D&D 5E Battlemaster and Superiority Dice are causing martials to suffer.

[GMforPowergamers]

Well you can still play 4e. I hated 4e and I really disliked playing 3.5E (for me 3.5 wqas fun to think about but not play).

yes and we are about to go back with one of our campaigns... but we have to comprmise sometimes. (I will never go back to 3/3.5/pf1)

In my opinion with 5E you can get a ton of mileage out of feats and multiclassing. If you say you can't recreate the 5e fighter and warlord experience I will take your word for it (because I did not play it),

we come close with some refluff... a bard (sword or war) and pretending they don't cast spells but picking and choosing spells that can be refluffed as inspireing or tactical.

but you can build a character to do a lot in 5E with the right choices. You can make a Ranger a full on caster who rarely wields a weapon or a wizard who dominates melee.

oh yes full caster that is aalso very good in melee is like the #1 most common thing we see in my games (hexblades and bladesingers and combat clerics along with melee bards)

I have seen people talk about Warlords, but it is hard for me to believe you can't recreate those mechanics with options already available. Something like Battlemaster or Banneret subclass with superior technique fighting style and a Bard multiclass.

we tried to mix and match to make a subclass then we tried to make a full class then we tried to buy/download a few OTHER peoples classes... then we went with a bunch of 'boons' that were just 4e and 3.5 Bo9S maneuvers with some file numbers filed off.

in the end we can kind of do it if you squent. The problem is that every time at least 1 thing stopped the fun (a badly designed class/subclass that breaks down, a moment where the spells being refluffed end up with 'dead/anti/counter' magic issues and break the illusion. a too long list of boons that takes too long to take actions) So again, it's not that we can't make it up... we make up junk all the time, BUT what we want is something worked on by people better then us so it works in the system

 

[ECMO3]

that's it... you get all that, no choices made. You choose a weapon (maybe) and are done instead of 9 choices (and each book adds more choices)
You both choose a race (and for now subrace)
You both choose a background
You both choose a class

Now the fighter takes the weapon or two as his choice all of them are listed on a single chart in the PHB. The Wizard picks 9 1st level spells and 3 cantrips and then has to pick 4 of those 9 to prep...

Like I mentioned earlier, there are 34 different combos of fighting style for a fighter to choose and there are also 8 different weapon-armor configurations for a new fighter with 4,760 different combinations at 1st level and you can add or change weapons and armor any time, between levels. In your defense a wizard can add spells between levels too, but that is less common.

in play the fighter then gets to move, use a skill, make an attack or some variant of that

Uhm no in play a fighter can take short rests, take long rests, talk to a bartender, try to pick a lock or play an instrument, forage for food, travel overland, mount a horse, buy passage on a ship, train for a new skill or tool, gamble .....

They can do a LOT more than just move, use a skill and make an attack.

 

[Weiley31]

Tracking superiority dice is the easiest thing to do... you just... use actual dice.

Tracking extra dice is what scared people away from any awesome idea of 5E Psionics.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Tracking extra dice is what scared people away from any awesome idea of 5E Psionics.

I have yet to see any of these...

 

[Garthanos]

The point was everyone is spending time. The BM is only spending dice. They are the exception. Everyone else can do maneuvers, but they need to spend an action and probably succeed on a check (possibly opposed).

Now the play test did have maneuvers for all martials (and dice), but it didn’t poll well so they reduced it to just a fighter subclass. So blame the fans!

Personally I liked it. However, as someone else pointed out, LevelUp has you covered. So does Tasha’s to an extent.

A simple trick is to allow a battlemaster to trade out an attack for a die (scanning for openings/opportunities)... then after level 5 they can always perform a maneuver... but they are trading an attack. It will rarely be better but if you really want to disarm or move an ally from harms way... or rally it greatly improves the Battlemaster Flexibility. Note Battle is War and Master is Lord.

 

[Garthanos]

Buff up martial adept feat so it can be considered to be taken;

Learn 2 maneuvers,
Gain 2 superiority dice(d8).

this feat can be taken 3 times.

It definitely could help but how about having maneuvers that will feel legendary and mythic... currently they are all designed as something that works for level 3.

 

[Garthanos]

This is exactly how I see it, a champion could spend their Action to attempt to goad someone into focusing on them, the battlemaster does it with a single enhanced attack.

Nods.. the Battlemaster is making a special exertion to do it faster is definitely a way to see it... see also the name o the points in Level Up

 

[Garthanos]

I've always disliked superiority dice and found tracking them a fiddly resource, so I made this back in 2019. Your maneuvers are all at will (no dice) and use your bonus action or reaction to "fuel" them.

View attachment 257797

Since maneuvers are all low level effects it really does work making them at-will with action economy costs. My idea of allowing one to scan for openings (trading out an attack for any of the standard battlemaster maneuver), is very similar but your bonus action adds another way I like it.

 

[Garthanos]

3.x tried the model of: you can disarm all the time, but better don't, because it is so difficult that it is borderline suicide...

Sort of realistic unless you have your enemy completely outclassed in some fashion / see also minions or nearly defeated enemies.

EXCEPT when you have all the feats and the right weapon, then it is always too good.

Nods.

5e just allows the fighter narrative control, when an easy attempt is possible, but limits it to a few times per encounter, to balance it.

Narrative control is the alternative like making an extreme exertion to do the incredible.

The other concept might be cinematic disarms that enemies usually recover from quickly, they dive for the weapon immediately and are therefore prone next round (losing a reaction).

 

[Garthanos]

Tbh, this is always something people forget when talking about "battlemaster/resources, it was something that was communicated to them by a large feedback in the biggest DnD playtest/feedback collecting cycle ever and that still holds true about how a lot of people feel about stuff like that.

One whose questions were not Pew poll quality but rather leading and against 4e game paradigm and 4e fans anecdotally dropped out of it when it became obvious that the questions/design goals were themselves twisted against their favorites.