Wizards of the Coast struck gold with the Superiority system and yet they still haven't really realized/capitalized on it. Superiority as a core mechanic is extremely flexible and diverse, it's easily expandable as was proven in Tasha's Allspice Soup Pot, and it can easily be made even more deep and powerful at a negligible complexity cost with weapon-specific Maneuvers (think Ashes of War from Elden Ring - your weapon has a Maneuver associated with it that you can expend Superiority to use, provided you have Superiority). The Superiority system is, essentially, spellcasting for martial characters and allows martial characters to experience much the same delight in strategically applying their chosen maneuvers to effect maximum impact on a fight. A well-chosen set of maneuvers allows characters who have them to dominate their foes, while those players who don't care for the system can simply use all their Superiority die on Precision Attack to hit more often, or on a Power/Brutal Attack option that would allow them to hit harder. The system is as complex as a player wants it to be.
It's also almost entirely inaccessible.
Currently, you can gain maneuvers in one of three ways - by being a Battle Master fighter, by taking the Superior Technique fighting style, or by taking the Martial Adept feat. As cool as Superiority is, both Superior Technique and Martial Adept suck at giving you access to it. The opportunity cost for both choices is steep, as gaining one single stinking lousy Superiority die per day (because let's be real, nobody ever short rests anymore) is rarely worth the loss of a permanent bonus on every attack you make a'la a normal Fighting Style or the sheer power available from an ASI or a higher-level feat. This leaves Battle Masters as the only way to realistically gain access to the Superiority system and its many manifold benefits.
But we can change that.
Turn Martial Adept into a first-level, chargen-applicable feat, in place of (or in addition to, if necessary) Savage Attacker. Nobody really likes Savage Attacker, even those like myself who think it's fine instead of drastically underpowered tend to find it boring. But allowing a character to use Martial Adept to reflect militia training, a famous swordsman family member, a year spent squiring to a wandering knight, or however else you managed it lets a character buy into Superiority without having to pay the brutal opportunity cost of a fighting style or locking themselves into the one sole single individual subclass allowed to use the system. This also enhances Superior Technique, which is otherwise a trap option for fifighting style, as possessing Martial Adept makes Superior Technique a much stronger choice and vice versa. The larger your pool of Superiority, the stronger any option that gives you more Superiority or a larger maneuver pool is.
Martial Adept is not so powerful as to unbalance low-tier play. Even the combination of Martial Adept and Superior Technique is weaker than Archery by itself. But above every other concern, Superiority is just fun. It's an active, engaging system that allows you to make decisions, and its effects are often quite memorable. A well timed Trip, Push, or Disarm can swing a fight in a way that makes the Superiority user feel like a badass martial Master of the Blade. And as a bonus, Martial Adept as a level 1/starter feat allows characters normally barred from having any fun with weapons to also partake in the multitudinous benefits of the Superiority system. A monk who's spent their entire lives honing themselves into a living weapon can actually reflect that to a degree with Martial Adept, utilizing maneuvers to represented advanced martial arts techniques. A barbarian can take Martial Adept to represent a bit of focus in their frenzy or the Fate Berserker-like ability to retain their mind during their frothing-mouthed savagery. Paladins could use maneuvers to help shore up their rather weak base martial abilities and help better sell the whole Knightly Crusader aesthetic so many are looking for.
Heck - in my Eberron game, our Peace cleric opted for Martial Adept as their 'background' feat, with Commander's Strike and Bait-and-Switch. Fluffed as residual military training from the Last War, Zardafax has often used Commander's Strike to allow our rogue or our barbarian to make an extra high-value attack in a round in exchange for his own low-value attack. It's legitimately startled a number of us how effective Commander's Strike is on Zardafax for turns where our primary goal is "make this problem die as rapidly as possible" and the low-firepower cleric is already concentrating on a buff. Telling Muscles McAxeface or Daggerbeard the Dorf to take an extra swing has been clutch more than once.
Superiority deserves to see more play, and one of the easiest low-hanging fruit options for doing so is making Martial Adept available as a level 1 chargen-applicable feat. Remove the punishing opportunity cost for taking Martial Adept on level-up and allow people to use it to add some martial flair to their background. The game will be better for it, trust me.
I'm not sure how making Martial Adept a foundational feat has any impact on multiclass shenanigans? I'm not talking "add more maneuvers at first level for fighters", I'm advocating that Martial Adept be made available as a starter feat for anybody who wants it for their 1DD-style background. Presuming the background system from the Origins playtest isn't butchered, anyways.
I didn't see the part where they argued it should be a fighting style as well as the martial adept feat. I read it as allow Martial adept as a level 1 feat, which would then make the "superior Technique" fighting style more useful as well.
I think it would be a pretty decent feat to allow as a level 1, i don't think it would break anything anymore than giving someone a level 1 spell once per day and cantrips. Honestly not even something that was on my radar but I am now intrigued.
I will say I think there is room for both feats as level 1
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I don't know how to feel about this, frankly. On one hand, it's a feature that makes fighters stand out as true masters of weapons and tactics, and giving monks, paladins and rangers another resource to track might be cumbersome. On another hand, this is the only more or less solid alternative to spellcasting that martials can get.
Maneuvers are not "as complex as you want them to be"! Even if you only pick a few maneuvers, you have to read the massive list of maneuvers in order to pick yours. Oh, and you need to understand how the superiority system works, remember when and how you can use your maneuvers, what type of superiority die you use, and how many ie uses you have left for superiority. So can you, to a very small degree, control how complicated superiority is for you, by going out of your way to pick simpler maneuvers? Yes. But is superiority "as complex as you want it to be"? No, certainly not.
I don't dislike the superiority system. I actually think it's cool. But to people who want to take away the option of having a fun and easy class to play for beginners "for coolness' sake," let me ask you something: If superiority is really so "flexible and diverse," as Yurei repeatedly lauded it for, then why put it in the base class for fighter? If it fits so well into so many different classes, then why make it a base mechanic for fighter; can't it be a base mechanic for another class? I'm fine with keeping Battle Master as a fighter subclass; in fact, I think it's pretty cool. But if you can pick any martial class to add large degrees of complexity to, then why pick the simple class that people love and want to keep simple? I mean, you can have your beloved superiority play a bigger role in another base class and still keep Battle Master.
Making Martial Adept a Level 1 feat, as opposed to a higher level feat, is a great idea that I understand and agree with. This way, those non-Battle Master fighters and other classes that don't have access to Superiority will be able to choose this complicated mechanic without having to sacrifice ASIs for it. Make Martial Adept a Level 1 feat, as long as everyone who wants to play a simple fighter isn't required to use the superiority system.
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........................did you even read the thread, BB? I didn't even mention fighter save tangentially. This was about a way to make the excellent and versatile Superiority system more widely accessible. The other thread's where you get to chew me out for wanting to make fighter playable without always having to be a Battle Master. Go actually read my post before you start dunking on me in an almost entirely unrelated thread.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
........................did you even read the thread, BB? I didn't even mention fighter save tangentially. This was about a way to make the excellent and versatile Superiority system more widely accessible. The other thread's where you get to chew me out for wanting to make fighter playable without always having to be a Battle Master. Go actually read my post before you start dunking on me in an almost entirely unrelated thread.
I read the thread and I responded to the points you wrote. I like your proposal as long as Superiority isn't added to the base fighter class. And I outlined my reasons there. You were the one to the link the two threads and get them intertwined, and much of the things you said are relevant to the overall discussion of Superiority, and so was my response to your talk about Superiority's "flexibility," which was the only thing from my previous post that you could argue was unrelated to this thread.
........................did you even read the thread, BB? I didn't even mention fighter save tangentially. This was about a way to make the excellent and versatile Superiority system more widely accessible. The other thread's where you get to chew me out for wanting to make fighter playable without always having to be a Battle Master. Go actually read my post before you start dunking on me in an almost entirely unrelated thread.
I've read both threads. All fighters, even champions, are playable. Stop being a snob.
I've read both threads. All fighters, even champions, are playable. Stop being a snob.
1st edition DnD was playable, why make the other four?
If that's your takeaway, then you missed the point by a country mile.
The battle master isn't the only "playable" martial archetype for fighters. I've had fun with champion and eldritch knight. I've seen others kick butt with arcane archers and psi warriors. Yurei's a snob for thinking every fighter needs superiority dice. Plain and simple.
If that's your takeaway, then you missed the point by a country mile.
The battle master isn't the only "playable" martial archetype for fighters. I've had fun with champion and eldritch knight. I've seen others kick butt with arcane archers and psi warriors. Yurei's a snob for thinking every fighter needs superiority dice. Plain and simple.
Like psionic energy dice or arcane shots are any different from maneuver mechanic xD
If that's your takeaway, then you missed the point by a country mile.
The battle master isn't the only "playable" martial archetype for fighters. I've had fun with champion and eldritch knight. I've seen others kick butt with arcane archers and psi warriors. Yurei's a snob for thinking every fighter needs superiority dice. Plain and simple.
Like psionic energy dice or arcane shots are any different from maneuver mechanic xD
They are, and the arcane archer has been dunked on since its release. If you want a cookie, go buy your own.
This thread has nothing to do with fighters, save tangentially. Y'all want to yell at me over fighters, do it in the other thread. This one's about the idea that Martial Adept would make for a really great level 1 chargen feat, with a wide array of possible uses. A woman's opinion on fighters has no real bearing on that idea. Secondarily the thread is a good place to discuss the strengths of the Superiority system and where we might be able to find ways to broaden it out and make it more available to players. After all, how many folks have begged DDB to implement the Spell-less Ranger from nearly a decade ago now, and that class was centered on Superiority.
Despite the sayers of nay, the Superiority system is very good and a great many people like it. So. How do we better get it into the hands of those people, without leaving it imprisoned in one subclass of one class?
This thread has nothing to do with fighters, save tangentially. Y'all want to yell at me over fighters, do it in the other thread. This one's about the idea that Martial Adept would make for a really great level 1 chargen feat, with a wide array of possible uses. A woman's opinion on fighters has no real bearing on that idea. Secondarily the thread is a good place to discuss the strengths of the Superiority system and where we might be able to find ways to broaden it out and make it more available to players. After all, how many folks have begged DDB to implement the Spell-less Ranger from nearly a decade ago now, and that class was centered on Superiority.
Despite the sayers of nay, the Superiority system is very good and a great many people like it. So. How do we better get it into the hands of those people, without leaving it imprisoned in one subclass of one class?
And it probably would be fine. The problem arises from be feat relying on maneuvers from the Battle Master archetype. That's why it was omitted from the current playtest. There is a chance any class packet that includes the aforementioned archetype will include new 1st-level feats. But it isn't a guarantee, and we should not assume such. And people are still complaining about Short Rest mechanics, so the coastal wizards may be looking at changing how that entire subsystem works.
I'm happy you like Superiority dice and maneuvers. They don't need to be liberated, but whatever. It's fine if you want to have this as an option at your table, but I don't think this topic of discussion really belongs here.
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Maneuvers are ******* awesome.
Wizards of the Coast struck gold with the Superiority system and yet they still haven't really realized/capitalized on it. Superiority as a core mechanic is extremely flexible and diverse, it's easily expandable as was proven in Tasha's Allspice Soup Pot, and it can easily be made even more deep and powerful at a negligible complexity cost with weapon-specific Maneuvers (think Ashes of War from Elden Ring - your weapon has a Maneuver associated with it that you can expend Superiority to use, provided you have Superiority). The Superiority system is, essentially, spellcasting for martial characters and allows martial characters to experience much the same delight in strategically applying their chosen maneuvers to effect maximum impact on a fight. A well-chosen set of maneuvers allows characters who have them to dominate their foes, while those players who don't care for the system can simply use all their Superiority die on Precision Attack to hit more often, or on a Power/Brutal Attack option that would allow them to hit harder. The system is as complex as a player wants it to be.
It's also almost entirely inaccessible.
Currently, you can gain maneuvers in one of three ways - by being a Battle Master fighter, by taking the Superior Technique fighting style, or by taking the Martial Adept feat. As cool as Superiority is, both Superior Technique and Martial Adept suck at giving you access to it. The opportunity cost for both choices is steep, as gaining one single stinking lousy Superiority die per day (because let's be real, nobody ever short rests anymore) is rarely worth the loss of a permanent bonus on every attack you make a'la a normal Fighting Style or the sheer power available from an ASI or a higher-level feat. This leaves Battle Masters as the only way to realistically gain access to the Superiority system and its many manifold benefits.
But we can change that.
Turn Martial Adept into a first-level, chargen-applicable feat, in place of (or in addition to, if necessary) Savage Attacker. Nobody really likes Savage Attacker, even those like myself who think it's fine instead of drastically underpowered tend to find it boring. But allowing a character to use Martial Adept to reflect militia training, a famous swordsman family member, a year spent squiring to a wandering knight, or however else you managed it lets a character buy into Superiority without having to pay the brutal opportunity cost of a fighting style or locking themselves into the one sole single individual subclass allowed to use the system. This also enhances Superior Technique, which is otherwise a trap option for fifighting style, as possessing Martial Adept makes Superior Technique a much stronger choice and vice versa. The larger your pool of Superiority, the stronger any option that gives you more Superiority or a larger maneuver pool is.
Martial Adept is not so powerful as to unbalance low-tier play. Even the combination of Martial Adept and Superior Technique is weaker than Archery by itself. But above every other concern, Superiority is just fun. It's an active, engaging system that allows you to make decisions, and its effects are often quite memorable. A well timed Trip, Push, or Disarm can swing a fight in a way that makes the Superiority user feel like a badass martial Master of the Blade. And as a bonus, Martial Adept as a level 1/starter feat allows characters normally barred from having any fun with weapons to also partake in the multitudinous benefits of the Superiority system. A monk who's spent their entire lives honing themselves into a living weapon can actually reflect that to a degree with Martial Adept, utilizing maneuvers to represented advanced martial arts techniques. A barbarian can take Martial Adept to represent a bit of focus in their frenzy or the Fate Berserker-like ability to retain their mind during their frothing-mouthed savagery. Paladins could use maneuvers to help shore up their rather weak base martial abilities and help better sell the whole Knightly Crusader aesthetic so many are looking for.
Heck - in my Eberron game, our Peace cleric opted for Martial Adept as their 'background' feat, with Commander's Strike and Bait-and-Switch. Fluffed as residual military training from the Last War, Zardafax has often used Commander's Strike to allow our rogue or our barbarian to make an extra high-value attack in a round in exchange for his own low-value attack. It's legitimately startled a number of us how effective Commander's Strike is on Zardafax for turns where our primary goal is "make this problem die as rapidly as possible" and the low-firepower cleric is already concentrating on a buff. Telling Muscles McAxeface or Daggerbeard the Dorf to take an extra swing has been clutch more than once.
Superiority deserves to see more play, and one of the easiest low-hanging fruit options for doing so is making Martial Adept available as a level 1 chargen-applicable feat. Remove the punishing opportunity cost for taking Martial Adept on level-up and allow people to use it to add some martial flair to their background. The game will be better for it, trust me.
Please do not contact or message me.
I love Battle Master and maneuvers but gifting it at L1 with an additional fighting style will lead to multiclass schnanigans
that as well as an additional archetype at L3 (for instance Rune or Echo knight) - I see it as game breaking as opposed to making the game better
I'm not sure how making Martial Adept a foundational feat has any impact on multiclass shenanigans? I'm not talking "add more maneuvers at first level for fighters", I'm advocating that Martial Adept be made available as a starter feat for anybody who wants it for their 1DD-style background. Presuming the background system from the Origins playtest isn't butchered, anyways.
Please do not contact or message me.
I didn't see the part where they argued it should be a fighting style as well as the martial adept feat. I read it as allow Martial adept as a level 1 feat, which would then make the "superior Technique" fighting style more useful as well.
I think it would be a pretty decent feat to allow as a level 1, i don't think it would break anything anymore than giving someone a level 1 spell once per day and cantrips. Honestly not even something that was on my radar but I am now intrigued.
I will say I think there is room for both feats as level 1
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I don't know how to feel about this, frankly. On one hand, it's a feature that makes fighters stand out as true masters of weapons and tactics, and giving monks, paladins and rangers another resource to track might be cumbersome. On another hand, this is the only more or less solid alternative to spellcasting that martials can get.
Maneuvers are not "as complex as you want them to be"! Even if you only pick a few maneuvers, you have to read the massive list of maneuvers in order to pick yours. Oh, and you need to understand how the superiority system works, remember when and how you can use your maneuvers, what type of superiority die you use, and how many ie uses you have left for superiority. So can you, to a very small degree, control how complicated superiority is for you, by going out of your way to pick simpler maneuvers? Yes. But is superiority "as complex as you want it to be"? No, certainly not.
I don't dislike the superiority system. I actually think it's cool. But to people who want to take away the option of having a fun and easy class to play for beginners "for coolness' sake," let me ask you something: If superiority is really so "flexible and diverse," as Yurei repeatedly lauded it for, then why put it in the base class for fighter? If it fits so well into so many different classes, then why make it a base mechanic for fighter; can't it be a base mechanic for another class? I'm fine with keeping Battle Master as a fighter subclass; in fact, I think it's pretty cool. But if you can pick any martial class to add large degrees of complexity to, then why pick the simple class that people love and want to keep simple? I mean, you can have your beloved superiority play a bigger role in another base class and still keep Battle Master.
Making Martial Adept a Level 1 feat, as opposed to a higher level feat, is a great idea that I understand and agree with. This way, those non-Battle Master fighters and other classes that don't have access to Superiority will be able to choose this complicated mechanic without having to sacrifice ASIs for it. Make Martial Adept a Level 1 feat, as long as everyone who wants to play a simple fighter isn't required to use the superiority system.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.........................did you even read the thread, BB? I didn't even mention fighter save tangentially. This was about a way to make the excellent and versatile Superiority system more widely accessible. The other thread's where you get to chew me out for wanting to make fighter playable without always having to be a Battle Master. Go actually read my post before you start dunking on me in an almost entirely unrelated thread.
Please do not contact or message me.
Why replace when you can just add? Both is good.
Both is good
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
A martial analogue of magic initiate? Sure, I'm all for it. Maneuvers are the greatest thing of all martial class features.
I read the thread and I responded to the points you wrote. I like your proposal as long as Superiority isn't added to the base fighter class. And I outlined my reasons there. You were the one to the link the two threads and get them intertwined, and much of the things you said are relevant to the overall discussion of Superiority, and so was my response to your talk about Superiority's "flexibility," which was the only thing from my previous post that you could argue was unrelated to this thread.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.I've read both threads. All fighters, even champions, are playable. Stop being a snob.
1st edition DnD was playable, why make the other four?
So TSR (back when they owned the game) and now WotC could make more money maybe?
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Then why are you here discussing ODnD and not playing 1st edition?
If that's your takeaway, then you missed the point by a country mile.
The battle master isn't the only "playable" martial archetype for fighters. I've had fun with champion and eldritch knight. I've seen others kick butt with arcane archers and psi warriors. Yurei's a snob for thinking every fighter needs superiority dice. Plain and simple.
Like psionic energy dice or arcane shots are any different from maneuver mechanic xD
They are, and the arcane archer has been dunked on since its release. If you want a cookie, go buy your own.
Again.
This thread has nothing to do with fighters, save tangentially. Y'all want to yell at me over fighters, do it in the other thread. This one's about the idea that Martial Adept would make for a really great level 1 chargen feat, with a wide array of possible uses. A woman's opinion on fighters has no real bearing on that idea. Secondarily the thread is a good place to discuss the strengths of the Superiority system and where we might be able to find ways to broaden it out and make it more available to players. After all, how many folks have begged DDB to implement the Spell-less Ranger from nearly a decade ago now, and that class was centered on Superiority.
Despite the sayers of nay, the Superiority system is very good and a great many people like it. So. How do we better get it into the hands of those people, without leaving it imprisoned in one subclass of one class?
Please do not contact or message me.
And it probably would be fine. The problem arises from be feat relying on maneuvers from the Battle Master archetype. That's why it was omitted from the current playtest. There is a chance any class packet that includes the aforementioned archetype will include new 1st-level feats. But it isn't a guarantee, and we should not assume such. And people are still complaining about Short Rest mechanics, so the coastal wizards may be looking at changing how that entire subsystem works.
I'm happy you like Superiority dice and maneuvers. They don't need to be liberated, but whatever. It's fine if you want to have this as an option at your table, but I don't think this topic of discussion really belongs here.