D&D 5E is it a big deal? Battle master fighter and Human variant...

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

Ok, so I run in an odd crowd. I am currently playing in a Mutants and Master minds game, a modified 1e game (might as well call it a complete homebrew game with all the mods they made) and a 5e game. The other night though a mixed group of us started talking about the 5e game. The people talking have all played D&D and at least read 5e... however only 2 of the 7 of us (me and my 5e DM) have played more then a single stand alone in the 5e game.

So my DM thinks that the champion fighter is for chumps (please don't jump on me his words), and that battle master is what fighters should have been at base. (I take a slightly more neutral stance thinking if the champion fighter and the battle master fighter were 2 different base classes it would have been better.)

So while we talked about the game his thoughts came out a few times, but then he said something that surprised me... he hates the human variant (Basically the 3.5 human bonus feat and skill) and the example he kept using was "Why can a human rogue take a feat to get a maneuver die and 2 maneuvers two levels before the elven battle master can, when that is like the main stick of the battle master"

now he did sight other examples, just not as venomously. The spell training feat, and some feats that give +1 to a stat came up also... one of our other friends pointed out that +2 to your main stat is better then +1 to every stat, and those feats that give +1 stack with the 2 floating +1s humans have...plus the rest of the feat.

So this discussion got much more heated then I thought... and the two main bits (even from people who never played the system at all, just read it) was between the battle master and the human variant. Are those two things a big deal in other circles?

 

[ccs]

So while we talked about the game his thoughts came out a few times, but then he said something that surprised me... he hates the human variant (Basically the 3.5 human bonus feat and skill) and the example he kept using was "Why can a human rogue take a feat to get a maneuver die and 2 maneuvers two levels before the elven battle master can, when that is like the main stick of the battle master"

Because the rogues a Variant Human, not an Elf. That IS the reason. Doesn't matter what class is involved. Heck, it could be a variant human fighter picking the feat, getting stuff early, and still becoming a battlemaster....

The human "advantage" has always been skill. AD&D humans were the only race that had no lv caps due to race.
3.x humans get a feat + skill.
4e humans = ?
5e gives us the Variant Human.

Besides, both Variant Human & feats are optional rules. If you combine enough optional rules you may find some combo you dislike....

In answer to your last question; No, nobody I play 5e with particularly cares about any Variant Human vrs Battle-master issue.
And if you brought it up to them they'd just shrug & tell you that well, each option has it's own merits/flaws. You choose to be an Elf to gain advantages xyz & be elvish. If you want to start with a bonus feat? Then you'll have to pick variant human*....


*Standing offer: You could always bribe me (the DM) & I'll let anybody have a bonus feat at 1st lv. I accept pizza. The variant human players? They get the feat without the bribe.
(our current game has 2 wood elves, 2 1/2elves, 1 variant human, 1 earth genisia, & 1 tiefling. Nobody bribed me )

 

[Prism]

I am playing two human characters, one variant one standard. At higher levels there doesn't seem much difference. One has slightly better stats and the other an extra skill

One of these humans is a champion and I also have an elf battlemaster. They play differently but both seem effective

 

[Awesome Adam]

Are those two things a big deal in other circles?

No.

Not only is he being OCD about it, but that feat is pretty much crap for anyone other than a Battle Master.

It's like complaining that a Variant Human can take Magic Initiate and get spells before an Eldritch Knight.

 

[Shiroiken]

One of the solutions to this, is to start at level 3. I dislike the fact that some classes get their theme/subclass before others, so I've consciously decided to never start a campaign before level 3. If someone multi-classes so they don't have a theme/sub-class, their multi-class IS their theme.

As to your friend's concern, I've not seen it... or anything like it elsewhere. Everything in 5E pretty much comes with an opportunity cost: you human can take Battlemaster early, but the elf has darkvision, weapon training, trance, subrace benefits, etc.

Also, the Fighter is the base class... Champion and Battlemaster (and Eldritch Knight) are simply variable benefits (or themes, as I refer to them). They still possess at their core the same overall benefits: lots of Extra Attacks and Ability Score Increases. The point of the themes/sub-classes is to allow a wide variety of options without a glut of classes (which was a problem in previous editions).

 

[Chaosmancer]

I've never heard anyone complain about the variant human getting a feat. Heck, it takes me a second to remember that it is a variant since every group I know of prefers getting a skill and a feat early on. I can't think of a single normal human PC in any game I've played in.

Same sort of deal with the Battlemaster, though I've only seen one Fighter PC (and she chose champion), and I have heard of a few people wishing they'd get the opportunity to play a Battlemaster

 

[Endur]

Variant human is over-powered in low level groups, but as another poster pointed out, once you are level 4 or above, and other characters have access to feats, it is not as big of a deal.

 

[Illithidbix]

(In my actual play circle, I doubt anyone would care, I'm the person who likes to theorycraft and discuss rules and their consequences the most, which explains why I'm the one debating such things on Enworld.)

The great Battlemaster > Champion debate
(This does come up fairly regularly here and rpg.net, e.g.the Fixing the Champion thread)

Generally it's agreed that the Battlemaster is better, but to me the classes are designed for different things.
The Champion is the simplest class in the game, and is there for people who want an easy character to play who can hit things and take punishment. It really just has Second Wind and Action Surge as class abilities you need to remember to use (and indomitable at higher levels)
There is a reason it's in the Basic Rules as the default fighter choice.

I believe the Battlemaster is intended to appeal to people who want more tactical choice and control in their combat, whilst the Champion is for the player who doesn't want to deal with that burden of choice.

People accuse the Champion of being a "trap" option and that even if you just semi intelligently make sure you remember to spend your Superiority Dice spamming Distracting Strike (or similar) then Battlemaster is outright statically better in dealing damage.
- I can believe this might well be true.

BUT I haven't heard anyone who's played a champion complain that they actually felt they were weak.
And fundamentally a character will always be more powerful in the hands of someone who knows and wants to optimise them and understands the rules to use them tactically.

I personally think it would be vastly worse if the Battlemaster turned up to be statistically inferior than the simpler to use Champion.
Verily the Nerds would rage, Mightily.

Variant Human
The Variant human lets you make some effective builds at low level.
But to me at least it mostly serves to bring then on-par (and maybe a bit over) with the other non-human racial abilities out there. Not seeing anything in the Feats that looks massively upsetting myself. (Greatweapon Fighter, Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert are arguably overpowered, but not enough for me to care)

Personally I actually prefer the variant human to the standard human.
Because the benefit of +1 to all six ability scores very much depends upon the character gen system, and how many odd numbers you get.

The standard array (15,14,13,12,10,8) doesn't benefit much from six +1's.
If you roll for stats then it depends how many odd numbers you can roll. It could be great or useless.
With the 27 point buy system you can milk far more benefit.


Currently with the standard array you're going to have stats like: 16,15, 14, 13,11,9 (+7 total) for the non-variant human or probably 16, 14, 14, 12, 10, 8 (+7 total) for the variant human. (Is this a problem in itself?)
But with points buy and the standard human you can have:
16, 16, 14, 12, 10, 10 (+9 total)
16, 14, 14, 14, 12, 9 (+9 total)
16, 14, 13, 12, 12, 12 (+9 total)
16, 16, 16, 9, 9, 9 (+6 total )

Which is kinda more of a worry, in so much as people who know what they're doing can squeeze so much more than someone who knows less.
Which shouldn't be the case for the simplest “go-to” race.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

These things are not even a little deal at my table, let alone a big one.

But then, human characters have been a minority of the characters played by my group thus far (always a dwarf, usually an elf, sometimes a gnome, half-elf or a halfling, and then maybe a human if everyone in our group is playing in that particular campaign), and some of those humans have been the standard version even with the variant as an option because "I don't really want any feats for this character".

 

[GameOgre]

It's just your table. Every table is different.

At my table it's Darkvision.

Everyone has to have Darkvision all the time. The guys wouldn't pick human if it got two free feats!

I can hear it now" I will play a human with two feats, if you make Darkvision a feat".