Summary

  • Analyze the fighter's build and weapon choices to properly challenge them in combat.
  • Deal with melee fighters by focusing on ranged combat and flanking strategies.
  • Enhance armor class, give enemies resistance, or use many enemies to challenge fighters effectively.

Fighters, or whatever name the game gives them, are the bread and butter of every tabletop RPG, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons is no exception. They're essentially the guy who is just good at fighting, capable of using many weapons and focused on non-magical combat — though your subclass affects that last part.

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Sometimes, Dungeons & Dragons' Wizar♏ds can become a bit too much to handle.

Yet, fighters offer a balanced choice, dealing consistent damage while maintaining a sturdy presence unlike spellcasting classes. Their straightforward nature makes it relatively e🅷asier for the Dungeon Master to manage their abilities, but a well-optimized fighter can still present a challenge. How can you ensure your fighters are appropriately tested?

Your goal is to challenge the character, not kill th♛em. A DM can do anything, so eliminating the whole party is relatively easy.

Using these tactics too often can also take the fun away from your play🎀er; properly challenging them is one thing, but an🥀nulling everything they do is another. Be mindful when implementing these suggestions.

7 ✨ Analyze Their Build And Weapon Choic𒈔es

Dealing With A Melee And A Ranged Character Is Very Different

Dungeons & Dragons image showing Flaming Fist mercenaries pledging alligiance
Legion Loyalty by Aaron J. Riley

A crucial detail you have to know about your fighter is their basic battle tactics, including which weapons they use. Yes, they can virtually use any weapon in the game, but their character will be optimized to a specific type of weapon. Not only is it important to appropriately reward your player with loot, but it's also important so you can know how to fight them.

The likely combinations here will be a heavy, two-handed weapon, a one-handedꦫ weapon with a shield, two one-handed weapons for dual-wielding (with either both being melee, both ranged, or one of each), or a ranged weapon. Most melee options can be dealt with similarly, but focusing on ranged weaponry will completely change how the fighter behaves on the battlefield.

How To Deal With A Melee Fighter

D&D Warrior
Armory Veteran by Caio Monteiro

Melee fighters will be close to the action and will likely have good health or AC (armor class). Surrounding them and overwhelming them could be useful, but they will likely kill this horde with some ease, depending on the level. That is still useful if you use flanking rules, as it'll increase the chance of their enemies hitting them.

Still, focus on ranged combat. Have enemies being too far from their reach while the enemies can still shoot them with arrows or magic, forcing the player to be smart about their repositioning. You can make hybrid enemies that can fiওght melee once the fighter reaches them or give them abilities such as Nimble Escape or Misty Step to get out of range once the fighter reaches them.

How To Deal With A Ranged Fighter

13-Dungeons & Dragons Leonin Species Guide
Stalking Leonin by Zoltan Boros

You can still use ranged attacks against a ranged fighter, as a shootout can work well here. However, you can also make powerful me💎lee characters who have a lot of movement or maybe even teleportation abilities to get into melee range as fast as possible.

That will force a ranged fighter to fight with melee options (they can still cause damage through finesse weapons, but not all their abilities will be useful), and their ranged attacks will have a disadvantage for having enemies at close range — though the crossbow expert feat can annul that part. Lastly, something as simple as counting arrows, something many DMs don't do, can help balance things a lot.

6 🎃 Enhance Your Armor Class And Health

Always Effective

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Devoted Paladin by Chris Rallis

Fighters rarely rely on forcing enemies into saving throws, and even then, it's mainly to cause certain effects rather than dish out damage. In most cases and subclasses, a fighter still needs to hit the target, and they have a lot of chances of doing so, as the class with most attacks per turn.

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They've been getting Sneak Aꦛttack a few times too many, we think.

Simply giving important enemies a high AC and a🎃 lot of health is already an efficient way to decrease how many attacks will hit them in the turn, making this a solid strategy to challenge a fighter, regardless of the level.

5 🅷 ♈ Use Many Enemies

Have Them Waste Their Resources

Dungeons & Dragons image showing a party of three players being surrounded by Gnolls
You Come to the Gnoll Camp by Billy Christian

Fighters don't have that many resources, and almost all of them recover with a short rest, meaning that a one-hour in-game break is enough for them to recover their Second Wind, Action Surge, and even maneuvers if they are a battle master.

In other words, don't be afraid of giving them a lot to deal with right away, especially if the place they are is relatively safe to take short rests with few to no repercussions. Throwing a lot of enemies to force them into an Action Surge to hit everyone in one turn is not a bad deal to force them into on occasion. That may even add an extra layer of difficulty if they want to save certain resources for boss fights later.

4 Give Them Few To No Time To R✨est

Test Their Endurance

Dungeons and Dragons - goblins ambushing a human warrior
Goblinoid Ambush by Mark Behm

All that said, you can also take them (and the whole party) by surprise by attacking them when they decide to rest, which is a moment they'll be particularly vulnerable. And we're not necessarily talking about night ambushes, but even a short rest that is being done in a dungeon.

That said, this is a moment where the fighter and all player characters will be very vulnerable, and this might make things worse, so consider this mainly if high difficulty is a thing everyone enjoys. Don't throw too difficult enemies during these moments — balance things out with their vulnerability and lack of available abilities.

3 🌠 Give Enemies Resistance ౠ

Useful At Any Level

van richten's guide to ravenloft dungeons & dragons savra sunstar confronting her father jander sunstar in a fight
Savra Sunstar and Jander Sunstar by Andrew Mar

Almost every powerful enemy is resistant to bludgeoning, pierci🅺ng, and slashing damage from non-magical sources, meaning that all basic weapons are less effective against them. An enemy l🐻ike that will be a nightmare for a fighter, at least until they get a +1 weapon or better, as these are magical.

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Have them sing a different tune.

Still, nothing stops you from giving an enemy resistance to whatever damage type your fighter's main weapon uses, even if it is magical. Cutting their damage in half is an effective challenge here, one that will require mostly teamwork (or being creative with their backup weapons) for the fighter to beat.

2 𓆏 Give Them Disadvantage

Many Conditions Apply Here

A rogue blowing poison in the face of a large fighter
Puff of Poison Art by Alex Alexandrov

We mentioned before how fighters can attack many times in a turn. They get a second attack at level five, a third attack at level 11, and a fourth attack at level 20, and they can use action surge to get two to four extra hits, depending on their level. And that's not counting a possible bonus action attack or things such as having Haste applied to them.

This is where giving them certain conditions can be useful here. Instead of paralyzing them (which is effective but never fun), you can use things that give them disadvantage, such as being poisoned, restrained, or frightened. By havin༒g all their attacks at a disadvantage, the chances of one of these going through are significantly lower, and may even discourage the fighter from using Action Surge.

1 Use Magic

They Can't Do Much About It

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Fireball by Sam Keiser

Fighters can't do a lot when you throw a Fireball at them. By default, they're proficient in Strength and Constitution saving throws, and unless their build is around Dexterity, there's not much they can do against these and other powerful spells, especially since most spells rely on Dexterity saving throws.

You can also target them with spells that rely on Wisdom, Charisma, or Intelligence, depending on which of these is your player fighter's weakest link. That opens up the opportunity to cause psychic damage, mind control them, or even banish them. Their best defense here is Indomitable, which lets them re-roll a failed saving throw, but that's only a few times per long rest.

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