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.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

I am concerned about the ability to a degree though.

If you have been a fighter who has been mainly using a battleaxe to Topple enemies, then at level 9 you will have a total of 4 masteries applied to one weapon. If you have been a fighter who has been mainly using a Longsword to sap enemies, then at level 9 you will have three options, because Sap is something you already have.

I might just let it work like when skills overlap, and let a fighter choose a different mastery to have on their list, so all fighters have 4, not just those that were using specific weapons beforehand.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Longsword and Battle-Axe have different default Masteries. Which is what you would be using with them for the first 8 levels.

Very true, but I don't like the idea that a player may regret having played 8 levels of "I took up my Father's Sword..." to find that if they swapped to a different weapon they would just get immediately more options. It is a minor quibble, but since it is so easy to fix, I don't see a reason not to do so.

 

[Kurotowa]

If you have been a fighter who has been mainly using a battleaxe to Topple enemies, then at level 9 you will have a total of 4 masteries applied to one weapon. If you have been a fighter who has been mainly using a Longsword to sap enemies, then at level 9 you will have three options, because Sap is something you already have.

A few points worth considering.

The Push, Sap, and Slow traits are mostly in the 1H weapon and ranged weapon types. A 2H weapon Fighter or a DW finesse Fighter will never encounter an overlap. So the scope of characters who will encounter this is limited.

Three is not massively smaller than four. It's not a huge power gap, it's a small one. And if there's a sword and board Fighter who really wants Topple, they'll already be using a Battleaxe or Trident. One with a Longsword may not miss it.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. If you want to offer Fighters a greater range of Mastery options, without just letting them cherry pick the absolutely best, I don't know how you'd do it without some collision or inefficiency for someone. The previous version was far worse, IMO, and I'm one of those people who gave it a low rating. Unless someone offers a brilliant (and balanced) alternative, I'll accept this as the "least bad" solution.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

PSI Warrior is a weird choice to replace Brawler. It's like a weaker Battlemaster (you get back one die on a short rest! enjoy the one fight where you have a subclass!) with Int reliancy (did Arcane Archer not teach WotC anything?). It's going to look real bad when flipping one page back would get you Battlemaster instead.

Okay, it does get actual higher-level features (flight, status recovery), and a fun but unfortunately reverse-scaling free 'telekinesis any Large object regardless of weight' (but the combat usage of it depends on how GM rules dropping things on people, and scales awfully because it's an action and you're a Fighter who is supposed to be about their extra attacks).

It just looks really frustrating, because to get 4 maneuver dice back, you need 4 short rests, uhhh. Even if you have plentifully spaced downtime, your character concept has to be 'the guy that naps all day'.

 

[Kobold Stew]

PSI Warrior is a weird choice to replace Brawler. It's like a weaker Battlemaster (you get back one die on a short rest! enjoy the one fight where you have a subclass!) with Int reliancy (did Arcane Archer not teach WotC anything?).

Okay, it does get actual higher-level features (flight, status recovery), and a fun but unfortunately reverse-scaling free 'telekinesis any Large object regardless of weight' (but the combat usage of it depends on how GM rules dropping things on people, and scales awfully because it's an action and you're a Fighter who is supposed to be about their extra attacks).

I would have picked Rune Knight before Psi Warrior (though I've never played either, so what do I know). I think the "psionic theme" won out -- between GOO Warlock, Psi warrior, Soulknife, and Aberrant Sorcerer (plus, as I hope, the Telepathic and Telekinetic feats from Tashas), there is now a suite of Psionic options.

(Is this how I would have chosen to do Psionics? No, but I'm happy to have something).

 

[Kobold Stew]

Plus (bonus) now we know that the Unarmed fighting style will be in the PHB, so an unarmed build for any subclass is now possible.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

I would have picked Rune Knight before Psi Warrior

I think, picking PSI over Rune Knight, when both are from Tasha, is literally a case of deciding that the actually good subclass should stay in there as paid content, people can have the bad one. Which is a bit grating, because Rune Knight would offer a different resource/action economy to consider (compared to Battle Master), while PSI is just BM (but the recovery is all the worst ways).

I think the "psionic theme" won out -- between GOO Warlock, Psi warrior, Soulknife, and Aberrant Sorcerer

Good point.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

On weapon masteries... in 6 months of my playtest campaign, my warrior players are playing a Dex dual-wielder (so they pick a Finesse Vex + Nick weapon, done, not exactly a thrilling selection) and the Barbarian just picked Glaive for Graze so he doesn't have to think about things (and is playing a World Tree Barb, so he'll get Push automatically later on anyway).

So we have gotten literally zero occasions of weapon-swapping for a weapon mastery effect.

 

[overgeeked]

Plus (bonus) now we know that the Unarmed fighting style will be in the PHB, so an unarmed build for any subclass is now possible.

Unless they changed what the fighting style does, upped the monk’s unarmed damage and/or gave them more attacks, it also ports in the problem that fighters are now better at unarmed combat than the monk. To be a good monk, the monk now needs to dip into fighter or take a feat to get that fighting style.

 

[TiQuinn]

I like popcorn initiative: at the end of turn, the player chooses who goes next, like passing around a bowl of popcorn. It allows the party to set up combos and makes the combat more fluid.

Love that name for it.

This is my favorite initiative system too since I first encountered it playing Sentinels. Definitely creates an interesting strategy around who to pass the initiative on to and who goes last.