The New & Improved Fighter Class
It's a fighter, but better. But not complicated. It's slightly manipulative.
One of my biggest issues with the B/X fighter is that people have a predisposed notion of what a fighter is in fantasy. Usually either a knight, or some sort of armored mercenary. And that’s cool, don’t get me wrong. But it can be so much more than that. Part of what the class lacks is flavor. It is such a broad class, that it can be just about anything, and this can sometimes be a little restrictive.
When I set out to improve the fighter class, I had two objectives:
The obvious objective was to give the fighter a little more ability than “strong and wears heavy shit.” People often complain the class can be boring. This is typically solved with magic items, but those obviously take some time to get.
The second, and more important, objective was to open the player’s mind to what their fighter could be. I wanted to give them abilities that would invoke certain flavors, give ideas for where the character came from, and provide a place to start for the player.
Regarding my second point. Yes, I understand that we don’t generally want a character background. However, I would be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t agree that at least a one-sentence “who the fuck are you” would make things easier.
Here are a couple examples of how this could be useful:
Player A wants to play a fighter, and is thinking maybe he has a short temper. Instead of just being a knight who needs counseling, he can look at the abilities, take “berserk” and decide to flavor himself as a sort of Viking raider, or a barbarian war machine.
Player B wants to play a fighter who is extremely loyal to those he cares about. Instead of just being a knight who puts himself in dangerous situations to save his friends, he can take the “loyal ally” ability, and be a retired soldier who lost his family, and often strategically places himself to take pressure off of his friends without needing to recklessly jump to the front line
s all the time.
Player C wants to play a fighter who is very brave and afraid of nothing. Instead of just being a knight who walks into hopeless fights to die in the first session, he can be a knight who takes the “focused resolve” ability to give himself advantages against fear and whatnot.
As you can see, we just went from a party of three slightly different knights, who were variations on “completely reckless idiot,” and we ended up with a fierce barbarian, a retired soldier who might be considered the caring uncle of the party, and a chivalrous and brave knight who does not falter in the face of evil. This required NO EXTRA PLANNING, and added an immense amount of flavor to the campaign. The party went from bland to sick as fuck.
Concise and non-specific character backgrounds are important to me. I sometimes just tell my players they have one minute to give me a simple and realistic background, which usually results in a single sentence on a Word Doc for me. This is perfect. I can now explain things in the context of the character, account for potential cultural interpretations, and not have to worry about accommodating some elaborate backstory.
This was the entire design philosophy behind the class. In my opinion, the player will likely pick up abilities more strategically as they progress, but that’s fine. Because by then, all of the players and the GM will have a feel for who that character really is, and they will have less of an impact on role play.
Avoiding the “Skill” Trap
I wanted to avoid the common trap of giving skills to players that inadvertently restrict the other classes from using those skills. Usually when you see a homebrewed race or class, their benefits amount to “roll dice to do this unique thing.” Because most of these are combat related, and generally not allowed by B/X rules as written, I feel very confident when I say that these skills will help avoid making any character feel “less-than.”
Here It Is
And here is the drive link: New Fighter
I always like reworks of B/X classes. I tend to with the idea that +9 is the max to-hit. I tend to avoid any build meta-game, but at the same time, with the whole linear fighters v. quadratic magic-users, getting some optimization isn't exactly a bad thing. One thing that I've pulled into designs (I will never finish a design) is the melee damage modifier from microlite81. I could also see modifying your Sharp Shooter to just make it an attack damage bonus. Another thing I could see would still be capping the to-hit at 9, but starting it at 3 to give it a leg up over over other classes who get things like magic, back-stab, or infravision.
One of my favorite concepts is to give all characters a death save (roll your death save when you get hit as such that you'd go below 0 hit points and if you make it, you're at 0 hit points, but unconscious). Pair that with a lay-on-hands that allows the cleric to make death saves on behalf of other characters, and you have something that gives the cleric a bit more utility and purpose.
I'm now going to look at your wizard.