Editing Fighter (section)

===Basic & Advanced===
In the first editions, the fighter's strength was endurance.  His killing power lasted far longer than that of magic-users, as he could not run out of sword (back then the only cantrip was ''Prestidigitation'', except it was just called "cantrip"). So a level 1 mage could cast ''Magic Missile'' exactly once and was then completely useless for the rest of the fight. [[Old School Roleplaying|And we liked it]]. Of course, any player worth their salt would take sleep instead. Players who rolled 18 Strength at character creation got the benefit of an "exceptional Strength score", metered strangely in the format "18/nn", (where "nn" is the roll of a [[d100]]) could add as many as 6 points of damage to every hit for those who received the blessings of the dice gods.  By rule, it was possible for a fighter to obtain a level of armor fairly early on that made him [[Drizzt|unhittable]] unless the attacker rolled a [[natural_20|natural 20]].  This even worked against touch attacks, as the rules granted them no bonus to hit.  Fighters could also mass many hit points.  Gear loss was not a problem in 1e, as the fighter could wear any armor and use any weapon that they found. 

A little later, the Unearthed Arcana book first added weapon specialization (and weapon mastery, then named [[Derp|double]]-specialization), allowing fighters to improve their damage even further and attack more than once per round, further improved by level.

However, the fighter's "saving throw" defenses against special attacks were absolutely wretched, making him a sitting duck for paralysis, petrification, breath weapons, death magic, magic wands, spells, and most horribly, [[Nurgle|poison]], which was everywhere in 1e and meant [[Rocks_fall,_everyone_dies|almost certain death]].  Many found playing a 1e fighter boring because every problem was solved in largely the same way, and found the extra dice rolling to be a chore rather than a pleasure.

That said, old-fashioned ''D&D'' puzzle solving involved fewer skill checks and more player skill and luck, so while they didn't get the rogue's ability to find hidden doors or open locks and traps, they weren't any worse off when it came to other problems than anyone else.