So, I'd been thinking in similar lines, although rather than leaning into the Superiority Dice, it was taking the Cunning Action design and saying "Why not Martials?"
Fighters, as the combat masters, get Combat Action at level 2, which allow them to Trip/Blind/Disarm/Grapple/Shove/Feint/Frighten/Dodge/Disengage/etc. a target as part of an attack for a Bonus Action. Battlemaster gain their Superiority Dice for the additional damage and can do the Manoeuvres as part of attacks without needing the Bonus Action.
Barbarians can either have Savage Action in the style of Cunning Action with Dash/Frighten/Grapple (you can limit it to while Raging if it feels too much). Or they can have something more interesting like 1/turn:
When you take the Dash action towards an enemy you can make 1 attack as part of it.
If you jump at least 5ft as part of a melee attack against a creature, they must pass a Str save or be knocked Prone.
When you make an attack with a weapon with the Sweep trait (my redesign of Cleave from my minor overhaul of Weapon Traits and Masteries) you apply the mod damage to all creatures in Reach.
For monks, the time of the Ki tax is past. Either give them Disciplined Action in the style of Cunning Action (Dodge/Disengage/Dash) and let them burn Discipline Points to use them for free/as part of another action, or make use of Stances that reduce the Discipline Point tax for these simple manoeuvres. For example, at 2nd level you can spend 1 Discipline Point to enter or change a Stance for 1 minute; your Stance then allows you to use the associated accruin as a Bonus Action on each of your turns:
Bending Tree Stance (Patient Defence) - Dodge.
Dancing Stream Stance (Step of the Wind) - Disengage.
Rushing Wind Stance (Step of the Wind) - Dash.
You could then build on the Stances with monk improvements or Subclasses, but at the very least you're not having to spend Discipline Points all the time.
Now, if you think the Fighter needs a resource tax on top of the Bonus Action requirement, it can easily be done by giving Superiority Die to the base classbut I'd argue it should be the one that's fine without and keeps it simpler.
My thoughts on Weapon Traits and Masteries is a whole different post but ties in tangentially.
EDIT: specifying that Combat Action requires a Bonus Action.
Sorry I'm very confused by this proposal since most Maneuvers are now covered by Weapon Masteries which are free to use every turn as part of an attack. Why do you want have them be locked behind a limited resource like a spellcaster's spell slots? One of the strengths of martials is that they are not constrained by limited resources.
I think the idea is mostly that a) they still have access to them even when not using the appropriate weapon, just at a cost and b) they also get access to the cooler, more useful ones like Riposte, Bait & Switch etc.
Weapon Masteries are cool, but I foresee them either getting stale (Please make a save for my 4th swing this round, DM...) or mundane (all my attacks always have advantage, why is that again?). The real problem with Martial characters in my mind is that all the choices are made out of combat, so that when you are in combat all you do is swing, swing, swing; bringing in little things that you can actively choose to use would do wonders.
But martials do have choices already! Here's just a few choices martials had in a pretty simple combat for a 5th level party that I ran last session:
Set up: The party is travelling on horseback and get ambushed while crossing a bridge by a group of Merrow, one of which is a spellcaster.
Options that martials had during this combat:
1) shove enemies off the bridge.
2) cut the ropes the merrow were using to climb up onto the bridge
3) risk an AoO for a better shot at a ranged attack to break the caster's concentration on Hold Person.
4) jump off the bridge to get to the caster to hit them.
5) move to flank with a merrow on the bridge.
6) grapple and drag a merrow away from a paralyzed ally to stop them getting hit by autocrits.
7) get control of the horses / cart to avoid them trampling the party in a panic.
8) shove a merrow out of the way to break the flanking the merrow had on one of the party.
9) lay prone on the bridge to get cover from the caster / merrow off the bridge at risk of a merrow getting on the bridge and attacking them in melee.
Unfortunately, this particular party all dumped STR so none of the grapple / shove options were good for them.
The existence of options isn't the problem it is the [real or perceived] "badness" of the options other than attacking. It's why Battlemaster maneuvers are seen as "good" but grappling is seen as "bad". Battlemaster maneuvers allow you to still just attack, attack, attack and get something on top. Whereas grappling forces you to sacrifice attack, attack, attack in order to do something else.
Sorry I'm very confused by this proposal since most Maneuvers are now covered by Weapon Masteries which are free to use every turn as part of an attack. Why do you want have them be locked behind a limited resource like a spellcaster's spell slots? One of the strengths of martials is that they are not constrained by limited resources.
One of the weaknesses of that design is they are every turn on repeat over and over with no change. Even if they had no cost and could be done constantly the better option would be to learn masteries independent of the weapons, maybe rangers only learn 1, barbarians 3, fighters 5 and they can freely switch which one they are using each attack. And one of the options should just be more damage, kind of like flex but more impactful than 1 damage. If they want to make weapons feel more distinct instead of hard limits on masteries give small boosts, like quarterstaves are +1 to your save dc to knock prone. Sure you can do it while attacking with a dagger its just not ideal. The fighter can in a limited set for each weapon, but everyone else masteries are just boring AF once you've used them for a few games. We started to find topple to be less fun than just doing damage as it was a slow down and after the comedic effect of tripping things constantly wore off it just became annoying.
And yes the fighter etc can do other things like shove, cut ropes etc as you said in another post. But you know who can also do that a level 1 commoner, or the wizard. Hell my first wizard in 5e would do it better than your party apparently as he did invest in strength and athletics. Some on your list the average fighter will likely do better than the average commoner/wizard assuming they invested in athletics and have a good strength, or because of being leveld with attack rolls. But its not anything special for being a fighter really. Its just prof bonus+attribute which everyone has.
Masteries should be an all-or-nothing feature IMO not these silly, you get mastery in 1 or 2 weapons each LR. Because then swapping around weapons lets you pick which mastery you want on any particular turn, whereas a Fighter just gets to do that without swapping weapons at whatever level so they can make optimal use of magic weapons, if giving martials "choices" is the ultimate goal. Giving martials something that is situationally useful and that they can only use a couple times a day is a recipe for players to forget they even have that thing until they are in a dungeon crawl and exhausting every resource they have.
Topple really needs to be only 1/turn or yeah its super annoying to adjudicate. TBH one of the reason I like playing martials (and DMing for martials) is that their turns are quick and simple, without all the choice-paralysis of casters debating over which spell to use, or worrying about all the bookkeeping or tracking different conditions on half a dozen different enemies.
I was thinking about the fighters doing other things. It works for things like push and grapple as they are attacks but animal handling isn't and so when they get a 2nd attack they are just better at those things all else being equal. It would be interesting to me if maybe more things were classified as attacks. So people with multiple attacks could do them multiple times. effectively turning a fighters multiple attacks into multiple actions outside things like spell casting and I guess stealth for rogue niche protection. Though in theory they could give rogues a 2nd attack at level 5 and say for them dash, disengage and stealth are attack actions. A swashbuckling fighter sub class might get disengage as an attack action.
Edit to add I forget the technical terminology used with attack, attack action etc that makes push work with their multiple attacks but use that for more things. That might help for out of combat appeal as well. A barbarian can slug someone while picking their pocket, or pick their pocket while doing some social skill that is an action, calm a animal while hiding in the same turn etc while a spell caster only does one of those things sop is just slower/worse without spells.
The existence of options isn't the problem it is the [real or perceived] "badness" of the options other than attacking. It's why Battlemaster maneuvers are seen as "good" but grappling is seen as "bad". Battlemaster maneuvers allow you to still just attack, attack, attack and get something on top. Whereas grappling forces you to sacrifice attack, attack, attack in order to do something else.
I think you've nailed it on the head but missed a key part: Everyclass has the option to do those actions; none are unique to martials. In fact it's actually easier for most non-Martial classes (RAW) in the scenario you described.
As you also point out, damage is almost always better than an effect or status condition (unfortunately due to 5e system design). Hence, my suggestion for warriors to get some of these options as Bonus Actions.
But martials do have choices already! Here's just a few choices martials had in a pretty simple combat for a 5th level party that I ran last session:
Set up: The party is travelling on horseback and get ambushed while crossing a bridge by a group of Merrow, one of which is a spellcaster.
Options that martials had during this combat:
1) shove enemies off the bridge.
2) cut the ropes the merrow were using to climb up onto the bridge
3) risk an AoO for a better shot at a ranged attack to break the caster's concentration on Hold Person.
4) jump off the bridge to get to the caster to hit them.
5) move to flank with a merrow on the bridge.
6) grapple and drag a merrow away from a paralyzed ally to stop them getting hit by autocrits.
7) get control of the horses / cart to avoid them trampling the party in a panic.
8) shove a merrow out of the way to break the flanking the merrow had on one of the party.
9) lay prone on the bridge to get cover from the caster / merrow off the bridge at risk of a merrow getting on the bridge and attacking them in melee.
Unfortunately, this particular party all dumped STR so none of the grapple / shove options were good for them.
The existence of options isn't the problem it is the [real or perceived] "badness" of the options other than attacking. It's why Battlemaster maneuvers are seen as "good" but grappling is seen as "bad". Battlemaster maneuvers allow you to still just attack, attack, attack and get something on top. Whereas grappling forces you to sacrifice attack, attack, attack in order to do something else.
Most of these situations are highly situationally, Grappling is even worse in OneD&D than 5E since now you basically have to be unarmed to attempt a grapple, Also risking Opportunity Attacks for breaking concentration on casters is hardly a good thing when your casters can do the same thing without risking it and some casters do things like getting horses under-control better than martial. For opportunity attacks, most casters have plenty of ranged options and are normally out of such a range. When your option is "you can take more damage", it's not really a positive thing for class design. The thing is to set this up you have to set-up a situational encounter to begin with.
How do any of these work when you encounter 10 Stirge in a cave or when you confront the beholder floating alone in a dome shaped room which it has full vision over. The idea that sometimes you might get situational options doesn't mean you always do and it certainly doesn't mean that casters don't also get most of the same options, or even more options and do them better, which usually they do. The wizard runs in, touches the fighter that is grappled and dimension doors them out of range, no check necessary. The druid uses speak with animals to calm down the Brown Bears who were just panicked due to a dragon landing in a clearing in the forest which prevents a fight entirely. The wizard uses Arcane Eye to scout out and map the entire enemy base, the Cleric uses turn undead and all the undead start to flee, if they weren't destroyed. Casters get way more from situational encounters than martial characters do.
But martials do have choices already! Here's just a few choices martials had in a pretty simple combat for a 5th level party that I ran last session:
...
The existence of options isn't the problem it is the [real or perceived] "badness" of the options other than attacking. It's why Battlemaster maneuvers are seen as "good" but grappling is seen as "bad". Battlemaster maneuvers allow you to still just attack, attack, attack and get something on top. Whereas grappling forces you to sacrifice attack, attack, attack in order to do something else.
I have two problems with these kind of choices, one of which has already been pointed out by Dakka.
My other problem is that these are all entirely contingent on the setting in which the combat is taking place, and in this scenario you as the DM have gone to the effort to make the setting interesting -- but it could just as easily be a fight in a ten foot wide tunnel, where your options are attack, retreat or maybe dodge if you want to be a meat shield; or maybe on a wide open field of rolling plains, where your options are ... not much? And it's not particularly like there is anything wrong with either of these settings; they are both reasonable places that you could run into a fight, and they could both have suitably epic atmospheres, they just don't provide anything for the kinds of interesting actions you suggest a Martial character should be taking.
Ultimately, basing a class's ability to make impactful choices in combat on something that is not even remotely guaranteed to be present is flawed design in my mind
I think you've nailed it on the head but missed a key part: Everyclass has the option to do those actions; none are unique to martials. In fact it's actually easier for most non-Martial classes (RAW) in the scenario you described.
Sorry but what? A martial character sacrifices only 1 attack in order to grapple / shove, whereas a non-martial is sacrificing their entire action to do so. Similarly non-martials almost always dump STR and don't bother with Athletics as a skill so are terrible at grapple / shove.
D&D campaigns don't usually feature many fights in featureless voids, they are generally in places with terrain and stuff in them. If your DM doesn't describe that stuff and terrain adequately for you to look for alternative actions then ask them! A grassy field might have a fence, some big rolls of hay, farm equipment, there will also be gulleys cut by rain water, burrows from animals, thorny weeds, etc... A cave tunnel might have torch sconces, doors, stalagmite and stalactites, or sudden drops where one cave meets another. Caves generally are not blank empty smooth spaces.
Beholders are collectors and inventors! The should have hordes of all kinds of stuff in their lairs that they have collected. What on earth are your enemies doing with their lives if they are all just hanging out in blank featureless empty rooms waiting to be killed? The only time I've had a combat in a blank featureless space was in arena combats. Blank featureless spaces cripple lots of characters (Rogues most notably) and are really, really boring to play in.
I originally thought your post was highlighting how bad the options for martials are by listing non-actions or ones every other class group is better at and agreed. I don't think, outside the Battlemaster and Stunning Strike you can honestly claim martials have options non-martials don't.
To address your question about why I think non-martials could perform better in the situations you listed (despite not having 2 Extra Attacks):
Only option 1, 6, and 8 are better done by a high Str Fighter (or a Str Monk, which are suboptimal builds) because they can use the Shove/Grapple actions and still take multiple attacks. Even then, a paladin or ranger with Extra Attack can achieve the same thing at most levels but might have better effect from Smites, Entangling Strike, etc.
Rogues having Bonus Action Dash and Disengage means they can do 2, 3, & 5 better than the fighter and on par with a monk.
The Ranger and Druid (potentially Bard & Cleric) will be better at dealing with the animals in 7 and have Bonus Action spells they can also use.
All spellcasters can use magic to achieve the same effects as any of those, with greater reliability because magic is incredibly powerful in 5e.
I'm not sure where you're going with the bit about considering scenarios outside a void, except that I think you're reinforcing my point. Martials have no unique way to interact with the world under the RAW unless that consists of Grappling/Shoving something and also hitting it more than once (which the Barbarian can't do). Anything creative they do with the world, any other character currently can as well, often with better effect as I touched on above. I GM for an incredibly creative group and have encouraged play styles outside just damage, but that required me to break the system's RAW to reward that behaviour; I had to create options that competed with damage output or didn't require the sacrifice of an attack, and limited their availability to the martials. But that's homebrew territory and hence my suggestions above.
PF2 is a good example where system design works well: status conditions are more powerful, combat options are more extensive and explicitly detailed, repeated attacks have diminishing returns, and martials are designed with options that let them break or exploit these rules.
All spellcasters can use magic to achieve the same effects as any of those, with greater reliability because magic is incredibly powerful in 5e.
This is false. The probability an enemy fails a saving throw against a spell is LOWER than their probability of failing against a grapple (in 5e at least, sadly One D&D has made this untrue now which is why I hate the new grappling rules). And grapple does two different effects simultaneously which no spell (until Telekinesis which is 5th level) can do: Both moving an enemy away from another creature and simultaneously preventing them from moving back on their turn.
PF2 is a good example where system design works well: status conditions are more powerful, combat options are more extensive and explicitly detailed, repeated attacks have diminishing returns, and martials are designed with options that let them break or exploit these rules.
Again false, you need to stack a ton of status conditions together to get anything comparable to the effect of a D&D 5e condition. The reason PF2 is better balanced than 5e is that magic is massively nerfed as status conditions are weaker, easier for enemies to break free of, and spellcasting in general is less flexible than 5e reducing caster versatility.
Anything creative they do with the world, any other character currently can as well, often with better effect as I touched on above
Sorry the only one of my examples where you listed a non-martial as being better at it than a martial was calming down horses for Druid. All the rest you confirmed that martials (i.e. everyone who isn't a full caster that relies on weapon attacks rather than spell in combat) were the best at them...
I don't know if I'm not doing a very good job explaining my position but you seem to be misinterpreting it and that of others others here when we're saying the rules don't offer martials the option to do anything non-martials can't. Hell, the inclusion of Weapon Mastery and presence of the Battle Master are built around fixing the issue.
Either way, I try not to get invested in online disagreements (probably impossible by posting in the forums!) so I'll pick up something you said I agree with, namely:
Masteries should be an all-or-nothing feature IMO not these silly, you get mastery in 1 or 2 weapons each LR.
I definitely agree they should be simpler and more limited, making the Fighter's versatility shine in comparison. Likewise agree the current Mastery choice is an illusion with how easy it is to change. I made a suggestion in the Weapon Masteries Revision thread that they become weapon-specific Traits (Topple, Light, Grapple, Shove, Pin, Graze, etc) anyone can use for a Bonus Action, but martial classes gain Mastery which allows them to be used 1/turn for free. Fighters could have features to improve this further. What are your thoughts on this idea?
I'm torn whether I'd still allow specific Weapon Mastery to some classes or force the Weapon Mastery feat tax. Probably the latter but that's because I have lukewarm feelings about the prevailing design concept that every class should be equally powerful in combat.
I made a suggestion in the Weapon Masteries Revision thread that they become weapon-specific Traits (Topple, Light, Grapple, Shove, Pin, Graze, etc) anyone can use for a Bonus Action, but martial classes gain Mastery which allows them to be used 1/turn for free. Fighters could have features to improve this further. What are your thoughts on this idea?
But isn't this perpetuating exactly the same problem you are complaining about w.r.t. grapple? If anyone can use weapon masteries as a BA then it is taking away the one thing martials now have that spellcasters don't (though there are spells that replicate every one of the bonuses given to the weapon masteries but I digress).
If I'm misunderstanding your point please enlighten me! I do not understand what people actually want martials to be able to do to make them be "good". Because all the solutions I have seen is basically : "give martials stuff that works the same way as spells but don't call them spells." Which I honestly find really boring and a non-solution. If I want to play like a spellcaster, I would play a spellcaster. If I am playing as a martial, I want to play a martial : cutting my way out of the belly of a purple worm, cutting the head of the evil hag, climbing on the back of the giant dragon to stab it in the face, kicking the arrogant wizard off the top of the tower, throwing the bandit out the window.
Let me make a modest proposal... but first, I'm not looking to argue the premise, just the actual question:
Premise: lets say we go with battle-master-like maneuvers for all martials, instead of weapon mastery. (so there has to be a maneuver equivalent for each mastery ... which is already sort of/mostly true)
What if instead of a limited number of (superiority) dice, Fighters and Monks get a free Die per turn. Fighters can spend Second Wind uses as Maneuver Dice. Monks may or may not also get a limited number of dice (maneuver die pool, lets say) to use in addition to that, but they get 1 die per turn always. Barbarians, Paladins, Rangers, and some subclasses (Valor Bard, Sword Bard, Dance Bard, War Cleric maybe, Blade Locks maybe) get the maneuver die pool, but not a free die per turn. Rogues can divert 1 Sneak Attack die per turn; comparable to that, the specific Bard subclasses I mentioned can use Bardic Inspiration as a Maneuver Die once per turn. Martial Adept grants dice toward the maneuver die pool.
Separate from how many maneuvers they learn ... what do you think of 1 free maneuver die per turn for Fighters and Monks, instead of the BattleMaster's way of having only the limited number of dice?
subclasses (Valor Bard, Sword Bard, Dance Bard, War Cleric maybe, Blade Locks maybe) get the maneuver die pool, but not a free die per turn. Rogues can divert 1 Sneak Attack die per turn; comparable to that, the specific Bard subclasses I mentioned can use Bardic Inspiration as a Maneuver Die once per turn. Martial Adept grants dice toward the maneuver die poo
But why? Why should full casters get to do the same things as martials? If the biggest criticism against all the things I said were options for martials is that "other characters is the party could do that too" (even though other characters would be much worse at them than marital) Why do people keep suggesting giving their new cool thing to boost martials to other characters as well?
subclasses (Valor Bard, Sword Bard, Dance Bard, War Cleric maybe, Blade Locks maybe) get the maneuver die pool, but not a free die per turn. Rogues can divert 1 Sneak Attack die per turn; comparable to that, the specific Bard subclasses I mentioned can use Bardic Inspiration as a Maneuver Die once per turn. Martial Adept grants dice toward the maneuver die poo
But why? Why should full casters get to do the same things as martials? If the biggest criticism against all the things I said were options for martials is that "other characters is the party could do that too" (even though other characters would be much worse at them than marital) Why do people keep suggesting giving their new cool thing to boost martials to other characters as well?
What do you think of 1 free maneuver die per turn for Fighters and Monks, instead of the BattleMaster's way of having only the limited number of dice?
Maybe. I like the option of every character being able to properly use weapons they're Proficient with. Casters won't have the stats or attacks to properly leverage them (and wouldn't want to be in range), Rangers and Paladins already have lots of uses for their Bonus Actions, and any non-Martials using Two-Weapon Fighting will have to decide whether to use their Bonus Action for Light or the main weapon Trait. Warrior class would gain the action efficiency and combinations through Mastery.
However, we could make it more restrictive. What if those Weapon Traits were only usable to Warrior group and half-martials through a class feature?
subclasses (Valor Bard, Sword Bard, Dance Bard, War Cleric maybe, Blade Locks maybe) get the maneuver die pool, but not a free die per turn. Rogues can divert 1 Sneak Attack die per turn; comparable to that, the specific Bard subclasses I mentioned can use Bardic Inspiration as a Maneuver Die once per turn. Martial Adept grants dice toward the maneuver die poo
But why? Why should full casters get to do the same things as martials? If the biggest criticism against all the things I said were options for martials is that "other characters is the party could do that too" (even though other characters would be much worse at them than marital) Why do people keep suggesting giving their new cool thing to boost martials to other characters as well?
What do you think of 1 free maneuver die per turn for Fighters and Monks, instead of the BattleMaster's way of having only the limited number of dice?
Conceptually I like the idea but it would have to be balanced with multi classing.
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So, I'd been thinking in similar lines, although rather than leaning into the Superiority Dice, it was taking the Cunning Action design and saying "Why not Martials?"
Fighters, as the combat masters, get Combat Action at level 2, which allow them to Trip/Blind/Disarm/Grapple/Shove/Feint/Frighten/Dodge/Disengage/etc. a target as part of an attack for a Bonus Action. Battlemaster gain their Superiority Dice for the additional damage and can do the Manoeuvres as part of attacks without needing the Bonus Action.
Barbarians can either have Savage Action in the style of Cunning Action with Dash/Frighten/Grapple (you can limit it to while Raging if it feels too much). Or they can have something more interesting like 1/turn:
For monks, the time of the Ki tax is past. Either give them Disciplined Action in the style of Cunning Action (Dodge/Disengage/Dash) and let them burn Discipline Points to use them for free/as part of another action, or make use of Stances that reduce the Discipline Point tax for these simple manoeuvres. For example, at 2nd level you can spend 1 Discipline Point to enter or change a Stance for 1 minute; your Stance then allows you to use the associated accruin as a Bonus Action on each of your turns:
You could then build on the Stances with monk improvements or Subclasses, but at the very least you're not having to spend Discipline Points all the time.
Now, if you think the Fighter needs a resource tax on top of the Bonus Action requirement, it can easily be done by giving Superiority Die to the base classbut I'd argue it should be the one that's fine without and keeps it simpler.
My thoughts on Weapon Traits and Masteries is a whole different post but ties in tangentially.
EDIT: specifying that Combat Action requires a Bonus Action.
Sorry I'm very confused by this proposal since most Maneuvers are now covered by Weapon Masteries which are free to use every turn as part of an attack. Why do you want have them be locked behind a limited resource like a spellcaster's spell slots? One of the strengths of martials is that they are not constrained by limited resources.
I think the idea is mostly that a) they still have access to them even when not using the appropriate weapon, just at a cost and b) they also get access to the cooler, more useful ones like Riposte, Bait & Switch etc.
Weapon Masteries are cool, but I foresee them either getting stale (Please make a save for my 4th swing this round, DM...) or mundane (all my attacks always have advantage, why is that again?). The real problem with Martial characters in my mind is that all the choices are made out of combat, so that when you are in combat all you do is swing, swing, swing; bringing in little things that you can actively choose to use would do wonders.
But martials do have choices already! Here's just a few choices martials had in a pretty simple combat for a 5th level party that I ran last session:
Set up: The party is travelling on horseback and get ambushed while crossing a bridge by a group of Merrow, one of which is a spellcaster.
Options that martials had during this combat:
1) shove enemies off the bridge.
2) cut the ropes the merrow were using to climb up onto the bridge
3) risk an AoO for a better shot at a ranged attack to break the caster's concentration on Hold Person.
4) jump off the bridge to get to the caster to hit them.
5) move to flank with a merrow on the bridge.
6) grapple and drag a merrow away from a paralyzed ally to stop them getting hit by autocrits.
7) get control of the horses / cart to avoid them trampling the party in a panic.
8) shove a merrow out of the way to break the flanking the merrow had on one of the party.
9) lay prone on the bridge to get cover from the caster / merrow off the bridge at risk of a merrow getting on the bridge and attacking them in melee.
Unfortunately, this particular party all dumped STR so none of the grapple / shove options were good for them.
The existence of options isn't the problem it is the [real or perceived] "badness" of the options other than attacking. It's why Battlemaster maneuvers are seen as "good" but grappling is seen as "bad". Battlemaster maneuvers allow you to still just attack, attack, attack and get something on top. Whereas grappling forces you to sacrifice attack, attack, attack in order to do something else.
One of the weaknesses of that design is they are every turn on repeat over and over with no change. Even if they had no cost and could be done constantly the better option would be to learn masteries independent of the weapons, maybe rangers only learn 1, barbarians 3, fighters 5 and they can freely switch which one they are using each attack. And one of the options should just be more damage, kind of like flex but more impactful than 1 damage. If they want to make weapons feel more distinct instead of hard limits on masteries give small boosts, like quarterstaves are +1 to your save dc to knock prone. Sure you can do it while attacking with a dagger its just not ideal. The fighter can in a limited set for each weapon, but everyone else masteries are just boring AF once you've used them for a few games. We started to find topple to be less fun than just doing damage as it was a slow down and after the comedic effect of tripping things constantly wore off it just became annoying.
And yes the fighter etc can do other things like shove, cut ropes etc as you said in another post. But you know who can also do that a level 1 commoner, or the wizard. Hell my first wizard in 5e would do it better than your party apparently as he did invest in strength and athletics. Some on your list the average fighter will likely do better than the average commoner/wizard assuming they invested in athletics and have a good strength, or because of being leveld with attack rolls. But its not anything special for being a fighter really. Its just prof bonus+attribute which everyone has.
Masteries should be an all-or-nothing feature IMO not these silly, you get mastery in 1 or 2 weapons each LR. Because then swapping around weapons lets you pick which mastery you want on any particular turn, whereas a Fighter just gets to do that without swapping weapons at whatever level so they can make optimal use of magic weapons, if giving martials "choices" is the ultimate goal. Giving martials something that is situationally useful and that they can only use a couple times a day is a recipe for players to forget they even have that thing until they are in a dungeon crawl and exhausting every resource they have.
Topple really needs to be only 1/turn or yeah its super annoying to adjudicate. TBH one of the reason I like playing martials (and DMing for martials) is that their turns are quick and simple, without all the choice-paralysis of casters debating over which spell to use, or worrying about all the bookkeeping or tracking different conditions on half a dozen different enemies.
I was thinking about the fighters doing other things. It works for things like push and grapple as they are attacks but animal handling isn't and so when they get a 2nd attack they are just better at those things all else being equal. It would be interesting to me if maybe more things were classified as attacks. So people with multiple attacks could do them multiple times. effectively turning a fighters multiple attacks into multiple actions outside things like spell casting and I guess stealth for rogue niche protection. Though in theory they could give rogues a 2nd attack at level 5 and say for them dash, disengage and stealth are attack actions. A swashbuckling fighter sub class might get disengage as an attack action.
Edit to add I forget the technical terminology used with attack, attack action etc that makes push work with their multiple attacks but use that for more things. That might help for out of combat appeal as well. A barbarian can slug someone while picking their pocket, or pick their pocket while doing some social skill that is an action, calm a animal while hiding in the same turn etc while a spell caster only does one of those things sop is just slower/worse without spells.
I think you've nailed it on the head but missed a key part: Every class has the option to do those actions; none are unique to martials. In fact it's actually easier for most non-Martial classes (RAW) in the scenario you described.
As you also point out, damage is almost always better than an effect or status condition (unfortunately due to 5e system design). Hence, my suggestion for warriors to get some of these options as Bonus Actions.
Most of these situations are highly situationally, Grappling is even worse in OneD&D than 5E since now you basically have to be unarmed to attempt a grapple, Also risking Opportunity Attacks for breaking concentration on casters is hardly a good thing when your casters can do the same thing without risking it and some casters do things like getting horses under-control better than martial. For opportunity attacks, most casters have plenty of ranged options and are normally out of such a range. When your option is "you can take more damage", it's not really a positive thing for class design. The thing is to set this up you have to set-up a situational encounter to begin with.
How do any of these work when you encounter 10 Stirge in a cave or when you confront the beholder floating alone in a dome shaped room which it has full vision over. The idea that sometimes you might get situational options doesn't mean you always do and it certainly doesn't mean that casters don't also get most of the same options, or even more options and do them better, which usually they do. The wizard runs in, touches the fighter that is grappled and dimension doors them out of range, no check necessary. The druid uses speak with animals to calm down the Brown Bears who were just panicked due to a dragon landing in a clearing in the forest which prevents a fight entirely. The wizard uses Arcane Eye to scout out and map the entire enemy base, the Cleric uses turn undead and all the undead start to flee, if they weren't destroyed. Casters get way more from situational encounters than martial characters do.
I have two problems with these kind of choices, one of which has already been pointed out by Dakka.
My other problem is that these are all entirely contingent on the setting in which the combat is taking place, and in this scenario you as the DM have gone to the effort to make the setting interesting -- but it could just as easily be a fight in a ten foot wide tunnel, where your options are attack, retreat or maybe dodge if you want to be a meat shield; or maybe on a wide open field of rolling plains, where your options are ... not much? And it's not particularly like there is anything wrong with either of these settings; they are both reasonable places that you could run into a fight, and they could both have suitably epic atmospheres, they just don't provide anything for the kinds of interesting actions you suggest a Martial character should be taking.
Ultimately, basing a class's ability to make impactful choices in combat on something that is not even remotely guaranteed to be present is flawed design in my mind
Sorry but what? A martial character sacrifices only 1 attack in order to grapple / shove, whereas a non-martial is sacrificing their entire action to do so. Similarly non-martials almost always dump STR and don't bother with Athletics as a skill so are terrible at grapple / shove.
D&D campaigns don't usually feature many fights in featureless voids, they are generally in places with terrain and stuff in them. If your DM doesn't describe that stuff and terrain adequately for you to look for alternative actions then ask them! A grassy field might have a fence, some big rolls of hay, farm equipment, there will also be gulleys cut by rain water, burrows from animals, thorny weeds, etc... A cave tunnel might have torch sconces, doors, stalagmite and stalactites, or sudden drops where one cave meets another. Caves generally are not blank empty smooth spaces.
Beholders are collectors and inventors! The should have hordes of all kinds of stuff in their lairs that they have collected. What on earth are your enemies doing with their lives if they are all just hanging out in blank featureless empty rooms waiting to be killed? The only time I've had a combat in a blank featureless space was in arena combats. Blank featureless spaces cripple lots of characters (Rogues most notably) and are really, really boring to play in.
I originally thought your post was highlighting how bad the options for martials are by listing non-actions or ones every other class group is better at and agreed. I don't think, outside the Battlemaster and Stunning Strike you can honestly claim martials have options non-martials don't.
To address your question about why I think non-martials could perform better in the situations you listed (despite not having 2 Extra Attacks):
I'm not sure where you're going with the bit about considering scenarios outside a void, except that I think you're reinforcing my point. Martials have no unique way to interact with the world under the RAW unless that consists of Grappling/Shoving something and also hitting it more than once (which the Barbarian can't do). Anything creative they do with the world, any other character currently can as well, often with better effect as I touched on above. I GM for an incredibly creative group and have encouraged play styles outside just damage, but that required me to break the system's RAW to reward that behaviour; I had to create options that competed with damage output or didn't require the sacrifice of an attack, and limited their availability to the martials. But that's homebrew territory and hence my suggestions above.
PF2 is a good example where system design works well: status conditions are more powerful, combat options are more extensive and explicitly detailed, repeated attacks have diminishing returns, and martials are designed with options that let them break or exploit these rules.
This is false. The probability an enemy fails a saving throw against a spell is LOWER than their probability of failing against a grapple (in 5e at least, sadly One D&D has made this untrue now which is why I hate the new grappling rules). And grapple does two different effects simultaneously which no spell (until Telekinesis which is 5th level) can do: Both moving an enemy away from another creature and simultaneously preventing them from moving back on their turn.
Again false, you need to stack a ton of status conditions together to get anything comparable to the effect of a D&D 5e condition. The reason PF2 is better balanced than 5e is that magic is massively nerfed as status conditions are weaker, easier for enemies to break free of, and spellcasting in general is less flexible than 5e reducing caster versatility.
Sorry the only one of my examples where you listed a non-martial as being better at it than a martial was calming down horses for Druid. All the rest you confirmed that martials (i.e. everyone who isn't a full caster that relies on weapon attacks rather than spell in combat) were the best at them...
I don't know if I'm not doing a very good job explaining my position but you seem to be misinterpreting it and that of others others here when we're saying the rules don't offer martials the option to do anything non-martials can't. Hell, the inclusion of Weapon Mastery and presence of the Battle Master are built around fixing the issue.
Either way, I try not to get invested in online disagreements (probably impossible by posting in the forums!) so I'll pick up something you said I agree with, namely:
I definitely agree they should be simpler and more limited, making the Fighter's versatility shine in comparison. Likewise agree the current Mastery choice is an illusion with how easy it is to change. I made a suggestion in the Weapon Masteries Revision thread that they become weapon-specific Traits (Topple, Light, Grapple, Shove, Pin, Graze, etc) anyone can use for a Bonus Action, but martial classes gain Mastery which allows them to be used 1/turn for free. Fighters could have features to improve this further. What are your thoughts on this idea?
I'm torn whether I'd still allow specific Weapon Mastery to some classes or force the Weapon Mastery feat tax. Probably the latter but that's because I have lukewarm feelings about the prevailing design concept that every class should be equally powerful in combat.
But isn't this perpetuating exactly the same problem you are complaining about w.r.t. grapple? If anyone can use weapon masteries as a BA then it is taking away the one thing martials now have that spellcasters don't (though there are spells that replicate every one of the bonuses given to the weapon masteries but I digress).
If I'm misunderstanding your point please enlighten me! I do not understand what people actually want martials to be able to do to make them be "good". Because all the solutions I have seen is basically : "give martials stuff that works the same way as spells but don't call them spells." Which I honestly find really boring and a non-solution. If I want to play like a spellcaster, I would play a spellcaster. If I am playing as a martial, I want to play a martial : cutting my way out of the belly of a purple worm, cutting the head of the evil hag, climbing on the back of the giant dragon to stab it in the face, kicking the arrogant wizard off the top of the tower, throwing the bandit out the window.
Let me make a modest proposal... but first, I'm not looking to argue the premise, just the actual question:
Premise: lets say we go with battle-master-like maneuvers for all martials, instead of weapon mastery. (so there has to be a maneuver equivalent for each mastery ... which is already sort of/mostly true)
What if instead of a limited number of (superiority) dice, Fighters and Monks get a free Die per turn. Fighters can spend Second Wind uses as Maneuver Dice. Monks may or may not also get a limited number of dice (maneuver die pool, lets say) to use in addition to that, but they get 1 die per turn always. Barbarians, Paladins, Rangers, and some subclasses (Valor Bard, Sword Bard, Dance Bard, War Cleric maybe, Blade Locks maybe) get the maneuver die pool, but not a free die per turn. Rogues can divert 1 Sneak Attack die per turn; comparable to that, the specific Bard subclasses I mentioned can use Bardic Inspiration as a Maneuver Die once per turn. Martial Adept grants dice toward the maneuver die pool.
Separate from how many maneuvers they learn ... what do you think of 1 free maneuver die per turn for Fighters and Monks, instead of the BattleMaster's way of having only the limited number of dice?
But why? Why should full casters get to do the same things as martials? If the biggest criticism against all the things I said were options for martials is that "other characters is the party could do that too" (even though other characters would be much worse at them than marital) Why do people keep suggesting giving their new cool thing to boost martials to other characters as well?
What do you think of 1 free maneuver die per turn for Fighters and Monks, instead of the BattleMaster's way of having only the limited number of dice?
Maybe. I like the option of every character being able to properly use weapons they're Proficient with. Casters won't have the stats or attacks to properly leverage them (and wouldn't want to be in range), Rangers and Paladins already have lots of uses for their Bonus Actions, and any non-Martials using Two-Weapon Fighting will have to decide whether to use their Bonus Action for Light or the main weapon Trait. Warrior class would gain the action efficiency and combinations through Mastery.
However, we could make it more restrictive. What if those Weapon Traits were only usable to Warrior group and half-martials through a class feature?
Conceptually I like the idea but it would have to be balanced with multi classing.