I wanna know what you guys think. Should fighting spirit be 3/short or long rest, or would that be unbalanced? Battle masters have their superiority dice 4/short rest, so why are samurai so limited?
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When you thought you knew about spellcasting - you played a warlock
Why are most bard colleges a pain to type? I mean bard college of valor, compare to champion or evoker. Same goes for sacred oaths: paladin oath of devotion. That's even worse.
I don't think WoCE were very creative with the rogue and ranger subclass titles. I mean ranger archeotype? Roguish archeotype? Bro! Fighters are better but still is somewhat unsatisfying compare to a monastatic tradition or sacred oath.
I think 3 per short rest is probably too much. Yes, Battlemasters recharge on a short rest, but keep in mind what having advantage on all attacks for one turn can get you. It combines very well with Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master, not to mention Action Surge, meaning you could go absolutely SUPERNOVA on a target in that round. That's way more combat power than a single Superiority Die.
One of the things I've liked about some of the new subclasses we've seen lately is how they give some abilities a limited number of free uses, and then let you expend resources to get more. Like the Rogue Phantom crushing a Soul Trinket to get an additonal Ghost Walk, or the Drakewarden Ranger spending spell slots to re-summon the drake or use another Dragon's Breath. For martial subclasses like the Samurai, maybe a similar thing could be accomplished by letting them burn a Hit Die. It would be especially on brand for the Samurai's Fighting Spirit, you could RP it as pushing yourself farther than normal at the cost of your ability to recover stamina in the short term. I would probably limit how many times you could use a Hit Die for another Fighting Spirit though, or it could get ridiculous at high levels.
It's also worth remembering that at Level 10, the Samurai regains one use of it at the start of each combat if they didn't have any left, so the 2/day limitation isn't as bad as it sounds.
I wanna know what you guys think. Should fighting spirit be 3/short or long rest, or would that be unbalanced? Battle masters have their superiority dice 4/short rest, so why are samurai so limited?
Fighting Spirit is generally about as good as getting Precision Attack on every attack you make during your nova turn, which is why they nerfed it, and why you usually need Elven Accuracy to make a really compelling Samurai build. Starting at level 7, though, Samurai start to be a lot better by comparison, because Samurai get genuinely good things every time they reach a new multiclass step, whereas Battlemasters get mostly diminishing returns with some genuinely useless things tossed in, like that terrible L7 ability that makes you somewhat better at fighting things you aren't fighting on a class that is bad at both physical and social stealth....
Anyway. If you compare Samurai to Battle Masters at any point from L10 onward, the Samurai honestly does quite well by comparison - you just need Elven Accuracy in play.
Actually, this is a very good point. You can always find a way to get couple battlemaster maneuvers here or there with fighting style or feats.
I consider Resilient (Wisdom) like mandatory for Fighters and Samurai get it for free at level 7. You don’t even need Elven Accuracy that much with Archery + Fighting Spirit + some Precision Attack backup from Martial Adept.
If you go to the GWM route, I see no reason to not get Superior Technique and even Martial Adept at some point.
When a battlemaster builds for DPR, they pair precision attack with GWM/SS. A samurai just uses their bonus action for advantage at-will. The average roll of a d8 is 4.5, while the average of advantage is +5.
The most logical thing to do is to action surge with fighting spirit, assuming you're going all out with GMW/SS. All attacks gain +5 to hit, so to speak. At level 5, this is four attacks. At that same level, If a battlemaster wanted to "nova," they would very likely have to toss out all four superiority dice during an action surge window to ensure their attacks land.
When it comes to DPR and bursting with GWM/SS, one use of fighting spirit is the same as tossing out four superiority dice. If we only fighting spirit when we action surge, three a day is good enough to cover most adventuring days. This obviously goes all out the window once you get tireless spirit, now allowing you to fighting spirit as much as you see fit, cause as long as you short rest at some point, you can always count on having your burst option for the next encounter.
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I wanna know what you guys think. Should fighting spirit be 3/short or long rest, or would that be unbalanced? Battle masters have their superiority dice 4/short rest, so why are samurai so limited?
When you thought you knew about spellcasting - you played a warlock
Why are most bard colleges a pain to type? I mean bard college of valor, compare to champion or evoker. Same goes for sacred oaths: paladin oath of devotion. That's even worse.
I don't think WoCE were very creative with the rogue and ranger subclass titles. I mean ranger archeotype? Roguish archeotype? Bro! Fighters are better but still is somewhat unsatisfying compare to a monastatic tradition or sacred oath.
I think 3 per short rest is probably too much. Yes, Battlemasters recharge on a short rest, but keep in mind what having advantage on all attacks for one turn can get you. It combines very well with Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master, not to mention Action Surge, meaning you could go absolutely SUPERNOVA on a target in that round. That's way more combat power than a single Superiority Die.
Maybe change to the new trend of proficiency bonus per long rest? I mean, it would be better only by level 9, but… better than nothing.
One of the things I've liked about some of the new subclasses we've seen lately is how they give some abilities a limited number of free uses, and then let you expend resources to get more. Like the Rogue Phantom crushing a Soul Trinket to get an additonal Ghost Walk, or the Drakewarden Ranger spending spell slots to re-summon the drake or use another Dragon's Breath. For martial subclasses like the Samurai, maybe a similar thing could be accomplished by letting them burn a Hit Die. It would be especially on brand for the Samurai's Fighting Spirit, you could RP it as pushing yourself farther than normal at the cost of your ability to recover stamina in the short term. I would probably limit how many times you could use a Hit Die for another Fighting Spirit though, or it could get ridiculous at high levels.
It's also worth remembering that at Level 10, the Samurai regains one use of it at the start of each combat if they didn't have any left, so the 2/day limitation isn't as bad as it sounds.
Fighting Spirit is generally about as good as getting Precision Attack on every attack you make during your nova turn, which is why they nerfed it, and why you usually need Elven Accuracy to make a really compelling Samurai build. Starting at level 7, though, Samurai start to be a lot better by comparison, because Samurai get genuinely good things every time they reach a new multiclass step, whereas Battlemasters get mostly diminishing returns with some genuinely useless things tossed in, like that terrible L7 ability that makes you somewhat better at fighting things you aren't fighting on a class that is bad at both physical and social stealth....
Anyway. If you compare Samurai to Battle Masters at any point from L10 onward, the Samurai honestly does quite well by comparison - you just need Elven Accuracy in play.
Actually, this is a very good point. You can always find a way to get couple battlemaster maneuvers here or there with fighting style or feats.
I consider Resilient (Wisdom) like mandatory for Fighters and Samurai get it for free at level 7. You don’t even need Elven Accuracy that much with Archery + Fighting Spirit + some Precision Attack backup from Martial Adept.
If you go to the GWM route, I see no reason to not get Superior Technique and even Martial Adept at some point.
When a battlemaster builds for DPR, they pair precision attack with GWM/SS. A samurai just uses their bonus action for advantage at-will. The average roll of a d8 is 4.5, while the average of advantage is +5.
The most logical thing to do is to action surge with fighting spirit, assuming you're going all out with GMW/SS. All attacks gain +5 to hit, so to speak. At level 5, this is four attacks. At that same level, If a battlemaster wanted to "nova," they would very likely have to toss out all four superiority dice during an action surge window to ensure their attacks land.
When it comes to DPR and bursting with GWM/SS, one use of fighting spirit is the same as tossing out four superiority dice. If we only fighting spirit when we action surge, three a day is good enough to cover most adventuring days. This obviously goes all out the window once you get tireless spirit, now allowing you to fighting spirit as much as you see fit, cause as long as you short rest at some point, you can always count on having your burst option for the next encounter.