Your fighter has completed their training, specialized in a weapon or two, and perhaps even found an adventuring party. But once their journeys bring them face-to-face with increasingly powerful creatures, their nonmagical equipment isn’t going to cut it anymore. Time for an upgrade!
Here’s our list of some of our favorite items for the fighter class. Suppose something catches your eye, head on over to the marketplace to pick it up. Alternatively, a DM or friend can share it with you with a master-tier subscription.
- Adamantine armor
- Battering shield
- Dragon wing bow
- Flame tongue sword/frost brand sword
- Iron bands of binding
- Potion of speed
- Ring of free action
- Spellguard shield
- Weapon of certain death
- Weapon of warning
Dungeon Masters’ Discretion
Some of these items may be unavailable or very difficult to attain in your campaign. Reach out to your DM if you are interested in a specific magic item, but bear in mind that some campaigns may offer many magic items while others may only include very few.
Top 10 magic items for fighters
1. Adamantine armor
An assassin thrusts their dagger precisely at the gap in your plate armor. It strikes true, and they twist the knife, hoping to sink the blade into your heart. “That’s going to be a critical–”
No, it isn’t. Not with your adamantine armor. Practically the most durable metal around, adamantine armor will render any critical hit against you a normal hit. Any medium or heavy armor (other than hide) can be made with adamantine, so it’s not just for the party tanks.
If you’re going to be up close and personal with enemies, you may as well minimize the risks where you can. For those that are a little less Strength and a little more Dexterity but want to prioritize good magical armor, all the same, look to adamantine’s cousin, mithral.
2. Battering shield
In addition to a +1 to its normal bonus to AC, the battering shield amplifies the shove attack, an often-underused ability. If you succeed on this contested check, you can use the shield to push the target 15 feet away and knock it prone. (You will also have the flexibility to apply a more muted effect if that is tactically preferable.)
Remember that the shove attack is not necessarily a full action. If your fighter can make multiple attacks, the shove attack only counts as one of these. Use the battering shield to shove the opponent prone with your first attack, then strike with advantage on future attacks. Pair this item with the Shield Master feat to maximize its potential.
3. Dragon wing bow
One of my favorite items from Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons, the dragon wing bow, is a gift from the dragon gods to archers everywhere. The effect is straightforward: an extra 1d6 damage of whatever chromatic, gem, or metallic dragon infused the weapon with its breath. Oh, and did the dragon who gifted this to you forget to mention? Ammunition is optional.
I enjoy using the dragon wing bow to demonstrate that items don’t need three abilities and seven charges to be cinematically powerful. A bow that produces its own magical arrows and does psychic damage? Legolas could never.
4. Flame tongue sword/frost brand sword
In a sense, they’re twins. They each shed light under certain circumstances and deal additional elemental damage on every attack.
Prefer a bit more offense? The flame tongue deals more damage—2d6 compared to 1d6—and sheds four times as much light as its icy counterpart. These effects must be activated using a bonus action.
Little more subtle? In addition to its extra 1d6 of cold damage per attack, the frost brand sheds soft light in freezing temperatures and provides you with resistance against fire damage. All of these effects are active upon attunement and do not require a bonus action.
5. Iron bands of binding
The barbarian and necromancer may not like it, but there might be times when you must capture rather than kill an enemy. If that enemy is a Huge or smaller creature, then the iron bands of binding might be right for you.
About the size of a baseball at rest, the iron bands of binding can be thrown up at an enemy up to 60 feet away. As the item hurls towards the foe, it expands into a series of overlapping metal bands. If this ranged attack roll hits the target, they are restrained until you release them using a command word or until they break the bindings. In addition, they’ll find that escape from the iron bands is much more difficult than against mere rope. If the restrained target fails the DC 20 Strength check, it will auto-fail any future attempts for 24 hours.
Alternately, use this item to turn your DM’s dire troll encounter into a very brief affair. Regardless of how you use it, a piece of advice: make the command word something ridiculous.
6. Potion of speed
We’ve all been there. You’re slashing through enemies, enjoying the doubled movement, the hasted attack, the +2 bonus to AC, the advantage on Dexterity saving throws. You’re flying high! You rush the goblin boss. Next turn, you’re absolutely going to crush them.
Bonk. A breeze blew a pebble onto your wizard, and they’ve failed their concentration check. The haste spell fades; lethargy sets in. The goblin boss smiles at you.
The potion of speed bestows haste without concentration, largely eliminating the risk that you experience the spell’s lethargy during combat. Importantly, it also frees up your party spellcaster to send in an arcane hand to help watch your back or cast hypnotic pattern at the group of enemies running to flank you.
The goblin boss may have kicked your butt last time, but drink up and get back in the fight!
7. Ring of free action
As a fighter, spells like entangle or web can derail your battle plan, and more acutely powerful spells like hold person can quickly lead to a brutal death. While there are items that can provide bonuses to the saving throws or skill checks needed to resist or escape these spells, the ring of free action takes a more direct route: immunity.
While wearing the ring of free action, magic can neither restrain nor paralyze you. It also protects you from magic that would drain your movement, such as ray of frost and slow, and you’ll be able to stroll through the difficult terrain created by erupting earth without issue. Watch the enemy wizard’s eyes widen in terror as all of their usual tricks fail against you.
8. Spellguard shield
Arguably the most powerful item on this list, the spellguard shield imbues your fighter with potent magical resistance. If your DM is letting you access this item, they are prepared to hear the question “Does this count as a magical effect?” about as often as they hear that you have darkvision.
With this shield, your fighter will have advantage on saving throws against spells and magical effects, and spell attacks have disadvantage against you. Whether they’ve taken the Mage Slayer feat or not, this shield will surely make them a slayer of mages on the battlefield.
9. Weapon of certain death
If you’re tired of seeing trolls and vampires repair themselves at the start of their turns, pick up a weapon of certain death and tell them to stay down. Once you’ve hit a target with a weapon of certain death, that target cannot regain hit points until the start of your next turn. This weapon comes in any form, including firearms, if your campaign setting includes them.
Though a weapon of certain death does not provide a bonus to attack and damage rolls, nor does it add any damage dice, its effect is as valuable as it is rare. Its prohibition on regaining hit points applies to all healing, from healing potions and spells to a monster’s innate regenerative abilities. While many abilities in the game, such as the sword of life stealing’s, do not affect undead or constructs, the weapon of certain death affects all targets that it damages, with no opportunity to save against its power.
The hard part is finding one—why don’t you go ask that death knight if they have an extra they’d like to sell?
10. Weapon of warning
Despite its humble rarity and concise description, the weapon of warning provides one of the single most protective benefits in the game: the inability to be surprised (except when incapacitated by something other than nonmagical sleep).
Whether the assassin dropped from the ceiling or the panther pounced from deep within the shadows, your weapon of warning will notify you of the threat; accordingly, battle will begin without the bearer of the weapon (or any of their allies within 30 feet) being surprised. But the weapon of warning isn’t done keeping you safe. As combat begins, it grants you advantage on initiative rolls, ensuring you react quickly to danger.
If your fighter is very protective of the party, they’ll sleep better with a weapon of warning on their belt.
Building a fighter
Whether you’re a drow echo knight with a frost brand rapier or an orc wrapped in adamantine armor, hold onto that character concept and open up D&D Beyond’s character builder. Happy rolling!
Damen Cook (@damen_joseph) is a lifelong fantasy reader, writer, and gamer. If he woke up tomorrow in Faerun, he would bolt through the nearest fey crossing and drink from every stream and eat fruit from every tree in the Feywild until he found that sweet, sweet wild magic.
No I didn't; Flanking is an optional rule and requires specific positioning for it to work, as I said, so it is in no way guaranteed.
Your specific party composition is irrelevant; if you have a ranged party then build and strategise accordingly.
If that means you can't get the maximum possible use out of Shield Master at all times, then you remain completely free to not take it and take something else instead.
The bonus action for Shield Master explicitly states that it occurs after an Attack action. There is no wiggle room on this, it does what it says it does, nothing else. As I have pointed out to you repeatedly this still means you can capitalise upon it via Action Surge or teamwork.
Jeremy Crawford says lots of things to lots of people, and none of it outside of the Sage Advice compendium is considered an official ruling.
Two attacks with advantage is still better than none with advantage, and the Wizard only gets one chance to apply most conditions to a specific target as well; there's nothing wrong with redundancy in a party.
Sure, faerie fire on the same target is better, but it costs a spell slot, and concentration, and might not land on all the targets, same with grease to knock them prone etc., Shield Master's bonus action Shove can be used once per turn every turn that you take the Attack action, and only requires minimal effort to make use of.
And again you're still ignoring that it can also be used to push, which is even easier to make use of with a little teamwork; with any damaging area effect or environmental hazard a shove becomes a damage dealing ability, and you only need a bonus action to do it. Spike growth is excellent for this.
It's okay if you're a RAW or nothing guy (which I'm strongly getting that impression). It's a fine opinion to have, but what is rule 0?
I'm also using evidence from Crawford to show how opinion can differ, or even be wrong as the designers intend. I'll say it again, Shield Master has the case where taking the "attack" action comes into play, and RAW the way they did is the only way for them to differentiate it compared to other mechanics that would be detrimental or overpowered if this distinction was not made. There are discussion threads everywhere pointing out why this case is special one (basically of, using "when" vs "if").
I would also make the argument about what the feat is giving you around being able to shove. Normally, a shove is an "attack" action. Every single class can use their action to attack, whether they have multiple attacks or not, to make this shove. It makes no sense to do so for many classes, but as a melee class with "extra attacks" for my action, making the shove is more logical, but at a cost. The feat changes this mechanic to be able to be used as a bonus action, instead of by taking one of your attacks and eliminating this cost, but also requires a specific piece of equipment/build to do so (a shield). It doesn't make any sense outside what I've already said to prevent using this shove in this way. It is the only difference it grants for melee combat.
If I have 2 attacks, I can shove, then attack at advantage once. You seem to believe that pushing a guy into a hazard is more beneficial to a party than their melee class simply just attacking. This is primarily untrue, but can be argued situationally, which is all you've done. They are rarely better options to take than simply attacking with the a class whom this is their sole purpose. As a melee class, I am also most of time engaging with other melee creatures. A lot of the time they are likely stronger than me, or just as strong, so it's not even necessarily likely this effect succeeds, but you want me to give up an attack to try and do something else? It's why having it as an option for my bonus action is desirable.
The boon should be because I am a "shield master" I can shove whenever the hell I want with my shield (costing me my bonus action instead of my primary attacks). It does not make any sense mechanically that I have to swing a sword a bunch of times before I can do anything with a piece of equipment on my other arm. However, I recognize this is a game, so some bounds have to be set. That's what they've done with the feat. In this instance it makes sense that the distinction of being an attack (and not a full "action") could be the feat's trigger. So attack, shove, attack. What I've gained is the ability to still attack twice, maybe once with advantage, instead of just maybe once with advantage. This isn't game breaking. It isn't illogical. Why can I attack, move, and attack again, but for some reason can't use something in my other hand instead of move?
I agree that it still can be a good bonus action to take even if you don't run it this way, but you continue to just disregard how I'm telling you it can be more bad to do than good. You point out that "your specific party composition is irrelevant," but also disregard what any other class in any existing party might be able to do vs prone enemies. Or that if I push an enemy away I've granted them a free disengagement from the guy meant to hold their attention, whether where I push them or not deals any damage or grants a chance at an effect being triggered.
"Sweet, I managed to push that minotaur into those spikes! And he took max damage, but wait, that's only 8? Shoot, my bonus to damage on hit is that... and crap, now he's mad at the wizard who's got all these spikes on the ground, and it's his turn next? Bollocks!" Minotaur runs to wizard and gore's him, taking half his HP, sending him flying out of combat, knocking him prone, and making him lose his concentration on all those spikes that were keeping other stuff away from him. "....Sweet..."
Then you'd be wrong, because I use homebrew and lenient interpretations all the time as a DM.
In my original post all I did was point out a caveat of how battering shield and Shield Master would work together, to make sure people were aware of how it work as written. That is all. Not sure why you felt the need to dredge it back up 4+ months later, and then do so again a further 18 months later? Seriously, my last post on the subject was August 2022!
At no point have I said that your DM can't allow you to play it differently, in fact in several of my responses I have very specifically said you can. Otherwise all I've said is what the rules say about how it works. If you want to play it using different rules then ask your DM, but that will then be homebrew, not what the rules say about how it works, and it will be changing the rules with the intention of making an already useful feat stronger by enabling you to capitalise upon it without teamwork.
Because as I have pointed out many times now, there are plenty of ways to capitalise upon the bonus action Shove as presented.
The DM's word is law?
If your DM wants to follow the rules or avoid making too many homebrew changes, then they are going to tell you it works exactly as I've told you, if they're happy to change the rules then have it, but it will be homebrew rather than the feat as presented.
And I'm pointing out what the rules on Shield Master actually are, and therefore how it works without modification. If you want to modify it, ask your DM, but it will not be playing by the rules as given. There's nothing wrong with that (so long as your DM is okay with it), but my first post on the subject was responding to an incorrect description of how the feat can be used with the battering shield – I was pointing out why it wouldn't work as written.