D&D 5E Breaking down the Fighter archetypes.

[krakistophales]

It's seriously unremarkable, IMO. It's only half your proficiency bonus rounded up, so it's +1 or +2 for the vast majority of a character's career (until 13th level), and never more than +3. And it only applies if you aren't already proficient. It's got some interesting utility in that it applies to any check, including ones that can't normally get proficiency, but you're really not going to become an amazing acrobat or athlete--and you lose any benefit for things you're already proficient in! The one swinging off a chandelier should be a Thief, not a Champion.



Edit II: Guess I'm just having Reading Comprehension Failure today; it is listed, it's just orphaned near the top of a column after a sidebar, so I didn't connect it with the Dexterity section. It's not as badly organized as I thought, but it's still a terrible place to put such a critically important part, IMO!

Still, does a +2 to Initiative actually make such a huge and defining difference? And is that *really* a meaningful difference from "I hit, I hit"? You get to decide who to hit sooner, sure, but you're still hitting and nothing else in combat...



"Shoot" is just a synonym for "hit," so I don't see that as different. And jump/balance is something much, much, MUCH better left to the Thief. Yes, the Champion has a narrow edge over other Fighters, but if that edge is easily overcome by most other classes, then the Champion isn't really particularly good...and the other Fighters are that much worse for not having that benefit!



And people thought it was a good idea to add the 15-minute workday problem to Fighters...why, exactly? Like, I get that you're essentially mocking the very concept of someone who gets frustrated by having dramatically fewer resources than opportunities to use them. But the frustration is real and the 15-minute workday seems to be well-recognized as a failure condition that results from a large disparity between quantity of resources and number of opportunities to spend them. Making it out to be the resource-spender being a whiny douche who ruins everyone else's fun is just a different way of saying the people you disagree with engage in bagwrongfun, or at least badwrong preferences.



Generally agreed, though as I recently learned, you can't actually miss with most Battlemaster maneuvers. They're either "when you hit" or (effectively) "you can spend your Attack action to do something else" e.g. let an ally attack instead.



"Crits are fun" is...massively subjective. It can be fun to do a bunch of damage, sure. But they can also be incredibly frustrating (e.g. "god dammit, ANOTHER wasted crit on an enemy that was already almost dead..." which happens to me ALL THE TIME in Fire Emblem: Awakening), or they can just not happen as often as expected and therefore contribute little or nothing at all.

I can agree that the Champion is the "no tricks, no fluff" character. I just wish it didn't have to also be bland and nearly unable to contribute to anything out of combat (and especially anything social, which at least the BM has a TINY sliver of utility for).



Yeah, the EK is "FIGHTER (oh and also mage)." One of the few things I can really respect about 5e is that they gave an actual *range* along the "weapon/magic" divide: EK sits at the Fightery end, Dragon Sorc sits at the Wizardy end, and things like the Valor Bard and Blade Warlock sit in the middle, possibly the Paladin as well if you're comfortable refluffing it as more magical than divine.

There is no such thing as "wasting" crits because they are an infinite resource and therefore by definition cannot be wasted. You are just as likely to score a critical hit on an enemy that could use massive damage as on an enemy that's almost dead, so even from your point of view, you can't "waste" a crit.

 

[Baumi]

With the Sword Coast Adventurer Guide we have another Martial Archetye:

Purple Dragon Knight: A noble Fighter who Inspires his friends by enhancing his special Fighter Features to help his Friends .. but only marginaly and rarely.

 

[krunchyfrogg]

With the Sword Coast Adventurer Guide we have another Martial Archetye:

Purple Dragon Knight: A noble Fighter who Inspires his friends by enhancing his special Fighter Features to help his Friends .. but only marginaly and rarely.

I don't have my SCAG with me, but I thought having multiple Purple Dragon Knights working together, inspiring each other would be cool.

 

[leonardoraele]

Champions hit things hard and often. If you're looking to maximize your damage output and wallop things without fiddling with the mechanics much, be a Champion. Your typical dragon-slaying knight is a Champion.

Battlemasters are tacticians. They move things around, offer bonuses, and manipulate the battlefield. If you want to make choices every round about where best to apply your resources, be a Battlemaster. Your typical commander or general is a Battlemaster.

Eldritch Knights combine magic with equipment. They use abjurations and evocations to enhance their attacks and defenses. If you want to blast enemies with fire, conjure magical shields, and hit them with swords while enduring their attacks without breaking na sweat, be an Edirtch Knight. An archetypal Edritch Knight is an elven knight, powered with arcane energy and great martial prowess.

Best description. +1

 

[krakistophales]

Champions are the no nonsense, zero maintenance, tough SOBs that dish out the pain and take it just as well. At least, on the surface. The reality is that the champion requires feats to really shine. The reason being is that his main advantage, crits, only becomes a worthy choice if you play around with it a bit.

1. You need a weapon with multiple damage dice, so that leaves you with the greatsword or maul for now.
2. You need to gain multiple attacks. Thankfully, the fighter gets 4, but you need even more than that. The way to do this is great weapon master, which gives you a bonus action attack on a drop or crit, and sentinel, which gives you reaction attacks based on battlefield movement. Since you don't use your bonus action or especially your reaction with any frequency, these two feats essentially give the champion 2 extra attacks on the regular combined with however many attacks he already has from fighter. This, combined with 2 damage dice instead of 1 and being able to reroll 1's and 2's on a crit, and now we're talking about a death machine.

This is the class you play if you want survivability, and know the game well enough to min/max it so that it can be on par with the other fighter archetypes.

Battlemaster is a straight up nova build. Some people want to say that it's tactical, or strategic, or whatever, but it simply isn't. 9/10 times you're simply adding damage and an effect to "I hit the enemy", and at the highest level, you can do this for 6 attacks before you're out of gas. Sure, you get 1 maneuver back per initiative and all of them on a short rest, but this is very swingy depending on your DM. If your party and DM allow you to short rest every 2 encounters or so, then you'll have great fun playing a battlemaster. If you're caught in a scenario where you will have 4 to 6 encounters between a short rest, you're a generic fighter that's either hoarding your maneuvers or simply don't have any to burn anymore. In this situation, the champion shines most because he CANT waste his resources.

This is the class you play if you don't mind being really powerful for a short period of time and then average for the rest of the time.

Eldritch Knight focuses more on versatility/utility to add to the death machine of a standard fighter. At later levels you can fly, you have ranged spell attacks, you can teleport, haste, blur, dimension door, fireball, all that great stuff while still wearing heavy armor and dishing out 4 greatsword attacks while rerolling 1's and 2's. I feel this build requires the most experience to play simply because of the action economy. Your bread and butter feature, spells, comes back on a long rest. Ugh. This really requires you to know when to cast and time it well, because even the battlemaster just has to nap for an hour to get his features back, you have to take a whole day off. Once you run out of spells, you literally are a generic fighter not for 1 hour, but for 8. This one requires caution and great experience to play, but when done well can be absolutely devastating both in and out of combat.

This is the class you play if you really are well versed in the game, know the spells pretty well, and have experience with action economy. If that's you, this class can cover damage output, defense, and utility to devastating effect.

 

[hejtmane]

Champions boring and extra damage out put is not as great as you think

Battle Master why play anything else has the ability to add ac, +tohit or damage on demand; has the best scaling extra damage of the group

EK under whelming great multi class for a war/wizard build (Valor bard would be better imo with the book of secrets involved)

purple knight ugh Bard\Battle master would probably be a better warlord than this class

 

[Sacrosanct]

Here I was thinking, "Great, yet another thread where people thinks a class sucks because they can't think out of the box", then I saw that this is back from April and was necro'd.

 

[hejtmane]

Here I was thinking, "Great, yet another thread where people thinks a class sucks because they can't think out of the box", then I saw that this is back from April and was necro'd.

The class far from sucks The fighter class rocks it the sub classes in them that have the issue. The Battle Master is freaking boss

The same with Barbarians the beserker class is garbage but a Totem Barbarian is freaking monster

 

[LapBandit]

In my campaign fighters get a few extra things:

Champion

Double the Indomitable uses.
Expertise in Athletics and Acrobatics.
A Crit slot that charges up (1 max), 3 crits charges it up then the champion can change one roll into a crit expending the Crit slot.

Battlemaster

12 superiority die, recharge on long rest.

 

[krakistophales]

Champions boring and extra damage out put is not as great as you think

Battle Master why play anything else has the ability to add ac, +tohit or damage on demand; has the best scaling extra damage of the group

EK under whelming great multi class for a war/wizard build (Valor bard would be better imo with the book of secrets involved)

purple knight ugh Bard\Battle master would probably be a better warlord than this class

Champions are as boring or exciting as you make them. Battlemaster can only add AC during movement, so you don't really get any benefit other than on one move through hostile territory. The "on demand" portion of your+to hit or damage is literally 6 times max. Champion has crit truly on demand in that it can potentially happen every attack.

Extra damage output isn't as great as I think? That's the fighter's entire reason for existence is to dish out extra damage output. If you're NOT about extra damage output, then fighter isn't the class for you.