Yeah, because those anecdotal impressions consider what it was like to play an actual character over, presumably, a number of session including combat and non-combat challenges. The other way is looking only at damage output, which is reductive and doesn't really capture the experience.
The only non-combat difference between a Champion and a generic fighter is from their level 7 feature. Mostly, "a Champion seems good" is just saying "a Fighter seems good"; the Champion part is pretty irrelevant.
To the OP, Have you actually played one? (full disclosure, I have not) Because there's people who say they have, and say it was good, if boring. They have actual in-game experience. I'm going to rate that over theory (not to mention reducing a subclass to its damage output and seemingly nothing else) any day.
You're going to rate anecdotal impressions over mathematical proof? Okay.
Yeah, because those anecdotal impressions consider what it was like to play an actual character over, presumably, a number of session including combat and non-combat challenges. The other way is looking only at damage output, which is reductive and doesn't really capture the experience.
What out of combat considerations are there? A fighter is still a fighter out of combat. A subclass doesn't really influence that (unless you're talking about out of combat spells, but I doubt anyone is ranking EK the best fighter just over having spells).
The only hard difference between fighter subclasses comes down to what they can do in combat.
All of the subclasses except Champion, Psi Knight, Purple Dragon Knight and Echo Knight give out of combat abilities at 3rd level. Most give skill, tool and/or language proficiencies, but Rune Knight gets an out of combat use for most runes as well and Eldritch Knight gets wizard spells which obviously adds utility. I guess Psi Knight kinda counts if you want to include the telekinesis ability.
The Champion fighter is not "bad" inasmuch as making a Champion fighter does not make the fighter worse, or make the player's character bad. The base fighter chassis is powerful enough that even leaving one's subclass selection blank will result in a functional, if excessively boring, character.
The Champion fighter is, pretty inarguably, the weakest of the fighter's various subclass offerings, ranked even below the absolutely abysmal, Wizards-should-feel-bad-for-printing-this Arcane Archer and the "oh yeah, that did get printed sometime, right?" Purple Dragon Knight/Cormorant. The Champion, by design, adds very, very little to the base fighter chassis, because the Champion was specifically designed as the easiest, simplest, dumbest possible character one could play. The Champion fighter is the face and the poster child for the 5e "Simple is Better than Complex" design philosophy. It is not intended for players who understand the game, though many of them will defend and cherish the Champion regardless due to a hatred of rules and a desire to ignore mechanics in favor of narrative.
People like it because many people in modern 5e are pushing quite hard for the Rules-Lite Narrative Experience(C) model of tabletop gaming, and also because people just really like scoring critical hits. Critting feels real good, and Champions crit twice as often as anyone else. The actual math has been debated exhaustively, conclusively proven to be a very weak bonus, but it doesn't matter to some folks because critting feels good. That, combined with many players' disinterest in engaging with the game's mechanical systems any more deeply than they absolutely have to, means the Champion will always have ardent adherents.
So, in short: it doesn't matter how bad the Champion fighter is. The base fighter class carries the crap subclass, and the crap subclass is exactly what a particular breed of TTRPG player is looking for so they will never consider it 'bad'. No amount of mathletics will convince them otherwise because a distinct lack of mathletics is a big part of what draws them to the subclass in the first place.
I'm not even going to try and argue the math, I'll take your word that they aren't as good, but there are more differences between subclasses than damage.
Out of combat, different subclasses have different things going for them. A number of them get extra skill or language proficiencies. You could use an echo knight's echo to cross a chasm. A psi knight could levitate an ally to a ledge. PDKs (silly as they are) end up getting expertise in persuasion. So there are absolutely out of combat differences between the subclasses.
In combat they are also going to play differently depending on subclass. Cavaliers shine while mounted, and when they're not they really need to be adjacent to both enemies and allies to make the most of their abilities. Arcane archers want to hang back from the thick of the fight and keep clear sightlines. Echo knights will bounce around all over the place. Battle masters will be tactical. Champions, more or less, just want to be up next to the bad guy swinging away, and doesn't much care what else is going on. They each play differently, and looking only at the damage that any of them do doesn't capture the difference in playstyle, which is a big part of whether or not the subclass is good or bad. This will, obviously, be subjective.
I suppose it comes down to the way people are defining "Bad" as it says in the title of the thread. It seems like the OP's idea of "bad" is because it does less damage (like I said, my math skills are poor, and I'll simply concede the point that champions do less). That's a perfectly valid way to look at it. If that's the way you like to play, great, I'm not trying to tell you you're doing it wrong. To me good or bad is whether or not people have fun playing it, taking into account everything the character can do. And we have people saying they played one and it was good. To me that's more important than the math.
To the OP, Have you actually played one? (full disclosure, I have not) Because there's people who say they have, and say it was good, if boring. They have actual in-game experience. I'm going to rate that over theory (not to mention reducing a subclass to its damage output and seemingly nothing else) any day.
You're going to rate anecdotal impressions over mathematical proof? Okay.
Yeah, because those anecdotal impressions consider what it was like to play an actual character over, presumably, a number of session including combat and non-combat challenges. The other way is looking only at damage output, which is reductive and doesn't really capture the experience.
And how is this, in any way, refuting my OP? The very first sentence: "First, the caveat, "Bad" is referring specifically to mechanical effectiveness."
I was intentionally as clear as I could possibly be to articulate that I'm exclusively referring to mechanical combat effectiveness.
And the champion fighter is perfectly fine. Two attacks per turn, or a single attack with advantage, normally has a 9.75% chance of scoring a critical hit. The improved critical feature elevates that to 19%. They later get a bonus to their initiative rolls and learn a second fighting style without multiclassing. It's solid.
In combat they are also going to play differently depending on subclass. Cavaliers shine while mounted, and when they're not they really need to be adjacent to both enemies and allies to make the most of their abilities. Arcane archers want to hang back from the thick of the fight and keep clear sightlines. Echo knights will bounce around all over the place. Battle masters will be tactical. Champions, more or less, just want to be up next to the bad guy swinging away, and doesn't much care what else is going on. They each play differently, and looking only at the damage that any of them do doesn't capture the difference in playstyle, which is a big part of whether or not the subclass is good or bad.
You can play a battle master just like a champion and still be better. There's nothing per se wrong with a simple subclass, just give it better bonuses.
And the champion fighter is perfectly fine. Two attacks per turn, or a single attack with advantage, normally has a 9.75% chance of scoring a critical hit. The improved critical feature elevates that to 19%. They later get a bonus to their initiative rolls and learn a second fighting style without multiclassing. It's solid.
The Champion can't take credit for the parts that pertain to the base class (in this case every class). Improved Critical grants the Fighter an *additional* 5% (P=0.05) chance to crit per attack. Average crit damage for a greatsword = 7. Therefore, Improved Critical grants you an average of 0.35 extra damage per attack. 7 x 0.05 = 0.35
In layman's terms: Thanks to improved critical, each time you swing your sword you're averaging 0.35 hit points of damage. That's just a mathematical fact.
You want to talk advantage? Improved Critical grants you an *additional* 9.25% chance to crit (P=.0925). That amounts to averaging 0.6475 damage every time you attack with advantage.
Question 1: According to you, are these numbers correct? 1a: If they are correct, do you consider them to be significant? 1b: If they are incorrect, what is the error in the calculation?
In combat they are also going to play differently depending on subclass. Cavaliers shine while mounted, and when they're not they really need to be adjacent to both enemies and allies to make the most of their abilities. Arcane archers want to hang back from the thick of the fight and keep clear sightlines. Echo knights will bounce around all over the place. Battle masters will be tactical. Champions, more or less, just want to be up next to the bad guy swinging away, and doesn't much care what else is going on. They each play differently, and looking only at the damage that any of them do doesn't capture the difference in playstyle, which is a big part of whether or not the subclass is good or bad.
You can play a battle master just like a champion and still be better. There's nothing per se wrong with a simple subclass,just give it better bonuses.
This. But they won't, because the Champion is popular - in no small part because doubling your crit chance sounds amazing. Until you do the math, which the vast majority of people won't do.
A word on anecdotal experience- if you played a Champion and it turned out to be powerful, you don't actually know how much of that was the champion and how much was the base class working. I agree with SeanJP- the Champion is mathematically weak.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
I'm not even going to try and argue the math, I'll take your word that they aren't as good, but there are more differences between subclasses than damage.
Out of combat, different subclasses have different things going for them. A number of them get extra skill or language proficiencies. You could use an echo knight's echo to cross a chasm. A psi knight could levitate an ally to a ledge. PDKs (silly as they are) end up getting expertise in persuasion. So there are absolutely out of combat differences between the subclasses.
In combat they are also going to play differently depending on subclass. Cavaliers shine while mounted, and when they're not they really need to be adjacent to both enemies and allies to make the most of their abilities. Arcane archers want to hang back from the thick of the fight and keep clear sightlines. Echo knights will bounce around all over the place. Battle masters will be tactical. Champions, more or less, just want to be up next to the bad guy swinging away, and doesn't much care what else is going on. They each play differently, and looking only at the damage that any of them do doesn't capture the difference in playstyle, which is a big part of whether or not the subclass is good or bad. This will, obviously, be subjective.
I suppose it comes down to the way people are defining "Bad" as it says in the title of the thread. It seems like the OP's idea of "bad" is because it does less damage (like I said, my math skills are poor, and I'll simply concede the point that champions do less). That's a perfectly valid way to look at it. If that's the way you like to play, great, I'm not trying to tell you you're doing it wrong. To me good or bad is whether or not people have fun playing it, taking into account everything the character can do. And we have people saying they played one and it was good. To me that's more important than the math.
While IMO it's also severely lacking out-of-combat utility, I grant that people can have valid reasons for wanting to play the Champion (or any subclass). This thread specifically pertains to in-combat game mechanics, which by any reasonable standard is objectively horrible. The Forum is about Tips and Tactics. Most fighter players are interested in having at least adequate combat mechanics.
I'm not even going to try and argue the math, I'll take your word that they aren't as good, but there are more differences between subclasses than damage.
Out of combat, different subclasses have different things going for them. A number of them get extra skill or language proficiencies. You could use an echo knight's echo to cross a chasm. A psi knight could levitate an ally to a ledge. PDKs (silly as they are) end up getting expertise in persuasion. So there are absolutely out of combat differences between the subclasses.
In combat they are also going to play differently depending on subclass. Cavaliers shine while mounted, and when they're not they really need to be adjacent to both enemies and allies to make the most of their abilities. Arcane archers want to hang back from the thick of the fight and keep clear sightlines. Echo knights will bounce around all over the place. Battle masters will be tactical. Champions, more or less, just want to be up next to the bad guy swinging away, and doesn't much care what else is going on. They each play differently, and looking only at the damage that any of them do doesn't capture the difference in playstyle, which is a big part of whether or not the subclass is good or bad. This will, obviously, be subjective.
I suppose it comes down to the way people are defining "Bad" as it says in the title of the thread. It seems like the OP's idea of "bad" is because it does less damage (like I said, my math skills are poor, and I'll simply concede the point that champions do less). That's a perfectly valid way to look at it. If that's the way you like to play, great, I'm not trying to tell you you're doing it wrong. To me good or bad is whether or not people have fun playing it, taking into account everything the character can do. And we have people saying they played one and it was good. To me that's more important than the math.
Ugh... fine, I'll do the analysis. Comparing the following:
Battlemaster w/ Duelling Fighting Style and using All Superiority Dice
Adding the Piercer Feat to both BM and Champion:
Champion w/ Duelling Fighting Style: At level 11, breaks even with the BM in 20 rounds. At level 15, 12 rounds. At level 20, 11 rounds.
Adding the Piercer Feat and a Magic Weapon that gives 1d6 Bonus damage:
Champion w/ Duelling Fighting Style: At level 11, breaks even with the BM in 15 rounds. At level 15, 9 rounds. At level 20, 8 rounds.
Champion w/ TWF Fighting Style: At level 11, breaks even with the BM in 8 rounds. At level 15, 9 rounds. At level 20, 6 rounds.
And this ONLY compares damage. This foregoes Champions second Fighting Style (which could even be Superior Technique), Champion skill bonuses, and Survivor. This absolutely destroys the argument that somehow the Champion class isn't comparable to the other Fighter classes in terms of damage output.
Sean, you're going to have to come up with arguments that don't rely on math. The people you're trying to convince either don't care about the math or actively dislike the math. Try a different thread, you've reached everyone you're going to by analyzing the mathematical impact of Improved Criticals.
I suppose it comes down to the way people are defining "Bad" as it says in the title of the thread. It seems like the OP's idea of "bad" is because it does less damage (like I said, my math skills are poor, and I'll simply concede the point that champions do less). That's a perfectly valid way to look at it. If that's the way you like to play, great, I'm not trying to tell you you're doing it wrong. To me good or bad is whether or not people have fun playing it, taking into account everything the character can do. And we have people saying they played one and it was good. To me that's more important than the math.
People who played the Champion said it was 'fine'. They didn't say it was good. It's also worth noting that even if I ignore the math, the way you're requesting I do, the Champion doesn't do anything else. It underperforms in combat, and unlike other fighter subclasses it does not have any significant out-of-combat benefits. It doesn't gain any extra proficiencies or any cool out-of-combat actions, it cannot use the abilities it does have in creative ways to do Role Playing Things(TM), and it gains fewer overall abilities than any other fighter subclass. The Champion is not 'bad' compared to the base fighter. A good player can still do fine with the Champion - but that's because they're a good player, not because the Champion subclass is offering them anything of any worth to work with.
People who played the Champion said it was 'fine'. They didn't say it was good. It's also worth noting that even if I ignore the math, the way you're requesting I do, the Champion doesn't do anything else. It underperforms in combat, and unlike other fighter subclasses it does not have any significant out-of-combat benefits. It doesn't gain any extra proficiencies or any cool out-of-combat actions, it cannot use the abilities it does have in creative ways to do Role Playing Things(TM), and it gains fewer overall abilities than any other fighter subclass. The Champion is not 'bad' compared to the base fighter. A good player can still do fine with the Champion - but that's because they're a good player, not because the Champion subclass is offering them anything of any worth to work with.
All of that is absolutely true. Wait a minute, I feel like I heard someone say something like this before... oh yeah!
Ugh... fine, I'll do the analysis. Comparing the following:
Battlemaster w/ Duelling Fighting Style and using All Superiority Dice
Adding the Piercer Feat to both BM and Champion:
Champion w/ Duelling Fighting Style: At level 11, breaks even with the BM in 20 rounds. At level 15, 12 rounds. At level 20, 11 rounds.
Adding the Piercer Feat and a Magic Weapon that gives 1d6 Bonus damage:
Champion w/ Duelling Fighting Style: At level 11, breaks even with the BM in 15 rounds. At level 15, 9 rounds. At level 20, 8 rounds.
Champion w/ TWF Fighting Style: At level 11, breaks even with the BM in 8 rounds. At level 15, 9 rounds. At level 20, 6 rounds.
And this ONLY compares damage. This foregoes Champions second Fighting Style (which could even be Superior Technique), Champion skill bonuses, and Survivor. This absolutely destroys the argument that somehow the Champion class isn't comparable to the other Fighter classes in terms of damage output.
The "proof" link say access denied. And also it's nearly impossible to obtain an actual mathematical figure on the Battle Master because there are far too many variables. But we can do some comparisons. We'll go ahead and use the lowest superiority die, a d8.
For the feats that add 1d8 damage: That's an average of 4.5. It takes about 12.86 swings of the sword from the Champion to equal that additional damage (4.5/0.35). But then this is both, unfair and too accommodating tot he Champion.
Unfair: Because the Battlemaster is not using a superiority die on every attack.
Too accomidating: Because the battle master has things like Precision Strike - which if it turns a miss into a hit gets credit for ALL the damage. And also because does battlefield control and indirectly adds other damage, like knocking someone prone so the Fighter and his/her allies can attack with advantage. That's just one example, and it strictly pertains to damage output and ignores all the combat utility (something the Champion lacks, sans extremely rare situations, if like jumping that extra distance will impact the battlefield in a meaningful way. It also doesn't factor in the increases in the size of the Superiority Die.
Googling for someone who agrees with you and then posting a link is not very constructive, unless you fully understand their work and can defend it
People who played the Champion said it was 'fine'. They didn't say it was good. It's also worth noting that even if I ignore the math, the way you're requesting I do, the Champion doesn't do anything else. It underperforms in combat, and unlike other fighter subclasses it does not have any significant out-of-combat benefits. It doesn't gain any extra proficiencies or any cool out-of-combat actions, it cannot use the abilities it does have in creative ways to do Role Playing Things(TM), and it gains fewer overall abilities than any other fighter subclass. The Champion is not 'bad' compared to the base fighter. A good player can still do fine with the Champion - but that's because they're a good player, not because the Champion subclass is offering them anything of any worth to work with.
All of that is absolutely true. Wait a minute, I feel like I heard someone say something like this before... oh yeah!
Argumentum ad populum is a type of informal fallacy, specifically a fallacy of relevance, and is similar to an argument from authority (argumentum ad verecundiam). It uses an appeal to the beliefs, tastes, or values of a group of people, stating that because a certain opinion or attitude is held by a majority, it is therefore correct.
Ugh... fine, I'll do the analysis. Comparing the following:
Battlemaster w/ Duelling Fighting Style and using All Superiority Dice
Adding the Piercer Feat to both BM and Champion:
Champion w/ Duelling Fighting Style: At level 11, breaks even with the BM in 20 rounds. At level 15, 12 rounds. At level 20, 11 rounds.
Adding the Piercer Feat and a Magic Weapon that gives 1d6 Bonus damage:
Champion w/ Duelling Fighting Style: At level 11, breaks even with the BM in 15 rounds. At level 15, 9 rounds. At level 20, 8 rounds.
Champion w/ TWF Fighting Style: At level 11, breaks even with the BM in 8 rounds. At level 15, 9 rounds. At level 20, 6 rounds.
And this ONLY compares damage. This foregoes Champions second Fighting Style (which could even be Superior Technique), Champion skill bonuses, and Survivor. This absolutely destroys the argument that somehow the Champion class isn't comparable to the other Fighter classes in terms of damage output.
The "proof" link say access denied. And also it's nearly impossible to obtain an actual mathematical figure on the Battle Master because there are far too many variables. But we can do some comparisons. We'll go ahead and use the lowest superiority die, a d8.
For the feats that add 1d8 damage: That's an average of 4.5. It takes about 12.86 swings of the sword from the Champion to equal that additional damage (4.5/0.35). But then this is both, unfair and too accommodating tot he Champion.
Unfair: Because the Battlemaster is not using a superiority die on every attack.
Too accomidating: Because the battle master has things like Precision Strike - which if it turns a miss into a hit gets credit for ALL the damage. And also because does battlefield control and indirectly adds other damage, like knocking someone prone so the Fighter and his/her allies can attack with advantage. That's just one example, and it strictly pertains to damage output and ignores all the combat utility (something the Champion lacks, sans extremely rare situations, if like jumping that extra distance will impact the battlefield in a meaningful way. It also doesn't factor in the increases in the size of the Superiority Die.
Googling for someone who agrees with you and then posting a link is not very constructive, unless you fully understand their work and can defend it
Link updated. I went WAY more specific than you above, which is exactly why I despise armchair statisticians that use incomparable numbers to explain their argument but then poo-poo other people that actually take the time to do the stats. And, I did take into effect the entire spectrum of hit %, types of weapons, changes in superiority dice, equivalent feats, attacks per round, weapon mods, fighting styles, etc.
I contemplated making a Python app but I figured a spreadsheet was just more accessible to everyone.
Sean, you're going to have to come up with arguments that don't rely on math. The people you're trying to convince either don't care about the math or actively dislike the math. Try a different thread, you've reached everyone you're going to by analyzing the mathematical impact of Improved Criticals.
Sean, you're going to have to come up with arguments that don't rely on math. The people you're trying to convince either don't care about the math or actively dislike the math. Try a different thread, you've reached everyone you're going to by analyzing the mathematical impact of Improved Criticals.
I suppose it comes down to the way people are defining "Bad" as it says in the title of the thread. It seems like the OP's idea of "bad" is because it does less damage (like I said, my math skills are poor, and I'll simply concede the point that champions do less). That's a perfectly valid way to look at it. If that's the way you like to play, great, I'm not trying to tell you you're doing it wrong. To me good or bad is whether or not people have fun playing it, taking into account everything the character can do. And we have people saying they played one and it was good. To me that's more important than the math.
People who played the Champion said it was 'fine'. They didn't say it was good. It's also worth noting that even if I ignore the math, the way you're requesting I do, the Champion doesn't do anything else. It underperforms in combat, and unlike other fighter subclasses it does not have any significant out-of-combat benefits. It doesn't gain any extra proficiencies or any cool out-of-combat actions, it cannot use the abilities it does have in creative ways to do Role Playing Things(TM), and it gains fewer overall abilities than any other fighter subclass. The Champion is not 'bad' compared to the base fighter. A good player can still do fine with the Champion - but that's because they're a good player, not because the Champion subclass is offering them anything of any worth to work with.
Glad I could finally help you figure out the math then.
To your other point, the idea behind the Champion is that you can take Feats like Piercer/Slasher/Crusher, or GWM, or any other feat that aids with critical hits (including Magic Weapon damage) and it multiplies the effect quite nicely. This also means you can focus on action economy strategies instead of other feats that a BM for example may not like as much because they already have way too many skills using bonus actions.
Meanwhile, you get two Fighting Styles - which also makes you quite versatile. For example, being able to take Interception or Protection can make you a substantial defensive ally as well.
If you really optimize for crits (half-orc, great weapon mastery for bonus action attack on crit, piercer) very high level champions will do okay on raw damage output compared to a battle master just using superiority dice for damage, but this forgets that (a) most campaigns don't spend a lot of time in tier 4, and (b) superiority dice have additional effects beyond damage.
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The only non-combat difference between a Champion and a generic fighter is from their level 7 feature. Mostly, "a Champion seems good" is just saying "a Fighter seems good"; the Champion part is pretty irrelevant.
What out of combat considerations are there? A fighter is still a fighter out of combat. A subclass doesn't really influence that (unless you're talking about out of combat spells, but I doubt anyone is ranking EK the best fighter just over having spells).
The only hard difference between fighter subclasses comes down to what they can do in combat.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
The Champion fighter is not "bad" inasmuch as making a Champion fighter does not make the fighter worse, or make the player's character bad. The base fighter chassis is powerful enough that even leaving one's subclass selection blank will result in a functional, if excessively boring, character.
The Champion fighter is, pretty inarguably, the weakest of the fighter's various subclass offerings, ranked even below the absolutely abysmal, Wizards-should-feel-bad-for-printing-this Arcane Archer and the "oh yeah, that did get printed sometime, right?" Purple Dragon Knight/Cormorant. The Champion, by design, adds very, very little to the base fighter chassis, because the Champion was specifically designed as the easiest, simplest, dumbest possible character one could play. The Champion fighter is the face and the poster child for the 5e "Simple is Better than Complex" design philosophy. It is not intended for players who understand the game, though many of them will defend and cherish the Champion regardless due to a hatred of rules and a desire to ignore mechanics in favor of narrative.
People like it because many people in modern 5e are pushing quite hard for the Rules-Lite Narrative Experience(C) model of tabletop gaming, and also because people just really like scoring critical hits. Critting feels real good, and Champions crit twice as often as anyone else. The actual math has been debated exhaustively, conclusively proven to be a very weak bonus, but it doesn't matter to some folks because critting feels good. That, combined with many players' disinterest in engaging with the game's mechanical systems any more deeply than they absolutely have to, means the Champion will always have ardent adherents.
So, in short: it doesn't matter how bad the Champion fighter is. The base fighter class carries the crap subclass, and the crap subclass is exactly what a particular breed of TTRPG player is looking for so they will never consider it 'bad'. No amount of mathletics will convince them otherwise because a distinct lack of mathletics is a big part of what draws them to the subclass in the first place.
Please do not contact or message me.
I'm not even going to try and argue the math, I'll take your word that they aren't as good, but there are more differences between subclasses than damage.
Out of combat, different subclasses have different things going for them. A number of them get extra skill or language proficiencies. You could use an echo knight's echo to cross a chasm. A psi knight could levitate an ally to a ledge. PDKs (silly as they are) end up getting expertise in persuasion. So there are absolutely out of combat differences between the subclasses.
In combat they are also going to play differently depending on subclass. Cavaliers shine while mounted, and when they're not they really need to be adjacent to both enemies and allies to make the most of their abilities. Arcane archers want to hang back from the thick of the fight and keep clear sightlines. Echo knights will bounce around all over the place. Battle masters will be tactical. Champions, more or less, just want to be up next to the bad guy swinging away, and doesn't much care what else is going on. They each play differently, and looking only at the damage that any of them do doesn't capture the difference in playstyle, which is a big part of whether or not the subclass is good or bad. This will, obviously, be subjective.
I suppose it comes down to the way people are defining "Bad" as it says in the title of the thread. It seems like the OP's idea of "bad" is because it does less damage (like I said, my math skills are poor, and I'll simply concede the point that champions do less). That's a perfectly valid way to look at it. If that's the way you like to play, great, I'm not trying to tell you you're doing it wrong. To me good or bad is whether or not people have fun playing it, taking into account everything the character can do. And we have people saying they played one and it was good. To me that's more important than the math.
And the champion fighter is perfectly fine. Two attacks per turn, or a single attack with advantage, normally has a 9.75% chance of scoring a critical hit. The improved critical feature elevates that to 19%. They later get a bonus to their initiative rolls and learn a second fighting style without multiclassing. It's solid.
You can play a battle master just like a champion and still be better. There's nothing per se wrong with a simple subclass, just give it better bonuses.
The Champion can't take credit for the parts that pertain to the base class (in this case every class). Improved Critical grants the Fighter an *additional* 5% (P=0.05) chance to crit per attack. Average crit damage for a greatsword = 7. Therefore, Improved Critical grants you an average of 0.35 extra damage per attack. 7 x 0.05 = 0.35
In layman's terms: Thanks to improved critical, each time you swing your sword you're averaging 0.35 hit points of damage. That's just a mathematical fact.
You want to talk advantage? Improved Critical grants you an *additional* 9.25% chance to crit (P=.0925). That amounts to averaging 0.6475 damage every time you attack with advantage.
Question 1: According to you, are these numbers correct? 1a: If they are correct, do you consider them to be significant? 1b: If they are incorrect, what is the error in the calculation?
This. But they won't, because the Champion is popular - in no small part because doubling your crit chance sounds amazing. Until you do the math, which the vast majority of people won't do.
A word on anecdotal experience- if you played a Champion and it turned out to be powerful, you don't actually know how much of that was the champion and how much was the base class working. I agree with SeanJP- the Champion is mathematically weak.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
While IMO it's also severely lacking out-of-combat utility, I grant that people can have valid reasons for wanting to play the Champion (or any subclass). This thread specifically pertains to in-combat game mechanics, which by any reasonable standard is objectively horrible. The Forum is about Tips and Tactics. Most fighter players are interested in having at least adequate combat mechanics.
Best post so far.
Ugh... fine, I'll do the analysis. Comparing the following:
Battlemaster w/ Duelling Fighting Style and using All Superiority Dice
Adding the Piercer Feat to both BM and Champion:
Champion w/ Duelling Fighting Style: At level 11, breaks even with the BM in 20 rounds. At level 15, 12 rounds. At level 20, 11 rounds.
Adding the Piercer Feat and a Magic Weapon that gives 1d6 Bonus damage:
Champion w/ Duelling Fighting Style: At level 11, breaks even with the BM in 15 rounds. At level 15, 9 rounds. At level 20, 8 rounds.
Champion w/ TWF Fighting Style: At level 11, breaks even with the BM in 8 rounds. At level 15, 9 rounds. At level 20, 6 rounds.
And this ONLY compares damage. This foregoes Champions second Fighting Style (which could even be Superior Technique), Champion skill bonuses, and Survivor. This absolutely destroys the argument that somehow the Champion class isn't comparable to the other Fighter classes in terms of damage output.
Proof
Sean, you're going to have to come up with arguments that don't rely on math. The people you're trying to convince either don't care about the math or actively dislike the math. Try a different thread, you've reached everyone you're going to by analyzing the mathematical impact of Improved Criticals.
Example:
People who played the Champion said it was 'fine'. They didn't say it was good. It's also worth noting that even if I ignore the math, the way you're requesting I do, the Champion doesn't do anything else. It underperforms in combat, and unlike other fighter subclasses it does not have any significant out-of-combat benefits. It doesn't gain any extra proficiencies or any cool out-of-combat actions, it cannot use the abilities it does have in creative ways to do Role Playing Things(TM), and it gains fewer overall abilities than any other fighter subclass. The Champion is not 'bad' compared to the base fighter. A good player can still do fine with the Champion - but that's because they're a good player, not because the Champion subclass is offering them anything of any worth to work with.
Please do not contact or message me.
All of that is absolutely true. Wait a minute, I feel like I heard someone say something like this before... oh yeah!
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
The "proof" link say access denied. And also it's nearly impossible to obtain an actual mathematical figure on the Battle Master because there are far too many variables. But we can do some comparisons. We'll go ahead and use the lowest superiority die, a d8.
For the feats that add 1d8 damage: That's an average of 4.5. It takes about 12.86 swings of the sword from the Champion to equal that additional damage (4.5/0.35). But then this is both, unfair and too accommodating tot he Champion.
Unfair: Because the Battlemaster is not using a superiority die on every attack.
Too accomidating: Because the battle master has things like Precision Strike - which if it turns a miss into a hit gets credit for ALL the damage. And also because does battlefield control and indirectly adds other damage, like knocking someone prone so the Fighter and his/her allies can attack with advantage. That's just one example, and it strictly pertains to damage output and ignores all the combat utility (something the Champion lacks, sans extremely rare situations, if like jumping that extra distance will impact the battlefield in a meaningful way. It also doesn't factor in the increases in the size of the Superiority Die.
Googling for someone who agrees with you and then posting a link is not very constructive, unless you fully understand their work and can defend it
In formal logic this is what is referred to as the argumentum ad populum fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
Argumentum ad populum is a type of informal fallacy, specifically a fallacy of relevance, and is similar to an argument from authority (argumentum ad verecundiam). It uses an appeal to the beliefs, tastes, or values of a group of people, stating that because a certain opinion or attitude is held by a majority, it is therefore correct.
Link updated. I went WAY more specific than you above, which is exactly why I despise armchair statisticians that use incomparable numbers to explain their argument but then poo-poo other people that actually take the time to do the stats. And, I did take into effect the entire spectrum of hit %, types of weapons, changes in superiority dice, equivalent feats, attacks per round, weapon mods, fighting styles, etc.
I contemplated making a Python app but I figured a spreadsheet was just more accessible to everyone.
Glad I could finally help you figure out the math then.
Link
To your other point, the idea behind the Champion is that you can take Feats like Piercer/Slasher/Crusher, or GWM, or any other feat that aids with critical hits (including Magic Weapon damage) and it multiplies the effect quite nicely. This also means you can focus on action economy strategies instead of other feats that a BM for example may not like as much because they already have way too many skills using bonus actions.
Meanwhile, you get two Fighting Styles - which also makes you quite versatile. For example, being able to take Interception or Protection can make you a substantial defensive ally as well.
If you really optimize for crits (half-orc, great weapon mastery for bonus action attack on crit, piercer) very high level champions will do okay on raw damage output compared to a battle master just using superiority dice for damage, but this forgets that (a) most campaigns don't spend a lot of time in tier 4, and (b) superiority dice have additional effects beyond damage.