Just to be clear, the Champion doesn't get MORE attacks than any other fighter subclass. The Champion has more CHANCES of critting on the same amount of attacks as other fighter subclasses.
The problem with Champion as a fighter archetype is that the fighter class itself is poorly equipped to utilize those juicy crits.
More, smaller attacks typically means only 1 or 2 dice get added onto each crit, and having such high amounts of attacks encourages increasing the damage modifier, which doesn't get doubled on a crit; it's why PAM+GWM and CbE+SS fighters are a thing, and neither of them really benefit from being on a Champion.
One situation that comes to mind that the Champion definitely beats the other two is the drawn-out HAM slugfest; the others have likely exhausted their resources over 10+ rounds while the Champion continues to whale on them, regenerating HP while crits continue to throw out extra dice.
However, this ideal scenario can almost never happen as level 18 games are very rare and D&D is a resource management game, encouraging teams to end fights as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Combat encounters are treated as DPR races, so BMs likely blow all their dice over 2-3 rounds to minimize healing afterwards. They then take a short rest and get everything back; rinse, repeat. In comparison, the Champion crits maybe once more than the BM, doing 1d8-10 or 2d6s more than than a baseline fighter vs BM's 4d8.
This is basically what it boils down to....BM and the rest just have better damage output due to the nature of how the game is actually played vs. how they thought it would be played.
They said 6-8 encounters a day with 2 short rests is the design intent but nobody does that.
Its generally 1-2 fights a day and even then a short rest between the two is common (at least from what I saw in AL and my own tables).
HOWEVER if you do the 6-8 deal it does start to shine at the end of the day (I have seen this once before in a hardcore gritty game)
The Greatsword is not particularly great for a Champion. Because GWM +10 damage doesn't mutliply on a crit, Champions are less likely to be GWM+PAM or CBE+Sharpshooter builds than almost any other fighter at all. What Champions are good at, is Two Weapon Fighting, or multiclassing with classes that already have heavy action-economy commitments, or making attacks that add bonus d6's from other sources, or synergizing with Half Orc or Barbarian crit enhancements on d12 Greataxes, or reliably applying the new Crusher/Slasher crit debuffs. Fighter/Rogues, for example, are not usually a very good build, because rogue levels slow the Fighter down from picking up more Extra Attack, and fighter levels slow the Rogue down from picking up more sneak attack d6's. A Champion/Rogue, however, may be able to find some sweet spots on the damage curve where their increased chances to crit and increased number of attacks versus a pure rogue cause them to pull a bit ahead, or at least even while also benefiting from added Fighter defensiveness.
I don't think Champions are "bad", they're a great choice for players that don't want to deal with hardly ANY resource management, and who just want to make basic attacks better. Plenty of players are interested in that, and if you do play with a DM who puts the party through a lot of fights in a day (like an old school dungeon crawl campaign?), they can really shine.
Perfectly true. All the same, even a crit fishing build is unlikely to be fishing for the 4.5 to 7 damage of a weapon's crit dice alone, but rather for things like smite doubling, Crusher/Slasher debuffs, or doubling other bonus d6's piled onto the attack. An extra attack per round to deliver that baggage will be worth more to most crit fisher's than losing 2.5 damage per crit.
Perfectly true. All the same, even a crit fishing build is unlikely to be fishing for the 4.5 to 7 damage of a weapon's crit dice alone, but rather for things like smite doubling, Crusher/Slasher debuffs, or doubling other bonus d6's piled onto the attack.
True, though I was mostly looking at the Champion by itself as the 'simple' choice, not as a dip and not with feats. I would point out that crit fishing with GWM gives you an extra attack as a bonus action.
True, though I was mostly looking at the Champion by itself as the 'simple' choice, not as a dip and not with feats. I would point out that crit fishing with GWM gives you an extra attack as a bonus action.
I will confess... I had entirely forgotten that GWM even had that feature. You're right!
*stares back quizically, in flame tongue longsword * ?
C’mon, you know 2d6 is stronger than 1d10. (Statistically speaking 2d6 is stronger than 1d12 too.) A crit for 8d6+ is a minimum of 8+, and an average of 28+ damage. But the flame tongue longsword is only 6+ min and 25+ on average. And with the great weapon fighting style, to re-roll 1s & 2s… 33% of d6 will get that re-roll, upping the average damage from 28+ to 34+ damage per attack. But only 20% of the d10s would get the benefit of that re-roll. So an 11th level Champion with three attacks per turn and a flame tongue Greatsword would be cranking out on average 52+++ on three hits, or 34.666++ on two hits, or 64+++ on two hits and a crit for 138.66 plus 7(+) damage over three rounds. The longsword is closer to 114.5 plus 7(+).
The Greatsword is pulling around 24 more damage than the Longsword over three rounds in this situation.
24 over 3 rounds? That’s a funny way of saying “8 damage per round” or “2.5 damage per attack” which is… what I already said? :p
And which is probably either outweighed by (A) a shield, or (B) an offhand bonus attack with a second weapon (which admittedly probably isn’t a flame tongue) that will do more than 2.5.
But all that aside, yeah, big weapon Crits are fun! Be a champion/berserker half orc with a Greataxe, and really lean into stupid fun (emphasis on stupid) crits!
The Greatsword is not particularly great for a Champion. Because GWM +10 damage doesn't mutliply on a crit, Champions are less likely to be GWM+PAM or CBE+Sharpshooter builds than almost any other fighter at all. What Champions are good at, is Two Weapon Fighting, or multiclassing with classes that already have heavy action-economy commitments, or making attacks that add bonus d6's from other sources, or synergizing with Half Orc or Barbarian crit enhancements on d12 Greataxes, or reliably applying the new Crusher/Slasher crit debuffs.
Hold up. There's a difference between GWM/SS's bonus being less beneficial for a Champion, and other builds being better than GWM/SS. Crits still make up the minority of your attacks, crit-based bonuses still apply to non-Champions half the time (or 1/3 of the time at 15+), and some subclasses have their own bonuses that Champion lacks (e.g. Battle Masters can use Superiority Dice on crits, Arcane Archers can do the same with Arcane Shots, Eldritch Knights can cast Shadow Blade.) So while I don't have the time to prove it right now, it's extremely implausible that going all in on crits will outperform the things that are already known to work best on all other fighters.
If anyone wants to submit builds below level 15 for me to crunch numbers on later, though, I'd be happy to show the results.
I don't think Champions are "bad", they're a great choice for players that don't want to deal with hardly ANY resource management, and who just want to make basic attacks better. Plenty of players are interested in that, and if you do play with a DM who puts the party through a lot of fights in a day (like an old school dungeon crawl campaign?), they can really shine.
I 100% agree there's a useful niche for no-complexity Fighter builds, I just don't think Champion does enough to really let anyone shine beyond what the Fighter's base features already do. Even in some sort of drawn out dungeon crawl, I doubt it's possible to reach the point where the Champion overtakes other subclasses before the rest of the party is so worn out there's no choice but to rest. Barring any homebrew fixes, I think Banneret/Purple Dragon Knight and Samurai do a better job of giving players a basic Fighter. I know people think PDK sucks, but if we're assuming no min-maxing, Rallying Cry definitely brings more to the table than Improved Critical.
The Greatsword is not particularly great for a Champion. Because GWM +10 damage doesn't mutliply on a crit, Champions are less likely to be GWM+PAM or CBE+Sharpshooter builds than almost any other fighter at all. What Champions are good at, is Two Weapon Fighting, or multiclassing with classes that already have heavy action-economy commitments, or making attacks that add bonus d6's from other sources, or synergizing with Half Orc or Barbarian crit enhancements on d12 Greataxes, or reliably applying the new Crusher/Slasher crit debuffs.
Hold up. There's a difference between GWM/SS's bonus being less beneficial for a Champion, and other builds being better than GWM/SS. Crits still make up the minority of your attacks, crit-based bonuses still apply to non-Champions half the time (or 1/3 of the time at 15+), and some subclasses have their own bonuses that Champion lacks (e.g. Battle Masters can use Superiority Dice on crits, Arcane Archers can do the same with Arcane Shots, Eldritch Knights can cast Shadow Blade.) So while I don't have the time to prove it right now, it's extremely implausible that going all in on crits will outperform the things that are already known to work best on all other fighters.
If anyone wants to submit builds below level 15 for me to crunch numbers on later, though, I'd be happy to show the results.
I don't think Champions are "bad", they're a great choice for players that don't want to deal with hardly ANY resource management, and who just want to make basic attacks better. Plenty of players are interested in that, and if you do play with a DM who puts the party through a lot of fights in a day (like an old school dungeon crawl campaign?), they can really shine.
I 100% agree there's a useful niche for no-complexity Fighter builds, I just don't think Champion does enough to really let anyone shine beyond what the Fighter's base features already do. Even in some sort of drawn out dungeon crawl, I doubt it's possible to reach the point where the Champion overtakes other subclasses before the rest of the party is so worn out there's no choice but to rest. Barring any homebrew fixes, I think Banneret/Purple Dragon Knight and Samurai do a better job of giving players a basic Fighter. I know people think PDK sucks, but if we're assuming no min-maxing, Rallying Cry definitely brings more to the table than Improved Critical.
Yup..
I feel like at least PDK is doing something useful other than just sightly almost Imperceptible damage increase.
The “don’t play it unless it’s the best” mentality is really harmful for D&D, even though I love optimization and theory crafting, finding ways to use a feature to its full effect can be satisfying, without needing to consider if some OTHER feature or class is superior at the same role.
The “don’t play it unless it’s the best” mentality is really harmful for D&D, even though I love optimization and theory crafting, finding ways to use a feature to its full effect can be satisfying, without needing to consider if some OTHER feature or class is superior at the same role.
The thing about the subclass is it's not good at what it does and doesn't do much for the party either...
You don't have to be the best but you also don't have to be the worst...
The problem with "best and worst" is if the Champion were to be reworked to be better, then there would be a BEST and a new WORST. Instead of pooing on the Champion, there would be new threads pooing on the new worst subclass with calls to "make it better". The cycle would continue like this and voila! Power Creep.
Champion gets much better with advantage (10% crit -> 19%, 15% -> 27.75% @15th!), so taking Grappler at 4th level is quite effective. People can argue to just shove to prone, but then you'd make your allied archers/spell attack casters suffer disadvantage on their rolls.
The “don’t play it unless it’s the best” mentality is really harmful for D&D, even though I love optimization and theory crafting, finding ways to use a feature to its full effect can be satisfying, without needing to consider if some OTHER feature or class is superior at the same role.
No one's saying "don't play it unless it's best." I'm saying Champion is a trap. If someone wants to intentionally play a weak character, that's their business, but at least it's an informed choice. Champion is presented as an equal alternative to Eldritch Knight and Battle Master and a new player doesn't have the tools to understand why it's not. The game does players a disservice by having an option that's significantly worse, just like it'd be a disservice to have one option that's much better than everything else.
The problem with "best and worst" is if the Champion were to be reworked to be better, then there would be a BEST and a new WORST. Instead of pooing on the Champion, there would be new threads pooing on the new worst subclass with calls to "make it better". The cycle would continue like this and voila! Power Creep.
You're assuming all subclasses are roughly equal in power and Champion just happens to be the one at the bottom. But Champion is a significant outlier; there's wide a gap between it and everything else, and moving Champion back into the middle of the pack doesn't create a new outlier, or push anyone else above the current best. The power creep argument is a non-sequitur.
Just to be clear, the Champion doesn't get MORE attacks than any other fighter subclass. The Champion has more CHANCES of critting on the same amount of attacks as other fighter subclasses.
This is basically what it boils down to....BM and the rest just have better damage output due to the nature of how the game is actually played vs. how they thought it would be played.
They said 6-8 encounters a day with 2 short rests is the design intent but nobody does that.
Its generally 1-2 fights a day and even then a short rest between the two is common (at least from what I saw in AL and my own tables).
HOWEVER if you do the 6-8 deal it does start to shine at the end of the day (I have seen this once before in a hardcore gritty game)
No, it really doesn't shine even if built like the DMG expects.
Let's assume 6 Attack actions (5 rounds, one action surge) per short rest, and using a greatsword because that's the best for the champion
At level 18+ in super long fights where Survivor becomes relevant the champion can pull ahead, but that's not a case that comes up much if ever.
Fair... Even worse than I thought then!
The Greatsword is not particularly great for a Champion. Because GWM +10 damage doesn't mutliply on a crit, Champions are less likely to be GWM+PAM or CBE+Sharpshooter builds than almost any other fighter at all. What Champions are good at, is Two Weapon Fighting, or multiclassing with classes that already have heavy action-economy commitments, or making attacks that add bonus d6's from other sources, or synergizing with Half Orc or Barbarian crit enhancements on d12 Greataxes, or reliably applying the new Crusher/Slasher crit debuffs. Fighter/Rogues, for example, are not usually a very good build, because rogue levels slow the Fighter down from picking up more Extra Attack, and fighter levels slow the Rogue down from picking up more sneak attack d6's. A Champion/Rogue, however, may be able to find some sweet spots on the damage curve where their increased chances to crit and increased number of attacks versus a pure rogue cause them to pull a bit ahead, or at least even while also benefiting from added Fighter defensiveness.
I don't think Champions are "bad", they're a great choice for players that don't want to deal with hardly ANY resource management, and who just want to make basic attacks better. Plenty of players are interested in that, and if you do play with a DM who puts the party through a lot of fights in a day (like an old school dungeon crawl campaign?), they can really shine.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
The extra dice from a crit are equal to your weapon damage, so it's 2d6 with a greatsword. 2WF gives more total crits but they're smaller.
Perfectly true. All the same, even a crit fishing build is unlikely to be fishing for the 4.5 to 7 damage of a weapon's crit dice alone, but rather for things like smite doubling, Crusher/Slasher debuffs, or doubling other bonus d6's piled onto the attack. An extra attack per round to deliver that baggage will be worth more to most crit fisher's than losing 2.5 damage per crit.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
True, though I was mostly looking at the Champion by itself as the 'simple' choice, not as a dip and not with feats. I would point out that crit fishing with GWM gives you an extra attack as a bonus action.
*Ehem* (🤨 Stares at you in flame tongue greatsword. Hard.)
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*stares back quizically, in flame tongue longsword * ?
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I will confess... I had entirely forgotten that GWM even had that feature. You're right!
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
C’mon, you know 2d6 is stronger than 1d10. (Statistically speaking 2d6 is stronger than 1d12 too.) A crit for 8d6+ is a minimum of 8+, and an average of 28+ damage. But the flame tongue longsword is only 6+ min and 25+ on average. And with the great weapon fighting style, to re-roll 1s & 2s… 33% of d6 will get that re-roll, upping the average damage from 28+ to 34+ damage per attack. But only 20% of the d10s would get the benefit of that re-roll. So an 11th level Champion with three attacks per turn and a flame tongue Greatsword would be cranking out on average 52+++ on three hits, or 34.666++ on two hits, or 64+++ on two hits and a crit for 138.66 plus 7(+) damage over three rounds. The longsword is closer to 114.5 plus 7(+).
The Greatsword is pulling around 24 more damage than the Longsword over three rounds in this situation.
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24 over 3 rounds? That’s a funny way of saying “8 damage per round” or “2.5 damage per attack” which is… what I already said? :p
And which is probably either outweighed by (A) a shield, or (B) an offhand bonus attack with a second weapon (which admittedly probably isn’t a flame tongue) that will do more than 2.5.
But all that aside, yeah, big weapon Crits are fun! Be a champion/berserker half orc with a Greataxe, and really lean into stupid fun (emphasis on stupid) crits!
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Hold up. There's a difference between GWM/SS's bonus being less beneficial for a Champion, and other builds being better than GWM/SS. Crits still make up the minority of your attacks, crit-based bonuses still apply to non-Champions half the time (or 1/3 of the time at 15+), and some subclasses have their own bonuses that Champion lacks (e.g. Battle Masters can use Superiority Dice on crits, Arcane Archers can do the same with Arcane Shots, Eldritch Knights can cast Shadow Blade.) So while I don't have the time to prove it right now, it's extremely implausible that going all in on crits will outperform the things that are already known to work best on all other fighters.
If anyone wants to submit builds below level 15 for me to crunch numbers on later, though, I'd be happy to show the results.
I 100% agree there's a useful niche for no-complexity Fighter builds, I just don't think Champion does enough to really let anyone shine beyond what the Fighter's base features already do. Even in some sort of drawn out dungeon crawl, I doubt it's possible to reach the point where the Champion overtakes other subclasses before the rest of the party is so worn out there's no choice but to rest. Barring any homebrew fixes, I think Banneret/Purple Dragon Knight and Samurai do a better job of giving players a basic Fighter. I know people think PDK sucks, but if we're assuming no min-maxing, Rallying Cry definitely brings more to the table than Improved Critical.
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Yup..
I feel like at least PDK is doing something useful other than just sightly almost Imperceptible damage increase.
The “don’t play it unless it’s the best” mentality is really harmful for D&D, even though I love optimization and theory crafting, finding ways to use a feature to its full effect can be satisfying, without needing to consider if some OTHER feature or class is superior at the same role.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
The thing about the subclass is it's not good at what it does and doesn't do much for the party either...
You don't have to be the best but you also don't have to be the worst...
The problem with "best and worst" is if the Champion were to be reworked to be better, then there would be a BEST and a new WORST. Instead of pooing on the Champion, there would be new threads pooing on the new worst subclass with calls to "make it better". The cycle would continue like this and voila! Power Creep.
Champion gets much better with advantage (10% crit -> 19%, 15% -> 27.75% @15th!), so taking Grappler at 4th level is quite effective. People can argue to just shove to prone, but then you'd make your allied archers/spell attack casters suffer disadvantage on their rolls.
No one's saying "don't play it unless it's best." I'm saying Champion is a trap. If someone wants to intentionally play a weak character, that's their business, but at least it's an informed choice. Champion is presented as an equal alternative to Eldritch Knight and Battle Master and a new player doesn't have the tools to understand why it's not. The game does players a disservice by having an option that's significantly worse, just like it'd be a disservice to have one option that's much better than everything else.
You're assuming all subclasses are roughly equal in power and Champion just happens to be the one at the bottom. But Champion is a significant outlier; there's wide a gap between it and everything else, and moving Champion back into the middle of the pack doesn't create a new outlier, or push anyone else above the current best. The power creep argument is a non-sequitur.
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