D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook Reveal #2: "New Fighter"

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"The Fighter is now the weapon master equivalent of the Wizard" (with respect to versatility).

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OVERVIEW

The Fighter seems to have been mostly set in Playtest 7. Most of the features described carry over from there, though Brawler has gone and is replaced by Psi Warrior form Tasha's.

• Ranger and Fighter have the most new features.
• Subclasses provide "different levels of mechanical idiosyncracy".
• Weapon mastery (level1), tactical mind (2), tactical shift (5), studied attacks (13) -- all of these are as in PT7.
• second wind -- increased number of uses (as PT7)
• NEW: Level 9: Tactical master is like mastery of Armaments, but limited to push. sap, and slow. These properties are now always in the fighter's pocket, regardless of the weapon used. These properties add to Battle Master abilities.
• Fighting Styles: new options available: Blindfighting, Interception, Thrown Weapons, and Unarmed fighting (from Tasha's). (YAY for thrown weapons and unarmed fighting!). Protection style "improved".
• NEW: You can change your fighting style when you level up.
• NEW: All classes now get an Epic Boon at level 19, replacing the ASI.

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SUBCLASSES

Battle Master:

• they considered making the maneuvers the core of the fighter, but that would undermine the goal of different playstyles for each subclass.
• ambush, bait and switch, commanding presence, and tactical presence all brought over from Tasha's (as PT7)
• Student of War also gives you a skill proficiency (as PT7)
• Know your enemy has "limited number of uses per day" (PT7 had one, IIRC)

Champion:

• same core identity, focusing on crits.
• Remarkable Athlete: NEW. When you score a crit, you can move without receiving opportunity attacks.
• Remarkable Athlete: advantage on initiative and athletics (as PT7). This works with the new surprise rules, which give you an edge but "defang" the one-sidedness of surprise.
• Additional fighting style at 7, Heroic Warrior at 10, Survivor at 18 (as PT7).

Eldritch Knight:

• for players who played OD&D when Elf was a class...
• with the Psi Warrior are for people who want Fighter and X (mixed).
• no school restrictions (also for Arcane Trickster)
• NEW: you can now use an arcane focus.
• War Magic and Improved War Magic: as in PT7, but at level 18 you can replace two attacks with spells up to level 2 (I think this is new).

Psi Warrior:

• changes from Tasha: changes are primarily in rewording.

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NEW RULES
Epic Boon:

• you may choose a non-epic boon feat. They include an ASI that can go past 20, and include abilities go beyond what feats normally do.
• Example: Boon of Combat Prowess. Once per TURN, you can turn a miss to a hit. Another example: You have Truesight. Another example: when you attack or take the magic action, you also teleport.
• The PHB now has rules to go beyond level 20. Every time you hit some XP threshold, you can choose another Epic Boon (which could take one of your scores to level 30).

Other NEW rules clarifications:

• Heroic Inspiration which lets you re-roll any one die (may be one damage die, but not all damage dice).
• Surprise now gives you disadvantage on your initiative. (Champion, Assassin, and Barbarian are hard to surprise -- they won't have disadvantage on init).
• No school restrictions for Arcane Trickster or Eldrtich Knight.

 

[mellored]

• Example: Boon of Combat Prowess. Once per TURN, you can turn a hit to a miss.

You got that backwards. Turn a miss into a hit.

Meaning I can make a level 19 rogue with 8 Dex wielding an unproficent weapon and still sneak attack every turn. (Ignoring the 18 levels where I'm a failure).

 

[OB1]

What did you het wrong?
It is allowed to reroll their damage dice.

I thought you would be able to re-roll all the damage dice for a single effect (like 8d6 for fireball), but according to the summary above, it only allows you to reroll a single damage die which makes it a pretty bad use of inspiration. I'm going to house rule that you can use it to re-roll all of the damage dice.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I called it wrong on Heroic Inspiration allowing players to reroll all of their damage dice. Looks like I've got my first house rule!

Yeah, who is going to use it this way? At absolute best, you would be adding 11 damage once at the cost of not being able to reroll a save or attack or crucial skill.

 

[Kurotowa]

Meaning I can make a level 19 rogue with 8 Dex wielding an unproficent weapon and still sneak attack every turn. (Ignoring the 18 levels where I'm a failure).

Except not, because Sneak Attack requires you either have Advantage or have an adjacent ally and not have Disadvantage. Both of which using a non-proficient weapon would eliminate. Also you can only Sneak Attack with a finesse or ranged weapon, and Rogues already get proficiency with most of those. About all that hits the Venn Diagram of "not proficient" and "still qualifies for Sneak Attack" is a Longbow or one of the guns.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

-I'm guessing there's no longer the Ability Score Increase feat allowing +2 beyond 20 at 19th level, when they brought back epic boons.
-I wish they at least tried to bring up any additions to cantrips, I really want to know if they thought of bringing Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade as that would really add to the Eldritch Knight, and not Thunderclap (confirmed in UA) which you'd only use if surrounded by a lot of enemies.
-Surprised being a disadvantage to initiative rolls, it's less punishing than not being able to do anything for 1 round.
-Battlemaster Maneuver: Disarm + Push which you can now use with any weapon. Since disarming someone and pushing them away from their weapon is a neat thing to do, especially if you're using something like a rapier which normally can't push.
-I guess there's a viable tactic in trying to apply Sap as much as possible to as many opponents as possible.
-The Psi Warrior art looks like it might be what was the Elan species from 3.5e, and an albino of African descent.

 

[Kobold Stew]

-I'm guessing there's no longer the Ability Score Increase feat allowing +2 beyond 20 at 19th level, when they brought back epic boons.

They did say that it was possible to go to 30, and the last we saw Epic feats, the Ability score was restricted to certain abilities. That suggests there are other ways to get to 30.

-I wish they at least tried to bring up any additions to cantrips, I really want to know if they thought of bringing Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade as that would really add to the Eldritch Knight, and not Thunderclap (confirmed in UA) which you'd only use if surrounded by a lot of enemies.

Based on what we saw in the playtest documents, they are making a choice not to include GFB and Booming Blade in the PHB. That's a choice I'm fine with, but I know it will disappoint many people.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I thought you would be able to re-roll all the damage dice for a single effect (like 8d6 for fireball), but according to the summary above, it only allows you to reroll a single damage die which makes it a pretty bad use of inspiration. I'm going to house rule that you can use it to re-roll all of the damage dice.

Hmmh. I did not read the summary. I did not understand it that way from watching the video.

Im the first video they did talk about rerolling healing dice. It sounded as if you rerolled all of them.

 

[Oofta]

-I'm guessing there's no longer the Ability Score Increase feat allowing +2 beyond 20 at 19th level, when they brought back epic boons.

You don't have to take a boon, you can get an ability score to 30 if you want. Whether you can increase an ability score above 20 at lower levels wasn't addressed.

-I wish they at least tried to bring up any additions to cantrips, I really want to know if they thought of bringing Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade as that would really add to the Eldritch Knight, and not Thunderclap (confirmed in UA) which you'd only use if surrounded by a lot of enemies.
-Surprised being a disadvantage to initiative rolls, it's less punishing than not being able to do anything for 1 round.

That was the point. They felt that in too many cases it was too powerful to get a surprise round and that the combat could be over even before it started.

-Battlemaster Maneuver: Disarm + Push which you can now use with any weapon. Since disarming someone and pushing them away from their weapon is a neat thing to do, especially if you're using something like a rapier which normally can't push.
-I guess there's a viable tactic in trying to apply Sap as much as possible to as many opponents as possible.
-The Psi Warrior art looks like it might be what was the Elan species from 3.5e, and an albino of African descent.

 

[Kurotowa]

-The Psi Warrior art looks like it might be what was the Elan species from 3.5e, and an albino of African descent.

What timestamp is that at? When they're talking about the Psi Warrior at 32:32 there's a very normal looking freckled red-headed human, just with a little bit of psionic energy flare.

 

[Shardstone]

Great video, Fighter legitimately sounds a lot better, and I like the changes to Weapon Mastery at 9th level that just give them three masteries to use at any given time.