D&D 5E Battlemaster Maneuvers - only 3-4 good ones?

[Sacrosanct]

So the dragon got to be hundreds (thousands?) of years old by being dumb in a fight? Sorry, my v-tude hurts. And if there werent any casters present, why wouldnt the dragon just attack the halfling? I've seen you trot out this example like at least 10 times. "One time my DM played a dragon real stupid and I cheesed the fight and you can too!" Things that force saves arent great in many games for blowing LR's. It depends on the DM.

If you've seen me trot out that example 10 times, then why do you keep ignoring everything behind it and I have to keep explaining it? An adult white dragon has an INT of 8. Maybe, just maybe, it got to be that old because it's a freaking dragon that eats anything that gets in its way. There are a lot of reasons why a creature can get as big or live as long as it does without having to be super smart, especially if it has many other attributes that put it in a high position on the food chain (like brute strength, breath weapons, etc).

Also, if you did see me trot this out 10 times (I think I've only mentioned it three times, but whatever), they why don't you remember that I wasn't the only one there. Just because I said the dragon didn't know there were wizards, doesn't mean everyone else in the party was hidden. For one, last time I checked, dragons (especially INT 8 ones) didn't have some divining power that allowed them to know the exact classes of every creature they could see. How was it supposed to know that PC 4 over there was an Eldritch knight? As far as it knew, it was just a human in armor with a sword. Secondly, the other PCs who weren't casters were positioned fairly far away and they were the ones to lure him out while I was alongside the cavern wall waiting to ambush it. And thirdly, when planning combat, there are a lot more non-mechanical factors regarding strengths and weaknesses. Knowing that a monster is prideful and brutish and using that weakness against it isn't "cheesing the fight" any more than using fire against a troll is. Maybe you like to metagame and view creatures only through stats written in a stat block. But many of us do not. That attitude reeks of one-true-wayism to insult another play experience because they didn't metagame like you.

 

[brehobit]

Regarding ranged trip attacks: if I remember and understand things right they are great for bringing flying enemies to the ground.

Correct. I've done that more than once. It annoyed the DM because it was unclear to him how a non-magical attack with an arrow could knock a dragon out of the sky...

 

[Tony Vargas]

Correct. I've done that more than once. It annoyed the DM because it was unclear to him how a non-magical attack with an arrow could knock a dragon out of the sky...

"Gack! Right in the messoscapulocoracoid process, again!?!"

So the dragon got to be hundreds (thousands?) of years old by being dumb in a fight? Sorry, my v-tude hurts.

Uh... Dragon. If hill giants and ogres and Champion fighters can survive being dumb for decades, surely a 'dumb' (by draconic standards) dragon can go centuries.

 

[Eubani]

There are 3 main problems with maneuvers when compared to spells:
1. You pick the best maneuvers (from your point of view) first any gained later are of lesser importance/use. Where as spell you gain higher level spells which are usually better. There are no higher level maneuvers.
2. WotC will happily drown us in spells but more maneuvers that are not only for specific subclasses.....not a hope in hell. With the exception of 4th edition historically D&D designers have treated the fighter poorly and this edition looks like it will continue that trend.
3. The Chasis. The main class of the the fighter has to serve the Champion and EK as well as maneuver using subclasses so they will never get the most out of the mechanic. There needs to be a fighter class designed at it's core to utilize maneuvers to show there real worth, but this will not likely happen as the designers have 40 years of fighter abuse crammed in their heads that fighters have to be basic.

 

[Eubani]

Why is it when I here someone use the term verisimilitude on a forum my first thought is "Get your hand off it"?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

So the dragon got to be hundreds (thousands?) of years old by being dumb in a fight? Sorry, my v-tude hurts. And if there werent any casters present, why wouldnt the dragon just attack the halfling? I've seen you trot out this example like at least 10 times. "One time my DM played a dragon real stupid and I cheesed the fight and you can too!" Things that force saves arent great in many games for blowing LR's. It depends on the DM.

Perhaps it got that old by being big enough and strong enough to take what it wants without having to be skilled in tactics. How often do you think this dragon has actually been in a fair fight?

Take a PC, give him all 20s in every ability score, and make him 20th level at the start of the campaign. Give the PC to your dumbest player. How tricksy do you think he's going to play that PC? Is he going to cunningly save his abilities for the tactically-optimal moment so he can stomp the party's otherwise-level-appropriate foes (Lamias, Chimeras, etc.) even harder? Or is he going to relax and do idiotic things like blow 9th level Meteor Swarms on CR 5 foes just because it feels so awesome to steal kills from everyone else?

But if the other players don't kill him, I bet he'll still make through the regular DMG-balanced encounter day (balanced against a normal party, not the 20th level munchkin that you've turned him into).

That's what a stupid dragon is like. It's probably still not going to die, at least not in a campaign without tons of PC-like freelance adventurers and treasure-hunters roaming around killing dragons--and in that campaign, dragons have bigger problems than their individual intelligence or lack thereof. Their real problem is that they're tolerating acts of genocide without retaliating with their own Dragon Army[1].

[1] Which, by the way, has never lost (or won) a battle.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Correct. I've done that more than once. It annoyed the DM because it was unclear to him how a non-magical attack with an arrow could knock a dragon out of the sky...

Is my memory lying to me, or does the Battlemaster's Trip Attack not work against Huge and Gargantuan creatures?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Is my memory lying to me, or does the Battlemaster's Trip Attack not work against Huge and Gargantuan creatures?

There are some merely-Large dragons.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Is my memory lying to me, or does the Battlemaster's Trip Attack not work against Huge and Gargantuan creatures?

Yes, nothing larger than large can be tripped.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

There are some merely-Large dragons.

Yeah, but they're just the Wyrmlings and Young Adults. So Trip doesn't work on adults. Shooting younglings out of the sky seems fine to me from a flavor perspective. They're not scary or legendary yet.