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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thundering_Dragon" data-source="post: 2400680" data-attributes="member: 33723">Well after reading the comments here, I would agree the straight Fighter has his uses.  I still doubt he would ever be as useful to a party as a Barbarian, though.  Outside of combat, the Fighter is useless, and inside combat he's no better a tank and certainly no better a damage dealer than a Barbarian.   The archery point is well taken, but I think the best archers need tactical skills like Spot, Hide/Move Silently and so forth to really shine, which the Fighter lacks.  The problem I have with defensive builds is every intelligent foe that fights a party will target the weak, fragile targets first, not the shining bastion of steel bulging with muscle.   The only way for tanks to reasonably divert the attention of enemy combatants is to deal enough damage to be as much or more of a threat as the supporting artillery and specialty characters behind the tank, and Barbarians are much better at this than Fighters from what I have seen.  The superior mobility and higher hitpoints they have also plays a large role in limiting enemy threats. The Fighter may be better in certain specific scenarios due to specialty feat chains, but can that really outweigh the overall superior contribution a Barbarian will make to a party over the course of a campaign?  And in certain situations, the Barbarian is flat out better than a Fighter, noticably against casters or creatures requiring Will saves (like Illithids) to survive against, or anything with Sneak Attack damage.    PS I will grant two specifications on this debate, though.  One being that the higher the point buy or rolls for a character, the better the Barbarian is, and the worse the Fighter becomes.  And second, multiclassing is by far the best option available.  I always prefer a Fighter/Barbarian to a straight class of either.  But the question is, in a campaign where you can be only one, is a Fighter that much better than a Barbarian in combat to justify his uselessness outside of combat?  If the Fighter even is better than a Barbarian in combat, as well.</blockquote>

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