A lot of old school gamers love the fighter for the simplicity and joy of battle.

What does my character do? He fights!

It can be a great fun to play a reckless, ridiculously named, swashbuckling warrior who gets himself killed in a hilariously ignoble fashion.

Sometimes you want your fighter to become a famous (or infamous) legend and that requires some skill. Here are some things you can do to keep your character alive long enough to conquer empires and usurp kings.

The woes of the first level fighter.

You don’t have that many more hit points the weaker members of the party.

You are up front in the melee and that makes you a target.

You had to spend all your money on weapons and armor.

It seems like you don’t have a lot of options in your actions.

You get stuck with the most dangerous tasks.

Character Creation

If your referee has you roll your stats in order and your character has average Strength and average Constitution that’s workable. You’d like them to be higher but it isn’t going to be a hinderance if you don’t get a bonus to attacks or hit points. A high Dexterity is nice for the missile attack bonus and Armor Class bonus.

In OSRIC and other games where race and class are separate choices, human will be the most typical selection. Others make sense. Half orc, dwarf, elf all have their own benefits but you’ll probably want to multiclass as a thief or wizard.

Weapons, and armor are going to be the most important choices for your new fighter. Buy the best armor you can and possibly a shield. If you have a Dexterity bonus to Armor Class, you might consider not buying a shield and opting for a missile weapon instead.

If you had a bad roll for starting money, the spear is a good option for your melee weapon. The spear can be used from the second row of a fight, set to receive a charge, used as a trap finding tool.

Combat

Old school games don’t have a lot of mechanical options in combat. You can parry, charge, or attempt to subdue. Learn what those are. Maybe make yourself a cheat sheet. Don’t rely on the rules and dice to save you in a bad situation. The dice are fickle.

Fight dirty. Ambushes, retreating to a better position, taunting a monster so it chases you and falls into a trap, fire, acid, poisoned meat and any dirty trick you can think of will your keep 1st level character alive. A fair fight is a fight you might lose if the dice go against you. Stack the odds in your favor. At first level, you are vulnerable and need every advantage you can get.

Be creative. Imagine the space where the fight is happening. Use the furniture, a chandelier, trees, rocks, the old dirt in the face trick, stairs, a ledge, or a halfling who crawls behind the bad guy to trip him up. You have infinite options if you stop looking at the rule book and your character sheet. Interact with things in the encounter location. Play the world AND the game.

Describe what you want to do. It doesn’t matter that there isn’t a rule for throwing a tankard of ale at an elf minstrel from 10 paces. The referee will make a ruling. Maybe you roll dice. Maybe it just works.

Avoiding fighting. A bit of meta-gaming. OSR games assume a ratio of 4 XP for treasure to 1 XP for defeating monsters. There is probably unguarded and hidden treasure in the dungeon. You’ll have to fight eventually, might as well do it on your own terms. Parley, run, go around, bribe, or trick the monster and then ambush it later.

Many referees give experience points for tricking, trapping or sometimes even negotiating with a monster. You get experience for killing monsters but those points do you no good if your character dies.

Social Encounters

There aren’t a lot of mechanisms for social encounters in old school games. Most of those encounters are random street encounters, or information gathering encounters. The fighter has some unique opportunities for those situations.

Use the fighter’s physical prowess in social encounters. The character has athletic body giving them some sex appeal. Seduce an NPC or distract them while the thief cuts their purse. Intimidation is classic. Help an old lady with her firewood to get an in with the locals.

A bruiser who gets in a bar fight can gain street cred that a skinny egghead wizard or a pious do-gooder cleric cannot.

If you want hirelings, Charisma scores and reaction rolls matter for hiring, morale, and loyalty rolls. Most referees will give bonuses if you are generous to your hirelings with coin, booze, food, lodging, or hand me down weapons and armor.

Be imaginative and take inspiration from your favorite bad ass warriors in fiction, film, and video games.

Exploration, Trap, and Obstacle Encounters

Fighters tend to be in the front and back of the marching order. If you don’t have a thief or ranger, you will definitely be up front.

In the dungeon, have someone else carry a light source. You can have a hireling with a lamp. The cleric or wizard can carry the torch. You could carry the torch in your off hand but you’d be better off with a shield.

If you don’t have a thief or the thief can’t unlock the door, you will get the duty to force the door. The party would do well to invest a crowbar and other tools. Porters and hirelings are good for carrying gear.

Fighters get a lot of utility tasks when negotiating natural obstacles. Often referees will rule that climbing, crossing a river, going through a window, lowering a party member down a well, is an automatic success if you have the right gear. If you find a bunch of treasure, you can always dump the gear to reduce your load. It costs money but you get XP for what you bring back, not the net total.

Conclusion

The fighter has the reputation of being a character class that doesn’t require much thought or creativity. You can play a fighter as some dumb lunkhead who charges into battle the first sign of orcs. You can also play a fighter as a daring mercenary, a clever swordsman, or charming buccaneer.

The fighter offers a wide open landscape of possibilities for social encounters, use of the environment during combat, and teamwork in navigating obstacles.

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