Andor
First Post
Okay, so the Champion gets a lot of flak. The Battle Master gets less, and I haven't really seem any venom flung at the EK that I can recall.
So lets look at the Champion.
He's a sub-class of fighter. He is intended to be the simplest class/subclass to play, with almost no moving parts. Yet he is intended to be effective enough to not make a player who rolls one to regret his choice. Now there are some goals here which are inherently self-contradictory, and we also clearly have differing opinions about what the fictional archtype of a High level fighter should be. Some say Fafhrd, others Beowulf. Plus add in that the mundane fighter is pretty much the posterboy class for reuniting the fanbase split by the edition wars.
WotC had a pretty challanging set of competing design goals on the plate and it's actually impossible for them to have met all of them so... Let's see how they did.
The Champion adds 5 things to the base Fighter class over 15 levels.
Improved Critical
Remarkable Athlete
Additional Fighting Style
Superior Critical
Survivor
None of these have moving parts, there are no resources to manage or decisions to make in play with any of these. Which is less impressive than it sounds as far as meeting the "Simplest class" goal becuase the base Fighter already has Action Surge, Second Wind and Indomitable which are all limited resources, so we've broken the 1e feel before we even get to the gate. Let's ignore that and carry on.
Improved Critical - Doubles your chance to crit. Even better with advantage. Crits in 5e are not as powerful as they were in 3e because you double the dice, but not the fixed bonuses which is how things got crazy in 3e. Wew don't really know yet how magic items interact with crits, nor how common they are supposed to be, so it's hard to guage exactly how potent this is in play.
Remarkable Athlete - Mechanically weak, and even worse completely eclipsed by the Bards 2nd level Jack of all Trades ability.
Additional Fighting Style - A nice ability. The fighting styles are sound abilities and the Fighter gets the full array to chose from. The Champion is the only class to get two of them. However you can also pick up fighting styles by dipping into Paladin and Ranger, so it's not the only way to get more than one. However Multiclassing has some built in penalties in 5e so it's not that atractive a way to do it.
Superior Critical - Second Verse, more of the first. It's a good ability. With advantage the 15th level Champion will be rolling crits about 28% of the time, with three attacks a round he'll get one almost every round. How good exactly we don't know until we see it in play.
Survivor - If you are below 1/2 HP (bloodied in 4e parlance) you regen 5+con (assume 10) points a round. This is a wonky ability from a metagame stand point. In that as nebulous as HP are it has been the assumption since late 3e that below 1/2 HP you really are cutting meat. Therefore that very strongly implies that the Champions ability is actual troll-like healing. Which is presumably supernatural in nature and opens multiple cans of worms. If the ability worked from 1/2 up it would be a easier sell as not seeming supernatural. (To be clear I don't have an issue with supernatural fighter abilites but some people surely do.)
So. Does the Champion need a boost? Is he competative with the Fury Barb or Assasin Rogue or Battle Master? More importantly, would he be fun to play? If he needs a boost, is there a way to do it without adding resource management? Perhaps adding in some stances?
So lets look at the Champion.
He's a sub-class of fighter. He is intended to be the simplest class/subclass to play, with almost no moving parts. Yet he is intended to be effective enough to not make a player who rolls one to regret his choice. Now there are some goals here which are inherently self-contradictory, and we also clearly have differing opinions about what the fictional archtype of a High level fighter should be. Some say Fafhrd, others Beowulf. Plus add in that the mundane fighter is pretty much the posterboy class for reuniting the fanbase split by the edition wars.
WotC had a pretty challanging set of competing design goals on the plate and it's actually impossible for them to have met all of them so... Let's see how they did.
The Champion adds 5 things to the base Fighter class over 15 levels.
Improved Critical
Remarkable Athlete
Additional Fighting Style
Superior Critical
Survivor
None of these have moving parts, there are no resources to manage or decisions to make in play with any of these. Which is less impressive than it sounds as far as meeting the "Simplest class" goal becuase the base Fighter already has Action Surge, Second Wind and Indomitable which are all limited resources, so we've broken the 1e feel before we even get to the gate. Let's ignore that and carry on.
Improved Critical - Doubles your chance to crit. Even better with advantage. Crits in 5e are not as powerful as they were in 3e because you double the dice, but not the fixed bonuses which is how things got crazy in 3e. Wew don't really know yet how magic items interact with crits, nor how common they are supposed to be, so it's hard to guage exactly how potent this is in play.
Remarkable Athlete - Mechanically weak, and even worse completely eclipsed by the Bards 2nd level Jack of all Trades ability.
Additional Fighting Style - A nice ability. The fighting styles are sound abilities and the Fighter gets the full array to chose from. The Champion is the only class to get two of them. However you can also pick up fighting styles by dipping into Paladin and Ranger, so it's not the only way to get more than one. However Multiclassing has some built in penalties in 5e so it's not that atractive a way to do it.
Superior Critical - Second Verse, more of the first. It's a good ability. With advantage the 15th level Champion will be rolling crits about 28% of the time, with three attacks a round he'll get one almost every round. How good exactly we don't know until we see it in play.
Survivor - If you are below 1/2 HP (bloodied in 4e parlance) you regen 5+con (assume 10) points a round. This is a wonky ability from a metagame stand point. In that as nebulous as HP are it has been the assumption since late 3e that below 1/2 HP you really are cutting meat. Therefore that very strongly implies that the Champions ability is actual troll-like healing. Which is presumably supernatural in nature and opens multiple cans of worms. If the ability worked from 1/2 up it would be a easier sell as not seeming supernatural. (To be clear I don't have an issue with supernatural fighter abilites but some people surely do.)
So. Does the Champion need a boost? Is he competative with the Fury Barb or Assasin Rogue or Battle Master? More importantly, would he be fun to play? If he needs a boost, is there a way to do it without adding resource management? Perhaps adding in some stances?
