D&D 5E A full Combat Superiority class?

[Minigiant]

Would a full Combat Superiority class benefit 5th edition greatly?

Part of the restriction of the superiority dice and maneuvers in 5th edition is that the classes and class variants which have them also have many other equally important class features. The fighter still has Second Wind, Action Surge, Extra Attack 2 & 3, and Indomitable. The ranger with no spells still has its subclasses, favored enemy, natural explorer, stealth features, and then gains poultices.

Could 5th edition handle a class which uses superiority dice and maneuvers in the same manner that a wizard or cleric uses spells? What would have to be add the keep it on par with other classes? Extra attack? Expertise? Greater maneuvers?

I was pondering the idea of a full "battlemaster" class as a rogue/warrior alternative for a "magic is young" setting. And I was thinking of a way for players who love resource management to keep their fun with all the full casters gone. And a class heavily focused on superiority dice might fill that hole.

 

[Nifft]

Would a full Combat Superiority class benefit 5th edition greatly?

Sure.

I was pondering the idea of a full "battlemaster" class as a rogue/warrior alternative for a "magic is young" setting. And I was thinking of a way for players who love resource management to keep their fun with all the full casters gone. And a class heavily focused on superiority dice might fill that hole.

A rogue/warrior with Maneuvers sounds kinda like the 3.5e Swordsage, from the Tome of Battle.

That was a really fun class.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I can totally imagine a Fighter that swaps out action surge and extra attacks for more and bigger superiority dice. Sounds like it'd be flexible at a high power-rate, too, which is something the current fighter kind of lacks.

 

[SpikeTailDrake]

I really really REALLY want Tome of Battle in 5e!

 

[Ashkelon]

I would love for martial warriors to have interesting capabilities in combat, but I hate superiority dice.

First off, as a short rest resource, it is far too easy to blow through all your maneuvers and be left with boring old basic attacks for much of the day. Second, the battlemaster has far too few dice, meaning only 8-10% of his attacks will get to benefit from the dice. Third, the effects of the dice are fairly minor (compare the maneuvers to level low spells or paladin smites, the spells produce way more interesting effects). Forth, I don't like how clunky the dice mechanic is. Requiring expenditure after a hit, then rolling a die for damage and forcing a saving throw takes a lot of extra time. Finally, I would prefer if maneuver usage was not necessarily tied to increased damage, but instead tied to greater utility and capability.

Ideally, a full maneuver based class would be more dynamic in terms of maneuver usage. Perhaps they would have the ability to use a few maneuvers per encounter. Perhaps their maneuvers recharge mid battle. The maneuvers themselves would not increase damage, but would come with interesting affects. To speed up play, no save would be needed for a maneuvers effects to work (like repelling blast), as hitting the target should already cover the difficulty of execution. The effects produced by maneuvers would be more epic than the rather dull and basic effects of the battlemaster maneuvers.

 

[Nifft]

I would love for martial warriors to have interesting capabilities in combat, but I hate superiority dice.

First off, as a short rest resource, it is far too easy to blow through all your maneuvers and be left with boring old basic attacks for much of the day. Second, the battlemaster has far too few dice, meaning only 8-10% of his attacks will get to benefit from the dice. Third, the effects of the dice are fairly minor (compare the maneuvers to level low spells or paladin smites, the spells produce way more interesting effects). Forth, I don't like how clunky the dice mechanic is. Requiring expenditure after a hit, then rolling a die for damage and forcing a saving throw takes a lot of extra time. Finally, I would prefer if maneuver usage was not necessarily tied to increased damage, but instead tied to greater utility and capability.

Ideally, a full maneuver based class would be more dynamic in terms of maneuver usage. Perhaps they would have the ability to use a few maneuvers per encounter. Perhaps their maneuvers recharge mid battle. The maneuvers themselves would not increase damage, but would come with interesting affects. To speed up play, no save would be needed for a maneuvers effects to work (like repelling blast), as hitting the target should already cover the difficulty of execution. The effects produced by maneuvers would be more epic than the rather dull and basic effects of the battlemaster maneuvers.

I feel like a warrior who had ONLY Maneuvers would need some sort of Cantrip-like mechanism, so he could do interesting things for the whole fight.

Perhaps Maneuvers have some basic effect, which you can bump up to a more potent effect by spending an Encounter-limited resource (e.g. Superiority Dice or Adept Points or whatever).

Hmm. Or maybe steal the current Psionics system, and have Stances which grant base effects, and which you can augment by spending the resource.

 

[RangerWickett]

Who here has played Dark Souls or Bloodborne? Those games have a stamina bar that you deplete as you fight, and which replenishes as you wait for your next attack. I've long advocated a combat maneuver system using the HUMV system.

You can spend superiority dice to influence:

Hostility - How much damage you do, either by increasing the damage of a single attack or adding multiple attacks.
Utility - Altering the environment around you to set up clever tricks.
Mobility - Moving places, often in interesting ways.
Vulnerability - Creating some weakness in an enemy that you or an ally might be able to exploit.

So you'd probably start with some pool of dice, and you could take a special Recover action on your turn to get some of them back.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The CS+Maneuver system is decidedly limited because it is built on the fighter's already high-DPR multi-attacking chassis. There just isn't a lot of wiggle-room left in a fighter archetype.

A class devoted to the use of CS dice could theoretically do more with its maneuvers, but, the battlemaster would be a bad guide to that - yet, inevitably, the most obvious guide.

 

[Minigiant]

I feel like a warrior who had ONLY Maneuvers would need some sort of Cantrip-like mechanism, so he could do interesting things for the whole fight.

Perhaps Maneuvers have some basic effect, which you can bump up to a more potent effect by spending an Encounter-limited resource (e.g. Superiority Dice or Adept Points or whatever).

Hmm. Or maybe steal the current Psionics system, and have Stances which grant base effects, and which you can augment by spending the resource.

That's kinda how I'd do it.

You have a d6 that returns at the start of every turn. Then you have the 4-6 d8s that come back after a short or long rest.

Then maybe at high levels you can "burn" a die to get the maximum value but not get it back until the day ends. However you'll still need some form of "greater maneuver" or else you'll have to give the class TONS of dice.

 

[Ashkelon]

That's kinda how I'd do it.

You have a d6 that returns at the start of every turn. Then you have the 4-6 d8s that come back after a short or long rest.

Then maybe at high levels you can "burn" a die to get the maximum value but not get it back until the day ends. However you'll still need some form of "greater maneuver" or else you'll have to give the class TONS of dice.

I feel like trying to keep dice is just overly complicating things. I think there are quite a few ways to give the class resource management and interesting combat capabilities without using dice.

For example 13th Age has both variable maneuvers for the fighter, and binary on-off momentum for the rogue.

I could see a mechanic like "fury points" working where you gain 1 every time you take damage.

Taking inspiration from PF's swashbuckler , you could have combat points that you begin each combat with just a few, but build up more when you score a crit or drop an enemy.