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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 8490980" data-attributes="member: 6677017">Some good points all around. After some more thought I realized that there is a bigger concern I have, and my proposed fix would actually make that one a bit worse.The fighter is supposed to be super flexible. And they also get to specialize and be particularly good at certain things. These two things actually end up working at cross purposes (is isn’t just the case with the A5e fighter, it can show in all sorts of games, especially older D&D editions).If you have a wide variety of options available to you at any particular time, you can benefit from using one particularly suited to your situation. But when a small number of your options are much more effective than the rest due to your specialization, the bar for another maneuver to be more effective in your situation is raised. If you are spending less exertion and doing more damage with your favorites, then a competing maneuver has to be really good to be worth the action cost to use it. So in effect, even if a fighter knows more maneuvers than another class, the ability to be particularly good with a small number of them means in practice they are most likely going to be using less of them on a regular basis. They will be a narrowly focused combatant with a broader range of occasional special use maneuvers (that they won‘t actually find as useful as another class’s special use maneuvers, because the bar for them being a better choice than their standby maneuvers is higher). It’s working at cross purposes.My idea of letting maneuvers drop to zero would just exacerbate that issue by making your some of your specialized maneuvers even more likely to be the best option to use.But I was talking about this with a friend and a solution hit us both at the same time. Basically, we need to change how maneuver specialization works so that it just applies to all of your maneuvers.So here is my thought. Since you get to pick a maneuver specialization 5 times, here is an alternative version of the feature. Each time the feature comes up, instead of picking a maneuver to specialize in, you pick one of the three benefits of the maneuver specialization, and from now on that benefit applies to all your maneuvers. You would still have a lot of customization because you get to choose which feature you want to start with (and you can synergize that with the maneuvers you choose to learn). So if you want to be as good as an Adept with maneuver saves, you take that option. If you want staying power, you take the reduced cost option (which can’t reduce exertion cost below 1). If you want to hit harder, you take the damage option. I can imagine prioritizing any of those based on what my style is, and I get excited about the possibilities.This means you will effectively have the standard version of maneuver specialization in all maneuvers at level 11 once you’ve selected all three options (you can’t select the same one more than once). I actually think thats fine at that level; some might not agree. The replacement for the next two maneuver specializations (level 15 and 19) is that you get to choose a 1st degree maneuver to cost you zero exertion, and then a 2nd degree maneuver to cost you zero exertion. Your 20th level capstone still grants you a 3rd degree maneuver with no exertion.Of course, at first glance I have just cross-purposed myself with those 0 exertion maneuvers. But it actually works in this particular setup! At that point, three things are now true that work to prevent the issue I described. First, all of your maneuvers get full specialization benefits so they are all equally effective. Second, you have plenty of exertion to work with during your short rest, and all of your maneuvers are cheaper, so you can afford to use a lot of maneuvers. Third, when you are getting a zero exertion 1st degree maneuver, you already know 4th degree maneuvers (and have plenty of exertion to fuel them at their reduced cost), and when you are getting your zero exertion 2nd degree maneuver you know 5th degree maneuvers. With all that put together, being able to make a maneuver multiple degrees lower than your highest known maneuver be free to use is hardly going to dissuade you from using whatever higher level maneuver you know that is actually better suited for the situation. It mainly means at 15th (or 19th, depending on what kind of maneuver you pick first) you’ll be able to transform your at-will attack into a low degree maneuver (and then pick one other you want to use regularly to also get the at-will treatment). It also will make the zero exertion 3rd degree maneuver at 20th level be easier to pick, since you don’t have to choose between that 1st level maneuver you really want to be at-will because it fits your character or it’s cool, or you have a sentimental attachment, and a 3rd degree maneuver that would be an objectively more effective choice—because you already took that 1st degree maneuver at 15th or 19th level.I know this is a pretty big change, but it’s really sounding exciting to me. I might feel differently when I work out the math and review the maneuvers for possible exploits, but so far I’m really liking this idea.</blockquote>

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