bypass it to allies they gain advantage on any checks or saving throws related to the trap.
Instead of using passive perception to detect traps and natural hazards, the DM automatically rolls your perception check. You take your passive perception or perception check results whichever is higher.


Think Indiana Jones for the above.

Why can't a non-rogue disable traps? It's easy to pick up thieves tools prof through backgrounds, and there is no rule that makes disabling traps a rogue exclusive.

Again, these are all basically backgrounds with bigger abilities attached - which seems like a fine idea, though it should be available to any class.

Also, Indiana is definitely a rogue.

[NewDM]

Why can't a non-rogue disable traps? It's easy to pick up thieves tools prof through backgrounds, and there is no rule that makes disabling traps a rogue exclusive.

Again, these are all basically backgrounds with bigger abilities attached - which seems like a fine idea, though it should be available to any class.

Also, Indiana is definitely a rogue.

You are correct. It is the Thieves' Tools proficiency that allows trap disabling. I'll edit it accordingly.

Backgrounds have several common things: Tool proficiency, 2 skill proficiencies, and 1 special feature, as well as character traits, bonds, flaws, and ideals. These Fighter Professions have only 2 special features.

Also Indiana Jones is clearly a fighter. He doesn't disarm a single trap, uses any weapon he picks up proficiently and has a metric ton of plot HP.

[SharkForce]

from what i can tell, most people that like the idea of fighters more or less like the fighter as-is. they don't want a fighter that can do other things. anything you want to add that is going to be even remotely widely accepted is going to need to be very simple, and somehow does not add any flavour at all to the fighter; it can't make them a skilled general, or a famous gladiator, or a great horseman, or anything like that. and it *definitely* can't involve any sort of magic, that seems to really upset people, too.

i've given it some thought in the past, and only really come up with two things i think might fit the bill, more or less.

1) at some point (past level 11, in any event, fighters perform well from 1-11 from everything i've seen and heard), the fighter gets the ability to decide what size they count on for certain abilities, within +/- 1 of their actual size. they can be size small for the purpose of whether they need to squeeze into a small area (determines their space) at the same time as being size large for the purpose of grappling and carrying capacity. but they can't be small enough to fight in a small area (function of "space") at the same time as being large for the purpose of how many squares they fill (also a function of "space"). this helps give them a lot of control in fights (they can grapple larger things and get advantage on grappling smaller things, as well as physically taking up more space on the battlefield), may allow them to walk through more enemy spaces (small enemies do not block a large character from walking through, or vice versa) or block them, and a variety of other things. it also allows for a few very silly things (a sufficiently strong small bird could serve as a mount for a halfling fighter), but i'm relatively unconcerned about that. actual size does not change, however... it is simply the character's skill that allows them to do this.

as an added advantage, this is generic enough to serve as an ability for other martial classes as well; rogues can go smaller only (i'd say up to 2 sizes) to allow them to sneak into places through tiny holes like a mouse could, barbarians up to 2 sizes larger only. rangers and paladins i'm not sure of, possibly let them choose like a fighting style between either 1 size larger or 1 size smaller.

2) at some point the fighter simply gains the ability to perform various types of "work" related to physical attributes counting as double or more (probably starting at double, then increasing as they gain more levels) of the number of people. that is, a fighter with this ability at triple can not only do three times as much work as a normal person, but can perform tasks that would normally require up to 3 people by themselves, even if those people need to be in different locations. again, at no point is the character splitting into 2 or more people... they're simply so good at managing their time, moving efficiently, and handling equipment that they can perform this task. additionally, so long as there is somone present and communicating who is proficient at the task, the fighter counts as proficient as well (gets proficiency bonus or can perform tasks that only a proficient character could attempt), and any time spent on this work counts towards downtime for the purpose of learning new tool or skill proficiencies at the same rate as the number of people they count as. (also, as a general rule, while working in this way they don't have to pay for training those proficiencies).

again, this could be applied to other martial characters as well in a variety of ways.

but again, you're going to meet a lot of resistance on this one. because frankly, i don't think this is remotely enough to compete with the *really* high levels.

[Grod_The_Giant]

no need to start tossing around expertise just to say you are good at something... that is what proficiency is for.
I agree but for different reasons. I'd say that you should Expertise as-is because it's bad for the game. It's an admission that Bounded Accuracy is too low to reliably hit their listed DCs, but they gated it behind Rogue or Bard levels.

It's also probably worth looking at your Professions to make sure they don't overlap with backgrounds or other classes.

[Fighting_Ferret]

City Guard
You trained and worked under the City Watch and have picked up skills associated with that particular vocation.

You gain expertise in Perception because you have trained and gained experience being watchful of others and your environment.
You have advantage on insight checks used to determine if someone is lying to you. Your experience as a city guard has taught you to see through lies.


Why expertise? Is advantage not enough? Also if you are getting expertise, how are they getting heir initial proficiency to add expertise to?



Military
You joined a military and have worked within the rank and file for many years picking up group tactics and hardiness.

You can travel twice as many hours during a forced march before having to make a saving throw and any allies you interact with during that time gain advantage on their saving throws to avoid gaining a level of exhaustion.
Your training on the military battlefield has shown you how to take advantage of the skills of others. Anytime you perform the Help action, you can roll the same skill or ability check as they do and use the best result.


Is the help action an out of combat thing? If so rolls would only be necessary if failure had consequences... if that is the case I have no problem with a fighter with the proper proficiencies granting/getting advantage to a skill or ability check via help.



Wandering Loner
In your youth, you have wandered the wilderness alone fighting bandits and monsters alone and have honed your instincts to a fine edge on the whetstone of survival.


You gain Expertise in the survival skill and can allow an ally to use your expertise bonus when gathering food, making shelter, or surviving in the wilderness.
Instead of using passive perception to detect nearby enemies, the DM automatically rolls your perception check. You take your passive perception or perception check results whichever is higher.


Yeah, I'm not going to nerf the Wandering Loner just because the Ranger does not have what many classes already do: A greatly improved chance of using a skill that is iconic to the class.


Again what gives the lone wanderer proficiency in survival in the first place in order to add expertise to it? Better yet, as stated above the wanderer feature from outlander already covers this, without granting expertise. The ranger isn't weaker than other classes... in their favored terrain they receive the following benefits:

• Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel.
• Your group can’t become lost except by magical
means.
• Even when you are engaged in another activity while
traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking),
you remain alert to danger.
• If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at
a normal pace.
• When you forage, you find twice as much food as you
normally would.
• While tracking other creatures, you also learn their
exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they
passed through the area.

Favored enemy gives you advantage to track your favored enemies, recall information about them (any applicable knowledge skill check), as well as their spoken language as a bonus language.



Treasure Hunter
You venture into ruins, temples, and tribal sacred grounds in the search for treasure. You have honed your senses to detect danger in these situation.


While you cannot disable a trap unless you are a proficient in thieves' tools, you can avoid the negative effects of traps and help others do the same. If you know where a trap is and what it does, you take only half damage on a failed saving throw. On a successful saving throw you take no damage and gain no conditions from the trap. In addition if you explain where the trap is and how to bypass it to allies they gain advantage on any checks or saving throws related to the trap.
Instead of using passive perception to detect traps and natural hazards, the DM automatically rolls your perception check. You take your passive perception or perception check results whichever is higher.


Think Indiana Jones for the above.


So basically dungeon delver and observant feats?

[NewDM]

Why expertise? Is advantage not enough? Also if you are getting expertise, how are they getting heir initial proficiency to add expertise to?

Yes, as the above poster mentioned, Expertise is either overpowered or its an admission that things should go outside bounded accuracy. Several classes get the equivalent of expertise to one or more features (or get things like spells that completely bypass challenges that would normally take a skill check). I'm simply giving it to the fighter. I should word it better though.


Is the help action an out of combat thing? If so rolls would only be necessary if failure had consequences... if that is the case I have no problem with a fighter with the proper proficiencies granting/getting advantage to a skill or ability check via help.

PHB page 192
"HELP
You can lend your aid to another creature in the completion of a task. When you take the Help action, the creature you aid gains advantage on the next ability check it makes to perform the task you are helping with, provided that it makes the check before the start of your next turn."

The above Fighter feature would not only grant advantage it would add the Fighters roll and allow the highest of the 3 to be used. This is no better than the Lucky feat which creates super advantage or super disadvantage depending on how its used.

I'll add the part about being proficient in the skill.


Again what gives the lone wanderer proficiency in survival in the first place in order to add expertise to it? Better yet, as stated above the wanderer feature from outlander already covers this, without granting expertise.

Not really the same thing:

"FEATURE:WANDERER
You have an excellent memory for maps and geography, and you can always recall the general layout of terrain, settlements, and other features around you. In addition, you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth."

The suggested Fighter feature grants bonuses to checks used to find these things. The Wanderer Feature of Outlander does it outright.


The ranger isn't weaker than other classes... in their favored terrain they receive the following benefits:

• Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel.
• Your group can’t become lost except by magical
means.
• Even when you are engaged in another activity while
traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking),
you remain alert to danger.
• If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at
a normal pace.
• When you forage, you find twice as much food as you
normally would.
• While tracking other creatures, you also learn their
exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they
passed through the area.

Favored enemy gives you advantage to track your favored enemies, recall information about them (any applicable knowledge skill check), as well as their spoken language as a bonus language.

It looks like the Ranger is much different than the Wandering Loner suggested Fighter feature.


So basically dungeon delver and observant feats?

Nope. Dungeon Delver is automatic. The suggested Fighter feature they have to detect and identify how the trap works.

Also nothing like Observer feat, They have a chance at detecting traps without looking for them. Think back to the first Indiana Jones movie, where Indi stopped the porter and waved his hand through the light and the spears shot out of the wall with the skeleton on it. That was done nearly on instinct. Kind of like a passive check.

[NewDM]

Fighter Profession
At 1st level choose how your character does what they do as a fighter, and gain the associated benefits:

City Guard
You trained and worked under the City Watch and have picked up skills associated with that particular vocation.

You gain training in Perception. If you already have training in Perception, you can instead add double your proficiency bonus when trying to spot suspicious people because you have trained and gained experience being watchful of others and your environment.
You have advantage on insight checks used to determine if someone is lying to you. Your experience as a city guard has taught you to see through lies.


Military
You joined a military and have worked within the rank and file for many years picking up group tactics and hardiness.

You can travel twice as many hours during a forced march before having to make a saving throw and any allies you interact with during that time gain advantage on their saving throws to avoid gaining a level of exhaustion.
Your training on the military battlefield has shown you how to take advantage of the skills of others. Anytime you perform the Help action, you can roll the same skill or ability check as they do and use the best result.


Wandering Loner
In your youth, you have wandered the wilderness alone fighting bandits and monsters alone and have honed your instincts to a fine edge on the whetstone of survival.

You gain training in the survival skill, if you already have training, you can add double your proficiency bonus to survival checks and can instruct an ally so they may use your proficiency bonus when gathering food, making shelter, or surviving in the wilderness. (limits it to checks to survive in the wilderness)
Instead of using passive perception to detect nearby enemies, the DM automatically rolls your perception check. You take your passive perception or perception check results whichever is higher.


Treasure Hunter
You venture into ruins, temples, and tribal sacred grounds in the search for treasure. You have honed your senses to detect danger in these situation.

While you cannot disable a trap unless you are a proficient in thieves' tools, you can avoid the negative effects of traps and help others do the same. If you know where a trap is and what it does, you take only half damage on a failed saving throw. On a successful saving throw you take no damage and gain no conditions from the trap. In addition if you explain where the trap is and how to bypass it to allies they gain advantage on any checks or saving throws related to the trap.
Instead of using passive perception to detect traps and natural hazards, the DM automatically rolls your perception check. You take your passive perception or perception check results whichever is higher.


Brute
You have depended on your strength alone to carry you through your dangerous life. To that end you would rather wrestle a bear than kill it with a weapon.

You can add double your proficiency bonus to Athletics checks related to lifting, pulling, and pushing objects, you also count as one size category larger when determining the weight you can Lift, Carry, or Drag.
You can use your Second Wind to remove a level of exhaustion. When you do this you regain no hit points.

[JNAProductions]

Brute
You have depended on your strength alone to carry you through your dangerous life. To that end you would rather wrestle a bear than kill it with a weapon.

You can add double your proficiency bonus to Athletics checks related to lifting, pulling, and pushing objects, you also count as one size category larger when determining the weight you can Lift, Carry, or Drag.
You remove one level of exhaustion on a short rest and all levels on a long rest.


No comment on the rest, but this is just begging to be a one-level dip with a Frenzy Barbarian.

[NewDM]

No comment on the rest, but this is just begging to be a one-level dip with a Frenzy Barbarian.

I edited it after you quoted it. It now says that a fighter can choose to give up a use of Second Wind to remove 1 level of exhaustion.

[JNAProductions]

I edited it after you quoted it. It now says that a fighter can choose to give up a use of Second Wind to remove 1 level of exhaustion.

That doesn't stop it from being absolutely fantastic for a Frenzy Barbarian. It's short-rest exhaustion removal. Sure, you don't regain HP, but for a one level dip, it'd be 1d10+1 HP anyway. Not that much.

[NewDM]

That doesn't stop it from being absolutely fantastic for a Frenzy Barbarian. It's short-rest exhaustion removal. Sure, you don't regain HP, but for a one level dip, it'd be 1d10+1 HP anyway. Not that much.

What is a good alternative that I could replace it with?

[Regitnui]

NewDM, you're treading on Backgrounds. The change in the names doesn't change that fact. If we're 'fixing' the default fighter, don't add social skills. The entire point of the fighter is that they do the fighting. It's like adding martial abilities to the default wizard.

But if you feel that your players are neglecting social skills in favour of combat, give them more situations that can't be solved by combat. Look at their backgrounds and try and bring those features into play, especially the fighter player that has made you think the fighter is a problem.

[Fighting_Ferret]

Brute is too good...

How does city guard's perception bonus apply only to suspicious people?

Wandering loner grants perception bonuses to spot nearby enemies... that seems to be a combat ability, not an out of combat ability, or more precisely a set up for combat.


I agree that a lot of things can be handled by the current system, even without multi-classing. Can you give an example of what you would like built and let us see what we can do with it?

[wunderkid]

Yes, every other class gets a kind of specialization outside of combat except the fighter. The two points you bring up are not mutually exclusive. They can both be true, neither of them can be true, or one can be true while the other is not. They have nothing to do with each other.


I'm sorry what does the barbarian get as an out of combat specialisation again? Bar their level 18 ability they seem to go against your 'every other class gets a kind of specialization outside of combat except the fighter.'

I really liked that idea about having an ability to reduce exhaustion, it's what the frenzy barbarian needs as a dip. Without something like that it's honestly the most pointless class in the entire system unless you're only ever having one fight a day.

[NewDM]

NewDM, you're treading on Backgrounds. The change in the names doesn't change that fact. If we're 'fixing' the default fighter, don't add social skills. The entire point of the fighter is that they do the fighting. It's like adding martial abilities to the default wizard.

But if you feel that your players are neglecting social skills in favour of combat, give them more situations that can't be solved by combat. Look at their backgrounds and try and bring those features into play, especially the fighter player that has made you think the fighter is a problem.

Or I can add some special features to the Fighter that allow them to excel at either social or exploration, since everyone gets a backgrounds and each class gets some kind of social or exploration feature that puts them head and shoulders above the others:


Barbarian - Danger sense against traps, advantage on Strength checks while raging.
Bard - Expertise in trained skills, jack of all trades in everything else.
Cleric - Spells, Blessing of Knowledge (basically proficiency and Expertise), Light Cantrip (exploration), Channel Divinity: Charm Animals and Plants
Druid - Wild Shape
Fighter - ???
Monk - Step of the Wind (exploration), Slow Fall (falling), Evasion (traps), Purity of Body (traps)
Paladin - Divine Sense, Lay on Hands, Spells, Divine Health, Aura of Protection.
Ranger - Natural Explorer, Favored Enemy, Spells.
Rogue - Expertise, Evasion, Reliable Talent.
Sorcerer - Spells
Warlock - Spells, Invocations
Wizard - Spells, Rituals

Really fighter is the only one that doesn't have a way of excelling at an out of combat challenge.

[JNAProductions]

Highest stats? OOC Feats? Player inventiveness?

I've never noticed an issue with the Fighter socially or exploratively. Maybe it's just because my players are good, but still.

[NewDM]

Brute is too good...

How does city guard's perception bonus apply only to suspicious people?

That's up to the DM to apply. They deal with keeping suspicious people out of the city, out of parts of the city, or stop and interact with them to see why they are suspicious as a matter of course.


Wandering loner grants perception bonuses to spot nearby enemies... that seems to be a combat ability, not an out of combat ability, or more precisely a set up for combat.

Yeah, what to replace it with though?


I agree that a lot of things can be handled by the current system, even without multi-classing. Can you give an example of what you would like built and let us see what we can do with it?

I've already explained why this would not be helpful and this is really off-topic.

[JNAProductions]

I've already explained why this would not be helpful and this is really off-topic.

Except the Fighter has a niche as the Fighting Man. If you don't like the niche, that's fine, but that doesn't mean Fighter is broken. It just means you shouldn't play as a Fighter, or should adjust the Fighter in your own games.

[Regitnui]

I've already explained why this would not be helpful and this is really off-topic.

How is disagreeing with the proposals and pointing out that the fighter works perfectly well off-topic? This is a topic about the fighter class, and the various subclasses use different specializations of that. You can't blame people for asking why the fighter needs a fix and explaining their opinion why.

[smcmike]

Really this is a system of more robust background abilities than those currently in the game. Some of them step on current backgrounds, others step on other classes, and brute appears to be a barbarian fix, not a fighter fix.

Which isn't really to say that it's all bad. There's some fine ideas in here, and I think backgrounds are VERY open to homebrew. I just don't like it as a fighter "fix," particularly since the fighter seems fine to me.

[EvilAnagram]

I figured it out! For years, it has been eluding me, but now I have it!

To most people, in order to fix something it must be broken. If it's working well as advertised, it doesn't need fixing. In gaming, most people only think something needs fixing if it's unplayable without a fix. And yet people propose "fixes" to the balanced classes every day.

But now I realize that when those people say, "fix," they aren't using the English word, though it's spelled and sounds the same. They're using an entirely different word that means, "force to adhere to my personal preferences." The Fighter is obviously perfectly fine for those that like hitting things, but there are people who feel offended unless everything specifically appeals to them. Why, it's an outrage when something is perfectly fine for most people, but doesn't specifically cater to their personal preferences, and so these people feel the need to "fix" it.

These poor people suffer from compulsion, accompanied by the delusion that everything that doesn't play to their preferences is fundamentally broken. For years, they have confused me with their 15-step solutions to "simplify" this and their free saves to that and their to straight power boosts to powerful classes, but now I understand. Let us take pity on these poor creatures, and let us pray to Bahamut that we never play with them.

[mgshamster]

The champion has remarkable athlete to assist with out of combat challenges, and the eldritch knight has spells. The battle master doesn't get anything special for out of combat, and it may feel like the champion doesn't get enough.

All fighters get lots of ASI/feats, though. And can use background features to help with more narrative power.

[SharkForce]

i think you're working from the wrong end of the fighter class.

at level 1, a fighter is perfectly adequate to contribute outside of combat with just their racial/class/background skills and basic features. i mean, sure, the wizard can *theoretically* use silent image to distract the guards or provide a hiding place or something, but then the wizard just traded half of what they can do for the *entire day* on that... which is a pretty danged awful trade most of the time.

at level 5, a fighter is still doing fine. spellcasters have a few more resources, but largely still don't have enough to just throw them away on solving random problems. you *could* use knock + silence to silently open a lock with a 100% success chance, but who wants to blow those kinds of resources on a lock when a few rounds with thieve's tools proficiency and a half-decent dex attribute will also get you through the door silently? sure, the fighter isn't as good at skills as a rogue, but that's fine, because the rogue is not as much of a combat powerhouse as the fighter, so it's a trade-off.

at level 11, the problems casters can solve are starting to get a bit bigger, and they are finally starting to get the resources to spare on solving those problems. if all else fails, you probably have enough webs and hypnotic patterns (or entangles, faerie fire, bless, conjure animals, etc) to get you through the day, and you can probably afford to use a fly spell in a level 5 slot to get past many physical obstacles (though you'd rather not, if it isn't necessary) for example.

this is the beginning of when fighters really start to need something more than just baseline access to skills to do really impressive things. i mean, they're still just as skillful as the next person, so they're not incapable of contributing, they just can't do crazy things like instantly creating a giant-sized suit of armour from the half-orcs you just defeated as a gift to the hill giant chieftain, or making a wall temporarily stop being a wall. up until this point "i have a high attribute and proficiency on this use of an ability check" is mostly what everyone was using to solve problems, unless it was decided that a fairly major expenditure of resources was warranted. but now, we're starting to get a little nuts... rogues no longer roll less than 10 on a skill check and expertise just got a bump because proficiency bonus increased. spellcasters got their first level 6 spell. the attribute cap has largely already been reached if people weren't going for feats, and in one more level anyone who was taking feats earlier will probably max their main attribute. and it's not going to get better any time soon, as fighters suffer a major drought of interesting class features until level 17, when they get a second action surge per short rest. at which point wizards are wishing for something once per day or turning a random object into a giant ape that is about equal to around 50% of a fighter in an uncomfortably large number of ways, and possibly binding it to be their minion for half a year or so (bonus marks if you fabricate some plate barding for the ape).

so i don't see a level 1 class feature as a proper solution to the problem. at level 1, the fighter is on a fairly level playing field. other classes can do more out of combat, but those classes generally gave up some in-combat strength for that capability, so it's just a matter of everyone shining at different times, which is perfectly fine.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The champion has remarkable athlete to assist with out of combat challenges, and the eldritch knight has spells. The battle master doesn't get anything special for out of combat, and it may feel like the champion doesn't get enough.
That's a fair point. The subclasses might be the right place to add more out-of-combat stuff.

The Champion could get an Expertise or two that must be in physical skills.
The Eldritch Knight could get more flexibility in terms of what spells he knows. Honestly, you could probably open his list up to all 1st-4th level wizard spells AND give him a spellbook and be fine. Or put together a more complex gishy spell list. (Whatever you do, the Arcane Trickster should get the same treatment.)
The Purple Dragon Knight already gets Persuasion Expertise; he could maybe get something else flavorful to drive in the idea of him as a knight.
The Battlemaster admittedly is pretty starved. Maybe expand Know Your Enemy to cover some personality traits, and give him a Bardic Knowledge type ability? Say he gets half his proficiency bonus to any checks made regarding warfare, the history of war, weapons and armor, how to fight monsters, and so on.

I'd also give the Barbarian Expertise in all Strength checks- Advantage during your handful of Rage does NOT count as a useful out-of-combat ability- and maybe some extra fluffy stuff about carrying capacity, jumping and the like.

[Coffee_Dragon]

But now I realize that when those people say, "fix," they aren't using the English word, though it's spelled and sounds the same. They're using an entirely different word that means, "force to adhere to my personal preferences."

Could also be that if they make a thread called "How to homebrew a fighter class replacement", they'd be expected to post it in the homebrews forum, which has lower traffic apparently, while if they make it "fix", they can post it here.

[Pex]

The only issue I see of people complaining about the Fighter is more specifically about the Champion. They deride it as being boring and/or weak because it just has static bonuses, not giving you anything to do but roll to hit. What they don't realize or accept is that the Champion is supposed to be simple. It really doesn't matter if it was the designers' intent or not, but the net result of Champion is that it fits in with players who want the simplicity. It could be a player totally new to the game. It could be an experienced player who just wants to relax. Some people don't want to deal with analysis paralysis. They don't want to have to keep track of class ability resources and agonize whether to use it up now or save for a possible later greater need. They don't want to wait impatiently for the next short or long rest to get back the ability to do stuff.

[DanyBallon]

Instead of going with a vague assumption (A lot of of peole consider the fighter as lackluster), the OP could have state what he don't like in the current fighter and then propose some modification that would help resolve the problem he sees with the class.

Afterward, instead of telling everyone that gives their opinion, that are opposed to OP's (there's no need to fix fighter for x, y, z reasons...), that they are out off topic, or not welcomed in this discussion (not said as plainly, but can be feeled through his reply), OP could have been more receptive and tried to work with those critisms to further developped his proposed modifications.

Doing so would have lead to a much more civil discussion and would have been more productive for OP.

[smcmike]

Instead of going with a vague assumption (A lot of of peole consider the fighter as lackluster), the OP could have state what he don't like in the current fighter and then propose some modification that would help resolve the problem he sees with the class.

Afterward, instead of telling everyone that gives their opinion, that are opposed to OP's (there's no need to fix fighter for x, y, z reasons...), that they are out off topic, or not welcomed in this discussion (not said as plainly, but can be feeled through his reply), OP could have been more receptive and tried to work with those critisms to further developped his proposed modifications.

Doing so would have lead to a much more civil discussion and would have been more productive for OP.

That depends on his goals, about which I will not speculate. As I've said, I don't think his ideas are all bad, but, yeah, a more constructive introduction might lead to more interesting dialogue about them.

[GreatWyrmGold]

A lot of people have been describing the fighter class as lackluster but effective.
How would you fix the fighter class?
I just made a post in another threat that addresses this issue in a broad sense.

As long as you limit high-level fighters to being really good at hitting people with sharp sticks, and allow spellcasters to be increasingly good at warping the fabric of reality, you're going to have balance problems. One is simply more useful than the other. That's part of why Conan and Gandalf live in separate universes, and for that matter why Raistlin and Crysania in the Dragonlance books never use their powers to the extent they would in a typical D&D campaign.
The only ways to solve this problem are to limit what high-level wizards can do or to give even "mundane" classes the ability to perform supernatural feats. In a literary setting, you can have your mundane characters have skills which the mages don't (like prestige, tactical/diplomatic skills, not being feared by commonfolk, etc), but this is generally a lot harder to pull off in the context of an RPG. Since D&D seems dedicated to high fantasy, where top-tier spellcasters can raise the dead, teleport, see the future, and so on, the "mundanes" need similar tricks.
It isn't just a matter of DPS or HP or evasion or whatever, it's a matter of versatility. Who cares if a well-played fighter can kill a wizard in two rounds if a well-played wizard can predict the fighter's intent before using scry-and-die? In the context of an actual game, who cares if the fighter can kill a demon in a few hits if the wizard can do it with a single Power Word Kill, or if the cleric can banish it back to whence it came? (To say nothing of how superhuman it would be to kill massive supernatural creatures by poking them a few times in the shins.)
This isn't to say that fighters need to be Som Goku, or Kal-El, or anything like that. That's basically the "throw bigger numbers until it balances" approach, and it simply doesn't work. What we need is a reconceptualization of what it means to be a fighter. If the Fighter class is good at nothing but bashing enemies with sharp sticks, it will never be balanced against high-fantasy spellcasters.
TL;DR: Trying to balance people who can rewrite the laws of physics against those who can hit people with swords really, really well is a fool's errand. I mean, sure, you can balance DPS and the like, but that's only the most superficial level of balance. The problem has never, I believe, been that wizards can do more in combat; it's that wizards can do more, period. As it stands, a fighter's skills are good for fighting (obviously) and maybe some miscellaneous physical feats, while a wizard's skills can be used for fighting, traversal, intrigue, etc etc.
So, to fix the fighter, one needs to overhaul the assumptions present in the game or the fighter. In the former case, one could rein in what the wizards and whatnot can do; mundanes aren't so outclassed in a low-fantasy world. In the latter...drill down to what the fighter is, and either what it can do that the wizard/cleric/etc can't or why it can do the same sorts of things they can. Then, rewrite the "fighter" class so it is as good in combat as the other classes and also skilled at those other, noncombat things. Of course, it's pretty hard to think of purely mundane abilities which compare to the tricks high-level spellcasters can pull off, and even harder to explain why they're only available to the guy with the sword.

So I guess what I'm saying is that a guy with high-fantasy magic and a guy with a sword are as fundamentally different as a multipurpose DARPA drone and a guy with a sword.

[DanyBallon]

That depends on his goals, about which I will not speculate. As I've said, I don't think his ideas are all bad, but, yeah, a more constructive introduction might lead to more interesting dialogue about them.

The ideas are not bad. They may be a bit too similar to backgrouds in my opinion, but they are not bad at all.

The interaction was!

[krugaan]

Or I can add some special features to the Fighter that allow them to excel at either social or exploration, since everyone gets a backgrounds and each class gets some kind of social or exploration feature that puts them head and shoulders above the others:


Barbarian - Danger sense against traps, advantage on Strength checks while raging.
Bard - Expertise in trained skills, jack of all trades in everything else.
Cleric - Spells, Blessing of Knowledge (basically proficiency and Expertise), Light Cantrip (exploration), Channel Divinity: Charm Animals and Plants
Druid - Wild Shape
Fighter - ???
Monk - Step of the Wind (exploration), Slow Fall (falling), Evasion (traps), Purity of Body (traps)
Paladin - Divine Sense, Lay on Hands, Spells, Divine Health, Aura of Protection.
Ranger - Natural Explorer, Favored Enemy, Spells.
Rogue - Expertise, Evasion, Reliable Talent.
Sorcerer - Spells
Warlock - Spells, Invocations
Wizard - Spells, Rituals

Really fighter is the only one that doesn't have a way of excelling at an out of combat challenge.


We need to hearken back to ye old bend bars / lift gates stat! On a different note, having at least one high strength character is useful for ... well, bending bars and lifting gates.

[GanonBoar]

Why fix what isn't broken? When playing with feats, fighters can comfortably spend an ASI or two on picking up some social skills. The only time when fighters have no useful out of combat contributions is when the player chooses it.

[krugaan]

That's a fair point. The subclasses might be the right place to add more out-of-combat stuff.


The Purple Dragon Knight already gets Persuasion Expertise; he could maybe get something else flavorful to drive in the idea of him as a knight.
The Battlemaster admittedly is pretty starved. Maybe expand Know Your Enemy to cover some personality traits, and give him a Bardic Knowledge type ability? Say he gets half his proficiency bonus to any checks made regarding warfare, the history of war, weapons and armor, how to fight monsters, and so on.


Does anyone play a purple dragon knight? Lol. If there was a subclass that deserved a henchman, this is it.
Know Your Enemy is already pretty powerful in a social / intrigue sort of context, although it could really use deception or some kind of disguise method (which is somewhat out of flavor). That bardic knowledge idea sounds pretty good though. From a combat perspective, how about "battle masters get two free object interactions per turn, as long as one of those is draw/stow weapon"?

[R.Shackleford]

Within the concepts of 5e...


Give the Base Class a bonus action maneuver.
Give the Base Class a reason to pump Int, Wis, or Cha.
Make Indomitable actually worth a 9th level feature.
Get rid of X/Long Rest features, have them be X/Short Rest features (looking at you Indomitable).
Have the Fighter rely on its Base Class instead of its Archetypes.

[EvilAnagram]

Why fix what isn't broken? When playing with feats, fighters can comfortably spend an ASI or two on picking up some social skills. The only time when fighters have no useful out of combat contributions is when the player chooses it.

Again, it's not that the fighter is broken, it's that it doesn't specifically cater to OP's personal taste. This is, of course, an unforgivable sin in the eyes of the OP.

[Firechanter]

This is so typical, it could be straight out of any thread in the 3E forums over the years.

"The Fighter is bland. He can do nothing but hit things with a stick. I want to improve it. Let's make him better at hitting things with a stick!"

[GanonBoar]

Again, it's not that the fighter is broken, it's that it doesn't specifically cater to OP's personal taste. This is, of course, an unforgivable sin in the eyes of the OP.
Apologies for the misunderstanding, but the OP seemed to be suggesting that the fighter was broken. Fix is also a really misleading word in this case.

[R.Shackleford]

Apologies for the misunderstanding, but the OP seemed to be suggesting that the fighter was broken. Fix is also a really misleading word in this case.

Maaaaaannny people view the Fighter as broken (because it is) so I wouldn't apologize for taking that assumption. Especially when someone is asking about a fix.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Again, it's not that the fighter is broken, it's that it doesn't specifically cater to OP's personal taste. This is, of course, an unforgivable sin in the eyes of the OP.
Which is... absolutely something he can try to improve?

[krugaan]

I figured it out! For years, it has been eluding me, but now I have it!

To most people, in order to fix something it must be broken. If it's working well as advertised, it doesn't need fixing. In gaming, most people only think something needs fixing if it's unplayable without a fix. And yet people propose "fixes" to the balanced classes every day.

But now I realize that when those people say, "fix," they aren't using the English word, though it's spelled and sounds the same. They're using an entirely different word that means, "force to adhere to my personal preferences." The Fighter is obviously perfectly fine for those that like hitting things, but there are people who feel offended unless everything specifically appeals to them. Why, it's an outrage when something is perfectly fine for most people, but doesn't specifically cater to their personal preferences, and so these people feel the need to "fix" it.

These poor people suffer from compulsion, accompanied by the delusion that everything that doesn't play to their preferences is fundamentally broken. For years, they have confused me with their 15-step solutions to "simplify" this and their free saves to that and their to straight power boosts to powerful classes, but now I understand. Let us take pity on these poor creatures, and let us pray to Bahamut that we never play with them.

That's a little harsh, yo.

[Tanarii]

lol

OP posts suggested changes to boost Fighter in fighting, gets shot down as they don't need that, they need OoC. OP then suggests out-of-combat stuff, gets shot down as that's already in backgrounds. By different people, but still ... :smallamused:


That's a little harsh, yo.Yeah agreed. I feel for the OP he just got dog-piled.

[R.Shackleford]

That's a little harsh, yo.

That poster wears rose colored glasses when it comes to the fighter and can get a bit... Extreme about it.

[krugaan]

That poster wears rose colored glasses when it comes to the fighter and can get a bit... Extreme about it.

Wait, which poster, the one I quoted or the OP?

[Grod_The_Giant]

OP posts suggested changes to boost Fighter in fighting, gets shot down as they don't need that, they need OoC. OP then suggests out-of-combat stuff, gets shot down as that's already in backgrounds. By different people, but still ... :smallamused:

Yeah agreed. I feel for the OP he just got dog-piled.
Same here. He's found a thing he dislikes-- and it's true, the Fighter does get I think the fewest noncombat abilities in the game, apart from non-Totem Barbarians-- and he's working with us on how to fix that. I heartily support that.

[DanyBallon]

Same here. He's found a thing he dislikes-- and it's true, the Fighter does get I think the fewest noncombat abilities in the game, apart from non-Totem Barbarians-- and he's working with us on how to fix that. I heartily support that.

The fighter get most of it's noncombat abilities from ASI. They are already good at hitting stuff with a pointy stick, so they don't need to spend all those ASI to be more good at hitting stuff with pointy stick.

OP offered options to compensate lack of noncombat proficiency, by doing better background, which have some merits, but also tried to shut down anyone who said that fighter don't need any fix if you consider them from a different point of view.

[Temperjoke]

I'm going to try and be measured in this. I don't feel that the Fighter is broken exactly. To me, broken means that it has severe issues as it stands, such as extremely poor scaling, or features that prohibit working with others. Is the Fighter a little bland? Maybe. I think it's a mistake to look at "Fighter" as a whole to make declarations, though, instead of looking at the individual subclasses.

Champion Fighter - just straight, no frills, focus on stats. I think the point of this one is for uncomplicated multiclassing. It boosts your melee skills, doesn't distract or conflict with your 2nd class. But, by itself there really isn't a lot of flash to this. So for someone to just play this, I can see how it's boring.

Battle Master Fighter - your frills are the superiority dice. These help you lead your team in battle, guiding them, directing them. It's about controlling your enemy too, weakening their ability to react, keeping their focus on you. It's even got some out of combat bonus too, at 3rd level you get an artisan tool proficiency, which has a lot of possible options for social situations.

Eldritch Knight Fighter - You get magic, and not all of it has to be evocation/abjuration (8th, 14th, and 20th level new spells can be from any school). You get to bond a weapon, which prevents you from being disarmed, even long term disarmed since you can summon your weapon. Bond a second weapon, and you can change weapons on the fly if the circumstances in battle change.


Really, the only one that could use some improvement, at least to me, is the Champion Fighter. Even that could be easily jazzed up a little by giving them a feat like Sentinel or Charger which can blend well with most Fighter playing styles.

[Theodoxus]

If you don't like fighter, don't play it? Seems the easiest 'fix' to me. Is there anything, really, that the fighter has that you need on another class? Heck, you can make a martial wizard work just as well (level dip or not) - if that's your preference.

If a fighter never showed up in game, what do you lose?
If everyone plays a fighter, what do you lose?
If there's a single fighter in an otherwise mixed-class party, what do you lose?

Seems to me, people are still trying to shoehorn D&D into an MMO type game. To quote another ridiculous thread: Please go die.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The fighter get most of it's noncombat abilities from ASI. They are already good at hitting stuff with a pointy stick, so they don't need to spend all those ASI to be more good at hitting stuff with pointy stick.

OP offered options to compensate lack of noncombat proficiency, by doing better background, which have some merits, but also tried to shut down anyone who said that fighter don't need any fix if you consider them from a different point of view.
Oh boy, they can get abilities a tiny bit better than others! Eventually. Assuming they don't spend the vast majority of their career working on their primary scores and the feat or two for their combat style, which is very likely. It's really not a lot.

And as for shutting down "opposing views" from people who disagree with his premise?... Entirely understandable. I've had to do that myself in threads like this. There is, presumably, a problem for NewDM and his group; saying "you're wrong, this works fine for me" isn't tremendously helpful or constructive.

Besides. These kinds of things are fun in their own right.

[krugaan]

Aside from the title, which implies the fighter class is broken, OP hasn't said anything inflammatory.

Lighten up.

[EvilAnagram]

That poster wears rose colored glasses when it comes to the fighter and can get a bit... Extreme about it.

I get extreme about a lot of things. However, I don't overestimate the Fighter. I've seen it in action many times, and a player with a Fighter is perfectly capable in any situation. Sure, the particular character might suck at this or that, but you can build a Fighter to be good at just about anything.

The one thing I'm guilty of is not being blinded by my love of casters. As fun as they are, they don't ruin the fun of playing martials in this edition. At all.

[krugaan]

I get extreme about a lot of things. However, I don't overestimate the Fighter. I've seen it in action many times, and a player with a Fighter is perfectly capable in any situation. Sure, the particular character might suck at this or that, but you can build a Fighter to be good at just about anything.

The one thing I'm guilty of is not being blinded by my love of casters. As fun as they are, they don't ruin the fun of playing martials in this edition. At all.

Try to be a bit more kind, I guess.

Words can hurt, man.

/sniff

[EvilAnagram]

Oh boy, they can get abilities a tiny bit better than others! Eventually. Assuming they don't spend the vast majority of their career working on their primary scores and the feat or two for their combat style, which is very likely. It's really not a lot.
Vast majority? They can have their primary up to 18 and get a major combat feat by 6, by 4 with variant human. That's 5-6 ASIs for whatever the hell you want.


Try to be a bit more kind, I guess.

Words can hurt, man.

/sniff

As my barbarian character once said, the world is a cruel place, and so am I.

[Regitnui]

Vast majority? They can have their primary up to 18 and get a major combat feat by 6, by 4 with variant human. That's 5-6 ASIs for whatever the hell you want.



I'm no expert, but didn't the 3.5 fighter get a list of bonus feats they could choose from in addition to whatever else they took? Surely the increased ASIs are 5e's version of that.

[Fighting_Ferret]

Multi-classing aside...expertise of a thing for 2 classes, bard and rogue. The best anyone else can get is advantage on a roll on which they are already proficient, via an in-class ability or being aided by another proficient character. Proficiency itself is a step above talented, which would be any ability score above a 10, which is dead average in a skill check. Clerics and druids can take Guidance as a cantrip to make anyone better by 1d4 on their ability check. Spellcasting has the ability to make a skill check worthless, but is a limited resource daily.

[R.Shackleford]

I'm no expert, but didn't the 3.5 fighter get a list of bonus feats they could choose from in addition to whatever else they took? Surely the increased ASIs are 5e's version of that.

Exactly.

Those aren't fighter features, they are character features.

[Coffee_Dragon]

As my barbarian character once said, the world is a cruel place, and so am I.

Your barbarian character is a cruel place?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Multi-classing aside...expertise of a thing for 2 classes, bard and rogue.
Why? What's so special about those two that they're the only classes that can ever have a high bonus on a roll? Why should I be forced to be a Rogue if I want to be good at something?

[R.Shackleford]

Why? What's so special about those two that they're the only classes that can ever have a high bonus on a roll? Why should I be forced to be a Rogue if I want to be good at something?

I always wondered why the Ranger didn't get expertise...

[DanyBallon]

Why? What's so special about those two that they're the only classes that can ever have a high bonus on a roll? Why should I be forced to be a Rogue if I want to be good at something?

You don't need expertise to be good at something, only be proficient in the related skill and have a decent score in the relevant ability. Expertise, makes you a real expert in that specific field. Also, Rogue and Bard are traditionally the ones who are the most skillful, hence why they get expertise as a class feature.

[EvilAnagram]

Your barbarian character is a cruel place?

That whooshing sound you hear from high above is the joke.

[DivisibleByZero]

I'm going to strike out some extraneous words here.


A lot of people have been describing the fighter class as lackluster but effective.

How would you fix the fighter class?

So it's effective?
Hmm, I guess it doesn't need fixing then, does it?

[EvilAnagram]

Why? What's so special about those two that they're the only classes that can ever have a high bonus on a roll? Why should I be forced to be a Rogue if I want to be good at something?

My stars! It's Exager-Lad! He's here to help with his powers of being the absolute best at everything, not to mention his ability to be the absolute worst at everything!

I hear the last time he saw someone play a Fighter he literally vomited!

Seriously though, you can be good at something just by having a solid stat.

[Bladeyeoman]

Heated emotions aside, it seems like the perceived weaknesses of the figher are:
a) fewer-than-average non-combat approaches
b) doesn't compare favorably to full casters at high level.

Now, wrt (a), fighters do have backgrounds and potentially non-combat options via their races. And some people may feel like the point of a fighter is that they focus on combat (you could imagine a tradeoff, where rogues and rangers are less combat-capable and more non-combat capable than a fighter). And, as people have pointed out, fighters get ASIs which could (although might not) be spent increasing their out-of-combat utility. So some people probably feel like (a) is not so much a bug as a feature.

(b) is the case for, I think, (m)any class that's not a full caster (or close to one). The proposed fixes in this thread are focused on (a), and (b) would require tweaks for more than just fighters.

I'm not convinced that it's a problem that fighters have fewer non-combat options. I do like the idea, though, of some specific thematically appropriate non-combat abilities for the different subclasses (like battlemasters getting proficiency and/or advantage on skill checks relating to military history or protocol)

As a general framework for these tweaks, though:

a) give them skills that are going to be used pretty much exclusively out of combat

b) Probably best not to have it simply duplicate another class (ie making some fighters better at wilderness survival than rangers seems like a mistake - are rangers expected to dip fighter to get better at wilderness things?)

c) Expertise is pretty sketchy in general, but it is currently available only to the two classic "skill monkey" classes. Unless you're planning on overhauling skills in general, probably best to steer clear of it. Proficiency and advantage are more reasonable.

d) Given that fighters are kinda high on the combat side of the combat/non-combat tradeoff, don't give them sufficient noncombat abilities to outshine the more non-combat-focused classes

e) compare abilities to pre-existing equivalents, and aim for weaker and fluffier. For example, the "help" advantage thing in one of your professions is basically luck - as many times per day as you want - any time a teammate is doing something where they can be helped.

[Tanarii]

I always wondered why the Ranger didn't get expertise...They do get expertise. It's called Natural Explorer. They also get advantage to certain ability checks. It's called Favored Enemy.

[jas61292]

I'm not convinced that it's a problem that fighters have fewer non-combat options. I do like the idea, though, of some specific thematically appropriate non-combat abilities for the different subclasses (like battlemasters getting proficiency and/or advantage on skill checks relating to military history or protocol)

As a general framework for these tweaks, though:

a) give them skills that are going to be used pretty much exclusively out of combat

b) Probably best not to have it simply duplicate another class (ie making some fighters better at wilderness survival than rangers seems like a mistake - are rangers expected to dip fighter to get better at wilderness things?)

c) Expertise is pretty sketchy in general, but it is currently available only to the two classic "skill monkey" classes. Unless you're planning on overhauling skills in general, probably best to steer clear of it. Proficiency and advantage are more reasonable.

d) Given that fighters are kinda high on the combat side of the combat/non-combat tradeoff, don't give them sufficient noncombat abilities to outshine the more non-combat-focused classes

e) compare abilities to pre-existing equivalents, and aim for weaker and fluffier. For example, the "help" advantage thing in one of your professions is basically luck - as many times per day as you want - any time a teammate is doing something where they can be helped.

I think that Champion and Battlemaster Fighters are already on the right track with this, but do not go quite far enough.

The Champion's Remarkable Athlete feature is potentially a very neat out of combat ability, boosting things like Acrobatics and Sleight of Hand. That said, it is fairly weak for what it is going for. I wouldn't mind seeing a greater bonus, or possibly throwing some advantage or expertise in there. While I generally agree with you that expertise is best kept to rogue and bard, the one exception I would be willing to make would be for the champion fighter in athletics and/or acrobatics. Being a physical beast is what they are all about, and I think this might be a good way to show it.

For the Battlemaster, they get a few niche things, and overall, I do think they get a decent amount, but they could use a little more. I actually really like what you suggested about skills related to military history or protocol. I would totally be up for giving them basically something like a Dwarf's Stonecunning, but about military stuff and similar things.

The other archtypes are a bit more difficult. I really don't know where to go with these, but I do think the framework you outlined is good. I don't particularly think the fighter really needs any changes, but I have no problem with giving a few minor buffs to make them have a bit more diversity in abilities.

[Grod_The_Giant]

You don't need expertise to be good at something, only be proficient in the related skill and have a decent score in the relevant ability. Expertise, makes you a real expert in that specific field. Also, Rogue and Bard are traditionally the ones who are the most skillful, hence why they get expertise as a class feature.
<Sigh>

First, the Bard is a jack of all trades and a talker; the Rogue is a sneak and a thief. Both use skills, but neither of them cover being, say, the strongest, or the smartest, or the best healers, or anything outside those main schticks. Why is the Wizard not an expert on Arcana? Why isn't the Cleric the expert on Religion? Why is the Ranger not an expert on Survival, or the Fighter/Barbarian on Athletics? And so on, and so on.
Secondly, you're not guaranteed to have a decent score; Expertise can at least help you stay competitive.
Thirdly...let's look at the math. Without Expertise, a 1st level character with the best ability modifier has barely better than a 50-50 chance of succeeding on a Moderately difficult check. At 10th, with half his career behind him, he can do Hard tasks... 45% of the time. At 20th level, the peak of his career, the best of the best... 60%, with barely more than a one-third chance of succeeding at a truely impressive Very Hard task. With Expertise? At those same benchmarks, you have a 65% chance to hit Moderate/Hard/Very Hard DCs. That's right-- you actually have a good chance of hitting hard DCs! It's like you've noticeably improved! And remember, this is all assuming that it's your main score. I don't know about you, but only one set of numbers feels like someone who knows what they're doing.






Easy (DC 10)
Moderate (DC 15)
Hard (DC 20)
Very Hard (DC 25)
Impossible (DC 30)


Base (+0)
55%
30%
5%
--
--


1st level normal (+5)
80%
55%
30%
5%
--


10th level normal (+8)
95%
70%
45%
20%
--


20th level normal (+11)
100%
85%
60%
35%
10%


Example
Run through a crowd without slowing
Track a target across a field of dirt and grass
Persuade a friend to fight with you
Track a creature across bare stone the day after he passed






Easy (DC 10)
Moderate (DC 15)
Hard (DC 20)
Very Hard (DC 25)
Impossible (DC 30)


Base (+0)
55%
30%
5%
--
--


1st level expert (+7)
90%
65%
40%
15%
--


10th level expert (+12)
100%
90%
65%
40%
15%


20th level expert (+17)
100%
100%
90%
65%
40%


Example
Run through a crowd without slowing
Track a target across a field of dirt and grass
Persuade a friend to fight with you
Track a creature across bare stone the day after he passed




My stars! It's Exager-Lad! He's here to help with his powers of being the absolute best at everything, not to mention his ability to be the absolute worst at everything!

I hear the last time he saw someone play a Fighter he literally vomited!
Don't be rude.

[DanyBallon]

<Sigh>

First, the Bard is a jack of all trades and a talker; the Rogue is a sneak and a thief. Both use skills, but neither of them cover being, say, the strongest, or the smartest, or the best healers, or anything outside those main schticks. Why is the Wizard not an expert on Arcana? Why isn't the Cleric the expert on Religion? Why is the Ranger not an expert on Survival, or the Fighter/Barbarian on Athletics? And so on, and so on.
Secondly, you're not guaranteed to have a decent score; Expertise can at least help you stay competitive.
Thirdly...let's look at the math. Without Expertise, a 1st level character with the best ability modifier has barely better than a 50-50 chance of succeeding on a Moderately difficult check. At 10th, with half his career behind him, he can do Hard tasks... 45% of the time. At 20th level, the peak of his career, the best of the best... 60%, with barely more than a one-third chance of succeeding at a truely impressive Very Hard task. With Expertise? At those same benchmarks, you have a 65% chance to hit Moderate/Hard/Very Hard DCs. That's right-- you actually have a good chance of hitting hard DCs! It's like you've noticeably improved! And remember, this is all assuming that it's your main score. I don't know about you, but only one set of numbers feels like someone who knows what they're doing.



Bard are effectively a Jack of all trade, and have a feature to do so, and the spend so much time performing (sweet talking, dancing, playing instrument, diplomacy, etc.) that they get become expert at a few skills (WotC was kind enough not to force which skill you have to be expert). Rogue are skillful folks that sharpen their skills in many area in order to survive (again WotC do not force which skill to be expert into, in order to allow a wide variety of rogue). Wizards and Cleric are usually pretty good in arcana/religion due to their high main ability score. If a rogue or a bard decide to use expertise in one of these area and become better than a wizard/cleric, so be it, they spent ressources to be expert in arcana/religion, neglecting other area where a more traditional rogue/bard would have shined.

As for probability, we have disagree on this point, you prefer a good character to succeed most of the time on his roll, I prefer to roll only when it's meaningful, and when rolling, I like to have chance of failure (otherwise, I wouldn't need to roll to begin with)

[R.Shackleford]

They do get expertise. It's called Natural Explorer. They also get advantage to certain ability checks. It's called Favored Enemy.

I'm talking more of just straight up survival and nature.

Favored Enemy is was too specific.

[Bladeyeoman]

<Sigh>

First, the Bard is a jack of all trades and a talker; the Rogue is a sneak and a thief. Both use skills, but neither of them cover being, say, the strongest, or the smartest, or the best healers, or anything outside those main schticks. Why is the Wizard not an expert on Arcana? Why isn't the Cleric the expert on Religion? Why is the Ranger not an expert on Survival, or the Fighter/Barbarian on Athletics? And so on, and so on.
Secondly, you're not guaranteed to have a decent score; Expertise can at least help you stay competitive.
Thirdly...let's look at the math. Without Expertise, a 1st level character with the best ability modifier has barely better than a 50-50 chance of succeeding on a Moderately difficult check. At 10th, with half his career behind him, he can do Hard tasks... 45% of the time. At 20th level, the peak of his career, the best of the best... 60%, with barely more than a one-third chance of succeeding at a truely impressive Very Hard task. With Expertise? At those same benchmarks, you have a 65% chance to hit Moderate/Hard/Very Hard DCs. That's right-- you actually have a good chance of hitting hard DCs! It's like you've noticeably improved! And remember, this is all assuming that it's your main score. I don't know about you, but only one set of numbers feels like someone who knows what they're doing.



Okay, so you don't like the role of the dice in the 5e system. I don't disagree with you, per se, but like said above: expertise is a sketchy thing to add in this system. If you add it to *some* fighter options, then they have a hugely unfair advantage over any other class without expertise. So now we need to add expertise any time a class is supposed to be "good" at something. And now we need to add something to rogues/bards to balance out what used to be one of their key attributes. Plus now we have to deal with the new disparity between skill checks of different characters.

Point being: if you add expertise here, you should revamp skills in general for all classes. Which is kind of a different beast entirely. (I'm not super happy with the 5e skill system, for sure. But shoehorning in expertise as a fighter fluff feature doesn't fix it).

[Tanarii]

I'm talking more of just straight up survival and nature.:smallconfused: They do get Expertise in Survival and Nature. It's called Natural Explorer.

Edit: Technically it's Expertise (any Wis or Int check). Not just Survival and Nature. Those are just the two most likely Wis and Int checks, along with Investigation, that a Ranger will be getting prof bonuses to.

[Vogonjeltz]

City Guard
You trained and worked under the City Watch and have picked up skills associated with that particular vocation.
• You gain expertise in Perception because you have trained and gained experience being watchful of others and your environment.
• You have advantage on insight checks used to determine if someone is lying to you. Your experience as a city guard has taught you to see through lies.

Military
You joined a military and have worked within the rank and file for many years picking up group tactics and hardiness.
• You can travel twice as many hours during a forced march before having to make a saving throw and any allies you interact with during that time gain advantage on their saving throws to avoid gaining a level of exhaustion.
• Your training on the military battlefield has shown you how to take advantage of the skills of others. Anytime you perform the Help action, you can roll the same skill or ability check as they do and use the best result.


Wandering Loner
In your youth, you have wandered the wilderness alone fighting bandits and monsters alone and have honed your instincts to a fine edge on the whetstone of survival.

• You gain Expertise in the survival skill and can allow an ally to use your expertise bonus when gathering food, making shelter, or surviving in the wilderness.
• Instead of using passive perception to detect nearby enemies, the DM automatically rolls your perception check. You take your passive perception or perception check results whichever is higher.


Yeah, I'm not going to nerf the Wandering Loner just because the Ranger does not have what many classes already do: A greatly improved chance of using a skill that is iconic to the class.

Treasure Hunter
You venture into ruins, temples, and tribal sacred grounds in the search for treasure. You have honed your senses to detect danger in these situation.

• While you cannot disable a trap unless you are a Rogue with proficiency in thieves' tools, you can avoid the negative effects of traps and help others do the same. If you know where a trap is and what it does, you take only half damage on a failed saving throw. On a successful saving throw you take no damage and gain no conditions from the trap. In addition if you explain where the trap is and how to bypass it to allies they gain advantage on any checks or saving throws related to the trap.
• Instead of using passive perception to detect traps and natural hazards, the DM automatically rolls your perception check. You take your passive perception or perception check results whichever is higher.

City Watch exists in the SCAG already; the skill proficiencies provided are not dissimilar to what is being suggested. No background provides expertise in a thing, instead there are flavorful features. The one I see listed (Watcher's Eye) is more interesting.

Military already exists as the Soldier background (but again, no background provides mechanical advantages of the nature you're suggesting).

Adventurers kind of are treasure hunters, so it's not clear how that's a background (if I'm misunderstanding and this is in addition to the background...why? That's alot of clutter).

Fighters are focused primarily on being the best at fighting true, but if feats are in play they can expand their repetoire of options through the additional ASI, and they also get useful social/exploration options from their subclass. Champions are intrinsically better at the double dare physical challenge, Battlemasters are great at assessing people and study the art of war, Eldritch Knights have some fun features like weapon bond that lets them go anywhere confident they're never truly disarmed (i.e. Sure, they'll give up that weapon...for now), and the Banneret does in fact have expertise in persuasion.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Okay, so you don't like the role of the dice in the 5e system. I don't disagree with you, per se, but like said above: expertise is a sketchy thing to add in this system. If you add it to *some* fighter options, then they have a hugely unfair advantage over any other class without expertise. So now we need to add expertise any time a class is supposed to be "good" at something. And now we need to add something to rogues/bards to balance out what used to be one of their key attributes. Plus now we have to deal with the new disparity between skill checks of different characters.

Point being: if you add expertise here, you should revamp skills in general for all classes. Which is kind of a different beast entirely. (I'm not super happy with the 5e skill system, for sure. But shoehorning in expertise as a fighter fluff feature doesn't fix it).
I don't know where you get the idea that I don't like dice; I'd just like a specialist to have more than a 50-50 chance of succeeding at non-trivial tasks. My preference would be to have 2*Proficiency for all skills, and to give Rogues and Bards replacement abilities. But that's beyond the scope of this thread, and getting pretty off-topic. In short, I don't think the game is harmed any more by more classes having Expertise. You already have to face the whole differences in capabilities thing, and it's not like it's a hard-to-access or high-level ability.

[DanyBallon]

I don't know where you get the idea that I don't like dice; I'd just like a specialist to have more than a 50-50 chance of succeeding at non-trivial tasks. My preference would be to have 2*Proficiency for all skills, and to give Rogues and Bards replacement abilities. But that's beyond the scope of this thread, and getting pretty off-topic. In short, I don't think the game is harmed any more by more classes having Expertise. You already have to face the whole differences in capabilities thing, and it's not like it's a hard-to-access or high-level ability.

By your own table, a 1st level character with expertise and max ability score (total +7) have 40% chance succeeding a hard task, while a regular character barely have any chance (5%), to this is a good example what an expert is, and beating a hard check(DC 20) is not a trivial task that anybody can do. He can even attempt (15%) to achieve a very hard task (DC25) which are beyond what a normal person can even dream of.

[Fighting_Ferret]

Handing out expertise out to every class is an arms war waiting to happen.

Did you realise that nothing forces a wizard to take Arcana, or a cleric to take Religion? So why should they automatically be the best in their stereotypical fields?

Now addressing rogues and bards, single class only, neither one is a combat powerhouse... Rogues are the only class that can pick locks and disarm traps by default, without a background. Bards are either the ultimate skill monkey or an ok combatant with spell support.

[EvilestWeevil]

I don't really feel the fighter needs fixing, you know what it does by the name, and the players buys into that when playing. Not everyone wants to cast spells or have cool skills to use, some players just want to hit things. We have a player in my group that doesn't care for spellcaster's, so he swapped to a fighter from a paladin. As long as you let the player's know what the fighter does, and they are cool with it whats the problem? The fighter is one of the more potent classes, they play and feel just fine, they are exactly what they should be, a non magical (or slightly magical) martial character. On top of that feats are monstrously more powerful than they have ever been, so that fighter can be just about anything you want him to be, and that starts at first level when he chooses a fighting style.

[NewDM]

The champion has remarkable athlete to assist with out of combat challenges, and the eldritch knight has spells. The battle master doesn't get anything special for out of combat, and it may feel like the champion doesn't get enough.

Yes, but the base fighter class does not. There are no other base classes that don't get some kind of way to contribute out of combat.


All fighters get lots of ASI/feats, though. And can use background features to help with more narrative power.

Fighters get 2 more ASI/feats than other characters and are usually used on combat based things. There are actually very few feats that can be used outside of combat. Also how does +4 to 1 ability score or +2 to two or +1 to four ability scores compare to things like Expertise or a spell that simply bypasses a challenge?

The feats that can be used out of combat are: Athlete, Dungeon Delver, Keen Mind, Linguist, Lucky, Magic Initiate (out of combat spell and cantrip), Observant, Ritual Caster, and Skilled.

Athlete is inferior to most class features and is overall a very weak feat.
Dungeon Delver is a decent feat that gives a strong exploration feature.
Keen Mind, Observant, and Skilled are very weak or so specific that they don't really help.
Linguist is inferior to the ritual Comprehend Languages.
Lucky is a very powerful feat equivalent to getting advantage 3x per day or super advantage 3x per day. It isn't as powerful as spell or expertise.
Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster both tell the fighter that it must become a spell caster to be useful. Magic initiate's 1st level spell is once per day and therefore doesn't measure up well against other classes usefulness outside of combat. Ritual Caster is only useful if you have 10+ minutes to cast the spell.

The fact that the Fighter has to choose between combat effectiveness and out of combat effectiveness for their 2 ASI's means they have to do what other classes don't: Give up combat effectiveness in order to be relevant out of combat.

If you don't agree with this, state that you don't agree and move on.


i think you're working from the wrong end of the fighter class.

at level 1, a fighter is perfectly adequate to contribute outside of combat with just their racial/class/background skills and basic features. i mean, sure, the wizard can *theoretically* use silent image to distract the guards or provide a hiding place or something, but then the wizard just traded half of what they can do for the *entire day* on that... which is a pretty danged awful trade most of the time.

at level 5, a fighter is still doing fine. spellcasters have a few more resources, but largely still don't have enough to just throw them away on solving random problems. you *could* use knock + silence to silently open a lock with a 100% success chance, but who wants to blow those kinds of resources on a lock when a few rounds with thieve's tools proficiency and a half-decent dex attribute will also get you through the door silently? sure, the fighter isn't as good at skills as a rogue, but that's fine, because the rogue is not as much of a combat powerhouse as the fighter, so it's a trade-off.

at level 11, the problems casters can solve are starting to get a bit bigger, and they are finally starting to get the resources to spare on solving those problems. if all else fails, you probably have enough webs and hypnotic patterns (or entangles, faerie fire, bless, conjure animals, etc) to get you through the day, and you can probably afford to use a fly spell in a level 5 slot to get past many physical obstacles (though you'd rather not, if it isn't necessary) for example.

this is the beginning of when fighters really start to need something more than just baseline access to skills to do really impressive things. i mean, they're still just as skillful as the next person, so they're not incapable of contributing, they just can't do crazy things like instantly creating a giant-sized suit of armour from the half-orcs you just defeated as a gift to the hill giant chieftain, or making a wall temporarily stop being a wall. up until this point "i have a high attribute and proficiency on this use of an ability check" is mostly what everyone was using to solve problems, unless it was decided that a fairly major expenditure of resources was warranted. but now, we're starting to get a little nuts... rogues no longer roll less than 10 on a skill check and expertise just got a bump because proficiency bonus increased. spellcasters got their first level 6 spell. the attribute cap has largely already been reached if people weren't going for feats, and in one more level anyone who was taking feats earlier will probably max their main attribute. and it's not going to get better any time soon, as fighters suffer a major drought of interesting class features until level 17, when they get a second action surge per short rest. at which point wizards are wishing for something once per day or turning a random object into a giant ape that is about equal to around 50% of a fighter in an uncomfortably large number of ways, and possibly binding it to be their minion for half a year or so (bonus marks if you fabricate some plate barding for the ape).

so i don't see a level 1 class feature as a proper solution to the problem. at level 1, the fighter is on a fairly level playing field. other classes can do more out of combat, but those classes generally gave up some in-combat strength for that capability, so it's just a matter of everyone shining at different times, which is perfectly fine.

You make some very good points. The early game is so flattened due to bounded accuracy that there is almost no difference between someone that is super effective and someone that is not. However how would I go about moving the features I've created into the 10+ range?


That's a fair point. The subclasses might be the right place to add more out-of-combat stuff.

The Champion could get an Expertise or two that must be in physical skills.
The Eldritch Knight could get more flexibility in terms of what spells he knows. Honestly, you could probably open his list up to all 1st-4th level wizard spells AND give him a spellbook and be fine. Or put together a more complex gishy spell list. (Whatever you do, the Arcane Trickster should get the same treatment.)
The Purple Dragon Knight already gets Persuasion Expertise; he could maybe get something else flavorful to drive in the idea of him as a knight.
The Battlemaster admittedly is pretty starved. Maybe expand Know Your Enemy to cover some personality traits, and give him a Bardic Knowledge type ability? Say he gets half his proficiency bonus to any checks made regarding warfare, the history of war, weapons and armor, how to fight monsters, and so on.

I'd also give the Barbarian Expertise in all Strength checks- Advantage during your handful of Rage does NOT count as a useful out-of-combat ability- and maybe some extra fluffy stuff about carrying capacity, jumping and the like.

Some good points, but I have to say that the Fighter is literally the only class that doesn't get something good to do outside combat in their base class, and other classes' sub-classes also give them out of combat effectiveness. So the few things the fighter does get through sub-classes is eclipsed by other classes' sub-classes.


The only issue I see of people complaining about the Fighter is more specifically about the Champion. They deride it as being boring and/or weak because it just has static bonuses, not giving you anything to do but roll to hit. What they don't realize or accept is that the Champion is supposed to be simple. It really doesn't matter if it was the designers' intent or not, but the net result of Champion is that it fits in with players who want the simplicity. It could be a player totally new to the game. It could be an experienced player who just wants to relax. Some people don't want to deal with analysis paralysis. They don't want to have to keep track of class ability resources and agonize whether to use it up now or save for a possible later greater need. They don't want to wait impatiently for the next short or long rest to get back the ability to do stuff.

They should have made the Champion its own class and/or made another class called Warrior and put all the complex Fighter stuff into that. Instead they compromised and made the Fighter a very simple class with a single sub-class that was supposed to handle all the complex stuff that people liked about earlier editions. They crammed Book of Nine Sword, 4E Fighter, 4E Ranger, and 4E Warlord into a single very limiting subclass and it just didn't work.


Instead of going with a vague assumption (A lot of of people consider the fighter as lackluster), the OP could have stated what he don't like in the current fighter and then propose some modification that would help resolve the problem he sees with the class.

Afterward, instead of telling everyone that gives their opinion, that are opposed to OP's (there's no need to fix fighter for x, y, z reasons...), that they are out off topic, or not welcomed in this discussion (not said as plainly, but can be feeled through his reply), OP could have been more receptive and tried to work with those critisms to further developped his proposed modifications.

Doing so would have lead to a much more civil discussion and would have been more productive for OP.

If you don't feel the fighter is in need of fixing, then this thread is probably not for you. Just saying.

There are those of use that see and experience the lack of out of combat utility of the fighter.


I just made a post in another threat that addresses this issue in a broad sense.

TL;DR: Trying to balance people who can rewrite the laws of physics against those who can hit people with swords really, really well is a fool's errand. I mean, sure, you can balance DPS and the like, but that's only the most superficial level of balance. The problem has never, I believe, been that wizards can do more in combat; it's that wizards can do more, period. As it stands, a fighter's skills are good for fighting (obviously) and maybe some miscellaneous physical feats, while a wizard's skills can be used for fighting, traversal, intrigue, etc etc.
So, to fix the fighter, one needs to overhaul the assumptions present in the game or the fighter. In the former case, one could rein in what the wizards and whatnot can do; mundanes aren't so outclassed in a low-fantasy world. In the latter...drill down to what the fighter is, and either what it can do that the wizard/cleric/etc can't or why it can do the same sorts of things they can. Then, rewrite the "fighter" class so it is as good in combat as the other classes and also skilled at those other, noncombat things. Of course, it's pretty hard to think of purely mundane abilities which compare to the tricks high-level spellcasters can pull off, and even harder to explain why they're only available to the guy with the sword.

So I guess what I'm saying is that a guy with high-fantasy magic and a guy with a sword are as fundamentally different as a multipurpose DARPA drone and a guy with a sword.

I agree but short of chucking 7th+ spells out the window or completely redesigning the fighter from the ground up, we are left with adding a few features here or there.


The fighter get most of it's noncombat abilities from ASI. They are already good at hitting stuff with a pointy stick, so they don't need to spend all those ASI to be more good at hitting stuff with pointy stick.

As I said above you are asking players to give up combat based abilities in order to get 2 things that might give them an out of combat feature that is effective (if they pick the right one).


OP offered options to compensate lack of noncombat proficiency, by doing better background, which have some merits, but also tried to shut down anyone who said that fighter don't need any fix if you consider them from a different point of view.

No. This thread is about how to give the fighter out of combat utility. If you don't think the Fighter needs out of combat utility post your opinion about that and then move on.

[krugaan]

No. This thread is about how to give the fighter out of combat utility. If you don't think the Fighter needs out of combat utility post your opinion about that and then move on.

If OP would kindly reread the initial post, he would note that excepting the first suggestion, the rest have to deal with combat. I would suggest you politely acknowledge this fact, and start a new thread with "fighter out of combat utility" as its title and focus, and let discussion continue as is in the current thread.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Some good points, but I have to say that the Fighter is literally the only class that doesn't get something good to do outside combat in their base class, and other classes' sub-classes also give them out of combat effectiveness. So the few things the fighter does get through sub-classes is eclipsed by other classes' sub-classes.
As long as they get enough, does it matter where it comes from? It actually makes more sense, I think-- the Fighter class is intentionally bland, making it hard to come up with good options. Subclasses are much more important for customizing the flavour than for, say, a Rogue.

[smcmike]

I think you're overstating the baked-in out-of-combat utility of the Barbarian and the Monk. Barbarian has advantage on saving throws v traps, which is nice, but not something that really solves out of combat challenges. Monk's mobility features are a bit better, and might help in a rooftop chase scene or something, but so would action surge.

[krugaan]

As long as they get enough, does it matter where it comes from? It actually makes more sense, I think-- the Fighter class is intentionally bland, making it hard to come up with good options. Subclasses are much more important for customizing the flavour than for, say, a Rogue.

That's kind true, I suppose. As people have noted, it's baked into the name, really.

[EvilestWeevil]

The figther's flavor is going to come from his background. It gives you skill options, they don't really need out of combat utility. They fight things, its in the name, they are warriors, any out of combat utility they have will be in the skills and background that was chosen.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The figther's flavor is going to come from his background. It gives you skill options, they don't really need out of combat utility. They fight things, its in the name, they are warriors, any out of combat utility they have will be in the skills and background that was chosen.
Yes, the Fighter gets some stuff from baseline character options (background and two class skills). So does everyone. That's WHY it's the baseline. Pretty much every other class adds to that. Fighter... Not so much. You can't really point to that baseline and say "this is where the class's X comes from," because everyone else gets their background AND extra options.

Which isn't too say that it's not a fine class. It's quite well made in that it can be either the simplest (Champion) or most finicky (Battlemaster) of the martial classes. And it's not like you can't contribute and have fun, because you totally can. You just don't have as many non-murder toys as many others, which means there are

[DanyBallon]

No. This thread is about how to give the fighter out of combat utility. If you don't think the Fighter needs out of combat utility post your opinion about that and then move on.

Then if it's the case, this thread belongs to the homebrew forums. By putting your thread over here, you open it to people who believe that fighter don't need to be fixed and that will tell you why they believe so. This forums favors discussion and opposing idea in long (and often sterile) debate. While it generate a lot of activity and assure you a better exposure, it's not often the best place to try to come up with new rules.

Also, not everyone that think that the fighter don't need fixing says that your ideas are bogus. I for one, agreed that there were not bad, but I find them too similar to backgrounds, and it make them redundant.

Again, if you only wanted opinions would help improve your base idea, and/or tell you how right you are, then the Homebrew forums would have been a better place to post in the first place.

[mgshamster]

For the champion, I'd just remove the part in Remarkable Athlete that says "except skills you're proficient in."

For battle master, I'd add some things to Know Your Enemy that it could learn; maybe a cultural study or whether they seem out of place to their current environment or if they're scared or nervous. Things like that.

Eldritch Knight already has spells, but I'm not opposed to expanding the spell list and/or changing Spells Known to a spellbook.

I think that would increase their out of combat utility while still keeping their power level relatively the same.

For the base fighter class, I'd increase their starting skills by one or two, and put indomitable on a short rest.

[DanyBallon]

For the champion, I'd just remove the part in Remarkable Athlete that says "except skills you're proficient in."

For battle master, I'd add some things to Know Your Enemy that it could learn; maybe a cultural study or whether they seem out of place to their current environment or if they're scared or nervous. Things like that.

Eldritch Knight already has spells, but I'm not opposed to expanding the spell list and/or changing Spells Known to a spellbook.

I think that would increase their out of combat utility while still keeping their power level relatively the same.

OP seems to want the base fighter frame to give versatility to the fighter class, instead of versatility coming from archetypes.
We should consider how we could provide the base fighter noncombat proficiencies without steping on the Backgrounds toes, not taking away the "thing" of the skill-monkey, and still being meaningful to the fighter.

[Rysto]

We should consider how we could provide the base fighter noncombat proficiencies without steping on the Backgrounds toes, not taking away the "thing" of the skill-monkey, and still being meaningful to the fighter.

Maybe add some feats for it? That way fighters who care can spend some ASIs on it (they've got a lot to spend anyway) but you don't have to worry about unbalancing classes.

[mgshamster]

OP seems to want the base fighter frame to give versatility to the fighter class, instead of versatility coming from archetypes.
We should consider how we could provide the base fighter noncombat proficiencies without steping on the Backgrounds toes, not taking away the "thing" of the skill-monkey, and still being meaningful to the fighter.

Looks like I got my edit in while you were responding to me.

For the base fighter, we can increase OoC utility by giving them more skills to be proficient in (maybe 3 or 4 instead of 2) and making Indomitable a short rest mechanic. We could also expand their skill list.

Combine those with the changes made to the archetypes and you've got some good variable utility for the fighter.

[mgshamster]

What about something like:

Battlefield Study: If you spend a day studying an area the size of a battle field (no more than a square mile), you gain half proficiency bonus on all ability checks in that terrain. This bonus lasts until you use this ability again.

Or, by spending that day, you can grant half your proficiency bonus to someone else, maybe a unit under your command.

Not sure what level it would be.

[EvilestWeevil]

Maybe I am confused about what you are looking for but what I am getting from this thread is that you want the fighter to be able to do more out of combat. So let me give you some examples, say you want the fighter to be charming and roguish (criminal background, there is a background for this), how about you want him to have the ability to survive in the wilderness (outlander, again there is a background for this). Hmm, maybe you want your fighter to be able to identify magical phenomena (sage, holy hells, there is a background for that too). The class doesn't need utility, it needs a background and roleplay. Besides what are you going to give it, I study stuff and get a combat bonus? Sounds like you want to give it a utility that helps it fight, its not really a utility that sets it apart from what it already does. He still hits stuff with a weapon.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Locked for review.

Please be civil, don't insult or bait others, and don't drag baggage from one thread to another.