Best Feats For Fighters To Take
Highlights
- Carefully consider stats, subclasses, and feats when creating a D&D character for optimal gameplay.
- Feats like Alert, Charger, and Great Weapon Master enhance a Fighter’s combat abilities in unique ways.
- Choosing feats like Sentinel or Gunner can provide Fighters with strategic advantages in different combat scenarios.
Dungeons & Dragons is primarily a co-operative fantasy story-telling game that encourages players to put thought into creating a layered, complex and individual character. However, the mechanical side of D&D cannot be neglected. Stats, subclasses, racial bonuses, and choosing an ASI or a feat all must be taken into consideration during character creation or leveling up.
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Feats are bonuses that players can opt to take instead of boosting their ability scores at certain levels. Often they are situational, which can render them nonfunctional under certain circumstances, but extremely powerful under different ones. Knowing which ones to take can often be difficult, with there being so many options in the current state of D&D. For characters who have chosen the Fighter class, though, it’s hard to go wrong with these Feats.
Updated March 2nd, 2024, by Mara Cowley: D&D remains one of the most popular and longest-enduring tabletop games of all time, with WotC continually releasing new supplement books that add new campaigns and character options. The Fighter remains one of the most popular vanilla classes in D&D, as it is the class that has the most versatility, where players can choose to focus on martial skills or even learn magic. The class can be given even further versatility by taking feats at the corresponding level. This article already contained many of the best fighter feats, but there are so many more to improve the player’s Fighter experience.
14 Cohort Of Chaos
Chance Of Random Magic Effect On A Critical Roll
D&D is all about rolling dice to see if players succeed or fail, with the d20 being the most important dice in the whole game. Rolling a 1 is always treated as a fail, and a 20 a success, but if players roll either of these numbers with the Cohort of Chaos feat, a randomly determined magical effect will take place, based on a d4 table:
- Battle Fury – A creature of choice that the player can see is filled with reckless fury. It has advantage on attack rolls and disadvantage on ability checks.
- Disruption Field
– Every creature that starts its turn within 5 feet of the player, or that moves into that area for the first time on a turn, takes 1d8 force damage. - Unbound – When the player moves, they can use some or all of their walking speed to teleport once to an unoccupied space in sight, along with all equipment, up to the distance used.
- Wailing Winds – Winds swirl in a 15-foot-radius sphere centered on the player. They and any other creatures in that area have disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws.
All of these have their advantages and drawbacks, but they will certainly add some fun and variety to gameplay beyond Fighters just swinging their weapon at whatever enemy is in range.
13 Alert
Immune To Surprise
D&D players aren’t the only ones who try to sneak up on their foes to gain a surprise round – sometimes a crafty DM will pull the same trick on their unsuspecting players, immediately placing them at a disadvantage in combat.
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Thankfully, players can gain immunity to being surprised with the Alert feat, which also grants a +5 to initiative. This is especially handy for Fighters, who are more focused on strength than dexterity.
12 Charger
Fighters Can Now Dash and Attack
Dashing is a very handy mechanic for squishy characters to escape close-quarters combat, and for the more tanky characters to get to the front lines where they belong. Charger is a very useful feat to have for those moments, as it allows the user to use their bonus action to make a melee attack or shove a creature, which means the Fighter hasn’t used up their whole turn just getting into position.
What’s more, if the player charges in a straight line for at least 10 feet, their attack gains an additional 5 points of damage should they hit the targeted creature, and extra damage is always vital for melee characters.
11 Polearm Master
More Attacks Per Turn
One of the greatest draws of the Fighter class is the number of attacks they can perform per turn. The only way to improve this is to take feats that can give fighters even greater action economy.
The Polearm Master feat does exactly that. If the Fighter uses the Attack action with a weapon that has the Reach property (such as a glaive, spear, or quarterstaff), they can immediately use their bonus action to attack with the other end of their weapon. Additionally, their weapon’s reach takes into account attacks of opportunity, giving these weapons greater use.
10 Magic Initiate
Learn Arcane Secrets
D&D classes are divided between melee classes, casters, and partial classes. It can be tough to choose which kind of combatant to play as, but this is where feats can come in and help mix things up.
Magic Initiate allows fighters to learn cantrips and first level spells from a casting class of their choice. This gives them greater versatility in combat, and means they can still attack enemies that are just out of their reach.
9 Fighting Initiate
Fighters must always choose a fighting styles that determines how they will fight and with what weapons they will use. Normally, Fighters will only be able to take the one fighting style that they choose at level one, but this feat changes that.
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Taking the Fighting Initiate feat allows a character to take one more fighting style, such as archery, dueling, or great weapon fighting. The only requirement is that the new fighting style from the one they initially took. Having access to more fighting styles can open the door for more versatility while in combat.
8 Dual Wielder
Wield Two Weapons At Once
There is only one thing better than having a sword in one’s hand — and that’s two swords. While some classes come already equipped with the ability to dual-wield weapons, the feat Dual Wielder (Player’s Handbook, page 165) gives players bonuses when fighting with a separate weapon in each hand.
Specifically, this feat provides a bonus to AC, the ability to wield two weapons that don’t have the Light property, and the ability draw or sheathe two weapons simultaneously instead of just one. With all these features, this versatile feat gives Fighters a boost in combat.
7 Slasher
Debuff Enemies
Introduced in the supplement book Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Slasher is another great feat to introduce to the Fighter class. It has multiple benefits that affect the stats of the user, as well as ways to handicap enemies during combat.
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Those who take the Slasher feat gain an addition 1 point to increase their Strength or Dexterity, as well as a boost to their abilities with slashing weapons. When players with this feat successfully attack another creature, they reduce the target’s speed by 10 feet until the start of their next turn, drastically limiting their mobility. It also inflicts the target with disadvantage on all of their enemies attack rolls.
6 Great Weapon Master
Additional Attacks
Great Weapon Master is a must-have for those looking to hit hard and fast. It grants bonuses to those who wield weapons that have the Heavy property, such as greataxes or greatswords. It makes rolling that d20 an even more monumental occasion.
Instead of just dealing double damage on a crit, the Great Weapons Master feat grants the wielder an additional attack using a bonus action, giving the player the option to bag the kill and the glory that comes with it. The player also has the option to suffer a -5 on their attack tools to gain an additional 10 damage on successful attacks, making for a high-risk, high-reward play.
5 Sentinel
Stop A Foe In Their Tracks
The Sentinel feat allows Fighters to protect their allies by attacking enemies who flee from their reach. Sentinels can successfully stop a creature in their tracks by making their target’s movement drop to 0 on an attack that connects. The feat also gives the user other benefits to make sure no one escapes a skirmish alive against this Fighter.
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Even when an enemy uses the Disengage action, they are not safe. Sentinel allows the user to ignore Disengage and still attack. In addition, Sentinels can use their reaction to make a melee attack against an enemy that attacks another creature within 5 feet of them, making them the ultimate protector of their allies.
4 Savage Attacker
Reroll Damage Die
For Fighters who want to cut loose and put some more force behind their attacks, Savage Attacker is the feat for them. Though the feat has fewer abilities than some others, it is still worth considering for Fighters who value strength above all else.
Savage Attacker allows the user to reroll their damage dice and use the damage total of their choosing upon every turn, ensuring they can maximize their damage output.
3 Gunner
Bring Guns To A Sword Fight
For Fighter PCs who want to try their hand at the Gunslinger subclass, Gunner is a must-have feat. By choosing it, Gunslingers get an increase to their Dexterity score, and gain proficiency with firearms. (This aspect will only benefit players who didn’t choose Gunslinger as a subclass, since the subclass gains this proficiency at level 3).
They can also ignore the Loading property to allow for more fluid attacks in combat, as well as ignoring the disadvantage that would have been imposed on their attack if they are within melee range of an enemy. The diversity of this feat makes this an essential one for Gunslinger Fighters.
2 Knight Of The Crown
Strike Harder
This feat offers generous benefits, but the player must create a character with the Squire of Solomnia feat before they can choose which Knight Order they take. There are three in total, but the Order of the Crown is the most basic and also the most useful.
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Knights of the Crown increases the player’s choice of Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution by one. As a bonus action, the user can command an ally within 30 feet to use their reaction to attack with a bonus d8 to the damage dealt. Knights of the Crown can use this ability multiple times per day, up to their proficiency bonus, which makes this feat a strong choice for Fighters.
1 Squire Of Solamnia
Additional Damage
Of course, in order to become one of the above-mentioned knights, a character must first serve as a squire. Even as a lowly squire, the player will still gain a few advantages to give them an edge.
Versed in mounted combat, mounting or dismounting costs only 5 feet of movement, and those with this feat also gain combat advantages. Just like the knight orders, Squires of Solamnia gain an additional d8 bonus damage to attacks that hit. This ability can be used up to their proficiency bonus, but a use is only expended for successful attacks. But the main draw of this feat is that players then gain access to the Knight Orders.
Dungeons and Dragons
- Franchise
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Original Release Date
- 1974-00-00
- Designer
- E. Gary Gygax , Dave Arneson