What exactly is a fighter? Is it a knight? Or is the Paladin the knight class of D&D?

I think he means combatants.

Would mordekaiser be a fighter?

Warriors aren't necessarily well-trained (perhaps drilled), they just do it. Training seperates Fighters from Warriors the way training differentiates Navy SEALs from African bandits or Spartans from Persian conscripts

Warriors are actually a caste description.
Thugs can be fighter but are no warriors.

No, he's some weird undead warlock or wizard or blackguard.
Xin Xhao's a fighter. Poppy, too.

Antipaladin

Anti paladin multi classed into necromancy wizard?

training is what separates a warrior from a commoner

you have to be trained to be proficient with martial weapons and the various armors and shield, so a fighter is more than just "literally anyone that's been trained to wear armour and use armed martial arts"

A cavalier is a knight. A paladin is also a knight. Most paladins have some levels in fighter. Most cavaliers also have some levels in fighter.

Shouldn't cavaliers and paladins have more overlapping skills, though?

What exactly is a monk?

'Fighter' is the result of a system that only had three classes in which each class somewhat determined your PC's background and profession.
'Fighting man' was originally chosen over something like 'knight' or 'warrior' to give you more leeway over you character. Maybe your character is a mercenary, maybe they're a common foot soldier, or maybe they're just a random farmer who grabbed his wood axe and started fighting shit.
In modern systems it is kept as 'fighter' as a remnant of OD&D. Personally I prefer this as certain classes determine half your character's personality from the get go, which is much more restrictive.

TL;DR it's left intentionally vague, it can be anyone who mostly just fights in some (typically) non magical way.

That dragon slayer bow is making me autistic.

Back in the "good" old days fighters were the class that got into fights. Most modern RPGs have more than one martial/combat class so the term seems bizarre.

A fighter is a guy who fights. He uses his skill at arms and his bodily strength and endurance to solve problems.

A knight is a title of nobility. You could use it to mean a "noble soldier", in which case he would usually be a fighter or paladin. Or you could use it to mean a "honorary noble", which could be anyone.

A fighter is a guy who fights, any person with a profession related to fighting could be a fighter.

>implying warrior is a class in most editions of D&D

>What is the best archetype to describe a fighter?

Fighter IS an archetype.

The D&D classes are just catchall names that loosely describe the different roles.

It's neither tied to a strict social caste/class or a specific set of gear. It's just the name on the character class you chose, after that it's up to you to figure out who your character is and why he knows the stuff he knows.

It's supposed to be generalist jesus fucking christ it's meant to cover a large variety of character concepts not all classes have to be outrageously specific bullshit like monks or barbarians or rangers that fit no more than two or three goddamn character concepts fuck off

Fighters are the "stale white bread" of character classes in D&D.

They're inoffensive so anyone can eat it without issue but after a while, you just want to taste something that actually has an interesting flavor to it.

Hell, if you remove the Fighter class from the class options, you really don't lose much aside from useless baggage, especially since Fighters aren't even the best martial class in the game.

From ACKS, skipping over crunch text
>Fighters are exclusively trained in the arts of combat and war. They are specialists at dealing physical blows. In the Auran Empire [i.e. Not!Rome], fighters may have learned their arts as warriors in the Imperial Legions, gladiators battling for glory in the arena, raiders off the Jutland coast [cold northern viking-land], or sell-swords in the games of the noble houses.
>[...] his battlefield prowess inspires others to follow him
>[...]a fighter can, assuming enough gold is at hand, build a castle and become a great leader of men, taking a leadership rank in his society.
>[...]Through force of arms, the fighter may ultimately control several castles or even entire realms, but must be a capable, strong leader and provide protection

So basically, fighters can be all manner of soldiers, farmboys-turned-heroes, brigands, sergeants, bandit-leaders, knights, mercenary-commanders, counts, barons, earls, kings, and even emperors. With different proficiency selections, you can have fighters with vastly different skillsets and styles. A fighter with berserkergang could be a berserker warrior, one with tracking or survival might be a ranger-type, while another might take art(poetry) and be a literal warrior-poet, another could take fighting style(weapon and shield) to be a phalanx guy, and so on and so forth. And of course, different backstory ideas can result in fighters of many different types.

>Fighters aren't even the best martial class in the game
D&D includes like 8 games, in some of which fighters are quite good. In 5e for example, they're generally regarded as the best one, if not close to it. Back in some of the older games, fighters and their predecessor class, Fighting-Man, were also great.

>What exactly is a fighter?
He is a dude (or a lass) fighting without being empowered by a god.
>Is it a knight?
A knight can be a fighter, but knight is a title rather than a class.

In the end, fighter is a class able to be a stand in for nearly every regular soldier and some irregular over the course of history.

>D&D includes like 8 games,
I think you could say D&D covers somewhere between 6 and 15 games, depending on where you draw the line.

6 being just good ol' d&d editions, right? And there's PF, and d20 modern. What am I missing? Seriously, I'm a noob

If you include clones like Fantasy Craft the number grows by a large amount.

Depending on how you count, there are about half a dozen versions of basic D&D pre-dating/co-existing with AD&D.

OD&D, AD&D, BD&D, 3.X, 4.X, 5.

The 15 comes from LBB OD&D, OD&D + Chainmail, OD&D + Supplements, AD&D 1e, AD&D 2e, AD&D 2e with all the X's Option books (2.5e), 3e, 3.5e, 4e, Essentials, 5e, Holmes Basic, B/X, BECMI, and RC.

It really depends on how many of those you treat as separate editions.

A miserable little pile of bonus feats.
But enough talk, have at you!

Cavaliers were a subtype of paladin at one point though. Had bonuses for slaying dragons and demons, and couldn't use melee weapons.

I really wish fighter feats could change. Like play a Casey Jones type of guy with multlipe weapons for different situations instead of being a guy who only uses this one thing. I know the whole master a thousand kicks or one kick a thousand times but I like versatility

It's the other way around. 1e UA switched pallys from a fighter subclass to a cavalier subclass.

Underrated post.

Human Fighter 20
power attack, cleave, PBS, combat expertise, spiked chain prof, imp over, imp trip,
quick draw, great cleave, imp dis, dodge, mobility, spring attack, whirlwind attack,
combat reflexes, imp bull rush, pre shot, imp pre shot, far shot
>not taken in this order

Threatens 72 lateral squares with a spiked chain if enlarged. Can reach out 30ft with a whip via quick draw, to disarm a weapon or trip someone, if he can't reach them with the spiked chain. An animated tower shield allows him to take total cover from one side of his square(s) while still threatening AoO's out to 20ft with his spiked chain, which he can use to trip or disarm enemies; big bonus to AC regardless. Flying enemies? Quick draw a net or bola (+improved trip) to slow them down and make them easier to hit, or cause them to stall (unless they fly magically, in which case he still slows them down). Can plow through or past enemies if necessary via improved overrun and bullrush. Kill everybody in melee, but still have attacks left? Quick draw some throwing weapons. Ignores cover and concealment with reach weapons on non-adjacent enemies. Not shabby with a bow if it comes to that. It's probably not gonna be your best option, but you can move from cover, whack a bitch with a weapon, then move back to cover via spring attack.

That's just core.

A fighter without weapons except for those at the ends of his arms and legs

>couldn't use melee weapons.

Er, no.

I personally dislike it because it means the character itself is so vague. Why would I want to be just a mercenary or a militiaman, when I could be a paladin or a barbarian?

I meant ranged, my bad.