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

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm no expert in CharOp but i believe it depends of a few factors like weapon, fighting style, number of combat per adventuring day, lenght of combat etc...

Not really, other than total number of combat rounds per rest (short or long.) I mean, in theory weapon die has an effect because crits are "roll 2x the dice," but this effect is very small due to Champions only getting a crit in 10% of cases where they would not otherwise have. Likewise for fighting style, and the only style which benefits is Great Weapon Fighting, because it affects the dice output. All others affect something other than the dice (hit bonus or static damage) which means being unaffected by crits. That is, if you go from a 1d8 one-handed weapon to a 2d6 greatsword, the difference in damage is 2.5 from damage dice (going from 4.5 to 7 average), and GWF bumps that up to 8.33... Meaning that, on average, per swing, fighting style is only adding 0.1×3.833... = 0.3833... extra points of damage per swing. Sure, it adds up over the course of many combat rounds. But it's gotta be a lot of combat rounds to close the gap, regardless of fighting style.

I've crunched the numbers on this one. Except at very high level (15+), you need at absolute minimum 20 rounds of combat between short rests in order for the Champion to catch up to the Battle Master. You'd need even more to catch up to something like a Paladin. This either means having extremely long combats (e.g. two 10-round combats or three 7-round combats per short rest) or having extremely frequent ones (e.g. 5-7 combats again per short rest.)

It's a simple function of dividing the average damage bonus from BM dice by the average damage bonus per swing from Champion, and then dividing that result by the Fighter's total attacks per Attack. (This is because (Damage)/(Damage/attack) = # attacks, so if we divide by attacks/Attack we get # combat rounds.) Of course in doing this I did make some simplifying assumptions, but most of those assumptions specifically favor the Champion, not the Battle Master. E.g. it is generally more powerful to increase you hit rating rather than your damage dice due to the existence of Great Weapon Master, so this is a floor for what the Champion must reach, not a ceiling. I also ignored any benefits the BM might get from her natural 5% crit chance, because BMs should try to have a maneuver available to spend on any crits they may get, further pushing up the average.

The Champion extra damage from crits is laughably small at any level actually likely to be played.

Edit: Note that the above numbers DO assume a Champion wielding a greatsword with GWF. The numbers would be slightly less than doubled (about 80% larger) if I had instead used a 1d8 one-handed weapon.

 

[FallenRX]

Not really, other than total number of combat rounds per rest (short or long.) I mean, in theory weapon die has an effect because crits are "roll 2x the dice," but this effect is very small due to Champions only getting a crit in 10% of cases where they would not otherwise have. Likewise for fighting style, and the only style which benefits is Great Weapon Fighting, because it affects the dice output. All others affect something other than the dice (hit bonus or static damage) which means being unaffected by crits. That is, if you go from a 1d8 one-handed weapon to a 2d6 greatsword, the difference in damage is 2.5 from damage dice (going from 4.5 to 7 average), and GWF bumps that up to 8.33... Meaning that, on average, per swing, fighting style is only adding 0.1×3.833... = 0.3833... extra points of damage per swing. Sure, it adds up over the course of many combat rounds. But it's gotta be a lot of combat rounds to close the gap, regardless of fighting style.

I've crunched the numbers on this one. Except at very high level (15+), you need at absolute minimum 20 rounds of combat between short rests in order for the Champion to catch up to the Battle Master. You'd need even more to catch up to something like a Paladin. This either means having extremely long combats (e.g. two 10-round combats or three 7-round combats per short rest) or having extremely frequent ones (e.g. 5-7 combats again per short rest.)

It's a simple function of dividing the average damage bonus from BM dice by the average damage bonus per swing from Champion, and then dividing that result by the Fighter's total attacks per Attack. (This is because (Damage)/(Damage/attack) = # attacks, so if we divide by attacks/Attack we get # combat rounds.) Of course in doing this I did make some simplifying assumptions, but most of those assumptions specifically favor the Champion, not the Battle Master. E.g. it is generally more powerful to increase you hit rating rather than your damage dice due to the existence of Great Weapon Master, so this is a floor for what the Champion must reach, not a ceiling. I also ignored any benefits the BM might get from her natural 5% crit chance, because BMs should try to have a maneuver available to spend on any crits they may get, further pushing up the average.

The Champion extra damage from crits is laughably small at any level actually likely to be played.

The only way Champions crits can really be competitive with battle master is if you give them an On-Hit weapon or ability, like a Flametougue or a Frost Brand.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The only way Champions crits can really be competitive with battle master is if you give them an On-Hit weapon or ability, like a Flametougue or a Frost Brand.

Correct. If they get something which increases their dice per attack, that has a major effect.

E.g. at several level ranges, the greatsword GWF Champion (hereafter just "Champion”/”Champ") needs about 22 rounds of combat. If wielding a flametongue weapon, on the other hand, your basal weapon damage jumps from 2d6 to 4d6, meaning the average rolled damage (as GWF applies to magic weapon bonus dice) goes from 8.333... to 16.666...

This means, on average, between level 3 and 14 inclusive, the Champ with a FT greatsword gets 0.05×16.666... = 0.8333... average bonus damage per swing. (We can say "per swing," btw, because this damage can only occur on attacks the Fighter would have successfully landed anyway, regardless of subclass.) Battle Masters go from 4d8 to 5d10 in that range, meaning an average between 18 and 27.5 average bonus damage. The Champ with a FT greatsword will need an average of between 21.6 (so 22) attack rolls at low levels and 33 attack rolls at later levels in order to make up the gap. With Extra Attacks at level 5, this means the number of rounds required is about 10.8, rising to 16.5 at middle levels as the BM gets more/better dice. Once you get EA2 at 11, it falls back down to 11 combat rounds per short rest, which is still rather long but doable.

This still means you need at least two combats per short rest, and they'd better be on the long side (5-6 rounds apiece), which I have been told is exceedingly rare in 5e, with the average reportedly being closer to 3 rounds, very occasionally hitting 4.

It is only at the absolute highest levels (15+), with a flametongue greatsword, that the Champion can consistently keep up with the Battle Master, assuming no special favoritism other than giving the character a specific, powerful magic weapon. (That is, you don't shower the Champion with gifts and give the Battle Master nothing.)

 

[ECMO3]

People usually see battlemaster and its maneuver system as a cure for the issue of the martial caster gap, and i can understand why, martial have a terrible issue of a lack of options, and battlemaster gives resources and options, which make the class feel far more dynamic and interesting.

But here is my issue, one of the reasons why martial are suffering is because

1. Martials cannot do certain actions because thats what the battlemaster does.
2. Martials and what they do are tied to resources...for no real reason.

These two ideas i feel limit martials from what i feel they could be, why can martial threaten people into attacking them, why cant they simply disarm and trip people, why can't they rally or parry and such. And why should any of this be on any resource?

Its silly, what resource am i spending to goad someone into an attack or making a distraction? Magic? No, Stamina? How much effort does it take to goad or shout orders? Evasive Footwork, and grappling sure, but basic stuff like that?

The idea martials need resources to do these things is insane, they should just be able to do them, Special Actions, like shove or grapple show a clearer way forward for martials, with actions they can trade out attacks to do to get unique options.

The issue with martials is the fact battlemaster exists so other martials cant get these options, and the fact that they are on an arbitrary resource that represents nothing but trying to imitate 4E's power system, which was just as nonsensical and one of the reasons that game failed.

I feel we can do better than just turning martials into casters with a different resource, Martials defining trait is always being able to act without being tied to resources on what they can do, so i feel we should design them around that.

Martials should be characters of action, who just do, while casters should be powerful but limited by resources, I feel like limiting martials to resources to do technique is absurd, they should always be able to do a lot with a action, even PF2E which a lot of people praised for solving the issue did so in this way.

But thats just my opinion on this, how do you feel?

TLDR; Battlemasters hogging all of the special techniques martials should just be able to do, and the idea that doing these things cost some weird limit hurts the martial experience overall. Martials should just be able to do these things with attacks/actions themselves being the resource, and they should not have weird limitations

Any character can attempt to disarm someone, it is explained in the DMG p271. It uses one attack which means a martial with extra attack can disarm someone and then get in another attack (or disarm another person) without using any resources at all. Also because of the math involved disarm from the DMG is more likely to work than using the battlemaster disarming attack. Disarm from the DMG uses your attack roll DC which averages 10.5+pb+ability as a DC (13.8+PB+ability with advantage), while the battlemaster maneuver DC is 8+pb+ability, while

"Tripping" is shoving prone and again any character can do that. A character with extra attack can do this with a single attack.

What battlemasters have is the ability to do these as part of or in addition to a weapon attack. That is all. It is an appropriate buff for their weapon attacks due to their subclass selection.

While I am at it though, any fighter can get a battlemaster maneuver through the superior technique fighting style and any character can get two of them through the martial adept fighting style. A fighter can double up on these and have 3 maneuvers and 2 dice every short rest.

Finally resource cost is part of the game to make the mechanics work. Why can't a Rogue sneak attack more than once a turn? Why can't a cleric cast as many spells as he wants, what resource is he using to pray to his god. Why can't a Monk stunning strike over and over?

If you really don't like it you can always get rid of martials. That would sove the problem of not being able to explain limited use resources.

 

[NotAYakk]

I don't want a game of "disarm disarm disarm" or "trip trip trip".

But the D&D combat state space isn't large enough or detailed enough to cover "their weapon is open" or "they are off balance".

Random openings are the best I can imagine to emulate this.

 

[Maxperson]

Most of the battlemaster maneuvers are totally available to other characters, it's just that the battlemaster is better at them. They can do damage and disarm you, for instance, while another character has to choose.

If you play with feats, all of them are available to other characters.

 

[Stormonu]

One thing I have been surprised about in the games that I run is against using Battlemaster fighters, as "too fiddly". I've had at least four players who have either gone Barbarian or Champion Fighter because they don't want the extra complexity inherit to the Battlemaster's maneuvers - or that is at least the perception of the subclass. It's why I brought them up earlier.

Have other groups encountered the same thing? It almost seems like the divide is play a Wizard/Cleric to do cool stuff or play a Fighter Champion to do simple hack'n'slash combat. Battlemaster gets left out of the scene except for a very small group of individuals, who eventually end up leaning the Wizard or Champion direction after a while. Or run off and do monks.

 

[James Gasik]

One thing I have been surprised about in the games that I run is against using Battlemaster fighters, as "too fiddly". I've had at least four players who have either gone Barbarian or Champion Fighter because they don't want the extra complexity inherit to the Battlemaster's maneuvers - or that is at least the perception of the subclass. It's why I brought them up earlier.

Have other groups encountered the same thing? It almost seems like the divide is play a Wizard/Cleric to do cool stuff or play a Fighter Champion to do simple hack'n'slash combat. Battlemaster gets left out of the scene except for a very small group of individuals, who eventually end up leaning the Wizard or Champion direction after a while. Or run off and do monks.

In actuality, nobody really plays Fighters in my area. When I was playing in AL, there were two, one Champion and my Battlemaster. In the home games I've played, not a single Fighter. I'm not sure why this is the case, when it seems the Fighters are very popular elsewhere.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

In a real fight or sparring you can try to do a special thing all the time, but it's likely not going to work after the 2nd or 3rd time because your opponent is going to see it coming and be ready for it. Your cool maneuver is very likely going to be stopped by a fist or sword to the face before you even get a chance to do it again.

And that's not counting things like fatigue, it might not be that you're too tired to fight at all, it just might be you're too tired to think of trying something else.

But the rules are limited in the fine details of doing such things, I think a resource system is good enough to handle such abstractions.

 

[Weiley31]

As a Battlemaster player, I have no regerts making every other martial suffer.

On the plus side, thanks to Dragonlance, it seems like other martials will soon get some of that Superiority Die loving too.