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

[Giant Octopodes]

Garthanos and FireLance, I encourage you to playtest those proposed systems with a group. I can virtually guarantee that by the 3rd combat in which it is playtested, no one will do any of the maneuvers without prompting. Tripping someone, disarming them, shoving them around, all of those are marginal enough benefits in practice that someone doing the mental math on that vs dealing more damage will always find that dealing more damage is the superior tactical option.

FWIW I like the system proposed by FireLance more than that proposed by Garthanos, giving up attacks to -maybe- deal a special effect (often after multiple conditionals, -if- you hit and -if- it fails a save) will pretty much never be worth it but gaining the ability to use them as the battle progresses is both flavorful and cool. I would just take away the option to trade them for extra damage dice.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

I've been thinking about just making all maneuvers at-will, but they never add to damage and there's no precision attack, just get rid of superiority dice. I have a feeling it'd be alright, would prob just give it to all Fighters so that can be their thing, while other classes could get some more in more limited form.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

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.

The only suggestions about using this sort of thing at will specifically talked about removing the extra damage, so it was only the goading effect, and not the extra d6.

So I'm asking again, because I don't have that many people on ignore - Who has suggested:

Give the fighter another 1d6 per turn for no reason,

Please?

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.

How? By being hit more than the other melee characters?

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.

a BASE Cleric or BARD using nothing from their subclass are a full caster. If you're going to calculate fighter damage with their class features, you should probably ley the cleric and bard use theirs. - And note that this is assuming we are talking about non-melee-type clerics and bards being put into melee.

Also worth noting that melee-oriented rogues actually keep up pretty well with base fighters in terms of damage dealt. Why do you feel that this is not the case?

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.

Encouraging opponents to attack them rather than their allies does not mean that the fighters will "dominate melee". If your cleric casts one spell then sits out the rest of the fight making no further attacks, cantrips, or other spells, that is a player issue, not a class issue.

 

[FireLance]

Garthanos and FireLance, I encourage you to playtest those proposed systems with a group. I can virtually guarantee that by the 3rd combat in which it is playtested, no one will do any of the maneuvers without prompting. Tripping someone, disarming them, shoving them around, all of those are marginal enough benefits in practice that someone doing the mental math on that vs dealing more damage will always find that dealing more damage is the superior tactical option.

FWIW I like the system proposed by FireLance more than that proposed by Garthanos, giving up attacks to -maybe- deal a special effect (often after multiple conditionals, -if- you hit and -if- it fails a save) will pretty much never be worth it but gaining the ability to use them as the battle progresses is both flavorful and cool. I would just take away the option to trade them for extra damage dice.

In my last campaign, the paladin took Shield Master so that he could shove opponents prone as a bonus action to give the monk advantage on his multiple attacks. If I had implemented this system, I'm pretty sure he would also activate Trip Attack with every third successful attack.

 

[Undrave]

Encouraging opponents to attack them rather than their allies does not mean that the fighters will "dominate melee". If your cleric casts one spell then sits out the rest of the fight making no further attacks, cantrips, or other spells, that is a player issue, not a class issue.

It’s also misrepresenting my position. When I said that I cast Bless and I got nothing else to do, I didn’t mean I just sit back, but rather that I have nothing interesting or that further supports my team to do. Plinking away with Sacred Flame or swinging a weapon is not my idea of playing a ‘Support’ character you know? It’s just going through the motion until the fight’s over or someone needs an emergency heal.

Also worth noting that melee-oriented rogues actually keep up pretty well with base fighters in terms of damage dealt. Why do you feel that this is not the case?

Wasn't it ECMO3 who previously suggested tanking with a rogue? By spending feats on medium armor and shields? And implied this was the most efficient type of Rogue his group had come up with?? Somehow?

 

[Garthanos]

Garthanos and FireLance, I encourage you to playtest those proposed systems with a group.

My idea has been updated a little... but I suspect I didnt express it well anyway but basically you start with the battlemaster including having the superiority dice. This expresses it simply I think.
Scan for opportunity: spend a bonus action to regain a superiority die or you spend one of your attacks to do so. This extra superiority die applies only for this fight.

 

[Garthanos]

In the majority of games, the Battlemaster deals more damage than the Champion.

This is is what I have heard ... Gamblers like the crit fishing and they will continue to do so even if the odds average out not in their favor. I think the crit fishing should have been a Berserker/Barbarian thing and in Level up it is, but you can choose maneuvers/stances that do it for the fighter as well.

 

[FrogReaver]

IMO, the reason the battle master mechanics came to be was because not limiting certain types of plausible actions in itself yields an implausible game. The genre we are emulating doesn't have fighters disarming their opponents all the time in no time - they do it occasionally though.

The battlemaster mechanics allow for these things to occur some of the time while preventing them from overly occuring. That's a win for the fiction we are trying to emulate!

It does tend limit the creativity and ability for any PC to try such things - which is a valid criticism. I suppose ideally there would be a manuever subsystem that all martial characters could use.

 

[Marcotic]

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

I think that's the problem. For some the players of fighters should have as much narrative control as they could envision a star athlete to have.

 

[ECMO3]

How? By being hit more than the other melee characters?

Because that is not melee! Hypnotic pattern and fireball are not melee attacks. This is like saying a Longbow is a better melee weapon than a scimitar. It isn't because a longbow is not a melee weapon, you don't make melee attacks with it, and if you have a longbow in your hand you won't dominate melee with it.

Suggesting the Wizard can dominate melee with fireball is like saying the PAM fighter can dominate spellcasting with his Glaive

Hypnotic Pattern and Fireball are spells, a wizard casting them might dominate combat with them (but I would argue they are not actually good spells for that either), but they won't dominate melee with those spells.

The fighter chassis can already dominate melee, having the best weapons, the largest number of attacks the best fighting styles (for melee combat), most feats, great survivability and a number of subclasses with powerful melee abilities as well. You can make builds with other classes, to include wizard, to rival that and in a niche role even exceed what many fighters can do in melee, but no other class is as built for and is generally as dominant in melee as a fighter. The fighter does not need buffs to make him better at what he is already best at, just like the Wizard does not need buffs to make him a better caster.

a BASE Cleric or BARD using nothing from their subclass are a full caster. If you're going to calculate fighter damage with their class features, you should probably ley the cleric and bard use theirs. - And note that this is assuming we are talking about non-melee-type clerics and bards being put into melee.

The discussion is about who is better in melee. A high-strength cleric with a good heavy armor and martial weapon subclass can be close to a base no subclass fighter in melee in tier 1 and maybe early tier 2, but he is going to be outrun by quite a bit later in tier 2 and that gap will get wider still in tier 3 and beyond.

I am not sure a Bard can ever really match up with a fighter in melee at all, although to be fair I don't play a lot of them .... mostly because they suck.

Sure they have spells, but most of their spells are not melee oriented and most actually reduce your melee damage because they take a full action to cast. There are some are good melee bonus action spells - sanctuary and shield of faith come to mind, but their power is limited and if you are casting sanctuary every turn after you make your melee attack you are going to run out of spell slots quickly.

Also worth noting that melee-oriented rogues actually keep up pretty well with base fighters in terms of damage dealt. Why do you feel that this is not the case?

They can keep it close if they have a blade cantrip, but they won't keep up well in melee without that, considering the fighter is getting more attacks, using better weapons, has better ac, more hit points and does not need any sort of situations to maximize his damage. A rogue in melee is going to generally use disengage or dash a lot which is going to eliminate both TWF and steady aim.

You have to get sneak attack every single turn for a melee Rogue to be roughly equal to a fighter (and they will still fall behind an optimized fighter with a subclass). While you get sneak attack most turns, you don't get it all the time. Disadvantage kills sneak attack completely for a melee-oriented Rogue and that alone usually happens at least once or twice every level. Add in when you win initiative (which happens often) and you don't have allies in position.

I play more Rogues than any other class. They are awesome fun, but they can't keep up with Fighters or really any martials in melee. If you give them some missile weapons and take arcane trickster subclass and martial adept that helps their overall damage, but they are still behind if they focus solely on melee.

Encouraging opponents to attack them rather than their allies does not mean that the fighters will "dominate melee". If your cleric casts one spell then sits out the rest of the fight making no further attacks, cantrips, or other spells, that is a player issue, not a class issue.

I was replying to someone and his point was that clerics don't have enough to do enough in combat, that they don't have enough support options and their attacks are irrelevant so there is nothing to do. I was pointing out that if you make the fighter more powerful the cleric will be even more irrelevant by comparison.

Keeping the fighter better but in the same ballpark makes the other characters weapon attacks and to a degree cantrips more relevant. Still not as good, but meaningful. If your fighter is doing 70DPR, who cares if your cleric can tack on 8 more with his mace. If your fighter is doing 20DPR that boost matters.