Introduction
A fighter might be bland, but thankfully it's a mallable class. Unfortunately for the player that wants to be a fighter, he doesn't have the in-game versatility of the spellcasting classes: they can rest, change their spells and essentially be an almost completely different character - their feat and prestige class selection might not be subject to change, but what mostly deals with enemies and helps their teammates is their spells. To make an analogy, a fighter is like cement: you can work with it at first, but once it hardens it's generally too difficult to make drastic changes; on the other hand, classes that generally rely on spells are like plasteline clay: their attribute (which is basically color) remains the same, but you can shape it as you wish.
So, since you decided to play a fighter, the best thing that you can do in order to be successful and actually help your party is to come prepared; study the builds of your party members and find out the weak spots; try to fill them in. This is actually a tricky process, since you won't generally have full knowledge of the builds while you're making your own, so you'll have to rely, at least partially, to previous experiences that you had with your friends. You can also get important information that can influence your build choices by your in-game battles, so make sure to keep a few notes when during an encounter something really bad happens to you or to a teammate that could prove to be disastrous to the party.
I felt the urge to write a few words on this subject, mainly because I've many times experienced players that make their builds independently of their party. I've also heard players stating that they don't want to play spellcasting classes, because they have a lot of bookkeeping. While that is generally true, this doesn't mean that fighters don't have bookkeeping to do; a spellcaster memorizes or selects spells trying to cover as many threats as possible, which is what a fighter should also do - the threats are the same, the only thing that changes is the means they employ in order to deal with them: one has spells, the other has special abilities and weapons. During character creation your cement isn't dry yet, so you can make any changes you like; try to work with it in order to fit your team best, don't let it dry and then regret your choices.
Since you already decided that the bulk of your levels will be spend in the fighter class, naturally, you want to be able to use weapons as your main source of damage. This is perfectly fine and there are many different combat styles that you can specialize in that deal a lot of damage. However, you need to remember that there are many ways in order to avoid or be immune to physical attacks; this guide will expand on hitting hard with your favourite weapons or styles, while tackling the subject of what you will actually do when your weapons prove worthless versus your enemies.
The odd-level horror
For a very good reason, many people prefer builds that do not feature odd levels in the fighter class. The reason for this is very simple, because unless you're just dipping in the first level, you're not getting anything new from those odd fighter levels and most of the times you're better off dipping in other full base attack bonus classes, in order to get additional abilities.
However, do keep in mind that this fact is only true only for finished builds: do not be afraid to enter that prestige class after five fighter levels (as many have a base attack bonus requirement of +5 or +7); you can get that even fighter level later and in the process grab a better [Fighter] feat, since you'll be able to fullfill more requirements.
However, do note that a good break-off point for dipping and switching to prestige classes is the sixth fighter level, because the bonuses you're getting at that level (additional attack and two feats) increase your power exponentially.
Attributes
Fighter is one of those classes that are deceptively MAD: at first glance they look like they don't need multiple statistics, but that's not the case; almost all attributes are important to the fighter for different reasons, but not all need to be kept high, depending on your fighting style. An average starting score in all attributes is extremely beneficial, so this class loves point buy. In case of 28pb you can easily pull off a 14/14/14 in physical and have a 14 in one of your mental scores and 10 in the other two; there's no need to over-do it like spellcasters do and dump all your points in your fighting attribute - you will be able to buff your primary attribute later easily through items and level-up bonuses.
Class Features
Well, fighters don't have many class features aside from bonus feats and their tower shield proficiency, so I'm just going to list the feats that require you to have levels in the fighter class somehow, directly (stating it in the requirement section) or indirectly (like requiring Weapon Specialization). Unfortunately the list, aside from a select few, contains mostly dull and unimpressive abilities.
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