CaG 2020: Fighting Man (OD&D)

Fighter Man!  Fighter Man!  Overall, he's fairly bland!

  … until now!  

    You see, in theory, the simple-almost-to-the-point-of-abstraction fighting man would be the easiest class to decypher, given that the only build goals were or could ever be:

1. hit good
2. take hits gooder
3. hit goodest

But then a psychic alchemy of 2020, procrastination, and spending five more minutes with the Cypher System Revised coninced me to pivot from my initial idea for MR. MAXIMUM DAMAGE to a more weapon-for-every-occasion-and-occasion-for-every-weapon kind of guy  Without further ado, meet Ser Thomas Clancy, the Fighting Man!

First Tier

    Given the straightforward role as the infantry of an old-school adventuring party, I'm going with a Tough Warrior who Looks for Trouble.  I was initially going to go with Masters Weaponry, but he just ain't a one-blade man… a warrior's got needs, you know.  the Tough descriptor gives you +1 armor, +1 to recovery rolls, training in might defense, and a free light weapon: a throwing knife in Fighting Man's case.  From the warrior type, your pools in might/speed/intellect order will start at 10/10/8 before spending six discretionary points. and 14/12/8 after.  Physical nature gives us 1 might edge, and Practiced with All Weapons means no penalty to using heavy weapons.  For special abilities, Combat Prowess gives +1 damage to either melee or ranged weapons; I went with melee for reasons you'll see later.  Bash will make your melee attacks daze your enemies at the cost of 1 might point and -1 damage, Practiced in Armor reduces your armor speed tax by 1, and Physical Skills (running and climbing) will ensure that our beefy boy can still get around.  As for inventory, we'll start with:

• clothes
• Two weapons (bow and spear in our case)*
  
• an expensive item (shield)*
• 2 moderately priced items (hides and furs, and a dagger)
• 4 inexpensive items (a burlap sack, a 3-pack of torches, and two dozen arrows)

  .

    the Looks for Trouble focus will give us Fists of Fury, which means our punches and kicks get +2 damage, cranking them up to 4**, and Wound Tender, which trains you in healing so you can patch yourself up while you wait an hour for Bezos Amazon to answer your cleric's prayers.  The rest of the focus will help us with more general application of damage.

    Now for the advancements.  We'll take the standard four: four points in our pools (all in might, of course), +1 might edge, bringing our fighting man up to 2, skill training which we'll invest in climbing so he's specialized in it, and an extra level of effort, bring his effort to 2.

Second Tier… and Beyond!

Hits some stuff!
Hits some more!
Outside combat, is quite a bore!

    Second Tier

    For second tier, out trouble seeker gains Protector and Straightforward; the former gives the best-friend-right-now of our choice an asset to speed defense so long as they stay within arms' reach of you, while the latter trains you in either running, climbing, jumping, or breaking stuff like, say, a wooden dungeon door.  So to prevent false advertising, we'll go with breaking stuff.  Meanwhile, we get two abilities from the second-tier warrior menu, out of which we'll pick Crushing Blow (which grants a free level of effort for damage when you use your blade, blunt weapon, or sick MMA skillz with both hands {which in turn means +3 damage!} for a measly 2 might points) and Skill with Defense, which trains you in the defense of your choice.  Question is, which one do you pick, and why is it speed?

    Advancement time!  We'll take the four points (2 for might, rounding it up to 20, and 2 for speed), +1 might edge to bring it up to a cool 3, another level of effort, and skill training so you can specialize in breaking stuff.

Third Tier

Look out!
Here comes the Fighter Man!

    Now we get three choices of ability for our Warrior type.  We'll upgrade Practiced in Armor to Experienced in Armor,  to make out battlin' boy even more realistically mobile that whatever shiny new heavy armor you find/buy/steal.  In addition, Seize the Moment will allows us to do just that with a post-dodge action for 4 speed points (and either a level of effort or your next turn's action).  For ability #3, however, we'll take the first tier ability Control the Field so you can make your target move within immediate range for the low low price of 1 might point and -1 damage; after all, just because your intellect pool is only about average doesn't meant you can't play smart!

    Meanwhile in Focusville, we have a choice of either Skill with Attacks, which will train you in [light/medium/heavy][bladed/bashing/ranged] weapon attacks, or grabbing six pool points with Greater Enhanced Potential.  While you can't go wrong here, but for the purpose of boosting that speed pool, we'll go with the latter.  Now we advance!  +1 speed edge so we can dodge better, +2 to our recovery rolls, another level of effort, and as our fifth option, rebuying Physical Skills for jumping and swimming.  Gotta stay in that fighting shape!

Fourth Tier

Hammer, bow, sword and shield!

There's no limit what you can wield!

    Now for two more warrior abilities: Increased Effect turns our nat 19s into nat 20s, meaning your attacks have a 1-in-10 chance of just feeling like doing 4 extra damage, and Feint allows you to pay someone two speed points to let you hit them with 4 extra damage damage next turn.  On our troubleseeking end, Knockout will do just that to a level [3+effort] NPC for a 5-might-point pittance, plus effort.

Now for advancements.  +1 speed edge for free feints, two points in might and intellect so we're not completely helpless against mind flayers and math tests, one last level of effort, and +2 to recovery.  If you've been keeping score, that's 1d6+9 pool points every recovery, so edge is just redundant enough at this point.

Plenty fights, you have fought,
Demon Lord's just another THOT!

Fifth Tier

    Almost there!  For our three type options, Mastery in Armor makes our plate armor feel like nothin' at all!… nothin' at all!… nothin' at all!…

    Mastery with Defense upgrades our stupid sexy fighter's might defense to specialized mode, and 

Parry cost 5 points for ten rounds of eased speed defense.  As for focus, we gain Mastery with Attacks  (or skill, in our case), which means training in one category of weapon attack.  We'll go with medium bladed weapons, which likely make up most of our arsenal anyway, but go with whatever mode works for your character.  And now, the last stop on the advancement train—+1 might edge, 4 might points, +2 recovery, and a another dip into our alternative options to buy MwD again for speed.  Onward to the Sixth Tier!

Sixth Tier

    At this point, we're just putting two cherries on this martial sundae, so we'll turn Seize the moment into Magnificent Moment, which eases our attacks when we seize the moment, and spin-to-win with Spin Attack!, hitting [5+effort] foes around us for as many speed points.  Oh, and in case our fighter looks a bit lanky, we get Greater Enhanced Might from our focus, raising our might pool to 32.  And that is our fighting man; let's see how he fares!

Pros & Cons

    With 32 might points and 4 might edge, your fighting man/woman/attack helicopter is gonna be t h i c c enough to handle any fight even with our gas-guzzling abilities, while our 20 speed points and 2 speed edge ensure that wounds are for thee and not for we.  And to sweeten the deal, the default damage for your weapons is now the bare minimum, meaning you can end fights even better than you start them.

    That being said, because we min-maxed as Gygax intended, your intellect pool is going to be little more than extra hit points… though if that becomes relevant, you have bigger problems.  Now go, and get to fighting, man!

Oh, and as always, pregens can be obtained here.

This class:
great for a newbie's first time,
plenty of damage to chime,
here comes the Fighter Maaan!!!

Credit to JoCat for the song and the accompanying video, and apologies for the delay.  Next week: the Magic-User!

*These items are assumed to count as medium weapons (or medium armor in the shield's case.  Or an asset to defense, maybe?)

**I have just been informed that unarmed attacks are implied to be light weapons based on the rules text for No Need for Weapons: "When you make an unarmed attack (such as a punch or kick), it counts as a medium weapon instead of a light" (CSR2, p166).  Thanks, Synth!