Having your starting class as Fighter should be the only way to be automatically proficient with all weapons. (That means you cant multiclass to get the weapon proficiencies)
Each other class should have like two or three lists you can pick from for weapon proficiencies
This gives at least a little more value to the fighter. In my opinion, Barbarian gets too much love an attention.
Actually I think the opposite, I think more classes should have expanded access to weapons to encourage more build variety, because having to use feats, races and/or training to gain access has always be a huge pain just so you can have a sorcerer with a scimitar or whatever.
What makes Fighters valuable isn't having weapon proficiencies, it's what they can do with those weapons; barbarians are tough and deal decent damage, but only the Fighter gets a 3rd or 4th Extra Attack, and that's on top of Action Surge, so you can be making 4-5 attacks in a turn at 5th-level, or 6-7 at 10th-level and so-on. Fighters also get access to all fighting styles, second wind and the most ability score increases (or feats) of any class in the game, and those are just the base class features.
There is plenty that makes fighter extremely good, and arguably better than barbarian depending upon what your goals are (though the classic barbarian/fighter multi-class will always be tempting).
Fighter's main problem is that people overlook it as somehow "vanilla" when it actually does a lot of really cool stuff; like if you want to be an archer then Ranger seems like the obvious choice, but Fighter can easily outperform a Ranger at archery (for one thing they can get Sharpshooter earlier without sacrificing DEX increases).
Plus as a classic example, half of the characters in Lord of the Rings are actually Fighters; Legolas is a Fighter with the Archery fighting style and an immunity to the laws of physics, Aragorn is a Fighter with Survival proficiency and a +10 in being moody, Gandalf is a Fighter with Magic Initiate because he barely uses any dang spells etc. 😂
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
gonna have to be a no from me, way to many other classes can benefit from more variety to their weapon picks, and secondly, barbarian really doesnt get more love or attention : if its does its because its the classic dumb guy with an axe class, which is popularized by media
in so many ways fighter is better at barbarian at what it does : dpr
Barb is better at tanking and thats the love it gets
In many older editions, the Fighter was the just about only class available that really could act as a frontline combatant at all. Sometime in the past 25 years or so, the designers made the decision to boost the combat capabilities of the other classes, causing everyone to tread on the Fighter's territory to a greater or lesser degree.
That was a mistake, IMO. People occasionally complain about the Fighter class being "boring" compared to the other classes, but that's due, at least to an extent, to the fact that the designers took away from the class the one thing that made it stand out among the classes: that it was the only one who was a decent combatant, making Fighters indispensable to any party.
I suggest, maybe, that ONLY the Fighter can add their proficiency bonus to attack rolls, while the other classes are limited to their attribute bonuses only.
I dont think the class should be special by having access to fairly bland things such as weapon training or being the only class to add prof bounes to attacks (which would absolutely kill any other martial option imo). I think all martial classes need a ton more stuff they can do, including both the fighter and barbarian... Fighters should come with maneuvers pre-baked in the base class and barbarians should have some other list of cool rage-inspired combat abilities they can pick from as they level up..restricting martial classes to mostly just doing attack actions is rather lame imo.
I dont think the class should be special by having access to fairly bland things such as weapon training or being the only class to add prof bounes to attacks (which would absolutely kill any other martial option imo). I think all martial classes need a ton more stuff they can do, including both the fighter and barbarian... Fighters should come with maneuvers pre-baked in the base class and barbarians should have some other list of cool rage-inspired combat abilities they can pick from as they level up..restricting martial classes to mostly just doing attack actions is rather lame imo.
i have to agree, taking things away from other classes, doesnt add to the lack of something that one class already has, you need to add more
Indeed.. I think its kinda sad that the hexblade and bladesinger are far more interesting "martial" characters than almost all actual martial class options.. They get to have interesting options through magic and invocation, why all fighters barbs and rogues dont have cool abilities as part of their skillset is beyond me.
I don't think making weapon proficiency a Fighter's "thing" is going to fix that though as it's not actually giving them anymore options; if the goal is caster like options in combat then they'd need to gain more basic abilities, like integrating Battle Master into the core class to give them far more options in combat, more strategic and tactical choices they can make in the moment etc.
As one of the reasons Barbarians and Fighters can be accused of being boring is when all they really can do is just wade in and hit stuff; that's not true of all sub-classes, but more options to build and to play with would help both classes a lot.
That's one thing we need to be wary of with the OneD&D playtests; there's a risk of Wizards failing to appreciate just how much flexibility the spellcasting feature actually gives a character; features on other classes need compensate for that. For example at 9th-level Fighters get Indomitable which isn't a bad feature to have, but it's pretty miserable when you compare it to full casters who are getting their 5th-level spells (and first 5th-level slot). A once per long rest save re-roll doesn't exactly compete with temporal shunt to avoid harm entirely (potentially for others as well), the strength and utility of telekinesis, the raw damage of synaptic static or steel wind strike etc.
Balancing martial classes requires a lot more than just deny others weapon proficiencies, which is barely going to make a different at all IMO.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Though I don't think that Fighters should have Battle Master maneuvers added to the base class because of complexity, I also think the original suggestion is not a very good one. All it does is make Fighter more powerful compared to other Warriors, and having all martials have more access to various weapons allows fro more creativity, cool builds, and slightly more power.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
Having your starting class as Fighter should be the only way to be automatically proficient with all weapons. (That means you cant multiclass to get the weapon proficiencies)
Each other class should have like two or three lists you can pick from for weapon proficiencies
This gives at least a little more value to the fighter. In my opinion, Barbarian gets too much love an attention.
I disagree on weapons, but I would agree with this on Armor.
I agree that there needs to be something that makes fighters the masters of weaponry, but I think restricting the use isn't a great choice unless weapons themselves become a lot more powerful.
Personally, I am in favour of making the battle master manoeuvres baseline, because it adds power, engagement, and decision making to the combat potential of the fighter where it previously was lacking.
I also don't particularly buy in to the argument that this would make the class too complex, because if it were true that giving a class a pool of limited resources with they could use to bolster their combat effectiveness added too much complexity, isn't fighter already too complex? They have to manage Second Wind, Action Surge, and Indomitable. Are Barbarians too complex? They have limited Rages.
Or maybe it's not the resource management, maybe it's the fact that they have to choose features; but that would imply that the entire game is too complex! I mean, to be at the point where they have to worry about manoeuvres, they've already selected a race, a class, ability scores, added bonuses (to whichever stat they would like now), selected a first level feat (with the new background rules), selected skill proficiencies, chosen a name (by far the hardest part in my opinion :P), and the list of choices go on.
While I do agree that the current wording of the Battlemaster subclass is a bit messy, if it was to become a core feature of the class I have no doubt they would neaten it up, and probably provide a standard set of suggested manoeuvres much like they do with spells.
What's more, the manoeuvres feel intuitive to use; Some one hit me? I parry. Someone Missed? I retaliate with a riposte! The game could use more intuitive features in my opinion.
EDIT: Whoops I accidentally hit enter trying to use autocomplete. Maybe this forum is too complex for me XD
Personally, I am in favour of making the battle master manoeuvres baseline, because it adds power, engagement, and decision making to the combat potential of the fighter where it previously was lacking.
Battlemaster maneuvers are already available to all fighters at level1 through the Superior Technique Fighting Style.
That is the most common fighting style I get when I play a fighter, with defense and dueling being close behind depending on the build. An Arcane Archer or Eldritch Knight with Superior Technique is awesome!
I agree, Superior Technique is definitely good. However, having to sacrifice your fighting style (which I'll admit, most are pretty bland) for a singular superiority die is not exactly my idea of giving people more options.
I'm definitely in favour of Fighters getting more of a basic toolkit; actually all martials need to since they're competing with the sheer flexibility and utility of half and full spellcasters.
In fact when it comes to what I want to see from martial classes, a common thread is integrating a sub-class with the main class; e.g- Barbarians getting some Ancestral Guardian or Totem Warrior, Monks getting some Open Hand, and Rogues getting some Thief as standard.
For Fighters specifically mixing in Battle Master manoeuvres would just give them so much more that they can do as standard in combat; I think they could probably pare the list of options down a bit (as WotC don't seem to like option lists much in the UA). I could see maybe seven basic manoeuvres, plus Tactical Assessment for some optional out of combat utility.
Then if they retain Battle Master they can simply build on top of that with more options (and choices), higher scaling to the superiority dice etc.
Since in future we'll have Fighter group feats, they could make a first level feat for access to manoeuvres if you don't have them (similar to Superior Technique), plus another that can be used to upgrade the feature (e.g- one choice from the full Battle Master manoeuvres list, one extra superiority dice and one increase in the die size?).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Why not give fighters Expertise in one weapon for melee and one for range. The bonus to hit and damage grow as the fighter levels but only in the weapon they choose at level one as their expertise. Basically a life time of practice at one main weapon should equal more skill to hit and knowing where to strike to cause more damage.
I agree, Superior Technique is definitely good. However, having to sacrifice your fighting style (which I'll admit, most are pretty bland) for a singular superiority die is not exactly my idea of giving people more options.
It is an option. If you want maneuvers it is a good one, and it recharges on a short rest.
Why not give fighters Expertise in one weapon for melee and one for range. The bonus to hit and damage grow as the fighter levels but only in the weapon they choose at level one as their expertise. Basically a life time of practice at one main weapon should equal more skill to hit and knowing where to strike to cause more damage.
There are two problems with this, first it is going to push/break bounded accuracy unless you keep the bonus low (say +2 at 20th level). The options you can get through feats or multiclass already break bounded accuracy and this will be comoined with those.
Second this is going to be a huge penalty when you find a magic weapon different than your specialized weapon. I chose to specialize in the maul and over the course of a 20-level campaign we find 19 different magic weapons but none are a maul. That is a huge and largely random penalty.
I think what would be better is when you take the attack action you get a flat +3 bonus to hit and damage on a weapon attack (with any weapon) in exchange for one less attack with extra attack. That would give the fighter real options - At 5th level he can either attack twice normally or attack once with a +3 hit/+3 damage. You could stack this, so an 11th level fighter could either 1. Attack 3 times. 2. attack once at +6/+6 or 3. attack once normally and once at +3/+3.
You are right that twice proficiency bonus to hit would probably break stuff. So how about we make expertise in a weapon allow you to add your proficiency bonus to damage? This adds another layer of scaling to martials. It might be too much, but I'd argue that since we are losing GWM / SS in OneDnD it would probably end up even, and be more balanced at lower levels than they were.
As for magic weapons of a type other than your weapon of expertise, that can be fixed in two ways as I see it:
1) Like rogues, give people 2 more weapons to have expertise in at high levels, say 6th level, and maybe provide a feat that grants expertise in one weapon 2) Tell your DM what weapon you are going to expertise in, and they can fit magic weapons to that. If they really want to give you a weapon of a different type, they can make one of it's properties 'While attuned, you use this weapon as if you had expertise in it.'
Finally, I'm a huge fan of the concept of being able to sacrifice number of attacks for bonuses to hit and damage. I've always thought it would be great if I had some amount of control over how I was making the attacks without having to play Battle Master.
There's a video with Jeremy Crawford talking about the upcoming weapons playtest (which will also have a number of classes, including barbarian and fighter). Sounds like some interesting changes, though we'll need to wait to see the specifics. But the key points I think were:
All weapons are gaining a "mastery" feature that you can only use if you have the weapon mastery class feature or feat. He only mentioned a few of these but they include things like a tripping attack, a grazing attack (still deal some damage on a miss), slowing a target, and "flex" (can use a versatile weapon to full effect with one hand).
Fighters will be able to customise the mastery they have on their weapons, and later gain the ability to add a second mastery to a weapon. Sounds like they'll still only be able to use one mastery feature at a time, but it gives more flexibility at least.
Didn't really cover how that affects battle master, but it sounds like we're essentially getting some manoeuvre-like features on weapons (minus the superiority dice), most (maybe all?) warrior characters will have access to these as standard.
He also didn't say what the other three classes are in this UA, I'm wondering if Paladin and Ranger might be re-released if they're getting weapon mastery as well? I'm also wondering if this might replace fighting style; they've kept fighting styles in for the classes that had them before but that might just have been because they weren't ready to release the weapon mastery update yet? It might make sense though.
It sounds promising anyway, but we'll need to wait and see what the specifics actually are; if it's literally just one bonus feature and not much more then it may be a bit too thin to really make a big difference.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Why not give fighters Expertise in one weapon for melee and one for range. The bonus to hit and damage grow as the fighter levels but only in the weapon they choose at level one as their expertise. Basically a life time of practice at one main weapon should equal more skill to hit and knowing where to strike to cause more damage.
There are two problems with this, first it is going to push/break bounded accuracy unless you keep the bonus low (say +2 at 20th level). The options you can get through feats or multiclass already break bounded accuracy and this will be comoined with those.
Second this is going to be a huge penalty when you find a magic weapon different than your specialized weapon. I chose to specialize in the maul and over the course of a 20-level campaign we find 19 different magic weapons but none are a maul. That is a huge and largely random penalty.
I think what would be better is when you take the attack action you get a flat +3 bonus to hit and damage on a weapon attack (with any weapon) in exchange for one less attack with extra attack. That would give the fighter real options - At 5th level he can either attack twice normally or attack once with a +3 hit/+3 damage. You could stack this, so an 11th level fighter could either 1. Attack 3 times. 2. attack once at +6/+6 or 3. attack once normally and once at +3/+3.
Personaly I'm okay with fighters breaking accuracy because a fighter, maybe a ranger, and palidan speand so much timepracticing their choosen weapon that they are far more accurat but your proposal would also be a nice change.As for feats, this could free you up to take other feats that grant skill proficency and or expertise giving the fighter the option of not just being the tank in battle but maybe a history buff or a tracker in a party with no Ranger etc...
Also, maybe make this bonus for those that are single class only. They should be a pentalty for spending your time learning something new vs perfecting it.
Again the counter proposal you suggested is a positive change too so I'm for it and I like Dawnshard's counter as well. I just feel like a Fighter should be the best with what they spend their time learning just like a Wizard should have more spells and slots because, well, its what they spend time mastering.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
This gives at least a little more value to the fighter. In my opinion, Barbarian gets too much love an attention.
Actually I think the opposite, I think more classes should have expanded access to weapons to encourage more build variety, because having to use feats, races and/or training to gain access has always be a huge pain just so you can have a sorcerer with a scimitar or whatever.
What makes Fighters valuable isn't having weapon proficiencies, it's what they can do with those weapons; barbarians are tough and deal decent damage, but only the Fighter gets a 3rd or 4th Extra Attack, and that's on top of Action Surge, so you can be making 4-5 attacks in a turn at 5th-level, or 6-7 at 10th-level and so-on. Fighters also get access to all fighting styles, second wind and the most ability score increases (or feats) of any class in the game, and those are just the base class features.
There is plenty that makes fighter extremely good, and arguably better than barbarian depending upon what your goals are (though the classic barbarian/fighter multi-class will always be tempting).
Fighter's main problem is that people overlook it as somehow "vanilla" when it actually does a lot of really cool stuff; like if you want to be an archer then Ranger seems like the obvious choice, but Fighter can easily outperform a Ranger at archery (for one thing they can get Sharpshooter earlier without sacrificing DEX increases).
Plus as a classic example, half of the characters in Lord of the Rings are actually Fighters; Legolas is a Fighter with the Archery fighting style and an immunity to the laws of physics, Aragorn is a Fighter with Survival proficiency and a +10 in being moody, Gandalf is a Fighter with Magic Initiate because he barely uses any dang spells etc. 😂
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
gonna have to be a no from me, way to many other classes can benefit from more variety to their weapon picks, and secondly, barbarian really doesnt get more love or attention : if its does its because its the classic dumb guy with an axe class, which is popularized by media
in so many ways fighter is better at barbarian at what it does : dpr
Barb is better at tanking and thats the love it gets
100% agree.
In many older editions, the Fighter was the just about only class available that really could act as a frontline combatant at all. Sometime in the past 25 years or so, the designers made the decision to boost the combat capabilities of the other classes, causing everyone to tread on the Fighter's territory to a greater or lesser degree.
That was a mistake, IMO. People occasionally complain about the Fighter class being "boring" compared to the other classes, but that's due, at least to an extent, to the fact that the designers took away from the class the one thing that made it stand out among the classes: that it was the only one who was a decent combatant, making Fighters indispensable to any party.
I suggest, maybe, that ONLY the Fighter can add their proficiency bonus to attack rolls, while the other classes are limited to their attribute bonuses only.
I dont think the class should be special by having access to fairly bland things such as weapon training or being the only class to add prof bounes to attacks (which would absolutely kill any other martial option imo). I think all martial classes need a ton more stuff they can do, including both the fighter and barbarian... Fighters should come with maneuvers pre-baked in the base class and barbarians should have some other list of cool rage-inspired combat abilities they can pick from as they level up..restricting martial classes to mostly just doing attack actions is rather lame imo.
i have to agree, taking things away from other classes, doesnt add to the lack of something that one class already has, you need to add more
Indeed.. I think its kinda sad that the hexblade and bladesinger are far more interesting "martial" characters than almost all actual martial class options.. They get to have interesting options through magic and invocation, why all fighters barbs and rogues dont have cool abilities as part of their skillset is beyond me.
I don't think making weapon proficiency a Fighter's "thing" is going to fix that though as it's not actually giving them anymore options; if the goal is caster like options in combat then they'd need to gain more basic abilities, like integrating Battle Master into the core class to give them far more options in combat, more strategic and tactical choices they can make in the moment etc.
As one of the reasons Barbarians and Fighters can be accused of being boring is when all they really can do is just wade in and hit stuff; that's not true of all sub-classes, but more options to build and to play with would help both classes a lot.
That's one thing we need to be wary of with the OneD&D playtests; there's a risk of Wizards failing to appreciate just how much flexibility the spellcasting feature actually gives a character; features on other classes need compensate for that. For example at 9th-level Fighters get Indomitable which isn't a bad feature to have, but it's pretty miserable when you compare it to full casters who are getting their 5th-level spells (and first 5th-level slot). A once per long rest save re-roll doesn't exactly compete with temporal shunt to avoid harm entirely (potentially for others as well), the strength and utility of telekinesis, the raw damage of synaptic static or steel wind strike etc.
Balancing martial classes requires a lot more than just deny others weapon proficiencies, which is barely going to make a different at all IMO.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Though I don't think that Fighters should have Battle Master maneuvers added to the base class because of complexity, I also think the original suggestion is not a very good one. All it does is make Fighter more powerful compared to other Warriors, and having all martials have more access to various weapons allows fro more creativity, cool builds, and slightly more power.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.I disagree on weapons, but I would agree with this on Armor.
I agree that there needs to be something that makes fighters the masters of weaponry, but I think restricting the use isn't a great choice unless weapons themselves become a lot more powerful.
Personally, I am in favour of making the battle master manoeuvres baseline, because it adds power, engagement, and decision making to the combat potential of the fighter where it previously was lacking.
I also don't particularly buy in to the argument that this would make the class too complex, because if it were true that giving a class a pool of limited resources with they could use to bolster their combat effectiveness added too much complexity, isn't fighter already too complex? They have to manage Second Wind, Action Surge, and Indomitable. Are Barbarians too complex? They have limited Rages.
Or maybe it's not the resource management, maybe it's the fact that they have to choose features; but that would imply that the entire game is too complex! I mean, to be at the point where they have to worry about manoeuvres, they've already selected a race, a class, ability scores, added bonuses (to whichever stat they would like now), selected a first level feat (with the new background rules), selected skill proficiencies, chosen a name (by far the hardest part in my opinion :P), and the list of choices go on.
While I do agree that the current wording of the Battlemaster subclass is a bit messy, if it was to become a core feature of the class I have no doubt they would neaten it up, and probably provide a standard set of suggested manoeuvres much like they do with spells.
What's more, the manoeuvres feel intuitive to use; Some one hit me? I parry. Someone Missed? I retaliate with a riposte! The game could use more intuitive features in my opinion.
EDIT: Whoops I accidentally hit enter trying to use autocomplete. Maybe this forum is too complex for me XD
Battlemaster maneuvers are already available to all fighters at level1 through the Superior Technique Fighting Style.
That is the most common fighting style I get when I play a fighter, with defense and dueling being close behind depending on the build. An Arcane Archer or Eldritch Knight with Superior Technique is awesome!
I agree, Superior Technique is definitely good. However, having to sacrifice your fighting style (which I'll admit, most are pretty bland) for a singular superiority die is not exactly my idea of giving people more options.
I'm definitely in favour of Fighters getting more of a basic toolkit; actually all martials need to since they're competing with the sheer flexibility and utility of half and full spellcasters.
In fact when it comes to what I want to see from martial classes, a common thread is integrating a sub-class with the main class; e.g- Barbarians getting some Ancestral Guardian or Totem Warrior, Monks getting some Open Hand, and Rogues getting some Thief as standard.
For Fighters specifically mixing in Battle Master manoeuvres would just give them so much more that they can do as standard in combat; I think they could probably pare the list of options down a bit (as WotC don't seem to like option lists much in the UA). I could see maybe seven basic manoeuvres, plus Tactical Assessment for some optional out of combat utility.
Then if they retain Battle Master they can simply build on top of that with more options (and choices), higher scaling to the superiority dice etc.
Since in future we'll have Fighter group feats, they could make a first level feat for access to manoeuvres if you don't have them (similar to Superior Technique), plus another that can be used to upgrade the feature (e.g- one choice from the full Battle Master manoeuvres list, one extra superiority dice and one increase in the die size?).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Why not give fighters Expertise in one weapon for melee and one for range. The bonus to hit and damage grow as the fighter levels but only in the weapon they choose at level one as their expertise. Basically a life time of practice at one main weapon should equal more skill to hit and knowing where to strike to cause more damage.
It is an option. If you want maneuvers it is a good one, and it recharges on a short rest.
There are two problems with this, first it is going to push/break bounded accuracy unless you keep the bonus low (say +2 at 20th level). The options you can get through feats or multiclass already break bounded accuracy and this will be comoined with those.
Second this is going to be a huge penalty when you find a magic weapon different than your specialized weapon. I chose to specialize in the maul and over the course of a 20-level campaign we find 19 different magic weapons but none are a maul. That is a huge and largely random penalty.
I think what would be better is when you take the attack action you get a flat +3 bonus to hit and damage on a weapon attack (with any weapon) in exchange for one less attack with extra attack. That would give the fighter real options - At 5th level he can either attack twice normally or attack once with a +3 hit/+3 damage. You could stack this, so an 11th level fighter could either 1. Attack 3 times. 2. attack once at +6/+6 or 3. attack once normally and once at +3/+3.
You are right that twice proficiency bonus to hit would probably break stuff. So how about we make expertise in a weapon allow you to add your proficiency bonus to damage? This adds another layer of scaling to martials. It might be too much, but I'd argue that since we are losing GWM / SS in OneDnD it would probably end up even, and be more balanced at lower levels than they were.
As for magic weapons of a type other than your weapon of expertise, that can be fixed in two ways as I see it:
1) Like rogues, give people 2 more weapons to have expertise in at high levels, say 6th level, and maybe provide a feat that grants expertise in one weapon
2) Tell your DM what weapon you are going to expertise in, and they can fit magic weapons to that. If they really want to give you a weapon of a different type, they can make one of it's properties 'While attuned, you use this weapon as if you had expertise in it.'
Finally, I'm a huge fan of the concept of being able to sacrifice number of attacks for bonuses to hit and damage. I've always thought it would be great if I had some amount of control over how I was making the attacks without having to play Battle Master.
There's a video with Jeremy Crawford talking about the upcoming weapons playtest (which will also have a number of classes, including barbarian and fighter). Sounds like some interesting changes, though we'll need to wait to see the specifics. But the key points I think were:
Didn't really cover how that affects battle master, but it sounds like we're essentially getting some manoeuvre-like features on weapons (minus the superiority dice), most (maybe all?) warrior characters will have access to these as standard.
He also didn't say what the other three classes are in this UA, I'm wondering if Paladin and Ranger might be re-released if they're getting weapon mastery as well? I'm also wondering if this might replace fighting style; they've kept fighting styles in for the classes that had them before but that might just have been because they weren't ready to release the weapon mastery update yet? It might make sense though.
It sounds promising anyway, but we'll need to wait and see what the specifics actually are; if it's literally just one bonus feature and not much more then it may be a bit too thin to really make a big difference.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Personaly I'm okay with fighters breaking accuracy because a fighter, maybe a ranger, and palidan speand so much timepracticing their choosen weapon that they are far more accurat but your proposal would also be a nice change.As for feats, this could free you up to take other feats that grant skill proficency and or expertise giving the fighter the option of not just being the tank in battle but maybe a history buff or a tracker in a party with no Ranger etc...
Also, maybe make this bonus for those that are single class only. They should be a pentalty for spending your time learning something new vs perfecting it.
Again the counter proposal you suggested is a positive change too so I'm for it and I like Dawnshard's counter as well. I just feel like a Fighter should be the best with what they spend their time learning just like a Wizard should have more spells and slots because, well, its what they spend time mastering.