Fighter Class Research

Also known as Warriors, Knights & Soldiers, the Fighter puts emphasis on strength and physical combat. Wielding melee weapons, they typically lack range, or have only limited ranged attack options, but they excel at fighting enemies in close range combat, often having high health, defence and attack capabilities to aid in this. A Fighter's strength is boosted by the wide variety of equipment they can use and they are usually able to equip the widest variety of weaponry and armor, including stuff too heavy for other classes.

Some variations on the Fighter class include:(taken directly from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasyCharacterClasses)

The Knight: Guardian, Sentinel. The Knight is often considered an upgrade to the basic Fighter. It may be able to wear bigger, heavier armor (including shields) and weaponry, possibly sacrificing speed in favor of more defense and power. The Knight may also gain supportive abilities that help to keep their allies safe, relating to bravery and chivalry. For example; the ability to shield the group from enemy attacks, a "taunt" command that forces foes to direct attacks towards them and away from allies, or the ability to make powerful Counter Attacks against enemies who ignore them.

The Swashbuckler: A Fighter who tends toward light or no armor and prefers agility, cunning, daring and technical skill to sheer force. Tends to be rogue-like in his or her trappings and is often used to evoke the Rogue archetype in games where skills and stealth play a small or no role.

The Paladin: The Paladin is a Fighter with the power of Light and healing magic, as well as defensive buffs for their allies. Their devotion to their god or deity gives them various prayers, healing abilities and light-based spells to protect themselves and others. They are also quite good at laying the smite down on undead, demons and other traditionally evil supernatural creatures. However, they may have behavioral limits: some rulesets impose varying penalties on taking actions that stray too far from lawful good, which can lead to weakening of abilities, loss of abilities or sometimes even being kicked out of the "Paladin" class entirely.

The Dark Knight: The Dark Knight class is the opposite number of the Paladin, possessing the power of Darkness and often necromantic or dark-magic oriented abilities that deal large amounts of damage to enemies, although often at the cost of their own HP. They may have abilities that lower their target's stats or inflict Standard Status Effects also. As the opposite of the Paladin, they may do more damage to light based enemies such as angels, fairies or other traditionally good/holy creatures. They generally do not suffer the behavioral limitations of Paladins.

The Dragon Knight: A Fighter who either is in the employ of, powered by, part, owns, or specializes in hunting, dragons. A Dragon Knight usually has a variety of abilities that mimic or relate to dragons in some way — flight or high jumping ability, fire breath, and dealing extra damage to dragons are all common. Some are able to tame or train dragons (typically either big ones large enough to ride on, or smaller species/hatchlings) or even transform into a dragon themselves. They seem to be associated with spears for some reason.

The Barbarian:The Barbarian is a breed of Fighter focused more on damage than defense. Note that in systems where Barbarians have normal or greater than normal physical defense compared to other warriors, they will usually have no defense whatsoever against magic. Often characterized by wearing less armor, being less civilized, and being able to fly into a berserker rage that increases damage output or allow them to do more damage based on how hurt they are.

The Monster Knight: Related to Dragon Knight and Barbarian above as well as the Beast below, Monster Knight combines the augmented power of a monster/beast and the training and weaponry of a knight. They may also be able to tap on their basic monster instincts to gain more power and ferocity, often at a cost. Dragon Knight that can turn (whether fully or in part) into dragons overlap with this. In games with multiple playable races, if a Monstrous Humanoid race exists as one of the choices, them taking the Knight class make them this.

The Samurai: Samurai wear less armor than regular Fighters, which leads them to have less defensive abilities. In general, they commonly have access to Ki Attacks, higher damage, and higher speed and mobility, along with abilities related to Counter Attacks, sensing hidden enemies, or acting before their opponents can act. Some Samurai can wield both swords and longbows but the majority focus on the sword to the exclusion of all other weapons. Generally restricted to Asian settings, but can appear outside them under more generic names like The Swordmaster.

The Warlord: The Warlord is a tactical master. He can hold his own in frontline combat as well as giving out buffs to his underlings and allies, usually by commanding them to superior positions than the ones they would have thought of on their own, and he may have protective auras made of his own charisma to increase a team's effectiveness in battle.

The Cavalier: The Cavalier fights from the back of a mount, whether a normal horse or something more exotic. Cavaliers have higher movement speed than other Fighters and may be able to charge through groups of enemies or perform Hit-and-Run Tactics. However, they also have more weaknesses: their large size can make them easier to hit or prevent them from travelling through certain terrain, and they may be vulnerable to specialised Anti-Cavalry weapons or attacks which frighten/control animals. Sometimes a cavalier's mount can be separately targeted and killed, which either kills the cavalier or turns them into an infantry unit with poorer stats.

I gathered some examples of fighter style characters:

Fighters design seem to be based on real life Medevil armour, though some do not follow this, I think that is where the general inspiration lays.

Fromt his i again created a mind-map of all the important visuals and aspects of this character:

Conclusion:

I've learnt a lot about fighters and the sub-types. They need heavy armour to protect themselves from damage, and big weapons to inflict damage. Although I don't think I can going to use this class, it has been beneficial to compare the differences between each class.

What's next?

I think I want to begin sketching some ideas for different characters. Mage and Rogue to be exact, but I also need to figure out what kind of world I'm going to settle this in my next post.