D&D 5E Fixing the Champion

[hejtmane]

Yep, people often forget that it's perfectly normal for a player to spend one session rolling kinda so-so, the next rolling so badly that their d20 may as well have been a d8, and the next after that pulling off stuff like critting on all 3 attacks they get to make, not rolling less than 18 on the die for initiative for the whole session, and getting nearly maximum damage on more than half of their attacks.

Oddly, it seems more common that folks forgetting that are the ones that are more interested in the numbers part of the game, which makes it a bit ironic in my opinion.

I seen a lot less crits in 5e then my D&D and AD&D 1e days but then the # of attacks they swing are down with the current combat system. By no means does it bother me and has not bothered the players (all young guys). Now what i seen from acutal play was the guy wanted twf and went champion and by level 7 he was not really out pacing any of the other melee in crits even with the extra attacks from twf and the champion 19-20. He never complained he was happy and content because they are more rp focus group and his damage was fine and he contributed just fine as a player. This is just what i seen from actual play so far and all the characters started level 1 and have made it to 8 so far. The plan is to go all the way to 20 as a group.

 

[krakistophales]

In the case of the Champion, it doesn't - at least not to an actually significant degree.

Not that I'll ever agree with you that 2 or 3 times as likely to score a critical hit isn't going to result in seeing an appreciable amount of crits compared to everyone else... but, are you aware of the critical chance you saying that a champion needs once advantage comes into play?

Advantage and criticals on an 18+ is a 27.75% chance of a critical hit. Nearly 1/3.
Advantage and criticals on a 16+ is a 43.75% chance of a critical. Nearly 1/2.

That's not just making the champion the "crit meister" class - it's making the champion a shoe-in for king of the dpr prom.

I understand that advantage skews the results a bit, but honestly, how often is the fighter getting advantage on his attacks? I was playing a champion to level 8 and I can remember maybe once in the entire campaign that I rolled with advantage for any of my attacks. Meanwhile, the barbarian was rolling with advantage on each of his first attacks, and with a wolf totem down the line, can roll with advantage on both attacks. And he gets brutal critical up to 6d12 or 8d6 depending on the weapon, albeit on a natural 20.

I have no problem taking away the increased crit chance, and making 5th edition a no expanded crit zone. Then give the champion proficiency bonus to damage as a flat ability. At 3rd level, this equals to a +5 damage assuming maximized strength, as opposed to a +3. At maximum levels, assuming no magical weapon, that translates to a +11 to damage. If you go with my idea of a "deadly critical" concept and allow maximized dice and double static damage on a nat 20 crit, that becomes 24+22, so 46 damage at 20th level on a natural 20. OP? I don't think so. Powerful enough to scale nicely alongside BM and EK? I think so.

 

[TwoSix]

Yep, people often forget that it's perfectly normal for a player to spend one session rolling kinda so-so, the next rolling so badly that their d20 may as well have been a d8, and the next after that pulling off stuff like critting on all 3 attacks they get to make, not rolling less than 18 on the die for initiative for the whole session, and getting nearly maximum damage on more than half of their attacks.

Oddly, it seems more common that folks forgetting that are the ones that are more interested in the numbers part of the game, which makes it a bit ironic in my opinion.

Knowing the game comes down to playing the odds makes me want to put them more in my favor, not less.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I saw a great idea on here that someone said that the champion could simply add his proficiency bonus to damage.
Then, instead of the 2nd crit expansion, give them something like when they crit, they deal maximum damage and they would be the only archetype that doubles static damage on a crit. This would make the champion actually worth it I believe.

Maybe by the numbers. It is a class meant to appeal to a certain player psychology, though, and IMHO/X that psychology like rolling dice, big handfulls of them, more than it like doing arithmetic.

So, maybe roll triple damage dice on a crit instead of double, or have 'extra crit dice' based on levels of Champion you have?

That, and I don't know why people would cry about remarkable athlete allowing a full proficiency bonus. So what that the fighter has a handful of physical skills on par with expertise? A "remarkable" athlete should.

Nod, even if Remarkable Athlete lived up to it's name, it'd still be far from broken.

No, I'm convinced. I hadn't considered that angle before. I wonder if it wouldn't be good advice to steal the champion towards two weapon fighting or pole arm mastery plus perhaps a Sentinal feat as well. The goal would be to jack up the number of attacks in order to trigger that crit. While individual attacks might be weaker, the volume would make up for it.

'Crit Fishing,' yes.

It is kind of a shame though that sword and board champions, particularly in a group that is not interested in generating advantage on a regular basis, will still likely lag pretty badly vs other fighter archetypes. One that has a Druid liberally using faerie fire would be fine but without a helping hand from another PC, the champion really can give very lacklustre results.

Even the simplest of intentionally-simple choices presented can be optimized in some way. Leaving that optimization in the hands of other characters, like that hypothetical druid, might not even be a bad idea. The simple player isn't bothered with optimizing, but his character ends up effective, anyway.

You know, it's always annoyed me that Fighters get a fourth attack...at level 20. Because then everyone uses 4 attacks as the benchmark for how much damage a Fighter can do, even though 3 attacks is the most that the vast majority of Fighters will ever see, and a good portion won't even see that.

The fighter getting 'the most attacks' is more a function of Action Surge. Multiple classes keep up with them through the most-played levels. In 1e, the fighter, paladin and ranger all got multiple attacks, for instance, but the fighter's progression was faster. If the fighter gets his first extra attack at 5th, the ranger should maybe get his at 6th, the paladin at 8th and the Bladesinger, Valor Bard & War Cleric get their only extra attack (IIRC, they get an extra attack at 5th, only, now?) at 11th.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Any given randomly-selected session, however, should have results that follow the expected distribution of the d20, aka uniform within some margin of error.

The margin of error can be quite extreme, given that a particular session is a very small sample size and thus not actually very likely to represent the norm - I mean, I just popped over to a batch dice rolling website and had it roll 20d20 for me, which I find to be a believable number of d20 rolls made by a single player in a 4 hour session of D&D (give or take time spent on non-game activities like laughing, sharing tales of life over the last week, and so forth). The results are nearly spot on with the statistically expected average, since the 20 rolls average to 10.55... but the 5th, 9th, and 16th rolls were natural 20s (and the 12th roll was a 19, so I might have scored four critical hits in the session depending on if those particular rolls happened to be attack rolls or not and I was playing a Champion).

And it is the gambler's fallacy to assume that a session of bad rolls must be "made up for" by a session of good rolls down the line, or vice-versa.

If you think I comitted the gambler's fallacy, you didn't read me correctly - I didn't say that rolling badly one session gets made up for down the line; I said any particular session could trend low, could trend high, or could manage to trend right along the expected statistical values, and people forget that when they assume trending along the expected values is the only possible outcome.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I seen a lot less crits in 5e then my D&D and AD&D 1e days...

I saw zero crits in my AD&D days, but then that's because crits were an optional rule back then and my players at the time didn't want to add "maybe the monsters do even more damage" to the game when their characters had so few hit points.

Counter-anecdotes aside, I'm glad to see your aiming for 20 instead of some early cut-off like I've seen other folks aim for.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I understand that advantage skews the results a bit, but honestly, how often is the fighter getting advantage on his attacks?

In my play experience? Basically any time he wants it, because players tend to work as a team and there are all kinds of ways a team of characters can get the fighter, and potentially more of the party too, advantage.

Last champion I saw in play was alongside a barbarian that decided to take the wolf option at 3rd level (so as many times as the barbarian could rage the entire party could get advantage on attacks if they wanted it), and a cleric (guiding bolt, though that doesn't apply to more than one attack), and another caster with faerie fire, plus a familiar that could do a help action if somebody really needed advantage right then.

Meanwhile, the barbarian was rolling with advantage on each of his first attacks, and with a wolf totem down the line, can roll with advantage on both attacks. And he gets brutal critical up to 6d12 or 8d6 depending on the weapon, albeit on a natural 20.

Misquoting the rules is no way to convince me of your position. Reckless attack isn't limited to just the barbarian's first attack, the wolf totem feature you mention benefits not just the barbarian, and barbarians aren't inherently half-orcs so adding the extra die to criticals that only half-orcs get isn't fair comparison.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Knowing the game comes down to playing the odds makes me want to put them more in my favor, not less.

I'm not seeing how your reply has anything to do with my post that you quoted.

 

[hejtmane]

I saw zero crits in my AD&D days, but then that's because crits were an optional rule back then and my players at the time didn't want to add "maybe the monsters do even more damage" to the game when their characters had so few hit points.

Counter-anecdotes aside, I'm glad to see your aiming for 20 instead of some early cut-off like I've seen other folks aim for.

More fun to play high levels how else you going to fight an ancient dragon

Like I said my Champion has not complained he is happy hey and when he gets a crit he like yea. I think the % are what you expected them to be from what I seen; with the # of attack rolls are not like the old days (no complaints from me for darn sure as dm)

I am still of the opinion that regen should have been level 10

 

[Hawk Diesel]

What an odd notion. How does one come to the opinion that the BM abilities do not also require chance? They are called superiority dice, after all. Many require that you first score a successful hit before you can even hope to use them. Others allow the opponent a save to resist. Others still may prove underwhelming or fail to achieve the desired result. All because of chance.

Look. I've played a battlemaster. I've experienced sessions where my superiority dice provided little to no noticeable help. Regardless of how hard I efforted to the contrary. Other times they've been a godsend. Just like I've seen multiple champions in play and some nights they underperformed. Other sessions I've seen them go on sick tears mopping the floor with our adversaries.

Yes, the Battlemaster does rely on superiority dice and many of his abilities will add the number depending on the dice rolled. However, the Battlemaster will always add at least a +1 to whatever maneuver they may be using (often to either the attack roll or damage roll, but sometimes to their AC). But in addition to this bonus, most maneuvers also provide an additional effect. This might include making an additional attack, disarming the opponent, providing temp HP... the list goes on. Not all of these effects even rely on or require the superiority dice to be rolled.

Additionally, yes, I grant you that some of these abilities rely the battlemaster to first successfully strike the opponent (not all maneuvers, but some). However, it is much more likely that a battlemaster will hit an opponent (by a lot) than for a champion to score a critical hit.

I do not argue that the battlemaster does not have an element of chance in the usage of his maneuvers. However, the battlemaster does not solely rely on chance to activate his abilities, and his abilities have a greater chance of being meaningful or coming into play when they are used. The battlemaster has far greater agency in his abilities. Yes, some abilities require you to hit (more likely to happen than crit). Some abilities allow a saving throw (once again, more likely that an opponent fails than a champion crits). The champion's abilities, however, are completely based off of chance. And this doesn't even bring into consideration how the Eldritch Knight's abilities compare in terms of strategic employment and ability to use them based on agency over statistic variance.

Basically, a battlemaster and eldritch knight can at least try to do cool things, and even when they don't work there is often something different that happens or is added to the combat. The Champion may not ever notice his abilities because of how strongly tied they are to a single statistical