D&D 5E Dwarven Battlerager Build

Colder said:

That's a bit rude, isn't it? We follow your argument, we just don't agree with it because we think the reality is more nuanced than



You'd be right, except that we don't believe the implied premise is true, and the conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from the first two premises.

The reason why Riposte is so great for Battle Masters is because they have multiple superiority dice, their dice are larger, and they will typically do more damage per hit (whether because they're using a two-handed weapon or because they're using the Dueling fighting style). The risk of using Riposte is reduced (It's a risk because Riposte can miss) is lessened by having more resources and increasing the benefits (more SD damage and more weapon damage on a hit).

Meanwhile, characters with the Martial Adept feat only have one Superiority die, and it's only a d6. Riposte is not a safe risk to them because of very limited resources and smaller returns. It is better for them to use their single resource on a more reliable maneuver which can, at the very least, give them a guaranteed 1d6 extra damage, and at the most, can deliver an effect that benefits your entire party rather than just yourself.

And that does nothing to mention that the point of being a grappler isn't to do damage, it's to control your enemies. Riposte doesn't help with that at all, but many of the other maneuvers would.

And if you want to get into appeals to authority, the guru of grappling, ktkenshinx, rated Riposte purple in his grappling guide, and both his guide and the Art of War rated Disarming Strike, Menacing Attack, Pushing Attack, and Trip Attack as blue or better.

Riposte is a good maneuver, just not for this kind of character.

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All of this! Disarming and Menacing are probably the two I'd take first. And I expect I'd also take Pushing or Trip well before considering Riposte.

1. Superiority dice are always limited, even and especially for a pure Battle Master, who is using nothing else.
2. The risk is therefore not being reduced by having more dice. It is reduced by having advantage over the target.
3. Furthet applying disadvantage on the target increase the chance trigger Riposte.
4. Menacing Strike will apply disadvantage on the target. So does shove to prone. Some creatures can not be frightened, so both are situational. Besides shove is more reliable (advantageous athletics check) than Menacing strike (Wis Save)
5. Tripping Attack prones the target. So does shove to prone. A creature, which can not be proned, can not be so by tripping attack either, so again situational. And again Shove is more reliable.
6. a d6 looks pretty meager in comparison to an extra attack done with your reaction (done with advantage) dealing your weapon damage +d6. Further precision strike only adds the superiority die to the attack roll, not the damage roll. Applying advantage instead should suffice.
7. Yes, a contoller should control, but it is nowhere started that he should do that solely. A controller, who applies reasonable damage in addition is of an asset to any team, since death is the most effective condition you can inflict upon a monster. A dead monster has no actions and it can't save from that condition.
8. The Battlerager does not have many reaction based features, this would it will most probably not collide with anything.

On a sidenote,NOT all of ktkenshinx's critics and ratings were totally comprehensible, especially in his grappler guide.
For example the cantrip "Create Bonfire"
Create Bonfire: The first spell you can hold enemies in while grappling them. If restrained, they'll take 1d8 damage per turn on top of any other damage you're outputting. Not a good spell, but I add it here because it's where the restraining fun begins.
Now, what he missed is that Create Bonfire is a cantrip, which rises up to 4d8 of fire damage during character progression. A pure Eldritch Knight will most likely not be able to cast Enlarge or other 2nd/3rd level concentration spells at every encounter during the day. So Create Bonfire, might be a welcome alternative when you ran out of appropiate spellslots or want to save some for more important dangers, which might come up. Further it lasts up to ten rounds, so you are able to drag foes inside it with ease, executing your attacks and causing additional damage by concentrating on the spell, while keeping your target grappled inside. An EK grappler might not be able to invest that deeply into INT, but luckily Headbands of Intellect are affordable. If your DM rules in your favor that every consecutive Dex save to avoid the fire damage each round is affected by possible Eldritch Strikes you apply, this cantrip is at least black to blue.

Also his purple rating on Heavy Armor Master is debatable, since a grappler using no shield might profit a lot from that fixed damage resistance at any level.

the_move said:

1. Superiority dice are always limited, even and especially for a pure Battle Master, who is using nothing else.
2. The risk is therefore not being reduced by having more dice. It is reduced by having advantage over the target.

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That's really just not true, but I don't know enough about math to tell anyone exactly why without simplifying the whole affair.

Instead of Superiority dice, let's say we have a bunch of apples, and all the apples have a 50% chance of being rotten. One person A has only one apple, a second person B has 3 apples, and the last person C has four. To any statisticians in the audience, my probability skills are pretty rusty so bear with me.

Now, the probability of any one apple being rotten is 50%, like we just said, but the probability of all of one person's apples being rotten varies greatly depending on how many apples they have at their disposal because the probability of getting the same outcome multiple times decreases exponentially.

The probability of all one of person A's apples being rotten is (.5)^1, or 50%.

The probability of all three of person B's apples being rotten is (.5)^3, or 12.5%.

The probability of all four of person C's apples being rotten is (.5)^4, or 6.25%.

So from a risk-averse standpoint, it greatly benefits person A to consider trading his possibly rotten apple for a candy bar.

Your example is too abstract for a comparison. Also you are comparing a feature to a subclass. An Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster has far less spell slots than a Wizard, not to mention no Arcane Recovery, yet would you advise him also not to take any risk like casting save or suck spells? This game is based on luck, btw. Thanks for completely ignoring any conscutive points of my argument, most of them being more significant regarding that issue than the first two.

Now looking at the maneuvers, yes you can decide to place a Menacing Attack or a Tripping Attack after you hit your target, but apart from an effect, which you can easily apply anyway with other methods (grapple/prone, reckless) you get an additional d6 (4) damage to your strike. Gamechanging...

Precision Strike is a one-round bless, which is somewhat nice, but again it's significance is lowered by the fact, that you can very often just apply advantage, which is in most regards the better deal.
Riposte might have some requirements, primarily the enemy has to miss, you have to use a reaction, and you have to hit. This might look, like it is too situational. That might be even true in some events.

But what you should not ignore is that the barbarian, battlerager or not, has a set of abilities, which enable him to improve the conditions greatly for safely connecting a riposte. Using recklessness isn't exactly one of them, since with an AC 16 and the enemy having advantage you will most likely not be missed.

Grapple and Prone on the other hand is ideal to set the stage. While being enraged you have advantage on your strength checks, so bringing your target into those two conditions won't be that difficult.
Now your target has two options. Either escape your grab, which will cost him his action and is far from being guaranteed to succeed. Or he simply attacks, but with disadvantage. Both options are suboptimal to him, but while he will not affect you in any way with an escape attempt - successful or not - attacks done with disadvantage might still hit and damage you. So most of the time your DM might choose the attack action. He will most certainly do so if a second creature is attacking you, since the chances for just bringing you to 0 in order to escape the grapple are increased by having both creatures just attacking.

This is, where Riposte comes into play. With Riposte you can use this very situation to place an additional strike at your target as punishment for not trying to escape, but instead attempting to damage you while grappling. So with him doing his strikes with disadvantage even with a quite mediocre AC of 16 there is a good chance he will miss.

You can seize that opportunity to strike him with advantage as a reaction. An enraged str 18 barb with a battleaxe would deal d8+d6+6 (14) damage. Having advantage also implies you have an increased chance of scoring a natural 20 and a high chance to negate a natural 1. And dealing significant damage with that reaction might also help in finishing off your grappled target sooner, so you can pick on a new target.

A battlerager having a 4th attack within one round in addition to his regular 3 (extra attack, bonus action attack) once per (short) rest isn't ill posed. For example a war cleric's War Priest feat. By your standards that also appears to be meager at first glance, but it definately has it's uses.

RE: Riposte vs Other Options

I think what we are discussing here is opportunity cost. In some fights it may be worth it to take the extra damage from Riposte. In other fights the more reliable maneuvers may make more sense, particularly as they tend to have a greater impact on the battlefield. For example, tripping someone while you grapple someone else prone can allow your team to attack two targets in melee with advantage. This might make sense particularly if you can dispatch both combatants in the same round. Another example would be Menacing Attack keeping a combatant out of range of your team for a turn, while you finish off the combatant that you have grappled and prone. Both of these examples are likely worth more than an extra attack.

You can just trip any target within your range by using shove (to prone), while having another target grappled. You can even shove/prone a tertiary target within your range (you still got your legs, shoulders and the head dor doing so), while grappling two baddies. That's also more reliabe for a raging barb (advantage on Str checks). Again no need for Tripping Attack at all.

About menacing attack, this is situational. As long as you are positioned right between your mates and the bad guy, it might work out. Bad guys on your sides however might still be able to reach your party, while validly moving away from you. Instead of menacing a second target, drop your weapon (no action) and grapple/prone him, too. Of course, you might not finish off your previous target, and you will do less damage now, but you still have your bonus armor strike, and you can consecutively attack via unarmed strikes (again kick, knee strike, headbutt) and your armor. Doing 1+Str mod damage is better than nothing (Tavern Brawler might be a +1.5 damage upgrade to your unarmed strikes, so not advised unless you see yourself dual grappling all the time). And you still can riposte... with Regards from Dain Ironfoot, also performing Riposte and Shove with his brawl.

I'm playing a battlerager grappler too, and the feats I chose were tavern brawler, tough, and squat nimbleness. (from the new unearthed arcana book) I plan to grapple two enemies whenever possible, so the bonus to unarmed attack damage is useful to me, tough will take some load off of the healer so they can focus on other spells, and I'll need it since two enemies at least will be wailing on me, and I'm taking squat mostly for the expertise in Athletics and a boost to str, though the 5 extra speed will get my base speed onto an even number, giving me another space of movement while grappling, good for controlling and throwing enemies. I would have taken something that gives me a reaction but I rolled really bad ability scores and needed a feat that gave me an abi as well in order to be able to max my relevant ability scores