Does D&D need a fighter class?

[Derren]

Fighting is a skill, and it is a defining feature.

Not in D&D as everyone can fight.

 

[Derren]

In my personal opinion, the OP fails at the start when he declares the Fighter can't be too good at combat "for balance reasons".

That is the current design paradigm. A lot of work is put into class balance to ensure that in combat all classes perform equally well. Maybe 5E will be a little less strict in this regard than 4E, but considering that there are still many discussions about balance, both from players and WotC themselves, it is still high on the priority list.
So while I have no problem with classes which are much better at fighting than others (and classes which are very bad at fighting), this is how D&D is designed since at least 2E.

 

[Quickleaf]

I think some of the problem may be that other classes have been stealing the fighter's stuff over the years...Or, more accurately, new ideas were being generated and put into new classes when those ideas really belonged with the fighter archetype. For example, a fighter is broad enough to encompass...

Cavaliers (mounted fighter)
Knights (challenge-based fighter)
Warlords (leader fighter)

For example, the only 3e character I played was a Knight (the class), joining in at 11th level near the end of a friend's campaign. I could do all kinds of cool (combat) things that probably belonged with a core Fighter class rather than being placed in a new class altogether...

Shielding allies & absorbing damage done to them
Get foes to attack me preferentially
Make foes afraid, even giants!
Make allies unafraid
Create an aura of difficult terrain

 

[Ahnehnois]

Not in D&D as everyone can fight.

Everyone can also sneak, talk, investigate, cogitate, and pile up treasure. The only really broad type of action that not everyone can do is cast spells. I don't see that a class in D&D is defined by being able to do things that other classes cannot do.

 

[Hussar]

I was working under the assumption it is intended to be interpreted as "the head of the dog"

Heh. I'm old and slow. Can't keep up with these newfangled acronyms ...

 

[Derren]

Everyone can also sneak, talk, investigate, cogitate, and pile up treasure. The only really broad type of action that not everyone can do is cast spells. I don't see that a class in D&D is defined by being able to do things that other classes cannot do.

If the only thing you can do can be done equally well by everyone else it is not much of an definition.

 

[Lanefan]

Note that for the following when I say "fighter" I'm referring to all the warrior-type classes e.g. paladin, cavalier, knight, ranger, etc. as well as the straight fighter class.

Not in D&D as everyone can fight.

The problem is that everyone else other than the fighter fights too well, or can be made to fight too well, relative to the fighter.

A simple, if not very elegant, solution might be to radically weaken combat buffs and combat-related magic items when used on/by a non-fighter. In 3e this would largely solve the CoDzilla problem in a heartbeat; all those fancy buffs don't help the caster much, they have to go on the actual people who know what to do with them. In any edition magic weapons and armour simply aren't as useful to a non-fighter - a mace that is +3 when used by a fighter type might be only +1 in the hands of a cleric.

And yes the game needs a fighter class.

Lan-"without the fighter class I'd have no class at all, and some would say there'd be no difference"-efan

 

[Hussar]

And just to add to the "everyone can fight" theme, I'm not really sure that's true. Or rather, what do you mean by "fight"?

Sure a wizard can deal damage but would you count fireball as fighting? Rogues too can deal damage but need help to get advantage.

Fighters should just straight up deal damage. And then things like feats and backgrounds can add in the other two pillars.

 

[Ahnehnois]

If the only thing you can do can be done equally well by everyone else it is not much of an definition.

In general, other characters shouldn't be able to fight quite as well as fighters. In general, across all editions, they don't.

 

[Umbran]

I think it is good to have an "vanilla" version of all four basic types.