D&D 5E Fixing the Champion

[Charles Rampant]

+1 to crit doubles the number of times that you get critical damage. Add on proficiency and the Champion can be rolling in the damage. I saw a low-level Champion using TWF, and he did more damage than the rest of the party put together, at least until he got turned to stone by a Basilisk.

I have to say that the Champion is fine. It isn't, you know, very exciting as a mechanical concept, but that is exactly the point. The class is fun, and if there is a problem within the Fighter class, it is more to do with annoying combinations between Battlemaster abilities and certain feats (trip-fighters have never been fun for me as a DM, regardless of edition).

 

[Sunseeker]

I think we can all agree that the champion archetype for the fighter is underwhelming and seems a bit nerfed compared to battlemaster and eldritch knight. So, I wanted to think of a way to make the champion just as viable an option as the other two with some homebrew. Here's what I came up with, and feel free to comment/criticize these ideas:

1. Double the crit threat range increases, so that the first one crits on 18 and the final one crits on 15.
2. For remarkable athlete, gain full proficiency bonus to all skills not already proficient in. This will make his athletics actually remarkable, instead of kinda decent.
3. Rather than picking an additional fighting style, the champion has two options at that level:
A. You can choose to gain a +1 to AC, gain DR/3 regardless of armor against all damage, including magical.
B. You can choose to gain a +1 to attack rolls and damage when wielding a melee weapon, and your force of will makes these attacks count as magical.
4. For survivor, rather than a base of 5, the base is half your fighter level.

What do you think of these changes?

To sum up my thoughts, I think the Champion is great for that guy who wants to play the really simple, really straight-forward class. The Eldritch Knight and the Battlemaster both have lots of tricks to use. Having more options doesn't always make them more powerful, at their core they open up more choice for the player which can make them stronger if you know what you're doing and play well, it can also make them weaker if you choose less optimized abilities and don't use them well.

The Champion is a great class to learn the game with and still a very strong class IMO.

 

[Xeviat]

I've run the numbers in a very simplistic excel sheet, and I think the champion is fine at level 10 and up, when they get a little lead in survivability by having +1 AC and then regeneration later. Until level 10, though, they lag behind in damage. Remember, at 3rd level, the Champion gets, at the most basic, +4d8 damage per short rest. In order for a greatsword wielding champion to do that, they'll need to get 2.16 crits more than the battle master. The battlemaster has a 5% crit chance, and the Champion has an extra +5% crit chance; they'd have to make 43.2 attacks per short rest for that damage to match up, and that's entirely ignoring the other utility of the battlemaster's extra damage. I'm not even looking at the more situational extra attack battlemaster maneuvers like Repost.

But I don't think the problem is entirely the Champion's. I think the problem is the Battlemaster starting with 4 superiority dice. The feat gives 1 superiority die. The monk starts with 1 ki point, which is arguably as useful as a superiority die until they get stunning fist (as it grants 1d4/1d6+ability attack, which can miss, unlike the superiority damage most of the time). If you compare the single target damage of the Battlemaster against the single target damage of the Eldritch Knight, or even the multitarget damage of the Eldritch Knight, the Battlemaster again looks just a little too good.

I don't think the Champion is that far behind. Again, they seem perfectly fine, if not geared for a little more defense, at level 10 and above. I think the Battlemaster should have less dice to start off with, and then they can gain them faster and end at the same point. They regain their dice after every short rest, so they could start with 1 and gain 1 again at 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

The best way to buff Champion is to ban the Expertise mechanic.

 

[GameOgre]

Hi there, I'm pretty new to dnd and the fighter is my favourite class. So far I've played with a battle master (who sadly died at level 4) and found the manoeuvres to be flexible, useful and fun. These abilities are guaranteed to influence your combat performance straight away at level 3, whereas I know I've played whole sessions without rolling a 19 or 20 to hit. As my experience of the game is only at low levels I would like the champion better if his features took effect at lower levels but obviously reduced in power, something like this;

Improved critical. 18-20 at level 9, 17-20 at level 15.

Additional fighting style. At level 7.

Survivor. At 3rd level regain 1 Hp when less than half remaining. At level 9 regain con modifier Hp.

Basically I probably won't ever get to a high enough level to unlock the champions cool abilities, +1 to crit chance between level 3 and 10 seems pretty insignificant.

The Champ is a option for those who don't need lots of things to fiddle with. For some players role playing even in combat is enough and don't need to want the extra tools of the battle Master ect..

I can assure you that Champ is a valid and equally powerful option given the random nature of dice and the game. I have seen very few games where the Champ didn't happily use his champ abilities and in fact more than once was it bordering on too many times almost overpowered!

Now with that said every game at the table is different and luck plays a big role in the archetype as well as the class in general. If the dice hate you tonight, you just flat out are not going to have a good night as a fighter. If you'r dice are on fire and the DM is looking at those dice with one eyebrow raised because the Lich King just became the Limpking, it's a good night to be a fighter.

Assuming average luck over the long haul though, the champ comes out ahead or even with the other archetypes. At least at my table.

 

[Pssthpok]

I think we can all agree that the champion archetype for the fighter is underwhelming and seems a bit nerfed compared to battlemaster and eldritch knight. So, I wanted to think of a way to make the champion just as viable an option as the other two with some homebrew. Here's what I came up with, and feel free to comment/criticize these ideas:

1. Double the crit threat range increases, so that the first one crits on 18 and the final one crits on 15.
2. For remarkable athlete, gain full proficiency bonus to all skills not already proficient in. This will make his athletics actually remarkable, instead of kinda decent.
3. Rather than picking an additional fighting style, the champion has two options at that level:
A. You can choose to gain a +1 to AC, gain DR/3 regardless of armor against all damage, including magical.
B. You can choose to gain a +1 to attack rolls and damage when wielding a melee weapon, and your force of will makes these attacks count as magical.
4. For survivor, rather than a base of 5, the base is half your fighter level.

What do you think of these changes?

100% unnecessary.

 

[Awesome Adam]

I'm going to agree with the others that feel that changes are not neccesary, and the ones proposed are excessive.

Although, I must admit I wouldn't be opposed to the crit ranges being 1 higher than they currently are.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think the only thing the champion needs is for his extra half proficiency bonus to also apply to skills he adds his proficiency bonus to. Right now it's a bit underwhelming in it's application unless you've built against the stereotype.

 

[Uller]

To make a Champion really shine, have other party members look for ways to grant advantage. Restrained, faerie fire, prone, etc.

Suddenly you're getting crits on 1 out of 5 attacks...(or better than 1 out of 4 at high level).

You can't look at any of these classes in a vacuum.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

+1 to crit doubles the number of times that you get critical damage. Add on proficiency and the Champion can be rolling in the damage. I saw a low-level Champion using TWF, and he did more damage than the rest of the party put together, at least until he got turned to stone by a Basilisk.

Er...Proficiency has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you crit. Nothing at all. And, unless I'm mistaken, Proficiency is never added to damage rolls. So I don't see why the Champion would be "rolling in the damage" in comparison to any other Fighter archetype. Critting 10% of the time instead of 5% equates to 5% bonus damage on average, but in a very "spiky" way. Maneuvers have limited numbers of uses, but work much more consistently (particularly for the best maneuver, which makes you hit more frequently, thus producing very consistent damage).

I have to say that the Champion is fine. It isn't, you know, very exciting as a mechanical concept, but that is exactly the point. The class is fun, and if there is a problem within the Fighter class, it is more to do with annoying combinations between Battlemaster abilities and certain feats (trip-fighters have never been fun for me as a DM, regardless of edition).

I understand the impulse, but I see it as misdirected. The Champion is definitely meant to have a "I don't want to think about anything mechanical" nature. But it really should've picked up some of the slack in the non-combat areas as a result. Remarkable Athlete is slightly better than getting an Artisan Tool prof, but not much...particularly when Champs would already be pretty damn good at most of those ability checks anyway. It's certainly not very "remarkable" particularly when *all* Bards get something strictly better (if you ignore the, IMO almost-meaningless, extra jump distance).

I wouldn't call the Champion a strong class. It's not a "trap option," which is a meaningful thing, but borders on damning with faint praise. It's better than the Beastmaster Ranger...which is again damning with faint praise.

I've run the numbers in a very simplistic excel sheet, and I think the champion is fine at level 10 and up, when they get a little lead in survivability by having +1 AC and then regeneration later. Until level 10, though, they lag behind in damage. Remember, at 3rd level, the Champion gets, at the most basic, +4d8 damage per short rest. In order for a greatsword wielding champion to do that, they'll need to get 2.16 crits more than the battle master. The battlemaster has a 5% crit chance, and the Champion has an extra +5% crit chance; they'd have to make 43.2 attacks per short rest for that damage to match up, and that's entirely ignoring the other utility of the battlemaster's extra damage. I'm not even looking at the more situational extra attack battlemaster maneuvers like Repost.

But I don't think the problem is entirely the Champion's. I think the problem is the Battlemaster starting with 4 superiority dice. The feat gives 1 superiority die. The monk starts with 1 ki point, which is arguably as useful as a superiority die until they get stunning fist (as it grants 1d4/1d6+ability attack, which can miss, unlike the superiority damage most of the time). If you compare the single target damage of the Battlemaster against the single target damage of the Eldritch Knight, or even the multitarget damage of the Eldritch Knight, the Battlemaster again looks just a little too good.

I don't think the Champion is that far behind. Again, they seem perfectly fine, if not geared for a little more defense, at level 10 and above. I think the Battlemaster should have less dice to start off with, and then they can gain them faster and end at the same point. They regain their dice after every short rest, so they could start with 1 and gain 1 again at 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18.

Eugh, no, don't tank the Battlemaster to bring it into line with the Champ. Particularly not by giving it ONE die per short rest to start with. You do realize that that would mean Warlocks would have more spells than Battlemasters have maneuvers until level 6, right? And that, with the assumed encounters-and-rests per day, that would mean getting to do anything other than basic attacks only ~3 times per day (probably fewer, since all the evidence I've seen points to groups being fairly short rest averse), over the course of 6-8 fights. Wow, super exciting, getting to do ONE thing every other fight, at best!

Much, much better to do a mixture of reducing the size of the die (to d6, because d4s would just be pitiful) and the number (probably to 3? That still feels scanty but perhaps it should). Expected value of 3d6 is 10.5. With three rounds per combat, six combats per day (aka, a low estimate), both Fighters should be making 18 attacks minimum, 36 at level 5. So the Battlemaster pulls slightly ahead for two levels--5e doesn't care about that sort of imbalance, just look at the Moon Druid. At level 5, you're looking at anywhere between 36 attacks (a day that favors the Battlemaster) and 8*5*2 = 80 attacks (a day that favors the Champion). Champion should expect approximately 3.5-8 crits per day; Battlemaster should expect half that, so 1.75-4. For a big weapon (since we're optimizing damage), that's either 2d6 or 1d12 times those values, so 7*(1.75) to 7*(4) = 12.25 to 28 bonus damage for the Champ, vs. a typical top-end of 3*3*3.5 = 31.5 extra damage for the Battlemaster's maneuver dice and a typical low-end of 1*3*3.5 = 10.5 extra damage.

So, if the BM gets more than 1 rest per 2 encounters, it'll pull ahead slightly, given the above changes. If it gets less than 1 rest per 2 encounters, it'll fall behind. Completely within 5e's acceptable "balance" range. Not that I think 5e actually cares that much about balance of this kind (again, looking at the Moon Druid).

If you're still really worried about the Battlemaster pulling ahead of the Champion, just have it deal +1 extra damage per crit. Originally I was going to suggest adding half proficiency, but that got wonky at max level (four attacks per round plus tripled crit range leads to LOTS of crits). That one extra damage piles up after a while (a max-level Champion can expect around 18 crits per day), and at the low levels it's enough to boost the Champ to be on par with, or even exceed, the Battlemaster. Who also has to worry about whether or not he gets two rests per day--and most of the evidence I've seen suggests the majority of them will be under-rested.