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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8606152" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I mean, it certainly couldn't hurt. Fighters (especially Champs) need some boosts to keep up. I fully expect the Champion to get some changes in "5.5e" because the bonus crit damage only barely keeps up with Paladins as-is IF the group runs many combats every day.But the issue, for me at least, remains that the Fighter, whether you give it toned down AW maneuvers or revamp its subclass features or tweak its baseline class features...it's too built up for personally dealing damage (even if it does fall behind other classes mathematically unless you get enough short rests in its current form) and personally shrugging off problems (Indomitable, Second Wind) to really have room for any tactics-focused features.I don't mean this as a criticism of your proposals, which are creative and should be quite good for anyone who felt things were close as they were but just slightly too far off the mark. Instead, my issue is that exactly what people complained about with the 4e Fighter has actually happened, but without the ability to build around it. In 4e, you could totally build a viciously effective Fighter who could dish out tons of damage—to the point that some advice actually recommended not going so hard for extra damage and instead bulking up your defenses, because you might make your damage so high that your DM will decide it's never worthwhile to risk disobeying your mark, which makes all that damage investment wasted.*By forcing the Warlord to only be expressed through the Fighter in 5e, we are left with a chassis that cannot accommodate the desired features. Since 5e has eschewed both the Warlord class and sufficient resources to build toward an alternate role, the painfully limited customization options leave little room to change the Fighter's implicit role, and the Fighter has arguably the strongest implicit role in the game (deriving almost all of its power from its class features, with subclass being almost an afterthought.) It would be sort of like if someone said that making a sports car model is unnecessary because any type of car can go at sports car speeds and be fancy and sporty, so we're just gonna discontinue all sports cars and people can just take the sporty subtype of the new, customizable sedan model coming out: it has sporty features, but a sports car it ain't.Perhaps a more pertinent criticism: while this makes for some good baseline level improvements, it does nothing for the two long-standing criticisms about Battle Master maneuvers. First, they suffer from extremely minimal scaling, going from 1d8 to 1d12, meaning an average gain of only 2 points across a character's maximum level range. Second, all maneuvers belonging to the same "tier," so getting your 6th and 7th maneuvers is...not very interesting, you likely already have all the maneuvers you want with just the first five (or six, if you take Superior Technique). IOW, if you want to fix some of the problems for both Fighters generally and Warlord style Fighters more specifically, consider developing Advanced Maneuvers that require training in "basic" maneuvers and which give better benefits, but which can't be used willy-nilly. There is of course the X-per-encounter option, but it might be better to instead do maneuver-specific triggers that are unlikely to be spammable or which become tougher after the first use. For example, the first time you use some particular one you must just be adjacent to an enemy who is also adjacent to one of your allies, but the second time you must have (and choose to forego) Advantage on the attack roll in order to use it (symbolizing that you have set up beneficial circumstances that let you do it again), and further attempts might require that and let an enemy make an opportunity attack because they're catching on to your tactics.Overall though...I just don't think most Warlord fans are ever going to be satisfied with tweaks and filigree added to the Fighter, because the 5e Fighter was built to be a "tanky bruiser," to appropriate the MOBA term: high defense and high offense, mediocre mobility, low utility and support. Making a subclass able to deliver the high levels of support desired by Warlord fans would almost surely make that subclass ridiculously overpowered. But offering a subclass with the minimal support and utility features required to not be OP is going to be disappointing to the majority of Warlord fans who will never be satisfied with a thin coat of Warlord-colored paint on a Fighter chassis.Which is why I keep returning to things like the comparison between Eldritch Knight Fighter and Wizard. Or, for a slightly different but parallel example, between Zealot Barbarian and Paladin: they're both divine warriors fuelled by conviction and leaping into the fray, but fans of Paladins would never have been satisfied by telling them they could reflavor Rage as a temporary holy blessing or "battle litany" or the like. Just because it has the same superficial flavor and mechanics that can be reflavored if you squint does not mean it is fit for purpose.*This is the beauty of 4e's marking mechanic: it forces DMs to make real choices, it does not cause mind control. It's inspired by real world actions, specifically soccer/football players, where literal defenders "mark" either specific specific opponents or specific areas (just like the two types of marking in 4e) for harrying their opponents' actions. But if a 4e Defender becomes too good at punishment, enemies will learn never to ignore their marks, especially if the Defender has weak defenses as a result. The ideal situation is always one where the DM is forced to choose between two equally awful options: eat the nasty mark punishment and possibly miss an attack, or avoid the mark punishment but flail nigh-uselessly against a heavily armored, high-HP target.</blockquote>

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