D&D 5E 5e Champion Build help! (Dual Wield + Shield Master feat)

stuffydoll · Oct 18, 2016

Hey guys!

Have a question regarding my character build. Currently he is a level 3 variant human TWF champion with the Dual Wielding feat (Soon to be level 4). 16 Str, 10 dex, 14 con, 12 int, 14 wis, 8 cha (+1 in str and con)

Contemplating picking up Shield Mastery as my level 4 feat. Main idea is so that if my party berserker requires advantage for without using reckless attack, I can knock them prone for him. However, if they are already granting advantage, i can switch to two weapons and just hack and slash.

Not sure if this is plausible, just I should just focus on TWF.

P.S. my DM houserule the Dual Wield feat to allow 1 extra free attack if I crit or reduce a creature to 0hp, once per round.

Yunru · Oct 18, 2016

Well stowing or donning a shield takes an action, so unless your DM feels fine changing that, I'd say no.

Blue · Oct 18, 2016

You can already prone foes without the Shieldmaster feat - Shoving a Creature (PHB pg 195), you can use an attack to shove to prone or move back instead. Your Str (Athletics) vs. their Str (Athletics) or Dex (Acrobatics).

Shield Master doesn't really give you much more options, and it dilutes the investment you've already put into TWF between your fighting style, feat, and to a lesser degree subclass choice. While it may not feel like alot, I wouldn't pick up a feat at 4th (or 6th), instead boost STR +2 each time. The bonus to hit and damage will really be felt, especially with Extra Attack coming up at 5th.

It's interesting - while normally I see Champions with large two-handed weapons, having the more attacks plus a crit mod makes the DM house rule for even more attacks come into play often.

WarpedAcorn · Oct 18, 2016

You could check with your DM and see if he will allow you to use your Shield as an Improvised Weapon, and if so each round you could choose to either attack with it or use the Shield Mastery feat to Shove. That would give you the flexibility to choose each round whether to provide a status effect (prone) or do some extra damage without having to constantly be swapping weapons and shields.

stuffydoll · Oct 19, 2016

Thanks for the feedback! I'll stick with TWF and not going for shield master. Planning to just stick to throwing handaxes/daggers and switching over to 2-weapons in melee

smbakeresq · Dec 5, 2016

Blue said:
You can already prone foes without the Shieldmaster feat - Shoving a Creature (PHB pg 195), you can use an attack to shove to prone or move back instead. Your Str (Athletics) vs. their Str (Athletics) or Dex (Acrobatics).

Shield Master doesn't really give you much more options, and it dilutes the investment you've already put into TWF between your fighting style, feat, and to a lesser degree subclass choice. While it may not feel like alot, I wouldn't pick up a feat at 4th (or 6th), instead boost STR +2 each time. The bonus to hit and damage will really be felt, especially with Extra Attack coming up at 5th.

It's interesting - while normally I see Champions with large two-handed weapons, having the more attacks plus a crit mod makes the DM house rule for even more attacks come into play often.

Shield Master does move the chance to prone with a shove from an attack to a Bonus Action. You can use the prone from Shield Master to then take a full attack action, all with advantage. That's a great use of your bonus action. All the other features are great too.

An interesting way to go about this with champion is use the two weapon style and dual wield feat with a weapon and shield, using your shield as a weapon. As a DM I would rule the shield bash as a d4 weapon. You get high defense and a useful shield bash to use as a bonus action. With a feat investment it seems reasonable to me. Later on take the dueling weapon style to improve main hand damage. I would allow that since its an investment.

Blue · Dec 5, 2016

smbakeresq said:
Shield Master does move the chance to prone with a shove from an attack to a Bonus Action. You can use the prone from Shield Master to then take a full attack action, all with advantage. That's a great use of your bonus action. All the other features are great too.

Except that the OP is talking about a dual-wielder. They've already spending their bonus action to make an off-hand attack. So WITHOUT SPENDING THE FEAT you can use your bonus action to do this already. And you can still do it in any order to get your attacks with advantages after. So you ca already do all of that.

smbakeresq · Dec 7, 2016

I don't think it does. The two weapon fighting rule specifically says "you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand." The dual wielder feat text takes out the light melee weapon condition, but the rest of the rule states to attack with a weapon you are holding in the other hand. To me that means you can only use the bonus action to attack with that weapon. Also, shove takes your attack action, shove states "using the attack action", so you cant use it using a bonus action at all.

The shove for one of your attacks can only occur during the attack action, unless you have that feat. Its not just a free substitution everywhere.

The idea then is to use the Shield master feat to use the bonus to shove (most of the time to prone) or to attack if the target is already prone.

Plus, its a neat character build, not optimized, but its better to play whats interesting instead of a mathematical construct which many builds are.

A little secret when I DM, the power gamer is never inspiring so gets little inspiration, the RP gamer who plays the fun build gets it all the time just be being his character.

smbakeresq · Dec 7, 2016

stuffydoll said:
Hey guys!

P.S. my DM houserule the Dual Wield feat to allow 1 extra free attack if I crit or reduce a creature to 0hp, once per round.

A different house rule but more smoother is an extra die of damage if you hit with both the main weapon and the off hand weapon as a "rend" attack. This probably should have been included in the dual wield feat as an option IF you stick to light weapons to make the feat appealing to the regular light weapon dual wielders.

smbakeresq · Dec 7, 2016

Blue said:
It's interesting - while normally I see Champions with large two-handed weapons, having the more attacks plus a crit mod makes the DM house rule for even more attacks come into play often.

Champions are actually very effective with the Shield Master feat and Dueling option since they can try to give themselves advantage for every series of attacks with use of the bonus action shove with Shield Master.

As far as two weapon fighting, I use my house rule above with the Dual Weapon feat, you can use the 2 normal sized weapons or use light weapons and get that rend attack.

I think the Champion is ok as is, but if they had some weapon or weapon combo specific options it would fill the class theme out more. Small things like the Rend attack if using 2 light weapons, or a Shield bash, or a sweep type of attack with a pole arm, something that only they could get.

D&D 5E 5e Champion Build help! (Dual Wield + Shield Master feat)

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