D&D 5E Is the Champion weak compared to Battle Master?

[Kobold Stew]

Plus the second fighting style is a nice touch, giving more real flexibility (and allowing a real shift in performance if a special magic item that doesn't fit the original style is found, or whatever).

 

[Juriel]

Champion that can get advantage on most attacks should work...

Fighter/Rogue with Shield Master - your weapon die is smaller, but you can knock people down with your bonus action shove (and Expertise in Athletics). So you knock them down before your attack string, then hit them twice with advantage (each hit having 19% chance of critting), with the main attraction here being that crits double your Sneak Attack damage.

Or just be that Half-Orc Great Weapon Master with Reckless Attack (and hopefully plentiful healing OR a reach weapon and allies to keep them from reaching you en masse).

 

[Mandragola]

It seems to me that the champion is a decent option for someone multiclassing... but so is battle master. Honestly I'd much rather have the choice of when my abilities kicked in.

Annoying that you can't be a multiclass fighter/fighter. A battle master could apply the superiority dice after he's rolled a crit, which he would do quite a lot.

 

[Unwise]

It seems to me that to make a Champion worthwhile seems to require some decent use of feats. If so, that is really not working as intended. The person that chooses the Champion is more likely than not the person who wants to avoid feats and go for stat bonuses. It is the class for people who want an OD&D feel to their character, or real newbies, neither of which should be steered toward feats.

 

[Juriel]

Good point about Champion definitely not hitting the intent of 'the effective simpleton'. Because taken by himself, he really isn't all that.

 

[SilverBulletKY]

Champion in my group chose the Great Weapon Fighting ability. He rolled a 1 or 2 many times during the session and it was a huge benefit to him, a lot more than I anticipated. He actually rolled 2 1's on a critical hit once and got to reroll them and turned them into max damage.

 

[garydee]

Who knows what might be in the DMG that might make the Champion better. There might be optional critical hit systems that close the gap. Also we know for a fact that a form of the Vitality Wound Points system will be in the DMG. Using this system the Champion might be even better than the Battlemaster.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Unless youre completely incompetent, you cant waste your Superiority Dice. They are guaranteed damage added on a hit or a free extra attack. This doesnt mean that the dice are good options or anything, it just means that the .5 star BM is all around better than the no-star Champion.

You can waste it by using it on the wrong enemy. You might think this is the boss, but actually the boss is in the next room. Or you've heard that the boss is in the next room, so you save it now, only to find out the the boss is a push-over. Any decision that you make is a chance for you to be wrong, and introduces inefficiency into the system.

Passive abilities are always on, and you can never waste them. You might think that a critical hit is "wasted" when you roll a 19 on a goblin who was going to die anyway, but there was no cost associated with that - it's entirely free - and you'll get another free critical hit if you happen to roll a 19 when it matters against the boss. The theoretical benefit of random effects may be less than the theoretical benefits of controlled effects, but inefficiency is a non-issue.

 

[Chocolategravy]

Passive abilities are always on, and you can never waste them. You might think that a critical hit is "wasted" when you roll a 19 on a goblin who was going to die anyway, but there was no cost associated with that - it's entirely free - and you'll get another free critical hit if you happen to roll a 19 when it matters against the boss. The theoretical benefit of random effects may be less than the theoretical benefits of controlled effects, but inefficiency is a non-issue.

It's not free. You're stuck as a champion. The "waste" comes in the DPR comparison. The crit damage is more likely to be overkill and not contribute to DPR than the superiority die is. In other words if half your crits are wasted on overkill you are getting 2.5% more crit hits, not 5%. That is waste. Meanwhile if you don't make dumb decisions with your superiority dice, ever die will be having full effect, and there is no waste.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The crit damage is more likely to be overkill and not contribute to DPR than the superiority die is. In other words if half your crits are wasted on overkill you are getting 2.5% more crit hits, not 5%. That is waste. Meanwhile if you don't make dumb decisions with your superiority dice, ever die will be having full effect, and there is no waste.

It's not wasted if it's free. It's literally impossible to waste an infinite resource. There's zero cost associated with rolling a critical hit. If there's a lot of overkill sometimes, then whatever, because you lose nothing from it. You'll still have unfettered access to that critical damage whenever you roll a 19 later on.

Every superiority die you spend now is one that you don't spend later, and every one that you don't spend before resting is also wasted. No matter how brilliant you are about using your dice at just the right time, you probably could have done it better if you'd had more information about the future. You will make mistakes, if you are a Battle Master.