this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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And yet they still have lots of features in their subclasses, work great with quick multiclass options, and can just, ya know, wield a magic weapon.
My battlemaster fighter had a few levels in Battlesmith artificers and I had sooo many things I could do even though the only spells I really ever cast were Shield and Arcane Weapon. I had my steel defender doing all kinds of fun stuff, and even though being ranged took some flavour out I was still able to be creative. It was also awesome to have such a clean base to build my roleplay on top of and by the end he was the least background-heavy character yet still had tonnes of depth and character.
The only “issue” with them is that the burden of creativity lies much more heavily on the player and it’s more difficult to rest on cheap stereotypes. I’m playing a warlock now, the plot class, and I still took it several steps further all on my own because I can. The pathfinder fighter looks interesting, for sure, but come now.
"FIghter isn't bad, just need to get levels in another class!", which is like, really hard specially for newer players. Pathfinder does fighters waaaay better without needing to get creative with building your character.
I’m aware of what I said, but the other point I made is that fighters are not the boring easy class everyone makes them out to be. They are very open-ended and that can be a lot for people but it’s not a sign that they’re bad. They also have the echo knight and eldritch knight subclasses if you want a little help/inspiration/spice built into the class itself. I have an echo knight minotaur I played for a bit who was great fun to play in combat.
If we’re talking about complexity being the issue then you can back right the heck up with that “just play Pathfinder” nonsense. I really want to try PF2e, actually, but to act like it’s simpler than a 5e multiclass is something you must surely know is not going to fly. I made a PF1e barbarian once and the amount of choices I had to make as an experience 5e player was within my skill level but for your hypothetical new player it would be far more daunting a task.
Also “without needing to get creative” is such a tell. It’s really not that complicated, and it’s not 5e’s fault that someone might need a stricter framework. You’re not a worse person for it, necessarily, but the whining about it sure isn’t a good look.
This is still miles ahead of Fighter in 3.5 which simply didn't exist. It was two levels you took to get extra feats for your REAL class and no one ever took more.