Fighter adjustment and champion rework ideas?

[Paul Farquhar]

For Champions specifically, I think that the best bet would be to give them their full Critical range improvement right away

It would make a single level dip highly exploitable with barbarian multiclass or feats like elven accuracy.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The unearthed arcana "brute" subclass was a suitable replacement imo....

The trouble was, it pretty much completely replaced barbarian as well..

 

[Zardnaar]

It would make a single level dip highly exploitable with barbarian multiclass or feats like elven accuracy.

In my Homebrew I did something similar to this. But I use different multiclass rules. The fighter is basically a champion with scaling saves and 3.5 microfeats.

 

[Leatherhead]

The trouble was, it pretty much completely replaced barbarian as well..

Not even remotely, you must not remember what the Brute did: It was quadratically scaling damage, with even more damage for giggles. And also a saving throw bonus. Finished off with the Champion capstone because they couldn't be bothered to make a unique one. It had absolutely zero out of combat utility (unlike the barbarian, or every other subclass in the game) and nothing to compare with the defensive juggernaut that is Rage.

Now to be fair, the quadratic damage was just obvious bug they included to generate more feedback (WotC actually admitted to doing that with UA material), and some of the features would have likely been replaced with some non-combat based offerings. That's just how feedback typically goes.

The primary reason the Brute never made it out of UA was because it was a better "dumb fighter" than the Champion, seeing as how remembering to roll an extra damage die when you hit is easier than remembering that you crit more often. And for some reason people saw being Champion 2.0 was a bad thing.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I do think "doubles the chance of a critical hit at level 3" is a seriously underestimated ability, although it does require some rules knowledge to leverage.

 

[Zardnaar]

I do think "doubles the chance of a critical hit at level 3" is a seriously underestimated ability, although it does require some rules knowledge to leverage.

I think someone crunched the numbers and the extra damage is less the battlemaster fighter just using their dice for moar damage which is one of the less useful things they can do.

They stuck a heap of nova abilities on the other warrior classes and I think a few players nova, then rest up so the fighter is never good- and there 6-8 encounters idea is rare in actual play.

 

[S'mon]

I do think "doubles the chance of a critical hit at level 3" is a seriously underestimated ability, although it does require some rules knowledge to leverage.

does require some rules knowledge to leverage is pretty much the opposite of what I want from the Champion, though. I want a newbie class.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think someone crunched the numbers and the extra damage is less the battlemaster fighter just using their dice for moar damage which is one of the less useful things they can do.

They stuck a heap of nova abilities on the other warrior classes and I think a few players nova, then rest up so the fighter is never good- and there 6-8 encounters idea is rare in actual play.

Like others, I crunched the numbers for the improved critical hits and it is pretty bad. A 19-20 really isn't a great ability. The only real benefit is that it is ALL the time, which helps make up for the *meh* damage increase a bit.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think someone crunched the numbers and the extra damage is less the battlemaster fighter just using their dice for moar damage which is one of the less useful things they can do.

That's if you don't build specifically to leverage criticals. The single class way to go is to play a half orc, use a great axe, and pick up Martial Adept Feat (Trip). Once you start adding those three levels to multiclass it can become very strong. For example, a critical hit doubles sneak attack dice.

 

[S'mon]

The key to the Champion is simplicity plus always-on power. To compete with Battlemaster & EK it needs something like the extra weapon damage die that high-CR MM NPC warriors get. But 2d12 damage with a great axe at level 3 looks overpowered. I suggest that at level 3 instead of the increased critical range they should get:

+2 damage 1-handed weapon (including with off-hand attacks)
+4 damage 2-handed weapon

With Fighter attacks increasing at levels 5, 11 and 20 I think that keeps them viable.

I decided to use this with a slight tweak:

Champion Fighters may exchange level 3 improved critical range for an additional Fighting Style, including:
+2 damage with both weapons when two-weapon fighting
+2 damage with missile weapons
+4 damage with 2-handed melee weapon.

So no stacking with Duelist.