The Best Changes To Fighters In The DnD 2024 Player's Handbook

Summary

Fighters excel at combat versatility, offering a variety of weapon builds to suit different playstyles and combat situations.
New Weapon Mastery mechanic adds depth and uniqueness to each weapon, allowing fighters to specialize and stand out in battle.
Streamlined subclasses provide small tweaks and improvements, making the fighter class more diverse and appealing to players.

The fighter is best known in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons as both a great starting place for beginners and the go-to class for arming yourself with a slew of different weapons. Mechanically speaking, the ♛fighter is the easiest class in the game to pick up and plꦗay with no prior D&D knowledge or experience.

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That being said, more than a fair share of veteran D&D players swear by this class for its impressive durability and menagerie of weapon builds. While some weapon builds are more powerful than others (looking at you, Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master, and Sharpshooter), the newly introduced Weapon Mastery mechanic may right this wrong by offering each weapon a unique playstyle. Hit the armory and grab your weapon of choice: it's time to dance.

6 More Fighting Styles And Seco🌼nd Wind Uses

Better Options Is A Recurring Theme Of This Edition

dungeons & dragons image showing a Warforged fighter and a human artificer — Warforged by Wayne Reynolds

At first level, you gain access to your 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fighting Style as well as Second Wind. Fighting Styles have been changed into feats, however. You now get a Fighting Style feat as part of picking up the fighter class. More im𝓡portantly, you can now change your Fighting Style every time you gain a level, allowing you to explore various playstyles with your fighter.

Meanwhile, Second Wind now starts at two uses instead of one. Additionally, you regain a use of Second Wind whenever you finish a shortꦬ rest. That being said, the big change here actually comes with two features gained at later levels: Tac🉐tical Mind at second level and Tactical Shift at fifth level.

At fifth level, Tactical Shift allows you to reposition yourself on the battlefield in the case that you or an ally end up in a bad spot. When you use your Second Wind, you can now move up to half your speed without provoking opportunity attacks. This provides fighters with some much-needed mobility as defend🐼ing your party often ends up being much like herding cats. Tactical Mind is explained below.

5 Weapon Mastery Brings Weapꦺon Identity

Weapons Are Distinguished By Their Properties

A party chooses their weapon before a forest fight — Choose Your Weapon by Olivier Bernard

Weapon Mastery is one of the single biggest changes to the rules found in the 2014 Player's Handbook. While fighters will receive more Weapon Masteries than any other class to accentuate their identity as weapon savants, barbarians, paladins, rangers, and rogues will also have access to at least one Weapon Mastery.

Keep in mind that some specific subclasses will give you access to additional Weapon Masters beyond your regular ♚limit. Below is a table with every Weapon Mastery as well as an example weapon that uses it.

Weapon Mastery Name	Property And Example Weapon
Cleave	When you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can make another attack against a creature within five feet of your target that's also within your reach. The second attack's damage roll does not add your ability modifier. Example Weapon: Greataxe
Graze	When you miss a creature with a weapon attack, you still deal damage equal to your attack modifier. Example Weapon: Greatsword
Nick	When wielding two weapons with the Light property, you can now make your off hand attack as part of your attack action. Note: This does not allow you to make three weapon attacks. The dual wielding feature specifically mentions that you can only make one extra attack when wielding two weapons with the Light property. In other words, using this feature prevents you from using your bonus action to make a third light weapon attack. Example Weapon: Dagger
Push	A creature hit by an attack made with this weapon can be pushed 10 feet away from you without a saving throw. Example Weapon: Greatclub
Sap	Imposes disadvantage on the next attack roll made by a creature hit with this weapon. Example Weapon: Mace
Slow	Reduces the target's movement speed by 10 feet. Note: This movement reduction does not stack with itself. You can only reduce a creature's movement speed by 10 feet per turn using this property no matter how many attacks you successfully land. Example Weapon: Light Crossbow
Topple	Creatures hit by a weapon with this property can be forced to make a Constitution saving throw or fall prone. The DC equals 8 + your attack ability modifier + your proficiency. Example Weapon: Maul
Vex	A successful attack made by a weapon with this property gives you advantage on your next attack roll against the same creature until the end of your next turn. Example Weapon: Shortsword

At ninth level, fighters unlock the Tactical Master feature, which allows you to substitute your weapon's current mastery property with your choice of push, sap, or slow. This is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a nice added bit of versatility that 💃makes fi🎀ghters the undisputed masters of weaponry.

4 🐭 Tactical Mind Makes For Better Skill Checks

Fighters Can Now Succeed At More Than Just Athletics

A human fighter or barbarian breaks open a door — Kick in the Door by Justine Cruz

When you fail an ability check, Tactical 🍌Mind lets you expend a Second Wind use and roll a d10 to attempt to succeed instead. The nice thing about this feature is that if you still fail the ability check, you do not expend a use of your Second 🐻Wind. In other words, fighters can now make key ability checks much more reliably as long as they still have a Second Wind charge available.

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Being limited to only two uses of Second Wind may result in this feature seeing less use than the designers planned, however. It might be the case that you unlock e༺ven more Second Wind uses at higher levels. This remains to b🅷e seen.

3 Indomitable Lives Up Tಞo Its Name

We Still Would Have Liked To See A Legendary Resistance Type Feature

Froghemoth fights an adventuring party — Froghemoth by Brent Hollowell

Previously, Indomit𝔍able rarely helped you succeed at the rerolled saving throw. This is due to fighters having poor saving throws in a number of abilities including Dexterity, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma. Thankfully, this feature has been changed so that your reܫrolled saving throw also gains a bonus equal to your fighter level.

Since it's unlocked at level 10, this means that this feature will give you a +10 bonus to the saving throw you use it on right off the bat, and it only gets better as your fighter levels up. Even so, we don't think it would have been outrageous to make this feature into something fighters could use to automatically succeed at a saving throw. After all, high level bad guys can do it multiple times in a fight.

2 Unerring Attack Rolls ꧋

Fighters Are Now The Best At Landing Attacks

Woman warrior wielding magic sword — Vorpal Sword (Variant) by Alessandra Pisano

At thirteenth level, fighters now gain Studied Attacks. This feature allows your attack rolls to land much more often, as any ti💧me you miss an attack roll, you gain advantage on your next attack against the same creature.

The one complaint here is that there is a slew of other ways to gain advantage during combat, and the best fighters will already have a tried𝐆 and true method to provide themselves with advantage on their attacks. In these cases, Stu𒁃died Attacks is a feature that does nothing.

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It would have been nice to see this feature provide a different benefit if you alread🌱y have advantage on your attack roll, especially since you unlock this in the late game at thirteenth level.

1 Streamlined Subclasses 𓆉 🦩

Small Tweaks Go A Long Way

red dragonborn in inn eating meal with candles — Jaded Sell-Sword by Randy Vargas

Aside from the largely overlooked champion subclass, not much has changed for the fighter subclasses. Granted, champion was always supposed to be the beginner player subclass. As is though, the subclass truly assumes that players aren't especially bright. Thankfully, champion has been redesigned, and it might actually be a viable option now versus the other fighter subclasses. Here's what we know so far.

Subclass	Changes
Battle Master	Maintains identity as the most complex fighter subclass. Student of War now provides an additional skill proficiency as well as a tool proficiency. Know Your Enemy has been redesigned and now has a limited number of uses. The new feature provides you with the target's resistances, immunities, and vulnerabilities.
Champion	Remarkable Athlete has been redesigned and is now unlocked at third level. When you land a critical hit, you gain additional movement that does not provoke opportunity attacks. More importantly, Remarkable Athlete also provides you with advantage on initiative rolls and strength athletics checks. You now gain an additional fighting style at level seven instead of level ten. At level ten, you unlock Heroic Warrior. This feature provides you with heroic inspiration at the start of your turn if you don't already have it. At eighteenth level, the Survivor feature gives you advantage on death saving throws and turns your death saving throw rolls of 18 and 19 into critical rolls. In other words, your Champion gets back up with one hit point and gets their full turn immediately on a death saving throw result of 18, 19, or 20.
Eldritch Knight	School of magic restrictions removed. Eldritch knights can access spells regardless of their school. War Magic has been redesigned so that you can now cast a cantrip in place of one of your attacks from your attack action. This frees up your bonus action for other uses. At eighteenth level, Improved War Magic now lets you cast a spell of first or second level in place of one of your attacks from your attack action.
Psi Warrior	Almost completely the same as the version printed in Tasha's Guide to Everything. Supposedly, there are some minor tweaks. However, we have no further information at this time.

As one of the three classes first introduced in the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set, the fighter has cemented itself as one of the most important classes in the game. Unfortunately, a legacy tied to being 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the most beginner-friendly 🐭player option has prevented t💙his class from shining as brightly 🌌as its contemporaries.

While this statement remains true for the 2024 Player's Handbook, changes like Weapon Mastery go a long way toward adding customization options to the class that allows every fighter to feel unique. Besides, let's not forget that you can always homebrew some of these features to give your fighters more of a fighting chance.