The Fighter's Identity

[Klaus]

In the recent AMA session he had on reddit, [MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION] mentioned that the Fighter might need a broader identity beyond "the best at fighting" (for instance, the Wizard is also a sage, a master of lore who knows tons of esoteric stuff). This got me thinking.

In earlier editions, Fighters attracted followers. They led by example, and others were attracted by his prowess. In 2e, the Dragon Kings supplement for Dark Sun clearly posited the Fighter as the master of warfare (a mix of what the Fighter and the Warlord are in 4e).

What if the Fighter could be not only the best at beating the tar out of his opponents with weapons, but also have an innate understanding of tactics, morale?

What say you?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

like it.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

What if the Fighter could be not only the best at beating the tar out of his opponents with weapons, but also have an innate understanding of tactics, morale?

I think that's the answer that most closely resembles a lot of "fighters" in fantasy stories--analogous to the wizard as sage bit. Conceptually, this would mean that the fighter would be killing the warlord and taking ... some of his stuff. I guess the cleric, paladin, bard, ranger, maybe rogue, etc. will get to rifle through the leftovers for anything they want.

The trick is determining how much of this gets embedded into the fighter class versus how much goes into the various themes--again, not unlike the wizard versus sage/lore-related themes. To work, there needs to be some key bit, preferably working off of Str, that the fighter always gets, and then leave the more questionable pieces to the themes.

I'm somewhat partial to Str-based knocking around of furniture, opponents, etc. with effects geared towards making the whole party better. The fighter hits the orc and knocks him over the table, where the rogue gets an easier shot at him. Then next round he swings at the other orc, forcing him back away from the wizard. Of course, for Next you need a version of such battlefield control that works well in theatre of the mind.

Out of combat, this would translate into some kind of "drill leader" type of option.

 

[Frostmarrow]

What's there to say? You are absolutely right. I'd like to see three paths that a fighter might walk (or avoid completely):

Charisma: Attract followers
Wisdom: Boost morale
Intelligence: Tactical advantage

A fighter can benefit from mental stats (or opt to just fight) and pick abilities that are supported by a higher score in Charisma, Wisdom or Intelligence. Maybe a measly +1 is enough to unlock the abilities, so as to avoid severe cases of MAD.

 

[Sunseeker]

I'm still deeply negative about henchmen and followers, but I could certainly see the Fighter as covering some of the Warlord's martial buffing/debuffing abilities. Battle commands to grant THP, extra actions, movement, bonuses or negatives; I believe these are all within the domain of the fighter as a martial commander.

However, I see a lot of these abilities as interrupt-style things, such as telling people to look out or jumping in the way of a blow, so it may not make combat faster.

EDIT: to clarify, I'm not saying combat should emphasize speed over all else, it should emphasize quality. If some out-of-turn abilities are needed to properly represent certain classes and forms of fighting, then so be it. But we should be sure that these things are special enough to warrant their out-of-turnness.

 

[Salamandyr]

The thing is, the fighter, as originally conceived is a broad category that doesn't fit in with increasingly niche oriented classes. The fighter, or fighting man as he was originally called, was just a name for any of a broad class of archetypes whose primary trait was that they tended to overcome their enemies by force of arms. Taking this view, Hercules, Aragorn, Lancelot, D'Artagnan, Conan, Li Mu Bai, Riggs and Murtaugh, and every Jet Li character ever created are fighters, even though by background, style, weapon choice, and even period, entirely different characters.

That's actually not a bad way to make a character, especially in a simple game.

But even before publishing, the creators started creating classes that narrowed this broad focus in specific instances...the ranger, the monk, the paladin, then the Barbarian and Cavalier. (if you think those are bad, you should see some of the overpowered samurai builds in early Dragon mags) So if the character you wanted to play fit one of these narrow concepts, hurray, you got special powers, but if your character was an archetype not catered to by a specific class, you had to fall back on the simple fighter (poor, poor D'Artagnan).

The 3rd edition trend seems to have been to say that "Fighter is as hyperspecialized as the other classes. He's the hyperfocused combat guy who can't do anything else" which isn't, and has never really been an archetype.

So the trick now is to take the fighter back to its roots and let it be the class you can create any kind of character within. Fafhrd, Aragorn, Lancelot, Li Mu Bai, Caine from Kung Fu...let me be able to make all these guys as fighters. you can have the other classes if you want them, but they shouldn't be necessary.

 

[Stormonu]

One of the problems with giving the fighter the warlord's debuffs is this is still stuff from the combat pillar. He really needs some stuff to help in the other two pillars.

 

[CleverNickName]

What if the Fighter could be not only the best at beating the tar out of his opponents with weapons, but also have an innate understanding of tactics, morale?

What say you?

I think you are on the right track. Fighters don't have to be "just" fighters...they can be leaders, commanders, military tacticians, and mercenaries too. Perhaps combining the 3E Leadership feat with the BECM Weapon Mastery rules would get us fairly close to that ideal.

But I hope we can stay away from Wuxia superhero superpowers...that's a bit too much of a flavor change for my taste.

 

[jadrax]

But I hope we can stay away from Wuxia superhero superpowers...that's a bit too much of a flavor change for my taste.

That is one place where I think Themes can take up some of the slack. I don't want an intrinsically magical Fighter Class, but am cool with a Fighter Class taking a Theme such as Avenger or Hexblade.

 

[CleverNickName]

That is one place where I think Themes can take up some of the slack. I don't want an intrinsically magical Fighter Class, but am cool with a Fighter Class taking a Theme such as Avenger or Hexblade.

We've actually been playtesting something along these lines...we gave the playtest wizard's theme to the fighter, to make a poor-man's Hexblade. It required us to hand-wave a few things (like whether or not a non-spellcasting character could pick cantrips at all), but we just squinted at the rules and went with it.

The result? Clunky, but playable. Not my cuppa tea, mind you, but the player was satisfied with the result.