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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 6307893" data-attributes="member: 58197">It's not a question of what a fighter can be, but what abilities a fighter can get that nobody else can. D&D classes are built around archetypes.Any class can pick up feats and skills to survive in the wilderness. Only the ranger gets Natural Explorer and Land's Stride, because "wilderness expert" is the ranger archetype.Any class can be an angry tough guy. Only the barbarian gets Rage, because "berserker" is part of the barbarian archetype.So what's the fighter archetype? It's a tough question. Traditionally, fighter has been the catch-all: If you're a warrior, and you don't fit the archetype of any of the other warrior classes, we dump you in the fighter bucket and call it a day. To the extent the class has an archetype, it's "supreme weapons expert," which is fine and all, but useless when it comes to designing fighter non-combat abilities. What special talent can a supreme weapons expert bring to bear on anything outside combat? Social bonuses from impressing people with flashy sword tricks?Wizards's solution is to accept that there is no fighter archetype beyond weapons expert, give fighters a bunch of extra feats, and let them do what they like. Make your own archetype. That means fighters can pick up plenty of noncombat feats if they're so inclined. But it also means they can focus exclusively on combat, becoming single-minded killing machines.The alternative is to extend the fighter archetype to incorporate some noncombat elements. But that necessarily requires making it more specific. To me, "professional soldier" (or "professional warrior" if you prefer--the fighter need not have ever been part of an actual army) is the most natural extension of "supreme weapons expert."And what was that reason? It was because the gladiator was better at killing stuff. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of non-combat options for fighters.</blockquote>

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