First off apologies if that cam across a bit Brusque - I had half hour to kill in between meetings at work.
I'm sorry that it came across that way. That wasn't my intention. I just don't think that only dealing damage is interesting design or fun to play. I don't think you're an idiot, but if you wouldn't mind explaining why you enjoy more damage over round by round choice I would greatly appreciate it. I don't understand your Eldritch Knight comment. If you wouldn't mind explaining what you mean by that, it would be appreciated.
First off: Can you really not imagine a situation where someone piling on massive damage as they progress levels wouldn't be having a brilliant time? This is basically one of the reasons Sneak Attack progression has survived multiple iterations - a decent subset of players love grabbing and rolling loads of dice. I mean there's also a decent argument to be made that one of the great draws of the 5e fighter (Champion specific) now compared to 4e certainly, and 3/3.5e tangentially (Having to stack feats to get the one you want) is that it's simple to play and highly powered.
Personally, I'm with you - I like more options and would more than likely always play a Battlemaster Fighter. However, I know of players, and can easily imagine other types of players, where pure damage output is what gets them stoked - not choice, or options, or anything else. It's running up to the face of whatever it is that's against them, rolling, and wiping out a third of their HP. The point is, whether you intended to or not, you cannot understand why these people find it fun, and therefore it's not fun.
Eldrich knight comment: "What better way to capitalize on what the Eldritch Knight loves the most" on your post, which is I presume a reference to the Eldrich knight being able to cast cantrips as OAs - and then further compounded to why OAs are why I play a fighter in general. Personally in this case, OAs are pretty low down my reasons to play a fighter (Narrative, extra attacks, feats, fighting styles, and the fact the class doesn't get in the way of the character background, all rate miles above what I do on OAs). Now, if these were specific to me, meh, I can accept I'm my own personal case. Again, however, I know enough people, and can imagine a vast number of people, for who that is also the case.
That's not to say your evaluation of your own mind is incorrect or a wrong way of playing the game - it isn't. But your wording and presentation of why you are doing something is swapping your view of the class, for the truth about the class. That's going to put people who don't share your views in a defensive mindset straight off, and thereby you're not going to get objective feedback. Saying "I'd like to add this to the class because I like to play the game this way" - or "I've struggle to find a Fighter that suits my style of play, I want to play as a Fighter because [X], so here are the changes I'd like to make" - makes no judgement on the way other people play the game
While I feel that I agree with you here, I've found that doesn't necessarily work out in practice. I've had to clarify design decisions when posting homebrew before, and I think this helps get an idea of what I was attempting to accomplish out of the gate. That way if I missed my mark, someone can always see what I was attempting to do and give me some clear pointers.
One, that risks cognitive bias a bit - I come from a bit of a writing background and you don't get to say what you wanted to achieve with a scene. You don't get to have a discussion to make
them change their mind to see it scene how
you wanted to portray it. Especially not before they've even read the scene.
That's not to say dialogue isn't good, but the starting point should be from their reaction, and their reaction is correct and valid regardless of what your reasoning or intention was. That's also not to say you can't dismiss their viewpoint if you want to - it's entirely your prerogative to take onboard whatever feedback you want, or simply only listen to people who share your visions (It's generally accepted that a fantasy/sci-fi author is perfectly entitled to put more emphasis on feedback from sci-fi/fantasy fans and authors when workshopping books - it makes good sense to getting the output you want).
In this instance specifically, I simply meant I felt you should be reading peoples feedback and seeing how they felt this altered the class to see if it lined up with your intention, and then asking them why they thought as they did, to see if it married up with what you wanted to achieve.
I actually had a section of the document that kind of dealt with these issues, but I removed it since I thought it would be easier to discuss in the thread. Regarding Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter, those feats have issues and their problems should be fixed with errata (if Wizards ever decides to actually do a balance pass).
Again - your opinion. I suspect plenty of people view CE and SS, GWM and PAM, and see no problem with balance in general, or Min/Maxing specific. Though granted it's one of the more accepted bugs in the rules......
Regarding Action surge once per encounter, that is already possible at level 17 with the current Fighter. The only difference here is that the Fighter is no longer able to Action Surge twice in the same encounter, so this is effectively an offensive nerf while being a defensive buff.
That's true - but Only if your players take short rests every 2 encounters. Not everyone plays this way. The DMG p.84 states, yes, probably 2-3 encounters per short rest. However, lots of little fights means you'll likely be piling through many more. At which point, having a feature that's only balanced if you play a certain way, isn't really balanced. Also purely from a design intention point of view, if you're getting Action Surge every fight, you're more inclined to use it every fight. If you know there's some calculus going on between how many fights, how many rests, and how many encounters before you really, really, really NEED it for the BBEG - that adds doubt meaning you'll use it less often in case the GM lobs the dragon at you before you get a chance to short rest....
Now I can see where Indomitable could be perceived as overpowered and I would be willing to make some changes. I just don't see how we can have features like Diamond Soul and Aura of Protection while the Fighter gets 3 levels of Indomitable. Do you think just changing it to a short rest reroll would be balanced, or do you have any other ideas?
1) Aura of protection and Diamond Soul ain't an auto-save, there is still a non-zero chance of failure. Advantage only works out on average as +3.5 do a d20 roll. If you are a fighter with Wis 4 against a DC 22 Wis save, realistically you need a crit - now you get an autosave. That's MASSIVE.
2) Diamond Soul and Aura of Protection are integral to the design concepts of the those classes. Indomitable is just a light reflection of the fact of you're used to pushing yourself a bit harder, and being a bit more heroic than your common sword swinger (level 0 fighter) - in other words, not all similar features have to be the same across classes. I mean, you can balance them, but then I'd suggest look at the imbalance of what the Fighter gets that's other classes don't (e.g free feats to take resiliant compared to the cost of Diamond Soul)
3) I think getting it earlier isn't a problem personally, neither is adding in as extra use. Once per short rest would probably be ok balance wise - maybe starting with once per long (level 1), then scaling to once per short rest, and finally regain 2 uses per long, once per short for the third tier. I don't feel that would be too crazy (as as you're going higher level, you're going to get enemies that spam saves more)
While you do get extra circumstantial attacks at 15th level (only one per round, if that), the current Fighter gains a large portion of their damage from their subclass (21d12 or an average of 136.5 damage (Max 252) per day as a Battle Master and even more if using Precision Attack, Riposte, and Great Weapon Master). In addition, all of the reaction attacks have to be triggered by the enemy. This allows a DM to just play around the attacks if they so wish.
While that is true - and to be fair I was rushing a tad at that point to complete my thought before the meeting started - it does still mean at level 18, a group of Knights is going to dominate battles in ways many other groups of classes can't - they already have more attacks as a base class, and now they get another 2 if the enemies attack anyone they can move to (presumably triggering OAs themselves which might trigger more Knight features.) I can't tell for sure if that's realistically an issue (I think a lot of people complain about high end powers not really having experienced them in as wide a range of game situations as is ideal), but this does raise a bit of a flag to me compared to other capstone abilities. That's my opinion thought....
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