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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7844467" data-attributes="member: 996">That's really getting into the whole point of 5e, which was, very briefly/30k-ft-view, to be D&D again.For the fighter, that meant being unambiguously "Best At Fighting!!! (...with weapons...) (...and without magic)."  Of course, "best" doesn't mean better than everyone else - that'd be unbalanced, and we're not doing niche protection anymore - just that no one else is better at fighting when measured before magic gets into it, and while they're each using weapons for the comparison.  So the monk can be better at fighting without weapons, and the Paladin can be better at fighter with weapons & magic (Smite!) together, and full casters can be more versatile and powerful in and out of combat when using spells, all without intruding on that Best At Fighting! mandate.The fighter's first two levels, indeed, the whole class, reflect that mandate.  It's a very solid design, that way, really.  You start with proficiency all armor (though you'll only wear one kind at a time, obviously) and all weapons (virtually all) and  a Combat Style, so you can be Best At Fighting (with (a particular sort of) weapon (so you'll want to pick up the best one of that sort of weapon you can and use it more or less exclusively (so what are all those other proficiencies for? (emergencies?))), and Second Wind, which, at first level, makes you terribly resilient, potentially all but doubling your available hit points in one encounter between short rests, and then hardly scales at all thereafter (which is not really Best At Fighting, but it's a limited-use ability so you can't complain the fighter doesn't have any, and it nicely evokes the fighter's greater toughness & general superiority at 1st level in the classic game, in a way that, as in the classic game, rapidly becomes less & less relevant). Then there's Action Surge, which establishes the Fighter at Best At Fighting in the sense of having competitive DPR just from attacking (with weapons, without magic), by the simple expedient of attacking more often, without having to actually be any better at attacking than anyone else focused on being good at that sort of thing (which, once you factor in attacking without weapons, and with magic, is, well, everyone).So, yeah, the class design really had little to do with modeling an archetype in the fiction, it mostly had to do with compromising among various past editions of the game.  The 1e fighter was a simple badass with more STR bonuses, more Con bonuses, strictly superior armor & weapons, and superior attack & save progressions.  The 2e fighter was a laser-focused specialist with superior hit/damage & attack progression with one weapon, usually used in pairs, or perhaps a single bow, for obscene damage throughput.  The 3e fighter was a highly-customizable collection of bonus feats (more than twice the baseline feats, more feats than any other class), and, well class-tier 5.  The 4e fighter was a very effective defender (arguably "first among equals" in that primary role), who enjoyed resource parity with casters, and had more exploits (maneuvers in 5e parlance, or 'powers' for comparison to the spells et al of other classes) to choose from than any other class (until Essential when the wizard just kept getting more and more new spells and pulled ahead in the net power count, FWIW).The compromise among those prior incarnation is the 5e fighter.  Bonus feats & combat style evoke the 3e fighter, Extra Attack, (poorly) Indomitable & (tenuously) Second Wind the 1e, Extra Attack & Combat Style the 2e, and Second Wind & Action Surge the 4e.  Similarly, the Champion reflects the 1e & 2e fighter, the BM the 3e & 4e fighter (and, poorly*, the 4e Warlord and non-casting Ranger), and the EK the classic 1e Elven Fighter/magic-user.*  though, really, for a single sub-class with 16 maneuvers trying to cover all the bases of three full classes with like over a thousand among them, does so better than we've any right to expect</blockquote>

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