Skills are the abilities you gain as you level up. They give you power and make it easier to take on both combat and non-combat missions alike. They are written into the Fighter class, and you gain access to extra skills after selecting your subclass.
It is important to unlock the right combination of skills because the right combination of skills gives you the most power you can get. You can be a great aid to your party, and they help you keep up with the rest of your allies. The right skills also make it easier to defeat enemies.
From early to late game:
Fighting Style - 1st level
This combatant from Mythic Odesseys of Theros could seriously benefit from the Dueling Fighting Style.
Fighting Style is the skill you get that gives you the specialty your Fighter has in combat. It is one of the skills you get that directly affects your style of play.
Fighting Style has a surprisingly large effect on how you play your character. It can affect what weapons you choose, how effective you will be as a front line man if that is your desired build, or if you play more defensively and protectively. Certain options you can choose from are really strong, and help you increase your damage output or help you protect your allies, but certain Fighting Styles can just be left alone and are not really useful for any build. Overall, this is a very useful skill.
Reasons to get Fighting Style:
- It is a core part of the class
- You get the ability to pick a Fighting Style before you even get to select a subclass. Fighting Style as a skill is ingrained into the Fighter class itself
- It affects your play style
- Depending on which option you select, it affects if you play a Dexterity or Strength based build, if you are more defensive or offensive, and it affects your damage output - all of which are key to your play style
- It is a skill that ties directly into your backstory
- Whichever Fighting Style you pick, you have to tie it directly into your character. Your Fighting Style could explain how you were trained or how good you are with a specific kind of weapon, among many other things. Fighting Style directly affects how your character understands the world and how they are integrated into it
Fighting Style details: You adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can't take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again
- Archery (PHB). You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.
- Blind Fighting (TCE). You have blindsight with a range of 10 feet. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn't behind total cover, even if you're blinded or in darkness. Moreover, you can see an invisible creature within that range, unless the creature successfully hides from you.
- Defense (PHB). While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC
- Dueling (PHB). When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon
- Great Weapon Fighting (PHB). When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll, even if the new roll is a 1 or a 2. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit
- Interception (TCE). When a creature you can see hits a target, other than you, within 5 feet of you with an attack, you can use your reaction to reduce the damage the target takes by 1d10 + your proficiency bonus (to a minimum of 0 damage). You must be wielding a shield or a simple or martial weapon to use this reaction
- Protection (PHB). When a creature you can see attacks a target other than you that is within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack roll. You must be wielding a shield
- Superior Technique (TCE). You learn one maneuver of your choice from among those available to the Battle Master archetype. If a maneuver you use requires your target to make a saving throw to resist the maneuver's effects, the saving throw DC equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength or Dexterity modifier (your choice.)
- You gain one superiority die, which is a d6 (this die is added to any superiority dice you have from another source). This die is used to fuel your maneuvers. A superiority die is expended when you use it. You regain your expended superiority dice when you finish a short or long rest.
- Thrown Weapon Fighting (TCE). You can draw a weapon that has the thrown property as part of the attack you make with the weapon.
- In addition, when you hit with a ranged attack using a thrown weapon, you gain a +2 bonus to the damage roll.
- Two-Weapon Fighting (PHB). When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack
- Unarmed Fighting (TCE). Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren't wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8.
- At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by you
- Close Quarters Shooter (UA). When making a ranged attack while you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature, you do not have disadvantage on the attack roll. Your ranged attacks ignore half cover and three-quarters cover against targets within 30 feet of you. You have a +1 bonus to attack rolls on ranged attacks
- Mariner (UA). As long as you are not wearing heavy armor or using a shield, you have a swimming speed and a climbing speed equal to your normal speed, and you gain a +1 bonus to armor class
- Tunnel Fighter (UA). As a bonus action, you can enter a defensive stance that lasts until the start of your next turn. While in your defensive stance, you can make opportunity attacks without using your reaction, and you can use your reaction to make a melee attack against a creature that moves more than 5 feet while within your reach
- A core class skill; something you gain automatically
Second Wind - 1st level
These are all different interpretations of Fighters from Wizards of the Coast, and they would all be guaranteed Second Wind.
Second Wind is a healing ability that is an integral part of the Fighter class.
Second Wind is a very useful skill. Being able to heal yourself makes you at least a little less reliant on your caster and/or healer, and keeps you up in combat longer. It also renews every short rest you take, so you could possibly use this more than once a day. It has a great use, but it does not give a lot of power as it does not directly improve your performance in combat.
Reasons to get Second Wind:
- It makes you less reliant on your healer
- Being able to heal yourself at least once a day in game takes pressure off your healer and allows them to use their abilities (whether it be spells or something else) to help out in the offensive rather than the defensive part of combat
- You do not have to worry as much when being a front line man
- Taking damage in dnd can be very anxiety inducing, especially if you are doing it to protect other party members. However, if you can heal yourself, it can take the anxiety out of absorbing the damage as you will stay up longer and hopefully not go down at all
- It is an integral part of the Fighter class
- This is also an ability you get before you ever get to pick a subclass. It protects you and keeps you alive in combat to use your other skills
Second Wind details: You have a limited well of stamina that you can draw on to protect yourself from harm. On your turn, you can use a bonus action to regain hit points equal to 1d10 + your Fighter level
- You must finish a short (1 hour in game) or long (a full rest, generally 8 hours in game) rest before you can use it again
Action Surge - 2nd level
This canon interpretation of a Samurai Fighter from Wizards of the Coast would benefit from Action Surge.
Action Surge allows you to take an additional action.
Action Surge is very useful, especially as your actions change and grow stronger. As you get the ability to do more attacks per action, you are able to deal more damage, but it already helps improve your damage output before you get extra attack. It makes combat easier to manage, and it is an integral part of the Fighter class as a skill you gain t before you even select a subclass.
Reasons to get Action Surge:
- It will increase your damage output
- Being able to take more than one action in combat gives you more chances to get in hits on your enemies, which will increase the amount of damage you have the ability to do
- It will help you take on combat as you reach higher levels
- Combat at higher levels becomes increasingly difficult, often filled with more enemies or one or two very challenging enemies. Your actions will become more powerful as you level up, which also means your Action Surges will become more powerful. Your Extra Attack applies to your Action Surge which will help you target enemies with much more force
- It is beneficial for both Fighters and Fighter multiclasses
- It allows Fighters to use more force in combat, but if you desire to multiclass it can allow you to use more of your abilities (especially if you multiclass with any kind of caster) and get more use out of that multiclass’s abilities
Action Surge details: Starting at 2nd level, you can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action
- Can only be used once per short or long rest until level 17
- Increases to two uses at level 17
- Can only be used once per turn once you gain two uses
Manifest Echo - 3rd level
Pictured here is the Explorer's Guide To Wildemount cover, the sourcebook where Echo Knights come from.
Manifest Echo is a skill specific to the Echo Knight subclass, so you can only unlock it if you choose to play the Echo Knight subclass. It allows you to be in two places at once.
Manifest Echo is the key feature of the Echo Knight subclass. All the other skills of the subclass revolve around your ability to summon an Echo. Echoes are incredibly useful in combat, as it allows you to hang back from the danger while still dealing damage, allows you to protect your allies, and many other things. They are a very effective tool and can make you a stronger Fighter.
Reasons to get Manifest Echo:
- An Echo makes it easier to fight many enemies
- Being in two places at once means that you can take on one enemy and send your Echo off to fight another one. Before you get Extra Attack, you can alternate between where the attack comes from each turn, but once you get Extra Attack you definitely get more use out of it fighting two enemies at once. Unleash Incarnation, that you also get a third level, also helps you take on multiple enemies at once before Extra Attack
- It increases your damage output
- Due to the feature Unleash Incarnation, you can use your Echo to make extra melee attacks. This increases your average damage output and allows you to cause more harm to your enemies
- Echoes make it easier to protect you and your party members
- Having an Echo saves you from needing to be on the front lines as you can choose to make your attacks from your Echo’s position and hang back 30 feet from the chaos. You can also take a reaction for opportunity attacks from your Echo’s position if an enemy chooses to leave its threatened area, potentially taking out the enemy before it has a chance to reach you and your allies
Manifest Echo details: At 3rd level, you can use a bonus action to magically manifest an Echo of yourself in an unoccupied space you can see within 15 feet of you. This Echo is a magical, translucent, gray image of you that lasts until it is destroyed, until you dismiss it as a bonus action, until you manifest another Echo, or until you're incapacitated
- Your Echo has an armor class of 14 + your proficiency bonus and 1 hit point
- Echoes are immune to all conditions
- Echoes use your saving throw bonuses if it must make a saving throw
- You can mentally command it to move up to 30 feet in any direction without using an action
- At the end of your turn, if an Echo is more that 30 feet from you it is destroyed
- As a bonus action, you can teleport, magically swapping places with your Echo at the cost of 15 feet of your movement, regardless of the distance between the two of you.
- When you take the Attack action on your turn, any attack you make with that action can originate from your space or the Echo's space. You make this choice for each attack.
- When a creature that you can see within 5 feet of your Echo moves at least 5 feet away from it, you can use your reaction to make an opportunity attack against that creature as if you were in the Echo's space
Ability Score Improvements - 4th, 6th, 8th, 12th, 16th, 19th level
This is an Unearthed Arcana feat you could get in place of an ASI with permission from your DM.
Ability Score Improvements are buffs to one or two ability scores of your choice. Alternatively, some DMs will allow you to select a feat if you do not take an ASI. That is an optional extra ability though, so make sure you discuss it with your DM first!
Ability Score Improvements are very useful mechanically. You can increase your physical (and mental) stats, which will increase your success in combat, and can also increase your success resisting magical effects, or increase your success rate with certain subclass abilities you may gain. The ability to get feats in the place of ASIs once you are satisfied with your stats can help you create an extremely powerful build. Feats can increase your combat proficiency and/or your skills outside of combat, especially since Fighters get the potential for more feats as Fighters get more Ability Score Improvements than any other class.
Reasons to get Ability Score Improvements:
- Fighters get more Ability Score Improvements than any other class
- Fighters get two extra ASIs, which allows you to get the best stat array possible, as well as get more possibilities for feats. These things make for a much more powerful in the long run
- It can help you maximize your Strength or Dexterity based build
- You can bump either of those stats up to 20 (which is as maximized as you can get without magic items) easily, which would maximize your proficiency in combat by having a high attack bonus and damage bonus
- The opportunity for more feats than the other classes can get you a more optimized build
- There are a lot of useful combat and non-combat based feats that are very beneficial for the Fighter class, and having more opportunities to take them can help you have a lot more skill as a character
Ability Score Improvement details: When you reach 4th level, and again at 6th, 8th, 12th, 14th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1
- Cannot increase an ability score above 20
- Alternatively, you can take a feat with permission from the DM
Extra Attack - 5th level
This Knight interpretation of a Fighter (pictured here) would benefit greatly from Extra Attack.
Extra Attack allows you to make two attacks in one attack action.
Extra Attack is one of the best abilities mechanically for combat. It is able to increase your damage output, gives you more attempts to hit and harm your enemies, and gives you the option to target multiple enemies or focus all your force on one.
Reasons to get Extra Attack:
- It allows you to take on multiple enemies in one turn
- As you can make more than one attack in a turn, if you are close to multiple enemies in combat, you can target two (and then three at level 11, then eventually four once you are level 20) enemies in one round of combat without having to use a bonus action or extra ability
- It increases your damage output
- If you are consistently hitting with both attacks, your damage output will increase as you will be able to consistently deal more damage in one turn
- It gives you more force in combat
- Being able to attack more than once makes your more powerful than only being able to attack once, and gives your more driving force to target your enemies with
Extra Attack details: Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn
- At 11th level it increases to 3 attacks
- At 20th level it increases to 4 attacks
Curving Shot - 7th level
Pictured here are two different official takes on the Arcane Archer subclass. This subclass has its lore rooted in canon
Curving Shot is a subclass skill specific to the Arcane Archer subclass, so you have to take that subclass at level three to be able to unlock this skill. Curving Shot allows you to potentially use your missed attacks to your advantage.
Curving Shot is very useful. It allows you to redirect your misses (as long as it is a magical arrow, which you can decide) and possibly successfully attack another enemy. This helps you still get towards the goal of ending combat, and does not waste your ammunition like a total miss could. You also get a pretty big range (60 ft) centered on the enemy you tried to attack to pick another target.
Reasons to get Curving Shot:
- You get another chance of hitting an enemy
- You get to reroll the attack, which gives you the possibility of rolling a higher number and actually hitting them, which makes the attack still useful
- It gives you another possibility for a critical hit
- Getting a second chance at a hit is another chance to roll a natural 20, which would then crit on the second targeted enemy and potentially take them out
- It keeps you from wasting attacks
- Missing in combat is awful because it can feel like your attack was wasted, even if you hit on your second attack (as by this point you will have Extra Attack), and sometimes the attack is wasted in crucial fights. So, still getting the chance to potentially use the attack for good will help negate this.
Curving Shot details: At 7th level, you learn how to direct an errant arrow toward a new target. When you make an attack roll with a magic arrow and miss, you can use a bonus action to reroll the attack roll against a different target within 60 feet of the original target
Superior Critical - 15th level
Once again our trusty Human Fighter from the Player's Handbook appears. He has somehow become the iconic face of the Champion subclass as well.
Superior Critical is a subclass ability specific to the Champion subclass, so you have to choose that subclass at level three to unlock this skill. Superior Critical allows you to get a critical hit when you roll an 18, 19 or 20.
Superior Critical is a big reason as to why people enjoy the Champion subclass. It is the advanced version of Improved Critical. Improved Critical is Champion’s third level skill that allows them to crit on 19 and 20. Superior Critical gives you a higher chance of getting a critical hit, which will give you the possibility of taking out enemies faster and handling challenging combat easier.
Reasons to get Superior Critical:
- It increases your damage output
- Being able to get a critical hit on three numbers instead of just one gives you a higher probability of criting. Criting more often allows you to deal larger amounts of damage, which increases your overall damage output
- You are more likely to take out enemies faster
- Getting critical hits more often means the enemies you are fighting take more damage more frequently. This will get them to go down faster
- Superior Critical is a way to protect your allies
- This skill gives you the potential to kill enemies faster, which would give them less time to hurt and potentially kill your party members. So you are protecting them the way a Fighter would, by taking out the enemy as quickly as possible.
Superior Critical details: Starting at 15th level, your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 18-20
Bulwark of Force - 15th level
Psi Warriors (pictured here, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) are masters of psionic energy and telekinesis.
Bulwark of Force is a skill specific to the Psi Warrior subclass. To unlock this skill, you must take the Psi Warrior subclass at level three. Bulwark of Force allows you to protect a number of creatures equal to your Intelligence modifier.
Bulwark of Force does not necessarily increase your power as it does not affect the amount of times you can hit or the amount of damage you can deal, but it is very useful. Protective measures like this can help a lot as you get to higher levels where combat gets harder and enemies deal increasingly larger amounts of damage.
Reasons to get Bulwark of Force:
- It can keep you from going down in combat
- You can choose to protect yourself with the half cover this skill provides, which is good as combat gets more challenging. It will give you a higher chance of not talking damage, which is particularly good if you do not have Second Wind uses anymore either
- Good for travel heavy campaigns
- There are lots of times in travel heavy campaigns where you fight out in the open, and have no way to get any kind of cover. Being able to give you and your allies half cover helps you all take on combat without having to worry as much about damage, as well as not be confined to one spot to keep your cover
- Good for parties with no support or healer
- Being able to minimize the possibility of damage when you do not have a healer or utility/support caster is great, as it can, at least temporarily, minimize the worry of going down in combat
Bulwark of Force details: At 15th level, you can shield yourself and others with telekinetic force. As a bonus action, you can choose creatures, which can include you, that you can see within 30 feet of you, up to a number of creatures equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of one creature). Each of the chosen creatures is protected by half cover for 1 minute or until you're incapacitated
- You must expend a Psionic Die to use it again if you want to use it before you take a long rest
Legion of One - 18th level
Verin Thelyss (pictured here, Call of the Netherdeep) is an Echo Knight. Not much about him in known in canon, and he very well could possess this ability.
Legion of One is specific to the Echo Knight subclass, so you can only unlock the skill if you choose to play the Echo Knight subclass. It is a skilly that allows you to be in three places at once.
Legion of One is great for the Echo Knight subclass, which is the best Fighter subclass in my opinion. It allows you to use your Echo Knight abilities more easily. Having two Echoes while only needing one bonus action to make them takes the stress off of you having to worry about keeping one Echo “alive”, and having two Echoes allows you to spread your attacks out better (as by the time you get this skill you can make three attacks a turn).
Reasons to get Legion of One:
- It allows you to manage combat more easily
- By the time you get this skill, you can make three attacks a turn. You can spread these attacks out between you and your two Echoes to target three enemies at once, as higher level combat often becomes harder and often has you fight more enemies at once
- Legion of One allows you to use your other combat useful Echo Knight abilities easier
- There will be less worry about keeping an Echo “alive”, as you will have two. Shadow Martyr (a skill to keep your allies from being hit by allowing your Echo to take the hit instead) becomes an especially easy choice to make as you can still have an Echo for combat purposes, even if the one taking a hit instead of an ally goes down
- It partially replenishes a very useful Echo Knight skill
- You gain a use of Unleash Incarnation when you roll initiative if you have no uses left. Unleash Incarnation allows you to make an extra attack from your Echo’s position, which can help you target a particularly challenging enemy
Legion of One details: At 18th level, you can use a bonus action to create two Echos with your Manifest Echo feature, and these Echoes can co-exist
- If you try to create a third Echo, the first two are destroyed
- You can make attacks from either echo’s position
- When you roll initiative and have no Unleash Incarnation uses, you gain one back
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