Yet another obligatory Fighter thread!  Yay!

A lot of Fighter fixes (both here and elsewhere) try to make the Fighter good at combat, usually solving glaring flaws/weaknesses in the class which prevents it from being useless or overshadowed by the party Rogue/Cleric/Wizard.  Most of these solutions involve increased versatility and power in combat, but give little in the way of out-of-combat and utility skills (both of which the spellcasters have plenty of in spells).

A lot of people don't like the "Dumb Melee Fighter" archetype which seems to persist in D&D (especially in 3rd Edition).  Many warriors throughout myth and legend were skilled in all manner of non-combat abilities, from the charming swashbuckler who can smooth-talk his way out of sticky situations to the perceptive cop who can pick up clues and spot strange behavior in suspects.  Many players don't want to feel useless out of combat, especially in the more unorthodox adventures involving puzzle-solving mysteries and NPC interaction.

Should the Fighter have an assortment of mechanical tricks he can use out of combat and not reliant on DM Fiat or multiclassing?  How broad should his skill base be?

My thoughts on the matter are "yes."  I see nothing wrong with a 3rd Edition/Pathfinder Fighter having access to Knowledge skills, social interaction skills, and more "sneaky" skills like Stealth and Disable Device.  I also think that giving more "versatile" and pseudo-magical abilities to Fighters useful in and out of combat can be good as well, such as having high ranks in Jump/Acrobatics granting you sort-of-but-not-quite-flight at middle-high levels, or a "mage hunter" getting Spell Resistance or the ability to detect/shrug off magical effects.

Awaiting your opinions and answers!

I don't see why not given most fighters were nobles or of the nobility so were pretty well educated for the time. Or at least a great many concepts and motifs fit under that direction. I see nothing wrong with giving everybody more skill points with no half ranks and a hard cap on skills magic items or not.

Do what 5e is trying and give Rogues some kind of special that makes them better in certain grouping of spells.

Depends on the concept the player has in mind for the fighter they intend to play(and the campaign wolrd they're adventuring in), a balanced spread of skills tied to the background they choose for there fighter would be fine for helping the player in out of combat stuff but im sure the player and gm can roleplay any other stuff that pops up without a rule to govern it.

Fighter works best in a system with extremely broad classes. So in a game where the other options are cleric, wizard, and rogue, yes a fighter should have out of combat goodies or options for them.

There's also the question of how these things could be codified. For myself, I'd be happy with stat checks front and center and giving fighters stat boosts, NWPs or slots for class features, or even 3x/4e style "button mashing." Denners seem to favor the last; OSR doesn't see this as an issue normally, but occasionally has one of the first two (at least I've seen it in ACKS).

Last consideration is whether parity is an issue, which depends (for me) on whether people can choose race/class/spells/skill set etc. If character content is generated randomly, parity is not and never will be an issue.

Quote from: Libertad;574907...

A lot of people don't like the "Dumb Melee Fighter" archetype which seems to persist in D&D (especially in 3rd Edition).  Many warriors throughout myth and legend were skilled in all manner of non-combat abilities, from the charming swashbuckler who can smooth-talk his way out of sticky situations to the perceptive cop who can pick up clues and spot strange behavior in suspects.  Many players don't want to feel useless out of combat, especially in the more unorthodox adventures involving puzzle-solving mysteries and NPC interaction.

...

What you are describing is a fighter/rogue hybrid.

Encouraging more people to play fighter/rogue hybrids rather than pure dumb-as-a-donkey fighter types might make for a more playable game.

Personally I feel in AD&D 1st ed in its traditional format the fighter was in his element... the same goes for BECMI and AD&D 2nd ed. Ask me about 3rd ed and I no longer care, 4th ed and I never did.

But getting back to basics, all this stuff you are talking about is in D&D terms the province of rogues, classically anyway. Including bards under the general umbrella of rogues, which is not exactly AD&D 1st ed orthodoxy (they are dual classed fighter-thieves who then get another class of bard), but close enough.

You can't fix a broken player.

Quote from: Rum Cove;574955You can't fix a broken player.

Right here, he has it.

I've never had a problem with a fighter being overshadowed outside of combat.  It's one of the things I am liking with 5e and it's return to OD&D: anyone can attempt to pick a lock or disarm a trap.  The rogue is going to be the best at it sure, but just roll against the DC and see if you do it.

That's for the mechanical stuff.  For the role-playing stuff, no class is any worse than any other because it's you as the player role-playing.  If you don't like to contribute and participate out of combat, that's on you, not the class.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;574961I've never had a problem with a fighter being overshadowed outside of combat.  It's one of the things I am liking with 5e and it's return to OD&D: anyone can attempt to pick a lock or disarm a trap.  The rogue is going to be the best at it sure, but just roll against the DC and see if you do it.

That's for the mechanical stuff.  For the role-playing stuff, no class is any worse than any other because it's you as the player role-playing.  If you don't like to contribute and participate out of combat, that's on you, not the class.

Another caveat: depends on the level of niche protection.

Older D&D had skill overlap. Fighter had the strength to force a door (maybe maybe not) all damn day, rogue could do like the fighter but quiet, and a wizard could do it better but on a limited resource. Broad classes, broad skillsets, and deliberate redundancy... all good for any game where chargen provides limited choices.

EDIT: Each might still have been best at one thing, but little was really exclusive.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;574961Right here, he has it.

I've never had a problem with a fighter being overshadowed outside of combat.  It's one of the things I am liking with 5e and it's return to OD&D: anyone can attempt to pick a lock or disarm a trap.  The rogue is going to be the best at it sure, but just roll against the DC and see if you do it.

That's for the mechanical stuff.  For the role-playing stuff, no class is any worse than any other because it's you as the player role-playing.  If you don't like to contribute and participate out of combat, that's on you, not the class.

This why I'm liking where 5e is going with ability checks being central.  I do wish skills were broader like 2e but it's going the right direction, which is the hell away from the 3/4e skill for everything paradigm.  Not quite there but a module could fix that just fine.

Quote from: Marleycat;574968This why I'm liking where 5e is going with ability checks being central.  I do wish skills were broader like 2e but it's going the right direction, which is the hell away from the 3/4e skill for everything paradigm.  Not quite there but a module could fix that just fine.

As a player of AD&D, one of the things I really like about it is the ability as a DM to say, "Ok, you want to do X?  Make a dexterity check at a -2 penalty.  That sounds fair."

3e stopped this because now all the sudden you had a skill for everything, and the impression is that if you don't have the skill, you can't do it.  I don't know if 4e retained that or not.  But I'm glad to see 5e go back to a simple mechanic for handling things like this.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;574986As a player of AD&D, one of the things I really like about it is the ability as a DM to say, "Ok, you want to do X?  Make a dexterity check at a -2 penalty.  That sounds fair."

3e stopped this because now all the sudden you had a skill for everything, and the impression is that if you don't have the skill, you can't do it.  I don't know if 4e retained that or not.  But I'm glad to see 5e go back to a simple mechanic for handling things like this.

I played 4e a few times they went similar to Pathfinder, consolidation of skills but still too narrow like 3x. I have figured out why I like the ability check thing beyond what you mentioned.  It's very similar to WoD games with the DC's being a GM call. Also very 2eish with the NWP's. It's simple and quick and if there's an issue it can be easily altered after a discussion when the game is done. That sir is right up my alley because it's all about the table not the rules.

This isn't even contested in this thread but short answer "yes" a fighter SHOULD have a bunch of out of combat shit he can do. Everyone wants their fighter to do out of combat shit, there's no reason he shouldn't have out of combat shit, every "fighter" type of person in almost any piece of media worth alluding to has fighters that explicitly do out of combat shit of some sort. Batman can do a million and one things. Guts (berserk) has been shown to be able to make repairs on his mechanical arm/knows military tactics/Can track. He can also see ghosts before it was cool (and by that I mean before the FAntasia chapter where imaginary shit got real). Battlehammer can craft magic items, knows military tactics and shit about caves. People "want" fighters to be able to do "something" out of battle. The only people who usually don't are the players who only care about being in battles and don't pay attention to the stuff in between.

@Mguy

What would be the best way to accomplish this?  Not just in 3rd Edition, but in other Editions in general?

I don't think a simple expansion of skills/non-weapon proficiencies/etc is enough, particularly if spellcasters can still do cool stuff both in and out of combat.

What about giving the Fighter (a versatile-sounding concept) something equivalent to themed "kits?"  Like a guerrilla soldier is good at stealth and deceiving the enemy, a mage hunter can lock down/negate magic, a legendary artisan can build awesome weapons/gadgets, etc.  It could be equivalent to Cleric domains or Wizard schools, where Fighters can take abilities from warrior archetypes which help both in and out of combat.

I'm aware that the Frank and K Tome Series Fighter can do a lot of the stuff I mentioned above, but it's 3rd Edition only and at a higher power level than many are comfortable with.

Quote from: Libertad;575028I'm aware that the Frank and K Tome Series Fighter can do a lot of the stuff I mentioned above, but it's 3rd Edition only and at a higher power level than many are comfortable with.

I feel the same way a bout the Tomes. I don't like the wizard power level and bringing just about everything up there is not the solution I like.

Anyways I've outlined my solution (got a thread her and at the Den that covers the project I've been working on). For this question I should point something out. I've said this in several other threads but its the general principle I go by: The fighters should have an equal or close to equal amount of awesome as other classes. The problem with third is that after a certain level the supernatural stuff completely trumps the mundane stuff. Not by just a little. So my solution is to cut away the fighter that is only good at battle and cut away the caster that can do "everything". I believe that fighters should get about the same number of problem solving tools as everyone else. There's really no reason a barbarian, rogue, paladin, monk, ranger (all basically fighters of some sort) should just get goodies while the fighter gets none.  So I say decide on a power level you wanna play whether it be highlevel (super hero level game) mid level (my preferred spot) or low level (low magic reaching the peak of human performance or just a little beyond it).

I do like the idea in 3rd Edition of "themed" spellcasters, such as the Beguiler and Dread Necromancer.  Still versatile and cool to play, but limited in the sense that they couldn't go CoDzilla.

So what exactly do you think is a starting point for out-of-combat fighter stuff?  You mentioned a couple characters in media (Beserk, Battlehammer); what characters from media and myth should the D&D Fighter replicate?