While my Wizard is catching up in terms of full length of time playing a campaign, my Fighter is the class I've played the most (though not to the highest level). The Fighter has always been a solid class, but one that was sort of a framework for you to build customization into it.
Fighters, like Barbarians and eventually Monks, are now taking advantage of the new Weapon Mastery system, and Fighters in particular seem to be focusing on them, giving them special ways to interact with this new system.
Let's go level-by-level and look at the features of the revised Fighter. Once we've done that, we'll look at the Champion, the default subclass.
Before we get into class features, Persuasion has been added to the Fighter skill list, which seems reasonable.
At 1st level, you get Fighting Style, Second Wind, and Weapon Mastery
Fighting Style works the same as it did, though now uses the new feat system that treats these styles as feats. You thus effectively get a bonus feat from that category.
Second Wind has been redesigned. It still heals you as a bonus action for 1d10 + your fighter level, but rather than recharging on a short rest, you now get a growing number of uses per long rest. You begin with 2, and then get a 3rd at level 4, and a 4th at level 10.
In the long run, I think that this translates in most cases to more Second Wind uses, though the old "use it right before a short rest" trick is no longer in effect. Because short rests have not been always consistently used and made available depending on the campaign or DM, it looks like they're transitioning a lot of abilities away from recharging on short rests (most importantly for Warlocks).
Common to all Warriors, Fighters get Weapon Mastery, which unlocks special, powerful properties on their weapons. When you get the feature, you choose three types of weapons (such as pistols, longswords, or spears) and unlock the mastery properties on these weapons. When you finish a long rest, you can swap out which masteries you have unlocked. You can have an additional weapon mastery active when you hit level 4, and another at level 10, at which point you'll have five at a time. These can all be swapped on a long rest.
Fighters, notably, are ahead of the curve on these masteries compared to Barbarians, getting one more active mastery at each level breakpoint. I suspect Monks will have the same progression as Barbarians, as Fighters are the most weapon-mastery-weapon-masters of all the classes.
At 2nd level, you get Action Surge.
Unlike Second Wind, Action Surge still recharges on a Short or Long rest, but you can only use the additional action from it to use the Attack, Dash, Disengage, or Dodge actions. Later, at level 15, you get to use Action Surge twice per rest, which is bumped up from level 17 in the current version.
Sadly, my dreams of Fireball-Action Surge-Fireball are not possible on my Eldritch Knight if I switch to this version. Still, the functionality here is nearly the same. The limitation on types of action might actually be specifically intended to prevent people from dipping into Fighter to double-cast spells (or for high-level Eldritch Knights to benefit from this - but hey, we haven't seen the new version of EKs yet! Maybe they get to carve out an exception?)
At 3, you get a subclass, with additional features at 6, 10, and 14, as is now standard.
At level 4, 5, 8, 12, 15, 16, and 19, you get Feats.
Fighters continue to get more feats than other classes over the course of their careers, but the levels of the two extra feats have been moved around. The first bonus feat has been moved down from level 6 to level 5, while the second has been moved up from 14 to 15. So, it's a bit of a wash, but you'll be able to easily get your primary stat maxed out at level 5 now if that's what you want.
At level 5, you get Extra Attack.
At level 7, you get Weapon Expert.
This new feature interacts with the Weapon Mastery system. When you finish a long rest, you can replace the mastery property of one weapon you're using with the mastery of another weapon type, as long as the property meets the prerequisites for the weapon. For example, you could replace the Longsword's Flex property with Push. The change only affects the weapon for you, and not others, and lasts until you finish your next long rest.
This is actually super cool, letting you trade in more appealing weapon masteries if you get some magic weapon, and makes you far less beholden to what weapons are available to you.
At level 9, you get Indomitable.
This has been redesigned. When you reroll a save with it, you now get a bonus equal to your Fighter level. You can only use this once per long rest.
This is massive. I think in my Fighter's career I never once actually got a successful save thanks to Indomitable, but now you gain a massive bonus to the save, and can truly feel like the stalwart and unshakeable soldier. By the highest level, this is almost a Legendary Resistance - the Lich tries to Disintegrate you? A +17 bonus to your save sounds pretty damn good.
At level 11 you get Two Extra Attacks.
The new name makes this clear, and the functionality is pretty straightforward.
At level 13, you get Weapon Adept.
Enhancing your Weapon Expert, you can now put two properties on a weapon rather than one. These still need to meet the prerequisites. Each time you make an attack roll against a target, you choose which property applies, which you choose before you resolve the roll.
This is super cool, allowing you to gain profound flexibility with your weapon. It's also phrased a little differently, implying that rather than an individual weapon type, you're actually altering your use of any of that kind of weapon, which might need some clean-up in the edit. The mastery I'm most inclined to think about here is Cleave, which is insanely powerful, but only in the right situations. Being able to pair it with, say, Graze, would be a great way to have a weapon ready for both crowds and a highly-armored boss.
At level 15, you get Improved Action Surge.
As mentioned in Action Surge, this gives you two uses per rest.
At level 17, you get Unconquerable.
If you fail a saving throw and your Indomitable feature is expended, you can now use it again by expending a use of Second Wind. Doing so also gives you the healing of Second Wind.
This is awesome. Fighters were already pretty great tanks, but this really reinforces the idea that a tier 4 fighter is just an absolute master of the battlefield, and can go toe-to-toe with dragons and demons and everything the DM throws at them.
At level 18, you get Three Extra Attacks.
Yeah, simple, easy, you get it.
So, overall, I think the Fighter basically has no reason to complain and every reason to celebrate. What was already a pretty strong class has now leaned farther in to its strengths, gaining a clearer identity, and just seeming awesome. And they haven't really lost nearly anything I can think of, unless you really preferred getting your resources back on a short rest (as an Eldritch Knight, I never did, so perhaps my perspective is skewed).
Now, let's take a look at the default subclass: the Champion. Explicitly, the Champion is meant to be the simplest subclass in all of D&D, and is meant to feel strong enough but also very simple to play.
At 3rd level, you get Adaptable Victor and Improved Critical.
Improved Critical remains the same, letting you crit on a 19 with weapons, though this now explicitly includes Unarmed Strikes.
Not broke, don't fix.
Adaptable Victor is a new feature. When you finish a long rest, you can gain proficiency with another Fighter class skill until the end of your next long rest.
Simple, but a nice way to be able to adjust your capabilities for the circumstances.
At 6th level, you get Additional Fighting Style and Heroic Warrior.
Additional Fighting Style does what it says, but has been bumped up from 10.
Given how Fighting Style is now a type of feat, a Champion could absolutely deck themselves out with these things.
Heroic Warrior is a new feature that allows you, once per combat, to give yourself Heroic Advantage (the new name for Inspiration) if you don't have it at the start of your turn.
Again, the Champion plays into core gameplay systems that are simple. One thing I find odd is that the "per combat" is different than the format they've been using of "you regain this ability when you roll initiative." I wonder if they're trying out different phrasings to see what people like better.
At level 10, you get Superior Critical.
This lets you crit on an 18 as well as a 19 or 20. This is bumped up from level 15 in the current version.
Getting your 15% crit chance before you even hit tier 3 is interesting.
At 14, you get Survivor.
Survivor has two benefits. The old version is unchanged but in addition, you have advantage on death saves, and if you roll an 18, 19, or 20, you get the normal benefits of rolling a 20.
This feature does what it advertises, making you far harder to kill. Between that and the new Indomitable and Unconquerable, a Champion's going to be tough to take down and make them stay down. The ability to use Superior Critical on death saves is delightful in its elegance.
The Champion loses the Remarkable Athlete feature, but I think that the version we're given here is fine. I still think this is a subclass that will only appeal to people yearning for simplicity. The Fighter itself has become a little more complicated, and so it's even more important that the Champion be simple for a new player.
Anyway, with the Monk evidently not ready for its debut, we'll next be moving on to the Mages with the revised Sorcerer.
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