D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook Reveal #2: "New Fighter"

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"The Fighter is now the weapon master equivalent of the Wizard" (with respect to versatility).

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OVERVIEW

The Fighter seems to have been mostly set in Playtest 7. Most of the features described carry over from there, though Brawler has gone and is replaced by Psi Warrior form Tasha's.

• Ranger and Fighter have the most new features.
• Subclasses provide "different levels of mechanical idiosyncracy".
• Weapon mastery (level1), tactical mind (2), tactical shift (5), studied attacks (13) -- all of these are as in PT7.
• second wind -- increased number of uses (as PT7)
• NEW: Level 9: Tactical master is like mastery of Armaments, but limited to push. sap, and slow. These properties are now always in the fighter's pocket, regardless of the weapon used. These properties add to Battle Master abilities.
• Fighting Styles: new options available: Blindfighting, Interception, Thrown Weapons, and Unarmed fighting (from Tasha's). (YAY for thrown weapons and unarmed fighting!). Protection style "improved".
• NEW: You can change your fighting style when you level up.
• NEW: All classes now get an Epic Boon at level 19, replacing the ASI.

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SUBCLASSES

Battle Master:

• they considered making the maneuvers the core of the fighter, but that would undermine the goal of different playstyles for each subclass.
• ambush, bait and switch, commanding presence, and tactical presence all brought over from Tasha's (as PT7)
• Student of War also gives you a skill proficiency (as PT7)
• Know your enemy has "limited number of uses per day" (PT7 had one, IIRC)

Champion:

• same core identity, focusing on crits.
• Remarkable Athlete: NEW. When you score a crit, you can move without receiving opportunity attacks.
• Remarkable Athlete: advantage on initiative and athletics (as PT7). This works with the new surprise rules, which give you an edge but "defang" the one-sidedness of surprise.
• Additional fighting style at 7, Heroic Warrior at 10, Survivor at 18 (as PT7).

Eldritch Knight:

• for players who played OD&D when Elf was a class...
• with the Psi Warrior are for people who want Fighter and X (mixed).
• no school restrictions (also for Arcane Trickster)
• NEW: you can now use an arcane focus.
• War Magic and Improved War Magic: as in PT7, but at level 18 you can replace two attacks with spells up to level 2 (I think this is new).

Psi Warrior:

• changes from Tasha: changes are primarily in rewording.

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NEW RULES
Epic Boon:

• you may choose a non-epic boon feat. They include an ASI that can go past 20, and include abilities go beyond what feats normally do.
• Example: Boon of Combat Prowess. Once per TURN, you can turn a miss to a hit. Another example: You have Truesight. Another example: when you attack or take the magic action, you also teleport.
• The PHB now has rules to go beyond level 20. Every time you hit some XP threshold, you can choose another Epic Boon (which could take one of your scores to level 30).

Other NEW rules clarifications:

• Heroic Inspiration which lets you re-roll any one die (may be one damage die, but not all damage dice).
• Surprise now gives you disadvantage on your initiative. (Champion, Assassin, and Barbarian are hard to surprise -- they won't have disadvantage on init).
• No school restrictions for Arcane Trickster or Eldrtich Knight.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

IMHO, all martial classes should get increased crit range, with Champion and barbarian being the best of them,

even improved critical feat would be nice;

Improved critical:
+1 ASI,
you now score critical hit on 19 and 20, or you expand your critical range by 1.

I think the ease of getting advantage on attack rolls will make this feat a no brainer for certain classes.

 

[Horwath]

I think the ease of getting advantage on attack rolls will make this feat a no brainer for certain classes.

no brainer, but still very little in DPS department, I don't know if it's even worth a half-feat. maybe even less.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

no brainer, but still very little in DPS department, I don't know if it's even worth a half-feat. maybe even less.

It really depends on your class/subclass.
And how often you can get advantage.

It is certainly better than savage attacker...

 

[Horwath]

It really depends on your class/subclass.
And how often you can get advantage.

It is certainly better than savage attacker...

if we take 8th level rogue with 20 dex and base hit chance of 60% and most importantly with Elven accuracy+Aim;

you go from DPR of 24,65 to DPR of 27.

not really gamebreaking.

 

[CapnZapp]

-Surprised being a disadvantage to initiative rolls, it's less punishing than not being able to do anything for 1 round.

Being surprised should be punishing.

 

[Horwath]

Being surprised should be punishing.

100% this.

what is the point of thinking about positioning, cover bonuses for stealth, when you can just lose on initiative roll and get clobbered on the head before starting your ambush.

 

[CapnZapp]

100% this.

what is the point of thinking about positioning, cover bonuses for stealth, when you can just lose on initiative roll and get clobbered on the head before starting your ambush.

Well, fumbling your ambush is certainly a thing. Though I would have preferred it if this was decided by your plans and your stealth, rather than your luck at rolling initiative.

Anyway, who hits first isn't what I had in mind. D&D is a game that goes considerable lengths to minimize the fallout of first strike (the original and main function of having hit points, for instance).

So my beef is that you need MORE than just striking first for surprise to really be a thing you bother with. After all, not just going hack-n-slash carry considerable risks (i.e. when you fail your stealth).

So I guess WotC wants players to not have to think too much, and just enjoy a mindless charge.

Just wade in and let your HP buffer take care of it until you get to take your turn.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That was always something that bothered me.

But: remarkable athlete down to 3 and improved goes a long way to balance it way better:

-advantage on initiative:
Going first if you would not otherwise can mean a full round of damage. Lets say, about 25% of combats will have this situation (math is bit complicated here).
That could mean extra 4 attacks at level 5. So on average one more attack per combat. Which adds some damage.

My math was already accounting for the Champion never being in a situation where they cannot make every attack they're able to make. This does not change anything.

Also, how on earth could it mean 4 extra attacks at that point? The only way that could possibly happen is if you're crediting the Champion with Action Surge, but not the Battle Master...but at some point the BM is going to be in melee too, so it's ridiculous to assume the Champion gets it but the BM never does. I absolutely reject the idea that advantage on Initiative would result in earning two whole rounds of attacks that the BM simply can't make. That's nonsense. One round, some of the time, I could maybe grant. Absolutely not two rounds. Making a total of 6 extra attacks per day would give you...less than 1/3 of a crit on average. Not anywhere near enough to matter.

-extra movement on a crit. Mobility is very helpful, if you are in melee. Especially a twf champion will move a lot as they have more chances to crit.
Also weapon masteries like vex will give the champion advantage a lot, making a higher crit chance even better.

This, however, I had not accounted for. Using TWF would result in (slightly) more attacks, particularly early on, but you trade away a significant loss of potency in the doing: no weapon compatible with TWF has a damage die higher than d6, so those crits are only earning you (on average) 3.5 damage, compared to the 4.5-6.5 damage of Battle Master maneuvers (even if, as stated, we presume BMs do not ever use their maneuver dice on critical hits), meaning they have to get even more additional attacks to make up the difference. (8d8 is 36 average; that would mean a Champ with 1d6 weapons would need to get about 10 extra crits per day to make up the difference. Even if the Champ always gets 3 attacks per round from TWF, that's still 10*19/3 = 63-64 rounds of combat--shave off a couple for Action Surge and you still end up with 60+, which means you'd need six 10-round combats per day just to keep up with the BM that never gets more than ONE short rest per day.)

Also consider that a battlemaster rarely spends all dice in a single combat. Until they regain one every round, they usually don't want to be caught without any die left. I
If two combats happen before the fighter can take a short rest, the battlemaster might not be use any subclass ability in a given fight.

I already accounted for that. I assumed 15 combat rounds (three fights of five rounds), one short rest, three fights of five rounds, long rest. In 15 rounds, the BM is essentially guaranteed to land at least four attacks. Hence, there will essentially never be a situation where the BM is somehow not getting 4d8 damage per short rest--the more attacks you make, the more nearly guaranteed it becomes. Since Champions absolutely depend on having more attacks per round in order to get their bonus, there is never a world where the Champion is getting more crits but the BM is not getting in all of her Superiority Dice per rest.

It doesn't matter whether they're happening in every fight or not; I'm averaging across all fights per rest. BMs get a floor of +4d8 damage per rest. I assumed one short rest per day, meaning a total of +8d8. For the Champion to overcome that, even with TWF, they have to have a stupidly high number of extra rounds. It's simply not possible--despite this situation being distinctly unfair to the BM (who would very much rather get one more short rest per day.)

So even though the numbers seem to favour the battlemaster heavily, in actual play the champion is not as far behind as one would assume. And after the buffs, I am quite certain that the little (average) damage difference will not be noticable, as different adventuring days favour one or the other and there will be days where the champion heavily outdamages a battlemaster.

Yes, they are. Three of your four points were completely irrelevant, and the third is a mixed bag, because while it does increase the number of attacks made, it only does so by dropping the damage dice for those crits. A TWF Champion using d6 weapons would be making 90 attacks over those six combats rather than 60. Hence, the BM would get 3 crits (5%) while the Champion would get around 9 crits, give or take. However, the BM can use a greatsword (2d6) or greataxe (1d12), while the Champ cannot, so those 3 crits are actually 6d6 bonus damage (three hits of 2d6). The Champion is getting ~9d6 damage in total from their crits (9 hits of 1d6 damage). As a result...the Champion is only ahead by 3d6 from their crit bonus, while the Battle Master is ahead by 8d8 from their maneuvers. I don't know about you, but I'd say 8d8 beats the everloving crap out of 3d6.

So: if the Champion could get better dice (say, a d8 light weapon), and if the Champion is somehow making MANY more attacks (as in...around 40 more), and if fights start off in such a way that the Champion winning initiative gets them a whole extra round of combat, and if the Battle Master is being starved of short rests, and if the party gets into a bazillion combats every single day...then sure, maybe it becomes possible for the Champion to keep up.

Until, of course, the Battle Master's dice get larger, or they get more dice....

 

[Horwath]

Well, fumbling your ambush is certainly a thing. Though I would have preferred it if this was decided by your plans and your stealth, rather than your luck at rolling initiative.

that is part of the preparation/stealth.

 

[CapnZapp]

that is part of the preparation/stealth.

Yes?

Doing all that prep and risking being noticed just isn't worth it if all you get in the end is just advantage on Initiative.