Keep the Cleric - Lose the Fighter !

Kill the Cleric and the Fighter, and bring in the Warlord.

Oh, you say you've been stabbed through the chest? Well rub some dirt in it you pansy. Walk it off! There will be plenty of time to heal after these monsters are dead.

An interesting discussion.

I think that if you have a party of characters you need a variety of talents, so if everyone is a spellslinger then you tend to get bashed by orcs and trolls and the like. If everyone is a fighter then you tend to get bashed by some of the more nasty supernatural critters. A mix is the clear answer.

Howerver, in solo play a pure fighter is not much fun. Perhaps this is geordie is thinking about. For solo play either allow mulit-classing options or go to a system like RuneQuest where every character can attempt a little bit of everything.

So, yes in many ways fighters are lame. On the other hand, they form the foundation on which most adventures must rely, so unless you're planning on just using NPC hireling soliders the fighter needs to stay.

Just an observation.

Allow one attack per level and per round for fighter, in a chainmail style, and you got allready the whirlwind attack.

I have to disagree that the fighter is a weak or boring character. The humble fighter is the backbone of D&D and the perfect character class for brand new players to use in order to pick up the basics of the game. Conan, Odysseus, Porthos, King Arthur, Heracles, Moonglum, Fafhrd, Tempus Thales, Solomon Kane, and the great-granddaddy of all monster-bashers, Beowulf, were all fighters.

To relate my own experiences, the first four D&D characters I played were all fighters. My first, Volsak Volarsson, was a huge Viking to often got into trouble in civilized society because he did not realize his own massive strength. My second, Kyril Bey was a noble prince who came from an ancient kingdom where everybody was insane except for the ruling family. He left the kingdom to find a cure for his people only to find that when he returned from his adventures a decade later his entire kingdom had mysteriously vanished right down to the crudest stone hut. My third, Khom, was a supremely ordinary looking fellow who had taken part in almost every significant battle in the realms of Blackmoor and had ultimately pierced the inner sanctum of the Egg of Coot, although the Egg him/her/itself eluded him. My fourth, Avra Taan, was a steadfast dwarf warrior who left his mountain home to travel the kingdoms of Man to bring home a wife, preferrably an elf lass in a chainmail bikini. While a mighty warrior, he was often taunted by other dwarves because he could not grow a long, thick beard as was often mistaken as a gnome by others of his race.

They were all great characters that I had a lot of fun with. No character is ever boring; it's all in the way that you choose to play them.

Doc

I don't think the Cleric is weak or boring. I sometimes have issues with the metaphysics implied by the class. Dropping the Fighter doesn't solve that.