Fighter Archetype – Thunderer

Throughout the realm of the Hammerlands, individuals are born with volatile, thunderous magic trapped within their bodies. Many of these people die young, overtaken by the errant energy in a moment of danger. Yet some learn to gain a semblance of control. These, are the Thunderers.

Thunderers are skilful fighters that have learned to harness the storm magic contained within their bodies. Upon taking damage, the magic sparks to life and builds in intensity until it is either expelled in a controlled burst of magic or is forcibly discharged, zapping the host. To safely handle this double-edged sword, Thunderers are forced to fight with relentless intensity. They must keep fighting, keep expending the building magic for as long as the threat remains. Through lightning-enhanced weapon strikes, blasts of thunderous energy or even travelling along lightning strikes themselves, a highly-skilled Thunderer can rival even the mighty Thor’s use of storms.

Thunderer Features

Level	Features
3rd	Storm Collector
7th	Lightning Dancer
10th	Conduit Creature
15th	Lighting Rod
18th	Overcharge

Storm Collector
(3rd-level Thunderer feature)

At level 3, Thor’s blessing allows you to catch and release the power of the storm. When you are hit by an attack or spell that deals damage you gain 1 stack of Storm Surge. You can expend Storm Surge stacks using the following features:

• In exchange for 1 Storm Surge stack, you can add 1d6 lighting damage to your next weapon attack.
• In exchange for 1 Storm Surge stack, you can increase your movement speed by 5ft per stack until the end of your turn.
• In exchange for 2 Storm Surge stacks, you can replace a weapon attack with a 15ft cone of thunder. Creatures within the cone must succeed a Strength saving throw (DC = 8 + Str mod + proficiency bonus) or be knocked prone and take 1d8 thunder damage.
• In exchange for 3 Storm Surge stacks, you can use your reaction to become resistant to Lightning and Thunder damage until the start of your next turn.

If you ever have more than 5 stacks of Storm Surge you take 1d10 force damage.

Lightning Dancer
(7th-level Thunderer feature)

At level 7 you learn to imbue your body with lightning for the purpose of mobility. As a bonus action, you can expend 5 Storm Surge stacks to replace your movement with a 60ft line of lightning. Creatures hit by the line of lightning take 2d6 lightning damage and you can appear anywhere along the line.

Conduit Creature
(10th-level Thunderer feature)

At level 10 you gain greater control over your Storm Surge stacks and additional ways to expend them. You gain the following features:

• In exchange for 2 Storm Surge stacks, you can use your action to deafen a creature within 5ft of you until the end of your next turn.
• In exchange for 3 Storm Surge stacks, you may use your reaction to negate advantage on an attack against you.
• In exchange for 6 Storm Surge stacks, you can use your action to attempt to stun a creature. A target creature within 5ft of you must succeed a Constitution saving throw (DC = 8 + Str mod + proficiency bonus) or be stunned until the end of your next turn.

Your maximum Storm Surge stacks increases to 8 before taking the 1d10 force damage.

Lighting Rod
(15th-level Thunderer feature)

At 15th level, you can absorb energy from a distance. When an attack, spell, or ability that deals lightning or thunder damage is used within 30ft of you it arcs to you instead of the original target. You also gain resistance to Lightning and Thunder damage.

In addition, the Storm Collector ability that makes you resistant to Lightning and Thunder damage instead makes you immune.

Overcharge
(18th-level Thunderer feature)

At 18th level, the storm pours out of you. When you take the attack action, landing consecutive attacks builds up lightning damage. When you land your first attack and then land your first Extra Attack it deals an additional 1d6 lightning damage. If you then land your second Extra Attack it deals an additional 2d6 lightning damage. If you then manage to land your third extra attack (once unlocked at level 20) it deals an additional 4d6 thunder damage.

Designing the Thunderer Archetype

For a long time, 5e players have had issues with the simplicity and lack of ‘stuff’ of the fighter class. I specifically designed the Thunderer Archetype to resolve that complaint. When playing a Thunderer you should never feel like you have nothing cool to do. You get a brand new resource that builds up by doing the things you’d be doing anyway and can expend it in a range of ways. And thanks to the danger of maxing out your stacks, you will always have something to think about, which will hopefully prevent someone from zoning out during combat. Play a Thunderer if you want to end the days of your turn just being “I hit the creature with my sword”.

Storm Collector is the foundation of this archetype. It allows you to build up resources by taking damage and gives you 4 diverse ways to expend the energy. My goal here was to make sure the fighter always had something to do beyond a simple attack action. Need to chase someone down? Boost that move speed. Want to do an AOE against a group of enemies? Blast them with a cone of thunder. Fighting a blue dragon? Better save up for that resistance. The reason I built an overcharge mechanic into the max stacks was to both add pressure to always be using your cool stuff and also to keep the player’s brain engaged.

At level 7 you get the Lightning Dancer. I added this as a high-risk/high reward option for the Thunderer to spend its Storm Surge stacks on. It can be pretty risky letting your stacks build up to max so I wanted to reward someone able to do so with a big, flashy power, and what’s cooler than shooting out a blast of lightning and travelling along the beam? This should also add some interesting mobility options to the fighter class.

Conduit Creature is a nice, mid-level buff to your base mechanic. With 3 powerful new uses and a higher max stack capacity, it should allow the Thunderer to really start showing off. Raising the max stacks was also crucial for accounting for all the multiattack-having creatures that exist. Adding the reaction-based option for expending stacks is also a step towards balancing the detriments of the archetype against multiattacking creatures.

At 15th level, you gain a supportive buff that gives you utility beyond just your damage. Now you can act as a pillar of your party, protecting them from the magics that cause you such pain. This ability also comes with an improvement to one of your level 3 powers so be sure to remember or update the changes!

Your final ability is Overcharge and this is an interesting one that sometimes requires a bit of clarification. The intent of the feature is that during a single turn, the more hits you land, the more damage you do. So if you land your first attack you do normal damage but if you then also land your extra attack it does 1d6 lightning damage in addition. If you also land your second extra attack that one deals an additional 2d6 lightning damage, and if you are level 20 and also land your 3rd extra attack it deals an additional 4d6 lightning damage. However, if you miss any of these attacks the combo ends and you can’t do any further additional damage this round. I wanted this to feel like a fighting game where you’re watching that combo meter build up! And I think I achieved that!

Final Thoughts

Well, what do you think of the Thunderer archetype? I’m pretty happy with it as it achieves the goal of making the fighter class a bit “busier” but I know there could be some need to adjust the specific numbers in the future. Thanks so much for reading this post. I hope you’re willing to take this archetype forward into your own games! I really appreciate everyone who reads these posts. I’m going to focus on getting all the races and archetypes uploaded to the blog (there are a lot of them) so for the foreseeable future Tuesday will be a Race or Archetype and Saturday will be something else like a creature, feat, encounter, background, NPC or more. You can join in the creative process on Twitch here.

Have a great day and I hope your next session is filled with glory!