HOW TO IMPROVE THE FIGHTER?
While i was making item cards, i was a little bit underwhelmed by the fighter favorite weapon – it is just a little bit better than the paladin long sword.
Then i checked the whole class, compared to the barbarian and the paladin ant it was… underwhelming: amongst the fighting classes it’s by far the less interesting of the three.
Am i missing something?
If you have the same opinion, how did you, or would you make the class more interesting?
Boring? I had a player make a DEX fighter who acted like a ninja. Flipping off walls to avoid attacks, sliding between the legs of bad guys to get behind them, hiding above people by hanging from his sword that he stuck into the ceiling. And he carried a chakram as well.
Honestly, the fighter is only as boring as the person playing them wants them to be. The same as any other class.
I agree with Chris Stone-Bush. It’s only as underwhelming as you make it. There’s a lot of ways to make the fighter fictionally more fun to play, and IMO that’s the beauty of class based damage. You play your fighter the way you want to play him based on the fiction you create, not the optimal build.
If you think the fighter is broken and want to customize it, that’s cool! So what SHOULD the fighter excell at that the other martial classes wouldn’t? Tactics? Leadership? Make some (more) moves for that.
My fighter was an halfling with high dexterity using a spear built with a werefolf tooth slayed during his adulthood rite. I still love him even if played only once 😄
Ben Wray has a very good point. Just because other people don’t think the Fighter is underpowered doesn’t mean we’re right. If you think the Fighter is boring and want to change it, go for it!
But untill you tell us what you find boring or underpowered about the class, I can’t really offer any suggestions.
Wow, those are really atmazing fighters!
My concern is not from an interpretative point of view. The halfling fighter of simone biagini, and your ninja fighter are all amazing interpretations. One of my players choose a fighter that used the signpost of his village asa makeshift weapon when it was destroyed.
The improvements are also quite fine! Some of them give a really nice oomph to the class.
My complain is mostly on the starting class as it is at base level. If you confront it with a paladin or a barbarian, both of them have the same bounds, damage and hitpoints (apart from the barbarian, that has 2 less hitpoints), and the “no clumsly tag on armor.” moves.
The paladin has, then, 3 moves that are wdeli applicable and give a great lot of fictional leverage – quest, i am the law and healing hands are all moves with interesting consequence and a quite broad applicability.
The Barbarian has upper hand (interesting, but a move one does not want to use), what are you waiting for, which gives him the possibility of calling combat into the fiction, musclebound, which gives fictional power by mauling enemies, and appetites, which is really interesting tout court.
The warrior has bend bars, lift gates (which is really interesting, but i did not see in use really often) and the weapon – which is really good from a fictional standpoint, but, when compared with a long swored (paladin), or a dueling rapier (the one of the bard) it is not so much better mechanically.
At the end, i think a possible solution could be to give the warrior weapon just a little bit more oomph (maybe 1 more option?) and an interesting move that could apply outside of combat – maybe about tactical skill?
The way they build their weapon makes it special. It should be as famous as the fighter in the world as well. An NPC he threatens with it should be like “Is that the Red Blade of Woe? Please, we don’t have to resort to violence… lets be civil”. To me though, the most interesting part of the signature weapon are the tags for its look.
Is it unblemished, but the fighter says it has been passed down for ages? That seems magical to me.
Is it ancient? Maybe you find something in a ruin that hints to its hidden power? Or maybe it’s a key to enter the long forgotten sections of the dungeon?
Bloodstained? Why will the blood not wash away? Was the blood put their for some reason? Maybe it’s the blood of a rare beast, the only thing that can harm the gods.
Sinister? It could come from demonic origins, making it useful for fighting planar beings like demons and angels.
Ornate? Perhaps it’s markings hold some clue to the location of an ancient treasure.
Also, a paladin’s weapon can break or be lost at any time. The fighter will never be separated long from their weapon. And need I mention, if a paladin finds a magic sword, he gets rid of his weapon. The fighter can use blacksmith to transfer the magic to his weapon.
Honestly, if there is something I think they could have done better, it’s go more into the signature weapon. The Swordmage class has a serious feel for being connected to their weapon built into the moves. With the fighter you just have to have a player who knows how to make it interesting, and help them if you are the GM.
Andrea Serafini I understand what you mean about it not having enough oomph. I let my players think outside the confines of the options listed: Katana? Sure. Brass Knuckles? Why not! The signature weapon should speak to a characters heritage, and if that heritage involves throwing stars and nunchaku then so be it.
Brian Holland I like doing this as well. Brass knuckles are fist weapons. Nunchaku could pass as a flail. I’ve allowed a fighter to use a bow. I even told my wife if she wanted to play a fighter with fist weapons I’d let her have completely metal hands and forearms. That was in a campaign where they would have had the blood of gods in them, so it seemed like a plausible idea for the setting.
I agree with a few post, but I also agree with the OP. I mainly play fighter in dungeon world and I dislike the fact that the paladin is superior in every way (with roleplay being the exception since its the person not the playbook). Paladin out damages, Heals, Bulkier (Even with the Armor Feat of the fighter). So its upsetting, though I savaged that by just creating my own playbooks for fighters and some of the other classes. (Still only play Fighter though, in standard games where I can’t use my playbook).
Awful Good Games has alternate Fighter and Paladin play books that fix this exact issue.
plus.google.com – #FighterWeek Signature Weapon I think this move is weak. You compare the…
I feel you Andrea Serafini. I think the fighter is, mechanically, pretty weaksauce. Bend Bars, Lift Grates is actually incredibly potent, but it’s a weirdly phrased move. And even with Johnstone’s improvements to the signature weapon… what if I want to play a fighter who’s all skill and mettle and glory?
Part of the problem is that “fighter” is such a broad, wide-open archetype. I’ve always found it a little odd that Adam & Sage chose “I’ve got this cool weapon” as their most obvious schtick.
With all that said, I’ve generally found that in play, there’s something about picking “The Fighter” that seems to put people in the right frame of mind. The Fighter is consistently played as the boldest, most aggressive, most bad-ass character at the table. In my experience, at least. And that might have more to do with who I play with than the playbook itself.
RidersOfRohan I see where you are coning from, but I feel like fighters can still out perform Paladins for two reasons. Blacksmith and Multiclass Moves. They already do 1d10+2d8 damage just the second time they hit anything. Add in magic weapons being put on their signature weapon and the fact that they can get moves from other classes (like the paladin) and I’m pretty sure they could be better if someone wanted to try and min max them a bit.
I tried to deal with this same issue in my Fourth World hack. My solution is the Warrior discipline. The currently released version isn’t quite the same as the one I’m playing with now. Update forthcoming.divnull.com – Seed: Fourth World revisited | DivNull Productions
Andrea Serafini At least one of the creators of the game agrees with you:
reddit.com – What’s *wrong* with Dungeon World? • /r/rpg
I’ve seen an Improved Fighter variant that adds this to the starting moves:
Battle Instincts (STR)
When you confront a worthy foe, roll +STR. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 1. Spend 1 hold at any time to do one of the following:
• Negate a move made by your worthy foe as it is made.
• Discover a way to exploit the environment to your advantage.
• Discover a previously unknown weakness of your worthy foe.
• Discover a previously unknown strength of your worthy foe.
Just an idea.
Jeremy Strandberg I gotta say I agree with the assessment that “picking the fighter” is a mindset thing. I always play either fighters or barbarians, but I consider the 8+CON for the barbarian HP is a weak point of DW as a whole. I loved the d12. So I (Sort of) fix the issue by playing a Class Warfare character composed of Strongarm and Destroyer coupled with either Wielder or Arsenal. That’s my Fighter.