Fighters, the melee workhorse of any Dungeons & Dragons campaign, are often considered weaker than their magic-using counterparts. In the old days of D&D, more simplistic action rules meant that Fighters could hold their own early in a campaign, but failed to scale as well as magic users, who gained powerful spells as they leveled up. In D&D 5e, Fighters can become pretty powerful in their own right, as long as they're built correctly.
Dungeons & Dragons is a Tabletop Role-Playing Game (TTRPG) where players and a Dungeon Master work together to create exciting narrative adventures in a persistent campaign setting. A lot of the joys of D&D is making a good party that works well together and where everyone can have fun. Players choose classes for their characters that allow them to specialize in certain skills, weapons, and magical abilities, and making these characters mesh with their fellows is rewarding and entertaining.
The noble Fighter is a good choice of class for players looking to create a strong protector, or unpleasant Murder Hobo. With skills for most weapons and armor and good feat possibilities, Fighters can become fairly strong characters, though there is potential for players to miss out on some of the best combos available. These three tips will keep the party's fighter on the front line, holding their own in terms of damage output alongside even the craziest Wizards.
D&D Overpowered Fighter Tips: Barbarian Multiclassing
As the goal is to become powerful fast, multiclassing a Barbarian early may be a solid choice to build a high damage Fighter, as long as they prefer large weapons over D&D's low carry weight weapons. As long as the character isn't wearing heavy armor, they can use Rage as a bonus action which offers protections from most strength-based attacks, resistance to certain damage types, and adds damage to attacks. Using Rage to deal even more damage at the cost of accuracy can situationally be very strong. Rage can be very useful for an early game power advantage.
D&D Overpowered Fighter Tips: Co-operating with Wizards
As long as fellow players are steering clear of their own damage-dealing powerhouses, like D&D's Elemental Sorcerer, there are a lot of spells that can buff a Fighter's damage capabilities. Once Wizards have access to third-level spells, Haste can turn a strong fighter into an overpowered fighter. Haste gives the recipient a minute of additional actions on their turn, extra AC, and extra speed. Bless, from more pious party members, can also combo well with Rage abilities because the extra D4 can go some way to mitigating the -5 on the Fighter's powerful attack roll. As the party levels up, more and more spells will become available that can boost a Fighter's ability to bring pain to the party's enemies.
D&D Overpowered Fighter Tips: Picking the Right Feats
There are a lot of amazing combat Feats in D&D that can help make a Fighter more powerful, but grabbing the correct ones early can help boost damage right out of the gate. Eventually, a Fighter looking to deal damage should try to grab both Great Weapon Master and Polearm Master. These two D&D feats can combo significantly at higher levels and allow for fighters to dish out real damage while controlling the battlefield. At early levels, starting with Great Weapon Master allows for a bonus action attack if the Fighter score a critical hit or kills an enemy. The potential damage output with Great Weapon Master and Rage, at the cost of accuracy, is quite significant at lower levels.
Creating a powerful Fighter may be difficult, as Dungeons & Dragons tends to favor magic and spellcasters, but with a little finessing Fighters can become amazing damage dealers. As long as Dungeon Master is using appropriate rules, and the whole party is happy with players trying to get the most out of their characters, trying to build a powerful Fighter is a fun way to meet the challenge - just make sure the party brings a few magic users along for backup!