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

[Zardnaar]

Thats opinion, not fact. But like I said earlier the higher level you get the more the champ closes in on the bm. I never said he surpasses the bm. And the example Bid used was a bm3/barby5. That build is definatly better off as a champ. Bids fake math does nothing to change my opinion on that. Especially if you where to go to even higher levels of that build. Plus he doesnt even mention which subclass for the barby he used which can affect the outcome.

With 2 short rests you get to use around 2 dice per combat or over half you combats for an extra d8 damage.

Champion gets an extra crit in every 20 rounds roughly figjter still crits on a 20)
Champion might get 2 crits BM gets 1.

Champion feels an extra 2d12 damage BM deals 1d12+12d8 extra damage.

Half orc gets 3d12, 6d12 if he crits twice vs the BM 1.

BM still deals more damage. Only if the Champion is a half Orc and the BM gets 0 short rests does the champion come out ahead. THis excludes any extra damage the BM gets to deal via a Rogue or via something like a Sharpshooter or GWM enabled attack and the other uses the superiority dice have.

Assuming the 6-8 combat rounds per day with 2 short rests 5E assumption.

Champion still only comes out ahead with an absurd amount of combat round (more than 30), and you need to add a racial (half orc) ability, and you have to screw the BM over with no short rests as they still win with only a single short rest. I would argue for a fair comparison you ahve to exclude the half orc or let the BM chose their ideal situation as well (such as a rogue in the party as well) or another racial ability (such as a Goliath BM).

Sure you might have a short working day with no short rest but I doubt the Champion would average much more than a single crit or 2.

Level 15 is a long way off for the 18-20 crit range, by then the BM has d12 hit dice and gets a dice back whenever they are out. I will also exclude the Champion at level 20 as odd are neither one will get there.

Level 15 champion would have likely have around 1 crit every 2 rounds so would get 6 to 8 crits probably over a typical day (18-24 rounds). That is only 6-8 d12 damage. BM gets 12d12.

A Half Orc can get that up so a half Orc Champion at level 15 can deal slightly more damage than a vanilla Battlemaster so best case scenario the BM is still better at dealing damage 75% of the time and gets some racial ability to boot as well since we have not picked a race for them.

At lower levels the day has to be exceedingly long or the BM gets screwed over hard with 0 short rests vs a best case scenario with a Half Orc Champion.

A best case scenario for a Battlemaster though is having a level 15 Rogue in the party. That 8d6 sneak attack for the Battlemaster now becomes an extra 4d12+32d6 minimum and potentially 12d12+96d6 extra damage.

And you can blow all your superiority dice ASAP to get an extra dice every round and each of those dice is an additional 1d12+8d6 damage.

The break even point seemsto be level 15 with a half orc or level 15 with champion vs a BM who only gets 1 short rest. Using one of the weaker BM dice to deal extra damage vs other stuff.

I figure if you compare an optimised half orc vs a raceless BM I get to use an optimised BM with a friend.

The amount of variables though heavily favor the BM to level 15 with a half orc, without a half Orc the BM is still on top assuming something close to 6-8 rounds of combat and 2 short rests.

 

[Lucas Blackstone]

..the arrow is made out of my mother. Nooooo!

Haha, I also like knocking things prone with a hand crossbow bolt, but at least that is more reasonable. You could shoot something in the wing, or leg or whatever and set it off balance.

 

[Flamestrike]

Haha, I also like knocking things prone with a hand crossbow bolt, but at least that is more reasonable. You could shoot something in the wing, or leg or whatever and set it off balance.

Youre getting a handfull of trick shots. Which is a nice ability and all.

Your champion archer is +1 AC above you, tends to shoot first and does extra crits from time to time.

Its really a question of preference (I prefer the BM generally, but Champion gets the nod for a fantastic dip for Paladins and Barbarians)

Both classes are crit fishers. Three levels of Champion is the shizzle on those classes.

 

[S'mon]

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.

I think for a 5e Champion that (16-20 crit range) would be fine. It might cause issues with eg a Smiting Paladin rolling all his smite dice twice, or a Rogue rolling sneak attack dice twice.

I basically agree with the OP, out of a few dozen 5e PCs I've never seen a player choose* to play a Champion Fighter (& Battlemaster is rare, for that matter). IME players who want a melee character choose Barbarian or Paladin; in every campaign I've played or GM'd these classes with daily abilities tend to shine over a class that needs 6-8 encounters/day to keep up. I've never seen a campaign that managed to regularly hit 6-8 encounters/day, average of 3-4 is more typical. I've tried playing a Battlemaster and it definitely felt underwhelming, Champion is worse.

*I've occasionally given a new player unfamiliar with 5e a pregen Champion Fighter, and they are ok-ish at best.

I generally find that Champion Fighter is either something the GM uses for a classed NPC because it's easy to run, or something the GM hands out to new players as a pregen. It works ok for those purposes, but IME players enjoy Barbarian a lot lot more.

 

[Flamestrike]

I think for a 5e Champion that (16-20 crit range) would be fine. It might cause issues with eg a Smiting Paladin rolling all his smite dice twice, or a Rogue rolling sneak attack dice twice.

To get that 16-20 crit range you need 15 Champion levels.

Doesnt exactly leave you much room for sneak attack or smite damage.

And to be honest, if I made it to Champion 15 and the game was continuing, Id stick around for the regeneration, action surge 2/short rest and the 4/round attacks capstone anyway.

Not only are the awesome abilities, but a Champion 20 can get people to call him 'Champ' and mean it.

 

[fuindordm]

Champions also get more oomph out of advantage than others.
With advantage, a crit range 19-20 gives a 76/400 ~ 20% chance to crit.
I presume that somewhere in that typical adventuring day, the champion gets a few attack rolls with advantage, which affects your calculations a bit.
Does the party ever set up an ambush? Champions rival rogues for the devastating first strike under these conditions.

Personally I like battlemasters, because I can use those dice to give my attacks a little more oomph exactly where it's needed. But I can definitely see the appeal of the champion, and in my campaign I have one of each.

Cheers,
Ben

 

[Valetudo]

With 2 short rests you get to use around 2 dice per combat or over half you combats for an extra d8 damage.

Champion gets an extra crit in every 20 rounds roughly figjter still crits on a 20)
Champion might get 2 crits BM gets 1.

Champion feels an extra 2d12 damage BM deals 1d12+12d8 extra damage.

Half orc gets 3d12, 6d12 if he crits twice vs the BM 1.

BM still deals more damage. Only if the Champion is a half Orc and the BM gets 0 short rests does the champion come out ahead. THis excludes any extra damage the BM gets to deal via a Rogue or via something like a Sharpshooter or GWM enabled attack and the other uses the superiority dice have.

Assuming the 6-8 combat rounds per day with 2 short rests 5E assumption.

Champion still only comes out ahead with an absurd amount of combat round (more than 30), and you need to add a racial (half orc) ability, and you have to screw the BM over with no short rests as they still win with only a single short rest. I would argue for a fair comparison you ahve to exclude the half orc or let the BM chose their ideal situation as well (such as a rogue in the party as well) or another racial ability (such as a Goliath BM).

Sure you might have a short working day with no short rest but I doubt the Champion would average much more than a single crit or 2.

Level 15 is a long way off for the 18-20 crit range, by then the BM has d12 hit dice and gets a dice back whenever they are out. I will also exclude the Champion at level 20 as odd are neither one will get there.

Level 15 champion would have likely have around 1 crit every 2 rounds so would get 6 to 8 crits probably over a typical day (18-24 rounds). That is only 6-8 d12 damage. BM gets 12d12.

A Half Orc can get that up so a half Orc Champion at level 15 can deal slightly more damage than a vanilla Battlemaster so best case scenario the BM is still better at dealing damage 75% of the time and gets some racial ability to boot as well since we have not picked a race for them.

At lower levels the day has to be exceedingly long or the BM gets screwed over hard with 0 short rests vs a best case scenario with a Half Orc Champion.

A best case scenario for a Battlemaster though is having a level 15 Rogue in the party. That 8d6 sneak attack for the Battlemaster now becomes an extra 4d12+32d6 minimum and potentially 12d12+96d6 extra damage.

And you can blow all your superiority dice ASAP to get an extra dice every round and each of those dice is an additional 1d12+8d6 damage.

The break even point seemsto be level 15 with a half orc or level 15 with champion vs a BM who only gets 1 short rest. Using one of the weaker BM dice to deal extra damage vs other stuff.

I figure if you compare an optimised half orc vs a raceless BM I get to use an optimised BM with a friend.

The amount of variables though heavily favor the BM to level 15 with a half orc, without a half Orc the BM is still on top assuming something close to 6-8 rounds of combat and 2 short rests.

I did not use a half orc as an example, Bid did. The example I will use is the champ that one of my players has. Hes a 9th lvl champ human variant that uses a greatsword. I know he went heavy armor master, stat boost, and gwm as his feats. I use a 16 14 13 12 10 8 stat array. Hes a ing beast with crits. He is the dpr leader of a group that includes a hunter and a openfist monk that both have good dpr. I have had both other core fighter subclasses in other games, and I can tell you right now the champ is fine the way he is. His 7th lvl abilty comes into play all the time. The bms is a little more situational. I remember how much you used to talk about monks until you actually played one. You dont know what the your talking about.

 

[Valetudo]

Youre getting a handfull of trick shots. Which is a nice ability and all.

Your champion archer is +1 AC above you, tends to shoot first and does extra crits from time to time.

Its really a question of preference (I prefer the BM generally, but Champion gets the nod for a fantastic dip for Paladins and Barbarians)

Both classes are crit fishers. Three levels of Champion is the shizzle on those classes.

I think pallys are better off going ek.

 

[S'mon]

Where they suck is with a DM that is permissive with resting, or neglects to regularly impose longer adventuring days.

Yeah, those evil non-railroading GMs. Like every 5e GM I've played with (there have been several) as well as myself.

 

[Flamestrike]

I think pallys are better off going ek.

no way.

Paladin crits double smite dice. Vengeance paladins get advantage once per short rest for a 20 percent Critical range per swing with Champion 3.