D&D 5E BattleMaster vs Champion, an analysis

[Oofta]

A number of problems here.

1. You need to rest for a variety of level ranges. I suggest the tier breakdowns of 5, 11, and 17.

Did you look at the spreadsheet? It's levels 3-20.

2. AC is way off. You need to test a range of the most common AC values at a particular level. AC should be 13-15 at level 5 testing 16-18 for level 11 testing, and 19-21 for level 17 testing.

I don't see how AC would affect the difference between the numbers. Chance of hitting does not change. A quick test shows that higher AC is more in the Champions favor. Of course I haven't factored in precision yet.

3. Fighting Styles and feats are important. For the Great Wespon fighter, he should be using a greatsword. With the fighting style the weapon damage of the greatsword is 8.333. But the great weapon fighting style also allows you to reroll 1s and 2s for superiority dice. This will give a significant damage edge to the battlemaster.

One of the options was greatsword with great weapon fighting. If you reroll 1's and 2's if favors the champion, not the battlemaster since you reroll your weapon damage on a crit. [EDIT] If you're saying that Great Weapon Fighting should let you reroll 1's and 2's for your superiority die, I disagree. If there's official word on this that's fine. But it's only 1 reroll, not a guarantee that you won't get less than a 3.

4. The best use of superiority dice isn't always flat damage, but when it is, it's typically better to use precision with greatweapon master. Being able to turn a 24.3333 damage miss into a hit is a much better use of a superiority die than to add 6.2 damage to a hit. Then there are maneuvers like riposte or commanders strike which add significantly more damage than you would get by spending a single die to enhance a normal attack.

I agree, the battlemaster has more flexibility. I'll have to think about if I can integrate in precision. Not sure I want to spend any more time on my program at the moment.

5. Typical combat in 5e lasts between 3 and 5 rounds. Also you are supposed to have just two or three combats between short tests. This gives a typical adventuring day of 6-8 combats per day, 2 short rests, and roughly 25 rounds of combat in total.

The standard is 5-8 combats per day with 2-3 rests. I agree that more rests benefit the battlemaster. If you do 2 combats per rest, average 4 rounds per fight (about best case for the battlemaster) and always add damage with greatsword/great weapon fighting the advantage goes to the battlemaster by a little over 1 point

6. The effects of maneuvers can be important. An archer being able to shoot a dragon out of the sky by making it fall prone for example. Or an archer using goading attack to make the BBEG have disadvantage on all attacks against the rest of the party while keeping out of the BBEGs reach himself. The ability to make tactically meaningful choices will have a much higher impact on the outcome of a battle than random spike damage.

I never said the battlemaster didn't have more options.

7. Since the champion has no control of his damage, he cannot burst down choice targets. He also risks overkill. In essence, the champions damage has much less precision so while the average might appear fine, it will often be ineffectiently used. You are just as likely to crit an enemy when he has 5 HP as you are when his HP is full. The problem is scoring a crit on a 5 HP target is mostly useless.

Meh. I'm not sure it makes that much different.

 

[Oofta]

One quick update to this.

One realistic scenario is two fighters using sword/shield that both take the Protection fighting style. At 10th level the champion picks up Dueling. From that point on, they do a fair amount of damage more than the BattleMaster (2-4 points depending on various assumptions) per round even when we assume 3 combats per rest with 4 round fights.

 

[bid]

The data file is attached to the post. You can pull it up in Excel and check.

I did. Did you?


Come back once you find out "how the results were reached".

 

[happyhermit]

...
3. Fighting Styles and feats are important. For the Great Wespon fighter, he should be using a greatsword. With the fighting style the weapon damage of the greatsword is 8.333. But the great weapon fighting style also allows you to reroll 1s and 2s for superiority dice. This will give a significant damage edge to the battlemaster.
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the style doesn't specify weapon damage dice. Therefor they apply to all damage dice for the attack. This includes things like superiority dice or Paladins divine smite. For similar wording just look at the rules for critical hits, it says to roll the attack's damage dice twice.
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Is there a Sage Advice ruling on this? Because GW style says 1 and 2s on a damage dice. The BM uses superiority dice. They are not called damage dice, even if they add damage. So unless there's a ruling I don't know about (possible), I would not apply GW to the superiority dice because they are specifically called something else and not damage dice
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Mearls and Crawford have both said in the past that it is intended to apply to the weapon's damage dice, just like it is written.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/12/22/does-great-wepon-fighting-let-you-reroll-all-of-the-attacks-damage-dice/

@JeremyECrawford Does Great Wepon Fighting fighting style let you reroll all of the attack's damage dice or just the weapon damage dice?

The intent is that Great Weapon Fighting lets you reroll just the weapon's dice, not Smite dice and the like. #DnD

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/10/06/great-weapon-smite/

@mikemearls Does the paladin's Great Weapon Fighting style apply to the radiant damage dice gained from Divine Smite?

No - I'd rule the benefit applies only to the weapon's damage dice.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/11/13/great-weapon-fighting-rerolling-smite-hex-and-hunters-mark/

The Great Weapon Fighting feature is meant to benefit the damage rolls of the melee weapon you're wielding.

 

[Ashkelon]

Mearls and Crawford have both said in the past that it is intended to apply to the weapon's damage dice, just like it is written.

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/12/22...et-you-reroll-all-of-the-attacks-damage-dice/




http://www.sageadvice.eu/2014/10/06/great-weapon-smite/



http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/11/13/great-weapon-fighting-rerolling-smite-hex-and-hunters-mark/

Their intent may be for it to only apply to weapon damage dice, but that certainly is not RAW. Raw says the attack's damage, which includes more than just the weapon damage dice. It uses the exact same wording as critical hits. Both critical hits and great weapon fighting style use the wording "damage die for an attack".

Here are some ruling giving to critical hits:

https://thesageadvice.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/critical-divine/
https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/618266822396149762
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/12/28/can-a-paladin-with-a-critical-choose-to-use-divine-smite/

It's also worth noting that the battlemaster can use superiority dice on a crit to double their effect further increasing the his damage potential.

 

[mellored]

I give the champion +1 HP per level.

 

[Ashkelon]

I give the champion +1 HP per level.

Interestingly enough, the champion is just fine defensively. Well...at least from level 10+. At level 10 they can have both a +1 AC fighting style and a damage increasing fighting style. At level 18 they get a fairly significant amount of regeneration.

I honestly don't actually feel that the champion is lacking as far as defenses go. It is undertuned for damage, but that isn't all that big of an issue. Any player who cares about math or DPR optimization probably wants a more exciting class than basic attack! the class. The players who want to play the champion simply aren't the ones who are doing detailed DPR analysis.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Their intent may be for it to only apply to weapon damage dice, but that certainly is not RAW. Raw says the attack's damage, which includes more than just the weapon damage dice. It uses the exact same wording as critical hits. Both critical hits and great weapon fighting style use the wording "damage die for an attack".

Here are some ruling giving to critical hits:

https://thesageadvice.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/critical-divine/


https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/618266822396149762
http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/12/28/can-a-paladin-with-a-critical-choose-to-use-divine-smite/

It's also worth noting that the battlemaster can use superiority dice on a crit to double their effect further increasing the his damage potential.

You and I obviously have different interpretations of RAW. Luckily, now we know the right way, and I'm assuming you'll be accounting for that in your analysis?

 

[happyhermit]

Their intent may be for it to only apply to weapon damage dice, but that certainly is not RAW.

Glad we can agree the intent is clearly not to apply to other types of damage.

Raw says the attack's damage, which includes more than just the weapon damage dice. It uses the exact same wording as critical hits.

It doesn't say "the attack's damage". It certainly doesn't use the "exact same wording" as critical hits... at all. Critical hits explicitly states "All of" then gives examples of how it applies to other forms of damage. The first sentence of critical hits might seem similar, but all it is saying is "you get to roll extra dice..." it is a piece of natural language, the second sentence tells you what to actually do.

Both critical hits and great weapon fighting style use the wording "damage die for an attack".

Actually they don't.

Anyways, if you want to run it that way because that makes your games better, all the power to you. If you want to claim that it's unintentionally RAW, then you are certainly entitled to that opinion, I happen to disagree but don't actually really care all that much. I suppose they should have been more clear if they wanted to be sure everyone rules it the same way, then again they have pretty much stated that they don't care about that all that much either.

 

[Ashkelon]

You and I obviously have different interpretations of RAW. Luckily, now we know the right way, and I'm assuming you'll be accounting for that in your analysis?

So are you implying that divine smite doesn't get double damage on a crit?

Because the rules for critical hits say roll the damage dice of the attack twice. And Jeremy Crawford clarified that the rules do in fact say you double the dice for them.

Great weapon style uses the same wording as critical hits. When you roll a 1 or 2 for the damage die of an attack, you can reroll it. If you are to believe that you cannot reroll the damage of superiority dice or divine smites with great weapon style, then that would mean the rules must say you cannot have those abilities double the damage dice on a crit.

Now if great weapon style said when you roll a 1 or 2 for the weapon damage dice of an attack, I would be agree with your interpretation. But as it is, RAW says reroll all 1s and 2s for all damage dice for the whole attack. That might not be what was inteneded, but it is RAW.

Here is the relevant wording for crits
"Roll all of the attack's damage dice twice and add them together."

Here is the relevant wording for GWF
"when you roll a 1 or a 2 for the damage die of an attack..."

edit: and here is an official sage advice on it. http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/09/09/great-weapon-fighting-and-smite/