Classical: Fighters

That smarmy homonculus! Daring to log onto my database, and provide reasonably accurate information? Pah. Luckily, ladies, gentlemen and otherwise, I've caught the offender red-handed, and whilst he's making his way into my painfully slow death trap, I'll spend my time talking about a -real- D&D class. So let's get down to Fighters!

The Fighter is a defender. What's that mean, you ask? It means they defend their party, and make the bad, evil monsters attack them instead. Such is the default class, anyway! There is a type of Fighter for everyone, and regardless of what your schtick is, you're bound to at least look twice! Let's have a look see, shall we?

Ways of Fighting?

Fighters differentiate from one another by specializing into so-called talents. How talented you can be with intelligence as your dumpstat is questionable, but our brawny heroes seem to manage!

The first talent off the bat is Battlerager Vigor, it gives you temporary hit points, and they even stack with the power! Hell, even better, if you use an Invigorating power and manage to miss every single target (should've practiced on that barn, boy), you still get temporary hit points equal to your constitution modifier. Right then, next in l-.. Wait, there's more? Egads. Battleragers ALSO get +1 to damage with melee and close attack -while- wearing light armor or chainmail, IF they have temporary hitpoints, something you should never be without. This damage increases if you wield an axe, a hammer, a mace or a pick, so stick a twohanded Greataxe in there, and go wild, baby.

Second up on the pitch is the Tempest Technique. Despite sounding like something out of a bad Steven Seagal movie, it is in fact another talent, and it's perfectly acceptable! Tempest Technique gives you +1 to attack rolls if you're dual wielding. BUT - my muffled assistant notes - they have to have the offhand property, meaning they're more obviously than not somewhat gimped in damage, sadly, and you rely on powers to make that better. Don't worry, the wizards tried to make this up. They're also giving you Two-Weapon Defense, even if your scrawny self can't get it normally. So that's nice. You also get +1 damage when you dual wield, +2 if they're offhanders. Haven't I heard something like this before? Consistency is nice, at least!

Third up are the two talents simply called Weapon Talent! (One-handed and Two-handed, respectively.) These are the simplest of all the talents. No-nonsense cousins to their flashy comrades, the Weapon Talents simply give you a flat +1 bonus to attack rolls with the chosen group of weapons, regardless of how you wield it, or what colour it is. If you want to wear sick armor, and stick a shield on there, this is what I recommend, so you don't miss out on the features of Battlerager or Tempest.

Fourth, and last on the field is the hilarious buck-toothed stepchild of the Tempest Technique, namely the Brawler Style... talent. What's the Brawler do, then? Well, they brawl. Let's get a piece of this craziness. When a brawler holds a weapon in his main hand, and has -nothing- in his off hand, he gains +1 to AC, and +2 to Fortitude. So that's pretty nice, right? No, because you're giving up a shield, and miss out on both AC, and magic properties. Well, let's move on! What else does the brawler-man get? You gain a.. profiency with unarmed attacks.. yay.. and a +2 bonus to grab attacks and attacks to move a creature grabbed by you. Egads. I know where this is going. To be total dicks, wizard decided to add the fact that you cannot use a spiked gauntlet to boost your damage, because you don't get the proficiency. You do however get the grab bonus. -2 to hit for 1d2 more damage? Your choice. *snickers*

Features of Fighting

That's talents down. Let's get right down to the meat of the class. But wait, what's this? Another choice you say? Sigh. Right! All warriors nowadays get the choice of their defining feature, namely Combat Superiority or Combat Agility. Combat Agility was added in to appeal to those of you whom take the Tempest Technique, boost your dex instead of your wisdom, and have terrible riders on your powers. They're pretty close in the end. Superiority gives a bonus equal to your wisdom modifier to all your opportunity attacks, and forces your opponent to lose his move action, if that's what provoked the attack from you. Combat Agility IS an opportunity attack, and lets you shift up to your dexterity modifier towards the man who just ran away, and then smack him silly with the power in question. They're also knocked prone. Note that unless you pump Dexterity to 18 in the start, this is often worse than superiority, due to the fact that Superiority is automatic, and that you might not always be able to get to the aggressor with the shift on this power, leaving you useless where you would've stuck him with the attack otherwise.

Right, let's get down to it! All Fighters get something called Combat Challenge. Firstly, whenever you attack an enemy, it gets marked, giving it -2 to attack unless it targets you. Sweet, right? It gets better. This mark is applied regardless of whether or not you hit, so people who like the Brawler Style above, rejoice. As part of this feature, you also get an Immediate Interrupt (Also named Combat Challenge), that allows you to use a melee basic attack against an adjacent, marked enemy if he tries to shift OR attack someone but you. Sweet right? It is. Of all the defender, only the paladin has nicer features, when it comes to punishment, but we'll get to that in the paladin talks.

All Fighters also get the ability to wear every armor sans Plate, and start with the best weapon proficiencies in the game, able to handle any military or simple weapon. For those superior ones (and yes, they are better in theory), you'll still need a feat. You get a +2 bonus to fortitude for being the scrappy sort, and your power source is martial like the Warlord, meaning you actually practiced to get this good, instead of reading pamphlets on magic, or asking the nice gods/spirits for help. Atop this you get sweet amounts of hitpoints, about the same as every other defender, and a godly amount of healing surges. Only the paladins get more by default, and only by one, so it doesn't really matter. You get three skills from the following list:

Athletics

Endurance

Heal

Intimidate

Streetwise

So, not only do you get busted for a skill less than everyone else, you also have pretty bad choices up there. I suggest any fighter take Athletics, it keys off Strength. Endurance or Heal depending on how much you've boosted your Wisdom/Con, and then pick which one of the two last you want to be the least bad at. Or just skip them all together and pick up Heal. Humans would do well to pick another skill. Perception comes to mind.

Fighting Feats

Now we've come to the stuff that makes you. Feats are dangerously essential, and there are bucketloads of them, so I won't even start to scrape the surface. I instead have compiled the smallest of lists to serve you on this day.

• Shield Push (PHB): If you're using a shield, consider getting this feat on level 1. If you don't pick it up on level 1, consider getting it on level 2. If you didn't, you're making kittens cry. This is a staple of shield fighters.
• Forceful Opportunist (Dragon 379): Any weapon talent fighter should consider this feat, because pushing the battlefield around is crazy good. Even funnier if you use a polearm, and push them over the entire battlefield, or off a cliff. Always hilarious.
• Agile Superiority (Dragon 378): This takes Combat Superiority, and keys it off Dexterity instead of Wisdom, so if you're a dex based fighter, and think you could do without the so-so opportunity attack of Combat Agility, you should take this.
• Mobile Challenge (Dragon 378): A feat that lets you shift 1 step after attacking with your Combat Challenge feature. Very interesting, and lets you shift after the people who try to flee.

Fighting Powers

So what can you actually do? Again, I won't list everything, just scratching at the surface for you. There are a plethora of powers, at least two for every style, and some that are compatible with almost whatever talent you had in mind.

• Tide of Iron (At-will, PHB): If you're a shield fighter, you want this. It does damage, pushes, shifts you, and does your laundry on sundays.
• Dual Strike (At-will, Martial Power): This is for the dual-wielders out there, and it lets you bring the pain to two enemies at the same time. Remember, even if you miss, they're still marked.
• Weapon Master's Strike (At-will, Dragon 382): This is an interesting power, with something for almost anyone. Before the attack, it allows you to draw another weapon if you want, so you can use it to shift your gear around for added hilarity. It does basic damage, and then something extra depending on which weapon you're using. Highly recommended for spear fighters, humans, and anyone who can't find something to fill their at-will slots.
• Rain of Steel (Daily 5, PHB): Why am I bringing up a level 5 daily? Well, this is a pretty major gig. If you get to level 5, you should seriously consider this power, as enemies will take damage for starting next to you. Just watch out for being dazed or stunned, and watch the damage skyrocket more than a raging barbarian in big fights.

Who Fights?

Who makes a good Fighter? Well, that's a simple equation. Look at the race list. Now look at the class. Look at the race list again. Remove gnomes, changelings, goblins, kenku, githyanki, deva, and tieflings. Kalashtar also. There, everyone else, you can make it work. Here's my four favorites:

• Dragonborn: They're f-ing dragons, man. Of course they're good at fighting. So the Charisma doesn't help you (still wondering why they don't have constitution), but EVERYTHING else does. The breath will let you mark everyone you target, hit or miss, which is insane. Add hurl breath and enlarged breath respectively for extra sinister laughter moments.
• Dwarf: These guys make up for the lack of strength with a super-hard determination. Constitution and Wisdom means they make rock hard shieldwalls, and the racials only affirm this fact. Slap on a hammer or an axe. Go to town. They also like beer. And fighting.
• Warforged: ROBOTS. If you're still not sold on the idea, how's about the plus to Strength and Constitution? No? Well, look again, because these miniature godzillas have a truckload of fighter feats, including a sick feat on first level, letting them knock people prone with their opportunity action. Have we heard this before? Best of both worlds.
• Human: These guys make funnily sick warriors. You might not win the competition for biggest stats, only having a plus to one ability, and I'll hate you if you don't put it in strength. Besides that, humans get +1 to all the non-ac defenses by default, as well as a bonus feat, which will help your career considerably. The extra skill is icing on the cake, but the extra at will power you can make great use of. Combine with some of the best feat support in the game for any class, and you've got a solid pick.

So that's that. The Fighter class. I won't get into Paragon Paths, nor will I Epic Destinies. Such things are for the future, my dear readers. It seems my assistant managed to escape during my monologue. Blasted paperclips! I shall leave you now, and hunt him down. I best reconstruct my death-machine too. Why does it even have ventilation shafts?

SRM