Goblin Knave: Fighter

 

Here is another class for Goblin Knave! Click here for the class.

THE FIGHTER

Complexity: Low.

Suggested Ability Scores: Strength, Constitution.

Playstyle: Combat.

If you're interested in the Director's Commentary on what I've done here and why, read on. I have a bunch more of these classes to release so I'll see you next time. 

They say you can judge a system by how good the Fighter is. It's easy to make all the weird and wonderful classes fun and interesting, but the mark of a good system is that the classic, baseline class is still great. I'm hoping I've achieved that with this Fighter.

Rival

I mentioned in my Thief post that Knave takes care of the basic +1 bonuses, so I can afford to have more flavourful things take their place. You can see the result here. Instead of +1 attack, each fighter template gives you a Rival. Use this generator if you need help making one.

One of the nice things about this is that the fighter always has something to fight if they want it. If the party is going to be dealing with social intrigue at Lady Chatterly's ball for the session, their rival can show up for a friendly sparring match. If the monsters are all lovable, sympathetic characters with tragic backstories, the fighter doesn't need to worry about being a war criminal just because they want to fight stuff. They have this person who's always ok to fight right there on their character sheet.

Having the Rivals there gives both the player and the DM a great tool. If the player wants a fight, they can say "Hey, is one of my Rivals around?" If the DM wants to add in some combat, they have an easy justification for it that's always right there. Plus it helps you fill out the character with some fun relationships right off the bat. 

Herculean Might

This is another one of those tool options. It helps the fighter live out some of that heroic fantasy of being Hercules, Beowulf, or Luisa, but it also acts like a suggestion to lean on the side of saying yes when the Fighter wants to try impressive feats like shooting arrows out of the air, punching down the door, throwing boulders around, etc. Just like the wizard can break the laws of reality, the fighter should be able to attempt heroic feats.

Reputation

The front of the fighter is as simple as I could possibly get it. The back of the fighter goes kind of nuts! The actual rules are simple, but the fighter has a ton of options for cool shit to do with their weapons as they upgrade.

This is a good moment to mention that this system is all totally modular. If you're just running a one-shot, or you have a new player who might be a bit overwhelmed by the options on the back here, you can just leave the back out. It provides a lot of fun options but it can easily fade into the background until you're ready to use it. 

That's all for now

I'm hoping this fighter strikes a nice balance of ultra-simple to start, but with a ton of fun emergent complexity to get into for the players who want it. Let me know if you think I succeeded. I've got more classes coming up so I'll see you then.