D&D 5E (2014) [GUIDE] Battle On: The Fighter Guide

[Hayato]

Alert or Sentinel? Which is better pick for a level 14 STR Samurai?

 

[FrogReaver]

Alert or Sentinel? Which is better pick for a level 14 STR Samurai?

Do you usually start close enough to enemies to move to them and attack on turn 1?

Do enemies already target you instead of your allies most the time?

 

[Hayato]

Do you usually start close enough to enemies to move to them and attack on turn 1?

Do enemies already target you instead of your allies most the time?

We usually start at close combat. What's make me want pick sentinel was when I saw a fighter making a flying enemy don't fly away because opportunity attack.

 

[strateg]

Press F to pay respects for Shield Master
https://mobile.twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/995016512497840134

 

[Gladius Legis]

Followed by a "U"

... yeah, that change is utter horsecrap.

 

[FullCaster]

Press F to pay respects for Shield Master
https://mobile.twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/995016512497840134

F

That change sucks balls.

 

[Neckchopper]

This is a great guide and answered a lot of questions I had, especially about cavalier and the sentinel feat.

 

[Neckchopper]

I'm looking to go cavalier, I'm human variant 17 STR, great weapon fighter, Polearm Master, looking to take Sentinel at Lv 4. Is that build redundant with the Cavalier's abilities?
Obviously, I'll be looking to Max STR and take GWM.

 

[niklinna]

V. Feats

Sentinel: Reminiscent of the 4e Fighter’s two main defender abilities, this one can make you very hard to escape. It’s especially deadly (and mandatory) in the hands of the melee Battle Master, who should’ve picked the Riposte maneuver as soon as it was available, all but guaranteeing an extra reaction attack against an enemy. If the Marking rule (DMG p. 271) is in effect, this becomes even better, and at Lv. 11 you get to mark more enemies than any other class. This also has fantastic synergy with Polearm Master, letting you stop enemies at reach with OAs. (Obviously, ranged Fighters ignore this one).

Sentinel is based on opportunity attacks and says nothing about "extra reaction attacks", and Riposte does not say the riposte attack is an opportunity attack.

Is an extra reaction attack the same thing as an opportunity attack?

 

[niklinna]

I'm creating my first fighter, a mountain dwarf great weapon battle master, beginning at level 3. I chose menacing attack, precision attack, and riposte for maneuvers, and have rolled up this set of abilities (racial mods applied):

STR 18, DEX 13, CON 17
INT 11, WIS 12, CHA 10

Since I was lucky to get a starting STR of 18, I might go for feats early on. I'm currently debating between Polearm Master and Great Weapon Master, maybe will do both to level 6, but Sentinel is also attractive due to unstable party composition. I'm playing in a campaign where we have two separate parties that often swap characters in and out based on player availability, so there's no fixed party composition to base choices on. Casters and skirmishers are overrpresented; we have a regular cleric in one group, and a barbarian and a paladin who sometimes show up.

On the other hand, again with STR already 18, I might bump DEX and CON early to even scores for better initiative, hit points, and CON saves. So that might be worth doing at level 4-6 before taking a feat. What do you think? While I generally prefer having more active options over passive benefits, these are considerable passive benefits for one ASI!

I have also noticed that the sample builds go for DEX 12 and WIS 13, so there's that to consider now. Even so, the DM hasn't thrown much in the way of WIS saves at us, so I think I can safely delay taking the feat Resilient (WIS).