In Lion & Dragon, I make fighters by far the most competent at combat.  They get more attacks, better hit bonuses, more damage, can use armor more effectively, and are better at parrying.

How strong do you want your fighters to be at fighting compared to other classes? And how do you want them to be that way: special abilities (feats, etc), higher base combat stats (like I do in L&D) or some other method?

Well, for one, I think they should improve at fighting every level. Most spell casters gain a new spell every level, so fighters should improve at hitting a target every level. The alternate progression in 1e is pretty much it, IMHO (the table says fighters improve 2 every 2 levels, but mentions that a DM can opt to do it 1 every level).

As opposed to 0e, where fighters only improved once ever 3 levels, compared to clerics 4 and MUs 5. A 3rd level fighting fighting as well as a 1st level? Or a 1st level MU for that matter.

I wouldn't go crazy with the armor, as I think clerics should be viable front line types. They just shouldn't do as much damage as fighters.

In my OD&D, they get +1 Attack bonus per level and "Kill & Kill Again" (aka, Cleave). That's been enough for my players to be happy. I have played around with Damage and/or AC bonuses, but I fluxuate that about depending on the campaign.

I like them significantly better at Fighting than other non-Fighter classes, though I want other classes to be able to contribute in combat.
They should either be more resilient (better AC/hp), do more damage, or both.

I think my favourite D&D version is the 4e D&D Fighter, who is more resilient than almost anyone (the splatbook Warden class edges it) with very good damage and battlefield control. The 5e D&D Fighter is a Striker, very good damage but usually not very resilient - could be good with Heavy Armour Mastery feat but IME players go for the attack feats. 3e Fighter is garbage. 2e I think is slightly weak for the XP chart but ok. 1e Fighter with Weapon Specialisation is a God of War, unless everyone else has it too.

This is why I like D&D, with only a few exceptions the Fighter has been the most durable and sustained damage dealing class pre-WOTC and 5e pushes them back to the top again.

I either want them to be:

A. Tops at fighting, or

B. More skilled than some editions make them--i.e. not pigeon-holed.  Don't really care whether that is through the mechanics explicitly, or the more implicit style of earlier D&D with adventurers able to do many things.  (I take it back.  I do care.  I like a mix of those styles.)

If there is no good reason to start as fighter and continue as one, then there is something wrong with the system.

For D&D generally speaking...
1. Fighters
2. Paladins/Rangers/Barbarians/Cavaliers - ie. Fighters+X (I can accept them being more like fighters if they are proportionately rarer.)
3. Clerics/Assassins/Monks
4. Thieves
5. Minstrels/Bards (not the Druidic ones, the 2e ones)
6. Any Arcane Caster

If Fighters aren't Gods of War, what's their point in a class system?

Quote from: CRKrueger;1021155If Fighters aren't Gods of War, what's their point in a class system?

I can only agree with this.

I added damage and AC bonuses, plus an extension of the Errol Flynn Rule: If your minimum damage is enough to kill an opponent, you get a free attack.

Quote from: Elfdart;1021274I added damage and AC bonuses, plus an extension of the Errol Flynn Rule: If your minimum damage is enough to kill an opponent, you get a free attack.

Which version of D&D?  (Honest curiousity)

Quote from: JeremyR;1021099As opposed to 0e, where fighters only improved once ever 3 levels, compared to clerics 4 and MUs 5. A 3rd level fighting fighting as well as a 1st level? Or a 1st level MU for that matter.

A 3rd level fighter was absolutely better at fighting than a 1st level fighter or MU--they had the AC and HP that you might conceivably put them in melee with a ______ (pick your opponent). They also could take 3 swings at 1hd opponents.

I think more importantly the AC spread in OD&D was a bit lower. This is a gut instinct and I haven't done the analysis. But I feel like +5 armor and shield is something that you might theoretically get in oD&D but wouldn't in actual play, while in AD&D you might. Add in full plate from UA, and genuine negative ACs are not completely absurd. Same feeling about monster ACs (again, I could just look at the monster ACs, but I'm thinking more of 'actual in play average opponent AC' which is a more complex question). So I feel like if in oD&D you were to give fighters a +1/level, it would quickly become a case of 'AC is irrelevant for fighters.' I suppose that's not inherently a bad thing (AC matters for rogues and clerics and 1st level characters, but not heroic high-level fighters), but it hits on my 'why have a mechanism like AC if you're just going to make it obsolete?' gut reaction.

To the OP (and thus deliberately veering into opinion): I feel that fighters should have the mechanical support to emulate someone like Boromir in the cinematic LotR saga -- his father could ask the question, "How did you escape, and my son did not, so mighty a man as he was?" In other words, fighters are not so crazy good at fighting that they never die, but they are so mighty that if they do, you expect it is because the whole side they were on were wiped out.

The Errol Flynn Rule* is from 1E AD&D, but I use it when I play Holmes, 2E or other versions. My addition allows fighters to mow down other weak monsters, not just 0-level or creatures with less than a full d8 for hit points.

* A fighter gets to attack as many scrubs as he has levels.

I find for OD&D adding the Fighters to hit bonus as a initiative bonus to good way to make the fighter more effective without adding a lot of kewl powers

I personally would like to see Fighters get a damage bonus equal to half their level or even equal to their level with every attack.

Rangers can feather you with arrows and have magic, Paladins get smites and magic and Barbarians have rage and dull caster classes, well we know what the can do.

But I want a Fighter that can challenge a Giant or a Dragon and beat it's ass.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1021091In Lion & Dragon, I make fighters by far the most competent at combat.  They get more attacks, better hit bonuses, more damage, can use armor more effectively, and are better at parrying.

How strong do you want your fighters to be at fighting compared to other classes? And how do you want them to be that way: special abilities (feats, etc), higher base combat stats (like I do in L&D) or some other method?

I have a class called Elite Warriors. They are the terror of the battlefield. They are about what one might expect from that name: knights, samurai, Kshatriya (India), plains Dog Soldiers, Spartiates (although they are soldiers rather than warriors) Some none-Humans, Hobgoblin Blood-kin, Dwarf  regular As (also soldiers) Elf Immortals, whatever the Game Master wants for the setting, really. They train from late childhood for battle. They can have other interests and hobbies but not another Occupation. They do study tactics and strategy and leadership and some learn diplomacy. Some are born to the Profession and others, like the Dwarf Regular As, are tested for aptitude and either required or allowed, depending on the society, to enter training.

Fighters are about two steps behind. They hit less often and they are easier to hit. They aren't complete amateurs. They have done military service or been in a bandit band or something like that. They are not what D&D calls fighters. They often have inferior equipment. Followers armor _looks_ like Samurai armor, for instance, but it is mass-produced munitions quality and not as good. However, Fighters can have another whole Occupation. Some other classes have as much combat ability as Fighters but most are a step behind them.