Returning the Fighter to relevance.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Let me do a quick list of what I can remember in the thread immediately:

Make the Fighter lead armies.

Wrong. Allow the fighter to lead armies. Significant difference. The player doesn't want to lead armies or focus on Diplomacy to strike accords with the enemy force? He'll at least still have access to stuff like Sense Motive and Bluff, both of which are quite useful in and outside of a fight.

More skills. Not much of a solution, doesn't really give them anything for out-of-combat that Bards don't even need class feature use to do better in.

Definitely not all that it needs, but as is, the fighter is a complete joke. So the fighter can hit stuff over the head. The party's illiterate barbarian can do the same thing, and he is better educated than the fighter is.