Dexterity-Based Fighter in 13th Age?

[Morty]

If I wanted to make a Fighter who uses Dexterity as his primary melee attribute in combat and relies on light armour rather than heavy, how should I go about it? It looks like it would require house-rules.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

You would need to construct a new class. The fighter doesn't have mobile options, and I don't see why the Dex-based fighter needs to be as tough as the heavily-armored fighter.

 

[Uskglass]

You may consider a fighter/rogue multiclass, as per rules provided in 13th True Ways.

The other option would be re-flavour: the character is mechanically a rogue, but is portrayed as a lightly armoured fighter. So for instance the weapon may 'look like' a longsword or an axe, but it actually works as a rogue weapon for attacks and damage.

Alternatively, if the GM agrees to that, you may take a power / talent or so from the rogue selection for your fighter.

 

[Dungeoneer]

As a fan of dex-based martial classes, I feel your pain. 13th Age is a relatively young game so it doesn't support the dozens of builds that D&D does. AFAIK there's no officially supported dex-based-fighter out of the box.

Your options are reskinning another class or multi-classing, as suggested above. Of course there's lots of unofficial material to dive into. You can find a bunch of user-created classes at the Vault of the 13th Age.

If you are inclined to try your hand at design, you could always roll your own. 13th Age is much more amenable to this than other systems I could mention. And we can hope that one day there will be an official Duelist.

 

[Morty]

As a fan of dex-based martial classes, I feel your pain. 13th Age is a relatively young game so it doesn't support the dozens of builds that D&D does.

Yeah, but if you ask me, a nimble and skilled warrior really shouldn't be an exotic option you need to wait to use. It's some unfortunate D&D baggage in a system that otherwise seems refreshingly willing to ditch it.

Anyway, I thought I might be able to just swap the attribute bonuses to attacks and maybe the weapons table, but it is true that the class features are sort of geared towards the "stand, hit hard and shrug off blows" style of combat. Maybe I could poach some elements of other classes to replace Extra Tough and Threatening?

 

[Baumi]

Why not simply take a Ranger? The Class has the highest light Armor AC, can use Dex for Melee Attacks (sadly Damage still uses Str) and has quite nasty Combat-Talents. If you ignore the Rangery Style Talents then it simply is a light Armored, Dex using Fighter.

As a GM I would just let the Fighter, Ranger and Barbarian use Dex for Melee if they want (it is assumed that you use your highest Stat for Combat and Spells). Or let you take a Feat like "Melee Training" to let you use any Stat you want.

By the way, the Bard can already use Dex for Melee (inkl. Damage) and has a Maneuver-like System that also trigers in Close Combat.

Also there is the Monk which works with light or no Armor and uses Dex as Attack Stat.

 

[Wes_VTX]

I'd agree with Baumi - the Ranger is a capable Dex based fighter option, particularly if you go with ranged attacks, as light armor Dex based fighters are often based.

One house rule that seems to me be an easy, acceptable change: Replace Ranger ex Cathedral Class Talent with the Commander class Combat Maneuver talent. It gives the Ranger a flexible attack option and yet keeps the Dex based basic attack to hit roll. I have not used this house-rule but it seems pretty cut and paste easy.

I've been playing a 13th Age Ranger for 5 levels now and to be honest, he hasn't really tracked anything. But he's been an effective Dex based, ranged attack, terrain stunt using fighter type.

 

[Morty]

I don't really want all the baggage that comes with the Ranger class - particularly since it looks like I'd have to either use two weapons or have an animal companion if I wanted to be a melee warrior. I want a swordsman and martial artist who uses dexterity rather than strength.

 

[Uskglass]

I don't really want all the baggage that comes with the Ranger class - particularly since it looks like I'd have to either use two weapons or have an animal companion if I wanted to be a melee warrior. I want a swordsman and martial artist who uses dexterity rather than strength.

Not necessarily. You can have a single 2hd weapon for d10 damage and use it with Dex for attacks. Then pick talents like Lethal Hunter and First Strike which are very combat oriented and possibly Tracker for terrain stunts.
That should make for a good offensive martial character.
If that doesn't do it for you then it's either: rogue or multiclassing or houseruling/homebrew as far as I can see.

 

[Wes_VTX]

Lethal Hunter (+ Adv feat), First Strike (+ Adv feat), and Favored Enemy class talents all work with melee attacks and (if used properly) would allow your first attack at a chosen enemy to crit on a 12 die roll or better, then the rest the fight could be 14, 15, or 17 - again with proper planning. But I'll admit such a Ranger build is kind of a one-trick-pony, focused only on melee fighting. And it would be 5th level before all this worked against humanoid enemies.

But if you want a melee fighter who uses Dex instead of Str, you might want to look at the Druid Shifter and/or Warrior Druid builds. Don't let the class name fool you. A druid can be built to be a tough fighter with no spell casting ability at all. There is the small baggage-type issue of turning into different predatory animal shapes if you want to be particularly deadly, At Will if you're an Adept, but other than that it's a Dex based melee fighter.

And Rogue (as mentioned above) is not a terrible option either.