Half proficiency is nice, but my champion already has most of these skills with proficiency. So it will be stealth and sleight of hand where I will get the half proficiency. Sleight of hand may never be used by me, nor is it used much by anybody, including rogues, in the games I have played. I remember a few coin purses being stolen by a rogue, is all. The bump to initiative is probably the most useful part of Remarkable Athlete. A second fighting style is nice, but literally a 1st level ability, you are getting at 10th level. Not awe inspiring or game changing. The ENTIRE subclass is built around the expanded crit range. That is the selling point.
If those are the skills you took. That's not a failing of the subclass. that is a choice you made to take those skills over other skills. Champions have increased benefit and options to consider putting one or two or even three of their very few skill proficiencies in other things without losing out entirely on the physical things if they wish to. They can choose to forgo that but they do not have to.
Your Views on some things are also very narrow. You think of it just as a 1st level ability. But they are first level abilities that are strong enough to basically affect entire builds over the entire careers of characters. So strong that people will dip into Fighter just to get those same abilities at mid or even high levels. 1st does not necessarily mean weak ability. Specially in something as front loaded in general as D&D 5e is. There are even other fighter subclasses that people would love to have more than one Fighting Style to use in their builds because they recognize that some of them can be stacked to some extent.
One of the arguably most powerful abilities in many people's eyes is Action Surge. A Second level ability. One that Minmaxers tend to like to rely on for their theoretical math even at level 20 in their attempts to prove OP'ness or superiority.
And the entire subclass is not built around that Increased Crit range. Your just so combat focused that is all you see. A couple of their gained subclass features touch on it. But much of the subclass is actually doing something fairly different. And your selling it very short just boiling it down to that. Even with a combat focused mentality.
That's like Looking at the BattleMaster and saying that all it's about is boosting your defenses and using your reaction because some of the maneuvers they get do that in some fashion. You'd immediately argue that they are much more than that.
So don't sell the Champion short just because you like something else better. Or you made skill choices that don't work with it because that's all you wanted.
Champion fighter gets these benefits, outside of what every other fighter gets...
3rd level - Improved Critical, 19 and 20 7th level - Remarkable Athlete, add half your proficiency bonus (round up) to any Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution check you make that doesn’t already use your proficiency bonus. 10th level - 2nd fighting style (and you presumably took the best one for your style already) 15th level - Superior Critical, 18-20 18th level - Survivor, regain 5 + Con mod of hp if below 50% health and not at 0 hp
The "meat and potatoes" of the subclass is CLEARLY the expanded crit range.
As to the skill checks getting the half proficiency, there are only four Str and Dex skills - acrobatics, athletics, sleight of hand and stealth. I would argue that most players are going to make sure they have either athletics or acrobatics. Many players are going to have one of the other three. There are no Con skills, but there can be Con checks.
No. It's not. that's just all that you care to see. Notice those 3 other abilities there? You knwo the Ones that don't have anything to do with Crit range? Quoting them to me and then telling me none of them matter and only the ones specified by you to matter are the ones that matter. That's not actually true. Get over yourself and stop pretending it is.
Also Many players do not necessarily take Athletics or Acrobatics. Particularly if all they care about is fighting. Unless they got a niche they want to build around... like Shoving and Grappling. Your just making that assumption because that is what you would take. It's just as easy for them to take things like Perception and Intimidation. But those aren't the ones your caring about right now in your efforts to reduce the value of the ability. Perception and Intimidation both being highly taken skills. Specialy on "Strong" characters because they do things like help to avoid ambushing, help to act in ambush rounds, or To apply social pressure in an effort to strong arm their way through much of the social stuff to get back to things like Killing.
Comments like "get over yourself" and calling my opinion "very narrow," while I have repeatedly ignored your insults says everything about you.
Good day.
I'm telling you to get over yourself because your being extremely stubborn. Does it say something about me? It does. But it also says a great deal about you that you keep hammering the same point the same way regardless of what i've said in this thread repeatedly which got me to that point.
Which is something you may wish to remember.
Fateless telling someone to get over themselves because they're stubborn..........
Yaknow, I believe Torvald99 spoke about the expanded crit range being the "meat and potatoes" of the champion. Which is a far cry from saying "nothing else matters". It's easy to be so dismissive of someone when you replace them with such a nice strawman.
The fighter is an absolutely awesome class. I find my way of thinking aligns quite closely with Sutlo on this. It's just a great kit with which to build your martial. Most of the subclasses are very mutable and easy fits for whatever flavor you're trying to cook up.
Winterdale81 hope you keep having fun with that sword swingin lunatic. Love the battle master, and especially the new maneuvers. Highly recommend you try out Maneuvering Attack and/or Bait and Switch. The repositioning is super fun tactically, adding a whole new layer to how you can think about the battlefield.
Don't overlook Commanding Presence and, to a lesser extent, Tactical Assessment. In a campaign with a more social or intrigue settings, those maneuver choices can really expand the utility of the Battlemaster. Sure, you won't suddenly become the face of the party, but at least you're not always just sitting there watching the Bard do her or his thing.
The +10 dsmage is obviously coming from the Great Weapon Master feat. He says so in the last sentence of the first paragraph: "I went first and decided to just Nova to see exactly what my new greatsword weilding battlemaster could do with GWM and I was not disappointed." GWM = Great Weapon Master. He does not specifically mention taking a -5 on each attack roll, but why does he have to? He is just reporting the results of his attack rolls after applying all modifiers. It looks like he just had some pretty lucky rolls!
He paired Precision strike with GWM, as I recall.
Yep! My first attack with my superiority die came in at a 16 which was a hit and just knew the rest of my three had to come in around that number. (turns out a hydra has 15 ac) 2 more attacks just hit naturally and the 4th came in a bit low so I used a second superority die. and yeah for Geann I was just giving the total roll str 18 +4, prof +3, -5 for GWM was a +2 attack against ac 15.
Rolls def where with me all coming in at 10 or higher, adding superiority die on the two sub 16 attacks yeilded a 4 or higher.
If the thing we fought had a higher AC yeah I would of missed a bunch of attacks but when the first one was confirmed a hit at 16 I just kept pushing my luck since being a single day monster combat I wasn't worried about hanging onto my superiority dice
Don't overlook Commanding Presence and, to a lesser extent, Tactical Assessment. In a campaign with a more social or intrigue settings, those maneuver choices can really expand the utility of the Battlemaster. Sure, you won't suddenly become the face of the party, but at least you're not always just sitting there watching the Bard do her or his thing.
Not a bad idea, have to see how it plays out I was thinking of taking martial adept at lvl 8 to get some more maneuvers but the d6 die bugs me. We actually don't have a primary cha based character in our party though the clerics have decent cha and have been our faces so far
Don't overlook Commanding Presence and, to a lesser extent, Tactical Assessment. In a campaign with a more social or intrigue settings, those maneuver choices can really expand the utility of the Battlemaster. Sure, you won't suddenly become the face of the party, but at least you're not always just sitting there watching the Bard do her or his thing.
Not a bad idea, have to see how it plays out I was thinking of taking martial adept at lvl 8 to get some more maneuvers but the d6 die bugs me. We actually don't have a primary cha based character in our party though the clerics have decent cha and have been our faces so far
The d6 scales with your regular dice. I only wish Martial Adept gave 2 dice vs 1. I can't imagine many classes taking it for a single use maneuver. Battlemasters will learn enough maneuvers on their own, and I've only ever wanted more dice. lol But seems like too big of an investment when there's so many other feats a fighter could take.
Don't overlook Commanding Presence and, to a lesser extent, Tactical Assessment. In a campaign with a more social or intrigue settings, those maneuver choices can really expand the utility of the Battlemaster. Sure, you won't suddenly become the face of the party, but at least you're not always just sitting there watching the Bard do her or his thing.
Not a bad idea, have to see how it plays out I was thinking of taking martial adept at lvl 8 to get some more maneuvers but the d6 die bugs me. We actually don't have a primary cha based character in our party though the clerics have decent cha and have been our faces so far
The d6 scales with your regular dice. I only wish Martial Adept gave 2 dice vs 1. I can't imagine many classes taking it for a single use maneuver. Battlemasters will learn enough maneuvers on their own, and I've only ever wanted more dice. lol But seems like too big of an investment when there's so many other feats a fighter could take.
The d6 does not scale with the other dice. Because it's a special size and given by a different thing that does not have scaling built into it. Even though it works on the same abilities from the Feature from the class.
I really like Martial Adept + Superior Technique on a tactician-style Battle Master. Ambush, Bait and Switch, Maneuvering Attack, Commanding Presence, Commander's Strike, Rally, Tactical Assessment. If you have the ASIs, which fighters generally do, then getting those extra superiority dice is like grabbing extra spell slots. Certainly an option worth entertaining on any BM.
A friend of mine made me aware of what Heiron responded with here. Note that I have Heiron blocked. He should outright know I have him blocked and usually doesn't seem to bother to respond back to me knowing this.
However I will state this flat-out. It's not Anti-Jeremy sentiment as he claims. He only gets the semi-official status, and not some dude on the internet status, because of his Position nd Heiron knows this perfectly well. He's opting not to mention that part in all fairness because it doesn't further whatever goal he has in his posting such things in the first place. But Quite Frankly he can leave me out of it and I don't want to deal with it.
Ah yes. Jeremy Crawford. Co-Lead Designer of the 5th Edition Player's Handbook. Along with Mike Merles, who I've yet to hear quoted. Jeremy Crawford is a twit. As in, he posts to Twitter. His opinions are interesting and may occasionally be relevant.
But.
He's terribly inconsistent in his answers to questions. He has a habit of carefully explaining what the developers had in mind and the underlying reasons for what they published, and then saying "But I do something entirely different in my games. What I do is... " Not much help there. He has a tendency when someone asks about a question he has answered to say he was talking about a very specific case, and that nothing he had to say applies in general. He writes a Sage Advice column. And yet his Advice doesn't seem to appear in the Sage Advice Compendium.
The books on D&D Beyond get updated when official errata is published. You might expect that anything important would be fixed if Jeremy Crawford had anything to do with it, but that does not appear to be the case. The example I know best is Perception. Jeremy Crawford has explained at great length and in detail about how the intent was that Passive Perception represented a floor. You could not get less than your Passive Perception with a dice check. A character's senses are assumed to always be on, in use, and the character alert to their environment. Unless there is something specific to interfere, Passive Perception is the lower limit to any Perception check.
Is this reflected anywhere in the rules? Is it in the Sage Advice Compendium? Nope. Indeed, a search of the D&D Beyond website provides no such information.
Jeremy Crawford's comments are interesting. I don't take them seriously. I don't expect anyone else to.
Now then. Maybe something on topic? It's the Fighter class forum, and is a post about Fighters. I think Fighters are pretty awesome myself, and the one I play is dear to me. I've looked any number of times at Battlemasters, and they pretty much rock. Precision Strike is one of the few ways I know to get a good solid bonus to hit and I have pondered taking the feat that would let me grab it.
Ha, respect, respect. Although to be honest I don't think there is anything wrong from a power level perspective to still getting two maneuvers with the two d4 setup.
I'm a Pet Peeve Rancher. I raise them up from being merely irksome to being full fledged irritations. Among the things I dislike are off topic posts, posts about pet peeves, and irony.
*grins*
Myself, my 3rd level Champion Fighter is coming up on 4th level. She already has the Dual Wielder feat. She has the Defensive fighting style. If I drop my shield I only lose one point of armor class, and I can use a longsword in my off hand. Taking the Fighting Initiate feat would left me take Two Weapon Fighting style and I'd get a damage bonus for that off hand attack. That would give me +3 to damage. Or I could take Fighting Initiate and get the Dueling fighting style and get +2 to damage without losing any armor class. I could simply raise my Strength to 18 and get +1 to hit and damage.
Martial Adept still looks pretty good too. I don't like it as much because of the limited uses per rest. As yet, we haven't gotten to rest much between battles.
I'm a Pet Peeve Rancher. I raise them up from being merely irksome to being full fledged irritations. Among the things I dislike are off topic posts, posts about pet peeves, and irony.
*grins*
Myself, my 3rd level Champion Fighter is coming up on 4th level. She already has the Dual Wielder feat. She has the Defensive fighting style. If I drop my shield I only lose one point of armor class, and I can use a longsword in my off hand. Taking the Fighting Initiate feat would left me take Two Weapon Fighting style and I'd get a damage bonus for that off hand attack. That would give me +3 to damage. Or I could take Fighting Initiate and get the Dueling fighting style and get +2 to damage without losing any armor class. I could simply raise my Strength to 18 and get +1 to hit and damage.
Martial Adept still looks pretty good too. I don't like it as much because of the limited uses per rest. As yet, we haven't gotten to rest much between battles.
I'd prolly recommend either going into two weapon fighting to capitalize on having taken dual weilder or str 18. Dueling fighting style is good, but than your not using dual wielder..
late edit: Actually don't take two weapon fighting style over str 18, think about it you'd be getting +3 dmg on your offhand attack BUT str 18 would net you +1 to hit on all three attacks and +1 dmg on BOTH main hand attacks. your essentially trading 1 dmg for +1 to hit on 3 attacks with a higher STR (as well as better STR checks)
I'm a Pet Peeve Rancher. I raise them up from being merely irksome to being full fledged irritations. Among the things I dislike are off topic posts, posts about pet peeves, and irony.
*grins*
Myself, my 3rd level Champion Fighter is coming up on 4th level. She already has the Dual Wielder feat. She has the Defensive fighting style. If I drop my shield I only lose one point of armor class, and I can use a longsword in my off hand. Taking the Fighting Initiate feat would left me take Two Weapon Fighting style and I'd get a damage bonus for that off hand attack. That would give me +3 to damage. Or I could take Fighting Initiate and get the Dueling fighting style and get +2 to damage without losing any armor class. I could simply raise my Strength to 18 and get +1 to hit and damage.
Martial Adept still looks pretty good too. I don't like it as much because of the limited uses per rest. As yet, we haven't gotten to rest much between battles.
I'd prolly recommend either going into two weapon fighting to capitalize on having taken dual weilder or str 18. Dueling fighting style is good, but than your not using dual wielder..
Duel Wielding does work nice with Champion. More rolls does tend to be more Crits. having an increased Crit range only adds to that. Even though it's not the bigger but not quite as numerous hits from 2 handed weapons it is nicely comparable. It's one of the many fine examples how Champion is a framework that works with any kind of Fighter you might want to do. So if I'm going to agree. With Dual Wielding seeming to be what you have in mind for the Character. Two Weapon Fighting is a must because it adds an important damage factor to all of your bonus action attacks that your already set up for making. Your basically better off leaning into the Feat that you already have if your going to take another feat to get stronger. If your going to be playing the character to 10th level you can already pick up Dueling with the Champions subclass feature at that time and in the mean time your actually increasing your damage more than you would by picking up Dueling early, Leaving the Extra AC from the Shield over the dual wielding for when you really need it as a backup.
I'd say the other Option is just to take the ASI into Strength because it is just a general boost to various parts of your character that's always good overall that you should take eventually either way. Whether it's now or you wait 2 to 4 levels to take it later.
Fateless telling someone to get over themselves because they're stubborn..........
Yaknow, I believe Torvald99 spoke about the expanded crit range being the "meat and potatoes" of the champion. Which is a far cry from saying "nothing else matters". It's easy to be so dismissive of someone when you replace them with such a nice strawman.
The fighter is an absolutely awesome class. I find my way of thinking aligns quite closely with Sutlo on this. It's just a great kit with which to build your martial. Most of the subclasses are very mutable and easy fits for whatever flavor you're trying to cook up.
Winterdale81 hope you keep having fun with that sword swingin lunatic. Love the battle master, and especially the new maneuvers. Highly recommend you try out Maneuvering Attack and/or Bait and Switch. The repositioning is super fun tactically, adding a whole new layer to how you can think about the battlefield.
Don't overlook Commanding Presence and, to a lesser extent, Tactical Assessment. In a campaign with a more social or intrigue settings, those maneuver choices can really expand the utility of the Battlemaster. Sure, you won't suddenly become the face of the party, but at least you're not always just sitting there watching the Bard do her or his thing.
Yep! My first attack with my superiority die came in at a 16 which was a hit and just knew the rest of my three had to come in around that number. (turns out a hydra has 15 ac) 2 more attacks just hit naturally and the 4th came in a bit low so I used a second superority die. and yeah for Geann I was just giving the total roll str 18 +4, prof +3, -5 for GWM was a +2 attack against ac 15.
Rolls def where with me all coming in at 10 or higher, adding superiority die on the two sub 16 attacks yeilded a 4 or higher.
If the thing we fought had a higher AC yeah I would of missed a bunch of attacks but when the first one was confirmed a hit at 16 I just kept pushing my luck since being a single day monster combat I wasn't worried about hanging onto my superiority dice
Not a bad idea, have to see how it plays out I was thinking of taking martial adept at lvl 8 to get some more maneuvers but the d6 die bugs me. We actually don't have a primary cha based character in our party though the clerics have decent cha and have been our faces so far
The d6 scales with your regular dice. I only wish Martial Adept gave 2 dice vs 1. I can't imagine many classes taking it for a single use maneuver. Battlemasters will learn enough maneuvers on their own, and I've only ever wanted more dice. lol But seems like too big of an investment when there's so many other feats a fighter could take.
The d6 does not scale with the other dice. Because it's a special size and given by a different thing that does not have scaling built into it. Even though it works on the same abilities from the Feature from the class.
Jeremy Crawford disagrees with you Fateless: https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/1250815333331382274?s=21
Your martial adept (or superior technique) dice will scale up at 10th level when they become a d10.
Thats good to know, sorta what I figured too once you hit lvl 10 it would become a d10. Kinda nice might end up taking it as a feat than
I really like Martial Adept + Superior Technique on a tactician-style Battle Master. Ambush, Bait and Switch, Maneuvering Attack, Commanding Presence, Commander's Strike, Rally, Tactical Assessment. If you have the ASIs, which fighters generally do, then getting those extra superiority dice is like grabbing extra spell slots. Certainly an option worth entertaining on any BM.
Keep in mind. Jeremy's post is only semi-official at best. Check the errata when it eventually comes out. Or not everybody may agree.
Ah the classic anti-Crawford sentiment married with the classic "your DM may not agree" sentiment post disproval.
He's only the Co-Lead Designer of 5e they put in charge of answering miscellaneous rules questions...
Run this by your DM...just like everything else in the game you want your character to do.
A friend of mine made me aware of what Heiron responded with here. Note that I have Heiron blocked. He should outright know I have him blocked and usually doesn't seem to bother to respond back to me knowing this.
However I will state this flat-out. It's not Anti-Jeremy sentiment as he claims. He only gets the semi-official status, and not some dude on the internet status, because of his Position nd Heiron knows this perfectly well. He's opting not to mention that part in all fairness because it doesn't further whatever goal he has in his posting such things in the first place. But Quite Frankly he can leave me out of it and I don't want to deal with it.
Either way, I think martial adept deserves a buff. xP
Ah yes. Jeremy Crawford. Co-Lead Designer of the 5th Edition Player's Handbook. Along with Mike Merles, who I've yet to hear quoted. Jeremy Crawford is a twit. As in, he posts to Twitter. His opinions are interesting and may occasionally be relevant.
But.
He's terribly inconsistent in his answers to questions. He has a habit of carefully explaining what the developers had in mind and the underlying reasons for what they published, and then saying "But I do something entirely different in my games. What I do is... " Not much help there. He has a tendency when someone asks about a question he has answered to say he was talking about a very specific case, and that nothing he had to say applies in general. He writes a Sage Advice column. And yet his Advice doesn't seem to appear in the Sage Advice Compendium.
The books on D&D Beyond get updated when official errata is published. You might expect that anything important would be fixed if Jeremy Crawford had anything to do with it, but that does not appear to be the case. The example I know best is Perception. Jeremy Crawford has explained at great length and in detail about how the intent was that Passive Perception represented a floor. You could not get less than your Passive Perception with a dice check. A character's senses are assumed to always be on, in use, and the character alert to their environment. Unless there is something specific to interfere, Passive Perception is the lower limit to any Perception check.
Is this reflected anywhere in the rules? Is it in the Sage Advice Compendium? Nope. Indeed, a search of the D&D Beyond website provides no such information.
Jeremy Crawford's comments are interesting. I don't take them seriously. I don't expect anyone else to.
Now then. Maybe something on topic? It's the Fighter class forum, and is a post about Fighters. I think Fighters are pretty awesome myself, and the one I play is dear to me. I've looked any number of times at Battlemasters, and they pretty much rock. Precision Strike is one of the few ways I know to get a good solid bonus to hit and I have pondered taking the feat that would let me grab it.
<Insert clever signature here>
Well that pushed the wrong button, huh, Geann?
Notice how I never said JC was some infallible source of ultimate knowledge. The OP seems to appreciate knowing it's out there though.
I agree. How do you feel about the idea of getting two d4 superiority dice instead of the single d6?
I like it! So much so I'd even give up a maneuver lol All about compromise. xD
Ha, respect, respect. Although to be honest I don't think there is anything wrong from a power level perspective to still getting two maneuvers with the two d4 setup.
I'm a Pet Peeve Rancher. I raise them up from being merely irksome to being full fledged irritations. Among the things I dislike are off topic posts, posts about pet peeves, and irony.
*grins*
Myself, my 3rd level Champion Fighter is coming up on 4th level. She already has the Dual Wielder feat. She has the Defensive fighting style. If I drop my shield I only lose one point of armor class, and I can use a longsword in my off hand. Taking the Fighting Initiate feat would left me take Two Weapon Fighting style and I'd get a damage bonus for that off hand attack. That would give me +3 to damage. Or I could take Fighting Initiate and get the Dueling fighting style and get +2 to damage without losing any armor class. I could simply raise my Strength to 18 and get +1 to hit and damage.
Martial Adept still looks pretty good too. I don't like it as much because of the limited uses per rest. As yet, we haven't gotten to rest much between battles.
<Insert clever signature here>
I'd prolly recommend either going into two weapon fighting to capitalize on having taken dual weilder or str 18. Dueling fighting style is good, but than your not using dual wielder..
late edit: Actually don't take two weapon fighting style over str 18, think about it you'd be getting +3 dmg on your offhand attack BUT str 18 would net you +1 to hit on all three attacks and +1 dmg on BOTH main hand attacks. your essentially trading 1 dmg for +1 to hit on 3 attacks with a higher STR (as well as better STR checks)
Duel Wielding does work nice with Champion. More rolls does tend to be more Crits. having an increased Crit range only adds to that. Even though it's not the bigger but not quite as numerous hits from 2 handed weapons it is nicely comparable. It's one of the many fine examples how Champion is a framework that works with any kind of Fighter you might want to do. So if I'm going to agree. With Dual Wielding seeming to be what you have in mind for the Character. Two Weapon Fighting is a must because it adds an important damage factor to all of your bonus action attacks that your already set up for making. Your basically better off leaning into the Feat that you already have if your going to take another feat to get stronger. If your going to be playing the character to 10th level you can already pick up Dueling with the Champions subclass feature at that time and in the mean time your actually increasing your damage more than you would by picking up Dueling early, Leaving the Extra AC from the Shield over the dual wielding for when you really need it as a backup.
I'd say the other Option is just to take the ASI into Strength because it is just a general boost to various parts of your character that's always good overall that you should take eventually either way. Whether it's now or you wait 2 to 4 levels to take it later.