Ultimate Guide to Fighters in D&D 5e

Guide by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Ah, Fighter. The classic artisan of combat taking forms from archer to jouster, Fighters are 5th Edition’s primary “martial” class. They’re built to basically take the attack action over and over again, and look to improve it in a handful of different ways.

Fighter is often touted as the “beginner” class because it largely lacks complex features like Spellcasting, Infusions, or Invocations. What makes them fairly beginner friendly also leads them to be pretty linear, and often disappointing to players looking to engage with the game beyond taking two or three attacks every round.

Feats make up the most decisions for this class; they get the most Ability Score Improvements, and thus have the most opportunities to take feats quickly to bring specific feat-based builds online while cranking up their Ability Scores quickly. If you want to get the full Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter experience with a maxed-out attack and damage stat alongside all of their supporting feats, Fighter will get you there fastest and with the most attacks of any of the base classes.

Another core element to fighters is their reliance on short rests. This is a gigantic issue for them, as many tables run very few short rests per long rest, often leaving fighters with few resources to play with over the couple of fights that occur when compared to their full-caster counterparts.

If you’re in the market to do anything besides attack, Fighter doesn’t offer you much. You can find some gems in the archetypes, but if you’re thinking about picking up fighter, be prepared to contribute primarily Athletics checks to out-of-combat exploration, as the rest of your kit is aimed at attacking over and over and over and over and over again.

Using This Guide

New Players to Fighter will want to primarily focus on two elements: your starting proficiencies and ability scores, and your first few levels and subclass selection. Beyond that, having an idea of what feats are generally going to support your chosen Fighting Style will help you assemble a cohesive character that will excel in the kind of combat your Fighting Style promises.

Experienced Players looking to improve their fighter in or out of combat will likely want to focus on the feat, fighting style, and subclass selection. These three pillars make up most of the choices you get to customize your Fighter. The feats section covers the various generally accepted “powerful” builds that combine specific feats together to create a character that’s a beast in combat. If you’re in the upper tiers and are looking to improve your fighter’s contribution on a scale beyond attacking three times, unfortunately, 5th Edition isn’t really tooled to give you options to compete with the likes of Wish, Meteor Swarm, Animal Shapes, and Conjure Woodland Beings.

Fighter Fundamentals

The core elements that matter most for fighters’ early game are what weapons and armor they’re proficient with, and where you put your ability scores to best take advantage of these proficiencies.

Starting Weapon Proficiencies

When you start out as a fighter you have a ton of options to decide on, with the largest priority being what weapons you want to focus on. Fighters are proficient with martial weapons, making most of the weapon table at your disposal to use. They’re broadly broken into the following categories: two-handed weapons, dual-wielding, one-handed weapons with a shield, and ranged weapons.

It's important to note you have options within each category to get your own look, and often are going to want at least one ranged and melee option available to you even if you’re not planning on primarily fighting with both.

Once you’ve decided on what you primarily plan on attacking with, it becomes a lot more straightforward to do your Ability Score Assignments.

Ability Score Assignments

Fighters tend to fit into one of two camps: Strength or Dexterity fighters. Whichever you plan to primarily attack with is going to largely determine how the rest of these assignments go. The four main weapon categories then are typically broken down into halves, with two-handed weapons and one-handed weapons with a shield tending towards Strength builds, and ranged weapons and dual-wielding builds prioritizing Dexterity.

Strength-based fighters will want about as high a Strength as they can get to empower their attack rolls. This also pairs well with weapons with the thrown property, as they can still give you a way to make ranged attack rolls using this modifier. With heavy armor proficiency, you don’t need to lean on Dexterity for armor, making it easy to forgo Dex unless you want a better Dex save or Stealth. This leaves more room for a high Constitution, normally resulting in it being your second highest stat, and pushing you towards the front line.

Dexterity-based fighters want as high a Dexterity as possible for the same reason; it empowers your attack and damage rolls. On top of that, though, it also adds to your Armor Class with Light or Medium Armor, often acting as a way to get a solid AC without needing a high Strength for the best heavy armor out there. These characters often aren’t geared to be the frontline damage taker, often instead wanting to skirmish to leverage their Dexterity and ranged weapon attacks, leaving you room to explore other Ability Scores beyond Constitution like Wisdom for Survival checks or Charisma to give you an opportunity to lead some social encounters.

A few fighter archetypes want a high secondary stat, which tends to be an easy ask when you only are leaning on a single Ability Score out of the gate. Having a high Intelligence for Eldritch Knight and Psi Warrior is invaluable, as is having a high Constitution for Rune Knight and Echo Knight.

Armor and Fighter AC

As mentioned above, fighters have access to light, medium, and heavy armor proficiencies.

Strength-based fighters will usually rely on heavy armor. They can start with Chainmail, giving you a flat AC of 16. For 200 gold or 1,500 gold, you can upgrade to Splint or Plate for an AC of 17 or 18. All of these impose disadvantage on Stealth checks, though, so if you want around the same AC without the penalty, you can get Breastplate medium armor paired with a +2 Dexterity.

Dexterity-based fighters that start with a 16 can use Studded Leather to get an AC of 15. Medium Armor can upgrade that with 400 gold to Breastplate for an AC of 16, but you can eventually outclass this by upgrading your Dexterity score, getting +1 AC for each additional bonus you add.

On top of both of these methods, Fighters come with proficiency with shields. If you can spare an open hand, this can add +2 to your AC further.

If you really want as high an AC as possible, on top of this you can take the Defense Fighting Style.

The highest AC you can start out with using the starting equipment is 19- 16 from Chain Mail, +2 from a Shield, and +1 from Defense.

Dexterity-based characters usually will opt to not get disadvantage on their Stealth checks for the -1 total AC, but otherwise will look very similar.

1st Level: Fighting Style, Second Wind

Fighters have a pretty rough 1st level. You get a Fighting Style, which is usually going to just be a passive buff, and Second Wind, a once-per-short rest heal.

Fighting Style

We’ve already touched on Defense, but there are plenty of additional options to pick from. There is a fighting style for more or less every weapon option out there. You’ll normally want a style you’re using every turn in combat to make the most of it, making some a lot more appealing than others.

Archery adds a +2 to hit with attacks made with ranged weapons. As far as passive buffs go, this is excellent; +2 to hit translates into more consistent damage and fewer rounds where you’re missing. In the archer builds weaponizing Sharpshooter, it plays a major role in mitigating the -5 penalty, making it a potent fighting style to ensure you’re dealing solid chunks of damage consistently.
Blind Fighting feels more like a spell or activatable feature you’d get in a subclass. It provides a bit of extra utility that helps you fight in heavy obscurity or against invisible enemies, making it a fun build-around ability if you can get options like Fog Cloud and Darkness on your sheet.
Defense is such a boring feature; where at least Archery reduces your rounds where you do nothing, Defense makes you slightly harder to hit for just existing. +1 AC contributes to all the other modifiers heavily armored characters tend to want to stack, making it appealing for builds whose objective is to get as high an Armor Class as possible. If that’s not you, I wouldn’t recommend Defense.
Dueling doesn’t require much to work; a one-handed melee weapon will basically give you everything you need to get your +2 damage. If you’re working with a longsword and shield, or a rapier, this is the default option I recommend.
Great Weapon Fighting, while not particularly powerful, is pretty fun to actually play with. The 2d6 weapons are really good on their own and don’t need a powerful fighting style to encourage use, making this an option to up your damage by a smidge while giving you regular, fun decisions to make in combat.
Interception goes hand in hand with Protection, both of which give you a new reaction to defend yourself and others. Interception tends to be better earlier, as it always can mitigate damage, but Protection has more potential to mitigate massive amounts of damage in the upper tiers. Both suffer from being challenging to get consistent use from, though; you have to know you’re going to be shoulder to shoulder with an ally consistently to get the most from them. If you’re in a group with multiple other melee-ranged characters, both can be reasonable defensive tools.
Superior Technique basically only fits characters who are committed to going into Battle Master and want more dice and maneuvers. Outside of that archetype, a once-per-short rest maneuver isn’t going to be worth more than a bonus you make on every attack.
Thrown Weapon Fighting brings Dueling’s damage mechanic to thrown weapons you successfully throw. This might not sound like its that challenging to bring together, but consistently keeping within a short range of an enemy to make your thrown weapon attacks without being engaged is tricky. Often, this will be a pair of thrown weapon ranged attacks to engage a fight before you’ll have to swap to melee weapon attacks. It's clunky, but if you’re entirely sure you want to play a thrown-weapon character, this option probably supports your build best. Or at least, it would, if two-weapon fighting didn’t exist.
Two-Weapon Fighting adds a flat bonus to your off-hand weapon damage. In the early game, this boon feels huge; you’re usually doubling the damage of your off-hand attack. As you get higher level, though, the other fighting styles start to outshine this as you’re getting their bonuses on every attack you make, not just the one attack you make with your bonus action. Thrown weapons can be light and qualify for this, though, and because many thrown weapons work in and out of melee range, like Hand Axes, two-weapon fighting helps give you a bonus you can regularly use round to round.
Unarmed Fighting definitely is the worst Fighting Style in the game. Functionally, it turns your fists into maces, which don’t even have the light quality meaning you can’t engage in two-weapon fighting with them. A d4 bonus damage on grapple is laughably bad. If you want the Puglisit fantasy, I’d definitely look to Monk instead.

Second Wind

Second Wind isn’t particularly complicated. When you are beaten up and need some extra padding, once per short rest you can get 1d10+your level back. At 1st level this feels fairly large, usually overhealing you when you use it at three to five remaining hit points. In the mid-tiers, it feels like a drop in the bucket with a very small impact on the actual outcome of a fight.

2nd Level: Action Surge

Action Surge is the only 2nd-level feature you get. It has some of the most raw power out of any feature in the game, specifically on spellcasting characters like Sorcerers, as it gives them a tool to cast two spells in the same turn.
As a fighter, this tends to read as an extra Attack action once per short rest (or twice at 17th level). At 2nd level, this feels deeply underwhelming. It helps take turns where you’d miss an attack and do nothing and give you another chance, which is nice, but it won’t really feel excellent until you’ve got your build more put together and your Attack action brings with it more attacks with bonus modifiers.
Generally speaking, don’t wait on Action Surge. If you’re in a climactic fight, the sooner you can burn through the enemy hit points the better. Action Surge can give you a tool to deal potentially double damage out the gate, which can sway the outcome of an encounter massively.

3rd Level: Martial Archetype

Third level introduces Fighter’s Martial Archetype. This archetype has a lot of heavy lifting to do, as up to this point (and past it), fighters receive no elements to contribute to anything beyond interacting with damage, whether that be mitigating it, dealing it, or absorbing it. It falls to the subclasses to provide fighters with resources, decisions, and the bulk of their middle and upper-tier features that define what makes your fighter unique.

Arcane Archer has some amazing ideas, but is hamstrung by a twice per short rest usage on their arrows. At third level, these two arrows feel reasonable. Then, you’ll be left to use them as they are for basically the rest of the game. With any additional uses, I’d say this subclass is great. Without more uses, it’s frustrating, and often will leave you stranded without things to do beyond the base fighter “I attack” play pattern.
Banneret contends for the worst subclass in the game. Known as the Purple Dragon Knight in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, Banneret provides horrendous supportive features that barely improve your character's utility. At 3rd level, when you use Second Wind, you heal three allies a grand total of 3 HP each. And that’s the entire third-level feature. Royal Envoy at 7th level is a single skill proficiency with expertise in Persuasion, which isn’t nearly enough, and the remaining features come so late you’re left wondering what this archetype was really supposed to accomplish.
Battle Master stands out as an option I’d argue should just be attached to the base fighter. As an archetype, though, it provides you a ton of little tricks and tools you get progressively more of as the game goes on that sets you up for success in fights. If you want a fighter who doesn’t lean on magic at all, yet has a robust kit of options to engage fights in a variety of ways, Battle Master is great. It even has a handful of out-of-combat options you can pick up in a pinch to make your skill options slightly better.
Cavalier, while thematically attached to mounted combat, functions as well as a generic fighter option without a steed. Unwavering Mark is a fun frontline tank mechanic, with the remaining features adding a great amount of area control and unique abilities. Its capstone, Vigilant Defender, goes absolutely nuts with Polearm Master, making it a compelling and simple option to build towards.
Champion aims to be as simple a fighter option as possible, and while it succeeds in doing that, it fails largely to be anything beyond a subclass you take to try to fish for critical hits. Remarkable Athlete is a wasted feature. Additional Fighting Style usually equates to +1 AC from Defense, and while Survivor is neat, it comes at 18th level, meaning the rest of the option is what you’re going to primarily be playing with. What’s left is Improved and Superior Critical. If all you want to do is roll as many critical hits as possible, this is a way to make that happen, but a terrible choice for players looking for anything more.
Echo Knight has one of the most unique and interesting features in the game: the entire archetype revolves around in a deeply compelling and complex way. It works both in and out of combat exceptionally for expanding the fighter’s toolbox. Where every option up to this point fails to meaningfully enhance how a fighter can contribute to out-of-combat exploration, Echo Knight finally gives Fighter a reliable way to scout, teleport, and survey areas alongside a superb fantasy of conjuring illusory echos. It’s excellent.
Eldritch Knight predominately gets spells. Weapon Bond and the rest of their features aren’t particularly compelling, but it turns out attaching Extra Attack to any amount of spellcasting is great. You can pick up all-stars like Shield and Find Familiar immediately, and while the option won’t ever scale the same way full-casters do, getting a few extra spells every couple of levels meaningfully empowers how you engage with the world outside combat and in it. If you want an introduction to everything D&D is, I think Eldritch Knight does a great job providing you with a wide variety of options in a small, digestible fashion.
Psi Warrior takes the concepts presented in Battle Master and reduces the number of choices in maneuvers for more raw power. You get a suite of psychic tools powered by dice with some free uses you can use to manipulate with telekinesis. Like Echo and Eldritch Knight, Psi Warrior is packed with extra utility for outside-of-combat exploration and social interaction. It gives you a well of resources to play with and plenty of room to shine brightly. Psi Warrior is another great option to consider.
Rune Knight brings the Giant fantasy to the table by pairing rune magic with weapons. Each rune provides Rune Knights a passive ability always on, and an activatable feature to get some instantaneous utility. On top of that, it comes with a rage-like ability to grow and size and fight like a giant. The whole package is full of stuff to do in a variety of environments, making it an excellent toolbox option that gives you a bit to do out of combat, and a ton of toys for combat encounters.
Samurai basically gets a pool of “advantage on all my attacks” it leverages to be great in fights. After that, it's all combat all the time, with no major improvements to how you’d perform out of combat. Rapid Strike lets you attack even more, though, making it a pretty compelling option for people who just want to attack a lot, but in a way that offers slightly more choice than Champion.

4th Level: Feats, Martial Versatility

4th level gives you an Ability Score Improvement, which typically also means you could optionally take a feat. Martial Versatility also happens at 4th level, which was added to help you swap from a Fighting Style you don’t like for another.

Martial Versatility

All Martial Versatility does is let you swap a fighting style for another, or replace a Battle Master Martial Maneuver for another. If you want to swap builds to take advantage of a new feat, now is the time to do it!

Feats and Builds

Fighters get seven Ability Score Improvements; one at 4th, 6th, 8th, 12th, 14th, 16th, and 19th level. Each of these can be replaced by a Feat; by 12th level, this often means you’ll have a maxed-out attack Ability Score and one or two feats contributing towards your core attack pattern with three more Ability Score Improvements coming down the road.

This means it's fairly easy to get all of the feats you need to come together, especially if you add Variant Human on top of them. The following sections are broken down into common builds around specific weapons.

Two-Handed Weapon Feats
- Great Weapon Master typically starts these builds off with a big damage bump that loves advantage and other boons to hit. A -5 penalty for +10 damage is an amazing deal that you’ll want to take about as often as possible. It works with any two-handed heavy weapon, making it pair with both mauls and greatswords as well as the larger polearms. This, then, leads us to Polearm Master.
- Polearm Master in tandem with Great Weapon Master gives you bonus action attacks that can benefit from the -5 to hit for +10 damage alongside getting a reliable opportunity attack reaction. You can control huge areas with a glaive or halberd with this and deal giant chunks of damage, especially in tandem with features like Fighting Spirit or Precision Strike.
- Sentinel is the third feat this build can weaponize to create a character who can freely stab enemies and stop them from approaching on hit. Together with Polearm Master, you can indefinitely lock a single creature you can keep hitting out from attacking you if you outrange it with the reach property. Fighters get a ton of feats; Sentinel isn’t normally the first or second feat you’re taking, nor going to be a priority over maximizing your Strength, but does give you a meaningful benefit to lock down areas on the upper tiers with your 5th or 6th Ability Score Improvement.
Ranged Weapon Feats
- Sharpshooter gives you bonuses to hit by working around cover, then an option to penalize your attack roll modifier for +10 damage. That usually results in over double the damage for a drop in hits by a quarter. That deal is absolutely worth it. Sharpshooter is the kind of feat that can warp a game by pressing out enemies from being able to engage over long distances without being ripped to shreds from the constantly backtracking Sharpshooter. Its brutal, and powerful.
- Crossbow Expert pairs well with Sharpshooter while being a great standalone option. Basically, you take a hand crossbow, which is light, and use it to make consistent bonus action attacks with it every turn while ignoring the loading quality. It roughly equates to a ranged bonus action attack each turn with no two-weapon fighting penalties. It also gives you an extra opportunity to attack to trigger Sharpshooter.
Two-Weapon and Thrown Weapon Feats
- Dual-Wielder normally is the first feat you take on two-weapon fighting builds, and basically upgrades one of the dice from a d6 to d8 with a rapier, smooths out your first round of combat, and gives you a +1 AC. I would recommend taking it after you max out your Dexterity, as that’s usually a better total boon to your sheet, but this does give you reasonable enough benefits you’ll want it.
- Defensive Duelist is an underrated little feat that provides you an at will reaction to get a massive bump to your AC for a single attack each round. Dual-wielding characters lack shields, and typically aren’t benefiting from the highest AC offered from heavy armor. Having a reaction to potentially negate a melee attack each round is great, but normally isn’t going to be the first or second feat you’ll take.
Squire of Solamnia and the Three Knight Feats
Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen introduced two feat trees, with Squire of Solamnia and the three subsequent Knight feats being the Fighter and Paladin options.
- If accessible to you, Squire of Solamnia gives you a handful of bonuses to hit per long rest with a small bonus to mounting up. On its own, this feat is entirely reasonable, but normally not going to shine brighter than the main feat builds revolving around Sharpshooter or Great Weapon Master. If you want a more “fair” tool, getting advantage and a bonus d8 on three or four attacks per long rest can be a decent improvement to some characters.
  Where it gets a lot better is with the Knight feats. Each comes with a bonus to an ability score and a bonus ability.
  - Knight of the Crown offers a Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution bump with Commanding Rally to synergize with other martial characters by providing them with an extra attack as a reaction. Paired with rogues, this feat is yucky good, as it simultaneously can flip one of your critical modifiers from odd to even for a +1 modifier while opening up additional uses of Sneak Attack consistently each round.
  - Knight of the Sword increases your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, making it mainly appealing to multiclass characters, Eldritch Knights, or Psi Warriors. Demoralizing Strike is an extra pool of enhanced attacks that frighten, or at minimum weaken, your enemies.
  - Knight of the Rose is by far the worst of the options, giving you a bonus to Con, Wis, or Cha and offering Bolstering Rally for a few instances of bonus temporary hit points. Its still fine if you can use the ability score bump and want a bit more team durability.
  Crown definitely is the only option I’d look to build towards, and only if I was in a group full of characters who could take advantage of Commanding Rally. In that instance, though, getting it and Squire will give you a pool of extra combat options to shake up how your turns look, especially in the early to mid game.
Other Supporting Weapon Feats
- Crusher, Slasher, and Piercer all are options to consider when you’re already using the given weapon and the bonus to your ability score flips an odd score to an even one for the bonus +1 to your modifier. None of the three are good enough without caring about the ability score improvement, but if you can use it, they’ll all be “free” to take, and encourage starting with a 17 in Strength or Dexterity if you can help it.
- Fighting Initiate on the vast majority of characters isn’t worth a feat. On exactly Battle Masters who already have the rest of the Ability Score Improvements and Feats they’re looking for, it can be a fine way to get an extra die and maneuver. One die and maneuver isn’t worth a feat for basically every other character.
- Heavy Armor Master has some interesting text, but its damage type limitations makes it shine only in the early tiers, or against large quantities of low damaging attacks. It can be an interesting inclusion on builds looking to draw as much fire as possible, but I wouldn’t expect it to shine in most encounters.
Utility and Exploration Feats
- Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, Ritual Caster, and Magic Initiate all are excellent feats for empowering your magical capabilities. Find Familiar with Magic Initiate or Ritual Caster is an easy choice to get a powerful ally you can use in a wide variety of scouting or infiltration missions. Fey and Shadow Touched both give you a powerful 2nd level spell with a once-per-long rest use alongside something like Cause Fear, False Life, or Charm Person to assist setting up fights or engaging better in social environments. If you want to contribute more to non-combat play, these feats all give you more than the entirety of the base class gives you. Even in combat, getting an additional use of something like Shield or Absorb Elements can be pretty solid alongside a pair of cantrips or another high impact spell.
- Telekinetic, even outside of the ability score bump, gives you an empowered Mage Hand with a bonus action shove, both of which are reasonable additions to your sheet. Invisible Mage Hands are incredibly useful, and if you’d rather have the bonus action 30 ft. ranged pull or push over a 1st level spell once per long rest, this option is a fantastic choice.
- Telepathic, similarly, gives you a Detect Thoughts once per long rest and telepathic communication. These abilities take the otherwise vacant toolbox fighters have to interact out of combat and put interesting and unique tools into it.
Feats to Avoid
- Durable enhances a feature most groups aren’t leaning on enough to justify taking. Hit Dice aren’t all typically expended between long rests, meaning the benefits Durable provides are entirely moot.
- Athlete is roughly a climb speed and 5 ft. more movement pre or post-jumping. That’s not enough, even if you want the +1 to your Strength or Dexterity. You have better options than this.
- Mage Slayer usually isn’t going to affect nearly enough creatures to justify its inclusion. In the encounters where it shines, it’s excellent, though, so if you know you’re regularly going to be facing down spellcasters, this feat can be worth it. Most tables aren’t in that environment.
- Charger suffers from inconsistency. The reality of most fights is you won’t want to dash at creatures. Sometimes you won’t need to, others the monsters will get on top of you first. Taking two ranged attacks is usually going to be better than trying to get a Charger bonus action attack in. Past 11th level, you’d need to forgo three attacks to use this. Even with a consistent source of Haste, I think I’d rather just get on top of my enemy and consistently make stronger attacks weaponizing more powerful feats.

5th, 11th, and 20th Level: Extra Attack

Extra Attack at 5th, 11th, 20th level gives you a second, third, and fourth attack whenever you take the Attack action. Fighter gets more attacks this way than any other class in the game, and in many of its subclasses has additional tools to grant them additional extra attacks attached to some conditions. It's critical to how Fighters scale, and the largest compelling reason to stick with the class through to at least 11th level for that sweet 3rd attack.
Action Surge gets a lot better as well with this improvement. Going from one to two attacks in a turn for a short rest resource isn’t nearly as impactful as going from two to four attacks, or from three to six attacks in a single turn.

9th, 13th, and 17th Level: Indomitable

At 9th, 13th, and 17th level, you get a use of Indomitable which equates to one reroll per long rest. For a 9th level feature, this is atrocious. A once per long rest reroll on a saving throw is close to a 1st level spell effect. It’s useful and nice to have, for sure, but when you get one per long rest up until 13th level it’s not often going to feel impactful compared to what other characters are getting.

How to Multiclass Fighter

With the only features the core class gets being Extra Attack and Indomitable past 5th level, it is incredibly tempting to multiclass, especially once you’ve gotten whatever feats you need. Fortunately, Fighter provides a great base to build off of with basically every other class in the game.

Normally, I’d recommend trying to get to 11th level for your third attack per turn. That’s going to be around when you’ve gotten your main attack Ability Score maxed out with a pair of feats to give you a robust attack pattern that hits like a bus.

Martial Multiclass Options

Rogue may seem counterproductive, as Sneak Attack only applies to one attack per turn, but Cunning Action, Expertise, and the Roguish Archetype bring a ton of value to Dexterity-based Fighters. Setting up the bonus 1-2d6 damage per round with Sneak Attack is a consistent damage bump as well, and usually results in a character that excels at skirmishing.

The martial classes with Extra Attack are usually going to be relegated to four-level dips, as getting their Extra Attack feature won’t provide you an additional attack as part of your Attack action with the current multiclass rules. Still, there is a lot to gain from some of these options.

Three levels in Barbarian with eleven in Fighter will feel like you’re getting the bulk of what makes Barbarian strong without needing to commit much at all to the class. Rage fits well on basically all characters making Strength-based attacks, and their subclass selection can give you easy access to resistance to all damage or other sweet abilities. Reckless Attack gives you a way to toggle on advantage for your attacks, regardless of Rage.
Paladin provides Divine Smite over two levels, which then subsequently pairs beautifully with full-casting options we’ll touch on shortly. Having a place to put your spare spell slots in martial combat is useful. Paladin doesn’t cost much to get that. Usually, I’d look to take the few levels of paladin towards the end of my build, though, after getting the full-casting features I’m looking for with their spellcasting.
Ranger mainly provides summonable companions with their subclass and a bonus action mark to give you more on-hit damage with either Hunter’s Mark or Favored Foe. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything made their multi-class a lot more appealing with Deft Explorer as well, as it gives you Expertise in a skill out the gate. Gloom Stalker and Hunter conclaves offer great enhancements to your attack rolls, with the updated Beast Master and Drakewarden being excellent options to get a companion and bonus utility.
Artificer is similar to Ranger in its utility and damage improvements based on your chosen subclass and what Infusions you go with. It helps that Artillerist also doesn’t provide you with Extra Attack, meaning there aren’t any issues with taking as many levels in it as you want without getting stiffed on a feature.

Spellcasting Options

All of the full-casters provide you a ton of utility over just a few levels with 1st level spells. These usually open up entire avenues of play that were closed to you prior, from ranged healing to bring downed allies up to scouting pets and reflexive AC bonuses when you’re in danger.

Generally, taking powerful spells that don’t use spell save DC or Spell Attack Modifiers will enable you to forgo investing in these Ability Scores while still reaping the benefits full-casting offers.

Additionally, most classes offer weapon attack cantrips like Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade. Usually, these are going to be worse than making three attacks, but if you can ever use them as a bonus action, they become a fourth empowered attack each round.

Wizard gives you a robust quantity of spells to play with alongside Ritual Casting. You can pick up Find Familiar, Shield, Silvery Barbs, and Detect Magic at next to no cost with no concerns for how high your Int is (beyond the 13 required). Their subclasses have a variety of tricks that’ll give you plenty to work with, with Diviner standing out as uniquely powerful across the board.
Sorcerer offers primarily Quicken Spell with the aforementioned weapon attack cantrips, giving you a fourth attack over several rounds. You learn fewer total spells, meaning you have to be more selective than you’d have to be with Wizard, but you can still get most of the powerful 1st level spells you’d want with this route.
Cleric provides you with a domain out the gate that is packed with juice. A high wisdom modifier can allow you to take War Domain and get a bunch of bonus action attacks with it while also having tools to bump your AC up further. Forge Domain will feel like a bonus Defense fighting style. Agnostic of domain Cleric offers you cheap tools like Healing Word to get allies off of zero and back into the fray over a safe range, and can give you similar utility to Wizards with ritual spells and cantrips like Guidance.
Bards definitely want to work with a high Charisma for their Bardic Inspiration, but if you’ve got room to make it your secondary Ability Score, I think this is a blast to multiclass with. When your action is three attacks, your bonus action is Inspiration, and you’re working with Silvery Barbs as a reaction, you’re set up to be the frontline leader charging into battle alongside their loyal troops. College of Swords also enhances your Attack action each turn further. It’s a sweet option to consider if you want to be Charismatic already.
Warlock is the final class I’ll touch on just because it's really easy to get a ton out of the class over three to five levels. You get Pact Magic, cantrips, Invocations, a Pact Boon, and a Patron in just three levels, each of which adds a massive amount of versatility to your build. Hex is an easy tool to enhance ranged weapon attacks safely with a bonus d6 damage per hit. Pact of the Blade isn’t going to be where you want to be generally, but the other options, namely Chain and Tome, have a ton of excellent utility baked into them. Invocations like Misty Visions and Fiendish Vigor open up a range of excellent supplementary effects to give you consistent, reusable abilities, and spells like Invisibility are just always going to be great to have on your sheet. Its a great option to consider.

Munchkin Nonsense You Can Try

Fighters are where you look to first to get the absolute most out of feat builds. Three attacks over 11 levels is about as good as it gets for attacks per round, with ample room to multiclass to find other attack options if you want more.

Sharpshooting Like a Professional

Sharpshooter provides a consistent means of getting +10 to your damage rolls. Our objective is to construct a build to get this bonus as often as possible, and mitigate the -5 as well as we can.

Sharpshooter builds revolve primarily around two feats: Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert. Beyond that, they want 20 Dexterity for a +5 to hit. From there, we’ve got some work to do to figure out just how many +10 damage shots we can get out a round while mitigating the penalty.

Where to Start.

With a 27 Point Buy we can get a 16 Dexterity out the gate alongside Variant Human for a free Feat; this will start us out with one of the two needed feats, with the other coming at 4th level.

Fighter Base. We’ve got some easy decisions to figure out; first, what weapons we’re going to use. Crossbow Expert lets us take a Crossbow and work around the loading property. We can use the light hand-crossbow passed between our main and off-hand to get bonus action shots every round in addition to our normal Attack action, which, would you look at that, works with Sharpshooter!

Archery is obviously the Fighting Style for the job, mitigating 2 of the -5 penalty Sharpshooter imposes.

We want to get at least to 11th level for a third attack per Attack action, meaning we’ve got three Ability Score Improvements in total. Our 4th level one is the builds namesake, Sharpshooter, and the 6th and 9th level Ability Score Improvements can get us to 20 Dex. Easy peasy.

For Martial Archetype, we’ve got a few options that can work, but I’m going to go with Battle Master for one reason: Precision Strike. Samurai is an option here for Fighting Spirit, but that costs us a bonus action to use which we’d much rather be using on additional attacks with Crossbow Expert. Precision Strike costs us no actions to use, and attacks with other goodness attached to them with these levels. Five times per short rest, we have a tool to turn known misses into potential hits, which is huge.

Twenty levels in Fighter would give us a fourth attack a round, but that fourth attack comes at a nine-level cost. We can find some extra tools for additional attacks outside of Fighter for that price.

Nine Levels of Multiclassing. First, we want three levels in Ranger. This opens us up to the Ranger Conclaves, with two considerations: Hunter and Gloom Stalker. For this build, we’re going to assume we have ample prey to shoot and will go with Hunter for its Horde Breaker ability to give us an additional attack each turn against a separate creature.

Next, we’re going to want five levels in a full-caster with Haste on their spell list to give us an additional attack for a 3rd level spell slot. The easy choice is Wizard, which also comes with access to Silvery Barbs and Shield. The School of Divination comes with the Portent feature to give us two predetermined dice per long rest we can use as our own attack rolls should we desire, or prevent enemies from succeeding outright.

With one level to spare, we can get a 4th level spell slot by taking a 4th level in Ranger which comes with an extra Ability Score Improvement for a bonus feat or Ability Score bump.

A Turn in the Life of a Sharpshooter.

Prior to the fight, you’ll want to set up Haste on yourself. On your turn, you spend your Action taking the Attack action for three ranged attacks. Your bonus action provides you with a 4th ranged attack. Haste provides a 5th, and Hunter’s Horde Breaker a 6th. Action Surge provides you three extra for nine total attacks.

Each of those attacks on hit does 1d6+5+15. Should all connect, you’re dealing 207 damage in a single round. If we take out Action Surge and just work with six attacks (which you can reliably set up for most rounds of fights), we’re looking at 138 damage worth of Sharpshooter shots you can get every round. Nearly half of this damage, 60, is coming from Sharpshooter itself.

We could swap out Haste for something like Hunter’s Mark to get one fewer attack, but add a d6 to each hit for a swap of 23 damage from a bonus hit to 5d6 (17 damage). It's less, yes, but also doesn’t come with the cost of a 3rd level slot and a potentially disastrous downside.

To mitigate the penalty, we have five d8s we can spend one Precision strike to turn misses into hits. We have four 1st level slots and three 2nd level slots for Silvery Barbs to give your first attack each turn advantage, and three 3rd level spell slots and a 4th level spell slot for Haste, all while having a robust suite of cantrips and ritual spells to enhance your out of combat utility.

Other Supporting Options. You have some wiggle room with these builds, as you don’t need a lot more than Extra Attack, Crossbow Expert, and Sharpshooter to massacre anything within eyesight of you. There’s a build using Samurai’s Fighting Spirit paired with the elvish feat, Elven Accuracy, to hit extremely consistently, but Crossbow Expert struggles to fit into that build, as Fighting Spirit is going to take up a lot of your Bonus Actions.

Gloom Stalker gets a free extra attack the first round of most encounters that comes with a bonus d8 damage, which you could consider over Hunter.

If you’ve got another ally to give you Haste, taking levels in Druid opens up cheap summoning magic to give you a reusable companion that makes its own attacks.

This all doesn’t even flesh out every spell and feature; you’ve got ample room to mix in your favorite spells, and mix and match skills and Ability Scores to get the most out of your character.

Fighter’s a Simple Joy

Fighter isn’t a particularly complex class. It's about attacking. Some of the subclasses offer some interesting abilities to assist your team out of fights, but primarily you’ll be getting ways to attack more frequently and a bit better. If that’s what you want out of D&D, you will get it here.

It definitely suffers in the mid to upper tiers. It brings some of the weapon feat builds together quickly at least, often resulting in monstrous performances in fights, but a complete lack of things to do outside of killing stuff. That trade-off is somewhat mitigated by newer archetypes, but still persists regardless of which subclass you end up going with.

Fighter is entirely fine. Its identity definitely could benefit from getting more stuff to do, but as it stands, you can shape a fighter into whatever martial fantasy you want in a satisfying way.

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