My Dungeons and Dragons - Fighters

The fighter is NOT a meat shield. His role is not to be a pile of hit points to soak up damage that might other wise affect the guys who are actually doing the fighting. The fighter's job is to fight--he can soak up damage and dish it out as well. When it comes to a straight-up fight (not a sneaky assassination or the neutralization of a whole group of bad guys with one spell), the fighters should dominate. To this end:

• The fighter has the most hit points of any of the core classes.
• The fighter has the best to-hit bonus of the classes.
• The fighter can use any weapon, and does more damage with a given weapon than any other class in a straight-up fight.
• The fighter is proficient with all forms of armor.
• The fighter has the best saving throws of all the classes. In 3e it was just too easy for a spellcaster to put the whammy on the fighters and turn them against their allies. Fighters should be good at resisting all sorts of effects, not just physical ones.
• The default fighter should probably be the "heavy" fighter. This is what you get if you don't do any tweaking. He sacrifices mobility and evasion for being able to take strong blows due to wearing heavy armor. He is big and strong and tough and hits hard with any weapon.
• Fighters are proficient with all weapons, but should choose a favored combat style (e.g. 2-handed hammers, sword-and-board, etc). A fighter gets bonuses to attack and damage when fighting in this style. These bonuses increase slowly with experience, and fighters may eventually choose to learn additional styles.
• Tweaking can yield a non-default fighter who focuses more on speed, or an archer who favors ranged attacks, and so on. The character who likes to flank his opponents and attack through weak points in their defenses is still a fighter--not a rogue (rogues attack from the shadows, and are not seen at all until they strike).
• Fighters can choose to be war-leaders at a certain level. They attract followers who will fight at their side, and may eventually acquire a castle of their own, though this will typically require a certain amount of adventuring as well (i.e. finding a keep overrun by orcs, killing all the orcs, and then fixing up the keep).