D&D 5E Battle Master Homebrew Idea

[DaedalusX51]

I like the basic setup of kits having an at-will capability, a bonus Action ability, and a reaction ability but I feel that some additional balance and polish is needed. Also, have you looked at the 4e knight or skater for inspiration at all. They utilized at will stances that affected how they fought in combat and gave them round by round decisions to make. Perhaps turning kits into stances would work better overall.

Here are some ideas:

Dancing blade stance
While in this stance you gain the following abilities:
- Opportunity attacks against you are made with disadvantage.
- As a bonus action, you can move a distance up to half your speed.
- When an enemy misses you with an attack, you can move up to 10 feet. This movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks.

Mountain hammer stance
While in this stance you gain the following benefits:
- When you hit a creature with a melee attack, you may push that creature 5 feet.
- If you hit a creature with a melee attack on your turn, you may attempt to shove that creature as a bonus action.
- When a creature attempts to grapple you, you may use your reaction to make a melee attack against that creature.

You can only have one active stance at a time and switching stances would require your bonus action.
Something like that.

While I really do like your ideas, I think I'm going to see how slight changes to the Battle Master go over in play before I get too far into this.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I mean, I don't care how powerful or versatile it is. It's letting your fellow players get all the glory, and works whether you're in a group of archers or wizards, too.

It would make more sense if you it was at-will, but you had to spend your action to do it. As a bonus action, it's ludicrously overpowered, because fighters don't have anything else competing for their bonus action; it's literally free in terms of the action economy (as long as you aren't dual-wielding, which just means dual-wielders won't take this archetype).

A class which gives up nothing in order to grant anyone else an entire extra action is twice as good as any other class.

 

[DaedalusX51]

It would make more sense if you it was at-will, but you had to spend your action to do it. As a bonus action, it's ludicrously overpowered, because fighters don't have anything else competing for their bonus action; it's literally free in terms of the action economy (as long as you aren't dual-wielding, which just means dual-wielders won't take this archetype).

A class which gives up nothing in order to grant anyone else an entire extra action is twice as good as any other class.

But now with this version of the Battle Master, Fighters actually have many uses for a bonus action.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But now with this version of the Battle Master, Fighters actually have many uses for a bonus action.

The big unbalancing factor for this entire archetype is that it hinges on bonus actions, of which fighters typically have no use. Bonus actions aren't a limited resource, the way that ki or superiority dice are. If you can figure out a way to use one every round, and you get more out of it than +1d6 damage, then that's too powerful.

The only reason rogues are given free at-will bonus actions is because those uses are all highly situation and rogues potentially get more out of dual-wielding anyway. A free trip attack or disarm attempt, every round, is worth way more than advantage on one attack or the ability to disengage. It's worth an entire full-power attack.

 

[DaedalusX51]

The big unbalancing factor for this entire archetype is that it hinges on bonus actions, of which fighters typically have no use. Bonus actions aren't a limited resource, the way that ki or superiority dice are. If you can figure out a way to use one every round, and you get more out of it than +1d6 damage, then that's too powerful.

The only reason rogues are given free at-will bonus actions is because those uses are all highly situation and rogues potentially get more out of dual-wielding anyway. A free trip attack or disarm attempt, every round, is worth way more than advantage on one attack or the ability to disengage. It's worth an entire full-power attack.

I will take this under consideration. Thanks for the input.

 

[DaedalusX51]

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] [MENTION=6801204]Satyrn[/MENTION]
I've updated the document with a combination of some of your suggestions below.

Changes:

• Precision Attack and Power Attack have been moved into Using Superiority Dice under Combat Superiority. Since they are not considered maneuvers you can use them on the same attack as a maneuver.
• You now only gain one maneuver at 7th, 10th, and 15th level. This caps you at 6 maneuvers and 8 with Martial Adept.
• Commander's Strike - I think this one may actually be balanced and fun now.
• Parry - Added a weak version.
• Pushing Attack - This is now by default slightly weaker than the monk's ki usage and the Shield Master feat, but when you spend a die, it is equal in power to the monk's ki usage.
• Rally - Added a weak version.
• Riposte - Added a weak version.
• Sweeping Attack - Added a weak version.
• Trip Attack - This is now by default slightly weaker than the monk's ki usage and the Shield Master feat, but when you spend a die, it is equal in power to the monk's ki usage.
  

I appreciate your feedback. Please let me know if any of these changes are problematic or if they are headed in the right direction.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't know if you've seen this... but there's an interesting fighter archetype being designed over on reddit's UnearthedArcana subreddit that combines the Champion and the Battlemaster together into a new archetype called the Warrior. It uses the additional damage via larger crit range of the Champion, and creates Warrior kits that bunch a trio of Battlemaster maneuvers together that have been reworked so as to not needing Superiority Dice to activate and instead are available to the Warrior each round.

It is kind of assumed that this archetype replaces the Champion and the Battlemaster in your game, which is why there are currently 10 different Warrior kits available. I really like it, and I follow along as it goes through each iteration of testing and adjustment, trying to find the sweet spot on each individual kit.

If you want a fighter who can use maneuvers all the time with no dice or restrictive mechanic to tell you when you can't do those maneuvers anymore... this is a pretty good option.

GO HERE ON HOMEBREWERY

 

[DaedalusX51]

I don't know if you've seen this... but there's an interesting fighter archetype being designed over on reddit's UnearthedArcana subreddit that combines the Champion and the Battlemaster together into a new archetype called the Warrior. It uses the additional damage via larger crit range of the Champion, and creates Warrior kits that bunch a trio of Battlemaster maneuvers together that have been reworked so as to not needing Superiority Dice to activate and instead are available to the Warrior each round.

It is kind of assumed that this archetype replaces the Champion and the Battlemaster in your game, which is why there are currently 10 different Warrior kits available. I really like it, and I follow along as it goes through each iteration of testing and adjustment, trying to find the sweet spot on each individual kit.

If you want a fighter who can use maneuvers all the time with no dice or restrictive mechanic to tell you when you can't do those maneuvers anymore... this is a pretty good option.

GO HERE ON HOMEBREWERY

Yeah I am the creator of that one too. While I really like what I did there, my changes went so far that I have to basically rewrite the entire feat system as well.
After speaking about it with some other posters, I decided to try to make an alternate version of the Battle Master with more minor changes.

BTW here is a pdf version of the Fighter document with art and only the Warrior and Eldritch Knight subclasses
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxZxYfpUunBsWVdLUkFtWmVaWms

 

[Satyrn]

It would make more sense if you it was at-will, but you had to spend your action to do it.
A class which gives up nothing in order to grant anyone else an entire extra action is twice as good as any other class.

Oh my. I was about to tell you that you misread me, but then I reread (a couple times) what I wrote.

@DaedalusX51, what Saelorn is saying here is right. I made a horrible copypasta booboo when presenting my all-in commander's strike. I meant to post ". . .on your turn, you can forgo one of your attacks your action and use a bonus action to . . ."

 

[Satyrn]

And I was looking over this this morning trying to figure out what to have the Superiority give Commander's Strike. I concluded on it granting the ally a whole turn (exactly as action surge) instead of just an action.


oh, and disarming strike. I don't like the automatic destruction. At the very least, it should have some limits, otherwise a Battlemaster could've saved Frodo such a long journey. But I also don't think destroying an item is terribly interesting. I'd go for cool and have the SD let the Battlemaster fling the item into his hands, the hands of an ally within 20 feet, or any other space within 20 feet.

I would want to use that