D&D 5E Have we rebalanced the Champion Yet?

[Minigiant]

It's pretty much all battlemasters do too and Barbarians and Rangers and even most paladins. It puts such a champion head and shoulders above all them.

Battlemasters have Student of war. And UA gives them so exploration and social manuevers.
Barbarians can use Rage and Danger sense for exploration
Ranger is an exploration class first, combat class second.
Paladin has social spells.

Champions do one thing: fish for crits.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It feels like a fast ramp up that way. The EK has a big power jumpy he at 7th level when they get 2nd level spells, and that feels like a good place for the BM to start ramping up.

But, like others are saying, nerfing a non-caster class does feel a big bad. It's just they have more dice at 3rd level than a monk has ki! LOL

The monk has more other stuff at level 3. Comparing a single part of a class against a single part of another class isn't useful.

The BM is balanced with any given phb character of comparable general “role”. The Champion is behind. The Champion will still be behind if you nerf the battlemaster.

If the BM has to wait until 7 to get more dice, and starts with 2, IMO the subclass wouldn’t be worth playing.

The BM definitely isn’t more powerful than the EK at any level, imo.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The BM is balanced with any given phb character of comparable general “role”. The Champion is behind.

Already alluded to, but there is a fundamental assumption that may not be valid made here: "The player knows how to play there character". If the BM forgets to use their superiority dice and the EK forgets to cast their spells the Champion is well ahead. The Champion is designed to be fool proof, not strong.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Battlemasters have Student of war. And UA gives them so exploration and social manuevers.
Barbarians can use Rage and Danger sense for exploration
Ranger is an exploration class first, combat class second.
Paladin has social spells.

Champions do one thing: fish for crits.

Those social and exploration powers are very strange to me. I have no idea why expending a combat superiority die to help me be more intimidating would prevent me from using a different maneuver in combat.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

The Champion is designed to be fool proof, not strong.

Is there a reason the two have to be mutually exclusive?

 

[Quartz]

Extra Attack doubles your Action Surge potency.

But it's still only one round.

 

[Quartz]

No. The fighters depends on accuracy. The paladins dont.

The hand-to-hand Fighter has no extra accuracy over the Paladin at any level.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Is there a reason the two have to be mutually exclusive?

Yes.

BM and EK are only strong if and because the player is experienced.

The Champion is only designed for players who are inexperienced or are not interested in game mechanics. If you don't fall into either of those categories the solution is simple - don't play a champion, it's not for you.

 

[NotAYakk]

I've never seen players get advantage on half their attacks, but we don't play with flanking advantage, so we're likely seeing things from a different angle.

Sure; really, shield master shovers grants mass advantage, or wolf totem barbarian. Or flanking.

Mass advantage is so good that a PC built to grant it is awesome.

 

[NotAYakk]

The hand-to-hand Fighter has no extra accuracy over the Paladin at any level.

The BM and Smite dice do not depend on accuracy, because you burn them after a hit. Action surge damage does, because you burn the resource then determine if it hits.

So when calculating damage budget, there are ~6 kinds of damage. (at-will, per-rest, per-long-rest) x (cannot miss, can miss) is the 3x2 matrix. (I could argue "save-based" is different, but am lazy, so just call that "can miss". Half-on-miss is just half way between cannot miss and can miss.)