D&D 5E [GUIDE] Battle On: The Fighter Guide

[Gladius Legis]

can you update this for the Unearthed Arcana books?

Unearthed Arcana is playtest material and is thus not official. So this guide won't deal with that.

 

[m'draxias]

I really like the guide! The only thing that struck me as odd was the blue rating for Know Your Enemy. I've always considered it to be fluffy and weak. I only play my BM Fighter in a once to twice a year gaming group, and I've never had the opportunity to use it over 12 hours of play.

I'm just imagining getting the group to delay attacking for a minute so I can declare that one creature has a lower AC and higher HP than me. Seems amazingly underwhelming.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I've seen Know Your Enemy used quite a bit. *shrugs* But maybe that's because I play in campaigns that aren't just straight-up murder hobo runs.

It can be quite useful in the interaction pillar. Size up any new NPC who looks harmless but then determine they could be a highly capable fighter or assassin, for example.

Even in your "delay attacking" scenario, I can see the info from Know Your Enemy being useful as far as planning just how much of my and the party's resources we'll care to use to beat the enemy. If I determine that we can coast on just basic attacks, that's an Action Surge and Superiority Dice saved for a more meaningful battle.

 

[delph]

I'v read many guides, comparsions and no one is close to my idea.:

I have Halfling Fighter 2 / Rogue 1
I plan to go BM way with - no one can touch me.
Halfling lucky - much less giving advantage on me when roll 1

STR 10 / DEX 17 / CON 15 / WIS 13 / INT 12 / CHA 8
Rapier + Shield (+1)
Armor: In construction - I have breast plate or studded leather or mage armor (when sorcere gives me)
think about half plate (maybe later MAM to get +1 AC and dismiss DEX disadvantege) and we have forge cleric who can add +1 AC. And defense fighting style.
Because using Mage armor have same AC when I'll have DEX+5 (no shorter than lvl 6) and doesn't give +1 from defensive style

on fighter lvl 3 wil be BM an manouvers - for sure riposte, precision attack and maybe disarming (we play mostly agains people) or Commanders strike (have PALADIN with smites and Rogue/Ranger with poison arraows )

4th lvl - second chance - DEX bonus +4, 1 chance to reroll hit on me in battle (reroll 1 crit, to lower chance to hit me.

6th lvl - thinking about defensive duelant - If I cant use riposte, I can boost my AC. Or MaM to get flat +1 AC (total: 15 + 3(dex) + 1(forge bless) + 1(feat) +1 (defensive FS) +3(shield) = 24 AC good enough)
--here come in play second chance - really good chance to miss me and if they have hit (crit), I can tell "reroll" and have big chance they miss now.

8th lvl - vice versa 6

12th lvl - sentinel (or go earlier to help party? Heavy Cleric and Paladin can help defend Sorcerer and Rogue/Ranger archer) - or shield master (avoid dex save spells - be better not only attacks against AC againts me)

Than I wanna continue with Rogue to be swashbuckler (to 4. lvl to get 1 ASi, better sneak,... or to 8 to get second ASI and bigger sneak. I think I buy Adamantine rapier, so bigger pool of dices are powerfull)
not sure what else.. martial arts feat give me more ripostes, or anything else (and can do almost any maneuver if situation call for it)

 

[Gladius Legis]

The new UA: Class Features Variants article is out, and Fighters (especially Battle Masters) got a lot of stuff. Snap judgments on these:

Fighting Styles

Superior Technique: It's basically the Martial Adept feat, but you just have to give up a Fighting Style for it as opposed to an entire ASI/feat selection. Which isn't nearly as costly a tradeoff and can actually be pretty handy, especially with some of the new maneuvers available in the same document.

Blind Fighting: EXTREMELY BROKEN as currently written. Spellcaster with Darkness or Fog Cloud (including yourself if an Eldritch Knight) + this = All the advantage you could ever want. Now factor GWM/SS in the mix. This one needs to be nerfed, if not omitted entirely in an official release.

Interception: More consistent than Protection, and better on the action economy, as you only use your reaction if your ally actually gets hit. But Protection can make an attack flat-out miss, so hard to say which is better. In any case, not so hot if you already use your reaction a lot for other things like Sentinel, Riposte, Brace, and such.

Thrown Weapon Fighting: Dart, dagger and javelin throwers can finally rejoice. For that matter, any STR-Fighter who still wants to be effective if forced into a ranged battle will welcome this.

Unarmed Fighting: Obviously niche, but very good in its niche. Grapplers as straight Fighters are more viable than ever now.

General Features

Maneuver Versatility: Replacing a maneuver every long rest is pretty darn nice, again especially with some of the new maneuvers in the same doc.

New Maneuvers

Ambush: Boost to Stealth or Initiative. Good one, for sure.

Bait and Switch: Pretty neat, though probably a bit on the situational side of things. Effective at remedying a situation that more times than not can be avoided with good tactics.

Brace: Very welcome new addition. Polearm Masters won't care, but everyone else will.

Restraining Strike: A good pickup for Fighters who still want to be able to bonus-action grapple every once in a while but not enough to want to invest in Tavern Brawler. Useless if you do get Tavern Brawler as that feat does pretty much the same thing at-will.

Silver Tongue: Superiority Dice use for the interaction pillar, yay. Thanks to Maneuver Versatility, you can wait to prepare this for a day that you expect to do a lot more talking than fighting.

Snipe: Bonus-action ranged weapon attack. Including with a free draw of a thrown weapon for such an attack if needed. Which basically brings all ranged Fighters up closer to the Crossbow Expert hand crossbow Fighter, which is simply too effective compared to melee. Yay ...

Studious Eye: Another use of SD on something outside the combat pillar, which is welcome.

 

[Feldspar]

A Half-Orc Champion would seem to have nice synergy between their improved critical rate and the extra crit damage die from the Savage Attacks racial. It might deserve a small mention in the Champion section. Also, Relentless Endurance + Survivor go well together. I understand that lack of on-demand burst remains a weakness, but might this pairing be good enough to rate Average instead of Substandard?


Also, it seems to me (and maybe this is conventional wisdom and already factored in) that a Champion with Superior Critical always hits when they roll an 18 or 19, just like anyone does with a 20.

PHB:194 "If the d20 roll for an attack is a 20, the attack hits regardless of any modifiers or the target's AC. This is called a critical hit, which is explained later in the chapter."

The key for me is that they say "This is called a critical hit", not "This is also a critical hit" or some other wording. It implies that the automatic hitting, just like the double damage, is an inherent component of the thing called a critical hit, which happens when you roll a 20. With a Champion it just happens on more numbers.

Does that change the math any? Especially with regards to possibly using the -5/+10 from Great Weapon Master more aggressively? My 5e experience is, ughhh, theoretical, so I'm not really familiar with how AC vs attack mods scale. I just flipped through the MM and ancient dragons had an AC of 22 which would already be hit by an 18 (roll) - 5 (GWM) + 5 (proficiency) + 4 (stat @18). If the feeling is "I can't ever imagine missing on an 18 (at level 15+), even using GWM" then it might all be irrelevant. Do people often suffer negative attack modifiers (as opposed to Disadvantage)?

 

[Gladius Legis]

A Half-Orc Champion would seem to have nice synergy between their improved critical rate and the extra crit damage die from the Savage Attacks racial. It might deserve a small mention in the Champion section. Also, Relentless Endurance + Survivor go well together. I understand that lack of on-demand burst remains a weakness, but might this pairing be good enough to rate Average instead of Substandard?

I don't think it is. Even with a greataxe, the Half-Orc is looking at a DPR boost of only 0.65 points (0.1*6.5) above the standard Champion. And even at Lv. 15, that's just 0.975 (0.15*6.5).

Also, it seems to me (and maybe this is conventional wisdom and already factored in) that a Champion with Superior Critical always hits when they roll an 18 or 19, just like anyone does with a 20.

It does work like that, according to both Mearls and Crawford.

But it pretty much never happens, to the point it really isn't even worth mentioning.

 

[delph]

Maneuvewers question:
If I use Feinting attack, I'll get advance on the next attack and add superiority dice to damage in that attack. But can I add another maneuver which adds superiority dice to dmg and has two superiority dices to dmg in one attack then?

If I have critical hit (rolled 20), and choose sweeping attack - will I have 2 superiority dices for dmg on second target?

 

[Gladius Legis]

Maneuvewers question:
If I use Feinting attack, I'll get advance on the next attack and add superiority dice to damage in that attack. But can I add another maneuver which adds superiority dice to dmg and has two superiority dices to dmg in one attack then?

If I have critical hit (rolled 20), and choose sweeping attack - will I have 2 superiority dices for dmg on second target?

No.

"You can only use one maneuver per attack." Combat Superiority - Maneuvers p. 73

 

[delph]

No.

"You can only use one maneuver per attack." Combat Superiority - Maneuvers p. 73

As I understood it - I use Feinting attack maneuver in the first attack. But benefit from this maneuver is showed in second attack which is a new attack with the possibility to use another maneuver.