D&D (2024) Weapon Mastery + Cunning Strike+ Battle Master

[Ruin Explorer]

the need for the champion is that some people want it.

Not good enough.

People want a lot of classes/subclasses. 90% of them aren't provided by WotC. Many of them have hugely more demand than Champion Fighter.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Not good enough.

People want a lot of classes/subclasses. 90% of them aren't provided by WotC. Many of them have hugely more demand than Champion Fighter.

It is good enough for me. My friends play them and like them so I want them in the game.

Now I don’t begrudge people for wanting other classes. But I don’t really have any way to determine what people want on a grand scale to make a more altruistic assessment. But I would rather add more classes than remove one.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Now I don’t begrudge people for wanting other classes. But I don’t really have any way to determine what people want on a grand scale to make a more altruistic assessment. But I would rather add more classes than remove one.

I think you're missing the issue with the Champion Fighter.

All Fighters suffer because Champion Fighters exist.

If Champion Fighter didn't exist, they could redesign the Fighter class drastically, probably using Battlemaster as a baseline to work from, and a class that was more engaging for most players, more capable, less overshadowed by Full Casters, more flexible, more knobs to tweak and so on.

But we can't have that, because of Champion Fighters demanding that the baseline Fighter be a featureless wilderland, with no real tactical options, just a couple of very simplistic abilities and some simple passives. Thus every single bit of actual "gameplay" in Fighter mechanics has to be in their subclasses, and I'm sorry, but subclasses don't have enough buttons to tweak to fix that problem (nor does getting a couple more Feats/ASIs fix it - 1D&D could improve that with the mid-level Feats but they've kept them hidden thus far).

It's not about "removing one subclass" in a vacuum, it's about removing the only subclass that warps the entire class it's for.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I think you're missing the issue with the Champion Fighter.

All Fighters suffer because Champion Fighters exist.

If Champion Fighter didn't exist, they could redesign the Fighter class drastically, probably using Battlemaster as a baseline to work from, and a class that was more engaging for most players, more capable, less overshadowed by Full Casters, more flexible, more knobs to tweak and so on.

But we can't have that, because of Champion Fighters demanding that the baseline Fighter be a featureless wilderland, with no real tactical options, just a couple of very simplistic abilities and some simple passives. Thus every single bit of actual "gameplay" in Fighter mechanics has to be in their subclasses, and I'm sorry, but subclasses don't have enough buttons to tweak to fix that problem (nor does getting a couple more Feats/ASIs fix it - 1D&D could improve that with the mid-level Feats but they've kept them hidden thus far).

It's not about "removing one subclass" in a vacuum, it's about removing the only subclass that warps the entire class it's for.

I disagree, but I get your point. I think the base fighter could be redesign to slow for a simple fighter (like the champion) and a complex fighter. To me this is not an argument to get rid of the champion subclass, but to design the fighter class better.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I disagree, but I get your point. I think the base fighter could be redesign to slow for a simple fighter (like the champion) and a complex fighter. To me this is not an argument to get rid of the champion subclass, but to design the fighter class better.

I mean, I will say that I can't rule out that that could be done, by sufficiently skilled designers.

However, we have a problem, because Playtest Packet 5 proved that WotC's designers are not sufficiently skilled to do that, as their exciting new Fighter has 100% of the design issues of the old Fighter, and clearly for the exact same reason, given the Champion subclass was paired with it.

 

[Azzy]

the need for the champion is that some people want it. I know, I played with them and have for the last 8 years!

The thing is, the simple fighter could still be built into a more complex chassis. In the playtest packets, casters are give the choice to select a default selection of spells ("Rather than choosing, you may start with Animal Friendship, Cure Wounds, Faerie Fire, and Thunderwave."). The complex fighter could have a similar package of abilities that are dead simple so that those that want a simple fighter can have a simple option while those that want a more complex fighter can choose other, more complex options.

Now that argument can be made for any class I guess, but a simple fighter does have history in the game.

The problem with that is that, in previous editions (going back to 2e) there have been combat maneuvers that martials can use. 5e doesn't have anything beyond grappling and shoving. And that makes me, as someone that likes fighters (the class concept, not the 5e execution) rather sad.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think you're missing the issue with the Champion Fighter.

All Fighters suffer because Champion Fighters exist.

If Champion Fighter didn't exist, they could redesign the Fighter class drastically, probably using Battlemaster as a baseline to work from, and a class that was more engaging for most players, more capable, less overshadowed by Full Casters, more flexible, more knobs to tweak and so on.

But we can't have that, because of Champion Fighters demanding that the baseline Fighter be a featureless wilderland, with no real tactical options, just a couple of very simplistic abilities and some simple passives. Thus every single bit of actual "gameplay" in Fighter mechanics has to be in their subclasses, and I'm sorry, but subclasses don't have enough buttons to tweak to fix that problem (nor does getting a couple more Feats/ASIs fix it - 1D&D could improve that with the mid-level Feats but they've kept them hidden thus far).

It's not about "removing one subclass" in a vacuum, it's about removing the only subclass that warps the entire class it's for.

I think the problem here is that subclasses aren’t impactful enough. In 4e you (eventually) had the Weapon Master, the Knight, and the Slayer as three different fighter subclasses that all played significantly differently, with different levels of complexity both between them and within them, because subclass affected the class at every level. In 5e, subclasses only add like 4-6 small features to the base class, each several levels apart. You really can’t have a simple build and a complex build within the same class because 4/5 of their features are the same, and the ones that are different are minimally impactful.

I do think there’s value in there being a simple martial class, and in there being a complex martial class. But trying to force them to be the same class just isn’t feasible in 5e. If only they’d give us a Warlord; that could eat the Battlemaster and become the “complex fighter” while leaving the classic fighter to be the simple one.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Okay, so we do not have a complete look at fighter, but we can assume battle master will show up in one way shape or form.

Lord Knows there are enough "Fighters are too weak/fighters are fine" threads so for this thread can we all just work on the assumption that the fighter we end up with in 2024 will not be a carbon copy of the 2014 book but will also not be as powerful/flexable as a full caster?

So weapon mastery looked like it was going to be the warrior thing with fighters doing it best. The latest we have gives it to rogues. Now the latest rogue without even taking a subclass gets the ability to trade every round damage for cool effects at 5th+ level.

Disarm, Trip, Poison and withdraw show up for 1d of SA at 5th
At level 11 you can do 2 of them (costing 2 dice though) so you can trip and poison or disarm and withdraw
At level 14 you get Daze (2d) knock out (6d) and obscure (3d)

now combined with weapon mastery this is more options than I would expect (especially with mix and matching)

assuming most play time is between 3rd and 11th level, in more then half of it (5-11) the rouge is now a darn good complex fighter.

if you take swashbuckler there are 4 more of those too.


so how do you think a 2024 battle master will play against this? a battle master can't disarm every round in the 2014 phb, do you think they will in 2024?

I bet $10 right now the BM has some at-will maneuver juice of some kind, and does it harder and better when they spend dice.

 

[Horwath]

I bet $10 right now the BM has some at-will maneuver juice of some kind, and does it harder and better when they spend dice.

most of BM maneuvers could be at-will if you remove added damage.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

most of BM maneuvers could be at-will if you remove added damage.

Yep. Make the dice a damage buff, and the maneuvers a mix of at-will and limited use.