More fixes for the fighter: Backgrounds

I've posted before about giving the fighter fighting stances or styles, but one of the problems with the fighter is that he just fights. And he fights in a vacuum.

We see this in 3.5 and 4e where fighters get fewer skills than other classes. I can accept that rogues get more skills since skills are a rogue thing. Clerics are basically all priests (or monks, mendicants, friars, and very very rarely prophets or mystics or others not associated with the priesthood). Wizards, given how magic works in the game, are all intelligence-based and scholarly spellcasters. Both clerics and wizards end up with class features supporting their role as trained priests or scholars. There are alternate classes (sorcerer and warlock; invoker/favored soul) who are similar to clerics and wizards but their spellcasting and the origins of their powers are different and thus the classes are quite different in terns of ability scores used, skills, and class features. But where does a fighter's weapon training come from?

Martial Archetypes and Classes in D&D

Martial classes have never really been my favorite in D&D. If I'm playing a fantasy game, I'd prefer to be slightly more fantastic than a simple warrior. But that's just me. In recent memory, I've played a "lazy" warlord in a "hobbit" game (Frondo Maggins, a do-nothing hobbit with a heart of gold), and a half-orc assassin in service to the wizards' guild in a more serious game. I'm not sure why these classes, as a whole, don't appeal to me that much. I guess I just prefer casters.

I'm not sure how dull it was to play fighters in earlier editions. I understand the criticism that fighters just whump things, but in earlier editions there were still rules (and house rules) for disarming, overbearing, grappling, and other maneuvers. Once you hit Combat and Tactics in second edition there were plenty of martial options to use, and compared to wizards they were probably relatively balanced. Maybe I'll give it a try once I get back to civilization.

As I read over some old and new iterations of the game (just bought a copy of Adventurer Conqueror King recently, I'll review that later), I'm struck by the recent discussions of how difficult it is to make a fighter class. This is because the fighter is a really broad archetype. In a game with many different classes though (instead of just one customizeable Warrior class), I think we could use about four warriors and four(ish) experts. I've got a clearer picture of the martial warriors than the experts though.