D&D 5E Homebrewing the Battlemaster and Champion

Chaosmancer · Apr 18, 2021

Cap'n Kobold said:
It would just be a bit too tempting as a 3-level dip for Rogues, Barbarians, and Paladins.

Maybe. But I'm not offering the full critical range at level 3 anyways, so it isn't really a point I'm concerned about.

Cap'n Kobold said:
How about a successful Know your Enemy gives a free temporary superiority die that can be used on Insight or Charisma checks involving that person?

Its hard to think of non-combat capabilities for Fighters, but frankly they perform just fine when hitting things in combat. It is the situations where they can't hit stuff that the class lacks support.

A bit of the challenge with that is that I am including Studious Eye (bonus to insight and investiagation) and Silver Tongue (Persuasion and Deception) in the maneuvers. So, what a free die would translate to is "spend 1 minute observing someone, use either of these maneuvers for free without having to take them"

Which, being a base feature, would mean that those two maneuvers would get seen as weak, because you can do something basically the same for free as long as you have time, so why waste time getting them?

It is a great idea, and before those maneuvers were added to the game, I might have jumped on an ability like this, but with them in my option pool already, it feels like I'd be better off just giving them these maneuvers for free.

NotAYakk · Apr 18, 2021

Oh no, I mean to replace having two uses.

Your second wind boost gives two uses of an ability that is weak by T2 and better than nothing in T3. I think that is a baf plan; among other things, it makes twf and other bonus action combat styles suck for low level champions. Then becomes useless if your champion finds a use for their bonus actions.

...

Do a damage per encounter or day comparison of a champion 3/5 or a BM 3/5 doing naive damage picks. The champions damage output is abysmal. And the BM can swap naive damage for fancier stuff.

(Naive damage is precision on miss by up to 3, use dice as damage on crits, and riposte whenever it happens. Repeat until out of BM dice.)

Adding an attack to SW is an attempt to make Champion 3 approach BM 3 damage per encounter or day.

Without it or something like it, Champion damage trails behind naive BM damage until T3ish, where wider crit range and more swings close the gap.

I have played with copying gloomstalker, adding an action surge, giving them a bonus action attack on turn 1 but beefing up second wind to me feels better.

You get that comeback combo.

Lord Twig · Apr 18, 2021

I have been a lot more modest in my own additions to the Battle Master and Champion.

But first, I enhance Second Wind by increasing the number of uses per short rest for all Fighters.
Second Wind
In addition to its normal benefit, add:
You can use this feature twice between rests starting at 7th level and three times between rests starting at 13th level.

For the Battle Master I made the following changes:
Know Your Enemy
In addition to other benefits, when an opponent within 30’ of you targets you with all of its attacks during its turn, on your next turn you may use a Battle Master maneuver against that opponent without expending a superiority die. Once you use this feature you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.

At 7th level this lets the Battle Master do a little more of what he wants to do anyway, and it is at the expense of being the target of all of the opponents attacks, so you have to survive that first before you can use it. Then I limited it to once per short rest so it doesn't overshadow having to spend his dice.

Relentless
Starting at 15th level, when you roll initiative you regain 1 expended superiority die.

Instead of having to run out of dice before using this ability, this allows the Battle Master to slowly refresh his pool during easy fights or, more likely, at least slow the attrition of dice before he runs out. For example, if you only use two dice in your first battle, you recover one and go back up to 5 dice at the start of you next battle. Then if you use 3 dice in that battle you would be down to two, but would recover one and be back up to 3 in the battle after that. Finally, of course, if you are completely out you will always have at least one.

Battlefield Tactics
Beginning at 18th level your command of the battlefield is unmatched. When initiative is rolled and you are not surprised, you can shout a signal to your allies. Each ally within 60 ft of you that is not surprised and can see or hear you can move half their speed, without provoking opportunity attacks, or take the Dodge action. You can use this ability once per short rest.

Okay, obviously I stole this from you, but I changed this to be the 18th level capstone, doesn't require a reaction and has the limitation that you and your allies can't be surprised and limited the movement to a half move. I still think this is an awesome capstone ability as it allows the Battle Master to enhance the starting position of his party before anyone else can take an action. That is super powerful in my opinion.

Here is what I did for the Champion:
Expertise
At 3rd level, choose two skills you are proficient in. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies.

Just like you I had the idea of just letting the Remarkable Athlete ability stack on top of skills the Champion was already proficient with, but that just seemed a little confusing. So then I thought of just giving Expertise to the Athletics skill in addition to the other benefits. Then I thought that was a little too restrictive if someone wanted to play a Dex Fighter or something like that. Eventually I decided to just give the Champion flat Expertise at 3rd level to make up for being a little weak at the beginning and if the player wanted they could put the Expertise in Athletics and be really awesome at it (for tripping, shoving, grappling, etc.), but they weren't locked into that choice.

Remarkable Athlete
In addition to the other benefits, your speed increases by 5 feet and whenever you finish a short rest, your exhaustion level, if any, is decreased by 1.

Here I just added a slight speed boost and then allowed them to reduce their exhaustion during a short rest. Then Tasha's came out and they gave these abilities to the Ranger. But despite the overlap I still think it is fitting for an athletic fighter.

Remarkable Resistance
Starting at 15th level, you can add half your proficiency bonus (round up) to any saving throw check you make that doesn’t already use your proficiency bonus.

In addition to another increase in their crit range, I added this feature to really make the Champion a tough opponent to knock down. And it kinda fits thematically with the Remarkable Athlete and Survivor abilities while not overshadowing the Monk (which gets full proficiency to all saves at level 14).

Survivor
In addition to the other benefits, when you use Second Wind you double the amount of hit points that you regain.

Getting 7 to 10 hit points back per round is cool, but you have to already be below half your total health, and at 18th level 10 hit points isn't going to make a lot of difference. Combined with the increased uses I gave to all fighters, this means a Champion with 18 Con can get back 9 hit points at the start of his turn, then use his bonus action to get back another 1d10+18x2 hit points for about 56 points of healing in one round, and he can do that up to 3 times. Which should help keep him up.

Quartz · Apr 18, 2021

Chaosmancer said:
Well, for that, let me go ahead and put up a table for the original Battlemaster

The main tweak I would suggest is to drop the extra feats and replace them with extra reactions or bonus actions. And bring Indomitable forward so that people actually use it.

Some of the clumsy wording is there to prevent multi-classing cheese.

Level Proficiency Bonus Bonus Features
1st +2 Fighting Style, Defensive Bonus
2nd +2 Action Surge (1 use), Second Wind
3rd +2 Martial Archetype
4th +2 Ability Score Improvement, Indomitable (1 use)
5th +3 Extra Attack
6th +3 Combat Reflexes (1)
7th +3 Martial Archetype feature
8th +3 Ability Score Improvement
9th +4 Indomitable (2 uses)
10th +4 Martial Archetype feature
11th +4 Extra Attack (2)
12th +4 Ability Score Improvement, Instinct
13th +5 Action Surge (two uses)
14th +5 Combat Reflexes (2)
15th +5 Martial Archetype feature
16th +5 Ability Score Improvement
17th +6 Indomitable (3 uses)
18th +6 Martial Archetype feature
19th +6 Ability Score Improvement
20th +6 Extra Attack (3)

Defensive Bonus: Your base Armour Class can become 10 + Armour + Defensive Bonus. Your Defensive Bonus is the lower of your Proficiency Bonus or your levels in the Fighter class and is limited by armour as your Dex bonus is (e.g. max of +2 with Medium Armour). You may add to your AC with a shield, Fighting Styles, magic, and the like. Your Defensive Bonus may not be used with any type of Unarmoured Defence but may be used when you are out of armour.

Action Surge: starting at 2nd level, you can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action on top of your regular action and a possible bonus action. Your Action Surge lasts for a number of consecutive rounds equal to the lower of your Proficiency Bonus or your levels in the Fighter class. Your Action Surge ends early if you are knocked unconscious. You can also end your Action Surge on your turn as a Bonus Action. You recover all uses after a Short or Long Rest.

Indomitable: Beginning at 4th level you may pass a saving throw you fail (q.v. Legendary Resistance). In addition, if the save is versus a spell which does not ordinarily allow a saving throw the spell has no effect if it does not do damage or does half damage if it does damage. You may use Indomitable once per Short Rest. At 9th level you may use Indomitable twice per Short Rest. At 17th level you may use Indomitable three times per Short Rest. You recover all uses after a Short or Long Rest.

Combat Reflexes: at 6th level you gain an additional Reaction or Bonus Action. At 14th level each round you now have an additional Reaction and Bonus Action. You may change your choice after a Long Rest. The Reaction and Bonus Action must still be activated as per normal.

Instinct: at 12th level your base passive Wisdom (Perception) scores become the better of 10 + Proficiency Bonus or 10 + Wisdom modifier and you may use your Proficiency Bonus instead of your Wisdom modifier when making active Wisdom (Perception) rolls.

Chaosmancer · Apr 18, 2021

NotAYakk said:
Oh no, I mean to replace having two uses.

Your second wind boost gives two uses of an ability that is weak by T2 and better than nothing in T3. I think that is a baf plan; among other things, it makes twf and other bonus action combat styles suck for low level champions. Then becomes useless if your champion finds a use for their bonus actions.

Ah, okay.

I still think your concerns are better dealt with as a change to the fighter though. Making the Champion the only one who gets value from Second Wind (in your opinion, I'm a little less convinced, I think there is still some good scaling for what it is) by making them the only one with your knew scaling leaves every other archetype behind.

I will start ruminating on something for if I want to buff Second for 3rd tier play. I don't want to go as extreme as you did though.

NotAYakk said:
Do a damage per encounter or day comparison of a champion 3/5 or a BM 3/5 doing naive damage picks. The champions damage output is abysmal. And the BM can swap naive damage for fancier stuff.

(Naive damage is precision on miss by up to 3, use dice as damage on crits, and riposte whenever it happens. Repeat until out of BM dice.)

Adding an attack to SW is an attempt to make Champion 3 approach BM 3 damage per encounter or day.

Without it or something like it, Champion damage trails behind naive BM damage until T3ish, where wider crit range and more swings close the gap.

I have played with copying gloomstalker, adding an action surge, giving them a bonus action attack on turn 1 but beefing up second wind to me feels better.

You get that comeback combo.

I get that the Battlemaster is likely doing more damage than the Champion, but there are a few mitigating circumstances now. Mainly, there are a lot of manuevers that don't deal damage. also, does the Champion still stack up to the Cavalier and the Samurai?

There are more fighter options right now. Champion's could use a buff perhaps, I'm not sure what per se, but I don't want to tie it to Second Wind right now.

Chaosmancer · Apr 18, 2021

Lord Twig said:
I have been a lot more modest in my own additions to the Battle Master and Champion.

But first, I enhance Second Wind by increasing the number of uses per short rest for all Fighters.
Second Wind
In addition to its normal benefit, add:
You can use this feature twice between rests starting at 7th level and three times between rests starting at 13th level.

There does seem to be this consensus about Second Wind for all fighters needing a change.

Maybe what I'll do is inverse your change and do NotAYak's change with far smaller scaling. Give every fighter 2d10 at 7th and 3d10 at 13th. Champion can still get two uses. There is nothing wrong with giving multiple uses and then the champion doubling the dice, I just feel like... Fighters can get a lot of pools of resources, and I want to limit how many pools they have to track.

Lord Twig said:
For the Battle Master I made the following changes:
Know Your Enemy
In addition to other benefits, when an opponent within 30’ of you targets you with all of its attacks during its turn, on your next turn you may use a Battle Master maneuver against that opponent without expending a superiority die. Once you use this feature you must finish a short or long rest before you can use it again.

At 7th level this lets the Battle Master do a little more of what he wants to do anyway, and it is at the expense of being the target of all of the opponents attacks, so you have to survive that first before you can use it. Then I limited it to once per short rest so it doesn't overshadow having to spend his dice.

That is a neat idea

Lord Twig said:
Relentless
Starting at 15th level, when you roll initiative you regain 1 expended superiority die.

Instead of having to run out of dice before using this ability, this allows the Battle Master to slowly refresh his pool during easy fights or, more likely, at least slow the attrition of dice before he runs out. For example, if you only use two dice in your first battle, you recover one and go back up to 5 dice at the start of you next battle. Then if you use 3 dice in that battle you would be down to two, but would recover one and be back up to 3 in the battle after that. Finally, of course, if you are completely out you will always have at least one.

Oh, that is a cool way of changing that up. I might steal that one.

Lord Twig said:
Battlefield Tactics
Beginning at 18th level your command of the battlefield is unmatched. When initiative is rolled and you are not surprised, you can shout a signal to your allies. Each ally within 60 ft of you that is not surprised and can see or hear you can move half their speed, without provoking opportunity attacks, or take the Dodge action. You can use this ability once per short rest.

Okay, obviously I stole this from you, but I changed this to be the 18th level capstone, doesn't require a reaction and has the limitation that you and your allies can't be surprised and limited the movement to a half move. I still think this is an awesome capstone ability as it allows the Battle Master to enhance the starting position of his party before anyone else can take an action. That is super powerful in my opinion.

I agree it is very powerful.

Part of the reason I didn't make it a capstone is I'm not sure how often high level parties will be in a situation where they are being ambushed and need repositioned.

Also, by requiring everyone to not be surprised (and yes, I know that per RAW surprised creatures can't take reactions) you are actually unable to use this in those ambush situations where it is most powerful. I get the intent, and I agree it is strong, I'm just thinking it is situationally powerful. And I want it to be used earlier, when it is more likely to matter, rather than later.

Lord Twig said:
Here is what I did for the Champion:
Expertise
At 3rd level, choose two skills you are proficient in. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies.

Just like you I had the idea of just letting the Remarkable Athlete ability stack on top of skills the Champion was already proficient with, but that just seemed a little confusing. So then I thought of just giving Expertise to the Athletics skill in addition to the other benefits. Then I thought that was a little too restrictive if someone wanted to play a Dex Fighter or something like that. Eventually I decided to just give the Champion flat Expertise at 3rd level to make up for being a little weak at the beginning and if the player wanted they could put the Expertise in Athletics and be really awesome at it (for tripping, shoving, grappling, etc.), but they weren't locked into that choice.

I legit thought of the same thing. Decided not to do it, to keep Expertise the realm of the Rogue and Bard.

Lord Twig said:
Remarkable Athlete
In addition to the other benefits, your speed increases by 5 feet and whenever you finish a short rest, your exhaustion level, if any, is decreased by 1.

Here I just added a slight speed boost and then allowed them to reduce their exhaustion during a short rest. Then Tasha's came out and they gave these abilities to the Ranger. But despite the overlap I still think it is fitting for an athletic fighter.

Ooh, you are right. That is a good idea. Hmmm...

Lord Twig said:
Remarkable Resistance
Starting at 15th level, you can add half your proficiency bonus (round up) to any saving throw check you make that doesn’t already use your proficiency bonus.

In addition to another increase in their crit range, I added this feature to really make the Champion a tough opponent to knock down. And it kinda fits thematically with the Remarkable Athlete and Survivor abilities while not overshadowing the Monk (which gets full proficiency to all saves at level 14).

Another really good idea. I like that a lot.

Lord Twig said:
Survivor
In addition to the other benefits, when you use Second Wind you double the amount of hit points that you regain.

Getting 7 to 10 hit points back per round is cool, but you have to already be below half your total health, and at 18th level 10 hit points isn't going to make a lot of difference. Combined with the increased uses I gave to all fighters, this means a Champion with 18 Con can get back 9 hit points at the start of his turn, then use his bonus action to get back another 1d10+18x2 hit points for about 56 points of healing in one round, and he can do that up to 3 times. Which should help keep him up.

Yeah, I think I'm coming around to the same sort of idea, just implementing it earlier and differently.

Chaosmancer · Apr 18, 2021

Quartz said:
The main tweak I would suggest is to drop the extra feats and replace them with extra reactions or bonus actions. And bring Indomitable forward so that people actually use it.

Some of the clumsy wording is there to prevent multi-classing cheese.

Level Proficiency Bonus Bonus Features
1st +2 Fighting Style, Defensive Bonus
2nd +2 Action Surge (1 use), Second Wind
3rd +2 Martial Archetype
4th +2 Ability Score Improvement, Indomitable (1 use)
5th +3 Extra Attack
6th +3 Combat Reflexes (1)
7th +3 Martial Archetype feature
8th +3 Ability Score Improvement
9th +4 Indomitable (2 uses)
10th +4 Martial Archetype feature
11th +4 Extra Attack (2)
12th +4 Ability Score Improvement, Instinct
13th +5 Action Surge (two uses)
14th +5 Combat Reflexes (2)
15th +5 Martial Archetype feature
16th +5 Ability Score Improvement
17th +6 Indomitable (3 uses)
18th +6 Martial Archetype feature
19th +6 Ability Score Improvement
20th +6 Extra Attack (3)

Okay, this seems to be changes to the Fighter as a whole. Which I have done some minor tweaks here and there, but do go outside the scope of what I'm working with currently.

Quartz said:
Defensive Bonus: Your base Armour Class can become 10 + Armour + Defensive Bonus. Your Defensive Bonus is the lower of your Proficiency Bonus or your levels in the Fighter class and is limited by armour as your Dex bonus is (e.g. max of +2 with Medium Armour). You may add to your AC with a shield, Fighting Styles, magic, and the like. Your Defensive Bonus may not be used with any type of Unarmoured Defence but may be used when you are out of armour.

I don't quite like this. In fact... yeah this isn't a good ability for the types of things I would want to encourage.

Since it is limited by your Armor, it gives no bonus to someone in heavy armor. Meaning that a Fighter with Plate and Shield still has an AC of 20. However, a fighter in studded leather with a shield has 12+2+5 dex + 6 = 25 AC. You have essentially made Heavy Armor worthless, and therefore every fighter will be a dex fighter.

Quartz said:
Action Surge: starting at 2nd level, you can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action on top of your regular action and a possible bonus action. Your Action Surge lasts for a number of consecutive rounds equal to the lower of your Proficiency Bonus or your levels in the Fighter class. Your Action Surge ends early if you are knocked unconscious. You can also end your Action Surge on your turn as a Bonus Action. You recover all uses after a Short or Long Rest.

Woah... that is crazy powerful. Action Surge is one of the most powerful abilities in the game as is, and getting it for multiple turns in a row is far too much. A single Action surge can devastate a boss monster, getting 6? It is truly epic in a way I'd save for a Divine Boon for a 21+ level game.

Quartz said:
Indomitable: Beginning at 4th level you may pass a saving throw you fail (q.v. Legendary Resistance). In addition, if the save is versus a spell which does not ordinarily allow a saving throw the spell has no effect if it does not do damage or does half damage if it does damage. You may use Indomitable once per Short Rest. At 9th level you may use Indomitable twice per Short Rest. At 17th level you may use Indomitable three times per Short Rest. You recover all uses after a Short or Long Rest.

I could see an argument for Indomitable being moved, and even maybe for it being an auto-pass, though that is really strong. But Spell evasion on top of that? At level 4? No. That is again way beyond the level of strength I want for the game.

Quartz said:
Combat Reflexes: at 6th level you gain an additional Reaction or Bonus Action. At 14th level each round you now have an additional Reaction and Bonus Action. You may change your choice after a Long Rest. The Reaction and Bonus Action must still be activated as per normal.

This doesn't quite make sense to me as written. Also, multiple reactions was a thing I gave to monks, so I'd rather not give it to fighters. Personally.

Quartz said:
Instinct: at 12th level your base passive Wisdom (Perception) scores become the better of 10 + Proficiency Bonus or 10 + Wisdom modifier and you may use your Proficiency Bonus instead of your Wisdom modifier when making active Wisdom (Perception) rolls.

This could be a fun ribbon... hmm, maybe this is what I need for my thousand plans. This is a really good idea for that actually. Thank you.

NotAYakk · Apr 18, 2021

So banerett already improves second wind. Making that even bigger is what I usually do.

Samurai's advantage is strong. Stronger than champion crit range when active (at cost); advantage gives as much of a crit boost, and an accuracy boost. In games with easy advantage, it is weaker. In games with more fights/day it is weaker. It doesn't match BM even in good situations at 3.

Existence of non damage meanuevers only makes BM stronger, not weaker. Subclasses with mainly only damage shouldn't fall behind damage from subclass with choice of damage or alternatives.

For cavalier, I would compare baselien BM to a Cav that gets its bonus attack every round.

BM 4 16 str 1d10 polearm gwf with pam+gwf on a 15 ac foe. Uses precision and -5/+10.

Over 3 rounds, 1 reaction, 3 bonus, 3 regular, for 4d10(22)+3d4(7.5)+91=120.5. Hits on 14 (35%), crits on a 20(5%).

Before meanuver dice, 43.7 damage.

If use die for missed by 1 to 6, that happens .3 per attack (2.1 total) for 68% of a hit each. Average hit is 17, 11.5 ish per die, for 24 damage.

0.35 crits at 9 damage per crit, for 3 ish damage.

No ripsote. So total of 70ish damage for 2 and a half dice burnt. (out of 4, short rest refresh)

Same cavalier, but gs, 18 str, gwm, and -5/+10 with advantage bonus attack.

6 taps. 8+ on normal for 11 (70% hit), 13+ on bonus for 23 (64% hit). 0.45 crits for +7 each. about 70 damage.

Uses 3/4 daily punishment uses used. Same damage.

Cavalier also imposed disadvantage on the attacks that ignored them.

In ideal circumstances, Cav just bearely matches simple BM.

I mean, a sentinal Cav that was ignored might exceed BM damage?

--

As most subclasses fall behind BM, and I like BM, I like adding second wind riders to every other subclass. And maybe a lesser one for BM, like "if you have 0 dice left, you get one back" at, mid high levels.

Tales and Chronicles · Apr 18, 2021

For the Champion, I'd go with something like this:

lvl 3: Improved Critical
+1 Crit range, regain Action Surge when you crit 1/long rest.

lvl 7: Remarkable Athlete

Speed +5, jump distance +10
When you move a target, you can add +5 feet to the move, when you are moved against your will, you can reduce the movement by 5 ft.

lvl 14: Superior Critical
+ 2 crit range, regain Action Surge when you crit 2/long rest

lvl 17: Survivor
Same, but add that if you roll 15+ on a Death save, you regain 1 hp as if you rolled a 20.

Quartz · Apr 18, 2021

Chaosmancer said:
Woah... that is crazy powerful. Action Surge is one of the most powerful abilities in the game as is,

Yes, it's powerful, but the fighter is out-damaged by other fighting classes and you're assuming it's used for combat. Action Surge can be an escape power (running away) or as a second chance power (e.g. a second chance of grabbing someone who's fallen into a river), in diplomatic settings ("Forgive my slip of the tongue..."), and so on.