In fairness to SeanJP though generally speaking on the forums we tend to work from an assumption of RAW because of course every table is different...but if the Tips & Tactics discussed have a foundational basis in RAW then it is more likely to work at all tables. While it is not surprising that your DM made some rulings that aren't raw (and sound like they follow rule of cool, so good on him), it does mean that your experience may not be duplicable at other tables where similar rulings are not made.
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Founding Member of the High Roller Society.(Currently trying to roll max on 4d6)
you missed the entire point. I got incredibly lucky that campaign and rolled extraordinarily well one of the reason why I noted all my rolls made.
you can't kick a bucket as a bonus action, are you the DM of my game, not everything is rules as written the DM decided kicking a bucket was a bonus action and so it was.
again "calling shots" may not be rules as written can get stuffed if dm says he want it.
the core of my point is that DnD is countless number of scenarios in and out of game, where damage is not the only factor that makes a good subclass. and that the dice don't always roll average.
The larger the sample size the more statistically unlikely the numbers are to deviate from the average, and 90 sessions is a pretty large sample size. What you claimed with that sample size, to be blunt, I'm not buying it. Especially after you said, "about" 568 crits, and then you said only half were attack rolls. You never answered: how do you crit without an attack roll?
I agree damage is not the only factor for a good subclass, but the Champion brings little else to the table than more damage.
again "calling shots" may not be rules as written can get stuffed if dm says he want it.
the core of my point is that DnD is countless number of scenarios in and out of game, where damage is not the only factor that makes a good subclass. and that the dice don't always roll average.
There's no question that the fast-talk DM skill is amazingly powerful, but it's not terribly relevant to rules discussions. As for dice not rolling average, over the duration of a campaign, that generally indicates biased dice or die rolling, and, yes, cheating (even if you don't know you're doing it) is also amazingly powerful.
I see alot of people saying that the Champion isnt that good. Or bringing up RAW instead of understanding what the one person stated on his experience with the Champion, and while I do agree that RAW is important for determining things the kid brings up alot of great points that are overlooked here.
It matters how the player plays a character.
So to iterate how powerful a Champion fighter can be let me tell you a Story from Adventure League I had with a Player playing a Champion Fighter during Curse of Strahd. As a side not before we begin all rules were under RAW to the letter, our story is not though because the DM had to get creative because of how bad we were steam rolling encounters, I guess thats what happens though when all the players are optimizers for what they want their character to be and do.
We had been pissing off Strahd the entire campaign mainly because we refused to do anything he stated and were absolutely steam roling encounters. The player in question had to make a new character because his had gotten turned into a Werewolf. We meet his new character around lvl 5. I had just royally pissed of Strahd and had taken off running back to the group after going off on my own to finish something. The DM the previous game had tried to teach my Protector Aasimar Zealot Barbarian the folly of going off on ones own by have a pack of wolves attack me. There were 5. I killed each one a single turn and escaped virtually unharmed. On to the session in question now the background is set.
I encountered Strahd as he and his henchman confronted me by myself in the middle of the woods seperated from the party. Strahd tried appealing to my character to work with him to no avail. I took off running. Got hit by 5 fireballs in the process and went unconscious. This is where we first mean the new character the group had joined up with. He was a Were Hunter. A Champion Fighter polearm master that only had his silvered polearm. Strahd brought my unconscious body before the group and demanded for our insolence someone had to die. They had to pick. Me or someone else in the group. The group attacked to get me back up. I quickly went back down. The Champion fighter during this engagement walked up to Strahds Nightmare and single handedly proceeded to murder the shit out of it alone. He then turned his attention to Strahd himself and proceeded to smack him so badly Strahd fled because he almost died.
Needless to say this campaign continued. We were now level 8 in Strahds Castle rolling through it like Moonknight walked through Dracula's Castle. At this point My character had died and was replaced by my main Paladin, those of you who have been in my discussions before on the Paladin side know whom I'm talking of, after my glorious barbarian met his fate fighting 20 wolves trying to escort kids back to a village alone. Regardless after some death defying events in the tower where Strahd has the heart. Strahd decided to attack us, not learning his less from the last time he fought the Champion. The Champion fighter again singlehandedly beat Strahd so badly the Heart shattered to keep him alive. Strahd fled to recover. Shortly later the bunch of us discovered where Strahd and some henchmen were and proceeded to kill him so fast the DM didnt have an opportunity to really do anything.
The point of the Story is the Champion Fighter when played right is a force to be reckoned with. To further clarify this here was our party composition at the End. Only 2 characters were killed throughout the campaign, mine because of my own actions. One character was changed because the original chose to leave the party as he was after something else. We had my Oath of Devotion Paladin, the Champion fighter Were hunter, a Champion Fighter crossbowman, a Divine Sorcerer, a Rogue Assassin, and an Eldritch Knight. The DM had to deviate from the book as the Normal encounters were entirely to easy for our group. Infact per the DMG he was making Deadly Encounters from lvl 3 onwards because we steam rolled those as well. This was because of how we made our characters, how we played them, and how we worked as a team.
I see alot of people saying that the Champion isnt that good. Or bringing up RAW instead of understanding what the one person stated on his experience with the Champion, and while I do agree that RAW is important for determining things the kid brings up alot of great points that are overlooked here.
It matters how the player plays a character.
So to iterate how powerful a Champion fighter can be let me tell you a Story from Adventure League I had with a Player playing a Champion Fighter during Curse of Strahd. As a side not before we begin all rules were under RAW to the letter, our story is not though because the DM had to get creative because of how bad we were steam rolling encounters, I guess thats what happens though when all the players are optimizers for what they want their character to be and do.
We had been pissing off Strahd the entire campaign mainly because we refused to do anything he stated and were absolutely steam roling encounters. The player in question had to make a new character because his had gotten turned into a Werewolf. We meet his new character around lvl 5. I had just royally pissed of Strahd and had taken off running back to the group after going off on my own to finish something. The DM the previous game had tried to teach my Protector Aasimar Zealot Barbarian the folly of going off on ones own by have a pack of wolves attack me. There were 5. I killed each one a single turn and escaped virtually unharmed. On to the session in question now the background is set.
I encountered Strahd as he and his henchman confronted me by myself in the middle of the woods seperated from the party. Strahd tried appealing to my character to work with him to no avail. I took off running. Got hit by 5 fireballs in the process and went unconscious. This is where we first mean the new character the group had joined up with. He was a Were Hunter. A Champion Fighter polearm master that only had his silvered polearm. Strahd brought my unconscious body before the group and demanded for our insolence someone had to die. They had to pick. Me or someone else in the group. The group attacked to get me back up. I quickly went back down. The Champion fighter during this engagement walked up to Strahds Nightmare and single handedly proceeded to murder the shit out of it alone. He then turned his attention to Strahd himself and proceeded to smack him so badly Strahd fled because he almost died.
Needless to say this campaign continued. We were now level 8 in Strahds Castle rolling through it like Moonknight walked through Dracula's Castle. At this point My character had died and was replaced by my main Paladin, those of you who have been in my discussions before on the Paladin side know whom I'm talking of, after my glorious barbarian met his fate fighting 20 wolves trying to escort kids back to a village alone. Regardless after some death defying events in the tower where Strahd has the heart. Strahd decided to attack us, not learning his less from the last time he fought the Champion. The Champion fighter again singlehandedly beat Strahd so badly the Heart shattered to keep him alive. Strahd fled to recover. Shortly later the bunch of us discovered where Strahd and some henchmen were and proceeded to kill him so fast the DM didnt have an opportunity to really do anything.
The point of the Story is the Champion Fighter when played right is a force to be reckoned with. To further clarify this here was our party composition at the End. Only 2 characters were killed throughout the campaign, mine because of my own actions. One character was changed because the original chose to leave the party as he was after something else. We had my Oath of Devotion Paladin, the Champion fighter Were hunter, a Champion Fighter crossbowman, a Divine Sorcerer, a Rogue Assassin, and an Eldritch Knight. The DM had to deviate from the book as the Normal encounters were entirely to easy for our group. Infact per the DMG he was making Deadly Encounters from lvl 3 onwards because we steam rolled those as well. This was because of how we made our characters, how we played them, and how we worked as a team.
My problem with these stories are they are a N=1 experience....and honestly based on what you are describing I have about 100 questions on how that could happen just based on math alone how this shouldn't have happened.
A level 8 fighter should wreck a nightmare (its a CR 3 and a bit of a weak one at that)....but they can enter the etheral plane at will and take Strahd there....they could just move him to the plane until their turn, bring him back, and wreck you....or you know just leave.
If the DM almost lost Strahd to a level 8 PC champion....they honestly do not know how to play him. If you tried to take him on alone you should have been dead...and easily so.
I honestly cannot take this story seriously and its nothing against you....but its just so unlikely in 99.999% of scenarios that I cannot fathom how that would be remotely the case.
I am not saying you are lying but honestly I do not see how the DM didn't just let this happen as a cool way for the story to unfold but strahd has so many tools to deal with a champion fighter that they simply cannot counter that there is about 0% chance they could solo him in ANY fashion IMO.
I think the issue with Champion is that they nerfed crit. I used to play nwn and nwn2, which was older versions of D&D. For those that know the 3.5 rules, they might not need to read this. But those that joined in 5e, might not know how it used to work.
Weapons was a bit different. They had different crit ranges and damage modifiers. Some crit on 20, others on 19-20 and a couple on 18-20. Some did x2 damage. Others di x3 and scyth did x4 damage.
Back then feat and stat improvement was 2 seperate things. But you also got 1 stat point every 4th level. But there was a feat that doubled the crit range of the weapon. So
20 -> 19-20
19-20 -> 17-20
18-20 -> 15-20
Back then, everything got multiplied. 2handed weapons damage was 1.5 of str modifier (i recall you could get higher than 20 in a stat. Plus the game went up to level 30).
There was a feat that added +2 damage to that weapon type.
There was a feat called power attack, gave you a -3 to hit but +3 to damage, and a improved version where the stats was -6/+6 the damage was doubled if you used a 2-handed weapon. There was a class called Frenzy berserker, which increased them even more. so supreme power attack would give you +24 damage, if you used a 2-handed weapon.
if you had a + weapon, that damage would also be multipied.
Instead of champion, the game had weapon master. It increased your crit range with +2. So with the feat as well, you could end up with these crit ranges:
20 -> 17-20
19-20 -> 15-20
18-20 -> 13-20
Now, the class also would end up increasing your multiplier, so x2 -> x3. x3 -> x4 and x4 -> x5
There was also a feat that would add a little extra damage on crit. I had a fighter/weapon master/ frenzied berserker with a scyth, and a +4 (i think that was the weapon i used), that would crit almost 300 damage. I had 5 attacks with a crit range of 18-20
Back then, you had as many attacks with your off hand weapon as your main hand. I had a ranger/weapon master, with 5 attacks on main hand and off hand. I could cast flame weapon on both weapons. My weapons might have been +3. I did about 100 crit damage on main hand, and 70-80 on off hand. I had a crit range of 15-20.
Crit was way more impactful and fun back then :)
I just wanted to give an idea of why the class might not be nearly as good, as it's previous version of it. It's the nerfing of crit
I think the issue with Champion is that they nerfed crit. I used to play nwn and nwn2, which was older versions of D&D. For those that know the 3.5 rules, they might not need to read this. But those that joined in 5e, might not know how it used to work.
Weapons was a bit different. They had different crit ranges and damage modifiers. Some crit on 20, others on 19-20 and a couple on 18-20. Some did x2 damage. Others di x3 and scyth did x4 damage.
Back then feat and stat improvement was 2 seperate things. But you also got 1 stat point every 4th level. But there was a feat that doubled the crit range of the weapon. So
20 -> 19-20
19-20 -> 17-20
18-20 -> 15-20
Back then, everything got multiplied. 2handed weapons damage was 1.5 of str modifier (i recall you could get higher than 20 in a stat. Plus the game went up to level 30).
There was a feat that added +2 damage to that weapon type.
There was a feat called power attack, gave you a -3 to hit but +3 to damage, and a improved version where the stats was -6/+6 the damage was doubled if you used a 2-handed weapon. There was a class called Frenzy berserker, which increased them even more. so supreme power attack would give you +24 damage, if you used a 2-handed weapon.
if you had a + weapon, that damage would also be multipied.
Instead of champion, the game had weapon master. It increased your crit range with +2. So with the feat as well, you could end up with these crit ranges:
20 -> 17-20
19-20 -> 15-20
18-20 -> 13-20
Now, the class also would end up increasing your multiplier, so x2 -> x3. x3 -> x4 and x4 -> x5
There was also a feat that would add a little extra damage on crit. I had a fighter/weapon master/ frenzied berserker with a scyth, and a +4 (i think that was the weapon i used), that would crit almost 300 damage. I had 5 attacks with a crit range of 18-20
Back then, you had as many attacks with your off hand weapon as your main hand. I had a ranger/weapon master, with 5 attacks on main hand and off hand. I could cast flame weapon on both weapons. My weapons might have been +3. I did about 100 crit damage on main hand, and 70-80 on off hand. I had a crit range of 15-20.
Crit was way more impactful and fun back then :)
I just wanted to give an idea of why the class might not be nearly as good, as it's previous version of it. It's the nerfing of crit
Interesting, I didn't play 3.5 and didn't know any of that. In 5e, the crit is only really important if you have extra dice to be doubled somehow, besides just your regular weapon dice. So a paladin's crit is made very impressive by being able to do double the smite damage. A 1st level spell slot smite doing 2d8 damage is nice, but fantastic on a crit doing 4d8 damage (and if against a fiend or undead an even more impressive 6d8)! The champion subclass has nothing that will crit outside of their base weapon damage. So can be made better by something like choosing half orc or getting a weapon like a flametongue which has more dice to double. But outside of that, the expanded crit range is nice, but not really game changing.
Also, as has been noted about crits, they're unreliable i.e. you may crit when you really don't need to and never crit on the big boss fight when you want to. Crits are a function of luck. Something like a battlemaster may be able to throw on a superiority die that does as much damage as your crit would have done AND have a secondary effect on the foe. It's just far more reliable.
I generally agree that Champion is a suboptimal choice.
Fighters have a lot of relatively complex subclasses, sure, and champion is the least complex. If you're dead set on simple, I'd be worried as the DM, because my narratives aren't simple, and if you aren't following the story you aren't likely to enjoy the kind of games I'd host. Not that such would be unwelcome at my table, but it would feel like a red flag.
Now I wouldn't be worried about choosing Champion as your subclass.
Each character is a build, you are making many considerations about gear, feats, class and subclass, race, and background.
Champion's crit feature ultimately boils down to around 5% increase in damage by average. There are situations where that 5% will be more total increase than a BM's manoeuvres. I think such a situation is quite rare, but not impossible.
This said, the Champion is great if you're making a crit BUILD. For example if you are multiclassing into paladin or warlock to where you have smites, you are getting more bang for your buck than the 5% implies.
Battlemasters crit, and superiority dice seem to be great if you crit, but you can't fish for it like a warlock or a paladin can, because you spend the die whether you hit or not, where smites are triggered by a hit.
This means Champions are a really powerful option for cross class paladins and warlocks (who might use hexblade's curse for the same effect, but which doesn't stack and isn't applied to every attack)
Throw in half orc, crit-related feats, some source of reliable advantage, and some other on-hit triggers like sneak attack, and champion starts to look pretty good.
By itself it is both dull and weak. Not so weak that you can't use it in a party, that's down to your DM, your table, and your imagination.
Just know going in that making the most of this subclass is likely going to involve multiclassing.
Battlemasters crit, and superiority dice seem to be great if you crit, but you can't fish for it like a warlock or a paladin can, because you spend the die whether you hit or not, where smites are triggered by a hit.
This means Champions are a really powerful option for cross class paladins and warlocks (who might use hexblade's curse for the same effect, but which doesn't stack and isn't applied to every attack)
I just wanted to reply to this... most Battlemaster maneuvers are actually triggered on-hit, so you mostly won't waste your Superiority Dice on missed hits. I think the big difference is that not every Battlemaster Maneuver functions in the same way. For example, Precision Attack only improves your to-hit chance, and doesn't deal any additional damage and thus has to be applied before you know whether the attack hits or misses. Then you also have stuff like Commanding Presence, which only gives a boost to CHA checks and would be very hard to actually utilize in battle. That all said, the greater majority of maneuvers just trigger "When you hit a creature with a weapon attack", so landing a successful hit has to happen before you decide whether or not to apply those maneuvers to the attack.
There are crit-fishers builds that make champion look decent, but they generally don't really come on line until you get your 18-20 crit at level 15 and thus aren't particularly relevant to most campaigns.
Apologies if this isn't relevant or already covered... I read the first page or two and the last page of this thread. I did a big simulation of the champion's damage compared to the base fighter damage per *round* of combat, and plotted the increased damage as a percent increase. It's actually lower than the 5% and 10% most people come up with assuming no other abilities or bonuses were used. Other things that give extra attacks on crits, or extra abilities on crits wasn't accounted for. I also used 5e rules not 5.5e, although I've read they didn't get any damage buffs in 5.5e. I only posted the greataxe results, but I can upload greatsword and longsword if people want.
For the people who want to know the simulation parameters 50,000 round iterations for every weapon/level/magic bonus/advantage type I used a stack overflow thread I accidently closed the tab for for monster AC, someone calculated average ACs at each CR. I used the same CR as champion level. I used an attack skill modifier of 3 at level 3, 4 at levels 5-7, and 5 at 8 and above
These are the results. A few conclusions to draw. 1) the 5/10% increase people quote is too optimistic, it's closer to 4/9% unless you have advantage or disadvantage or a magical weapon. With a +3 magic weapon, you're looking at 3/6% damage increase. 2) disadvantage hurts a lot more than advantage helps (in some cases disadvantage completely negates the champion's extra damage), so champion fighters should focus on not getting disadvantage as opposed to getting advantage, blind fighting is probably a style champions will want. 3) magic weapons reduce the damage bonus champions get. 4) greatsword and greataxe give about the same damage increase, longswords shouldn't be used by champions at all. No magic bonus a longsword is on par for damage *increase* (not total damage), but drops sharply with magic weapons. 5) the idea that a crit at 19 or 18 lets you overcome AC and hit when you would miss is invalid. There's no level that a fighter wouldn't hit on an 18 unless they dumped their primary stat. If you hold the view that you need a crit to hit at 18, then I'd love to know the monster and character level of that fight. 6) personally, I think champions need an extra buff to damage since that is basically the class's whole deal, and I am disappointed WoTC didn't give them any in 5.5e.
Sorry but I suspect that everyone over the 29 pages has been looking at this a bit off - there actually is no “baseline” fighter/rogue/ranger/wizard/etc - the first subclass for each class represents the “baseline” so Sean’s initial arguments about the champion vs the “baseline” lead us off into a quagmire. As he says - “because the fighter class is good the champion is good”. Are the subclass abilities extraordinary? No - because they aren’t supposed to be, they ARE the baseline that the other subclasses are being compared to. It’s really here is the fighter- if you want something special here are some options that you can substitute in at these levels to create a different kind of fighter. Think of the marines “every marine a rifleman” but some go on to be tankers, pilots, artillerists or many other specialties- but when push comes to shove everyone of them is capable of picking up a rifle and performing superbly with it. Personally I’ve never really liked the lockstep subclasses of the very version, give me a list of possible alternatives I can substitute in at selected points - special training course if you will.
Sorry but I suspect that everyone over the 29 pages has been looking at this a bit off - there actually is no “baseline” fighter/rogue/ranger/wizard/etc
Yeah there is. "Baseline" is "If the character had no subclass features at all, what would they look like?" This isn't actually a possible character, but it's what is meant by baseline.
When compared to the other two PHB fighters, it doesn't scale well at higher levels. How many campaigns go past level 11?
Does your table frequently have advantage (flanking, faerie fire, etctra)? Now you crit 20% of attacks instead of 10%.
Dual wielder feat at level four gives you two attacks while maximizing AC. This becomes three chances to proc the ork extra damage on a crit. Is this a tank or a dps character?
Does your table follow the adventuring day in the DMG? 5-10 fights per long rest burns up those amazing spell slots for the eldritch knight in a hurry. Being the situationally weakest subclass isn't a terrible thing unless your table leans into the weakest situation.
Why is this thread being resurrected when there is nothing new being discussed here? Shouldn’t we be talking about the new champion from the 2024 PhB, which did receive some notable buffs, or not all?
’Fighters gain Remarkable Athlete at the third level instead of 7th, and it's been reworked completely. In the absence of Remarkable Athletes, Champions get an additional Fighting Style at seventh level instead. At the 10th level, Champions gain Heroic Warrior, a new feature.’
Remarkable Athlete (Lv3)
You have advantage on Initiative rolls and Strength checks. Plus, when you score a critical hit, you can move up to half your speed without triggering opportunity attacks.
Additional Fighting Style (Lv7)
As the name says – gain an extra fighting style feat.
Heroic Warrior (lv10)
If you start your turn without Heroic Inspiration, you can automatically give it to yourself.’
source: Wargamer
I think the most easily underestimated of these is the additional Fighting Style, especially with Weapon Masteries. There are many ways to combo more than one Fighting Style into a build and often this leads to a significant bump in damage. For example Two-Weapon Fighting and Thrown Weapon Fighting
If you start your turn without Heroic Inspiration, you can automatically give it to yourself.’
Personally, I think this feature is also a really good one. While it seems simple (as the Champion kinda should be), having essentially a free reroll every single turn during combat can be pretty good. Plus, you can also be an heroic inspiration machine if your DM allows for heroic inspiration transfer.
Perhaps now’s the time we start getting builds focused around giving your entire party Heroic Inspiration?
Advantage on Initiative is extremely useful on a class that has 3-6 weapon mastery options. You can start grappling, toppling, pushing, slowing or sapping enemies before they get a chance to act. Moving Remarkable Athlete's advantage on Strength checks down to 3rd level also helps with escaping grapples.
The additional Fighting Style was mediocre when the PHB was published but now that the level's been reduced from 10 to 7, the Tasha's Fighting Styles are on the table, and many of the new feats are multi-purpose (e.g. Polearm Master can be used with a shield or two hands, Great Weapon Master gives bonus damage to longbows now, Piercer can also be used with both melee and ranged weapons easily), it's actually a compelling upgrade too.
Heroic Warrior is obviously a great feature.
As the 2014 Champion's biggest hater, I'm really happy with what they ended up doing here.
I still think the Champion is the worst of the PHB fighters (it got buffs... but so did battle master and eldritch knight) but at least it has features that are identifiably cool.
I still think the Champion is the worst of the PHB fighters (it got buffs... but so did battle master and eldritch knight) but at least it has features that are identifiably cool.
Agreed. Having read them all...the Champion is still the worst of the updated 2024 fighter subclasses! I have said before, the problem with relying on crits is it's just totally unpredictable. I played a Champion fighter to high levels and...there were times when I would crit on lesser foes where I didn't need to crit and fight the big boss, yet never crit! It's all luck based on your die rolls, instead of built in surety, like the Battle Master, for instance. If you're like me...basing something on the assumption of good die rolls is a bad bet! LOL ;)
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In fairness to SeanJP though generally speaking on the forums we tend to work from an assumption of RAW because of course every table is different...but if the Tips & Tactics discussed have a foundational basis in RAW then it is more likely to work at all tables. While it is not surprising that your DM made some rulings that aren't raw (and sound like they follow rule of cool, so good on him), it does mean that your experience may not be duplicable at other tables where similar rulings are not made.
Founding Member of the High Roller Society. (Currently trying to roll max on 4d6)
The larger the sample size the more statistically unlikely the numbers are to deviate from the average, and 90 sessions is a pretty large sample size. What you claimed with that sample size, to be blunt, I'm not buying it. Especially after you said, "about" 568 crits, and then you said only half were attack rolls. You never answered: how do you crit without an attack roll?
I agree damage is not the only factor for a good subclass, but the Champion brings little else to the table than more damage.
There's no question that the fast-talk DM skill is amazingly powerful, but it's not terribly relevant to rules discussions. As for dice not rolling average, over the duration of a campaign, that generally indicates biased dice or die rolling, and, yes, cheating (even if you don't know you're doing it) is also amazingly powerful.
I see alot of people saying that the Champion isnt that good. Or bringing up RAW instead of understanding what the one person stated on his experience with the Champion, and while I do agree that RAW is important for determining things the kid brings up alot of great points that are overlooked here.
It matters how the player plays a character.
So to iterate how powerful a Champion fighter can be let me tell you a Story from Adventure League I had with a Player playing a Champion Fighter during Curse of Strahd. As a side not before we begin all rules were under RAW to the letter, our story is not though because the DM had to get creative because of how bad we were steam rolling encounters, I guess thats what happens though when all the players are optimizers for what they want their character to be and do.
We had been pissing off Strahd the entire campaign mainly because we refused to do anything he stated and were absolutely steam roling encounters. The player in question had to make a new character because his had gotten turned into a Werewolf. We meet his new character around lvl 5. I had just royally pissed of Strahd and had taken off running back to the group after going off on my own to finish something. The DM the previous game had tried to teach my Protector Aasimar Zealot Barbarian the folly of going off on ones own by have a pack of wolves attack me. There were 5. I killed each one a single turn and escaped virtually unharmed. On to the session in question now the background is set.
I encountered Strahd as he and his henchman confronted me by myself in the middle of the woods seperated from the party. Strahd tried appealing to my character to work with him to no avail. I took off running. Got hit by 5 fireballs in the process and went unconscious. This is where we first mean the new character the group had joined up with. He was a Were Hunter. A Champion Fighter polearm master that only had his silvered polearm. Strahd brought my unconscious body before the group and demanded for our insolence someone had to die. They had to pick. Me or someone else in the group. The group attacked to get me back up. I quickly went back down. The Champion fighter during this engagement walked up to Strahds Nightmare and single handedly proceeded to murder the shit out of it alone. He then turned his attention to Strahd himself and proceeded to smack him so badly Strahd fled because he almost died.
Needless to say this campaign continued. We were now level 8 in Strahds Castle rolling through it like Moonknight walked through Dracula's Castle. At this point My character had died and was replaced by my main Paladin, those of you who have been in my discussions before on the Paladin side know whom I'm talking of, after my glorious barbarian met his fate fighting 20 wolves trying to escort kids back to a village alone. Regardless after some death defying events in the tower where Strahd has the heart. Strahd decided to attack us, not learning his less from the last time he fought the Champion. The Champion fighter again singlehandedly beat Strahd so badly the Heart shattered to keep him alive. Strahd fled to recover. Shortly later the bunch of us discovered where Strahd and some henchmen were and proceeded to kill him so fast the DM didnt have an opportunity to really do anything.
The point of the Story is the Champion Fighter when played right is a force to be reckoned with. To further clarify this here was our party composition at the End. Only 2 characters were killed throughout the campaign, mine because of my own actions. One character was changed because the original chose to leave the party as he was after something else. We had my Oath of Devotion Paladin, the Champion fighter Were hunter, a Champion Fighter crossbowman, a Divine Sorcerer, a Rogue Assassin, and an Eldritch Knight. The DM had to deviate from the book as the Normal encounters were entirely to easy for our group. Infact per the DMG he was making Deadly Encounters from lvl 3 onwards because we steam rolled those as well. This was because of how we made our characters, how we played them, and how we worked as a team.
My problem with these stories are they are a N=1 experience....and honestly based on what you are describing I have about 100 questions on how that could happen just based on math alone how this shouldn't have happened.
A level 8 fighter should wreck a nightmare (its a CR 3 and a bit of a weak one at that)....but they can enter the etheral plane at will and take Strahd there....they could just move him to the plane until their turn, bring him back, and wreck you....or you know just leave.
If the DM almost lost Strahd to a level 8 PC champion....they honestly do not know how to play him. If you tried to take him on alone you should have been dead...and easily so.
I honestly cannot take this story seriously and its nothing against you....but its just so unlikely in 99.999% of scenarios that I cannot fathom how that would be remotely the case.
I am not saying you are lying but honestly I do not see how the DM didn't just let this happen as a cool way for the story to unfold but strahd has so many tools to deal with a champion fighter that they simply cannot counter that there is about 0% chance they could solo him in ANY fashion IMO.
I think the issue with Champion is that they nerfed crit. I used to play nwn and nwn2, which was older versions of D&D. For those that know the 3.5 rules, they might not need to read this. But those that joined in 5e, might not know how it used to work.
Weapons was a bit different. They had different crit ranges and damage modifiers. Some crit on 20, others on 19-20 and a couple on 18-20. Some did x2 damage. Others di x3 and scyth did x4 damage.
Back then feat and stat improvement was 2 seperate things. But you also got 1 stat point every 4th level. But there was a feat that doubled the crit range of the weapon. So
20 -> 19-20
19-20 -> 17-20
18-20 -> 15-20
Back then, everything got multiplied. 2handed weapons damage was 1.5 of str modifier (i recall you could get higher than 20 in a stat. Plus the game went up to level 30).
There was a feat that added +2 damage to that weapon type.
There was a feat called power attack, gave you a -3 to hit but +3 to damage, and a improved version where the stats was -6/+6 the damage was doubled if you used a 2-handed weapon. There was a class called Frenzy berserker, which increased them even more. so supreme power attack would give you +24 damage, if you used a 2-handed weapon.
if you had a + weapon, that damage would also be multipied.
Instead of champion, the game had weapon master. It increased your crit range with +2. So with the feat as well, you could end up with these crit ranges:
20 -> 17-20
19-20 -> 15-20
18-20 -> 13-20
Now, the class also would end up increasing your multiplier, so x2 -> x3. x3 -> x4 and x4 -> x5
There was also a feat that would add a little extra damage on crit. I had a fighter/weapon master/ frenzied berserker with a scyth, and a +4 (i think that was the weapon i used), that would crit almost 300 damage. I had 5 attacks with a crit range of 18-20
Back then, you had as many attacks with your off hand weapon as your main hand. I had a ranger/weapon master, with 5 attacks on main hand and off hand. I could cast flame weapon on both weapons. My weapons might have been +3. I did about 100 crit damage on main hand, and 70-80 on off hand. I had a crit range of 15-20.
Crit was way more impactful and fun back then :)
I just wanted to give an idea of why the class might not be nearly as good, as it's previous version of it. It's the nerfing of crit
Interesting, I didn't play 3.5 and didn't know any of that. In 5e, the crit is only really important if you have extra dice to be doubled somehow, besides just your regular weapon dice. So a paladin's crit is made very impressive by being able to do double the smite damage. A 1st level spell slot smite doing 2d8 damage is nice, but fantastic on a crit doing 4d8 damage (and if against a fiend or undead an even more impressive 6d8)! The champion subclass has nothing that will crit outside of their base weapon damage. So can be made better by something like choosing half orc or getting a weapon like a flametongue which has more dice to double. But outside of that, the expanded crit range is nice, but not really game changing.
Also, as has been noted about crits, they're unreliable i.e. you may crit when you really don't need to and never crit on the big boss fight when you want to. Crits are a function of luck. Something like a battlemaster may be able to throw on a superiority die that does as much damage as your crit would have done AND have a secondary effect on the foe. It's just far more reliable.
I generally agree that Champion is a suboptimal choice.
Fighters have a lot of relatively complex subclasses, sure, and champion is the least complex. If you're dead set on simple, I'd be worried as the DM, because my narratives aren't simple, and if you aren't following the story you aren't likely to enjoy the kind of games I'd host. Not that such would be unwelcome at my table, but it would feel like a red flag.
Now I wouldn't be worried about choosing Champion as your subclass.
Each character is a build, you are making many considerations about gear, feats, class and subclass, race, and background.
Champion's crit feature ultimately boils down to around 5% increase in damage by average. There are situations where that 5% will be more total increase than a BM's manoeuvres. I think such a situation is quite rare, but not impossible.
This said, the Champion is great if you're making a crit BUILD. For example if you are multiclassing into paladin or warlock to where you have smites, you are getting more bang for your buck than the 5% implies.
Battlemasters crit, and superiority dice seem to be great if you crit, but you can't fish for it like a warlock or a paladin can, because you spend the die whether you hit or not, where smites are triggered by a hit.
This means Champions are a really powerful option for cross class paladins and warlocks (who might use hexblade's curse for the same effect, but which doesn't stack and isn't applied to every attack)
Throw in half orc, crit-related feats, some source of reliable advantage, and some other on-hit triggers like sneak attack, and champion starts to look pretty good.
By itself it is both dull and weak. Not so weak that you can't use it in a party, that's down to your DM, your table, and your imagination.
Just know going in that making the most of this subclass is likely going to involve multiclassing.
I just wanted to reply to this... most Battlemaster maneuvers are actually triggered on-hit, so you mostly won't waste your Superiority Dice on missed hits. I think the big difference is that not every Battlemaster Maneuver functions in the same way. For example, Precision Attack only improves your to-hit chance, and doesn't deal any additional damage and thus has to be applied before you know whether the attack hits or misses. Then you also have stuff like Commanding Presence, which only gives a boost to CHA checks and would be very hard to actually utilize in battle. That all said, the greater majority of maneuvers just trigger "When you hit a creature with a weapon attack", so landing a successful hit has to happen before you decide whether or not to apply those maneuvers to the attack.
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There are crit-fishers builds that make champion look decent, but they generally don't really come on line until you get your 18-20 crit at level 15 and thus aren't particularly relevant to most campaigns.
Apologies if this isn't relevant or already covered... I read the first page or two and the last page of this thread. I did a big simulation of the champion's damage compared to the base fighter damage per *round* of combat, and plotted the increased damage as a percent increase. It's actually lower than the 5% and 10% most people come up with assuming no other abilities or bonuses were used. Other things that give extra attacks on crits, or extra abilities on crits wasn't accounted for. I also used 5e rules not 5.5e, although I've read they didn't get any damage buffs in 5.5e. I only posted the greataxe results, but I can upload greatsword and longsword if people want.
For the people who want to know the simulation parameters
50,000 round iterations for every weapon/level/magic bonus/advantage type
I used a stack overflow thread I accidently closed the tab for for monster AC, someone calculated average ACs at each CR. I used the same CR as champion level.
I used an attack skill modifier of 3 at level 3, 4 at levels 5-7, and 5 at 8 and above
These are the results. A few conclusions to draw.
1) the 5/10% increase people quote is too optimistic, it's closer to 4/9% unless you have advantage or disadvantage or a magical weapon. With a +3 magic weapon, you're looking at 3/6% damage increase.
2) disadvantage hurts a lot more than advantage helps (in some cases disadvantage completely negates the champion's extra damage), so champion fighters should focus on not getting disadvantage as opposed to getting advantage, blind fighting is probably a style champions will want.
3) magic weapons reduce the damage bonus champions get.
4) greatsword and greataxe give about the same damage increase, longswords shouldn't be used by champions at all. No magic bonus a longsword is on par for damage *increase* (not total damage), but drops sharply with magic weapons.
5) the idea that a crit at 19 or 18 lets you overcome AC and hit when you would miss is invalid. There's no level that a fighter wouldn't hit on an 18 unless they dumped their primary stat. If you hold the view that you need a crit to hit at 18, then I'd love to know the monster and character level of that fight.
6) personally, I think champions need an extra buff to damage since that is basically the class's whole deal, and I am disappointed WoTC didn't give them any in 5.5e.
Sorry but I suspect that everyone over the 29 pages has been looking at this a bit off - there actually is no “baseline” fighter/rogue/ranger/wizard/etc - the first subclass for each class represents the “baseline” so Sean’s initial arguments about the champion vs the “baseline” lead us off into a quagmire. As he says - “because the fighter class is good the champion is good”. Are the subclass abilities extraordinary? No - because they aren’t supposed to be, they ARE the baseline that the other subclasses are being compared to. It’s really here is the fighter- if you want something special here are some options that you can substitute in at these levels to create a different kind of fighter. Think of the marines “every marine a rifleman” but some go on to be tankers, pilots, artillerists or many other specialties- but when push comes to shove everyone of them is capable of picking up a rifle and performing superbly with it. Personally I’ve never really liked the lockstep subclasses of the very version, give me a list of possible alternatives I can substitute in at selected points - special training course if you will.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Yeah there is. "Baseline" is "If the character had no subclass features at all, what would they look like?" This isn't actually a possible character, but it's what is meant by baseline.
When compared to the other two PHB fighters, it doesn't scale well at higher levels. How many campaigns go past level 11?
Does your table frequently have advantage (flanking, faerie fire, etctra)? Now you crit 20% of attacks instead of 10%.
Dual wielder feat at level four gives you two attacks while maximizing AC. This becomes three chances to proc the ork extra damage on a crit. Is this a tank or a dps character?
Does your table follow the adventuring day in the DMG? 5-10 fights per long rest burns up those amazing spell slots for the eldritch knight in a hurry. Being the situationally weakest subclass isn't a terrible thing unless your table leans into the weakest situation.
I disagree about it having poor high level scaling, its problem has always been that it does almost nothing at low levels.
Why is this thread being resurrected when there is nothing new being discussed here? Shouldn’t we be talking about the new champion from the 2024 PhB, which did receive some notable buffs, or not all?
’Fighters gain Remarkable Athlete at the third level instead of 7th, and it's been reworked completely. In the absence of Remarkable Athletes, Champions get an additional Fighting Style at seventh level instead. At the 10th level, Champions gain Heroic Warrior, a new feature.’
source: Wargamer
I think the most easily underestimated of these is the additional Fighting Style, especially with Weapon Masteries. There are many ways to combo more than one Fighting Style into a build and often this leads to a significant bump in damage. For example Two-Weapon Fighting and Thrown Weapon Fighting
Personally, I think this feature is also a really good one. While it seems simple (as the Champion kinda should be), having essentially a free reroll every single turn during combat can be pretty good. Plus, you can also be an heroic inspiration machine if your DM allows for heroic inspiration transfer.
Perhaps now’s the time we start getting builds focused around giving your entire party Heroic Inspiration?
The new Champion is cool.
Advantage on Initiative is extremely useful on a class that has 3-6 weapon mastery options. You can start grappling, toppling, pushing, slowing or sapping enemies before they get a chance to act. Moving Remarkable Athlete's advantage on Strength checks down to 3rd level also helps with escaping grapples.
The additional Fighting Style was mediocre when the PHB was published but now that the level's been reduced from 10 to 7, the Tasha's Fighting Styles are on the table, and many of the new feats are multi-purpose (e.g. Polearm Master can be used with a shield or two hands, Great Weapon Master gives bonus damage to longbows now, Piercer can also be used with both melee and ranged weapons easily), it's actually a compelling upgrade too.
Heroic Warrior is obviously a great feature.
As the 2014 Champion's biggest hater, I'm really happy with what they ended up doing here.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
I still think the Champion is the worst of the PHB fighters (it got buffs... but so did battle master and eldritch knight) but at least it has features that are identifiably cool.
Agreed. Having read them all...the Champion is still the worst of the updated 2024 fighter subclasses! I have said before, the problem with relying on crits is it's just totally unpredictable. I played a Champion fighter to high levels and...there were times when I would crit on lesser foes where I didn't need to crit and fight the big boss, yet never crit! It's all luck based on your die rolls, instead of built in surety, like the Battle Master, for instance. If you're like me...basing something on the assumption of good die rolls is a bad bet! LOL ;)