Fighter 5e - D&D Class Guide

Hack and slash enemies apart with this combat-focused class for D&D 5e

Fighters are trained warriors and students of combat. They’re versatile combatants capable with a range of weaponry and fighting styles. Fighters are certainly in their element while in the thick of battle, and while they have their uses elsewhere (need to intimidate an uncooperative guard for example, or bash down a door?) they are certainly at their best when fighting.

Popular culture is littered with examples of fighters from the brawling Captain America to the axe-wielding Gimli. Not all fighters come in typical varieties either. For example, Kaladin Stormblessed fits the mould of a Psi Warrior while Geralt is a bit of an Eldritch Knight, merging swordsmanship with magic (though he also fits the bill for a ranger too).

If you’re looking for an easy to play, high damage, warrior class, then a fighter could be for you. Read on for our guide on how to create and play as a fighter character in D&D 5e.

At a glance

Choose a fighter if you want…

To fight with weapons
A durable class
To solve problems with your fists
A class that’s easy to play

A fighter might not be for you if…

You’re looking for a spellcaster
You like having lots of tools at your disposal
Are looking for a more challenging class to play
Don’t want to be the one taking the beating while everyone else hides behind you

For a more detailed look at what a Fighter’s capabilities, I’ve put together the scoring matrix below. This rates fighters on different features and abilities to give you a clear idea of where their strengths and weaknesses lie. For a full comparison of all classes and their capabilities, check out our class guide:

Class ratings (out of 5)

Combat

Armor class: 4

Weapon damage: 5

Durability: 5

Mobility: 3

Combat abilities: 5

Spellcasting

N/A: Fighters don’t have access to spells

Out of combat

Face abilities: 2

Skills: 2

Out of combat abilities: 1

How have we worked out these scores?

We’ve reviewed and played all the officially released D&D 5e classes and looked at a typical build for these class types. Because subclasses offer a lot of variety, we’ve had to exclude these from our considerations.

There is an exception here as the artificer is shaped hugely by their subclass. When it comes to something like weapon damage, we’ve had to take into consideration the fact that most artificers are decent with weapons, but an alchemist would probably only score a 2, even if the other artificer subclasses would score a 3.

We’ve scored each attribute out of 5 with a score of 5 reserved for classes that are the very best at that attribute. There’s some judgement required here. For example, a druid is typically a 3 in mobility (average mobility), but with wildshape, they can fly and swim quicker (and just travel faster). This elevates their score in our minds, even if they don’t consistently have these levels of mobility.

It’s important to understand though, that these scores are not hard and fast. Obtaining feats and pumping more into certain ability scores can turn any class into a decent face, for example. Different subclasses will also make a class better at different things (like an eldritch knight gaining spellcasting) but we feel that these scores represent most typical versions of their class.

The above tackles a typical fighter build, but with subclasses and multi-classing, there are some interesting and unique fighters that can combine things like spellcasting into your character.

If you think a fighter isn’t for you, not to worry, there are 12 other classes for you to pick from, just check out our class guide to find out about all of them. Some great alternatives to the melee-focused fighter include; paladins, barbarians, rangers and monks.

Fighter class features

Below I’ve outlined a fighter’s class features. The main things to note are their huge flexibility with armor and weapons with all options available to fighters. They also have fairly high hit dice (only a barbarian has a higher hit dice). Strength isn’t a great saving throw as it tends to be rarely needed, but constitution is a common saving throw so a great option.

Party Role	Tank, Melee Damage Dealer, Ranged Damage Dealer
Main Ability	Strength or Dexterity
Saving Throws	Strength, Constitution
Hit Dice	1d10 + Consitution modifier per level
HP at 1st Level	10 + Constitution Modifier
Spell Casting Ability	N/A
Armour Proficiency	All armour, shields
Weapon Proficiency	Simple weapons, martial weapons

Strengths

It may seem obvious, but fighters are indeed, good at fighting! Specifically though, they’re great at a few things:

Tanks: Have high hit dice and it’s easy to boost their AC with armor making them able to soak up a lot of attacks.
Damage dealers: Fighters are capable of wielding high damage weapons and get 3 extra attacks (getting these at the earliest point of any class). On top of this, you get action surge which stacks with your extra attacks allowing you to occasionally dish out insane amounts of damage! Even without action surge, fighters are consistently capable of high levels of damage (technically, spellcasters like wizards and sorcerers are capable of higher levels of damage, but because of spell slots, can’t do this as regularly as fighters can).
High ability scores: Fighters get the most opportunities to boost their ability scores allowing them to really hone their skills. This means they can hit 20 in crucial abilities more quickly. If you’re optimising well, this will also help your damage output.
Feat machine: Alternatively, you can take feats in place of some or all of these ability score improvements for some added flexibility.
Great beginner class: Fighters are fairly straightforward tactically and don’t have lots of extra features to remember so make a great class for beginners.

Weaknesses

Fighters are highly specialised at fighting, but this specialism comes at the cost of versatility. This means that fighters often aren’t great at certain things (though some subclasses can help here):

Out of combat: There’s usually someone better to handle out of combat things. Fighters don’t get a lot of skill proficiencies and need to focus their ability scores on fighting abilities like strength, dexterity and constitution. This means they’re often poor spokesmen and poor at most skill checks, though can be good at a few things, especially dexterity based skills.
Spellcasting: Unless you take an eldritch knight for your subclass, fighters also lack any kind of spellcasting ability (which again, leads to less versatility).
Can be too simple for some: While a hugely accessible class, more experienced players may find the straightforward nature of a fighter a little boring.

How to play as a fighter

Broadly speaking, you’ll want your fighter getting stuck into combat and dealing lots of damage, but there are a few good ways to approach this which I’ve outlined below:

Tank

Good for: Soaking up damage, dealing melee damage, protecting less durable party members.

Creating a tank: High strength (for melee weapons), high constitution, heavy armor to increase AC (full plate if you can afford it) and take a shield too. Focus on feats and fighting styles that will help protect yourself and others like the defense and dueling fighting styles.

How it works: As you’d expect, tanks are great for wading into combat and soaking up attacks while dishing out pretty hefty damage themselves. You’ll sacrifice some damage output by having a shield, but generally, this adds up by letting you last longer in a battle. If you do want to up your damage output, the dueling fighting style works well. Defense is also excellent to up your AC and make you more durable (even if it’s a little more boring).

Warrior

Good for: Dealing high damage, still reasonably durable and very much a frontline combatant.

Creating a warrior: High strength (for melee weapons), high constitution, heavy armor to increase AC (full plate if you can afford it) but avoid taking a shield as this will limit your damage output. Two-handed weapons are best and dueling is the best option for increasing damage output with a fighting style.

How it works: Warrior builds are also great at wading into combat, and while they can definitely soak up a fair bit of damage, will lack the AC of a tank build to absorb as many attacks. Instead, you can focus on thinning the herd in an attack is the best form of defence kind of method.

While you can go wield two weapons for that extra offhand attack, this will take up your bonus action and means your weapons do less damage. Also, once you get to 2-4 attacks, the maths doesn’t really stack up and you’re much better off taking a two-handed weapon instead.

Archer

Good for: Dealing lots of damage at range.

Creating an archer: High dexterity (for ranged weapons), because of this, you can stick with light armor (studded leather is best), as long as your dexterity is high enough (which it should be). A longbow is likely your best option for ranged damage.

How it works: An archer build is a bit of a luxury in a party. Usually, the fighter is reserved for soaking up damage (even with a warrior build) and protecting weaker party members. Larger parties may be able to afford to have their fighter firing off volleys of spiky death on enemies though and you make a valuable reserve melee warrior if you’re attacked from behind or enemies break through to your spellcasters.

Archer builds don’t need strength as ranged weapons rely on dexterity and you’ll find little use for it so go big on dexterity and ignore strength. You should have high enough dexterity that light armor is the most effective option. Once you start getting extra attacks, you’ll also want to avoid heavy crossbows, despite their extra damage, the reload property will prevent you maximising on your extra attacks so a longbow is best (or a shortbow if you’re small).

Once you hit level 3, you’ll gain access to subclasses (more on those later) which can add further variety to your build and a larger repertoire of abilities. However, most fighters (even paired with their subclasses) will usually fit best into the 3 types of builds above.

Which subclass should I choose?

There are lots of great fighter subclasses to choose from so much of this decision comes down to the kind of character you’re trying to build. If you want a fighter with spellcasting, choose an eldritch knight. If you want a fighter that strikes with immense precision, choose a samurai. If you want to enhance your ability with mystical powers without having to worry about spells, the echo knight, psi warrior and rune knight are all great.

I’ve popped some guidance below on which subclasses are useful for different types of fighter builds and playstyles.

Champion

Source Book: Player’s Handbook

Description: Particularly deadly fighters that enhance their critical strikes.

Good for: Fighters that just want to deal even more damage than anyone else.

Battle Master

Source Book: Player’s Handbook

Description: Highly trained warriors that use battle maneuvers to gain the upper hand in combat.

Good for: Fighters that want to double-down on melee combat with maneuvers that can give you an edge against opponents.

Eldritch Knight

Source Book: Player’s Handbook

Description: Use magic to supplement their martial prowess.

Good for: Fighters that want to be able to cast spells.

Purple Dragon Knight

Source Book: Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide

Description: A particularly brave and inspiring warrior.

Good for: Fighters that want to be inspiring leaders that can buff allies.

Arcane Archer

Source Book: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Description: A warrior that specialises in long range combat mixing magical means with their projectiles.

Good for: Fighters that want a huge damage output at range.

Cavalier

Source Book: X anathar’s Guide to Everything

Description: A warrior that excels in mounted combat.

Good for: Fighters that want to ride into battle on a mount. This can have limited application in some campaigns so worth discussing with your DM if you’ll be able to get the most out of this subclass.

Samurai

Source Book: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Description: A warrior capable of defeating foes in a flurry of blows.

Good for: Fighters that want to strike with incredible precision and rarely miss their target. Samurais also work well for fighters that want to excel in face skills.

Echo Knight

Source Book: Explorer’s Guide to Wildemont

Description: Able to create an echo to support in combat.

Good for: Fighters that want to be able to spread their influence further across the battlefield with the presence of an echo form of themselves.

Psi Warrior

Source Book: Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Description: A warrior that fights with their muscle and psychic powers.

Good for: Fighters that want their martial prowess enhanced with psychic abilities, a bit like having some of the benefits of being a monk, combined with your fighter.

Rune Knight

Source Book: Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Description: A warrior that attunes the might of giants and their runes in combat.

Good for: Fighters that want to enhance their gear and abilities with magical runes.

How to optimise a fighter

Optimising a character properly can be tricky. Below I’ve picked out some key attributes for you to use with a fighter to turn them into a formidable warrior:

Ability score

Recommended options: Strength and Constitution. Dexterity if you’re going for a ranged build or a build without heavy armor.

Options to avoid: Intelligence (unless playing an Eldritch Knight), wisdom and charisma

Considerations: Most fighters will want to go heavy on strength as the de facto party tanks and melee damage dealers with the most high damage weapons using strength (like greatswords or longswords if you’re going for a sword and shield combo). Dexterity-based fighters do work though. You’ll want to go for a dexterity build if you’re planning to play an archer. Melee-based dexterity builds can work too but usually your best option is high strength and heavy armor.

If you plan on subclassing into an eldritch knight, you’ll want to plan ahead and make sure you have some decent intelligence. The same goes if you plan on multiclassing into a spellcasting class. Charisma may not be a bad shout if your party lacks a natural face, but generally, this is best left to other classes like bards and paladins.

Races

Options to avoid: Changeling, Tiefling

Considerations: Most races can make good fighters, but the best races will give you ability score increases in strength and/or constitution (or possibly dexterity). Many more recently published races give you a choice of ability score increases anyway and you can opt for Tasha’s custom origin rules for any race if your DM is happy with this.

The best fighter races will also have racial features that complement your combat abilities like the extra durability of an Autognome or Goliath or the extra damage of an Aasimar or Bugbear.

I’ve suggested to avoid using a Changeling or a Tiefling as Changelings rely heavily on face skills that fighters will struggle to maximise on enough while Tieflings gain ability score increases in charisma and rely on innate spellcasting that fighters will generally be less effective at. They aren’t a terrible option and a bloodline of Zariel is probably your best option with the +1 strength and smite spells that can make you a bit of a mini paladin.

Backgrounds

Recommended options: Soldier, urchin, outlander, city watch

Options to avoid: Hermit, guild artisan, acolyte, noble

Considerations: Backgrounds tend to be good for giving you extra skills to work with, but as there aren’t many strength or constitution based skills, and fighters generally aren’t relied on for these, a fighter’s background is less important. You might get some mileage from dexterity based skills. Eldritch knights might do well from some backgrounds with intelligence based skills too like arcana and religion.

Skills

Recommended options: Athletics, intimidation (especially if your DM uses the rules around flexible ability scores for skill checks), perception, survival, medicine

Options to avoid: Acrobatics, animal handling, arcana, nature, religion, performance

Considerations: As mentioned, fighters don’t tend to be a go to skill class and tend to focus on ability scores that don’t align with most skills. Athletics is your sole, strength based skill and intimidation can be good if your DM will let you use your strength for intimidation checks. Medicine is useful when there are no healers available and perception and survival have broad uses and often involve multiple party members so you can make good backup.

Feats

Recommended options: Crossbow expert, gift of the Chromatic dragon, gunner, great weapon master, heavy armor master, lucky, polearm master, sentinel, skill expert

Options to avoid: Elemental adept, gift of the gem dragon, gift of the metallic dragon, grappler, inspiring leader, magic initiate, medium armor master, metamagic adept, observant, ritual caster, shadow touched, skulker, tavern brawler

Considerations: The feats you choose will largely depend on your fighter build. I’ve recommended some good options above, but consider things like sentinel and great weapon master for increased damage output, heavy armor master for greater durability or gunner for improved ranged ability.

Weapons

Recommended options: Most weapons can work well in some form or another. Two-handed weapons tend to work best with a fighter’s extra attacks while longbows are your best ranged option. If you’re going for a sword and shield approach, a longsword works well.

Options to avoid: Heavy crossbow (reload means it’s a poor option once you get extra attacks, other ranged options just work better).

Considerations: Most weapons can work great in the hands of a fighter. If you plan on going for two-handed weapons, make sure you go big on strength. If you want to go for ranged, make sure you’re big on dexterity. Two weapon fighting is also an option at the sacrifice of some of the damage output of the weapons (but more attacks) but tends not to do as much damage as a two-handed weapon once you start picking up extra attacks. If you want to be more of a tank, you can opt for a one-handed weapon like a longsword and a shield.

Armor

Recommended options: Heavy armor for low dexterity builds (full plate when you can afford it), light armor (studded leather is best) for high dexterity builds (or medium armor if you’ve not hit 16-20 dexterity). A shield is an option depending on how much you want to trade off pure damage for tankiness.

Options to avoid: Just make sure your armor matches with your dexterity score, fighters are proficient with all armor so the only bad options are ones that don’t match your ability scores.

Considerations: Fighters are proficient in all armor types so use the armor that fits your build best but as a rule of thumb, light armor for high dexterity builds, heavy armor for low dexterity builds and medium if you’re somewhere in the middle. Add a shield or extra durability at the sacrifice of some damage output.

Fighting style

Recommended options: Archery for ranged builds or for melee builds, defense, dueling and great weapon fighting are some of your best options.

Options to avoid: Superior technique is weaker than other options as it can only be used at most, once per encounter, unarmed fighting is difficult to make it effective and blind fighting is highly situational (or takes a lot of effort to manipulate circumstances to make it worthwhile).

Considerations: Dueling is an excellent option for tank builds that use a shield to help compensate for some of the lost damage output. Great weapon fighting on the other hand, will make fighters wielding a two handed weapon deal more damage. Defense gives you +1 AC which is great for any build (even if it is a little boring).

Other options are certainly viable. Protection works well for defending allies, but you’ll need to work in tandem with an ally to take advantage of this one. Thrown weapon fighting is a lot of fun and is an interesting option that makes throwing weapons a viable tactic.

Multiclassing

Recommended options: Barbarian, Paladin and Wizard

Options to avoid: Sorcerer, Bard, Cleric and Druid

Considerations: Fighters make a great class to dip a few levels in. Just a couple of levels will get you a fighting style, action surge and second wind which can be excellent for many classes.

For a fighter main, getting a barbarian’s rage will really aid your endurance and damage output. Eldritch knights will get a lot from a couple of levels in wizard, especially as wizards get great subclass abilities at level 2. A couple of levels of paladin will also get you divine smites, another fighting style and lay on hands (for emergency resuscitation of downed allies).

On the flip side, non-intelligence based casters often don’t mix well with fighters (and intelligence-based casters only really mix well with eldritch knights) That’s not to say you won’t get anything from a bard’s skills or a sorcerer’s spells, but fighters are generally too ineffective at spells to make the multiclass worthwhile. Warlocks possibly manage a little better as they are a little more combat-based, but still not an easy option to make work.

Roleplaying a fighter

Fighters are incredibly common in literature and come in a huge variety of types and personalities. This is reflected in the subclass options which offer wildly different ways of applying those fighter skills.

This also means that there’s an array of ways to roleplay a fighter too which can make them loads of fun. Below, I’ve listed some ideas in case you’re stuck, but fighters are not limited in personality so go with whatever feels right for your character:

The thug: You’re a rough around the edges kind of character. You’ve learnt to use your brawn to solve problems and have often found yourself hired for your muscle. Maybe given the proper chance, you could do something meaningful with that power of yours, or maybe you’re just in it for the money.
The Knight: Raised on tales of daring heroes rescuing entire towns from marauding xvaarts (or whatever fanciful creature took the bard’s fancy) you have honed your fighting prowess to become a protector of the weak and helpless.
The soldier: Trained in the art of warfare, you know the stance and swing for every weapon. Combat is an art form for you. Perhaps you have a collection of weapons. Perhaps you even name your weapons. Your weapons may even be the most precious things in the planes to you…
Touched by magic: While a fighter at heart, perhaps you’ve been touched by some form of magic, granting you strange abilities (like those of an eldrich knight or a psi warrior). The source of these gifts may come from your lineage or a traumatic event, or perhaps you simply trained with a local wizard, but found your true calling with the sword.
The gladiator: You were enslaved. Taken captive from your village by slavers and forced to fight in the arena for the entertainment of the masses. You’ve survived through sheer determination, skill and a lot of luck! You eventually escaped your captors and now seek to find a new life for yourself.