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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6970045" data-attributes="member: 6787650">My main point wasn't about opportunity cost and game balance. I meant to talk about flavor. In what way is a Samurai's "Fighting Spirit" superior to anyone else's? What justifies resistance to weapon damage and advantage on all attacks? By "the flavor is weird... Why are they just plain better than other Fighters?" I don't mean, "Why is the Samurai class overpowered relative to other subclasses?" (Arguable, see below*, but not the point.) What I mean is, "what is the Samurai doing differently than a normal Fighter? Why does his fighting spirit grant him crazy bonuses that other Fighters' fighting spirits don't?"* There's a judgment call involved of course, because there's a wide range of battlemaster maneuvers available and they all do different things. But if you do the math it's hard to find a scenario where battlemaster maneuvers are better than auto-advantage plus resistance to damage. E.g. Tripping Attack + Action Surge is a famously good usage of superiority dice, and it only gives you advantage on three attacks at 5th level, and you only get to do it once. If we eyeball Precise Strike as somewhat like having advantage on three attacks (overly generous IMO), then the Battlemaster kind of has advantage on twelve attacks per short rest, plus he can play the melee kiting game against his prone enemy after the Tripping Attack, which is sort of like having resistance to damage for one round. Resistance for one round and advantage on twelve attacks is worse than resistance for three rounds (and change) and advantage on twelve attacks, which is what the Samurai gets.And of course the Samurai is far simpler to use. Most players wouldn't know how to properly leverage Tripping Attack offensively or defensively.Samurai isn't better than Eldritch Knight though, and not better than some houseruled versions of the Champion. May not be better than the UA Knight.</blockquote>

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