Fighter - D&D 2024 Class Optimisation Guide

D&D 2024 transforms fighters into the ultimate tactical warriors with combat effects to supplement their many attacks and high durability.

Swordsmen of the highest calibre, fighters are trained with an array of weapons and in various techniques. This makes them capable of adapting their style of fighting and of making quick and precise attacks.

Some fighters might use the elegant swordsmanship of a samurai, others can shoot the apple off someone’s head. Some prefer less finesse and more fury while other will enhance their fighting with sorcery and psionics. There are many types of fighters within the D&D universe, and many of these are represented by the various subclass options you can take which provide very different flavours of fighter.

Primarily, you can think of your fighter as the tough one at the front that can not only deal out a lot of damage, but also take it in equal measure. They make more attacks, use more combat techniques and are tougher than most other classes.

This guide will take you through the nuances of building a fighter, helping you to transform your character into a devastating, fighting machine. This guide is for the 2024 version of the D&D fighter with updated rules, features and subclasses available.

At a glance

Choose a fighter if you want…

To play a melee warrior
Someone tough to kill
Like to hit your enemies a lot
Don’t want to worry about some of the more complex aspects of gameplay like spells

A fighter might not be for you if…

You don’t want to be on the frontlines of combat
Want to play a spellcaster (though there is a spellcasting subclass)
Want to play a utility character with lots of roles outside of combat
Prefer characters with a lot of complexity and options

What’s changing for fighters in D&D 2024?

Fighters were a fairly solid class in D&D 2014. However, much has been done to bring the martial classes up to speed with spellcasters and their broader capabilities. We see this with the fighter who not only gets more tactical options but even gets options that give them a little more to do outside of combat.

The main changes for a fighter are:

Weapon masteries are a new option for additional effects your attacks can make
Fighting styes are now feats with all options available to all classes and the ability to change fighting styles each time you level up
Second wind has more uses and more ways to use it too
Indomitable has been made even stronger
Studied attacks allows you to attack with advantage after a miss

Related articles

Tactics

Primarily, fighters are frontline martials with the durability, damage and even tactics to handle melee combat. Larger parties with multiple martials might be able to use a fighter with more of an archery focus, but most parties don’t have this kind of luxury.

Below are some tactics you can use to get the most out of your fighter:

Fit your fighting style to your combat style

If you want to do more damage while wielding a shield, take dueling, if you want to be more durable, take defense, if you want to play a protective tank build, then take protection. There are use cases for all of them though, and much will depend on the weapons you intend to take. For a full breakdown, check out my fighting style guide.

Build around durability and damage

Your primary focus is to deal lots of damage to your enemies through your many weapon attacks, and to soak up some of the attacks levelled at your party. Fighters aren’t as resilient as barbarians, but they’re the next best thing.

Focusing your build around high strength (or dexterity) for maximum damage, constitution (for more hit points) and enough dexterity to maximise on the AC of your armor will help you accomplish this. You can also look at feats like tough or more resilient species to enhance your hardiness further. And don’t forget second wind for some in combat healing.

Make yourself tactical with weapon mastery

Fighters get more weapon masteries than any other class. This gives you the chance to switch between weapons mid combat to lay down powerful combos. The likes of topple are great for helping allies to get advantage on attacks, push can move enemies around where you want them and nick is great if you want to dual wield.

Action surge for when you really need a turn to count

Probably the best way to use action surge is with the attack action, allowing you to basically double your attacks that turn. It refreshes on a short or long rest so it’s worth using in most combats. I’d also suggest it’s at its most effective early in combat when you can quickly take an enemy out of combat.

If you’re playing an eldritch knight, it’s worth being aware that you can use action surge and still replace an attack with a spell as you’re not using the magic action (you’re still using the attack action). This means that by level 18, you can make 2 attacks and cast mind sliver, then still take the attack action with your action surge, cast hold person and make 2 more attacks.

Use attacks tactically

Fighters get a lot of attacks, and with a lot of weapon masteries, you can swap between weapons for maximum use. You can also move between attacks and target different creatures.

For instance, if you have the push mastery, you can push multiple enemies into a close space ready for your wizard to cast fireball. If you have the topple mastery, you can knock over multiple enemies to help your allies get advantage on attacks. At range, you could use slow on multiple enemies to slow the advance of a few creatures and hold the enemy back that little bit longer.

Some of these tactics can be used alongside tactical shift to let you move easily around the battlefield. with so many ability score increases, you could even afford to invest in a feat like speedy so you can move around even more.

How to optimise a fighter

As a fighter, you mainly want to focus on your combat capabilities as this is where your strengths lie. Below I’ve gone through how you can build a well-optimised fighter:

Ability scores

Recommended options

Strength: To make the most of your melee attacks, strength is your best option, though a dexterity build is a viable choice too, especially if you want to play a ranged warrior. However, a ranged fighter is a luxury for most parties and you’ll find you deal less damage than as a melee specialist.
Constitution: You’ll need the resilience from this as a frontline warrior.
Dexterity: You could invest a bit in dexterity to help your armor class with some medium armor, though if you’d prefer to focus your ability scores elsewhere you can just go for heavy armor. This does mean you’ll be poor at long ranged combat with bows, but you can use thrown weapons for the occasional mid-range combat you need to engage in. If you do choose to go for a dexterity build, you can afford to keep your strength fairly low.

Options to avoid

Intelligence: You can dump this unless you’re playing an eldritch knight or psi warrior, in which case, you’ll need to beef this up.
Wisdom: Only useful for skills and saving throws. A plausible option for some left over ability score points though.
Charisma: Only useful for face skills and saving throws. You could invest in this a bit if you want to get involved in social situations at the expense of some dexterity.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	15	15
Dexterity	14	13
Constitution	15	14
Intelligence	8	8
Wisdom	8	10
Charisma	10	12

Skills

Recommended options

Acrobatics/athletics: Take this or athletics but not both as they tend to overlap. Go with whichever one you have the best ability score for.
History: A decent knowledge skill if you don’t have a wizard to specialise in this and you happen to be an eldritch knight or psi warrior.
Intimidation: Talk to your DM. They may let you use your strength for intimidation checks (the rules do allow for flexibility in ability checks like this).
Insight: A good skill for social situations. You may pick up on things your companions don’t.
Perception: Important for anyone in the party and highly used.

Options to avoid

Survival: Used far too little to be of much use.
Animal handling: Used far too little to be of much use.

Species/race

There are a couple of things to consider when choosing a species for a battle master:

Resilience: Fighters often take a beating so any resilience traits are going to help you out.
Innate spellcasting: You can’t repeat cast spells and likely haven’t invested enough in relevant ability scores to be much good at this so often worth avoiding. That is, unless you’re playing as an eldritch knight, in which case, you’ll likely appreciate the extra spells.
Damage dealing: You’re primarily there to deal a lot of damage to your targets so it’s handy to find more ways to do this.

Recommended options

Aasimar (2024): Resistance to necrotic and radiant damage increases your hardiness. For celestial revelation, I’d lean on inner radiance for the extra damage. Necrotic shroud requires decent charisma which you’ll struggle for. However, temporary flight is always useful. Expect to use this for accessing hard to reach places or enemies. A bit of healing is a decent emergency option too if your second wind has all been used up.
Dragonborn (2024): Dragon’s breath gives you some AoE damage not normally available to fighters and only replaces a single attack instead of using your whole action making it a very strong option for a fighter. Temporary flight again lets you get to hard to reach enemies. Plus there’s a resistance for better durability.
Dwarf (2024): An extra hit point per level is great for a frontline warrior. And for even more resilience, you have resistance against poison and advantage on saving throws against the poisoned condition.
Goliath (2024): Faster movement makes you even better at traversing the battlefield. Your giant ancestry grants some very useful options too. For a fighter, the durability of the stone giants, knocking enemies prone with hill giant and extra damage from fire giants are all great options.
Orc (2024): A couple of great endurance features here with temporary hit points and relentless endurance to save you when knocked to 0HP. Great for a frontline melee warrior.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 as the ability score increases previously tied to your race/species are now linked to your background. You also get an origin feat linked to your background too.

Primarily, you want to focus on increasing key ability scores with the associated origin feat being your next priority. As such, I’d suggest the below are your best backgrounds for a fighter:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Artisan	Strength, dexterity, intelligence	Crafter	Investigation, persuasion	One kind of artisan’s tools
Criminal	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Alert	Sleight of hand, stealth	Thieves tools
Farmer	Strength, constitution, wisdom	Tough	Animal handling, nature	Carpenter’s tools
Soldier	Strength, dexterity, constitution	Savage attacker	Athletics, intimidation	One kind of gaming set

Farmer gives you the best spread of ability score increases with a top feat but soldier is a good option too. Criminal is your best option if you’re going for a dexterity build.

Choosing your subclass

Like all classes in D&D 2024, fighters get their subclass at level 3 which represents their area of combat expertise. This allows fighters to add or expand certain capabilities, whether that’s swordsmanship, magic or psionics:

Banneret

Knights that specialise in enhancing and supporting allies with occasionally very powerful turns.

Banneret

Battle master

Students of battle and masters of tactics that dedicate themselves to the art of combat. These fighters master manoeuvres that they can use to enhance their attacks.

Battle master

Champion

These fighters seek to achieve the peak of physical prowess. They’re tougher and hit harder than even other fighters with incredible survival instincts and devastating critical hits.

Champion

Eldritch knight

Fighters that supplement martial prowess with spellcasting. They can weave magic into their combat, lobbing magic missiles between strikes of the sword.

Eldritch knight

Psi Warrior

Fighters gifted with psionic powers, allowing them to supplement attacks with telekinesis. Their psionics grant their minds an even greater fortitude than most too.

Psi warrior

Fighter subclass guide

Feats

Origin feats

To help with picking your background (or for your extra feat if you’re playing a Human), I’ve evaluated your origin feat options for a ighter below:

Recommended options

Lucky: Great on any class to have some easy advantage/disadvantage available.
Musician: A generally excellent origin feat for helping your allies out with some heroic inspiration (kind of like a slightly better lucky, you give to your friends).
Savage attacker: Better chances of higher damage on one attack per turn is decent, especially if you’re wielding a two-handed weapon.
Skilled: Decent option if you need to fill in on skills for the party. Fighters can manage this with only 2 crucial ability scores and more ability score increases than any other class. Plus, tactical mind makes you a bit more adept at skills. Your only challenge is your number of skill proficiencies, but skilled compensates for that.
Tough: Really valuable extra hit points for a frontline warrior who can expect to take a beating.

General feats

At level 4, you can start picking up general feats.

Recommended options

Crusher: Good if you want to use a bludgeoning weapon. Attack with other weapon mastery properties to cause multiple effects plus enhanced critical hits too.
Durable: Makes you even harder to kill. Important when you’re on the front lines taking a beating.
Grappler: Grapple more competently if your building around grappling.
Great weapon master: Great bonus damage when wielding a heavy weapon, especially as you gain more extra attacks. Also great for dealing with hordes of weaker enemies to grab bonus attacks.
Heavy armor master: Greater durability against common damage types if you’re going to be wearing heavy armor.
Mage slayer: Great for disrupting mages and gives you something similar to legendary resistance.
Medium armor master: If you’re wearing medium armor and have the dexterity to gain the benefits, +1 AC is solid, but you do need to meet some quite specific criteria for this to be worthwhile.
Polearm master: Great for polearm wielding fighters that want to make more consistent attacks with their reaction. Plus you get bonus action attacks too.
Sentinel: Easier opportunity attacks and preventing enemies from leaving your sphere of influence.
Shield master: Use your shield to push or topple enemies and make you more resilient to dexterity saving throw effects.

Epic boon – Level 19

Choose an epic boon which will grant you a super feat and an ability score increase that also allows your ability scores to go above the usual maximum of 20!

Recommended options

Boon of combat prowess: Making a miss an automatic hit each turn is great, especially when you have so many attacks, one of them is likely to miss.
Boon of energy resistance: More resistance to damage is welcome. Either pick commons damage types (like poison or fire) unless you know the damage type of an enemy you’re going to face, then pick that. Enjoy blasting enemies with that damage type with your reaction. This is likely more damage than a single of your attacks will cause so a worthwhile alternative to an opportunity attack.
Boon of fortitude: A big stack of extra hit points is great for increasing your durability.
Boon of irresistible offense: Lots of opportunities to roll a 20 for an attack roll through all your extra attacks. And ignoring some resistances is handy too for a class that can often be stuck with bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage.
Boon of recovery: Allows you to heal yourself with a bonus action and recover half your hit points if you’re reduced to 0. Useful for a frontline class.
Boon of dimensional travel: Free uses of misty step every turn without expending a bonus action is super useful for anyone. Helps you get into combat faster and zip around the battlefield to the places you need to be.

Weapons

The weapons you choose will depend largely on how you want to fight and what weapon mastery properties you want to be using:

Pure damage: Go for two-handed weapons like a greatsword, greataxe, glaive, halberd or maul. Greatswords and glaives have the graze weapon mastery which is generally inferior in my opinion so I’d go with other options.
Sword and shield: If you want to go heavier on defense, you’ll need a one handed weapon like a longsword, battleaxe, morningstar or warhammer.
Two weapon fighting: If you want to fight with two weapons for the extra offhand attack, you’ll need to use light weapons. Handaxes and scimitars are best for this. This can be effective at low levels, but diminishes in value as you gain more attacks and sacrifice using a more powerful weapon so not the best option for a fighter.
Ranged: Tridents and javelins can be thrown allowing you to make ranged attacks with your strength. If you’re a dexterity build, a longbow is your best option.

A big part of your decision-making around weapons should come down to the weapon mastery properties you want to use. This mainly depends on the tactics you want to employ, but you can check out my weapon mastery guide to work out how best to utilise these properties.

Armor

This will depend on how much you can invest in dexterity. If playing a dexterity build, then light armor will work well with studded leather your best option.

If you’re a strength build, take heavy armor (plate mail is best if you can afford it) unless you decide to invest 14 in dexterity, in which case, you can go for medium armor (half plate being your best option).

If you want some extra protection, a shield is a good choice but it will diminish your damage output though the dueling fighting style will help here.

Fighter quick builds

If you’re still struggling to know how to build your fighter, I’ve popped a couple of ideas below for different types of builds you could use. I’ve taken these up to level 3 as this is where the Player’s Handbook recommends most players start (and because it allows you to see how these builds look once you get your subclass). If you are starting at 1st level, just remember to not include features you only get after level 1.

Damage dealer

Good for

Causing melee damage

Creating a damage dealer

Ability Scores (Point Buy/Standard Array)

Strength: 15/15
Dexterity: 14/13
Constitution: 15/14
Intelligence: 8/8
Wisdom: 8/10
Charisma: 10/12

Skills: Insight, perception, athletics (background), intimidation (background)

Species: Dragonborn

Background: Soldier – If using point buy, add +2 to strength and +1 to constitution. If using standard array, add +2 to strength and +1 to dexterity.

Subclass: Champion

Fighting style: Defense

Weapons: Greataxe, trident

Armor: Half plate

Tank

Good for

Absorbing a lot of hits.

Creating a tank

Ability Scores (Point Buy/Standard Array)

Strength: 15/13
Dexterity: 14/14
Constitution: 15/15
Intelligence: 8/8
Wisdom: 8/10
Charisma: 10/12

Skills: Athletics, perception, animal handling (background), nature (background)

Species: Dwarf

Background: Farmer – If using point buy, add +2 to constitution and +1 to strength. If using standard array, add +2 to strength and +1 to constitution.

Subclass: Champion

Fighting style: Dueling

Weapons: Longsword, trident

Armor: Half plate, shield

Archer

Good for

Causing ranged damage

Creating an archer

Ability Scores (Point Buy/Standard Array)

Strength: 8/8
Dexterity: 15/15
Constitution: 15/13
Intelligence: 15/14
Wisdom: 8/10
Charisma: 8/12

Skills: Insight, perception, sleight of hand (background), stealth (background)

Species: Aasimar

Background: Criminal – If using point buy, add +2 to dexterity and +1 to intelligence. If using standard array, add +2 to intelligence and +1 to dexterity.

Subclass: Eldritch knight

Fighting style: Archery

Weapons: Longbow, rapier

Armor: Studded leather