Apologies for the delay. A mountain of translation work all came in around the same three week period.
Let's continue our look at the
Player Character Classes with an overview of the
Warrior class group, and specifically the
Fighter.
Page 16 opens with a quick explanation of class descriptions, namely, terms that new players may not be familiar with. Here
Experience Points are explained, and what's very noticeable here is the following: "Characters earn experience points by completing adventures and doing things specifically related to their class. A fighter, for example, earns more experience for charging and battling a monster than does a thief, because the fighter's training emphasizes battle while the thief's emphasizes stealth and cleverness." Ooh, this sounds exciting! But a glance at the DMG splashes cold water on the excitement. The sole Warrior-specific XP award is 10 XP/level for each Hit Die of a monster defeated. We'll examine XP more closely a little later in the book. The overview ends with a quick explanation of character
Level and
Prime Requisites.
The Warrior overview notes that the group is made up Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers. Warriors can use any weapon and wear any armor, and they get 1d10 for their hit die. They also get the special Constitution bonus noted in the ability score section.
Table 14 then provides the Warrior experience table. It has two columns: Fighter, and Paladin/Ranger.
Level | Fighter | Paladin/Ranger |
1 | 0 | 0 |
2 | 2,000 | 2,250 |
3 | 4,000 | 4,500 |
4 | 8,000 | 9,000 |
5 | 16,000 | 18,000 |
6 | 32,000 | 36,000 |
7 | 64,000 | 75,000 |
8 | 125,000 | 150,000 |
9 | 250,000 | 300,000 |
The column goes up to Level 20, but past 9th level it is merely an additional 250,000 XP for fighters, and 300,000 XP for paladins and rangers. These are all new XP progressions compared to 1st Edition. 1st Ed. has a weird hump at 5th level, where instead of the expected 16,000, it is 18,000. 6th level is then 35,000, and 7th level is 70,000, before the tables agree again with 125,000 at 8th level.
Paladins and Rangers had separate tables in 1st Ed., both more steep than this one. 2nd Ed. Paladins especially benefit, since 4th level is
3,000 XP cheaper.
And here we must say good-bye to one of the things I liked about TSR-D&D: Level Titles. I know, I know, they were superfluous, nobody ever used them, no one was sorry to see them go. But, I kinda was. When we first started playing with B/X, I was always excited to reach a new level and change my character's title. It was a fun little bit of world-building in the rules. But with the publication of 2nd Edition, they were gone, never to return.
Finally, we get
Table 15, detailing Warrior Attacks Per Round. 1/round for levels 1-6, 3/2 rounds for levels 7-12, and 2/round for levels 13 and up.
So now we come to the
Fighter. Fighter's must have a minimum STR of 9, and as their Prime Requisite, Fighters with a STR of 16 or more get a 10% bonus to XP. All races can be a fighter, and they can be of any alignment. The mythical and historical examples of fighters are: Hercules, Perseus, Hiawatha, Beowulf, Siegfried, Cuchulain, Little John, Tristan and Sinbad (for myth) and El Cid, Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Spartacus, Richard the Lionheart, and Belisarius (for history).
So, what are the unique class features of the Fighter? Well, while it's been noted in this thread that this later got given to other classes as well, as of the PHB only Fighters got
weapon specialization. Basically, this is the ability to use weapon proficiency slots to specialize in a single weapon. Melee weapons and crossbows required two proficiency slots: 1 to become proficient, and 1 to specialize. Bows, for some reason, require 3. Specializing in a weapon gives a +1 bonus to attack rolls, and a +2 bonus to damage rolls. If a melee weapon, then the Fighter also gets extra attacks: 3/2 rounds at levels 1-6, 2/round at levels 7-12, and 5/2 rounds at level 13 and above.
There is a bit of a gray area with regards to weapon specialization. The Fighter class description makes it seem to be a done deal, but the actual specialization rules are in Chapter 5: Proficiencies, which is an entirely optional chapter! I would not think much of it, except there's a line in the Paladin class description. When describing how a Paladin who loses paladinhood becomes a fighter, it says (my emphasis), "He does not grain the benefits of weapon specialization (
if this is used), since he did not select this for his character at the start." Which suggests that one of the Fighter's major benefits might not even be available in the game.
While Level Titles are gone, a 9th Level Fighter nonetheless becomes a "Lord," and can automatically attract men-at-arms. Kinda automatically, because he needs to have "a castle or stronghold and sizeable manor lands around it." It goes on to talk about the Fighter taxing and developing his lands, gaining a steady income. "Your DM," it says, "has information about gaining and running a barony."
I wanted to examine this info to flesh out the benefits of this feature, but...I do not find any such information in the DMG. The Fighter section of the Classes chapter of the DMG only discusses NPC fighters. The section on High-Level Characters talks only about changing play styles. The section on NPCs discusses hirelings and henchman, but nothing that relates specifically to the Fighter's ability to run a barony.
The section ends with
Table 16: FIGHTER'S FOLLOWERS. This provides for three percentile rolls: once for the leader of the troops that come to the fighter, once for the troops themselves, and once for the elite "household guard" unit.
Die Roll | Leader (and suggested magical items) | Die Roll | Troops/Followers (all 0th-level) | Die Roll | Elite Units |
---|
01-40 | 5th-level fighter, plate mail, shield, battle axe +2 | 01-50 | 20 cavalry with ring mail, shield, 3 javelins, hand axe; 100 infantry with scale mail, polearm, club | 01-10 | 10 mounted knights: 1st-level fighters with field plate, large shield, lance, broad sword, morning star, and heavy war horse with full barding |
41-75 | 6th-level fighter, plate mail, shield +1, spear +1, dagger +1 | 51-75 | 20 infantry with splint mail, morning star, hand axe; 60 infantry with leather armor, pike, short sword | 11-20 | 10 1st-level elven fighter/mages with chain mail, long sword, long bow, dagger |
76-95 | 6th-level fighter, plate mail +1, shield, spear +1, dagger +1, plus 3rd-level fighter, splint mail, shield, crossbow of distance | 76-90 | 40 infantry with chain mail, heavy crossbow, short sword; 20 infantry with chain mail, light crossbow, military fork | 21-30 | 15 wardens: 1st-level rangers with scale mail, shield, long sword, spear, long bow |
96-99 | 7th-level fighter, plate mail +1, shield +1, broad sword +2, heavy war horse with horseshoes of speed | 91-99 | 10 cavalry with banded mail, shield, lance, bastard sword, mace; 20 cavalry with scale mail, shield, lance, long sword, mace; 30 cavalry with studded leather armor, shield, lance, long sword | 31-40 | 20 berserkers: 2nd-level fighters with leather armor, shield, battle axe, broad sword, dagger (berserkers receive +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls) |
00 | DM's Option | 00 | DM's Option (Barbarians, headhunters, armed peasants, extra-heavy cavalry, etc.) | 41-65 | 20 expert archers: 1st-level fighters with studded leather armor, long bows or crossbows (+2 to hit, or bow specialization if using that optional rule) |
| | | | 66-99 | 30 infantry: 1st-level fighters with plate mail, body shield, spear, short sword |
| | | | 00 | DM's Option (pegasi cavalry, eagle riders, demihumans, siege train, etc. |
While the Leader and Troop table derives from 1st Edition (in the DMG), the Elite Unit table is new. It's all well and good that the 9th-level fighter gets all this, but 2nd Edition is pretty much silent about how the player is supposed to make use of all this. The 1st Edition DMG actually had rules and advice for running a stronghold, but the 2nd Ed. DMG is quite thin, in both actual thickness of the book
and for the rules for higher level play.
Next up, we look at the
Paladin.