D&D 5E A tweak for the Battlemaster fighter

[Ashrym]

To me a significant skill use ought to have potential implications if you can for the most part just retry stuff let people take 20 and get it done is actually reasonable. And if you can just re-roll next round it better be very time sensitive or no way you want to spend that action surge why bother.

That's pretty much why it's never used out of an encounter. It might be an exploration encounter. Social encounters tend to lack that time crunch that an exploration might (typically doesn't) have. Combat is when time matters the most and that's why combat is when we see the ability.

If someone is dangling from a cliff and falls due to a critical failure (used in some campaigns) I would allow action surge to repeat the check before the fall, personally. It's almost like advantage on a check already so allowing such an application isn't a stretch either. I would allow that too if a fighter wanted to use action surge that way even if it's stretching the rules a bit.

Because when you use a high level slot you can have it permanently on.

That's not true. The ranger has to give it up to cast any other concentration spells, assuming the ranger even took the spell in the first place. All fighters have action surge. This topic is specific to battlemasters and all battlemasters have superiority dice and maneuvers.

 

[Esker]

Quarts stipulated the dueling style so that is what I used.

Oh, ok then I have no idea where the bonus action damage is supposed to come from. There are no bonus action spells on the ranger list that don't compete with Hunter's Mark for concentration, as far as I can tell.

 

[dave2008]

Correct me if I'm wrong but that table is missing the Bonus Attack. You're also limiting combats to 3 rounds.

The designers seem to assume three rounds (that is how DPR is calculated for monsters in the DMG) for combat. However, if you change the number of rounds in the spreadsheet, everything updates automatically.

 

[dave2008]

Oh, ok then I have no idea where the bonus action damage is supposed to come from. There are no bonus action spells on the ranger list that don't compete with Hunter's Mark for concentration, as far as I can tell.

That was my understanding as well.

 

[Esker]

One ranger feature that could be included is Whirlwind Attack from 11th on. Sometimes they will get more than two attacks, if they are being swarmed. But I don't know what proportion of the time to assume this comes into play.

 

[Quartz]

OK, I have updated my spreadsheet

You know, I looked at your spreadsheet and it doesn't say what you think it says. TLDR you've forgotten about the attack on the Bonus Action.

I added a column for the unsurged damage (column X) and assumed 8 combats of 8 rounds apiece and deleted low levels. I increased the number of attacks (column N) by one to account for the bonus attack. The unsurged Ranger with Hunter's Mark out-damages the Battlemaster by nearly a thousand points at 11th level. Even with Action Surge it's 750 points until 20th level (BTW you got the number of surges wrong for the 20th level fighter: it should be 6, not two) and even then the Ranger still wins. And only at 20th level does the Champion - which is not the subject of this thread - come close to the ranger, and requires Action Surge to exceed.

I have not included Volley or Whirlwind attack because those would be highly variable. Note that these abilities are usable 1 / round.

I then added in the Paladin:

I've omitted surge damage because calculating smites is difficult.

You'll note that the 11th level Paladin outdamages the 11th level BM Fighter by 300 points and it's only at 20th level that the BM out-damages the Paladin.

 

[Esker]

Hey @dave2008, still think it's worth the effort to trying to engage Quartz's points, after the airtight case that last spreadsheet makes, based on entirely reasonable premises, that the battlemaster needs buffing?

 

[Esker]

(While you think about it, I'll just be over here helping myself to this bowl full of all the cherries that Quartz has so carefully and painstakingly been picking during this thread. Actually, come to think of it, I think these must be Goodberries, since they clearly took supernatural powers to conjure forth...)

 

[Ashrym]

@Quartz what is the source of the bonus action attack you are assuming?

 

[Quartz]

@Quartz what is the source of the bonus action attack you are assuming?

Irrelevant.