Lost Galmagia: Fighter Advantages Part 1

I’m making some changes to the Fighter class to make them a little more interesting without making them a lot more powerful. The inherent problems with fighters are:

a)       they rely a lot on the randomness of their ability scores and HP. By standardizing HP I’ve solved part of that problem, but there’s really no way around how useful higher than average strength is in a fight.

b)      They are just generally better at combat and not specifically better. There’s nothing a fighter can do that any other class can’t try. And at low levels they can miss just as often, which diminishes the cachet of being the one good at fighting. But you don’t want to have them hit all the time….

c)       There’s nothing in the early stages of play that makes it clear that Fighters are will become commanders of armies and conquerors of nations.

Natural Commanders: 

Fighters can:

when commanding henchmen, reroll one die out of the set. For example, if commanding 3 henchmen in a battle the player rolls 3d6 and can re-roll one of the dice. When rolling to see how well retainers work in your absence, take the better of 2 rolls.

Be intimidating as heck, and can use their Fighter Background (+1 at levels 1-4, +2 at 5-8, +3 at9+) for tests to negotiate, bluff or intimidate when martial skill or force of arms would be a useful negotiating tool.

Make morale tests for troops under their command as one stage less complex. They can recover their troops from a morale loss – normally impossible – as a contested d20 roll.

Find it easier to recruit soldiers, and may add or subtract their Fighter Background modifier from the roll to identify henchmen type, pushing the rolls to median to reliably find other militarily minded individuals.

Maneuvers:

In addition to a fighter's raw combat ability, they are constantly trying to take advantage of the battlefield. This flexibility lets them make Maneuvers, special bonuses they get when the natural d20 roll is particularly high or low, and whether they are capitalizing on a hit or explaining why they missed. These come into play about half the time.

Defensive Maneuvers: If the fighter has missed their target with a natural d20 of 7 or less (2 on 6 chance), the fighter instead has succeeded on one of the following options, at the player’s choice.

Tactical Insight: The player can request one piece of information their PC could identify about the enemy or combat situation. DMs will be more generous with information if you ask a specific question rather than “do I see anything?”

Aid Another: The fighter spent the bulk of their time assisting an ally's attacks, giving that ally a +2 to hit on their next attack roll. This option is only available if there are allied PCs who have yet to make an attack this round.

Defend Allies: If the PCs have initiative, the fighter spent the bulk of their time defending an ally, giving that ally +2 AC against the incoming attacks of the enemy who lost initiative.

Rally Allies: if the PCs lost the initiative, the fighter spent the bulk of the round improving the party’s chance to win initiative next round, giving a +2 bonus on the roll.