D&D 5E Why Good Players Should Not Play Champions

For the most part I am quite happy with the 5E subclasses with most of them being interesting and/or powerful to play. There have been a couple of exceptions such as Beastmaster Ranger and Elemental Monks.

I think I am about to add a third and that is the Champion fighter.

My players are nor picking them and when I get to play I do not pick them either. And many moons ago I played a BECMI fighter with d8 hit points, +2 strength modifier and +1 modifier dex and con. The basic fighter was not that bad relative to the other class, the Champion may not be able to claim that, not sure if it can even claim that against other fighter options.

As I said I get the desire for a basic class but in its quest for simplicity the Champion got left behind because it simply needs better numbers.

This is not a complaint against the fighters lack of out of combat ability if you want that go play a Ranger, Paladin or Barbarian or another concept. Combat should be the fighters thing.

The main problem being is that is not.

All the warrior classes get 2 attacks a round, 3 for fighters at level 11+. The problem is until you get their the other warriors have various ways to get extra damage such as smites, rage, superiority dice, spells, hunters quarry etc. Action surge is decent but only goes so far and the Battlemaster gets to do that as well.

Hunter Rangers get things like colossus slayer or horde breaker as well (on top of hunters quarry). Hordebreaker is the better option IHMO (and then the Ranger often gets more attacks than the fighter)

The extra damage of the champions improved critical doesn't even stack up that well against a very basic hunter ranger build using colossus slayer+hunters quarry.

Finally at level 11 the Champion gets a 2rd attack but so does the battlemaster and short of the -5/+10 feats the other classes are dealing something similar in damage anyway and have out of combat options as well (spells, class abilities) and you can do other things in combat like cast bless, faerie fire or pass without trace or soak lots of damage as a Barbarian.

My players tend towards being powergamers (well 2 of them anyway) but they do not always pick the most powerful classes but they tend to power game whatever they do pick.

Current bunch.

Hunter Ranger (archer)
Dex based sword and board BM fighter
Light Cleric
Mastermind Rogue
Shadowdancer Monk

So not exactly the best classes chosen.

As I said I have not seen a champion picked since the WoTC boards were active in late 2014. Now perhaps the Champion is aimed at newer players but from what I am seeing they are not picking them either as they tend to take warlocks, wizards and sorcerers it seems.

My campaign will come to an end probably around level 12 and I will get to play and I am looking at war or knowledge cleric, moon druid, assassin rogue or whatever the party needs.

I have found the Champ to be the best fighter. In fact after some initial play my group has dropped playing all other fighter types.

Mostly it's the nice increase in crit range combined with more and more attacks just seem to out damage the other fighter types.


Edited to add. Oh I just got the part of your post about Fighter verse the other melee class's and to a small degree you are right. Fighters hold their own the higher level they are. It does seem that at low levels and even some mid levels they lack the flashy things that let some of the other class's stand out.

I still hold that it's mostly a style thing. For instance the barbarian for sure makes the fighter look not so hot until you start having 6-8 encounters and then suddenly the fighter better and better.

That a sub-class doesn't really "do it" for you and your group doesn't actually mean that the sub-class isn't perfectly fine for the folks it is intended for.

And the Champion isn't "aimed at newer players" D&D isn't so complicated as to need a "newb class" that you are meant to play first before you earn the privilege of playing a class that actually interests you.

Also, your title for this thread suggests that you think people aren't "good players" if they don't agree with you when you imply that being a little behind in DPR compared to where you might otherwise be is an unacceptable state. That's very close to declaring other people as having badwrongfun, so you should probably shy away from it.

I am not a new player (putting it mildly), and I don't shy away from complexity in general at all. I have had a great time with the Champion when I have gotten to play one, would love to play one again. I have had many players have great experiences playing them, including going back to them after playing other classes.

I don't see why I would want anyone to not play one. Maybe we aren't "Good" enough

I don't have any champions at my table, and I probably never will.

However, this is NOT because the champion is a bad subclass.

The reason for this is because I don't give out +X magic items. Instead, I will commonly replace the +X with a different, flavorful ability that's either activated by the user or dependent on the target of the attack. However, as I'm currently running published adventures and have little time to modify and test magic items, I have been commonly replacing the +Xes with an expanded crit range (one of my current players snatched up ironfang from the earth prophet in PotA, but I changed the +2 to a 19-20 crit).

I don't see any reason why someone would choose the champion subclass when I am essentially giving away their defining feature as a replacement on each magic item that drops.

MechaPilot said:

I don't have any champions at my table, and I probably never will.

However, this is NOT because the champion is a bad subclass.

The reason for this is because I don't give out +X magic items. Instead, I will commonly replace the +X with a different, flavorful ability that's either activated by the user or dependent on the target of the attack. However, as I'm currently running published adventures and have little time to modify and test magic items, I have been commonly replacing the +Xes with an expanded crit range (one of my current players snatched up ironfang from the earth prophet in PotA, but I changed the +2 to a 19-20 crit).

I don't see any reason why someone would choose the champion subclass when I am essentially giving away their defining feature as a replacement on each magic item that drops.

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Why not let the Champion ability stack so it crits on 18+?

Zardnaar said:

Why not let the Champion ability stack so it crits on 18+?

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Well, the character with Ironfang is a paladin, so stacking with the champion feature is not particularly relevant to that character. However, stacking (if allowed) can lead to craziness when the champion eventually crits on an 18-20 from class, and then potentially gets a magic item that grants 18-20 crits. Such a character would crit on a 16-20. A 25% crit rate is not something I'm keen to allow to happen.

If I were to make the ability somehow interact with the expanded crit range from the item, I'd probably do this: "When you attack with disadvantage and miss, if one of the dice results would be a critical hit for you, you hit normally instead of missing or hitting critically." But I'm not sure about implementing that.

I'm still waiting for you to explain why we "good players" shouldn't play a Fighter (champion).

My being a good player =/= my characters DPR.

ccs said:

I'm still waiting for you to explain why we "good players" shouldn't play a Fighter (champion).

My being a good player =/= my characters DPR.

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Play whatever you like.

Assuming 5 rounds per combat, 7 combats per long rest, 2 short rests per long rest. (A standard adventuring day).

A 5th level Half Orc Greatxe (GWM/S) weilding Champion 5 gets (2 attacks per round plus a bonus action attack every 2-3 rounds from GWM) = 80 or so attack rolls (not incluing attacks of opportunity/ sentinel attacks etc) per long rest.

With a 19-20 crit chance, thats an extra 4 crits per long rest over and above his BM buddy. Each crit gives him +2d12 damage. He gets an extra +8d12 damage per long rest on a standard adventuring day.

His BM buddy gets +12d8 over the same period (plus riders) from his sup dice.

So about even on your standard adventuring day. On shorter days (with the same short rest frequency) the BM pulls ahead. On longer days (with fewer short rests) the Champion pulls ahead.

Instead of riders, the champion gets an extra fighting style, a nice boost to initiative (and Str/ Dex/ Con checks he isnt proficient in) and at high level, regeneration.

Im not seeing it. Well... unless you are running single encounter adventuring days, or allowing short rests after every single fight, and if you're doing that youre invalidating more classes than just the Champion (and its a fault with your DMing style and not the class).