Fighter Handbook: PF2 Legacy Class Guide

Introduction

The master of arms and armor, the Fighter is an iconic class dating back to the earliest editions of Dungeons and Dragons. Despite being one of few classes in Pathfinder with no access to magic, the Fighter is still a powerful and versatile class capable of being a terrifying and powerful force in combat.

The Fighter is at their best in combat, where their capabilities truly shine. The Fighter has fewer skills than most classes and terribly few utility options, but in a fight the Fighter is versatile, capable, and often surprising. The Fighter primarily serves their party as a Defender and a Striker, but despite the narrow scope of their capabilities they still have a ton of room for customization and diversity in how their play and what tactics they choose to employ in combat.

There are a lot of interesting mechanical things about the fighter. Unlike other classes, the Fighter has no sublasses. Instead, you can totally determine how the Fighter works by your choice of class feats. Even in the limited options of the Core Rulebook there are feats to cater to a dizzying variety of weapon and armor arrangements. Want to use shields? There are options for it. Two-handed weapons? You’ve got it. Two weapons at the same time? Definitely. Want to have a free hand for high-fives and such? Surprisingly, they found a way to make that viable. Even archery is a viable option, though it takes a few levels to get off the ground.

Because the Fighter is defined almost entirely by their feats and their choice of weapon, Pathfinder 2e’s retraining rules are absolutely crucial for the Fighter. Expect that any time your party’s membership changes, or whenever you find a cool magic item, you may need to make some changes to your feats to make yourself as effective as possible. However, your ability scores are difficult to change, so you’ll be locked into some sets of options depending on whether your choose Strength or Dexterity as your key ability score.

Introduction
Disclaimer
Fighter Class Features
Ability Scores
- Strength-based Fighter
- Dexterity-based Fighter
Ancestries
Backgrounds
Skills and Skill Feats
Feats
- Fighter Feats
  - 1st Level
  - 2nd Level
  - 4th Level
  - 6th Level
  - 8th Level
  - 10th Level
  - 12th Level
  - 14th Level
  - 16th Level
  - 18th Level
  - 20th Level
- General Feats
Weapons
- Archery Builds
- Single-Weapon Builds
- Two-Handed Builds
- Two-Weapon Builds
- Sword-and-Board Builds
Armor
Archetypes

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks.

Red: Bad, useless options, or options whichare extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
Orange: OK options, or useful optionsthat only apply in rare circ*mstances. Useful sometimes.
Green: Good options. Useful often.
Blue: Fantastic options, often essentialto the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

Fighter Class Features

Key Ability: Your choice of Strength or Dexterity. Choose whichever caters to your preferences. Strength-based fighters will be largely locked into melee, while Dexterity-based fighters can switch between melee and ranged combat but may deal slightly less damage.

Hit Points: 10+ hit points, and it’s easyfor you to focus on keeping your Constitution high since the Fighter needs sofew ability scores.

Initial Proficiencies: All armor, and bothsimple and martial weapons, and you get all the way to Legendary, giving theFighter the highest weapon proficiency in the game. Your AC and attack bonuswill be higher than any other character at 1st level. On top of that, theFighter is the only class which is Trained with advanced weapons at 1st levelwithout spending a feat to get it.

Perception: Expert at 1st level and youimprove to Master at 7th and get an additonal +2 to Perception checks forInitiative.
Saving Throws: Fortitude and Reflex saveswill be good, especially if you emphasized Dexterity, but Will saves are ahuge weakness so don’t dump your Wisdom.
Skills: A total of 4+ skills is average,but Fighters often dump Intelligence so you may find yourself with fewskills. Take Athletics if you plan to rely on Strength, and considerAcrobatics if you plan to rely on Dexterity.
Attacks: Expert with simple and martialweapons at 1st level, and the Fighter is the only class that is Trained inAdvanced Weapons without spending a feat.
Defenses: Trained in all armor andunarmored defense at 1st level, and your proficiency rises to Master so yourAC should be higher than nearly any other character.
Class DC: There are no published Fighter options whichmake use of the Fighter Class DC, but some other things like criticalspecializations can sometimes rely upon your class DC.

Attack of Opportunity: Very few creatures inPathfinder 2e have the ability to punish creatures for moving through theirreach, so most creatures can simply rush past each other to reach vulonerabletargets. The ability to make even one additional attack in these cases is asignificant deterrent, and the Fighter is the only class that gets this optionwithout spending a feat.

Shield Block: It’s difficult to choose touse a shield without this feat, so getting it for free is helpful. Don’t feellike you absolutely need to use it, but remember that shields are always anoption if you find yourself in a tough spot.

Fighter Feats: See Fighter feats, below.

Skill Feats: Standard for everyone except the Rogue.

Skill Increases: Standard for everyone except the Rogue.

General Feats: Standard.

Ability Boosts: Standard.

Ancestry Feats: Standard.

Fighter Weapon Mastery: The Fighter’s weaponproficiency advances strangely. You choose one weapon group (Brawling, Swords,etc.) and your proficiency with that group (including Advanced Weapons)advances at 5th level while your other weapon proficiencies remainunchanged.

Ability Scores

Strength-based Fighter

Most fighters will be Strength-based. Dexterity is not the “god stat” that it was in Pathfinder 1e. Since you only need three high Ability Scores, you have a lot of flexibility with your other ability scores.

Str: Your defining ability score

Dex: Full Plate has a Dexterity Cap of +0,and you want to be in Full Plate. Once you’re in Full Plate, the Bulwark traitreplaces your Dexterity modifier.

Con: Hit points.

Int: Only useful for starting skills andlanguages. You can only maximize three skills, and you get a total of 4+skills so dumping Intelligence to 8 means that you’ll still get three skillsthat you can maximize, but just being Trained in a skill is often enough tomake it useful, and if you have spare Ability Boosts more skills can broadenyour usefulness in the party.

Dexterity-based Fighter

Finesse weapons and ranged weapons make Dexterity-based builds an option, but
keep in mind that even the most Dexterity-heavy Fighter can still benefit a
lot from high Strength.

Str: You want some for Propulsive weapons(bows) and for melee weapons, but there is very little reason to go beyond 18and you can start as low as 14 and you’ll be fine.

Dex: Your defining ability score.

Con: Even if you fight at range, you wantthe extra hit points.

Int: Only useful for starting skills andlanguages.

Wis: Essential for Perception and WillSaves.

Cha: Only useful if you’re building forIntimidation.

Ancestries

Since the Fighter primarily needs boosts to physical ability scores and every Ancestry gets one, nearly any Ancestry works. Strangely, a bonus to Wisdom from an Ancestry is actually a better way to identify Ancestries that work well. Also look closely at Ancestry Feats, especially those which reduce the proficiency type on racial Advanced Weapons and grant access to Uncommon weapons.

Dwarf: Constitution, Wisdom, and a FreeAbility Boost can go into your choice of Strength or Dexterity, so the Dwarf’sAbility Boosts are perfect. Their Ability Flaw in Charisma makes Intimidationbuilds hard, but that’s barely a problem, and -1 to your Charisma modifier isnot insurmountable. Dwarven Weapon Familiarity makes the Dwarven War Axe agreat option for dueling builds, and Unbound Iron can do a lot to mitigate theDwarf’s poor speed. Dwarfs also have the highest hit points from theirAncestry and Darkvision, making them a truly fantastic option.

Elf: A Boost to Intelligence is wasted, and aFlaw in Constitution is risky. If you’re set on Elf, be sure to use theVoluntary Flaws rule to fix the Constitution penalty, but most likely you’llend up with +2 Dex, -2 Int, and nothing else. At that point, just play aHalf-Elf.

Gnome: Even for Dexterity-based builds, aStrength Flaw means less damage for nearly every Fighter. You could use theVoluntary Flaws rule to end up with +0 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Wis, +2Cha, which could work for a Dexterity-based Intimidation build, but I don’tknow if that’s enough. Gnome Weapon Familiarity gets you access to the GnomeFlickmace, but with a Strength flaw that’s not helpful.

Goblin: The ability boosts and flaws workfine for the Fighter, but few of the Goblin’s Ancestry Feats work especiallywell. Goblin Scuttle is helpful if you like Flanking (and you should), butGoblin Weapon Familiarity isn’t helpful because goblin weapons aren’t greatoptions for the Fighter. Consider Adopted Ancestry (Elf) so that you can takeElf Step and use Goblin Scuttle to Step twice and get into Flanking positionmore easily.

Halfling: Dexterity and Wisdom work great,but a Strength Flaw is a problem for many fighters, so consider the VoluntaryFlaws rule to offset the Strength Flaw. Most halfling feats won’t be veryhelpful, but Halfling Luck is fantastic, and you can use Cultural Adaptabilityto open up great options from other Ancestries, such as Human for the NaturalAmbition feat.

Human: Always a great choice, your two freeBoosts can go into Strength or Dexterity and whatever other ability you want.Natural Amibition gives you an extra 1st-level Class Feat, and many of theFighter’s 1st-level feats are great. Unconventional Weaponry can make oneAdvanced Weapon a martial weapon, making options like the Dwarven Waraxe andthe Sawtooth Saber much more effective.

Backgrounds

Look for backgrounds that offer boosts to Strength or Dexterity, depending on your build. You can make use of a wide variety of skill feats depending on your build, so you have a lot of great options.

If you’re having trouble deciding, here are some suggestions:

Skills and Skill Feats

You get Skill Increases at 3rd and 5th level to raise skills to Expert, increases at 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th level to raise skills to Master, and increases at 15th, 17th, and 19th level to raise skills to Legendary. That means that you can maximize at most three skills, and the rest of your skills might not advance beyond Trained.

You get Skill Feats at even-numbered levels, giving you a total of 10 Skill Feats (and maybe another from your Background) by 20th level. Generally, you want to invest these feats in the same skills which you are choosing to maximize, though in some cases you may want to grab feats from skills which don’t require that you be more than Trained.

Acrobatics (Dex): Acrobatics isn’tespecially useful, but you’re capable of being good at it.
- Assurance: Great, but not alwayseffective. See myPractical Guide to Assurancefor more information.
- Quick Jump: A good way to cirucmventdifficult terrain.
Arcana (Int): Intelligence is your biggestdump stat.
Athletics (Str): Athletics is used for avariety of special maneuvers in combat, including Shove and Trip.
- Assurance: Great, but not alwayseffective. See myPractical Guide to Assurancefor more information.
- Titan Wrestler: A lot of enemies willbe bigger than you, and you still want to be able to Trip and Shovethem.
Crafting (Int): Useful for repairingdamaged shields, but don’t expect to go making anything exciting. Youprobably don’t need to go beyond Trained for a long time. If you continue touse shields at high levels, improving your Proficiency and taking QuickRepair can allow you to repair a damaged shield in the heat of combat,quickly returning your cripplingly expensive shield to fulleffectiveness.
Deception (Cha): Unless you’re built forIntimidation you won’t have the Charisma to back this up.
Diplomacy (Cha): Unless you’re built forIntimidation you won’t have the Charisma to back this up.
Intimidation (Cha): Essential forIntimidation builds, but if you dumped Charisma it won’t work.
- Battle Cry: Start every fight bymaking one enemy Frightened.
- Intimidating Glare: Language barrierson Intimidation are a serious hindrance, but you may want to retrainthis once you get Scare to Death because it will totally replace theDemoralize action.
- Intimidating Prowess: If you takethis at all, I would wait until you have 20 Strength so the bonus isworth the feat.
- Scare to Death: Spend one Action topick out the creature in the room the lowest Will save and kill them orsend them fleeing. Repeat until the room is cleared. At this point youonly need weapons for things that are strong enough to threaten yourwhole party on their own, and even then this can still replace theDemoralize action almost entirely. Battle Cry is still worthwhile, butthat’s probably your only reason to use Demoralize over Scare toDeath.
- Terrified Retreat: If the target’slevel is lower than yours, there’s probably more than one creature inthe fight, and sending one or more of them fleeing will make the fightmuch easier for you.
Lore (Int): Intelligence is your biggestdump stat.
Medicine (Wis): You need Wisdom tocompensate for your relatively poor Will saves and to boost your Perception,so you may have enough to make this work. It’s also your only healing optionshort of resting or items.
Nature (Wis): Essential if you want tofight while mounted, but otherwise skip it.
- Bonded Animal: A poor man’s AnimalCompanion, a Bonded Animal is a great stand-in for mounted charactersuntil you can get a Multiclass Archetype that gives you an AnimalCompanion. A great option for mounted builds, but I would retrain itonce you get an Animal Companion.
Occultism (Int): Intelligence is yourbiggest dump stat.
Performance (Cha): Aside from a handful offeats that you probably don’t want, there is no reason for you to be good atthis.
Religion (Wis): You’ll have the Wisdomto make this work passably, but I would leave it a Wisdom-based spellcasterif you have one in the party.
Society (Int): Intelligence is your biggestdump stat.
Stealth (Dex): Many fighters have highDexterity, so Stealth is absolutely an option.
Survival (Wis): Only situationallyuseful.
Thievery (Dex): Many fighters have highDexterity, and Thievery is an absolutely crucial skill to have available tothe party.

Feats

Fighter Feats

1st Level

Combat Assessment: This would be a greatfeat on a ranger going for a monster warden build. But there’s nothing elseon the Fighter which encourages the use of Recall Knowledge or theassociated skills, so a typical fighter is woefully ill-equipped to usethis. But for a ranger looking to multiclass into fighter it’s great.
Double Slice: Essential for two-weaponusers. Rangers and Rogues get arguably better two-weapon fighting feats, butDouble Slice does better against foes with damage resistance.
Exacting Strike: You can only use thisas a second action on your turn because it has the Press trait, and it’sonly useful if you’re going to make a Strike as part of your third action.That’s an extremely specific situation, and if you hit this is exactly thesame as making a regular Strike. So this is situational, only useful forsingle-weapon melee builds, and it only matters if you miss.
Point-Blank Shot: Crucial for archers.
Power Attack: This is only effectivewith a weapon that uses d12 damage dice, and even then it’s not great. Yourbest use cases are on turns where you have three Actions and nothing betterto do except make attacks, or when you’re facing an enemy with damageresistances. While those turns happen, they’re not every turn, sometimesyou’ll need an Action to Step or something like that so the Action cost tomake Power Attack more effective then other options doesn’t always makesense.
At low levels, the additional damage die can be more impactful than theadditional damage from a second Strike due to the Multiple Attack Penalty,but weirdly the math on Power Attack actually improves at around 10thlevel. The math here is complicated, and how good Power Attack looksdepends heavily on when Runes of Striking become available, theavailability of other damage boosts like Property Runes, the prevalence ofdamage resistances, and what baseline AC you use to calculate thelikelihood of hitting with your Strikes.
Because the math is so complex here, it’s hard to definitively recommendtaking or not taking Power Attack. My advice: if your GM is going to letyou retrain it, give it a try and see if it works out for you. If there’sa risk that it won’t work out and you’ll be stuck with it forever, lookelsewhere.
Reactive Shield: Raising a shield costsan action, which is a difficult commitment when an extra attack seems moreuseful, or when you need to Stride and also hit some stuff. This is a goodfallback, but if you’re committed to using a shield you’re probably countingon using the Shield Block Reaction, which will conflict with this until youget Quick Shield Block.
Snagging Strike: This is a great firstattack every round. Making the target flat-footed reduces their AC, whichnot only makes your own follow-up attacks more reliable but makes things alittle easier for all of your allies because the effect remains until thestart of your next turn or until the target moves away.
Sudden Charge: Great action economy, andyou still have another action to draw a weapon or raise a shield.

2nd Level

Aggressive Block: If you’re using yourshield to block an attack, pushing an enemy 5 feet away probably puts themout of reach, thereby denying them the ability to make another attack.Instead, the attacked will be forced to use their Action to Step or Strideto get back into reach.
Assisting Shot: Conceptuallyinteresting, but Aid is absolutely not worth an Action in combat.
Brutish Shove: Shoving a creature isn’talways useful, but it can help you force them into a space where you wantthem like off a cliff or into a wall of fire. Hit or miss, the target isflat-footed for the remainder of your turn, which means that if you followup with another Strike their AC is reduced. However, this action has thePress trait so you can only use it after you’ve already made a Strike.
Combat Grab: Grabbed prevents the targetfrom moving, but you might prefer to let them move so that you can take anAttack of Opportunity.
Dragging Strike: Even if you never needto drag the target around, you make the target flat-footed until the end ofyour current turn, which is very helpful if you’re making three or moreattacks during that turn. This feat has the Press trait so it can’t be yourfirst attack, otherwise this would beblue and it would become your defaultattack action.
Dueling Parry: This is essentially thesame as the Raise a Shield action, at least in terms of the AC bonus.Multiple attack penalties stack up quickly, so your third action is oftenleft to making an attack at a -10 penalty or doing literally anything else.In those cases +2 to AC is very appealing compared to a borderline uselessattack.
Intimidating Strike: -1 to all checksand saves isn’t enough, and you can’t rely on getting the -2. If you plan topick up Fearsome Brute later, this becomes much more important, but you maywant to take something more interesting at this level then retrain a featlater when you pick up Fearsome Brute.
Lunge: Movement is too easy inPathfinder 2e to make reach especially important, and using Stride to getinto reach means that you can use more interesting feats.
Rebounding Toss: For a thrown weaponbuild this can be very good. Obviously the 10-foot distance between the twotargets is somewhat limiting, but this is a situation which will come upfrequently so you’ll definitely get use out of this feat. The biggestproblem is that you must hit with the first Strike to get a chance as thesecond, so aim for the target with the lowest AC first.

4th Level

Barreling Charge: Situational. You won’tneed this in most combats, and you can often solve this problem with othermeans that are less expensive than a Class Feat.
Double Shot: Normally making two attackswould take two actions and one would be at a -5 penalty. Two attacks, bothmade at -2, is a slight improvement.
Dual-Handed Assault: There aren’t manyweapons with the two-handed trait which justify this feat, but the DwarvenWaraxe goes from d8 to d12, which is tempting. Unfortunately, this is aFlourish so you can only do this once per turn.
Knockdown: Knocking the target pronemakes them flat-footed and imposes a -2 penalty to AC. They’ll likely spendan action on their turn to stand up (a “move action”), which both wastes oneof their actions and gives you an attack of opportunity.
Parting Shot: If you are fighting arrange, enemies will try to get into melee with you. The natural response isto Step away, then shoot them. This allows you to do that while also makingthem Flat-footed to your Strike when you do so. Not essential by any means,but still a good option.
Powerful Shove: If you took feats to shoveenemies, it’s really disappointing to run into things too big to shove.
Quick Reversal: Situational, but reallygood when the situation arises. Unfortunately it’s a Flourish so you canonly use it once per turn.
Shielded Stride: Situational, butdefinitely better than taking a Step if you’re already going to use Raise aShield in the same turn.
Swipe: Sweep weapons like axes are greatfor handling crowds of enemies, and Swipe builds on that capacity. Theattack bonus from Sweep adds to both Swipe attacks, so I recommend usingSwipe before making other Strikes. Unfortunately, the targets need to beadjacent to each other, which can be difficult when enemies are typicallytrying to circle around and flank you.
Twin Parry: Basically the same asDuelling Parry, but for two-weapon fighters. Because TWF actions typicallyinvolve making more than one Strike, you’ll accumulate multiple attackpenalties almost immediately, making your second and third actions difficultto attack with.

6th Level

Advanced Weapon Training: Some Advancedweapons can add a lot to a build, and this brings them on par with yourother weapons so you’ll get another +2 to attacks and extra damage fromWeapon Specialization. However, you can often use an Ancestry feat to reducethe type of proficiency for a handful of Advanced Weapons from Advanced toMartial, which is usually a better deal since Class Feats are typically moreimportant than Ancestry Feats.
Advantageous Assault: A great option ontop of Combat Grab or Knockdown.
Dazing Blow: If you have a creaturegrappled, this instantly becomes your best option. You deal bludgeoningdamage even if your weapon normally deals a different damage type (likestriking en enemy with the pommel of a dagger), but otherwise your make yourStrike as you normally would. The target then gets a Fortitude save, buteven on a failure they’re Stunned 1, which robs them of an Action on theirturn. If you can use this more than once, Stunned won’t stack (you take thelarger of the two), but they might roll worse on the save and lose even moreActions. Note that this has the Press trait so you need to use it aftermaking an Attack. Conveniently, the Grapple action has the Attack trait.
Disarming Stance: Too situational and thebonus is too small.
Furious Focus: This makes following PowerAttack with another Attack much more reliable, but by this level PowerAttack is mathematically obsolete.
Guardian’s Deflection: Situational. Ifyou spend a lot of time adjacent to your allies in melee this can be reallyimpactful, but bunching up in melee isn’t always a great option so you mayspend a lot of time totally unable to use this feat. Both the Fighter andthe Swashbuckler get access to this Class Feat. The text is identical.
Reflexive Shield: Reflex saves are theFighter’s low save, and dropping AOE damage is an easy way to wear down acharacter with a huge pool of hit points like a fighter.
Revealing Stab: Invisible creautures area serious problem, but your party should be using magic or Blind-Fight toaddress them.
Ricochet Stance: A Returning rune is alevel 3 item worth 55gp. If you’re built to throw things, you almostcertainly have one by this level. Even if you don’t, this is an awfulfeat.
Shatter Defenses: A decent follow-up toIntimidating Strike, but borderline useless on its own.
Shield Warden: Great for protecting yourallies, but in combat they typically shouldn’t be adjacent to you.
Triple Shot: Three shots for two actionsis good, and the -4 penalty doesn’t make that significantly worse.Mathematically, -4/-4/-4 is better than +0/-5/-10, especially since yourattack bonus with a bow will already be higher than most characters.

8th Level

Blind-Fight: Your best best for tacklingInvisible creatures.
Disorienting Opening: Too situational, andyou gain no benefit from this since the effect expires at the start of yournext turn.
Dueling Riposte: Dueling Parry is a greatchoice, especially compared to a third attack. This makes that even better.The Fighter is a Defender, which means that they’re typically standingbetween their allies and their enemies and drawing the bulk of theirenemies’ attacks. The Fighter also has the second-best armor proficiency inthe game (behind only the Champion), which means that your AC should be highenough to keep you alive. Together, that means that you have ampleopportunities to trigger this and you’re more likely to trigger theReaction any time you’re attacked. Unlike Attack of Opportunity, TwinRiposte does not include clarifying text that says how the Multiple AttackPenalty works with Twin Riposte, but the rules for Multiple Attack Penaltiesare clear: Multiple Attack Penalties don’t apply outside of your ownturn.
Felling Strike: With no built-in magicoptions, flying enemies are a serious problem for the Fighter. This doesn’trequire any specific type of Strike, so you can do something as simple asthrowing a rock. You won’t need this all the time since not all enemies fly,but an easy, reliable counter to an extremely common problem is a greattool.
Incredible Aim: Situational. Usuallyusing Triple Strike will work out better on average.
Mobile Shot Stance: The ability to makeAttacks of Opportunity with a bow is worth the feat.
Positioning Assault: Situational.
Quick Shield Block: If you use a shield,you absolutely need this.
Resounding Bravery: The effect is reallytempting. Unfortunately, it requires that you make a Will save (one of threetypes of saves, and almost certainly your worst one) and critically succeedon that save to enjoy the benefits. So even in the rare cases where you’retargeted with an appropriate effect, you have a very small chance tocritically succeed on the save and therefore an absolutely miniscule changeof getting the benefits of the feat.
Sudden Leap: If you’re facing a flyingenemy, switch to a ranged weapon. If you insist on using this, be sure toinvest Skill Increases in Athletics to improve your jumps.

10th Level

Agile Grace: Essential for TWF users andfinesse fighters.
Certain Strike: You’re guaranteed yourStrength bonus bonus to damage and similar bonuses, but that’s not enough.It’s better than a plain Strike, but it’s still not great.
Combat Reflexes: If your GM lets enemiestrigger Attack of Opportunity frequently, this is absolutely worth a feat.If your GM makes creatures run up to you and stand still, this won’t getmuch use.
Cut from the Air: Too situational. Enemieswhich rely on physical ranged strikes are a tiny minority. The bonus isexcellent, and using it as a Reaction is great, but there simply aren’tenough enemy archers at this level to justify the feat. If you are facingenemy archers, you can use Improved Combat Flexibility to pick this uptemporarily.
Debilitating Shot: Against big singlefoes, this may be more useful than dealing a pile of damage with TripleShot. You’ll need to rely on your allies to capitalize on the enemy’sreduced actions, so hopefully you’re not the only one in the party dealingbig piles of damage.
Disarming Twist: Situational because notevery enemy uses a weapon.
Disruptive Stance: Activate to murderspellcasters. They may still be able to Step out of your reach, so considerusing a reach weapon to keep them in your reach if spellcasters are afrequent opponent.
Fearsome Brute: Potentially excellent ifyou have Intimidating Strike, or if your party has other options to frightenenemies. Consider the Battle Cry skill feat, and encourage allies to usespells that cause fear.
Improved Knockdown: Skipping theAthletics check to trip the target makes Knockdown dramatically morereliable, and it means that you’re not strictly required to put SkillIncreases into Athletics. The critical success effect on a trip deals 1d6damage, and improving that do a d12 isn’t a huge improvement so don’t stressabout not using a two-handed weapon.
Mirror Shield: Too situational, and as soonas you use it once the enemy will switch to targeting your allies or castingAOE spells.
Overpowering Charge: Turn BarrelingCharge into a damaging line effect. Neat, but unless enemies are tightlypacked in small quarters you’ll do more total damage by swinging aweapon.
Twin Riposte: Great for all the samereasons that Dueling Riposte is great.

12th Level

Brutal Finish: A spectacular follow-up toPower Attack. Two actions on Power Attack (which counts as two Strikes forthe Multiple Attack Penalty), then follow up with Brutal Finish to end yourturn. You’ll probably miss with the -10 Multiple Attack Penalty, but theFailure effect on Brutal Finish guarantees you a bit of damage.
Dueling Dance: If you’re built for asingle weapon and a free hand, this is basically required. One action getsyou +2 to AC for the rest of a fight.
Flinging Shove: Increasing the range on asuccess is fun, but the biggest appeal is that you still Shove the target 5feet on a failure. That’s usually enough to force an enemy far enough awaythat they can’t reach you with additional attacks.
Improved Dueling Riposte: You no longerneed to give up a possible Attack of Opportunity to riposte, and if you’reextremely lucky you might even be able to Riposte twice!
Incredible Ricochet: Tempting,especially in cases where Incredible Aim applies, but those situations areinfrequent and you’re making this attack at the usual Multiple AttackPenalty and without Incredible Aim’s +2 attack bonus.
Lunging Stance: Absolutely spectacular. Ifyou’re not already using a Stance feat regularly, this is a great option. Ifyou combine this with a reach weapon, you can effectively control a 15-footradius sphere. If you have Combat Reflexes, you may be able to make multipleattacks of opportunity agains the same target as it moves through yourreach.
Paragon’s Guard: If you’re using a shield,this is an absolute must. Spending the action every turn to Raise a Shieldcuts into time you should be spending doing other stuff.
Spring Attack: This is a badly-writtenfeat. It requires that you be adjacent to one enemy, and since Spring Attackhas the Press trait you must make a Strike before using it. So you spend atleast one Action to Strike the first target, then move to a second targetand make another Strike. If the first creature can make an Attack ofOpportunity, Spring Attack does nothing to prevent it.

14th Level

Desperate Finisher: Nearly every fighterhas a good Press feat available. If you’re unlikely to use your Reaction inthe next round (maybe you fight at range or something), or if you have anextra Reaction from something like Combat Reflexes, spending your Reactionto do more on your own turn is a great idea. A Press feat will typically bemore interesting than the basic Strike granted by an Attack of Opportunity,but keep in mind that you still suffer the normal Multiple Attack Penalty,which is like -10 at this point in your turn.
Determination: Essentially a second saveagainst a problematic ongoing effect. It’s based on your Will save, which isprobably your worst save, but it’s still helpful.
Guiding Finish: Situational. Unlessyou’re trying to force an enemy into place to be flanked, or to put themsomewhere dangerous, this isn’t helpful.
Guiding Riposte: Basically the same asGuiding Finish. I wouldn’t take both.
Improved Twin Riposte: Great for all thereasons that Improved Dueling Riposte is great.
Stance Savant: Activating a Stancenormally only costs one action, which usually isn’t a huge problem. However,more actions early in a fight is always a significant advantage.
Two-Weapon Flurry: Absolutely essentialfor fighting with two weapons, but it’s both a Press and a Flourish, so youcan only use it once per round, and you can only use it after you’ve alreadyattacked. It works with Desperate Finisher, but you can still only use itonce per turn.
Whirlwind Strike: Great with a reachweapon, but I don’t know if I would use it otherwise. Three actions meansthat you need to be in position the turn before, which can be hard toaccomplish unless you’re in a fight with numerous enemies. You get to makeevery attack before applying a Multiple Attack Penalty, which is reallysatisfying if you can make a whole bunch of attacks.

16th Level

Graceful Poise: Essential for a two-weaponfighter. Reducing your Multiple Attack Penalty means a big boost forTwo-Weapon Flurry.
Improved Reflexive Shield: Potentiallyexcellent, but technically situational. Your job is to keep dangerous stuffaway from your frail allies. If your frail allies are adjacent to you,they’re too close to dangerous stuff.
Multishot Stance: Archers typically don’tneed to move once they’re well-positioned anyway, and the attack penaltyreduction is significant when applied to three attacks.
Overwhelming Blow: High risk, highreward. If you hit, you’ll deal an absolutely massive amount of damage. Ifyou miss, you’re in trouble. Either way, you’re done with your turn and youlose an Action on your next turn. If you do use this, look for ways to getbonuses to your attack roll like Aid or Guidance, and consider using a HeroPoint.
Twinned Defense: Absolutely essential fortwo-weapon fighters.

18th Level

Impossible Volley: If you’re using alongbow, this is basically Whirlwind Attack at range. Whirlwind Attack isfantastic, but since it costs three actions it’s difficult to positionyourself for it to be useful. Since this works anywhere outside your“volley” range (30 ft. for a longbow) and out to your maximum range (600 ft.for a Longbow), you can target groups of enemies at extremely long range.You still suffer range penalties, you take a -2 penalty to each of theattacks, and Multishot Stance doesn’t apply, but if you can get more thanthree attacks this is almost certainly going to deal more damage on averagethan Triple Shot.
Savage Critical: More critical hits isalways great, and you’ve been Legendary with simple/martial weapons in oneweapon group since 13th level. You still need to hit on a d20 roll of 19,but if a high-level fighter can’t hit on a 19 your problem isn’t the enemy’sAC. Anything like concealment or a miss chance of some sort can stillprevent this just like it would prevent hitting on a natural 20. Thisnotably makes weapons with the Fatal trait much more effective, but at level18 you may be attached to whatever you’ve been swinging about for 17 levels,so unless you’re already using a Fatal weapon I don’t expect you to suddelydevelop a fondness for picks.
Smash from the Air: Expands Cut From theAir to work against spell attacks. Conceptually neat, but most spellcasterswill just switch to spells which don’t require attack rolls and then your18th-level feat is worthless. You might consider this with UltimateFlexibility if you’re facing enemy spellcasters, but I would never commit apermanent feat to this.

20th Level

Boundless Reprisals: Fighters can do a lotwith Reactions, and there a number of wonderful Fighter Class Feats thatoffer you a single additional Reaction which you can use for a specific typeof Reaction. This adds an additional Reaction not once per round, but oncefor each enemy turn. That means that you can make an Attack ofOpportunity or any other Reaction at least once on each enemy’s turn,allowing you to make Attacks of Opportunity nearly whenever you want, ShieldBlock nearly every attack, Riposte nearly every critical miss, or any numberof other wonderful things. If you picked up Desperate Finisher, you’re muchmore free to spend your normal Reaction to get more out of your turn,confident in the knowledge that you’ll get at least one Reaction on eachenemy’s turn.
Ultimate Flexibility: Spending an hour toretrain three feats isn’t likely to happen between every encounter, but theability to change a chunk of your build a few times per day is a massiveadvantage. All of the Fighter Class Feats with weird, situational use casessuddenly become a part of your massive toolbox, allowing you to adjust yourfighter to be the perfect response to any combat scenario that you canforesee. The biggest problem with this feat is anticipating what you’regoing to face on any given day, so forewarned is forearmed. Get verycomfortable with your party’s Scout and with anyone who can cast Divinationspells. Even a hint at what you’ll be facing will dramatically improve thisfeat’s effectiveness.
Weapon Supremacy: An extra action isalways great, but you can only use it to make a Strike action, which isn’tvery exciting and will frequently be made at a -10 maximum Multiple AttackPenalty. This does buy you more flexibility to spend your Actions on otherthings (Step, Demoralize, Raise a Shield, etc.), but it’s up to you to makesure that you can capitalize on your expanded action economy.

General Feats

Diehard: Fighters are the front line ofmost parties, so you’re going to take a lot of damage, and as a result youmay find yourself dropping to 0 hit points frequently. I would pick upoptions like Toughness first, but if you have a General Feat to spend youcould do much worse.
Fleet: Offset the speed penalty fromheavy armor.
Incredible Initiative: Going first isalways great.
Ride: If you’re fighting while mounted,you want to have this. Rolling checks every turn to command your mount getsannoying very quickly, and failing makes you feel really silly.
Toughness: Fighters already get a lot ofhit points, but they also take a lot of damage so you want as many as youcan possibly get.

Weapons

Your choice of weapons needs to line up with your Class Feat choices. If you’re running around with a longbow, Power Attack won’t help you. Expect to pick a single weapon that will be your weapon of choice unless a magic item comes along that justifies switching. In some cases you can change your type of weapon with little effort (battleaxe to longsword isn’t a big change), but in other cases you may need to retrain a long list of feats to change weapons effectively.

Archery Builds

Your choice of weapon as an archer comes down to two decision points. First, will your Strength score be 14 or higher? If so (and there’s little reason why it shouldn’t), get a composite bow. Second, you need to consider the range at which you’ll be fighting. Shortbows work better within 30 ft. because they aren’t Volley weapons, but in every other case longbows are better. At low levels you can switch between bows easily, but at high levels when you have magic weapons you won’t want to drop your +2 Greater Striking Longbow to use a mundane shortbow just because and enemy is only 25 ft. away.

Crossbows are worthless. Ignore their existence.

Single-Weapon Builds

Single-Weapon builds are a lot of fun, and enable things like holding shields, pushing, and grappling with your free hand. Your first though might be a nimble, high-dexterity fencer, but that’s definitely not your only option. Even high-Dexterity fighters still need high Strength for the bonus damage, so your Strength and Dexterity scores will rarely be more than 2 apart, and a Strength-based single-weapon build may actually be more effective in some ways.

Consider the weapon traits which you find valuable, as they’re often more important than your weapon’s damage die. The gap between a rapier’s d6 and a longsword’s d8 isn’t significant, even when you’re rolling multiple dice. Agile is great if you plan to make numerous attacks, but if you’re relying on options like Power Attack, you don’t need to worry about Agile. Try to get an idea of what feats you want to take as you gain levels, and choose a weapon which works will with those feats.

Here are some examples of good weapons and feats you could use to maximize their effectiveness:

Battle Axe / Longsword / Pick / Warhammer: Simple, go-to weapons. The d8 damage die is geat, and Power Attackpresents a significant damage boost, especially at low levels. The BattleAxe’s Sweep property is helpful against multiple foes, especially if youplan to use Swipe. Longswords are Versatile, which makes it easier to dealwith enemy damage resistances. Picks have Fatal, which is like deadly butmore lethal (those are all synonyms), so if you’re trying to get lots ofcritical hits it’s great. Warhammers have the Shove property, which ishelpful if you want to Shove but don’t have a free hand.
Bastard Sword / Dwarven Waraxe: If youplan to primarily fight two-handed but want the ability to use a free handfor stuff like shoving, the Bastard Sword and Dwarven War Axe are your bestoptions. You can also use options like Dual-Handed Assault to get thebenefits of a d12 damage die while still maintaining a free hand. TheDwarven War Axe adds the Sweep property, but is otherwise identical to theBastard Sword, so go for the Dwarven War Axe if it’s convenient to doso.
Flail: By no means a bad weapon, but youneed to be willing to put mental effort into capitalizing on specialmaneuvers in combat to make it useful.
Gnome Flickmace / Whip: Reach on aone-handed weapon is a huge advantage. You get the most important part of apolearm, but you can also use your other hand for things like a shield. TheGnome Flickmace has a bigger damage die and doesn’t have the Nonlethaltrait, but otherwise the whip is a much better weapon due to its numeroususeful traits. Unfortunately, some creatures are immune to nonlethal damage,so the whip isn’t always a safe bet. If you’re building to make attacks ofopportunity, consider either a flickmace or a whip, and look at feats likeCombat Reflexes.
Katana: Similar in many ways to therapier, but it’s an Advanced Weapon so you’re either spending a feat orlosing attack bonus.
Rapier: The go-to for Dexterity-basedmelee builds, but by no means a perfect weapon. Deadly is great, but likelywon’t close the damage gap between d6 and d8, and disarm is onlysituationally useful. Finesse is nice at low levels, but your Dexterity andStrength will rarely be more than 2 apart so it’s not a significant boost toyour attack bonus.

Two-Handed Builds

There are two good reasons to use a two-handed weapon: reach, and big damage dice. No one-handed weapon has a damage die larger than 1d8, and no one-handed weapons have reach without also having a handicap like the Nonlethal trait or being an Advanced weapon. Two-handed weapons frequently have interesting traits like Backswing and Forceful, but otherwise they’re not much different from one-handed weapons.

Elven Curve Blade: I can’t think of a casewhere the Elven Curve Blade is better than a Falchion. Maybe for an elfrogue with the Elven Weapon Familiarity feat? For the Fighter, it’sbasically a worse Falchion.
Falchion: If you’re planning to rely onmultiple attacks every turn, the Falchion can be good. Swipe in particularworks very well with the Falchion. The 1d10 damage die is smaller than otheroptions, but the bonus damage from Forceful is very effective if you’reusing something like Swipe to make multiple attacks before your MultipleAttack Penalty applies. Otherwise, stick to weapons with a larger damage dielike the Greataxe and Greatsword.
Greataxe: Simple and straight to thepoint, the Greataxe has a big damage die and Sweep so it works well withPower Attack for single enemies and Swipe with multiple enemies.
Greatclub / Maul: Backswing is a badtrait, and Shove isn’t good enough to make these viable on its own.
Greatsword / Halberd: Basic, genericoptions that have Versatile instead of something interesting. If you don’tplan to use special maneuvers like Trip or Shove, go for one of these.
Guisarme / Ranseur: Reach and you can usethem for a special maneuver. I prefer Trip over Disarm, personally.
Horsechopper: Low damage die for atwo-handed weapon, but you get Reach, Trip, and Versatile on a singleweapon. I consider it on par with the Guisarme, but I wouldn’t go to greatlengths to find one.
War Flail / Spiked Chain: Like the Flail,the War Flail and the Spiked Chain emphasize special maneuvers likedisarming and tripping over raw damage. The War Flail is the better option:Spiked Chain reduces the damage die and loses Sweep in favor of Finesse.Finesse is most likely no more than +1 to attacks if you’re maximizing yourDexterity, and you need high Strength to Disarm and Trip successfullyanyway.

Two-Weapon Builds

Two-weapon builds have twice as much room to choose weapons, but you also need to spend more money to enhance those weapons. You also need to consider how the two weapons interact with each other, and with the feats you plan to take.

In most cases, you’ll be using two different weapons: a larger primary weapon like a longsword and a smaller Agile weapon like a dagger. Double Slice is your defining class feat at low levels, so having an Agile second weapon is crucial. You have more flexibility with your primary weapon; see Single-weapon builds, above, but keep in mind that you have two weapons which might support things like Disarm and Trip, so you may want to spread those capabilities across your weapons if you plan to use them.

Be sure to pick up a set of Blazons of Shared Power^GaG to dramatically reduce the cost of putting magic on both of your weapons.

Dagger / Starknife: The Starknife isjust a better dagger, so there’s little reason to use a dagger except as abackup weapon. The Starknife’s damage isn’t as good as a shortsword, andDeadly isn’t enough to close that gap, but the ability to throw it istempting so it’s worth considering as your second weapon.
Dogslicer / Filcher’s fork: Similar toother weapons, but notably the Dogslicer and Filcher’s Fork add Backstabber.It’s a bit of extra damage, but without something like Twin Feint toguarantee a flat-footed target I don’t think they’re worth a feat.
Clan Dagger / Main-gauche: Much like theStarknife, the Clan Dagger and Main-gauche are upgraded daggers, adding theParry trait. Giving up a shield means reduced AC, but with a Parry weaponyou can spend an Action for a +1 Circ*mstance bonus to AC, making up some ofthe gap. If you take Twin Parry at 4th level, this bonus increases to +2 tomatch the bonus from a shield. Even with an Agile weapon, your third attackis still made at -8, so spending your third Action to defend yourself isfrequently a better idea than attempting another Strike. The differencebetween the Clan Dagger and the Main-gauche is Versatile or Disarm. Disarmis situational because monsters don’t typically use weapons, but the ClanDagger is Uncommon so it’s not available to most characters.
Gauntlet / Spiked Gauntlet: Not a lot ofdamage, but combine the best parts of two-weapon fighting and duelingbuilds. A free hand allows you perform special maneuvers like Disarm andTrip, though admittedly you won’t get the item bonus to the check that youwould from a weapon designed for that maneuver. You may also be able to makeuse of the dueling feats like Dueling Parry and Dueling Riposte, which areavailable two levels before the comparable Two-Weapon Fighting feats andfrequently have the same effect. At the very least, a gauntlet is a greatbackup weapon.
Hatchet: Agile, throwable, and 1d6damage. It has Sweep, too, so if you switch to another target your thirdStrike in a turn will only be at a total penalty of -7.
Sawtooth Saber: Tailor-made fortwo-weapon fighting, the Sawtooth Saber is the only published weapon withthe Twin property. Twin adds some extra damage to your second attack, whichis great motivation to make more attacks each turn. The Sawtooth Saber alsohas the Agile trait, which is absolutely crucial for Double Slice. However,because the Sawtooth Saber is an Advanced Weapon your proficiency bonus willlag behind other weapons unless your take Advanced Weapon training at 6thlevel, and I don’t know if the tiny bit of extra damage is worth a classfeat when there are comparable options like the shortsword.
Shortsword: Reliable and uncomplicated.1d6 damage and versatile, so if all you need is damage you’re good togo.

Sword-and-Board Builds

See Single-Weapon Builds, above.

Armor

Whatever you do, don’t use light armor. Armor specialization effects don’t apply to light armor, and your AC goes up by 1 with every armor tier. Even if you’re an archer, it’s easy (and smart) to have enough Strength to not be impeded by heavy armor. However, Dexterity-based characters should avoid Full Plate because the Bulkwark trait may actually reduce your bonus to Reflex Saves.

Archetypes

Alchemist: Mutagens are a tempting buff,and other alchemical items can give you a lot of utility and supportoptions. It’s easy to avoid options which require high Intelligence, and youwon’t get much from most Alchemist Class Feats, so you’re probably fine withAlchemist Dedication, Expert Alchemy, and Master Alchemy. Infused Reagentsyou can create enough free items to get you through the day and still haveplenty of reagents left over for a few bombs and elixers. Alchemical bombsare a martial weapon, so you get your usual proficiency bonus to attacks andyour Weapon Specialization damage bonuses with them.
Barbarian: Rage is a significant buff fora melee fighter. You have enough AC to absorb the AC penalty, and thetemporary hit points should make up the difference anyway. There are onlytwo Fighter Class Feats with the Concentrate trait, and they’rearchery-related so you won’t use them with Rage anyway. If you’re buildingto emphasize Intimidation, consider the Raging Intimidation feat. Avoid theFury instinct since it doesn’t have an Instinct Ability
Bard: Bards are Charisma-based, and most ofthe options available to you involve spellcasting. You might be able to makeuse of options like Inspire Courage, but I don’t think that’s good enough toput the points into 14 Charisma and then spend a class feat.
Champion: Champion’s Reaction is reallygood, but it might conflict with your other Reaction options like Attack ofOpportunity. The biggest benefit is probably access to Focus Spells like Layon Hands which will scale with your level without further investment. Ifyou’re going for a mounted build, you might like Divine Ally to get ananimal Companion, but you can also get an animal companion from the Druid orthe Ranger so that shouldn’t be the only thing you want from the Champion ifyou choose to multiclass.
Cleric: Clerics have a surprisinglylarge amount to offer martial classes like the Champion and the Fighter. Thededication feat doesn’t offer much in the way of proficiencies, but theDivine spell list’s cantrips include great options like Guidance (easy +1 onbasically anything whenever you want it, with a cooldown) and Shield(no-hand Shield Block with a cooldown, but works great if you don’t use ashield). Domain Initiate gives you a Focus Pool and access to several usefuldomain spells depending on your choice of deity.
Druid: If you want spellcasting, I thinkthat the Cleric makes more sense. If you want Focus Spells, I think theChampion makes more sense. If you want an Animal Companion, the Rangeroffers the same options, plus other feats that cater to the Fighter’smartial capabilities. There are some amusing things that you can do withWild Shape and related feats, but sticking to weapons will typically be moreeffective and you would need to invest a significant number of class featsto make those options worthwhile.
Monk: With the right stance feat yourunarmed strikes are as good as some two-handed weapons, but remember thatsome stances require you to be unarmored. You can combine many of the Monk’scapabilities with Fighter Class Feats which are usually intended for fencingbuilds. Monastic Weaponry gets you access to interesting options likeShuriken, a well as several melee options like the Kama and the Sai, both ofwhich are potential candidates for two-weapon fighting builds. Monks’ Flurrygets you access to Flurry of Blows, but remember that it’s a Flourish so youcan’t combine it with things like Double Shot or Two-Weapon Flurry. There’sa lot to capitalize on here.
Ranger: A good option for archers andtwo-weapon fighting builds. Disrupt Prey is easy to miss, but it essentiallyadds another version of Attack of Opportunity that you can use against yourPrey which can also disrupt some actions. You can also get an AnimalCompanion, which is crucial for mounted builds.
Rogue: You don’t get to choose a Racket,which dramatically limits your Rogue Class Feat options, but there are stilla few gems. You’re Next and Dread Striker are great for Intimidationenthusiasts. Quick Draw is absolutely required for thrown weapon builds.
Sorcerer: Sorcerer feats are almostexclusively related to casting spells. If you want spellcasting, nearly anyother option will work just as well and they’ll all offer other usefuloptions.
Wizard: All the same issues as theSorcerer. You might be able to get some use out of some school spells likeProtective ward, but they’re not good enough to justify two class feats whenother, better options are widely available.

Fighter Handbook: PF2 Legacy Class Guide – RPGBOT (2024)