D&D 5E Fixing the Champion

[AaronOfBarbaria]

So if I'm understanding correctly, the trade off for dealing less damage than every other fighter type is simplicity?

Simplicity and an extra fighting style, general boost to physical ability score aptitude, and one of the most potent survival-enhancing features in the entire game.

See, the thing is, IME the champion is miles behind the other classes, not just slightly. Dealing an extra weapon damage every twenty attacks simply doesn't come close to closing the gap. It can't.

Having your weapon attacks result in critical hits on a 19 or 20 die roll is not quite the same thing as dealing an extra weapon damage every twenty attacks... so maybe that's why things seem off to you.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

That's what I'd called evidence that you are aiming for a different power scale than 5th edition aims for.

I am actually OK with the power scale. I would be more than willing to lose some of the core features of fighter or barbarian to get there. I just know for players who really like crits, they end up doing a bunch of weird multiclassing strategies to get there. It would have been nice if all the crit expansion and features that worked well with it were siloed in one class instead of being in several. As I said, it probably is more than a subclass could handle and would either require rewrite some base classes or feats.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

What if the Champion was given the ability to add their proficiency bonus to damage rather than the improved critical? Then improved critical is left as the higher power ability when it's more relevant due to the higher number of attacks?

 

[TwoSix]

So if I'm understanding correctly, the trade off for dealing less damage than every other fighter type is simplicity?

Here's a slightly different take. The people who are primarily concerned about Champion damage are players who will make decisions about what kind of character to play based on mechanical effectiveness, which is optimizers (a group I count myself in, proudly.) That group is going to have very little crossover with the group who is looking for a simple mechanical option. Making the champion the best damage dealer would force optimizers to make the painful decision between a boring but stronger option or a complex but weaker option. What group possibly gains by forcing such a decision?

See, the thing is, IME the champion is miles behind the other classes, not just slightly. Dealing an extra weapon damage every twenty attacks simply doesn't come close to closing the gap. It can't.

I understand that there are a lot of variables, but the delta between a Champion and a BM can't be THAT high. The crit feature adds +0.35 damage per attack on average, assuming greatsword/maul. (2d6 extra, once per twenty attacks.) Maybe a bit more if you leverage some kind of sneak attack or smiting build. That's tacked onto their 10 or so average damage per hit. (Assuming 2d6+3 for a low-level melee champion). The BM gets 3 or 4 superiority dice per SR that adds +1d8 to damage, although I think the most damaging option would be to turn misses into hits for Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter aided attacks, right? Plus some of those hits might be at advantage due to various BM maneuvers. So maybe 25 extra damage or so per short rest? I would assume at least 10-12 attack rolls per short rest for a fighter, so about +2 damage per attack. So we're looking at about 12 damage per attack for a BM versus 10.35 for a Champion. BM is better, but Champion is hardly lollygagging.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So if I'm understanding correctly, the trade off for dealing less damage than every other fighter type is simplicity?

Yes. You can see that as 'rewarding' more serious players (5e doesn't have nearly the system-mastery rewards of 3.5, so gotta toss them some kind of bone, right?) or 'punishing' players for their character concept. Or, you can just accept that there are players who want simplicity and don't want optimal effectiveness. Even if you've never met any. :|

See, the thing is, IME the champion is miles behind the other classes, not just slightly. Dealing an extra weapon damage every twenty attacks simply doesn't come close to closing the gap. It can't.

Not mathematically. Maybe psychologically, it does.

Personally, I can't say I've seen a lot of Champion-Fighters played outside of Basic pregens.

 

[Chaosmancer]

We've got a champion fighter in our game, our power level is way out of whack due to the GM wanting an epic campaign but she's very, very solid. Top two or three damage dealers, depending if I count her against my insane storm sorcerer and his massive damage potential.

Never once felt like she was lagging though, actually she was the only way we survived an early fight against a hobgoblin commander (CR 6 I think) when we were lv 4.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So if I'm understanding correctly, the trade off for dealing less damage than every other fighter type is simplicity?

The part where I think you go wrong is in caring about the delta in damage (and, potentially, distorting its size). If BMs and Champions both put out the expected amount vs. monsters, the fact that BMs might do a bit more isn't something that is going to be a big deal. Trading 12 damage for a simple character is a rounding error most of the time in a game as diverse as 5e.

See, the thing is, IME the champion is miles behind the other classes, not just slightly. Dealing an extra weapon damage every twenty attacks simply doesn't come close to closing the gap. It can't.

If you want to say that the Champion can't deal enough damage, that's not the same as saying that the Champion deals less damage than the BM (or the ranger or the paladin or whatever). For evidence that the Champion doesn't deal enough damage, I'd be looking for how they compare at various levels to the expected HP values of monsters with a variety of Defensive CR's. If that's not up to snuff (including up to what, say, an abjurer or a life cleric could do), then the Champion probably has an issue.

But I think the size of the problem is probably distorted in your mind. A subclass can't usually tank a character's damage values because a subclass just isn't that big a chunk of the character's abilities. The design of the game isn't relying on a BM's extra 4d8 to make it "good enough," there's rarely a time where that 4d8 becomes the thing that determines if a character or monster gets another turn. It's not directly relevant, it's just a cherry on top of what a fighter can already do.

I don't dispute your experience, but I would dispute the universality of your experience, and pinning the problem on the subclass seems misaimed.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A subclass can't usually tank a character's damage values because a subclass just isn't that big a chunk of the character's abilities. The design of the game isn't relying on a BM's extra 4d8 to make it "good enough," It's not directly relevant, it's just a cherry on top of what a fighter can already do.

The basic fighter chassis has the multi-attacking that makes it a DPR machine. A fighter with no sub class at all would be tanking along, barely distinguishable from a Champion or Battlemaster in overall contribution to the party's victory. Apart from the EK, choice of sub-class just isn't all that impactful for a fighter. "Cherry on top" is a fair summation.

 

[Miladoon]

We've got a champion fighter in our game, our power level is way out of whack due to the GM wanting an epic campaign but she's very, very solid. Top two or three damage dealers, depending if I count her against my insane storm sorcerer and his massive damage potential.

Never once felt like she was lagging though, actually she was the only way we survived an early fight against a hobgoblin commander (CR 6 I think) when we were lv 4.

Huzzah!

But

Apparently, Elitism dictates that your trap choice would of been a much better choice had it been a BM. Shame on you.

 

[Lehrbuch]

The basic fighter chassis has the multi-attacking that makes it a DPR machine. A fighter with no sub class at all would be tanking along, barely distinguishable from a Champion or Battlemaster in overall contribution to the party's victory.

Agree. A PC with the opportunity for a good HP total, a good rate of resting HP recovery, (both due to a d10 HD), proficiency in good weapons and good armour, and (at higher levels) the extra attack feature, pretty much has everything that makes her an effective fighter in 5e.

The archetype features really just add opportunities to be slightly more effective in some circumstances, or to be equally effective but in a slightly different way. Battlemaster and Champion do offer different opportunities to modulate effectiveness. However, in-play I think that the main difference between the two archetypes is really just that the Battlemaster requires a bit more player thought to take advantage of these opportunities.

The Battlemaster can be really effective in-play if the correct circumstances do arise, and the player recognises this and responds appropriately. Equally the Battlemaster sometimes offers very little over a "no-archetype" fighter. For example, if the player has frittered away all the superiority dice in a flurry of needless but fancy footwork in a previous encounter. Or if the player is "saving" superiority dice for the next encounter.