Fighter

Class Traits
Role: Defender. You are very tough and have the exceptional ability to contain enemies in melee. Power Source: Martial. You have become a master of combat through endless hours of practice, determination, and your own sheer physical toughness. Key Abilities: Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, Constitution
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide, chainmail, scale; light shield, heavy shield Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, military melee, simple ranged, military ranged Bonus to Defense: +2 Fortitude
Hit Points at 1st Level: 15 + Constitution score Hit Points per Level Gained: 6 Healing Surges per Day: 9 + Constitution modifier Trained Skills: From the class skills list below, choose three trained skills at 1st level.  Class Skills: Athletics (Str), Endurance (Con), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Streetwise (Cha) Build Options: Battlerager fighter, brawling fighter, great weapon fighter, guardian fighter, tempest fighter Class Features: Combat Agility, Combat Challenge, Fighter Talent

“You’ll have to deal with me first, dragon!”

Description

Fighters are determined combat adepts trained to protect the other members of their adventuring groups. Fighters define the front line by bashing and slicing foes into submission while reflecting enemy attacks through the use of heavy armor. Fighters draw weapons for gold, for glory, for duty, and for the mere joy of unrestrained martial exercise.

Regardless of your level of skill and the specific weapons you eventually master, your motivations determine who you defend and who you slay. You could be a noble champion who pledges your blade to gallant causes, a calculating mercenary who cares more for the clink of gold than praise, a homeless prince on the run from assassins, or a blood-loving thug looking for the next good fight.

Your future is yours. When you unsheathe your weapon, what battle cry flies from your lips?

Fighter Overview

Characteristics: You are extremely tough, with a great Armor Class and lots of hit points. You have extraordinary resilience against physical attack. You don’t have much ability to fight at range, but you excel in melee combat. You have special abilities that make it dangerous for enemies to ignore you, so you can contain foes and keep them away from your friends.

Religion: Fighters naturally favor deities of war, combat, adventure, or valor. Bahamut and Kord are popular, as is Avandra. Many unaligned or evil fighters pay homage to Bane, the god of war.

Races: Fighters come from all races. Dragonborn, dwarves, and humans are the most common fighters.

Creating a Fighter

You can choose any fighter powers you like for your character, but fighters naturally fall into two basic groups: the great weapon fighter and the guardian fighter. All fighters rely on Strength. Fighters also need Constitution, Dexterity, or Wisdom, depending on which weapon they favor. See Fighters and Melee Weapons for more information.

Battlerager Fighter

You’re an unpredictable warrior who trusts the adrenaline rush of battle to pull you through as much as heavy armor does. Few aspects of life give you the charge that being in the heat of battle does, and you build up a fury when your enemies manage to hurt you. You thrive on taking it to those foes by wielding highly damaging weapons such as axes, maces, hammers, and picks. Strength is your focus, allowing you to make powerful attacks. You rely on Constitution to give weight to your attacks and to keep you in the fight. Like any other soldier, you count on brutal instinct to help you win the day, so Wisdom is important to you as well. The Battlerager Vigor class feature is designed to complement this build.

Suggested Feat: Power Attack (Human feat: Durable)

Suggested Skills: Athletics, Endurance, Intimidate

Suggested At-Will Powers: brash strike, crushing surge

Suggested Encounter Power: bell ringer

Suggested Daily Power: knee breaker

Brawling Fighter

You have an instinct for mayhem. You fight with a one-handed weapon and leave a hand open so you can punch, grab, and throw. Your body is your best weapon. Every battlefield holds opportunities for a brawling fighter, whethe

Class Feature: Brawler Style, Combat Agility

Suggested Feat: Inescapable Hold

Suggested Skills: Athletics, Endurance, Intimidate

Suggested At-Will Powers: grappling strike, slash and pummel

Suggested Encounter Power: bash and pinion

Suggested Daily Power: seize and stab

Great Weapon Fighter

You’re interested in dealing out the most damage you can. You prefer big two-handed weapons such as the greatsword or greataxe. You’re more interested in fighting hard than fighting smart. Your best ability score is definitely Strength. A good Constitution improves your ability to use high damage weapons, such as axes and hammers. Plus, extra hit points always help. Select powers that work well with twohanded weapons to make the most of this build.

Suggested Feat: Power Attack (Human feat: Action Surge)

Suggested Skills: Athletics, Endurance, Intimidate

Suggested At-Will Powers: cleave, reaping strike

Suggested Encounter Power: spinning sweep

Suggested Daily Power: brute strike

Guardian Fighter

To fight better, you fight smarter. You’re willing to trade offense for superior defenses and better ability to control the battlefield around you. You fight with a heavy shield and a good one-handed weapon, such as a longsword, f lail, or battleaxe. Like the great weapon fighter, you make Strength your best ability score. After that, prioritize your Dexterity to take advantage of weapons that can be improved by Dexterity-based feats, or your Wisdom to make the most of the combat superiority class feature. You’re hard to hurt and hard to move away from. Select powers that make use of your one-handed weapon and shield, as well as take advantage of your higher Dexterity score.

Suggested Feat: Weapon Focus (Human feat: Human Perseverance)

Suggested Skills: Heal, Intimidate, Streetwise

Suggested At-Will Powers: sure strike, tide of iron

Suggested Encounter Power: covering attack

Suggested Daily Power: comeback strike

Tempest Fighter

Rather than a shield or a big weapon, you have specialized in fighting using a weapon in each hand. You see it as the best of both worlds—given the right training, you can deliver good damage and make up for the lack of a shield with deft parrying. Strength remains any soldier’s bread and butter, and good battlefield awareness—Wisdom—is a must. You also rely on speed, maneuverability, and agility—Dexterity—to get your dirty work done. Constitution is a tertiary ability for you, granting useful staying power against foes not so easily fooled by your fancy footwork and feints. The Tempest Technique class feature is designed to complement this build.

Suggested Feat: Two-Weapon Fighting (Human feat: Two-Weapon Threat)

Suggested Skills: Athletics, Intimidate, Streetwise

Suggested At-Will Powers: dual strike, footwork lure

Suggested Encounter Power: funneling flurry

Suggested Daily Power: tempest dance

Fighter Class Features

Some of your most important characteristics are the ability to wear very good armor, your exceptional hit point total, and your mastery of all military weapons. In addition, you have three unique class features.

Combat Agility

This class feature replaces the Combat Superiority class feature. You gain the power Combat Agility.

Combat Challenge

In combat, it’s dangerous to ignore a fighter. Every time you attack an enemy, whether the attack hits or misses, you can choose to mark that target. The mark lasts until the end of your next turn. While a target is marked, it takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls if its attack doesn’t include you as a target. A creature can be subject to only one mark at a time. A new mark supersedes a mark that was already in place.
In addition, you gain the Combat Challenge power.

Combat Challenge
Combat Challenge Fighter Class Feature You attack an enemy that attempts to ignore you with a vicious assault. At-Will Martial, Weapon Immediate Interrupt Melee weapon Effect: Whenever an enemy marked by you is adjacent to you and shifts or makes an attack that does not include you, you can make a melee basic attack against that enemy.

Fighter Talents

Choose one of the following fighter talents.

Battlerager Vigor Whenever you hit an enemy with a melee or a close attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier, plus any temporary hit points normally granted by the power. You gain the hit points only after the attack is resolved.

If you use an invigorating fighter attack power and miss every target with it, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier.

When wearing light armor or chainmail, you gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls with melee and close weapon attacks whenever you have temporary hit points. This bonus increases to +2 if you’re wielding an axe, a hammer, a mace, or a pick.

Brawler Style While you wield a weapon in your primary hand and your off hand is free (see the sidebar), you gain a +1 bonus to AC and a +2 bonus to Fortitude.

In addition, you gain a +2 proficiency bonus with unarmed attacks and a +2 bonus to grab attacks and attacks to move a creature grabbed by you. These bonuses increase to +4 at 11th level and +6 at 21st level.

When attacking with a spiked gauntlet, you do not gain the Brawler Style proficiency bonus with unarmed attacks, even if the Brawler Style proficiency bonus is higher than the proficiency bonus of the spiked gauntlet. However, you retain the bonus to grab attacks and to attacks to move a creature grabbed by you.

One-handed Weapon Talent

When using a one-handed weapon, you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls.

Tempest Technique When you wield two melee weapons, you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls with weapons that have the offhand property. You gain Two-Weapon Defense as a bonus feat, even if you don’t meet the prerequisites.

When wearing light armor or chainmail, you gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls with melee and close weapon attacks when you are wielding two weapons. This bonus increases to +2 with weapons that have the off-hand property.

Two-handed Weapon Talent

When using a two-handed weapon, you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls.

Fighters and Melee Weapons

Fighters master intricacies of melee weapon skill that other characters can’t match. Unlike other classes, fighters have many encounter powers that work better when used with specific groups of melee weapons (see the table below). Powers associated with a weapon group favor a particular ability score mix, so that fighters with high Constitution are likely to want to use axes, hammers, or picks, while fighters with high Dexterity are more likely to favor heavy blades, light blades, flails, or spears. Certain weapon feats that provide optimized abilities for specific groups of weapons favor the same ability score mixes, so the list below notes the melee weapon groups and the ability score that is most likely to help you optimize your fighter abilities with that weapon group.

Melee Weapon Groups and Associated Statistics
Axe: Constitution and higher than normal Strength (battleaxe, handaxe, greataxe, halberd)
Flail: Dexterity (flail, heavy flail, spiked chain)
Hammer: Constitution (maul, throwing hammer, warhammer)
Heavy Blade: Dexterity (bastard sword, falchion, glaive, greatsword, longsword, scimitar, scythe)
Light Blade: Dexterity alone is sometimes enough (dagger, katar, rapier, short sword, shuriken, sickle)
Mace: Constitution (club, great club, mace, morningstar)
Pick: Constitution [and rarely Dexterity] (war pick)
Polearm: Wisdom [and rarely Dexterity] (glaive, halberd, longspear)
Spear: Dexterity (javelin, longspear, spear)
Staff: Constitution (quarterstaff)

Most melee weapon groups, with the exception of light blades, require some element of Strength to access the weapon feats that improve their importance. (Light blades have some feats that require only Dexterity, though other light blade feats also require a modicum of Strength.) The list of weapon groups above mentions the ability score other than Strength that helps access the feats that improve a specific group of weapons, as well as fighter powers that are tied to specific groups of weapons.

Strength is mentioned in the list only if a weapon group has unusually high requirements for Strength.

A few weapons, including most polearms, are part of multiple groups and can therefore be approached from different optimal ability score builds.

Fighter Powers

Your powers are called exploits. Some work better for great weapon fighters and some work better for guardian fighters, but you can choose any power you like when you reach a level that allows you to choose a new power. The choice of weapon you make also provides benefits to certain fighter powers.

Exploits

Level 1 At-Will
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Level 1 Encounter
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Level 1 Daily
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Level 2 Utility
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Level 3 Encounter
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Level 5 Daily
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Level 6 Utility
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Level 7 Encounter
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Level 9 Daily
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Level 10 Utility
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Level 13 Encounter
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Level 15 Daily
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Level 16 Utility
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Level 17 Encounter
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Level 19 Daily
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Level 22 Utility
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Level 23 Encounter
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Level 25 Daily
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Level 27 Encounter
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Level 29 Daily
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