D&D 5E Give me ideas for a really simple boost to martial characters [2014]

[Peter BOSCO'S]

Add PB to damage for Martials (only), and maybe only once per turn, depending on how much of a boost you want. Combine this with your cleave through idea above, so that they will be doing more damage and will have enough damage left over to cleave through more often.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Honestly, I'd give Battle Master Maneuvers & superiority dice to all martials. Be a Champion who crits on a 19 while using a maneuver and double the superiority damage dice.

If someone wanted to be a Battle Expert, give them twice as many superiority dice that are 1 size larger. (E.g. 8x d10 at 3rd level, 10x d12 at 10th, 12x 2d8 at 18th).

 

[Sword of Spirit]

What is your revision to concentration that you are considering? It's hard to suggest something on par with an unknown

Cleaving Through Creatures is a really weak buff because it's so situational. How often are two enemies ever standing next to each other? Basically never. For this to do anything, you not only need them to be standing next to each other but also you need to kill one. This rule will come up so rarely that it isn't even worth adding

I like the suggestion above from J-H about magic items, that helps everyone but preferentially helps martials.

I'm still analyzing concentration spells, so I can't say for sure. Most likely, I will have two types of concentration. One of them will prohibit concentrating on other spells, and the other will allow you to concentrate on more than one spell. If you are concentrating on more than one spell and fail a concentration save the spell with the shortest remaining duration breaks, and you roll again for the one with the next shortest duration. If you succeed on a concentration save, you stop rolling for that instance of damage. But that's still up in the air. NPC/Monster spellcasters will use the same rules.

We have monsters standing next to each other all the time because I like hordes of enemies. Both because of the action economy of 5e, as well as personal preference, I find small numbers of enemies boring. So I expect the cleaving thing to happen quite often, especially removing the need for the target to be undamaged. It would also come up when monsters knock out PCs, which won't have as much of an overall effect, but should be a bit scary.

For magic item attunement, I posted this a day or two ago: Designing My New Rules of Atunement.

 

[Horwath]

Give every martial battlemaster maneuvers.

d6 dice and stays d6, larger are for Battlemaster subclass and OFC more of them.

4 dice at 1st level, 6 at 5th, 8 at 9th, 10 at 13th and 12 at 17th
same number of maneuvers known.

every martial gets extra fighting style at 1st level.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Replace weapon Mastery for

• lvl3: + scaling proficiency die to damage with selected weapons. At 6th level, the damage of the mastered weapons ignore any resistance.
• lvl9: Quick Attack; Sacrifice Advantage to make one more attack.
• lvl 15: Fighter Saves; gain proficiency with all saves, a roll of 20+ on a Death Save counts as a natural 20.

 

[Voadam]

Martials (or everybody) can make opportunity attacks against casters.

Martials get once per short rest after the fact advantage on saves and/or skills. Alternatively always get advantage on saves.

Choice of 4e essentials defender aura (attack me or provoke opportunity attack) or a 4e style striker +1d6 on damage. (Another option is a 4e leadership reaction to give an ally advantage on an attack or to allow an ally to spend HD).

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Thanks for those ideas for character options. I sometimes make "half-feats" which only cost a +1 to one stat to get, which makes a good resource to opt-in to those sorts of ideas.

How about some more general ideas that would work for all non-magical combat without requiring choosing features? Something like an overall really simple rule addition that would apply to the attacks of not just PCs who meet certain qualifications, but also the weapon attacks of every NPC orc, ogre, and goblin.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

How about some more general ideas that would work for all non-magical combat without requiring choosing features? Something like an overall really simple rule addition that would apply to the attacks of not just PCs who meet certain qualifications, but also the weapon attacks of every NPC orc, ogre, and goblin.

here's one i've thought about - creatures with multiple attacks can dash, escape a grapple, or disengage in place of any number of attacks. so a level 11 fighter could disengage, dash, and make an attack all as an action using extra attack, for example.

you'd probably need to look at rogue and monk if you wanted to do that, and it might be busted on monsters, but it's an idea i've considered myself.

 

[ezo]

One thing we've used as a house-rule I always liked was consistant attack. A martial (Fighter in this case) can make one weapon attack as a bonus action when they take any action other than the Attack action.

Another is specialization: choose one weapon. Add half your proficiency bonus to attacks (round up) and half your proficiency bonus to damage (round down).

So, it looks like this:
PB +2 = +1/+1
PB +3 = +2/+1
PB +4 = +2/+2
PB +5 = +3/+2
PB +6 = +3/+3

 

[FrozenNorth]

I’ve incorporated a couple:

• Martial characters increase the die size of the weapons they use by one size;
• Martial characters get expertise in one skill (Athletics or History for Fighters, Athletics or Nature for Barbarians, Religion or Insight for Monks).
• Proficiency in one additional saving throw.