Fighter 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Heroic Combat
The warrior stood high atop a plateau, her matted hair dripping with sickly green blood. Her two blades, one perfectly straight shortsword and one wickedly curved scimitar, trembled in her hands. She looked down at the carnage surrounding her. She looked at the corpses of the goblins that surrounded her, their blood clotting the dust of the plateau. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, filling her lungs with thin highland air. The world around her grew silent, and she felt warmth return to her aching muscles.
She opened her eyes, and all the sensations of the world returned to her—including the hideous, guttural war cry of the hobgoblin charging at her. She adopted a fluid stance as the slavering monster raised its greatsword high above its head. It brought the blade down hard, but she pushed off of the ground and dodged to the right, kicking dust into its face as she did so. A larger dust cloud engulfed both warriors as the greatsword slammed into the sandstone of the plateau.
Even as she dodged, the fighter swung her scimitar in a quick riposte, biting deep into the hobgoblin’s unprotected armpit. Its blood splattered across the already gore-drenched battlefield. The fighter dug her heels into the dust to stop her motion. Both warriors came to a halt and turned to face their enemy. The fighter smiled.
“I don’t have a grand speech for you,” she shouted, hoarse and panting. She raised her blades and rushed the hobgoblin. “There are no words to express what I feel,” she said, swinging her scimitar in a wide overhead arc. “None at least, that you would understand!”
The hobgoblin roared in her face and raised his greatsword above his head, and steel rang against steel. The two locked eyes and blades for a split second, and she smiled again. The shortsword in her left hand flashed in the afternoon sun as she plunged it into her distracted foe’s flank. Its eyes went wide, and its anguished bellowing rang in her ears. It lowered its greatsword, and she swung her freed scimitar in a swift, horizontal stroke.
She walked past the hobgoblin, flicking its blood from her blades. She stopped only when she heard the thump of its head against the stone, and she turned to see the body collapse before.
“Words have never been my strong suit” she said, a hard look in her eyes. “But my swords are the only language I need.”
You are playing a fighter, a brawler who will grow to become a peerless warrior. Your power comes from no one but yourself, from nowhere but your own spirit. You need not rely on the esoteric power of magic, the whims of the gods, or the cruel demands of an otherworldly patron. The only oath you swear is to your sword arm.
Your self-reliance is powerful, but it comes at a thematic cost. A fighter can be any sort of warrior from a spry fencer to a stoic knight to a brutish street thug. This thematic flexibility is a boon for some, but it could lead the fighter to be seen as a boring chassis for better ideas.
Let’s dispel that myth, because the fighter is anything but boring. This guide will cover the basics of being a fighter, walking you through the first 5 levels, focusing on how to make the most of your class features, and helping you use them to inform your character.
Quick Build Expanded: Building Your Fighter
This isn’t a character optimization guide, but the first step in playing your class effectively is building it effectively. The Quick Start guidelines in the Player’s Handbook are a good start, but don’t go far enough for most new players. Here’s an expanded Quick Start guide. This guide assumes you’re using the D&D Beyond Character Builder, which includes helper text for new players.
- Under “Character Preferences,” turn off “Playtest Content” and “Show Unarmed Strike”
- Choose your Race. While any race can be a good fighter, you may want to choose a race that improves your Strength, Dexterity, and/or Constitution scores.
- Mountain dwarves make excellent melee fighters because of their bonuses to both Strength and Constitution.
- Elves are also good fighters if you want to use bows or dual-wield light weapons, because of their bonus to Dexterity.
- Finally, half-orcs make outstanding melee fighters because of their bonus to bonus to Strength and Constitution, and because of their Relentless Endurance and Savage Attacks trait.
- Choose Fighter as your class (obviously).
- Choose skills that fit who you want your character to be. Skills that play to your strengths are useful, but also consider shoring up some of your weaknesses in order to make yourself a more balanced character. This part is up to you!
- Think about what role you want to fill in the party. Let’s look at this in greater detail.
What Kind of Fighter are You?
As a fighter, it should be obvious what your strengths are—you are built to fight! Unlike other classes that can choose to specialize in exploration or support, you have three clear cut paths when building your character. In combat, do you want to take on the role of Offense, Defense, or Tank?
(And note, I’m using Offense, Tank, and Support as shorthand. No part of D&D refers to characters in this way, but it’s an easy way to discuss the different roles characters serve in the party.)
Offense
As an offensive fighter, you’ll focus on taking down enemies through rapid, overwhelming force.
- Choose the Great Weapon Fighting or Two-Weapon Fighting fighting styles.
- If you chose Great Weapon Fighting, place your highest ability score in Strength. If you chose Two-Weapon Fighting, put your highest ability score in Dexterity. Put your second highest ability score in Constitution, and the others as you see fit. (If you want to play a spell-slinging Eldritch Knight fighter starting at 3rd level, put your second highest ability score in Intelligence instead of Constitution.)
- Choose any background you wish that supports your character concept.
- Finally, choose your equipment by clicking on “EQUIPMENT” when promoted to “Choose EQUIPMENT or GOLD”. Choose:
- Chain mail
- A two-handed martial weapon like a greataxe or greatsword and a shield if you chose Great Weapon Fighting or two shortswords or two scimitars if you chose Two-Weapon Fighting
- A light crossbow and 20 bolts if you chose Two-Weapon Fighting or two handaxes if you chose Great Weapon Fighting
- A dungeoneer’s pack or an explorer’s pack, depending on your character concept.
If you want to be an offensive archer instead of a melee fighter, make all the same choices as if you were building a Two-Weapon Fighting fighter, but choose the Archery fighting style instead of Two-Weapon Fighting, and select leather armor, a longbow, and 20 arrows instead of chain mail.
Defense
A defensive fighter sacrifices a small fraction of the offensive fighter’s raw damage for a little bit more armor and staying power.
- Choose the Defense or Dueling fighting style.
- Put your highest ability score in Strength and your second highest score in Constitution, and the others however you see fit. (If you want to cast spells as an Eldritch Knight fighter starting at 3rd level, put your second highest score in Intelligence instead.)
- Choose any background you wish that supports your character concept.
- Finally, choose your equipment by clicking on “EQUIPMENT” when promoted to “Choose EQUIPMENT or GOLD”. Choose:
- Chain mail
- A one-handed martial weapon like a battleaxe, longsword, morningstar, or rapier and a shield.
- Two handaxes
- A dungeoneer’s pack or an explorer’s pack, depending on your character concept.
A defensive fighter plays fairly similarly to an offensive one, especially at 1st level. You’ll always want to be in melee with the enemy if possible, using your bulk to stay alive as you chop through the enemy. As you gain levels and a greater diversity of class features, the Offense and Defense playstyles start to diverge.
Tank
A tank trades both raw offense and defense for more specialized options that help keep their allies safe.
- Choose the Protection fighting style.
- Put your highest ability score in Constitution and your second highest score in Strength, and the others however you see fit. (You probably shouldn’t play an Eldritch Knight as a tank, but if you really want to, put your third highest ability score in Intelligence.)
- Choose any background you wish that supports your character concept.
- Finally, choose your equipment by clicking on “EQUIPMENT” when promoted to “Choose EQUIPMENT or GOLD”. Choose:
- Chain mail
- A one-handed martial weapon like a battleaxe, longsword, morningstar, or rapier and a shield.
- Two handaxes
- A dungeoneer’s pack or an explorer’s pack, depending on your character concept.
At 1st level, the Protection fighting style is the most significant part of your tanking toolset, as it allows you to use your reaction to make it harder for enemies to hit your allies. This may encourage monsters to attack you instead of your allies, since you can’t use your Protection ability to defend yourself, only others. This is exactly what you want; your high armor and Constitution will help you weather hits much better than your roguish and wizardly allies.
Fighting like a Fighter
For the first three levels of your fighting career, your style of gameplay will be roughly the same no matter what kind of role you want to play in the party. If you’re wearing medium or heavy armor and wielding a melee weapon, you’ll want to get into the fray and stay there until the fight is over. Even if you’re about to be knocked out, don’t run unless the party agrees that they need to retreat. You’re more useful dealing damage and taking hits until you’re out cold than you are disengaging in order to heal.
At 1st level, you also gain the Second Wind class feature, which lets you heal a fairly significant amount of damage (though the healing drops off significantly as you level up) as a bonus action. Unless you chose the Two Weapon Fighting fighting style, you probably don’t have anything else to do with your bonus action, making this an ability you want to use early and often, especially since it recharges after a short rest.
If you are a Two-Weapon Fighting fighter, it’s still well worth the slight dip in damage to keep yourself alive in this situation.
At 2nd level, you gain arguably your most potent class feature: Action Surge. While its most obvious use is to grant you another attack (or more, once you gain Extra Attack) in a make-it-or-break-it turn, you can use your Action Surge to do any number of things. Generally, you want to use your action to attack, and then use your Action Surge to do something else, such as:
- Cast a Spell. If you choose the Eldritch Knight subclass at 3rd level or you decide to multiclass into wizard (etc.), you can use your Action Surge to cast two spells in a turn, which has incredible combo potential.
- If you desperately need to move just a little farther, you can use your Action Surge to move again.
- If you need to retreat and can’t take even a single opportunity attack, using your Action Surge to Disengage will help keep you alive.
- Making a powerful attack and then using your Action Surge to impose disadvantage on all attacks against you until your next turn has some powerful niche applications. It is usually better to eliminate a powerful threat by attacking it again, but using the Dodge action can be powerful if you’re surrounded by a lot of small threats.
- If a nearby ally absolutely must hit with their next attack for an important strategic reason, you can use your Action Surge to help them out.
- Staying out in the open can be dangerous. If you’re taking part in a stealth mission, you can leap out from cover, use your action to attack (and hopefully kill) a lone sentry, then run away and use your Action Surge to hide. Rogues do it better with their Cunning Action, but it’s important to remember that you can use your class features for more than just attacking.
- If you kill an enemy and you aren’t sure of what to do next, but you know you need to do something, it’s not a bad idea to Action Surge in order to ready an action to attack the next enemy that gets within your reach.
- This is a corner case, but if you desperately need to find a hidden artifact (for example) in the middle of a combat, you can use your Action Surge to search for it quickly.
- Use an Object. Drinking a potion requires that you use an action to do so, which can frustrate some players. If you desperately need to heal and you’ve already used your Second Wind, using Action Surge to drink a potion isn’t a terrible idea.
At 3rd level, you get to pick your subclass! This is when your character’s role in the party really starts to come into its own. In the Player’s Handbook, you can choose from Champion, Battle Master, and Eldritch Knight. An Offense or Defense fighter can choose any one of these three subclasses and do well. A Tank should choose either Battle Master or Eldritch Knight, since those subclasses’ tactical depth allow you to help protect your teammates in more specific ways.
Offense
If you chose the Champion archetype, your Improved Critical feature at 3rd level is a nice passive ability, as long as you remember to use it. It synergizes well with a half-orc’s Savage Attacks feature. If you chose the Battle Master archetype, you should learn the Feinting Attack, Sweeping Attack, and Trip Attack maneuvers. If you chose the Eldritch Knight archetype, you should learn the booming blade and green-flame blade cantrips and the burning hands, magic missile, and thunderwave spells.
At 4th level, you should increase your Strength score by 2. If you chose the Great Weapon Fighting feature, however, you can instead take the Great Weapon Master feat, one of the most powerful feats in the game. If you chose the Two-Weapon Fighting fighting style, you can instead diversify your toolset by choosing the Dual Wielder feat.
Also, an Eldritch Knight should learn the chromatic orb spell if you need more offensive options (but don't forget that you have to spend money on its expensive material component!), or the shield spell if you find you need a defensive boost.
At 5th level, you gain an Extra Attack, doubling your damage output!
Defense
If you chose the Champion archetype, don’t forget that your Improved Critical feature now lets you score a critical hit on a die roll of 19 or 20. If you chose the Battle Master archetype, you should learn the Lunging Attack, Pushing Attack, and Riposte maneuvers. If you chose the Eldritch Knight archetype, you should learn the green-flame blade and shocking grasp cantrips and the earth tremor, burning hands, and shield spells.
At 4th level, you should increase your Constitution score by +2. If you are wearing heavy armor, however, you may want to take the Heavy Armor Master feat in order improve your staying power in combat.
Also, an Eldritch Knight should learn the protection from evil and good spell, or magic missile if you feel you’re lacking in offensive power.
At 5th level, you gain an Extra Attack, doubling your damage output!
Tank
If you chose the Battle Master archetype, you should learn the Commander’s Strike, Goading Attack, and Menacing Attack maneuvers.
- Commander’s Strike is actually a very powerful tool for a tank, since even though you must give up your attack, you allow a more damage-focused character, like a rogue, to hit an enemy with one of their powerful offensive abilities, like Sneak Attack.
- Goading Attack gives you another vital tanking tool in addition to your Protection fighting style. It takes some heat off of your allies by making attacking you a much more attractive option.
- Finally, Menacing Attack gives you the ability to frighten enemies, which imposes disadvantage on their attacks while they can see you. It’s best to use this maneuver at low levels and then discard it for another maneuver later as more and more creatures become immune to fear.
If you chose the Eldritch Knight archetype, you should learn the green-flame blade and lightning lure cantrips and the magic missile, shield, and thunderwave spells.
- Lightning lure and thunderwave are significant spells because they allow you to control the battlefield, pushing and pulling enemies to make defending your allies easier.
- Green-flame blade and magic missile give you a little extra damage output when you just need to end a fight.
- Shield is a panic button that you can employ to survive an attack that might otherwise kill you, but be warned that since you are shielded until your next turn, enemies might start seeing your allies as more attractive targets.
At 4th level, you should take the Sentinel feat, which makes it difficult for enemies to move past you and threaten your allies.
At 5th level, you gain an Extra Attack, doubling your damage output! However, in place of using your Extra Attack to make an attack, keep in mind that you can also use it to grapple a creature if the situation calls for it.
Making your Fighter your Own
This guide focuses a lot on the “build” of your character, and how that build will help you in combat. Don’t forget that while a specific build can help you excel in combat, the most important choices in D&D are the ones you make while playing. Which enemy to attack, whether or not you try to intimidate or sweet-talk an unruly noble, or just what your character’s personality is.
It’s totally okay to follow this guide to the letter and make a cookie-cutter fighter, but find one way to make your character your own. Choose a strong personality trait and have fun playing a greedy fighter, or a loving fighter, or so on. Then, even if your mechanical choices are fairly straightforward, you’ll always have something that makes your fighter your own.
Let’s go slay some dragons!
James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and Kobold Press. He lives in Seattle, Washington and takes care of his two eldritch cats, Mei and Marzipan. You can usually find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.
But gunslinger is the most complex subclass.
That's probably true, but it is outside the parameters of this article. If you are suggesting an article on the gunslinger, that's a good idea. If you are wanting suggestions about best build options for a gunslinger, you will probably get the most help by posting in either the Fighter forum or the General Discussion forum.
A little late to the party, but I must say I'm disappointed in the suggestions given for the Eldritch Knight. Only two of their first three spells need be from the Abjuration and Evocation schools. Why not Catapult or Ice Knife for offensive builds? Or how about Absorb Elements for defensive and tanky builds. Expeditious Retreat wouldn't see much competition early on and would allow them to rapidly get around the battlefield. If they're tanking, then would War Caster be a better feat than sentinel so they can get in those somatic components while wielding a shield? And with the ability to cast spells as a reaction, Booming Blade can do a lot of the heavy lifting from Sentinel.
Great Weapon Fighting relies on Strength, while Two Weapon Fighting relies on Dexterity. It´s really about which play-style you want to focus on.
Two-Weapon Fighting doesn't rely on Dexterity, but it's an option. The only requirement is the weapons might be Light. Handaxes, Light Hammers, and Sickles are just as viable as Daggers, Scimitars, and Short Swords.
More subclass info:
The Arcane Archer should be built like an Offensive character who fights as an archer (as described in Quick Build Expanded). The choice between druidcraft and prestidigitation is fairly minor, though prestidigitation tends to be more popular. Grasping arrow is widely considered the best arrow option, and is good for controlling movement and damage. Bursting arrow also works well, especially when handling large mobs.
The Cavalier, especially at lower levels, works as Offense, Defense, or Tank, but at higher levels, the cavalier gains features that improve its tank use.
The Psi Warrior works well with any of these. The Psionic Strike helps with Offense and the Protective Field feature helps with Defense, though Tank can benefit from both.
If you want to play Offense with a Rune Knight, choose the fire rune and one other rune of your choice. Defense players would do well to take the Stone and Frost Runes. Tank players work best with the Frost and Cloud Runes, though the Fire Rune may also work well if you need a damage boost.
The Samurai's features will let you be a good Tank all the way through while also improving your roleplay capabilities.
Just buy a arcane focus.
Great Article. Someday, I would like to see this updated to include subclasses.
"(You probably shouldn’t play an Eldritch Knight as a tank, but if you really want to, put your third highest ability score in Intelligence.)"
I'll never understand this as the recommendation on the official site for DnD toward this subclass... Prioritizing Intelligence on an Eldritch Knight is, in my opinion, the worst mistake you can make for the subclass. It's about 4th on my priority list. You're still a fighter...
And I am also of the opinion this subclass is actually one of the BEST TANKS available, in any class, because they very quickly become incredibly hard to hit with the Shield spell in their arsenal.
At level 3, when you can take the subclass, you can have 23 AC with just your starting equipment. Then there's also things like Absorb Elements, and even more options as you level up. They can soak up and prevent damage with the best of them. Almost none of the best spells you can use with them require high-intelligence for saving throws. You should for the most part, ignore those, because you're not even getting a fireball until level 13, when your actual spellcasters have been throwing around better AoE's than that for half your campaign already. (I'd still take it, but you should have no problem with a 14 being your peak for INT).
They are literally built for defense, so long as you don't make the mistake of trying to be more of an offensive spellcaster than fighter. At higher levels, you really start becoming a melee menace with things like Enlarge, Blur, Mirror Image, Shadow Blade, Haste, Spirit Shroud.
Astonishes me the best use of the whole subclass is completely misunderstood by creators of it.