"I know DMs who worry too much about bounded accuracy, and they're all cowards."

It's also funny to worry too much about bounded accuracy, when lvl 11-20 rogues have Reliable Talent and Expertise. Expertise makes certain skills have modifiers that are on the upper range of the expected modifiers, which would be okay if it was just that in a few skills for these classes, and other classes had a chance to at least have expertise in some of their signature skills, like a wizard should have the chance to get expertise in Arcana, if a bard or rogue can. But with Reliable Talent's turning any Skill Check's d20 roll that is below a 10 to 10, all their skill checks have a base, a bare minumum, of 10 plus their attribute modifiers and their proficiency modifier, which is doubled for Expertise skills. So an 11th level rogue could easily have a bare minimum Stealth of say 22 (10, +4 from Dex, +8 from doubling your Prof). Tier 3 Rogues literally cannot get less than a 20 skills they have Expertise in, unless they have a low Ability Score with it, and even then, by Tier 4, Expertise will give them +12 in those skills, making it a minumum of 22 in any skill they are experts in but only have a 10 for the Ability Score. It's also absurd to worry too much about bounded accuracy or game balance between non-magical things in the game, when most damage dealing spells, outside of cantrips, automatically do at least half damage. Which would be okay if spellcasters didn't get more and more spell slots until it slows down around tier 3, but because spell casters by level 10 have 15 spell slots, but subclasses like battlemaster only have 4 superiority die, which are used for combat manuevors that don't automatically hit like spells, and their effects pale in comparison to spells, and you get less of them. I really hate the game imbalance between spellcasters and non spellcasters in DnD, btw. Seriously, you could have an elf wizard, rolling for stats, and have a 20 dex, which with mage armor, would give them an 18 AC at level one, and a high elf would give them Rapier proficiency and a +5 Dex Bonus, so they'd have a higher AC than the fighter until the fighter adventures enough to buy plate mail and catch up to the Wizard's AC, and unless they have a +2 Racial Bonus to either Strength or Dexterity, they won't even be as accurate with their weapon attacks as that Elf is with their Rapier or Longbow. You can effectively out fight a fighter at low levels, simply by having good Ability Scores. If you have enough of a lead in Constitution, spellcasters can even have more hit points than fighters, or even barbarians, after the first 2 levels. This is partially because of bounding accuracy, which caused them to chicken out at the last minute from giving fighters a boost to their attack rolls or defense from a floating die or dice they could choose how to use on their turns, that would boost their attack rolls if they use this die to add to an attack roll, but they recycled that into the Battlemaster, but made it a limited use thing, which nerfed it, and it's also a subclass feature, so it doesn't even help the base class's ability to fight. And none of this matters as much as the fact that at level 5 and beyond, primary spellcasters, such as the wizard and sorceror, start dominating the game with spells like Fireball. And then Polymorph and Banishment, which swing combats in powerful ways the non caster classes are barren of. Most of DnDs challenges can be poofed away by the right spells, and if the challenge is straight forward enough, such as a group of enemies who aren't immune to fire damage, then they just be poofed by the same Fireball spell, regularly. And spells like Fireball undermine and foil one of the game developers' goals with bounded accuracy, which is to have low level monsters be still viable at higher levels by increasing their numbers, but it doesn't pan out because of the over-powered area of effect spells, especially Fireball, which obliterate low Hit Die monsters en masse. Spells in DnD have always been a problem, in every addition outside of 4th, granting roughly exponentially growing power to some characters, and thus players, while others are left with linear progression, or more accurately, linear progressions in things like Thac0/Attack Bonuses and Extra Attacks, which are counter balanced by a rough linear progression from the monsters having things like higher Attack Bonuses, Multi-Attack, and more hit points, effectively countering the effects of their gains as they level. Also, the schools of magic give spellcasters like wizards a lot of versatility which gives them more chances to do useful things. Their is information hidden from the party? The wizard can cast the right Divination spell to obtain more information. The wizard can cast abjuration spells to protect from strange and dangerous things like elemental damage, or hostile being from a good or evil realm. Or they can just cast Evocation or Conjuration spells, and do more damage then the 'combat' classes, which is the main way non spellcasters contribute in combat, by doing damage, which spellcasters out do them in, regularly. Even the healer Cleric can cast Spirit Gaurdians, and deal damage each round to all the enemies in it's radius. A Cleric with Spirit Guardians is like a Fighter ... if that Fighter automatically hit with all their weapon attacks, and they had as many weapon attacks as their are enemies within 30 feet of them, and they don't have to worry about making a ranged attack when an enemy is within melee of them. Spells also mock the 'action economy'. Want to hit the enemies more times than a high level fighter, cast Spirit Gaurdians. Want to do more Melee attacks than the classes who are supposed to be specialized in Melee Attacks? Cast Animate Objects on 10 small objects, and get more melee attacks than a level 20 fighter using action surge. And since it's a spell, the animate objects are magical, so they bypass immunity to non magical damage. Which is a stupid feature by the way. Making a creature immune to non-magical damage, but take normal damage from magical damage simultaneously fails to make the creature any tougher to fight (not even slightly) for most of the players, while rendering some characters totally useless in that combat, outside of maybe performing the Help action or something.

@@Tiyev You're on it, mate. But it's worse than that - just the basic progression of monsters and PCs makes a mockery of bounded accuracy. The developers succeeded in limiting bonuses to AC, but by the time you're level 10 things rarely miss no matter what the AC is. You just have to hope you have enough hit points. If you're going to make the Fighter bad at everything but fighting, he should put everyone else to absolute shame on the battlefield. But they didn't. Just about every other class has fun ways to interact with exploration and social challenges; only a Battle Master who's gone so far as to spend one of his very limited maneuvers learned on a social/exploration based maneuver can do it ... and then only 4 times. And then only if he just wants to roll to hit in combat. It's ridiculous.

@@Tiyev I'm also really glad you pointed out the problem of 4 superiority dice vs. 15 spell slots without saying the short rest balances the difference. It really, really doesn't.

Yup, bounded accuracy went out the door with Expertise

Gladys' mole in the design team is working, I see...

WAT

It’s a part of the journey

I was now years old when I realised that.

@@rossburton8775 I only recently figured out that Eminem = M&M = Marshall Mathers so...

Oh my god

Indomitable comes back on a long rest not a short rest. If it came back on a short rest or automatically succeeded on the saving throw it would feel like a 9th 13th and 17th level ability. There is no guarantee that you will succeed on the saving throw... it counts as advantage which numerically comes down to plus 3.5. An additional 3.5 to a single saving throw per long rest just makes me want to play a paladin with a plus three to every saving throw, the ability to cast spells, and class ability healing. Thankfully I dislike how rigid the paladins flavor and how moldable fighters are with any background.

Yes! Indomitable should be a “legendary resistence” and at 20lv a true legendary resistence! That would be awensome

Amen. When I first saw Indomitable, I thought it's a LegRes, but I still wasn't really impressed. Imagine my dissappointment, when I saw that it's just a reroll.

That's what it was in the playtest, they nerfed it, because they can't let fighters have nice things that aren't feats

Make it once per day LegRes. But let them also nope out of a mental save as well. Powerful, yes. But I reckon that's ok. They are Indomitable. That's the point. They aren't just a bit tougher than the other guy, they are Indomitable, in mind and body. That Mind Flayer's Mind Blast might cripple the Barbarian, but the Fighter just pushes through. Hold Person stops that Monk, but once per day, no matter the roll, the Fighter just doesn't care and whacks that mage anyway, breaking her concentration, saving the monk, and the whole party, in the process. Sounds like a Fighter to me. Re-rolling a save that might still fail sounds like a chump.

How could he not be? It's very obvious. People are just blinded by his natury camouflage I guess, tricking people into thinking he's a ranger.

@@fardareismai4495 ehhh, i mean arguments can be made either way. legolas *has* shown that he has some level of ranger abilities. not quite to the extent that aragorn has, but he still does. Thats kinda the problem. it can be difficult to tell a fighter from a ranger, because flavor wise, its *Really* easy to make a fighter that looks like a ranger through skill selection (in 5e). *disclaimer*: im not saying that that rangers don't exist in fantasy, or that they don't have a place in fantasy, they absolutely do. im just saying that the differences between a ranger and a fighter (from a narrative perspective) are very subtle.

Aragorn is so too. None of them uses magic nor do they commune with nature/animals. All the other skills come form their background.

@@Answerisequal42 on the contrary, you even the movies show aragorn communing with animals. or...did you forget abouthte scene in Rohan with the horse that he ordered freed....that later came back to rescue him? that is absolutely a ranger/druid talent (and i don't think its possible to make the case teat aragorn is a druid). as far as magic, well, 'magic' as it exists in DnD is incredibly uncommon, and typically subtle in LoTR, but delaying frodos infection certainly qualifies, and its even more clear in the books when he spends a lot of time working at the healer's house in Minas Tirith after the battle of pelenor fields. Specifically because he was able to use athelas (king's foil) as a medicine. Which was certainly shown as being superhuman in the books remember, even sam considered it a weed, not something with healing properties, and in the books, again, its even more clear. finally, if you look at DnD deeper than just 5e, you can have rangers that also don't use magic. for legolas, well, its harder to make the case in either direction. He was never more than a supporting character in either medium. So we saw less of what he could do. And so much of what we did see was a result of his heritage more than anything. However, his heritage, by itself, greatly favors ranger. druid/ranger as a class just too neatly lines up with wood elf culture (in LoTR i mean). However, he was obviously more martial focused which means he too wasn't a druid. But its unlikely he completely abandoned his natury heritage. ergo, a ranger. remember, when you're making these comparisons, you have to keep in mind that dnd as a system assumes there are certain things true about the world. And most of those assumptions, particularly when it comes to magic, don't translate perfectly into Middle Earth. a great example of that is Wizards. they largely don't exist in Middle earth. Wormtongue was technically a wizard (he actually learned some magic from saruman, according to the books). But saruman and gandalf? they were canonically basically Solar's, not wizards (at least, not by dnd standards)

Well, in 5e he's a fighter, in 4e he's a ranger, and in 3.5 he's a warblade

Mitchell and Webb are such legends! :)

But you can do four BMX flips in a round! Surely you can't complain

accurate

Not that obscure. It's a common comparison on EN World. :)

Yup one of my players felt exactly like this alongside the paladin player

These are some fun ideas, especially giving the fighter the option to apply weapon qualities to weapons that don't normally have them. Back in 3.5, and later in Pathfinder, I would allow fighters who take weapon focus in a weapon to apply the weapon finesse feat to that weapon to represent training for precision and grace with that weapon over raw power. In 5e, I could see the champion, who should be deadly with any weapon they pick up, getting an option like this.

Thanks! And I really like that weapon finesse idea - I mostly play Pathfinder, and I might actually steal that for some of my players!

Is your name a reference to Halo:CE, Lord of the Rings or something else I don't know about? Oh, and cool idea btw :)

Lol, it's actually a combination of an old username of mine from way back when and an old username of one of my friends - this was originally a joint account. I don't remember what his was - something hammer though - and mine was shadow fae. Gotta love edgy teenage usernames :)

@@faehammer Go for it! It worked well for my group. While I've mostly switched to D&D 5e, if I ever go back to Pathfinder, the other thing I will probably do is give people using Weapon Finesse or other Dex based weapons Dex to damage. I don't think it will cause any balance issues.

She was afraid she was going to be Copyright Strike'd if she went any further. :)

I did go for it. I may not be a coward but I do have shame.

MonarchsFactory POST THE CLIP

@@MonarchsFactory I figured you'd tried and went with a modesty edit. No shame there.

I can totally see the players going and buying a rabbit/chicken/newt/whatever small creature to sacrifice to their fighter who's just happened to miss any killing blows in the last three encounters.

@@pentbot They can just borrow some of the animals the necromancy wizard keeps around for grim harvest health. Really though, if someone in my game wanted to do a skeet-shooting training montage to practice with their new weapon I would certainly allow it; brushing it off without any RP fluff would make it seem very dumb however.

I'd just say 'when you level up.' In most cases that means you'll have been using it for a while, and even if not, you gain affinity with it at some climactic moment after having won some encounter. I'd add the soft proviso 'you know, if you've been using it' but that's hard to write concisely (how much? What about fighters that use lots of weapons? What about a legendary weapon that was taken from a boss that pushed you over the line? etc)

@@pentbot Reading this comment my first thought was that the rabbit/chicken/newt was going to be the favored weapon by using it to bludgeon another creature to death.

@@digitalbrentable Exactly what I was thinking as well.

I think it'd be better with either rerolls to any failed Str, Con, or Dex check, saves or skills. And or maybe a limited use ability to turn a failed roll into a success. Stuff like that. I dislike the subclass features that give characters who aren't built around the concept more benefit that the characters who do, meaning Champions get more benefit out of the Remarkable Athlete if they avoid all the Skills when they create the character, or how a Scout Rogue gets more skill proficiencies if they avoid taking the Nature and Survival Skills, so they can get those, with expertise, for free at level 3, instead of already having them, and having 2 less skills than they could have. Pardon my tangent. Lately I'm prone to bringing up my issues with DnD 5e, and or DnD spells, and or DnD in general.

@@Tiyev For the skills I think they mention that of you have repeat skills you can replace them with another skill. Maybe I am wrong and that is only in character creation.

Honestly I don't know why it wasn't athletics and/or acrobatics expertise or hell proficiency in a physical saving throw they don't have (like the Gloomstalker's wisdom save proficiency ability but with dex or another physical save if you already have dex)

Australian English is best English

I really like this idea, though there are two things I'd change to really sell it. 1) I don't see a problem with making it all saves. D&D being steeped in "yes, and..." culture, anytime a player gets to flat out say "no" is a powerful moment and curbing that to just physical saves feels unnecessary. 2) The wording should be that of changing the roll to a 20 on the die. Why this difference? Because now you can automatically crit a death saving throw to get back up. The down but not out moments in stories throughout history are far too numerous to count, so why not afford the Fighter the ability to remember that promise, those kids, their loved one, the fire in their heart, and the fate of the situation, and just get back up to win the day.

@@BraveryBeyond ...this is some weeb ass shit... I love it

Kingsmill more like Queensmill 😍😍

Me and a friend are making at the moment a system for battles and little fights for a d&d like game. Because we don't like the fighting and battle system of d&d. He never played it but he don't like the rules of d&d. Because we are both HEMA fighters. The reach is way more for weapons and shields are now good. Because you can block at every time an enemy hit and make a counter attack. And the enemy is allowed to block this attack but not to counter. But this is only because of the other players who also want to play.

@@jarlnils435 That sounds really cool. Just be careful, a lot of attempts to make realistic combat in RPG's turns out super complicated, slow, and a bit unfun. But if there was/is a system that allows dynamic, realistic combat while still being fast-paced and not extremely rules-heavy.

@@benbailey3106 thats why you can't counter a counter attack. It would last to long for the other players.

@@jarlnils435 Have you checked out Riddle of Steel or its successor game Blade of the Iron Throne?

@@khpa3665 no not yet. But I want to do it.

And then the Fremen win.

But the Bene Gesserit foresaw and preplanned that, so they win, instead.

Yes, someone mentioning some math! In terms of fun, did you account for fighters getting access to more feats?

@@anthonynorman7545 They hadn’t really come up mentally, so good call. Feats do have a break point from what I’ve seen, though. Two maybe three feats and most of the time you have everything you need for the fun of the spec! You can get that at level four with a human of any class. I will say that feats can likely help make a fighter be good at skills. That could help make a fighter more than just the guy who shoots bows or swings great swords. For me that’s more the issue. Monks, while pretty bad in terms of numbers, have some great flavor and mechanics. I’ve never had more fun than teleporting every turn with a shadow monk even if it really didn’t help me do that much mechanically in combatsZ

@@kolskit every time I've seen someone play monk they stopped having fun as they slowly realized how ineffective they were compared to the rest of the party.

@@anthonynorman7545 I let a player in my most recent campaign get flurry of blows without using any ki. He still ran out of ki in a combat or two failing mostly to get stunning strike to actually land with his low saving throw, and his damage was about on par with the rest of the party. I convinced a friend DM to give his Way of the Elements monk a buff where all the ‘spells’ cost one less ki than advertised on the tin. It’s still kind of mediocre, but at least it isn’t ridiculously weak.

@@kolskit we made step of the wind free(because rouges basically get it) and it was also ineffective

I played a character based on your profile pic I love it

@@joeyrobson3677 I first found this profile pic because I wanted to play a druid monk xD.

A plus one bonus to AC is an extra 5% chance to avoid an attack. Pretty good imo

The AC doesn't stack though, like you are dependant on getting attacked a bunch of times. With Duelist, you add +2 to every attack, so as you gain more attacks you can deal more damage per turn. Also, it feels more interesting, because its something proactively used, rather than reactive. Personally I think a good fix would have been that the champions extra fighting style was available to every subclass, and that there were ones you had to reach level 10 to pick. Like defense, but you can dodge as a bouns action, or maybe Perfect Strike: once per short rest you can maximise your damage dice with a hit. Those would feel like your fighter has improved as they level up, and its options to use rather than just a minor passive buff

@@christopherfloody5555 I like your idea to improve fighting styles, giving a few higher level styles, and giving every fighter a second style. You could step that up even further with a subclass that focuses on versatility in combat and slowly adds more and more fighting styles so the can fight effectively in nearly any circumstance. I think that was their intention with the champion, a generic fighter with no extra active abilities (as compared to the battle master and eldritch knight in the players) just passive buffs. If you round it out with more styles, and give some of those higher level styles more active abilities, a subclass that focuses on getting more styles as they level would slowly add more combat options to the class. Something like a battle master that doesn't rely on a resource mechanic.

@@christopherfloody5555 but by fifth level it's pretty likely that you will (as the fighter) be attacked more than once per turn. And in most of the situations where you aren't then the enemies you face are likely to deal massive damage if their attack hits.

@@mme.veronica735 its actually better than that, the way AC works, the higher your AC is, the better a +1 to AC is (until you hit the cap where an enemy needs to roll a crit in order to hit). the reason for this is that you gotta look at the total pool of *possible rolls that can actually hit* rather than *pool of possible rolls.* for example: someone has a +6 attacking a 20 AC target. they only hit 7 times out of every 20 rolls. giving that same target a +1(defense fighting style) AC means now they only hit 6 times out of every 20. which is a 14% reduction in number of hits. another +1 (instead of defense, shield of faith) means its 5 out of every 20. which is an additional 16.5% decrease in hits taken (30% decrease compared to 20ac). combine shield of faith with defense fighting style and its another 20% decrease (50% total). obviously there's a different curve for every accuracy level, but *all* of them are higher than 5% (unless the creatures to-hit is high enough that they need to roll a 1 to miss obviously). tldr: while technically its a 5% decrease in incoming hit rate, it adds up to a much more significan decrease in damage taken

Eldritch Knight and Battlemaster are really fun! EK gets cool spells AND is probably the best tank in the game (shield spell +platemail is SO strong) and battlemaster can do just as many crazy fun things as monk! They can push people off ledges as give their buddies movement as a reaction and all kinds of cool stuff! But Dael is right about Champion

True true. One part of me wants to fix the champion with damage bonuses and such, (compare Kensai or Life Cleric) but on the other hand that lacks flash or pizzaz.

@@CountsDigGraves Champion for sure lacks flash and pizzaz. And im not sure it can really be fixed without a whole rework like Dael did. But EK and BM are great!

Stealing this

I ran a fighter with the protection fighting style, and what I found as we went up in level is that it just didn't feel worth it to use my reaction anymore when the person I was trying to protect routinely had 3+ attacks incoming a round. I don't think the problem is really the nature of the bonus, disadvantage is arguably better than the +2 that a shield will usually provide (though less predictable), the problem is that it only applies to one attack. So if what your suggesting is that you can choose for someone within 5ft to have that benefit all the time or that the half cover you grant with your reaction lasts for more than that one attack, thats awesome, but if its just a different flavor of bonus in that one instance, I don't think that makes much of a difference.

@@kennethfender3518 its legit that a creature your size or smaller benefits from your shield bonus (including a magical bonus if it has it) but it can only be one creature. The reaction one is that 1 creature your size or smaller can gain half cover until the start of your next turn. Both of them state that you have to be wielding a shield & that the other creature cannot be wielding a shield.

FYI, one thing that people rarely realize is that as a move action you can say that you chose to get half cover using your fighter or any other character in the party that is 5ft of you. "A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body. The obstacle might be a low wall, a large piece of furniture, a narrow tree trunk, or a creature, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend." Look at the end description.

@@Saitoshiba page number for reference? Because all ive ever seen is that creatures can be used as cover, but line of sight still applies.

If you like that idea, I recommend checking out the Variant Fighter by Vorpal Dice Press. It gives every fighter access to a few Maneuvers that can be used all the time, and then a limited-use Superiority for each Maneuver to make it even better for that use. I've used it a few times myself and I feel it makes the Fighter significantly more fun. You no longer just swing your weapon for the 20th time today, and instead can choose from several special moves

I have been singing the praises of the 4e Fighter since 5e released and everybody just tells me "if that's what you want just play a battle master" and it is _so_ not the same thing I can't help but think nobody has played 4e Fighters. They were _so good_ (strictly from a fun perspective) and the options in 5e feel like an enormous step back and always makes me sad.

That is exactly where the flavor comes from in my mind. You get enough asi to be able to take feats easily and that gives you so many options

Plus battle master maneuvers are just mini smites and you get a lot more of them, plus the additional abilities they provide

The difference is that a battlemaster can add 4d8 over 4 attacks during their turn whereas the paladin can dump it on one attack.

Battle Masters are absolutely the best for that whole versatile non magical fighter feel. Maneuvers give a lot of flexibility in the options department (Not just combat either!) and because superiority dice are short rest based you're able to get a lot mileage out of them when you need it. The subclass can have a maximum of 12 Maneuvers and 8 Superiority Dice, that's a big pool of options for non magic caster, and its incredibly flavorful. So much so that in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything they made little build blocks that show the different ways you could play a Battle Master.

I could see using BOTH champion end battle master together.

@@ashleyhoughton8592 Battle Master's Maneuvers are worse than Smites in every single way. You have less of them, they cause a LOT LESS damage and they aren't as versatile as the Paladin's spell slots in any way.

What!? No way!! Are we psychically linked?

@@MonarchsFactory Yeah! It's the last feat. It's currently pay what you want if you'd like to snag it for free.

“And that’s brutally fuck something up.” Yeah, but Barbs get to *really* brutally fuck something up.

Can I keep the "fighter hot takes" train going? Yes? Ok, so here's what it is for me: fighter in general and champion in particular work as they do, I think, because they're supposed to be the simplest class to play. It doesn't fulfill a fantasy because the only fantasy it's meant to fulfill is "doing the basics, but better". Some of the mechanics and class abilities really are underwhelming, sure, and I agree with the idea of fixing them. But the heart of the issue, for me, is quite different. I think the fighter is missing something. So what do I think the fighter is missing? A stronger way to tie specific fantasies of the fighter to cool mechanics that reinforce that theme! So how to go about fixing that? Well, either give them a much larger pool of available subclasses, or a subclass that gives a lot of options to mix and match to represent various concepts - or preferably both! Imagine, for instance, you have this idea of playing a freed gladiator - cool, right? Does that sound like a battle master? To me, no, not without further justification. Does it sound like any of the other subclasses available? No, they're all too specific. Except Champion - but that one's so bland it hurts! Same goes for a number of other fantasies. Can I make my guy feel like a gladiator with feats? Maybe, but I shouldn't have to rely on these "optional" rules (sidebar, does anyone really make feats off-limits in their games? Fighters become even worse, then, because Ability score improvements have diminishing returns after you max your most important attributes). So either give me a subclass that says "gladiator" and gives me cool abilities connected to that fantasy, or give me a generic subclass that allows me to customize my fighting abilities to match. Make 'em synergize well with the core fighter abilities to make them more effective and we're golden: the class will be fun to play again!

@@RobertJW True, but I'd take the extra attacks over the rage damage for fucking something up =P

@@Raphir I think that Gladiator might not be a great example. In Tasha's they demonstrated like 15 different fighter builds that were all battlemasters and one was a Battlemaster. But, I think that's the problem. Battlemaster has the fun toys that the rest of the fighters don't get to play with. Imagine if every fighter could trip, disarm, shove, get temp hp - all very gladiator things - right? I personally think if you put that into the base class, and retweaked Champion like Dael's, you could build a real solid Gladiator that feels like a Gladiator, and I still think it'd be relatively simple compared to the other classes.

I am totally on board with making Battlemaster Maneuvers the core Fighter shiny thing, and then I say cancel the Battlemaster subclass entirely and give me a Warlord subclass instead. Then, for the streamlined, simple option of Champion, let them use their BM dice to turn misses into hits or choose to make saves they just failed, cancel an enemy's critical hit, etc. I guess those could all be BM maneuvers, too, but the idea would be to turn BM dice into something automatic, something they don't have to choose among many options.

More???

fighters jump long

Skilfully, I guess

Often

Fighters hit with feats ontop

Depends on what your fighter had for dinner.

Haha, true, true

In 4e fighters literally had a "Third Wind" utility they could take. Because everyone had second wind.

I think that this is definitely the way the class should be composed, as the superiority dice are definitely the fighter mechanic that is the most fun. The problem is that Eldritch Knights become insanely unbalanced. As someone who enjoys waltzing around in full plate with a shield, and who saves spell slots to cast "Shield" as a reaction, having the awesome abilities of the Battlemaster in addition to being able to cast spells in armor would tempt me to never play another class. I think Champion is just bad compared to the other subclasses.

It was, in the playtest. Blame grognards.

Hell yeah. It would make fighters feel more like skilled combatants.

I generally take the Battle Master as the 'default' fighter type as opposed to the champion anytime I do tweaks. Mostly because given the option you can make a simple battle master that is a better champion than the champion.

No, but I'd rather it wasn't because I like having options that aren't just a pool of expendable resources. The current kit of Champion should just be folded into Fighter basic and Champion should be reworked to actually be something useful.

Id say you’re undervaluing how powerful extra attack and uncanny dodge are. Sure, fireball is strong but id say the real place where magic characters pull away is something like 9-10 and most campaigns are starting to wrap up then. But, i tend to value ‘consistency’ over ‘versatility’ when determining power so ymmv as well lol

@@DOOMsword7 Sleep alone is ridiculous. 3rd level spell for 9d8, if I meet or exceed your current HP, no save. You're asleep. Scorching Ray gives a caster at 3rd level 3x 2d6 attacks with every additional spell level adding a 2d6 attack. Like, sure uncanny dodge is great, but all 3 of those base attacks can crit and uncanny dodge only applies to 1 of them. And don't even muddy everything with multiclassing.

@@darshvia spells shouldnt sneak attack unless youre using some homebrew (which is fine! Just not RAW). And sleep is powerful but situational. Sure, it can take out a whole room of twig blights but most cr 5 encounters have monsters with HP way higher than the 30 or so you get on a base lvl sleep. Im not saying spellcasting isn’t powerful its just not ‘more consistent’ than what fighters and rogues get. Youll use uncanny dodge multiple times a fight every fight

@@DOOMsword7 True, it has to be with a finesse or ranged weapon, but thanks to class interactions now that there are sourcebooks out that's not all too difficult to arrange. Sleep was just a great example because it starts with the creature most susceptible to it. Lowest HP first. So take out the minions. Or take out the 1 or 2 targets that have taken any damage at all placing them in the "lowest" category. It has nothing to do with consistency though. If a class is consistently less effective than the rest of the party, why would anyone take them? *shrug* Lots of ways to play and lots of systems out there. That's the beauty of it all :)

@@darshvia sure! I agree! Im just saying sleep isnt any more powerful than stunning strike. Or just picking up a dude and tossing him off a ledge. Spell casters tend to be the best at crowd control because that’s sort of the place they were built to shine, right? I think we’re sort of losing the thread lol. My point was that i think spellcasters are reasonably balanced with the melee and ranged fighters in 5e through most of the game that most people will play

The town of Kingsmill? The Kingsmill Dale? The Dalekings Mill? The King of Milldael? The rare herb known as Mingkale Dill?

That's worse than it is now. I would rather re-roll any save, than one auto-succeed on a save I'm usually going to make anyway.

@@bskec2177 Legendary resistances don't have to be used on a failed saving throw If you look in monster stat blocks, it's always optional: "If the tarrasque fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead."

I know you’re probably not looking for a debate about the monk, but I do feel the need to defend my fast guys at least a little bit. The monk isn’t an extremely weak class just because some issues come up when trying to play one effectively. Yes, monks typically do less damage than fighters after 5th level, but they still possess enough utility and power to hold their own even if stats aren’t rolled or arrayed high (which isn’t irrelevant at all when it comes to actually playing the game. Plenty of people play with higher stats). Not enough people use the mobile feat as a way to completely get around the monk’s AC and HP difficulties. It combines with the monk’s speed to almost always allow monks to attack then move out of enemy melee range. I’ve played monks several times, and I’ve ended a large number of combats having taken 0 damage while all the other martials are seriously hurt because no enemy is going to risk opportunity attacks from stationary targets to chase down a fast guy. I know relying on a feat to overcome a large issue seems kind of like a cheap argument from an optimization standpoint, but it’s not like people don’t use tons of feats like GWM, PAM, sharpshooter, or Sentinel to argue for how great the fighter can be. Also, if a monk really wants to nova, they can just spam stunning strike until all but the most powerful creatures are practically guaranteed to fail. It’s not a typical damage nova, but unless a fighter is going to outright kill an enemy by action surging (in which case nova-ing probably wasn’t necessary) stunning strike has way more ability to actually turn the tide of a battle. Even though I am able to defend the monk, I agree that they should be more powerful. There isn’t really any reason they should have to do less damage after 5th level or rely on a feat to fix a big issue. But I don’t agree that the core monk class is automatically inferior. Instead, it’s clear that the monk is really let down by it’s (current) subclasses. You’re right that the fighter has some killer subclass options, while I can think of at least 4 monk subclasses that functionally do nothing for the monk in a standard combat turn. However, with Tasha’s it seems that the design team is at least making an effort to close the gap between monk subclasses and those of other classes. It seems like eventually the monk will have some subclasses that significantly improve its damage output or add enough buff/debuff abilities that the difference barely matters. Overall though, the the monk’s two or three decent subclasses allow the monk to generally keep pace in terms of effectiveness when played intelligently. Really, it seems that monks just get a bad rap because optimizers automatically discard options that do less damage even when very significant workarounds and utility abilities exist.

It's an epic movie. I think you can stream it on Amazon, but you have to rent or buy it. You should give it a watch.

Yes! I'm all but certain the actual "fun balance" of the fighter assumes feats. Most people have to take ASI to keep pace and the fighter is wondering which feat to take next.

Yeah, this was my thought. Due to Bounded Accuracy, if you're rolling high, you're already hitting most everything. To feel like you hit more consistently, you need to mitigate the effect of low rolls.

Tbh to "Fix" the fighter I'd just give all fighters (some of) the battle master manouvers and give BMs either more superiority dice, or better versions of the manouvers. Assuming a fighter is a "knight" figure, someone who spent much of their life training for combat, why would they have to specialize in one kind of fighting in order to be able to do stuff like trip, lunge, and parry? those all sound like basic requirements someone should learn as part of learning to fight.

@@Gstrangeman96 well one of the fighting styles gives you a maneuver or two as of the Tasha's book.

​@@MCXL1140 Superior technique? that's only 1 maneuver and 1 per short rest. Lame. In my view someone whose whole gig is supposed to be fighting should be able to do more than "i swing my sword at the enemy", and "i swing my sword at the enemy EXTRA HARD" (but only once because the effort takes so much out of them they have to have a snack and a nap before they can do it again). Like the wizard is the master of magic, the fighter should be the master of the down & dirty melee.

@@Gstrangeman96 the subclass is all give various stuff if you want with the idea of champion escalating all the files fighting styles they're really good at ***all the fighting***

@@Gstrangeman96 echo knight with BM maneuvers? RIP all other pure martials

There'd be no need if you can change the main one on a rest.

Definitely a nice idea, that way you can be more *versatile*. The obvious choice would be to take whichever of melee or ranged you don't already have, or if you're a two-weapon fighter then now you can have both of your weapons be favored.

@@Myzelfa I was thinking more in the lines of versatility, and also for the fact that someone could train their entire lives with only a few weapons, not the whole catalogue.

@@GeneralAceTheAwesome or someone that was only trained for long distance battle, using javelins, longbows, and the like, perhaps only carrying a pocket knife when the going gets rough

@@hansolobutimdead The fluff, as Dael reminds us, mentions both versatility and specialization. I personally think it fits the Fighter's ouvre better if they are generally good with weapons, but really good with one in particular.

Sounds exhausting.

@@MackDnD Everyone actually enjoyed it. When I realized that the multi encounter day was how 5E was designed I tried to figure out how facilitate that type of day in the narrative. D&D is about killing monsters and taking there stuff. That's what the rules and the core gameplay loop reinforce. That is done through decision making and resource management, and I think when you lean into that, in a narratively interesting and consistent way, that's where D&D shine.

@@legomacinnisinc That's good. I'm glad it works for your group. Are the encounters strictly combat that you mentioned? I find have 1 combat is enough for me in a 4 hour session. How long are your sessions that you can fit so many in?

I’ve found (from both sides of the table) that squeezing that many encounters (combat or not) into one in game day works real well in a dungeon or other environment where the DM can force players into constant danger, but outside that it can feel like the DM is being a jerk and throwing bad guys at the players for no reason or not allowing a rest when rest would be reasonable. In general, most DMs (even KZfaq DMs) agree that it’s hard to pull off consistently in a way that feels fun

@@MackDnD I normally run a 4-5 hour session, depending on the day, but remember I am not running 6+ combat encounters in one game session. I am covering one in game day in multiple game sessions. And yes, I'll run 6+ combat encounters in one game day, but there are still plenty of other "encounters" that are exploration or RP. I normally don't go over three combats in one session, but each combat is not a deadly encounter. Often they are over in less than an hour, are only 2-3 turns long, and don't pose much of a physical threat to the party. They are there to drain resources (hp, spell slots, abilities), or are an "easy" fight but have a hard to achieve objective that may help the party if they get it or hinder if they don't. A classic is the party being discovered by scouts. Easy to kill them, but can you stop them from running away and alerting the enemy?

I really like the remarkable athlete change. It makes so much sense that the grapple subclass should be the one that's supposed to be the beat at athletics.

So like a college of words bard that "Well actually" things to death?

+

I knew it was bad, but that's BAD (for most tables). My group has really long combats (not sure why) so 2 encounters per short rest will make them about the same.

There are other ways to make those skills good. Bump your Dex. Take the Skilled feat. Take proficiency in those skills from the start

Fighters get SO MANY ASI. So taking the skilled feat is not a bad idea

Yep. The Champion was intentionally designed to be the most easily accessible subclass in the game. There were a lot of people during the Next playtest that were absolutely adamant about demanding a 'simple' fighter with no choices for its players to analyze. The button-mashing subclass, so to speak.