D&D 5E (2014) The Fighter/Martial Problem (In Depth Ponderings)

[Zardnaar]

Until you run into your first critter that can only be hit by +1 or better weapons, that is.

I think there was a spell for that

 

[Minigiant]

Why should they?

If optimized in a white room it does deal similar damage, actually better damage than the Barbarian in your example and "similar" to the other three.

The Champion doesn't deal similar damage and Champion Players can see their party member roll more dice.

Joey can see Jenny roll Colossus Slayer's bonus 1d8 damage almost every turn.
Joey can see Jimmy roll Superiority dice 4 times per short rest.
Joey can see the 1-3 bonus crits he see per short rest when rolling a 19.

The Champion relies on Jenny and Jimmy playing something else and not being able to see their better weapon rolls compared to his.

 

[ECMO3]

The Champion doesn't deal similar damage and Champion Players can see their party member roll more dice.

Joey can see Jenny roll Colossus Slayer's bonus 1d8 damage almost every turn.

Ok so first of all it is not almost every turn, it is only if Jenny's target is damaged.

Second it is not 1d8 (4.5) more it is 1d8-2 (2.5) more because Joey has a higher strength since he has an extra ASI and he gets an extra +1 damage on each attack AND an extra 5% chance to hit on each attack. So yes if you just look at it in a base damage, without putting an AC to it and adding in criticals, Jenny is doing about 1-2 points per round more .... which is like I said similar.

It is time to bring some actual math into this discussion though.

Assumptions:
Level 6. 75% of Jenny's attacks are against damaged foes. Jenny 18 strength, dueling. Joey 20 strength, dueling. Six four-round combats and 2 short rests for the day (24 rounds of combat total). Joey is playing a halfling to get the most out of his 19 critical range and I will give Jenny a Halfling too to increase her crit chance just to be fair. Foes have a 16 AC.

Optimized with an 18 strength Jenny is dealing base 12.5 base damage per hit (25 per round) plus 4.5 from collusus slayer. She has a +8 attack bonus making her chance to hit 65% (16.25 DPR). Her chance to land colusus slayer is 65.8% (2.96 DPR). Her chance to crit on base damage is .0525 (0.68 DPR) and her chance to crit on CS is 0.0525 (0.24 damage). That is 16.25+2.96+0.68+0.24. That is 20.21 damage per attack action. With 24 attack actions that is 485.04 damage per day

Joey is easier to calculate. Optimized with a 20 strength Joey is dealing a base 13.5 damage per hit (27 per Round), He has a +9 attack bonus making his chance to hit 70% (18.9 DPR). His chance to crit is 10.05% (1.31 damage). That is 18.9+1.31. That is 20.21 damage per attack action. It sounds like a dead heat, but it is not because Joey gets 27 attack actions due to 3 action surges. So Joey is doing 545.67 damage per day

Not only is joey doing more damage, he is doing it with a higher AC as well.

Joey can see Jimmy roll Superiority dice 4 times per short rest.

Jimmy rolls 12 superiority dice over the day. These do 4.5 damage extra. Assuming 24 rounds of combat and 3 action surges that comes out to 2 extra damage per attack action. Joey is doing an extra 0.7 damage for crits so Jimmy is doing 1.3 more damage than Joey on the average attack action. Again this is similar damage like I said.

Jenny and Jimmy both have more powerful characters than Joey, but the power difference is not in the damage because they are all doing similar damage. The difference is in Jenny's spells and the control options offered by Jimmy's maneuvers.

 

[Minigiant]

Ok so first of all it is not almost every turn, it is only if Jenny's target is damaged.

Second it is not 1d8 (4.5) more it is 1d8-2 (2.5) more because Joey has a higher strength since he has an extra ASI and he gets an extra +1 damage on each attack AND an extra 5% chance to hit on each attack. So yes if you just look at it in a base damage, without putting an AC to it and adding in criticals, Jenny is doing about 1-2 points per round more .... which is like I said similar.

It is time to bring some actual math into this discussion though.

Assumptions:
Level 6. 75% of Jenny's attacks are against damaged foes. Jenny 18 strength, dueling. Joey 20 strength, dueling. Six four-round combats and 2 short rests for the day (24 rounds of combat total). Joey is playing a halfling to get the most out of his 19 critical range and I will give Jenny a Halfling too to increase her crit chance just to be fair. Foes have a 16 AC.

Optimized with an 18 strength Jenny is dealing base 12.5 base damage per hit (25 per round) plus 4.5 from collusus slayer. She has a +8 attack bonus making her chance to hit 65% (16.25 DPR). Her chance to land colusus slayer is 65.8% (2.96 DPR). Her chance to crit on base damage is .0525 (0.68 DPR) and her chance to crit on CS is 0.0525 (0.24 damage). That is 16.25+2.96+0.68+0.24. That is 20.21 damage per attack action. With 24 attack actions that is 485.04 damage per day

Joey is easier to calculate. Optimized with a 20 strength Joey is dealing a base 13.5 damage per hit (27 per Round), He has a +9 attack bonus making his chance to hit 70% (18.9 DPR). His chance to crit is 10.05% (1.31 damage). That is 18.9+1.31. That is 20.21 damage per attack action. It sounds like a dead heat, but it is not because Joey gets 27 attack actions due to 3 action surges. So Joey is doing 545.67 damage per day

Not only is joey doing more damage, he is doing it with a higher AC as well.




Jimmy rolls 12 superiority dice over the day. These do 4.5 damage extra. Assuming 24 rounds of combat and 3 action surges that comes out to 2 extra damage per attack action. Joey is doing an extra 0.7 damage for crits so Jimmy is doing 1.3 more damage than Joey on the average attack action. Again this is similar damage like I said.

Jenny and Jimmy both have more powerful characters than Joey, but the power difference is not in the damage because they are all doing similar damage. The difference is in Jenny's spells and the control options offered by Jimmy's maneuvers.

At 65% Colossus Slayer has ~87% chance to trigger with a wounded foe. Then you have Hunter's mark. So it depends on how often these trigger.

But again

Joey will see Jenny rolling 2 extra dice almost every turn.
Joey will see Jimmy rolling superiority dice and causing effects.
Joey will see Jose smiting and crit smiting.
Joey will see Jana reckless attacking and popping rage

The Champion is simple but doesn't the damage nor flash as a compromise. It relies on no other warriors to be there to overshadow it or to take a completely different role.

All while neutering 5e's crit mechanics to manage it. If you as a DM want to do anything with crits you have to think about the Champion. A subclass warping the whole game.

And every other fighter subclass lacks core maneuvers to keep the Champion simple. A subclass warping the whole fighter class. Jeremy Crawford even said this.

Silo out the Simple Warrior to its own class and 90% of these goes away.

Joey gets to mindlessly smash AND have different ways to smash AND pick a subclass to engage with the Exploration, Social, or Magic system if he chooses to at 3rd level.

 

[ECMO3]

At 65% Colossus Slayer has ~87% chance to trigger with a wounded foe.

Ok to spell it out for you - 87.75% chance to trigger with a 75% chance of a wounded foe available to attack (listed in the assumptions) equals 65.8% overall just like I said above.

In any case even if your DM only throws previously wounded enemies at you, you still are not going to outdamage a Champion over the course of a day given his higher strength, better chance to hit, better chance to crit and action surges.

Then you have Hunter's mark. So it depends on how often these trigger.

Sure spells! If spells are on the table the Ranger can blow the others out of the water.

I have also said many times that giving the basic fighter class spells is the best way to "balance" the class.

Joey will see Jana reckless attacking and popping rage

Joey does more damage in combat than Jana. With Rage Jana does the same damage Joey does all day without raging .... actually check that, she does less even when raging because Joey has a higher strength.

If Jana uses reckless attack every single one of those 24 rounds of combat and rages for 16 of them (4 combats) she will still be below Joey's output for the day, and she will get slaughtered doing reckless attack every turn with her crappy AC.

The Champion is simple but doesn't the damage nor flash as a compromise.

I see damage is no longer the sole metric. Now flash is coming into the discussion.

All while neutering 5e's crit mechanics to manage it. If you as a DM want to do anything with crits you have to think about the Champion. A subclass warping the whole game.

I don't ever think about this when I DM and Champions have done fine at my table. I highly doubt the tables I have played on as a player have considered this either.

The build is the players problem, while there is a session 0 social contract at the start of the game and that does include things like "will we be able to purchase or craft magic items" which impact character builds. I have never had crit range stuff come into that discussion.

Silo out the Simple Warrior to its own class and 90% of these goes away.

Or just give the fighter spells instead!

 

[Minigiant]

I see damage is no longer the sole metric. Now flash is coming into the discussion.

Always was

One of types of persons WOTC design the champion subclass for is not going to do damage calculations.

One of the types of persons WOTC designed the champion for will notice if the person next to them is rolling way more diced than them and while doing this same things as them.

WOTC didn't land completely into the Champion/Battlemaster dynamic into late in playtesting. And a lot of stuff wasn't being focused on.

Every single person I've played with you ran a Champion when there was another warrior type asked for edits or changed characters.

Perhaps that colors my judgement. I witnessed 4 champion fighter moaners. 2 monk moaners. And a sorcerer moaner.

 

[Zardnaar]

If it helps when I play a short rest class I'm generally pushing for a short rest after 1 combat 2 at the most.

Probably not going to get 6-8 encounters so yeah......

Rune Knights more or less get one cool thing per combat, action surge every second combat.

 

[Guest 7037866]

Every single person I've played with you ran a Champion when there was another warrior type asked for edits or changed characters.

I've never seen this happen or people who've played Champions feel others were having more fun simply because they got to roll dice more often.

Perhaps that colors my judgement. I witnessed 4 champion fighter moaners. 2 monk moaners. And a sorcerer moaner.

Most definitely IMO.

And I find the idea of people playing monks and sorceres moaning about anything funny. Monk is one of the most popular classes in the games I've played in with lots of attacks, fun abilities, and stunning strike can change an encounter, and sorcerers with twinned spell (the double Chaos Bolt combo if your DM allows--which IME they all do) a sorcerer has a fun and exciting way to potentially cause a lot of damage.

 

[FrozenNorth]

But that is the point of its simplicity. It allows a beginner to focus on one thing the class is meant to do: be good at combat. Engagement in other parts of the game should be encouraged but developed later as the player gains experience.

If a game has three pillars and the “simple” class can only really contribute to one of them, that is, in itself a problem.

I find Rogue a much better basic class. In combat, it is pretty simple. In both the exploration and social pillar, if the player doesn’t know what to do, they generally have at least one skill that applies.

 

[Oofta]

If a game has three pillars and the “simple” class can only really contribute to one of them, that is, in itself a problem. ...

If that were true, it would indeed be a problem. Fortunately, it's not. You don't need expertise to contribute, but you can take a feat to get it if you feel it's necessary. In a game with bounded accuracy you don't need ability scores of 20 to be good enough at a skill. You don't need proficiencies at all to contribute to the decision making and role play aspects of the game.