Fighter Guide - Classes in Dungeons and Dragons 5e

with blood battle and bravery they stand stalwart in the face of danger show boldness and the fires of war they are the ones who live their life at the blades edge today we look at the fighter class greetings heroes my name is Monte Martin and I'm Kelly McLaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes on today's episode we're taking a look at the fighter class in Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition one of the most versatile classes in the game yes the fighter is the classic martial warrior there at the front lines of battle they're one of the oldest and most archetypal classes in both mythology and the Dungeons & Dragons game so we're gonna get you inspired by taking an in-depth look at the build options and role-playing options for the fighter class so that you can charge headfirst into battle yeah so first question why would we want to play a fighter well the fighter is the Big Damn hero of Dungeons and Dragons and there is so much in terms of both real world heroes and our own mythology about legends of Heroes that can inspire the fighter in a way that few other classes in D&D can match and they're really one of the most courageous classes if you want to be that guy that's just gonna run out and face the the horrible things that are coming at them head-on and not even not even flinch then the fighter is gonna be a great class for you and they're they're really open-ended and the options that they have for them yeah the fighters are supremely versatile based on the weapons that they use the armor they wear and the skills that they have you can shape your fighter in almost any way that you can imagine and in the process you get to feel like a true action hero the best fighters are brave perhaps even a little bit foolish just a touch may be too reckless but they know that they have the skills and the true grit to succeed in battle so let's talk about the fighters role in the party yeah well straight up um I think that is really reductive to think of the fighter like the tank in a video game because they can be so much more than that that said they are tough enough and strong enough to stand at the front lines of battle and take almost anything the worst monsters in Dungeons & Dragons can throw at them but because of their versatility you don't always just have to picture the fighter with a sword and shield running headfirst into battle you do have options for being the ranged fighter or even a polearm fighter a swashbuckler like because the fighter has ultimate proficiency in all the weapons they make an excellent damage dealer um and if you really want to come here for the ability to strike down your foes like no other class in the game the fighter is really where you want to start this one seems really obvious and open-ended but inspiration for a fighter is pretty much everywhere that you look you can pull from all sorts of different sources to find inspiration for your fighter including almost every action hero from every action movie that's ever existed but there's a lot more exactly your fighter could be a ruthless mercenary a cunning swashbuckler they could be a valiant champion of the people or they could even be a ruthless and Craven villain they can go almost anywhere and this was because again we have great heroes from our own stories to inspire us you can look at figures from English and European mythology like Beowulf and Cullen you can look at no more Mediterranean and Middle Eastern heroes like Hercules and Gilgamesh and even more beyond that you can look at almost any culture or Society in human history and you can find their myths and legends and you will find that undefeatable hero that stands against the darkness wielding only the sword in their hand or whatever weapon that to be if we want to look at a comic books which I always like to do Captain America is a great example of a fighter class because a lot of people look at the fighter class and they say well they're not magical in any way they're just supernatural powers yeah and if you look at Captain America no supernatural powers he's just a guy that's been given the abilities of the perfect human being and that gives them that ability to jump really far and lift really heavy objects and smash people with a shield yeah and fighters should be the ones that are capable of great feats of strength daring if not the fighter who else is capable of filling that role in Dungeons and Dragons and I think that especially Captain America is a great example of the type of resilience that fighters ought to have I think other great examples of fantastic fighters that are super tough and have amazing moves our characters like Xena the warrior princess oh yeah even Wonder Woman although she has some pretty supernatural abilities but at her core she's a fighter right um I even think of like other mythological figures like Boudicca of course in the Forgotten Realms I think the archetypal examples are brunner battle hammer and category but we would be remiss to not mention our Lord of the Rings examples which is Boromir who is a pretty essential fighter with his sword and shield yeah and is there another one I think Gimli and Legolas Gimli and leg yes describe two straight-up fighters and if you want to look at a ranged fighter Legolas is actually in most ways a fighter which fighters can take the option to use a bow and and Legolas is a great example of that yeah um other kind of more interesting characters that you could base on I like to think of Mulan from the Disney movie she's a really interesting character of someone that came from a completely different background learn to fight and showed bravery in the face of overwhelming odds I also like we've had a discussion about this but we personally kind of think that link from The Legend of Zelda is pretty much just a fighter with a whole bunch of cool magic items yeah you can argue a lot of different options there but most of his other things come from the magic items he has and his core elements he's a guy with a sword and shield who's really strong and faces faces evil with extreme bravery and that was actually like the defining thing of a fight like fighters are so often defined by that iconic weapon like I'm thinking of the master sword or a Thor's hammer or Excalibur or something like that and for a lot of time in D&D what made fighters so special was the fact that they could wield powerful magical weapons so it's an even cool way to get inspired about you know what kind of weapons and armor and equipment does your fighter wear what kinds of ideas can you find from that now that we've gotten inspired let's get into thinking about how we can actually build our fighter now the fighter is has a great advantage amongst all the classes in Dungeons & Dragons because they are really really straightforward overall and they're a great class for new players they're still getting used to the mechanics of rolling a 20-sided die because there's not a lot of extra rules beyond the most basic rules of the game that you need to keep in your head now one of the first things we want to talk about is ability scores mm-hmm now because of the versatility of fighters you're probably going to want to look at one of two depending on the type of fighter you want to be and those are strength or dexterity yeah strength is going to be ideal if you want to focus on heavy armor heavy weapons and particularly two-handed weapons like great swords malls and two-handed axes on the flip side of that though you can be a very dexterous fighter who uses finesse weapons or ranged weapons and it's a little bit more light armor and kind of dodges around the battlefield regardless of whether you choose to go with strength or dexterity the one that you don't pick you probably won't want to invest too much into because they're kind of mutually exclusive but both are really going to want to focus on their Constitution scores yeah just to get get your ability to take that damage up even higher yeah you have a detail hit die which is the second highest amongst the classes in the entire game combining that with a really high Constitution score means that you can be the type of fighter that gets hit with the disintegrates spell and survives which is pretty cool yeah beyond that though I mean you're probably not going to be the smartest person on the battlefield or the most charismatic really yeah I don't have to not have a lot of common sense to want to go into into the environments the fighters find themselves in so in general fighters are gonna find themselves with pretty low intelligence wisdom and charisma scores and you're gonna have to make the best of that remember just because your fighter is an intelligent doesn't mean they're dumber than a sack of bricks yeah and they don't necessarily need to be rude or uncouth but I do find that the great way to roleplay having a lower intelligence and charisma score is to be a very direct action-packed and almost using that impatience and foolhardy bravery as a way of still being able to be a larger-than-life character so which races work best for the fighter almost all of them yeah that's I mean really the fighters once again such an open class I personally we say this every time but the variant human is a great option yeah and especially because fighters really get a lot out of feats and kick-starting that expertise with a free feed at first level really really helps that said humans have some competition here from I think both the mountain dwarves and half-orcs especially if you want to be a melee fighter because half orcs and mountain dwarves as well as Dragonborn all get +2 strength right off the bat and the extra resilience traits that both the half orcs and the mountain dwarves get in the form of bonus Constitution and all other little ways that make them tougher like the dwarves poison resistance and the half works ability to get back up when you're is reduced to zero hit points makes them fantastically tough fighters yeah but you can also play there's a few races that would be better if you're playing a ranged fighters well well what would you recommend for a range fighter um well the Wood Elves are actually pretty decent for if you want to yeah get some dexterity going on there because they get +2 to their decks the extra proficiencies don't help you but dark vision is pretty key yeah and some extra skill proficiencies and movement related features because you will want to be quite nimble as an archer I would also recommend like foot halflings or strong heart path wings those also get +2 decks and beyond that you could almost make anything in the players handbook work there's nothing that's going to be especially bad for you except for maybe teeth wings yeah half elves me although I mean honestly if you really wanted there they can still work and from Volos guide to monsters once again there's a lot of great options in there as well yeah I think Alya we have a really strong fighter yeah and if your DM will let you an Eric okra to be able to fly right away yeah and the two vaccines is a pretty good range one with again another plus two decks class it's always a strong contender when you see it any of those races that get a +2 to strength or dexterity so let's talk about some of the proficiencies for the fighting class well you get every single piece of weapon and armor in the game yeah you really get to pick and choose here what type of weapon and what type of armor you want to use and there's no limit to that you can use pretty much anything yeah I think probably in general you're either gonna want to go right for the heaviest armor you can find or strap on a pair a suit of studded leather armor if you're going the dexstar dexterity route and then at that point you really you can wield any weapon and there's no reason not to stock up and bring a couple with you to the battlefield and really take advantage of that flexibility that you have by being proficient with every weapon in the game beyond that saving throws saving throws they get strengthen constitute strengthen Constitution which strength doesn't come up too much and Constitution can come up once in a while go so it's a good one you're gonna be tough as nails yeah yeah and then for skill proficiencies again fighters don't get too many skill proficiencies as a whole but I do think most fighters are gonna want to take proficiency in athletics or acrobatics at the very least yeah because that's really gonna help you make those amazing feats of strength athleticism and kind of flipping around the battlefield climbing up walls swimming and doing all that amazing stuff that fighters are known for from there I mean the skills that you pick is really up to you and the way you want to play your character yeah it's really more of a role playing option at that point so the fighter benefits from a number of different fighting styles that they can choose from and this is where you're really going to define the type of fighter you want to be yet your choice of weapon is a big deal your weapon is your best friend for some of you it might be your only friend when we look at the different fighting styles what weapon did you pick if you're gonna be a ranged fighter who uses a bow you're gonna want to pick the archery option which is super powerful because it's one of the only ways to get a bonus to hit beyond your provision yeah it's a plus to to hit with with ranged weapons so there's also the defense option which allows you to add a +1 to your AC if you're wearing armor this is a pretty good choice if you really don't want to commit to any style of weaponry yeah um the other one that's good for if you want to be a protector is going to be that style because you'll then to have the ability to impose disadvantage on attacks made against your allies as a reaction as long as you're carrying a shield now if you've made the choice of holding a big two-handed sword there's a great weapon fighting which will let you reroll those annoying ones and twos on damaged ice which can be very powerful for a character that's gonna smash things now if you want to use one weapon only in one hand there's the dueling style which gives you a +2 bonus to damage rolls made with one-handed weapons when you have no other weapon in your offhand but incidentally this still works if you're using shield interesting yeah and if you have a weapon in both hands then you use to weapon fighting your weapon fighting one of the main abilities that you're gonna get as a fighter at level two is action search which is a really cool ability that gives you a full extra action on your turn there's so many things that you can do with this and it's probably one of the most defining and iconic features of the fighter it's really what makes you an action hero now there's a few things to bear in mind with action search action search does not give you an entire extra turn you're still restricted by the normal amount of movement that you have on your turn when you use it you don't get an additional bonus action and you don't get an additional reaction however once you gain a couple levels and you get the extra attack class feature which allows you to attack twice and eventually three times and eventually four times if you use action surge and attack using your surged action and then use the attack action as your regular action you're effectively doubling the number of attacks you get to make this means that a fifth level fighter that uses both their action surge action and their main action to attack makes four attacks and a 20th level fighter makes eight you are a blender in human form basically if you want to kill everything in front of you use action surge and the amount of damage that this deals is absolutely staggering DMS you need actually watch it for this one because the fighter will kill that thing and it will only survive one round yes your big bad evil guy will not stand up toe to toe with a fighter that has eight attacks on its turned most of the time so speaking of really cool abilities that the fighter gets what about second wind bonus I can heal yourself recharges on a short rest that's pretty awesome yeah both action surge and second wind recharge on short rest which means that you'll have them many many times throughout the day and you can keep yourself alive in a desperate situation using second wind so deal tons of damage and heal yourself and and take a little rest and go again and just repeat until everything dies and the whole world it's a huge advantage of the fighter you don't have to worry about running out of sword swings you might have to worry about running out of arrows I suppose and next we get to feats which if you're playing a fighter you better like feats yeah the fighter is really unique because unlike most classes that get five ability score increases or feats the fighter gets seven it's getting an extra ability score increase happening at level six and again at level ten um this is a gigantic advantage yeah it means that if you're playing with feats you get a lot more options for how you want to customise your fighter if you are playing with just increasing your ability scores you can max have a lot of ability scores throughout the entire time you're using your fighter so the first ones that we want to talk about our great weapon master and sharpshooter because these are the feats that really make fighters incredible damage dealers yeah and really the difference there is whether or not again you're playing a melee fighter or ranged fighter both of these do something similar but one is for range two one is for melee yeah in both cases the feat allows you to take a minus five penalty to your attack role in exchange for a plus ten bonus to the damage role I don't know if you were counting from before but a fighter making a attacks means that's 80 damage minimum minimum which is crazy actually plus the die roll so 88 damage minimum plus their ability modifier so we're already up to well over a hundred points of damage from a 20th level fighter this is absolutely bonkers and so I think most fighters are gonna pick up one or two of these feats it really means that the two headed weapons and the ranged weapons are the dominant styles for most fighters and in case you're worried about like Oh minus five to hit that sounds deadly I assure you it pays off but if you just use it a whole bunch you're gonna hit and when you do that extra ten damage feels really nice and fighters have a lot of interesting tricks and strategies to give themselves advantage for example you can simply replace one of your attacks with the shove action to kick somebody prone and then that remaining seven attacks all have advantage now the next ones that we're going to talk about are two related ones as well which are pull our master and crossbow expert these Drive a little bit of a deeper specialization because you actually have to use either a weapon with reach or a polearm or a crossbow weapon in order to benefit from them specifically with the case of crossbow expert you actually need to use a hand crossbow but if you do get your hands on a hand crossbow or a port poem or a polearm taking these feats can make your fighter extremely deadly because both of these feats give you the ability to make one extra attack as a bonus action using your pole arm or your hand crossbow respectively as long as you use your main action to attack with that weapon already because these feats come online very early and they work every round if you're a level six fighter you've got three attacks per round boost that up to five with action surge you can really make a lot of damage happen very very quickly and this the this really is what makes the fighter such a powerful class if you're not interested in blowing the doors off of every single encounter by dealing the most damage possible there's a few other feats that you might want to consider like Sentinel and shield Master Sentinel pairs very well with a polearm master so if you are using that whole arm try looking at how those two combined it can be a really cool combination it makes you really tough to get away from because pull our master also has the benefit that when an enemy comes into your reach you get a free strike against them with an opportunity attack reaction and then at that point they actually stopped moving because of Sentinel and it means that your foes can't disengage from you without also getting attacked because you have the Sentinel fee also the Sentinel fear makes us so that if you're standing next and an enemy attacks them and not you you can use your reaction to attack that yeah it's really really potent yeah um shield master gives you a couple extra options with using a shield such as the ability to knock people prone and attack with your shield um and a few other ones that are worth looking at would be ones like war caster if you're planning on going as an eldritch night or even feats like durable inspiring leader you have so many opportunities to take extra feats I find most fighters are probably gonna go right for great weapon master sharpshooter and then build up from there but it's really worth having a look over at all the other feats in the players handbook because if there's one place where you get to explore the most of them it's the fighter class so let's talk about some of the martial archetypes for the fighter yeah when you get to level 3 your fighter will be able to select their martial archetype and the players handbook lists 3 core archetypes and these are gonna really give you an extra set of tools that are gonna ignite your fighters capabilities I find that again the marshal archetype is a pretty small amount of the overall package of the fighter but they're all really really cool so the first one we're gonna look at is the champion which is the very straightforward way to run a fighter yeah as a champion there's not a lot of choices that you have to make in contrast to the other two archetypes which have a lot of choices so the champion is a great archetype for a first time player that just wants something very very simple and doesn't want to have to worry about too much with character-building yeah and one of the great the benefits of running the champion is you get to create on in 19 or 20 and then later on in 18 19 or 20 yeah at very high levels of play you'll also get an additional fighting style so you get to pick two of the fighting styles we discussed earlier and the ability to regenerate your hit points when you're reduced to less than half of your total so if you want something where you don't really have to worry about filling in a whole bunch of blanks but you just want a fighter that's going to destroy things and be able to create a whole bunch and stay alive the champions a great choice after that we have the battle master which is my personal favorite yeah I think by far the battle master is the most popular of the fighter options the main reason being is that you get this huge rate of array of choices in the form of maneuvers yeah and maneuvers to me are kind of like the the little version of spells where it gives me things to choose and look at and say what's gonna be best in this situation yes I do I do kind of like that and it also really feels very swashbuckler II to me like with the ability to like trip people or like repost or shove them over like just kind of more more tactical than just smashing things with a sword yeah as a battle master you'll get this special feature called superiority dice which is a special pool of dice they start off as d eights but they eventually get a little bit higher than that and whatever you make an attack or hit with an attack it depends on the specific maneuver you can spend one of these dice to add an additional effect what's important to note is that these superiority dice are refreshed whenever you finish a short or long rest so they're almost always available to you and often times your maneuvers will will also impose a saving throw which is calculated as as 8 plus your proficiency bonus plus your choice of your strength or dexterity modifier generally the d8 that you spend is also added to the damage so it's a nice little damage boost what are some of your favorite maneuvers Kelly repost is one of my all-time favorites and I don't see why you wouldn't take it it's if somebody misses you when they attack you get to immediately use your reaction to attack them yeah this is really great when combined with a polearm master because it gives you so many ways to attack with your reaction yeah um I also really like trip attack because after as we mentioned earlier knocking someone prone gives your melee attacks advantage against them and having Tripp attack lets you do this without giving up the damage of your first attack either so it's a really great move is to trip someone and then finish them off with a bunch of advantage based attacks um I also really like a menacing attack yeah because this one works this one works with ranged attacks too in fact almost all of the maneuvers work whether you're going in melee or ranged there's only a few that are melee only pushing attack is really good too for controlling the battlefield I also really like maneuvering attack and commander strike if you want to be more of a leader or a warlord type character the last archetype that we're going to talk about is the Eldridge Knight which mixes a little bit of magic in with your fighter yeah if you're gonna play an elders Knight you might want to invest a little bit in your intelligence score or find a headband of intellect because you're gonna be casting arcane spells you get to select spells from the wizard spell list but you're only ever gonna learn up to fourth level spells so you get this extra little progression and a small number of specific spells that you know as well as a few can trips what I really like about the elder tonight is that you get to choose from the wizard list but only a vocation or adjuration spells which happen to be two of the best schools of magic but you once in awhile get to pick a spell from any school as well yeah and this just adds a little bit of extra flavor if you want to play a character that can smash things but you just want to have that extra ability of spell casting this is a great way to go it kind of mixes the best of both worlds yeah but you also get powerful options like being able to take the shield spell 4 + 5 AC to make you an even more potent defender or you can even imagine your fighter as a mage Slayer and take counter spell and the mage Slayer feat and then your terror - witches wizards and other nefarious agents of evil black magic and I think also it's there's something to be said for just being able to be like yeah you think I've just got the sword and shield well guess what fireball because action heroes are super cool guys and what is an action hero without an amazing sequence of Michael Bay style explosions and then they have to turn away and walk away from it in slow motion exactly now that we've looked at all the different ways that you can build your fighter and really end up as the ultimate master of the battlefield how are you gonna roleplay your hero well you want to be the action here that's for sure I think so I think the first place I would start off with as a fighter is making sure I am well versed in action-hero style one-liners yeah you need a good list of one-liners to yellow right before you kill every enemy and you're gonna be killing a lot of enemies yeah and I think the the biggest question in in all that too is in the midst of all this killing what is your fighter fighting for every action hero has like that overly dramatic like lifelong regret the dead wife or the child that's missing or the friend that they lost in battle and they're trying to like find themselves again I've got a special set of skills yeah exactly right and so having that motivation like and you know it doesn't necessarily have to be the dark and cheesy action hero style going back to Captain America he just loves his nation right and he and he has a very clear set of ideals and principles and he is willing to fight for those ideals and principles not in the same way as a paladin does it's not it's not the same as having like a divine quest right it's about having your principles and quite literally sticking to your guns yeah right I also think that fighters are an awesome way to like you know have your signature move or name your weapon right maybe even your fighter has a cool nickname themselves and based on their deeds right like maybe your fighter is the Slayer like some sort of admit I'm like they actually have skinned one of the beasts that they've slain and they wear it as a cloak or their sword is engraved in the likeness of one of the monsters they've slain yeah go all out when you're creating your your action hero fighter yeah make them larger-than-life make them extreme and just have fun with it let them run around punching the biggest monster they can find in the face and not even caring about it yeah the the fighter really should be your opportunity to do all those foolishly brave amazing stunts that you've seen all of your favorite action heroes and legends do um there's no room to be a coward when you're playing a fighter you've got to see what you want to get like immortality is right in front of you are you gonna take it probably right do you want to live forever yes you're not gonna if you're playing a fighter you're gonna die a pretty grisly death but it's gonna be awesome so this has been our class guide on the fighter we hope that you feel inspired and you're ready to go punch a demo Gorgon in the face take charge take heed and I wish you great fortune in the wars to come now of course I'd also love to hear about the epic heroics of your fighters in your campaigns at home and if you have any ideas about character advice or build tips or you just want to share your favorite badass one-liner we would love to hear about that down in the comments and if you're looking for hints and tips to create a truly awesome character we do have a video guide on that right over here and of course we review all the cool actions that you can take in combat in this video right up over here please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 382,698

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book, fighter, class, blender

Id: c5OYmLmKPEs

Length: 32min 12sec (1932 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 22 2018