What fighter subclass surprised you in how good it was or how bad it was?
For me:
Good: Arcane Archer
Now to preface....I was in a game that had about 1-2 big fights per day. However, in that setting the arrows were actually very powerful. I got to 7th level and the Curving Shot was actually a pretty good addition as I was almost always hitting something on the battlefield.
Now if I had a more dungeony crawl style game I would struggle I believe but it did play better than I expected.
Bad: Samurai
It was worse than I thought as it was basically locked into 3 good turns a day....not just combats but 3 turns. The major thing I learned from this subclass is that fighter abilities should be more than a single turn in occurrence and should be moderately impactful instead of burst damage. This combined with a more "normal" adventure day (3-4 combats) and I was just not feeling the subclass.
It creates a VERY boring class to play as you do some burst damage with Action Surge/Fighting Spirit but its so short lived that its like having a single bottle rocket on 4th of July when everyone else has less cool fireworks but a enough to play with them all day.
Overall I learned a lot about style playing both and how game types can affect your enjoyment of a subclass.
To answer the question, I had a cavalier that turned out to not be quite as fun as I thought, but he died at level 5, so I didn't really get more of the cooler, more advanced tricks that I think would have made it more interesting. So really, I don't think I had a fair chance to try it out.
Besides that, I think of your issue with samurai as a feature not a bug, personally. As someone who's loved playing fighters for almost 40 yeas now, I think part of the thing with them is they have pretty much always been considered the training class for new players. (Just to be clear, I am not a new player. I love playing them.) In a fight, you go up and whack the thing as hard as you can, and you do it over and over. So you give it to the new player, and they don't have to worry about tracking resources, or trying to understand the difference between spells known vs. spells prepared, or what proficiencies they need to be able to pick a lock, etc. So in play, they go hit the thing, and along the way, they see how the more experienced people play their clerics and wizards and what have you. And fighters don't get a lot of out of combat skills, so, again, they can see how its done, and in some cases, learn how to role play. (In the 80's, it was the one we handed our friend's little brother when he wanted to start playing, and I understand that's a very common strategy.) This edition really embodies that in the champion, where they're really all passive abilities, so there's just about nothing to track. To me, samurai is like that, in that it's also fairly simple to play, but it does give you a little taste of resource management. So it's like the champion in that its simple, but it does give you some things to make it more interesting. I can absolutely understand you thinking they're boring, I just think they were maybe designed with a different sort of player in mind. (Though I do also think fighting spirit should recharge on a short rest.)
I've played the Champion as my first character, and I guess it was alright because Fighters can be fun. But looking back at all the other fighter subclasses... I could have had so many more toys to play with in terms of abilities! And I don't think they really would have bee overwhelming.
Yeah Champion in my time playing it didn't surprise me....it was as bad as I was warned it was but I wanted to try it for myself anyway.
The weird thing about that is.....I actually liked playing Champ more than I liked playing Samurai as I was actually invested in most attack rolls to see if I got a 19 or 20.
Samurai I was only invested in the 3 turns a day I could actually do something other than just attack normally.
Surprised me in a Good Way? Purple Dragon Knight Actually.
Fighters are really straight forward no matter what you pick so it's hard for them to be surprising in either fashion. It's why they often Get Called Boring and it's why people prefer the ones with shiny toys to distract themselves. I really get that.
The Time I got to play one we actually had two of them and this was a slightly bigger group so we had 6 people playing. 5-7 is our common size with my most regular groups anyway. The DM actually Did the World Building to actually create a Group of Knights in the World that fit the subclass (technically already had one built. Just attached the subclass to it.) One of us was set up more as a Tank with Sword and Board... The other was more of a damage dealer. It was interesting once we got into it how they could play off of each other. Specially once we got to level 10 and could occasionally cause each other to attack. The Abilities aren't world shattering on their own and they are kind of limiting. But each person that you add in that can do them things started to increase. This became most apparant towards the end of the storyline when we actually got to fight alongside PC's of the order. Since the campaign kind of revolved around a mission we were given at the beginning of the game, our unit got wiped out and we were forced to Rely on Adventurer's that kind of became our small unit for the majority of it. It was actually rather fun for having two fairly similar yet different characters in the group and figuring out how to not step on each others toes but also excell ourselves. But it does take having that world building there. It really would lose a fair bit of it's flavor without that in there. Even if you did have a group all able to use their abilities.
when it comes to Disappointment. That was Eldritch Knight for me.
I love the concept of the EK, (and the blade dancer). I always have. I like Mixing Fighters with Wizards. It was my first character in 5e and we got into 5e really early. But for most of the life of the character, Which only went up to about 15 i think... I found that My Own Character was always getting in it's own way. I understand that the way the subclass is designed the magic is mostly just a bit of something extra. But I always ran into situations where if I didn't plan out what i wanted to do carefully. My Wizard Side was always getting in the way of my fighter side or vice versa. Or if I felt I needed to save something back. I basically became a Fighter without a subclass really for some battles because magic was often the logical thing to hold back. I even got permission to retool my stats and spells a bit at one point to try and make things easier. And I've seen gone through and learned a lot more tricks. But there is quite a bit of blend missing for what on the surface looks like a very blended Fighter and Wizard Subclass.
So far the Rune knight has been surprising with it's usefulness. I took the cloud rune and stone rune and we've only been in 1 decent sized combat since we hit lvl 3 but already both abilities where awesome turning an attack that hit our paladin into a killing blow on a kobold and the stone rune mesmerizing a goliath barb as we beat em down. (as well as the 120 foot darkvision)
Haven't had a chance to go large yet but so far it's been really nice and being reactions instead of BA's to use has been good because I want to take PAM when we get to lvl 4
PDK. Actually playing one is actually really fun. All of the abilities proc on the use of my existing abilities, so I can have reaaaally tight action economy.
PDK. Actually playing one is actually really fun. All of the abilities proc on the use of my existing abilities, so I can have reaaaally tight action economy.
I actually think I would rate them above Champion at least... And for me samurai because of how boring I find those two.
PDK. Actually playing one is actually really fun. All of the abilities proc on the use of my existing abilities, so I can have reaaaally tight action economy.
I actually think I would rate them above Champion at least... And for me samurai because of how boring I find those two.
Fighters are always a juicy topic! I always recommend doing a few things when you build ANY Fighter - complement their abilities with proper Action Economy. For example:
1) Purple Dragon Knights/Champions have a Bonus Action Second Wind, so that's only ONE Bonus Action per short rest that you have access to. This means they would benefit from any Feat or Class Feature that allows them to use more Bonus Actions - Shield Master, GWM, PAM, Martial Adept for some Battlemaster BA maneuvers, Two Weapon Fighting, etc. This also means that you don't have a Reaction either, so Feats like Defensive Duelist and PAM make sense too.
2) Eldritch Knight/Psi-Warrior already comes packed with spells that use your Actions, Bonus Actions, and Reactions. So you're free to use a lot more of your Feats for ASI improvements, and empower your abilities.
This is why Fighters are so versatile from build to build - a Fighter gets 7 Feats, and that's how you properly outfit your character. If you take passive no-Action Feats with a Champion or PDK, you're going to have a boring time if you want options in combat. My PDK is a Dragonborn with the Dragon Fear Feat, which combines perfectly with his higher Charisma score. He also took Unarmed Fighting Style and Shield Master, which allows for tons of shenanigans against targets he wants to grapple/shove prone. Level 7 currently with +9 Athletics, if his allies Enlarge him it's pretty much a guaranteed prone enemy (up to size Huge) that the party rogues get to assault (advantage on Athletics checks and Disadvantage on the Feared creature's Skill checks).
I've played Champions as well, and my favorite combination was to combine the Piercer/Slasher/Crusher Feats with Two-Weapon Fighting. You get a Bonus Action each round, and you get to apply movement-reductions (Slasher), Battlefield Control (Crusher), and some extra Damage (Piercer) on every single round. That's what makes them exciting - being able to apply subtle effects each turn. And, if you're lucky, you get to really turn the tide with a Critical Hit.
I think Fighter is probably my favorite class in that respect, just for the absolute customizability of each build. In essence, the Psi Warrior, Eldritch Knight, etc are some of the least-flexibile and why I typically stay away from those.
I was super stoked to play an Eldritch Knight, first PC in 5e in fact, and it seriously disappointed me. The subclass actively conflicts with the base class for action economy and the whole thing was a mess. It should have been so cool, but it just… wasn’t. If they had dropped Spellcasting entirely and gone with something halfway between the Arcane Archer’s Arcane Shots and the Battle Master’s Superiority Die & Maneuvers, it would have been much better. Which, coincidentally is exactly what they did for the Psi Warrior. If I wasn’t so disappointed with Psionics this edition, I would probably enjoy it. I mean, I’m enjoying the UA Psi Knight immensely, and the Psi Warrior is similar enough that I know I’d like it if it wasn’t “vegan, gluten-free, low-fat, low-sodium, caffeine free, diet, no sugar added Psionics.” (It tastes like cardboard compared to Psionics of old.)
The Arcane Archer really surprised me by how good it is. I thought I would be disappointed because of how few Arcane Shots it gets, but once I realized I was looking at it the wrong way, and adjusted my expectations for the subclass, I realized how good it really is. You can frikin’ bend arrows and up to 6 times a day (with 2 short rests) drop a mininuke on something. 🤘 Baller. Grab Ritual Caster or Spell Sniper if you wanna feel a little more “arcane.” (Or dip Wiz 2, Divination would be nice. 🤔)
And I have to say, when I realized that two PCs could team up, and one could play a Centaur Rune Knight with Mobile and Sentinel, and the other could play a Cavalier with the Mounted Combatant feat…. (Step one, the Centaur Rune Knight goes Large. Step two, the Cavalier saddles up. Step three, Profit.) Made me love both of those subclasses a little more.
My DM let me swap my rogue to a 2 rogue/10 fighter arcane archer multiclass when I was finding rogue to be not much fun as a main class, looking forward to trying it out in the next fight. (Keeping the two levels of rogue mostly to keep some of her expertise options, thieves tool proficiency and cunning action to be mobile and slippery on the battlefield still. I'm going to have to wait one more level to get three attacks but I can live with that.)
It's easy to fall into looking at it as 'worse battlemaster' because it gets half as many uses per short rest of its core feature. But it can also do more interesting things potentially. Shadow arrow to set up advantage and then pop your action surge for more attacks to take advantage of it. Grasping arrow to mess with bosses that might just legendary resistance your other arrows. It seems like the tradeoff is two less uses per short rest, but they generally get to be more interesting. Curving shot is great, if there's more than one enemy around when you miss. Combos well with sharpshooter.
Before I was playing an arcane trickster mostly filling in the niche of the archer in the party. But in combat, having to give up my sneak attack in order to do anything magical was kind of a bummer. (I could have booming bladed etc but again, mostly focusing on archery.) I suppose I could have gone ranger as well, but this change is going to be fun for melding the magical and archery elements together, rather than as an AT where it was a big trade off to give up sneak attack on a turn to cast a spell.
While I haven't played AA yet, will be doing my first session with it this weekend, it's a class that on the theory side I thought of as kinda bad at first until I looked at it more closely. Though to be fair, I can see the int requirements to get a good DC on your arcane shots being a turn off as it's a stat fighters normally don't go for. But I'd already invested into int anyway during the arcane trickster phase anyway. And the DM's style in this game tends to favor fewer encounters per day but making the ones we do have pretty intense. Sometimes we might only have one fight a day. Others maybe a fight or two, short rest, then a couple more etc. So I generally don't think I'll run into isssues where I have to go a long time without a shot avaiable.
Arcane Archer for me is good for the choices you get and I feel like they intentionally made some very powerful with the idea that you only get 2 shots.
The shadow arrow thing is funny to me because you can do the same thing as a battle master but with a Trip Attack maneuver and you can do this up to 5 times a short rest AND add damage to that attack.
The banishing arrow and the grasping arrows are so good though as they will take something out of the fight and give you a chance to divide and conquer.
The piercing arrow can be good in the right set up as you can do Sharpshooter damage to everything in a row which is pretty legit and they still take half damage on a successful save.
Overall while they can be very good....its still pretty limiting to have only 2 per short rest....especially in a more "typical" setting where you have 6-8 encounters per day. Not that anyone actually runs it that way lol.
Overall I think its still a fine subclass though and curving shot is pretty awesome which mostly saves it for me.
Arcane Archer for me is good for the choices you get and I feel like they intentionally made some very powerful with the idea that you only get 2 shots.
The shadow arrow thing is funny to me because you can do the same thing as a battle master but with a Trip Attack maneuver and you can do this up to 5 times a short rest AND add damage to that attack.
The banishing arrow and the grasping arrows are so good though as they will take something out of the fight and give you a chance to divide and conquer.
The piercing arrow can be good in the right set up as you can do Sharpshooter damage to everything in a row which is pretty legit and they still take half damage on a successful save.
Overall while they can be very good....its still pretty limiting to have only 2 per short rest....especially in a more "typical" setting where you have 6-8 encounters per day. Not that anyone actually runs it that way lol.
Overall I think its still a fine subclass though and curving shot is pretty awesome which mostly saves it for me.
The way I find Shadow Arrow is useful is when there is an enemy caster. Filling their sight with shadows makes it very difficult to cast any spells which rely on a point or creature you can see...until the paladin charges into melee range to get a couple of hits in.
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I don't think sharp shooter works with piercing arrow does it? Since you're not making an attack, but forcing the enemy(s) to do a saving throw?
That is a good point about shadow arrow, but shadow arrow in addition to giving you advantage also messes with the enemy's turn. With trip attack you knock them prone and they have to stand up, sure. However, limiting an enemy's sight to five feet can theoretically be very disruptive to the enemy's turn. Most notably if they're a spellcaster or ranged attacker and now cannot see. Of course, this will be less effective against a melee enemy already in range of an ally, or something with blindsitght etc. But it still seems to have its uses. Shadow arrow is also harmless for your allies, where as if say a melee fighter trip attacks an enemy, and you have a ranged attacker going after them but before the enemy's turn, it could mess with their attacks. Though that does require certain initiative bad luck to happen.
Arcane Archer for me is good for the choices you get and I feel like they intentionally made some very powerful with the idea that you only get 2 shots.
The shadow arrow thing is funny to me because you can do the same thing as a battle master but with a Trip Attack maneuver and you can do this up to 5 times a short rest AND add damage to that attack.
The banishing arrow and the grasping arrows are so good though as they will take something out of the fight and give you a chance to divide and conquer.
The piercing arrow can be good in the right set up as you can do Sharpshooter damage to everything in a row which is pretty legit and they still take half damage on a successful save.
Overall while they can be very good....its still pretty limiting to have only 2 per short rest....especially in a more "typical" setting where you have 6-8 encounters per day. Not that anyone actually runs it that way lol.
Overall I think its still a fine subclass though and curving shot is pretty awesome which mostly saves it for me.
The way I find Shadow Arrow is useful is when there is an enemy caster. Filling their sight with shadows makes it very difficult to cast any spells which rely on a point or creature you can see...until the paladin charges into melee range to get a couple of hits in.
I don't think sharp shooter works with piercing arrow does it? Since you're not making an attack, but forcing the enemy(s) to do a saving throw?
That is a good point about shadow arrow, but shadow arrow in addition to giving you advantage also messes with the enemy's turn. With trip attack you knock them prone and they have to stand up, sure. However, limiting an enemy's sight to five feet can theoretically be very disruptive to the enemy's turn. Most notably if they're a spellcaster or ranged attacker and now cannot see. Of course, this will be less effective against a melee enemy already in range of an ally, or something with blindsitght etc. But it still seems to have its uses. Shadow arrow is also harmless for your allies, where as if say a melee fighter trip attacks an enemy, and you have a ranged attacker going after them but before the enemy's turn, it could mess with their attacks. Though that does require certain initiative bad luck to happen.
Good points...I guess it depends on how the DM wants to roll with it but I took it from my perspective of when I played and my DM let me use it due to the wording "as if they were hit with the arrow" overall its not a huge difference as it averages out to somewhere between 5-10 damage.
The caster thing is a good point but I guess how often do you face those particular types of enemies? For me its been rare but you are right YMMV on that one and make it very good.
Ranged attackers would be at DIS to attack which is fair too,. but could still attack I guess.
Overall somewhat useful but I wonder if its more so than the other options? hard to know without knowing what type of game you are in....but good points none the less!
Yeah I think there are some extenuating circumstances behind my really embracing the idea of AA in this game.
Our DM doesn't do the typical 6-8 encounters in a day. It's pretty rare for us to have more than 3 or 4, sometimes we only have one if any. (There is combat, and the DM makes up for the smaller number of encounters by making each encounter more difficult and engaging, but that does have an effect on balance with how the game was designed.)
The DM is letting me recalss, and I"m level 12. So I'm getting four options for arcane shots so even if many of them are situational, I have a variety to pick from. I think, honestly, more than the two per short rest thing being frustrating, having to pick just two SHOT OPTIONS if I was leveling from scratch would be difficult. I think that it would probably be okay to give AA more options to pick earlier on since hte uses are so limited.
I'm invested much more heavily into INT than most fighters would go probably, even with the extra asi at 6.
Shadow arrow probably isn't the bes tone yeah, but has its uses. Grasping arrow is probably my favorite though because it doesn't require a saving throw. You just hit the enemy with it, they're afflicted by the brambles, and if they want to get rid of it, they (or another enemy nearby) has to use an action. Even if they get rid of it right away and you don't eke out any extra damage from the brambles, you're wasting an action. Since it doesn't specify willing movement like booming blade, if any party members have means of forcing movement that can work with it well too. And on bosses that might have legendary resistances or magic resistance for saving throws on magical effects...well that doesn't help them on this.
Yeah I think there are some extenuating circumstances behind my really embracing the idea of AA in this game.
Our DM doesn't do the typical 6-8 encounters in a day. It's pretty rare for us to have more than 3 or 4, sometimes we only have one if any. (There is combat, and the DM makes up for the smaller number of encounters by making each encounter more difficult and engaging, but that does have an effect on balance with how the game was designed.)
The DM is letting me recalss, and I"m level 12. So I'm getting four options for arcane shots so even if many of them are situational, I have a variety to pick from. I think, honestly, more than the two per short rest thing being frustrating, having to pick just two SHOT OPTIONS if I was leveling from scratch would be difficult. I think that it would probably be okay to give AA more options to pick earlier on since hte uses are so limited.
I'm invested much more heavily into INT than most fighters would go probably, even with the extra asi at 6.
Shadow arrow probably isn't the bes tone yeah, but has its uses. Grasping arrow is probably my favorite though because it doesn't require a saving throw. You just hit the enemy with it, they're afflicted by the brambles, and if they want to get rid of it, they (or another enemy nearby) has to use an action. Even if they get rid of it right away and you don't eke out any extra damage from the brambles, you're wasting an action. Since it doesn't specify willing movement like booming blade, if any party members have means of forcing movement that can work with it well too. And on bosses that might have legendary resistances or magic resistance for saving throws on magical effects...well that doesn't help them on this.
A lot of balance in short rest classes is in how often they are getting those short rests. If they are getting a lot they are powerful. If they are getting few but lots of rounds in combat they often are less powerful.
Champion fighter, basically the whole theme is just the expanded crit range. Which is nice, but once you play it into higher levels, you can see why most people only do the 3 level dip and multi-class into something else. The lack of any control within the fight is difficult. Most fighters have something they can do to add to the damage, interesting abilities, something. You have very little to manage with a Champion fighter. With Champion, it's just roll and pray for the dice gods to favor you. That's all there is.
Being the fighter with a familiar was great. Being the fighter with access to the shield spell was great. Being able to make my own scrolls for my spells to make the most out of my spell casting was great.
Having such a limited suite of spells was not great. Early on, I didn't really feel like I was a magical fighter. Sure, I was highly effective as in tier 1 as I basically had a reliable source of advantage with the owl, or scout with the spider. But because of my few spell slots (and not having taken up SCAG melee cantrips due to AL's previous phb+1 rule), I had very few opportunities to cast magic, and more often than not, those opportunities were spent on casting Shield. However, there were times when my cantrips came in handy! There were times when weapon bond came in handy. Casting light on a rock, and dropping it down a dark chasm was helpful. Throwing my spare weapon-bonded weapon into a black portal, and summoning it back to make sure it wasn't going to annihilate me, was nice! In a scenario where I had to leave my weapon at the door of a castle, only to be ambushed later on inside and being able to summon with a bonus action was SO nice! Though, most of the time in combat, I simply felt like a fighter with a pet-- which is actually nice in hindsight cause the fighter chassis is so nice lol it just didn't feel very magical or eldritch.
Later on, things get better. Having access to levitate made for a poor man's solution for flight, but at least you had SOMETHING! Other melee fighters would be twiddling their thumbs at that point. As a fighter, you're going to have a decent CON score and you're already proficient in those saves, so your buffs were pretty hardy. That felt nice!
Later on, access to haste. The mobility and power! Oof, such a boon. Maybe you'd rather have the immediate power boost of spirit shrouds, also a strong choice! Other third level spells are nice too. You get to be that one fighter who has remove curse, or magic circle, or dispel magic, or counter spell. It was well at this point where the EK felt magical.
Sure, this is not the fighter with the highest DPR, but it doesn't need to be. You're still a fighter, so DPR will never be outright horrid. You have options such as taking ritual caster to lean harder into the spell casting, or take fey touched to get the most out of your slots while adding to your spells known, and you'll still have the option to cap out your main stat by lvl 8.
What fighter subclass surprised you in how good it was or how bad it was?
For me:
Good: Arcane Archer
Now to preface....I was in a game that had about 1-2 big fights per day. However, in that setting the arrows were actually very powerful. I got to 7th level and the Curving Shot was actually a pretty good addition as I was almost always hitting something on the battlefield.
Now if I had a more dungeony crawl style game I would struggle I believe but it did play better than I expected.
Bad: Samurai
It was worse than I thought as it was basically locked into 3 good turns a day....not just combats but 3 turns. The major thing I learned from this subclass is that fighter abilities should be more than a single turn in occurrence and should be moderately impactful instead of burst damage. This combined with a more "normal" adventure day (3-4 combats) and I was just not feeling the subclass.
It creates a VERY boring class to play as you do some burst damage with Action Surge/Fighting Spirit but its so short lived that its like having a single bottle rocket on 4th of July when everyone else has less cool fireworks but a enough to play with them all day.
Overall I learned a lot about style playing both and how game types can affect your enjoyment of a subclass.
To answer the question, I had a cavalier that turned out to not be quite as fun as I thought, but he died at level 5, so I didn't really get more of the cooler, more advanced tricks that I think would have made it more interesting. So really, I don't think I had a fair chance to try it out.
Besides that, I think of your issue with samurai as a feature not a bug, personally. As someone who's loved playing fighters for almost 40 yeas now, I think part of the thing with them is they have pretty much always been considered the training class for new players. (Just to be clear, I am not a new player. I love playing them.) In a fight, you go up and whack the thing as hard as you can, and you do it over and over. So you give it to the new player, and they don't have to worry about tracking resources, or trying to understand the difference between spells known vs. spells prepared, or what proficiencies they need to be able to pick a lock, etc. So in play, they go hit the thing, and along the way, they see how the more experienced people play their clerics and wizards and what have you. And fighters don't get a lot of out of combat skills, so, again, they can see how its done, and in some cases, learn how to role play. (In the 80's, it was the one we handed our friend's little brother when he wanted to start playing, and I understand that's a very common strategy.) This edition really embodies that in the champion, where they're really all passive abilities, so there's just about nothing to track. To me, samurai is like that, in that it's also fairly simple to play, but it does give you a little taste of resource management. So it's like the champion in that its simple, but it does give you some things to make it more interesting. I can absolutely understand you thinking they're boring, I just think they were maybe designed with a different sort of player in mind. (Though I do also think fighting spirit should recharge on a short rest.)
I've played the Champion as my first character, and I guess it was alright because Fighters can be fun. But looking back at all the other fighter subclasses... I could have had so many more toys to play with in terms of abilities! And I don't think they really would have bee overwhelming.
Yeah Champion in my time playing it didn't surprise me....it was as bad as I was warned it was but I wanted to try it for myself anyway.
The weird thing about that is.....I actually liked playing Champ more than I liked playing Samurai as I was actually invested in most attack rolls to see if I got a 19 or 20.
Samurai I was only invested in the 3 turns a day I could actually do something other than just attack normally.
Surprised me in a Good Way? Purple Dragon Knight Actually.
Fighters are really straight forward no matter what you pick so it's hard for them to be surprising in either fashion. It's why they often Get Called Boring and it's why people prefer the ones with shiny toys to distract themselves. I really get that.
The Time I got to play one we actually had two of them and this was a slightly bigger group so we had 6 people playing. 5-7 is our common size with my most regular groups anyway. The DM actually Did the World Building to actually create a Group of Knights in the World that fit the subclass (technically already had one built. Just attached the subclass to it.) One of us was set up more as a Tank with Sword and Board... The other was more of a damage dealer. It was interesting once we got into it how they could play off of each other. Specially once we got to level 10 and could occasionally cause each other to attack. The Abilities aren't world shattering on their own and they are kind of limiting. But each person that you add in that can do them things started to increase. This became most apparant towards the end of the storyline when we actually got to fight alongside PC's of the order. Since the campaign kind of revolved around a mission we were given at the beginning of the game, our unit got wiped out and we were forced to Rely on Adventurer's that kind of became our small unit for the majority of it. It was actually rather fun for having two fairly similar yet different characters in the group and figuring out how to not step on each others toes but also excell ourselves. But it does take having that world building there. It really would lose a fair bit of it's flavor without that in there. Even if you did have a group all able to use their abilities.
when it comes to Disappointment. That was Eldritch Knight for me.
I love the concept of the EK, (and the blade dancer). I always have. I like Mixing Fighters with Wizards. It was my first character in 5e and we got into 5e really early. But for most of the life of the character, Which only went up to about 15 i think... I found that My Own Character was always getting in it's own way. I understand that the way the subclass is designed the magic is mostly just a bit of something extra. But I always ran into situations where if I didn't plan out what i wanted to do carefully. My Wizard Side was always getting in the way of my fighter side or vice versa. Or if I felt I needed to save something back. I basically became a Fighter without a subclass really for some battles because magic was often the logical thing to hold back. I even got permission to retool my stats and spells a bit at one point to try and make things easier. And I've seen gone through and learned a lot more tricks. But there is quite a bit of blend missing for what on the surface looks like a very blended Fighter and Wizard Subclass.
So far the Rune knight has been surprising with it's usefulness. I took the cloud rune and stone rune and we've only been in 1 decent sized combat since we hit lvl 3 but already both abilities where awesome turning an attack that hit our paladin into a killing blow on a kobold and the stone rune mesmerizing a goliath barb as we beat em down. (as well as the 120 foot darkvision)
Haven't had a chance to go large yet but so far it's been really nice and being reactions instead of BA's to use has been good because I want to take PAM when we get to lvl 4
PDK. Actually playing one is actually really fun. All of the abilities proc on the use of my existing abilities, so I can have reaaaally tight action economy.
I actually think I would rate them above Champion at least... And for me samurai because of how boring I find those two.
Fighters are always a juicy topic! I always recommend doing a few things when you build ANY Fighter - complement their abilities with proper Action Economy. For example:
1) Purple Dragon Knights/Champions have a Bonus Action Second Wind, so that's only ONE Bonus Action per short rest that you have access to. This means they would benefit from any Feat or Class Feature that allows them to use more Bonus Actions - Shield Master, GWM, PAM, Martial Adept for some Battlemaster BA maneuvers, Two Weapon Fighting, etc. This also means that you don't have a Reaction either, so Feats like Defensive Duelist and PAM make sense too.
2) Eldritch Knight/Psi-Warrior already comes packed with spells that use your Actions, Bonus Actions, and Reactions. So you're free to use a lot more of your Feats for ASI improvements, and empower your abilities.
This is why Fighters are so versatile from build to build - a Fighter gets 7 Feats, and that's how you properly outfit your character. If you take passive no-Action Feats with a Champion or PDK, you're going to have a boring time if you want options in combat. My PDK is a Dragonborn with the Dragon Fear Feat, which combines perfectly with his higher Charisma score. He also took Unarmed Fighting Style and Shield Master, which allows for tons of shenanigans against targets he wants to grapple/shove prone. Level 7 currently with +9 Athletics, if his allies Enlarge him it's pretty much a guaranteed prone enemy (up to size Huge) that the party rogues get to assault (advantage on Athletics checks and Disadvantage on the Feared creature's Skill checks).
I've played Champions as well, and my favorite combination was to combine the Piercer/Slasher/Crusher Feats with Two-Weapon Fighting. You get a Bonus Action each round, and you get to apply movement-reductions (Slasher), Battlefield Control (Crusher), and some extra Damage (Piercer) on every single round. That's what makes them exciting - being able to apply subtle effects each turn. And, if you're lucky, you get to really turn the tide with a Critical Hit.
I think Fighter is probably my favorite class in that respect, just for the absolute customizability of each build. In essence, the Psi Warrior, Eldritch Knight, etc are some of the least-flexibile and why I typically stay away from those.
I was super stoked to play an Eldritch Knight, first PC in 5e in fact, and it seriously disappointed me. The subclass actively conflicts with the base class for action economy and the whole thing was a mess. It should have been so cool, but it just… wasn’t. If they had dropped Spellcasting entirely and gone with something halfway between the Arcane Archer’s Arcane Shots and the Battle Master’s Superiority Die & Maneuvers, it would have been much better. Which, coincidentally is exactly what they did for the Psi Warrior. If I wasn’t so disappointed with Psionics this edition, I would probably enjoy it. I mean, I’m enjoying the UA Psi Knight immensely, and the Psi Warrior is similar enough that I know I’d like it if it wasn’t “vegan, gluten-free, low-fat, low-sodium, caffeine free, diet, no sugar added Psionics.” (It tastes like cardboard compared to Psionics of old.)
The Arcane Archer really surprised me by how good it is. I thought I would be disappointed because of how few Arcane Shots it gets, but once I realized I was looking at it the wrong way, and adjusted my expectations for the subclass, I realized how good it really is. You can frikin’ bend arrows and up to 6 times a day (with 2 short rests) drop a mininuke on something. 🤘 Baller. Grab Ritual Caster or Spell Sniper if you wanna feel a little more “arcane.” (Or dip Wiz 2, Divination would be nice. 🤔)
And I have to say, when I realized that two PCs could team up, and one could play a Centaur Rune Knight with Mobile and Sentinel, and the other could play a Cavalier with the Mounted Combatant feat…. (Step one, the Centaur Rune Knight goes Large. Step two, the Cavalier saddles up. Step three, Profit.) Made me love both of those subclasses a little more.
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My DM let me swap my rogue to a 2 rogue/10 fighter arcane archer multiclass when I was finding rogue to be not much fun as a main class, looking forward to trying it out in the next fight. (Keeping the two levels of rogue mostly to keep some of her expertise options, thieves tool proficiency and cunning action to be mobile and slippery on the battlefield still. I'm going to have to wait one more level to get three attacks but I can live with that.)
It's easy to fall into looking at it as 'worse battlemaster' because it gets half as many uses per short rest of its core feature. But it can also do more interesting things potentially. Shadow arrow to set up advantage and then pop your action surge for more attacks to take advantage of it. Grasping arrow to mess with bosses that might just legendary resistance your other arrows. It seems like the tradeoff is two less uses per short rest, but they generally get to be more interesting. Curving shot is great, if there's more than one enemy around when you miss. Combos well with sharpshooter.
Before I was playing an arcane trickster mostly filling in the niche of the archer in the party. But in combat, having to give up my sneak attack in order to do anything magical was kind of a bummer. (I could have booming bladed etc but again, mostly focusing on archery.) I suppose I could have gone ranger as well, but this change is going to be fun for melding the magical and archery elements together, rather than as an AT where it was a big trade off to give up sneak attack on a turn to cast a spell.
While I haven't played AA yet, will be doing my first session with it this weekend, it's a class that on the theory side I thought of as kinda bad at first until I looked at it more closely. Though to be fair, I can see the int requirements to get a good DC on your arcane shots being a turn off as it's a stat fighters normally don't go for. But I'd already invested into int anyway during the arcane trickster phase anyway. And the DM's style in this game tends to favor fewer encounters per day but making the ones we do have pretty intense. Sometimes we might only have one fight a day. Others maybe a fight or two, short rest, then a couple more etc. So I generally don't think I'll run into isssues where I have to go a long time without a shot avaiable.
Arcane Archer for me is good for the choices you get and I feel like they intentionally made some very powerful with the idea that you only get 2 shots.
The shadow arrow thing is funny to me because you can do the same thing as a battle master but with a Trip Attack maneuver and you can do this up to 5 times a short rest AND add damage to that attack.
The banishing arrow and the grasping arrows are so good though as they will take something out of the fight and give you a chance to divide and conquer.
The piercing arrow can be good in the right set up as you can do Sharpshooter damage to everything in a row which is pretty legit and they still take half damage on a successful save.
Overall while they can be very good....its still pretty limiting to have only 2 per short rest....especially in a more "typical" setting where you have 6-8 encounters per day. Not that anyone actually runs it that way lol.
Overall I think its still a fine subclass though and curving shot is pretty awesome which mostly saves it for me.
The way I find Shadow Arrow is useful is when there is an enemy caster. Filling their sight with shadows makes it very difficult to cast any spells which rely on a point or creature you can see...until the paladin charges into melee range to get a couple of hits in.
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I don't think sharp shooter works with piercing arrow does it? Since you're not making an attack, but forcing the enemy(s) to do a saving throw?
That is a good point about shadow arrow, but shadow arrow in addition to giving you advantage also messes with the enemy's turn. With trip attack you knock them prone and they have to stand up, sure. However, limiting an enemy's sight to five feet can theoretically be very disruptive to the enemy's turn. Most notably if they're a spellcaster or ranged attacker and now cannot see. Of course, this will be less effective against a melee enemy already in range of an ally, or something with blindsitght etc. But it still seems to have its uses. Shadow arrow is also harmless for your allies, where as if say a melee fighter trip attacks an enemy, and you have a ranged attacker going after them but before the enemy's turn, it could mess with their attacks. Though that does require certain initiative bad luck to happen.
DIdn't think of this use so that is a good one!
Good points...I guess it depends on how the DM wants to roll with it but I took it from my perspective of when I played and my DM let me use it due to the wording "as if they were hit with the arrow" overall its not a huge difference as it averages out to somewhere between 5-10 damage.
The caster thing is a good point but I guess how often do you face those particular types of enemies? For me its been rare but you are right YMMV on that one and make it very good.
Ranged attackers would be at DIS to attack which is fair too,. but could still attack I guess.
Overall somewhat useful but I wonder if its more so than the other options? hard to know without knowing what type of game you are in....but good points none the less!
Yeah I think there are some extenuating circumstances behind my really embracing the idea of AA in this game.
Our DM doesn't do the typical 6-8 encounters in a day. It's pretty rare for us to have more than 3 or 4, sometimes we only have one if any. (There is combat, and the DM makes up for the smaller number of encounters by making each encounter more difficult and engaging, but that does have an effect on balance with how the game was designed.)
The DM is letting me recalss, and I"m level 12. So I'm getting four options for arcane shots so even if many of them are situational, I have a variety to pick from. I think, honestly, more than the two per short rest thing being frustrating, having to pick just two SHOT OPTIONS if I was leveling from scratch would be difficult. I think that it would probably be okay to give AA more options to pick earlier on since hte uses are so limited.
I'm invested much more heavily into INT than most fighters would go probably, even with the extra asi at 6.
Shadow arrow probably isn't the bes tone yeah, but has its uses. Grasping arrow is probably my favorite though because it doesn't require a saving throw. You just hit the enemy with it, they're afflicted by the brambles, and if they want to get rid of it, they (or another enemy nearby) has to use an action. Even if they get rid of it right away and you don't eke out any extra damage from the brambles, you're wasting an action. Since it doesn't specify willing movement like booming blade, if any party members have means of forcing movement that can work with it well too. And on bosses that might have legendary resistances or magic resistance for saving throws on magical effects...well that doesn't help them on this.
A lot of balance in short rest classes is in how often they are getting those short rests. If they are getting a lot they are powerful. If they are getting few but lots of rounds in combat they often are less powerful.
Champion fighter, basically the whole theme is just the expanded crit range. Which is nice, but once you play it into higher levels, you can see why most people only do the 3 level dip and multi-class into something else. The lack of any control within the fight is difficult. Most fighters have something they can do to add to the damage, interesting abilities, something. You have very little to manage with a Champion fighter. With Champion, it's just roll and pray for the dice gods to favor you. That's all there is.
EK for both.
Being the fighter with a familiar was great. Being the fighter with access to the shield spell was great. Being able to make my own scrolls for my spells to make the most out of my spell casting was great.
Having such a limited suite of spells was not great. Early on, I didn't really feel like I was a magical fighter. Sure, I was highly effective as in tier 1 as I basically had a reliable source of advantage with the owl, or scout with the spider. But because of my few spell slots (and not having taken up SCAG melee cantrips due to AL's previous phb+1 rule), I had very few opportunities to cast magic, and more often than not, those opportunities were spent on casting Shield. However, there were times when my cantrips came in handy! There were times when weapon bond came in handy. Casting light on a rock, and dropping it down a dark chasm was helpful. Throwing my spare weapon-bonded weapon into a black portal, and summoning it back to make sure it wasn't going to annihilate me, was nice! In a scenario where I had to leave my weapon at the door of a castle, only to be ambushed later on inside and being able to summon with a bonus action was SO nice! Though, most of the time in combat, I simply felt like a fighter with a pet-- which is actually nice in hindsight cause the fighter chassis is so nice lol it just didn't feel very magical or eldritch.
Later on, things get better. Having access to levitate made for a poor man's solution for flight, but at least you had SOMETHING! Other melee fighters would be twiddling their thumbs at that point. As a fighter, you're going to have a decent CON score and you're already proficient in those saves, so your buffs were pretty hardy. That felt nice!
Later on, access to haste. The mobility and power! Oof, such a boon. Maybe you'd rather have the immediate power boost of spirit shrouds, also a strong choice! Other third level spells are nice too. You get to be that one fighter who has remove curse, or magic circle, or dispel magic, or counter spell. It was well at this point where the EK felt magical.
Sure, this is not the fighter with the highest DPR, but it doesn't need to be. You're still a fighter, so DPR will never be outright horrid. You have options such as taking ritual caster to lean harder into the spell casting, or take fey touched to get the most out of your slots while adding to your spells known, and you'll still have the option to cap out your main stat by lvl 8.