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

[Garthanos]

"Guy at the gym" would be ok if fighter had exclusive access to most martial weapons, magic weapons, and magic armor like in 0e, 1e, and 2e. If Joe Schmoe the Fighter has exclusive access to Mjolnir, Excalibur, Gunfire, Thunderbolt, Fragarach, Muramasa, the Power Sword, the Power Bands, Stormbringer, Nemean Lionskin, Aegis, Ice, or Anduril, that's a nice constellation prize

Reliable access to artifact class .... you are "The Fated Wielder"... or pick any of the epic destinies of 4e and tie them in with effects like 5e high end magic items. Yes if you have a magical blood line. Hell fast caster allowing spells to be cast in battle at all... might require a magical bloodline.... Circes bloodline includes it.

If Fighters could do things spellcasters could do at will, they would be "magical anime Fighters" and the game would implode! : )

Sigh because nothing can be extreme exertion limited or a product of character luck, (or situational narrative power granted the player) /s.

One could narrate many effects without anything more than hit point loss it was the one true way in AD&D but the instant you get other mechanics and tactical choices ... nope nope nope.

 

[ECMO3]

Could you kindly point out who has suggested this please?

Goading attack once per turn is an extra 1d6 damage every single turn. Goading attack does 1d6 extra damage on top of normal attack damage and the damage lands regardless of the save. That is assuming you are using the version from the feat or the fighting style, if you give them the version of the maneuver from the battlemaster subclass it is 1d8 and scales even higher.

You truly believe that imposing disadvantage to hit other party members on one or two creatures is going to "overshadow" the other characters? More than say, a Fireball or Hypnotic pattern would?

Fireball or Hypnotic Pattern are not melee attacks. It will completely overshadow other characters in melee, especially when combined with extra attack, better weapons and the extra ASIs a fighter gets.

A BASE fighter using nothing from his subclass is better in melee than a Cleric or Bard or even a melee-oriented Rogue. There is no reason to give him more when he is already ahead of those classes in melee. I would like to keep them closer. If the fighter is doing 30DPR swinging his sword, the cleric who invested in strength and melee should be doing 20+ standing right next to him with his hammer.

If you gratuitously pile more on the fighter than they already have for no reason they will dominate melee more than they already do and overshadow the other characters. This causes the very problem the poster said he wants to avoid - "My cleric casts bless and then has nothing to do" ..... he has nothing to do because his damage is irrelevant because your fighter is overpowered.

The goal is to keep the others close and thereby significantly contributing.

 

[Garthanos]

How about this as a comprimise - let him use goading attack once perturn starting at 5th level but take away the first extra attack? So he can can make 1 attack at 5th, 2 at 11th, 3 at 20th but he can use goading attack once per turn. That would make it a bit more balanced.

The suggestion that I have seen here is less boring is allowing you to trade out an extra attack or bonus action each round to perform any of the bm maneuvers

 

[ECMO3]

The suggestion that I have seen here is less boring is allowing you to trade out an extra attack or bonus action each round to perform any of the bm maneuvers

I could see 2 or 3 but not all of them. I would not make it a round-by-round choice though. Either you get extra attack (1) at 5th level or you get a couple battlemaster maneuvers usable once a turn (on your one attack or bonus action attack if applicable).

Then you have a choice - max your DPR with extra attack or get some control and attack only once.

There is some room for builds too - invest a feat in a blade cantrip and take the maneuver and you will be doing just about as much as with an extra attack.

 

[Garthanos]

I could see 2 or 3 but not all of them.

Well you have to know the maneuver. My idea went like this... You can spend one of your attacks to "Scan for Openings" thus enabling you to perform one of your maneuvers without spending one of your superiority dice.

 

[cbwjm]

I do think it would be better to have manoeuvres as at-will instead of X/rest. I did start on a system that I was going to get my fighter player to try out, but we've gone back to our other campaign now. As is, I'm thinking the rokugan 5e has some good ideas for this sort of thing.

 

[Garthanos]

"Guy at the gym" would be ok if fighter had exclusive access to most martial weapons, magic weapons, and magic armor like in 0e, 1e, and 2e. If Joe Schmoe the Fighter has exclusive access to Mjolnir, Excalibur, Gunfire, Thunderbolt, Fragarach, Muramasa, the Power Sword, the Power Bands, Stormbringer, Nemean Lionskin, Aegis, Ice, or Anduril, that's a nice constellation prize

Reliable access to artifact class items .... you are "The Fated Wielder"... or pick any of the epic destinies of 4e and tie them into effects like 5e high end magic items.

 

[Garthanos]

I do think it would be better to have manoeuvres as at-will instead of X/rest. I did start on a system that I was going to get my fighter player to try out, but we've gone back to our other campaign now. As is, I'm thinking the rokugan 5e has some good ideas for this sort of thing.

Someone did a rewrite the BM maneuvers as spend an extra attack or bonus action to trigger it. I am going with either spend some of that mojo (superiority die) OR that other cost. They are low level enough that this cost is about as accurate as it gets.

 

[Undrave]

Again using it at 6th level you are going to do weapon damage+1d6+strength/dexterity+an effect and it is half an attack action. You can make an entire other attack after you use it. As a matter of fact you can even use this on a bonus action with two weapon fighting.

When did I suggest an extra d6?!

Goading attack once per turn is an extra 1d6 damage every single turn. Goading attack does 1d6 extra damage on top of normal attack damage and the damage lands regardless of the save. That is assuming you are using the version from the feat or the fighting style, if you give them the version of the maneuver from the battlemaster subclass it is 1d8 and scales even higher.

I've REPEATEDLY said that my version would NOT include extra damage: it would ONLY be the saving throw effect. Once per turn, at will.I've said it before and it's frankly annoying that you seem to be ignoring that fact.

Compare to Vicious Mockey, which is only 1 save for both Psychic dmg and disadvantage on ANY attack, while a Goading attack as suggested would do more damage, being a weapons hit, it would two points of failiure (the attack and then the saving throw) and only grant disadvantage when attacking anyone else but the Fighter. You could even add the stipulation it only works on melee attacks if you want to really nerf it. Archer can get a pushing attack or a distracting shot.

 

[FireLance]

A slightly modified idea from another thread, in reply to a suggestion which seemed similar to what I heard about the Iron Heroes token system (disclaimer: I've never played Iron Heroes).

I think a simpler implementation could be: every time a fighter hits with an attack roll, they gain a token. (If you want to impose a cost, the fighter can reduce the damage done by 1 point to get 1 token). This can be flavored as the fighter taking in details about the current battlefield and their opponents' fighting style that they can exploit later.

The fighter can spend 2 tokens to activate a battlemaster maneuver, except that the fighter does not actually get superiority dice or extra damage. This means the fighter gets no benefit from maneuvers such as Precision Attack (unless you allow the fighter to use a d4 for such maneuvers) but there are few such maneuvers. Or, if the fighter doesn't want to do anything fancy, they can trade the tokens for extra damage dice (2 tokens = 1d4, 3 tokens = 1d6, ... , 6 tokens = 1d12). One viable strategy is to keep accumulating tokens, then spend them all on a critical hit.

For simplicity, tokens expire at the end of an encounter.