Dungeons & Dragons has officially shown off its first redesigned class in the 2024 Player’s Handbook – the Fighter. Today, Wizards of the Coast revealed its new take on the Fighter, a quintessential class that has appeared in every edition of Dungeons & Dragons. The Fighter is considered a “combat expert” and benefits from the new Weapon Mastery system introduced in the 2024 Core Rulebooks. As part of the new design, the Fighter has received several new features, including some out-of-combat options and several cool new abilities that should make a Fighter even stronger in combat.
Some of the more notable changes to the Fighter class include changes to Fighting Styles, a customization feature the class gains at Level 1. Fighting Styles are now feats and can be swapped out whenever a player takes another level in Fighter. Players also gain access to the Weapon Mastery subsystem at Level 1, which allows a player to use secondary features for martial weapons that typically hinder opponents in some way. For instance, the Sap ability imposes disadvantage on an opponent, while Slow lowers an opponent’s speed by 10 feet.
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Players also gain more uses of Second Wind at Level 1 and now have more abilities that “spend” Second Wind as a resource. For instance, at level 2, players gain access to the new Tactical Minds ability, which allows a Fighter to spend a Second Wind to roll 1d10 and add the result to a failed ability roll. If that ability roll still fails, the Second Wind isn’t expended. At level 5, players gain the Tactical Shift ability, which allows a player to spend a Second Wind to move up to half their movement speed without provoking an attack of opportunity.
The Indomitable ability has also been given a significant buff – instead of allowing a player to re-roll a failed saving throw, that Fighter can now use Indomitable to add their Fighter level score to the result.
Additionally, Fighters now have a new Level 13 ability called Studied Attack, which grants a player advantage on their next attack roll they make that turn when they miss an attack. This makes it more likely that a player can hit their opponent at least once a turn and also syncs nicely with the Champion subclass, which scores Critical hits on 19 or 20.
Wizards also briefly mentioned how the Champion subclass and other subclasses in the Player’s Handbook were improved. The Champion, for instance, gets a new Heroic Warrior ability that grants them Heroic Inspiration at the start of every turn if they don’t already have it. Meanwhile, the Battle Master’s “Know Your Enemy” ability has been tweaked, removing the 1-minute observation requirement, while the Eldritch Knight War Magic ability now allows players to cast cantrips in place of an attack, which better lines up with the Extra Attack ability that Fighters gain at higher levels. The Psi-Warrior is “mainly unchanged.”
More details about Dungeons & Dragons reworked classes will be revealed ahead of the Player’s Handbook release in September.
