D&D 5E Have we rebalanced the Champion Yet?

[Paul Farquhar]

Yes, that calculation was done.

The other one is the BM who manages to get a riptose strike for every die. So 4 extra attacks (and 4.5 damage per hit on them) per short rest.

We could also balance the half-orc champion for +1.2 damage per hit.

At 4 rounds/combat and 3 combats/rest that is 12 rounds for the champion for 7.6 damage per short rest over subclassless fighter, compared to 18 for the simplest BM.

I'm not entirely sure this is correct. Or indeed that a half orc with a greataxe is the best option for champion. The Great Weapon Fighting style is the only style that is multiplied by critical hits, but gives a bigger bonus for 2H sword - a poor choice for a half orc. My calcs estimate 8.75 damage per hit for a 2H with GWF (including crits but not including ability score bonus). This rises to 9.17 for the champion.

Now, that doesn't take AC into account - I think most people are aware that as the roll required to hit the target gets higher, the proportion of hits that are crits increases (avoiding this was why 3rd edition had it's fiddly "confirm a critical" roll). Indeed a champion rolling a 19 doesn't just covert a hit into a crit, it can potentially convert a miss into a crit. Although situations where a 19 would be a miss are very infrequent in 5e.

The riposte-BM gets 4 attacks for 37.1 to 42.6.

The battlemaster rewards skilled play. That's the point. It's like a wizard. The wizard is awesome if they choose the right spell. But if they Fireball a demon they suck.

Thank you for finally acknowledging that the break-even point is way up there.

I never denied it. My point is, there is no reason why a player who cares about such things would choose to play a champion, so it doesn't matter. Battlemaster = generic fighting person. Champion = generic fighting person. Choose the one that suits you best.

Feats are optional. The classes are supposed to be balanced in a featless environment.

"Supossed to be" doesn't make it true. And it quite clearly isn't. For it to be true all classes would have to have get same number of ASIs, which they don't.

Increasing a classes primary stat is better than increasing a secondary stat. Fighters increase strength before constitution. Thus ASI (primary) is worth more than ASI (secondary).

Feats are balanced to be equivalent to an ASI (Primary). Once a character has hit the cap in their primary ability - normally after two ASIs, choosing a feat is flat out better. This occurs at level 8 for a fighter but not until level 12 for most other classes.

If Alice wants a simple fighter and plays a champion, and Bob wants a tactical fighter and plays a battlemaster, there's nothing stopping Alice from noticing, "Hey, on 90-95% of my attacks, I flat-out deal less damage than Bob."

I feel you haven't met many "Alices". The point is Alice doesn't care. Alice is more interested in court politics.
(Alice might get quite excited if she gets a critical hit though - crits are fun, even when combat is generally a chore to be endured before the next role play encounter).

 

[TheCosmicKid]

"Supossed to be" doesn't make it true. And it quite clearly isn't. For it to be true all classes would have to have get same number of ASIs, which they don't.

Increasing a classes primary stat is better than increasing a secondary stat. Fighters increase strength before constitution. Thus ASI (primary) is worth more than ASI (secondary).

Feats are balanced to be equivalent to an ASI (Primary). Once a character has hit the cap in their primary ability - normally after two ASIs, choosing a feat is flat out better. This occurs at level 8 for a fighter but not until level 12 for most other classes.

You continue to argue in defense of this subclass supposedly for new/inexperienced/apathetic players using optimization logic and optional rules for character decision points. Are the experienced players, who are not responsible for reminding the newbie to use their class features, responsible for building the entire character for them? (And then reminding them to use the features of GWM?)

I feel you haven't met many "Alices". The point is Alice doesn't care. Alice is more interested in court politics.
(Alice might get quite excited if she gets a critical hit though - crits are fun, even when combat is generally a chore to be endured before the next role play encounter).

What if Alice does care? Who are you to say that she doesn't? What if she's not interested in court politics, but just wants to charge in and kill stuff, and is fully capable of noticing when her character isn't doing that as effectively as others? You keep telling us that the champion is for a very specific kind of player at a very specific kind of table -- why should that be? There are a lot more different kinds of player out there. There are a lot more different playstyles out there. And if the champion were better balanced, it could serve those other players and playstyles too, without diminishing the one use that you are advocating for it. After all, if Alice doesn't care, it's not like she's going to object if she's dealing more damage.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What if Alice does care?

"Alice" is a name chosen (not by me) to refer specifically to a player who does not care about combat. Note that "Alice" is just as likely to be male as female. They are role players. Note that in our D&D sessions, only about 1/3 of the time is spent in combat, 2/3 is spent in role play activities. My players tend to go out of their way to find non-combat solutions to obstacles.

And if the champion were better balanced, it could serve those other players and playstyles too

How, when they can just play a battlemaster? There is nothing in the champion can do that a battlemaster cannot, other than serve as training wheels or allow combat passivity. Buffing the chamipon can only have two effects:

1) Increasing complexity, forcing a player to engage with combat when they don't want to.

2) Frustrate battlemasters, who, for all their tactical acumen, struggle to keep up with someone who does nothing but stand around hitting things with a sword.


If you want to design a new fighter subclass, that's fine, but you need to think of a flavour other than vanilla.

 

[FrogReaver]

2) Frustrate battlemasters, who, for all their tactical acumen, struggle to keep up with someone who does nothing but stand around hitting things with a sword.

And here we have the real issue...

 

[FrogReaver]

1) Increasing complexity, forcing a player to engage with combat when they don't want to.

Adding damage to a champion isn't increasing complexity. Or if it is then it's be a miniscule amount that is for all intents and purposes meaningless.

Champions already engage with combat. None of these abilities would require more engagement than already must be used when playing a champions

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes, that calculation was done.

The other one is the BM who manages to get a riptose strike for every die. So 4 extra attacks (and 4.5 damage per hit on them) per short rest.

We could also balance the half-orc champion for +1.2 damage per hit.

At 4 rounds/combat and 3 combats/rest that is 12 rounds for the champion for 7.6 damage per short rest over subclassless fighter, compared to 18 for the simplest BM.

Assuming 16-18 stat and 2d6 weapon and attacking 14 AC at level 3-5, each attack is +5or+6 for 2d6+3or4 (10/11). Each attack is worth .05*7 + .6or.65*10or11 = 6.35 or 7.5 damage. Extra dice on it are worth .65 or .7 times die size, or +2.925 or +3.15. So the BM riposte is worth 9.275 to 10.65 damage for a die.

The riposte-BM gets 4 attacks for 37.1 to 42.6.

At level 20, you have 6 (and maybe) more dice per short rest. You might be using a flaming greatsword for 4d6+5 damage. Enemy AC is going to be 18ish, while your attack is +11. So an extra attack is 4d6+5+1d12 or 25.5 damage and +20.5 on crit, for 70% accuracy and 5% crit or 18.875 damage times 6 is 113.25 damage per short rest (plus some extra if you activate Relentless, but that is dangerous).

The level 3-4 champion is getting 7.6 damage. The level 20 champion with a flametongue and some source of perma-advantage is getting .177 * 14 * (4 * (3*4 + 2)) = 138.768 damage, without .1 * 14 * (4 * (3*4 + 2)) = 78.4 damage. But I didn't include advantage in my calcuation of the riposte-BM.

Riposte-BM has 1.44x damage at level 20 and 4.88x extra damage at level 3. Again, the gap is much much larger at level 3 in scale terms. In absolute terms, it is actually pretty flat: 29.5 damage vs 34.85 at level 20.

In terms of swings, it is 4.6 swings/rest gap at level 3 and 2.4 swings gap at level 20.

A Flaming sword with advanage and GWM against an AC of 18 is .75 hit, .1 crit for 35.5 on a hit and +20.5 on a crit, so 28.675 per swing, a 1.52x scale on the extra damage on a BM. The Champion's extra damage scales by 1.77x in comparison. The gap falls to 33.37 damage in favor of the BM with perma-advantage and GWM, but this is only like one and a half swings.

Gaining an extra attack on an action surge gives more swings at 20 than at 3, so it leans the wrong way. Getting more swings on a second wind is the same number of swings per rest. Damage per hit gives more than 4x the damage at 20 than at 3, so also is a poor fit.

Damage on crit is like 6x larger at 20 than at 3, so that is also a bad place to put power (worse than damage per hit).

Per-Hit damage: 4.3x as much damage at 20 than 3 (gap mostly unchanged with advantage)
Per-Crit damage: 6.5x as much damage at 20 than 3 (gap larger with advantage)
Extra Swings: 2.3x as much damage at 20 than 3 (gap larger with advantage).
Extra Swings on AS: 4.5x as much damage at 20 than 3.
Damage Gap needed to fill: 30 at level 3, 35 at level 20.

We could aim for the gap to be on average closed at 3 and 20 -- be under at 3, and equally over at 20. To make this as small as possible, that is extra swings.

Our overall target is +32.5 damage. Swings are worth an average of (6.35 + 18.55)/2 = 12.45 (without features, using typical stats/weapons). 32.5/12.45 is 2.61 extra swings per short rest.

That is pretty close to 1 extra swing per encounter.

We want to keep this simple. And I want to avoid this scaling insanely with multiclassing. So how about:

Action Hero
Starting at 3rd level, a Champion can make a weapon attack as a bonus action on the first turn of combat. It they qualify for the Two Weapon Fighting bonus action attack, they may instead make up to two weapon attacks as a bonus action, but no more than 1 with each weapon.

I think that is easy to remember and doesn't require tracking resources, so should be suitable for a Champion.

I don't mind the direction. I think some of your assumptions were a bit extreme +2d6 flaming sword for example. That clouds the balance point pretty significantly.

I don't think it's quite fair to look at riposte in terms of overall damage and then balance by giving the champion a frontloaded damage source for that amount of damage as riposte is not front loaded. Damage Now > Damage Later. This is also the issue with comparing with precision manuever.

 

[FrogReaver]

Instead of giving an attack at start of combat what if you grant +2 Attacks when using 2nd wind?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

"Alice" is a name chosen (not by me) to refer specifically to a player who does not care about combat. Note that "Alice" is just as likely to be male as female.

You are wrong about whom the name was chosen specifically to refer to. I can say this with certainty: I'm the one who chose it. My exact words were, and you can go back and check this, "Alice wants a simple fighter". I did not specify why, because there are lots of possible reasons why, and Alice could have any of them. There may be some Alices who want a simple fighter and not care about how strong it is. There may be some Alices who want a simple fighter and do care about how strong it is. All -- I repeat, all -- that defines "Alice" is that she wants a simple fighter. And you can't seem to separate this one wish from a whole host of other assumptions about Alice's intentions and desires and playstyle, which is exactly the problem I was pointing out when I brought her up in the first place.

How, when they can just play a battlemaster?

Because they want a simple fighter. And you've been telling me for pages and pages now that the battlemaster isn't that.

There is nothing in the champion can do that a battlemaster cannot, other than serve as training wheels or allow combat passivity. Buffing the chamipon can only have two effects:

1) Increasing complexity, forcing a player to engage with combat when they don't want to.

2) Frustrate battlemasters, who, for all their tactical acumen, struggle to keep up with someone who does nothing but stand around hitting things with a sword.

A battlemaster player has signed up for the "you have to play well to get full effectiveness" class. Yes, a battlemaster absolutely should be able to exceed a champion with good play. But they should not exceed a champion even with mediocre play. To assign some arbitrary numbers to this, say the battlemaster's effectiveness ranges between a 5 and a 10 depending on skill (assuming good-faith play -- no "doesn't roll superiority dice at all" strawmen). Currently the champion is at about a 4. It should be more like a 7. If the battlemaster player can't achieve a 7 and complains about it... git gud, scrub.

As for complexity... I'm not aware that I've made a single proposal to increase the champion's complexity. The closest such proposal I can think of is your suggestion that champions take Great Weapon Master.

If you want to design a new fighter subclass, that's fine, but you need to think of a flavour other than vanilla.

It is very strange to assert that the vanilla fighter subclass which exists should only be played by inexperienced players who don't want to engage with combat, and also insist that no other vanilla fighter is allowed to exist. Neither claim seems like very good game design to me, but they are especially atrocious when taken together.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Adding damage to a champion isn't increasing complexity.

As I keep trying to explain, if you increase damage without increasing complexity it is a de facto nerf to battlemaster, who has to use his brain both in selecting maneuverers and using them to maximum effect.

It's like designing a wizard subclass with this power: "You automatically select the best spell for the situation".

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It is very strange to assert that the vanilla fighter subclass which exists should only be played by inexperienced players who don't want to engage with combat, and also insist that no other vanilla fighter is allowed to exist.

The game has THREE vanilla fighters already: Battlemaster, Champion and Samurai.