D&D 5E (2014) Why Good Players Should Not Play Champions

[ArchfiendBobbie]

For the most part I am quite happy with the 5E subclasses with most of them being interesting and/or powerful to play. There have been a couple of exceptions such as Beastmaster Ranger and Elemental Monks.

I think I am about to add a third and that is the Champion fighter.

All we need is a fourth class and we have a potential Suicide Squad.

 

[Flamestrike]

Yeah, those evil non-railroading GMs. Like every 5e GM I've played with (there have been several) as well as myself.

lol.

How is designing an adventure hook of 'you have to stop the BBEG by midnight' any different to 'you have to stop the BBEG by... 'whenever'? How is taking into account the five-minute adventuring day when designing hooks and adventures for your party 'railroading'?

If you don't want to make your quests time critical and be boring, and you want to encourage your player characters nova striking encounters that's up to you. Feel free to design your adventures and encounters that way 'like the GMs you play with and yourself.'

To me it sounds kind of boring not having any time constraints on my quests. Having to stop the death Star before blows up Yavin in five minutes sounds thrilling. Having all the time in the world, Blowing up one tie fighter before falling back to the rebel base to rest overnight, and repeating this for a week or two with no actual time pressure sound kinda sucky.

Maybe that's just me.

Your lack of time pressure in your adventures and encounters is as much railroading as is my inclusion of them.

 

[Valetudo]

no way.

Paladin crits double smite dice. Vengeance paladins get advantage once per short rest for a 20 percent Critical range per swing with Champion 3.

your just looking at it from a dpr perspective. Not only does the ek give the pally some spells that are awesome for tanking. He gets few cantrips that can be usefull. He doesnt lose out on as much spell slots. Honestly I personally would mc a pally with any fighter, but hey different strokes.

 

[Horwath]

I'm still waiting for you to explain why we "good players" shouldn't play a Fighter (champion).

My being a good player =/= my characters DPR.

Waste of a good talent maybe?

Champions have few tricks, or maybe one: when to use action surge.

when a (sub)class has more tricks than autoattack or cantrip spam(warlocks...) the quality of the player comes out more as he can combine tricks that are more than a sum of the components of a single trick.

Champion simply does not give any tools to work with. All special features are passives, like the rest of the base fighter class.

And the best race to be a champion is considered the stupidest race(half orc)

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Horwath]

*shrug*

In my experience, there are different types of tables.

At some, players appreciate combat after combat, and enjoy playing around with all the fiddly bits. And the person who best fiddles with fiddly bits is a good player.

At others, players may not appreciate entire sessions devoted to tactical combat.

What makes a good player therefore varies from table to table. A person who is a good player at the first type of table might end up thinking he is still a good player at the second type of table, and wonder why the rest of the group needs to have a discussion with him after the game about table etiquette. YMMV.

In the end, a "good player," is just a player that helps maximize the table's fun, however that table finds its fun.

OP aimed at combat part of the game and that is what I'm explaining.

Everyone can be a great role player with anything, that is not the subject of this topic. I'm sure that if anyone plays champion will have the best effort to flush him into life and be a great roleplayer, but you don't need much effor to be mechanicaly good in combat as champion.

This is more in line is a surgeon that works at a quarry with a sledgehammer bashing rocks waste of a good talent? Surgeon-wizard, sledgehammer guy-champion.

 

[wicked cool]

I'm confused on this post. Are we bad players because of the extra crits or its 2 complicated.

I just played last night with another player who has a 10th level (8 ranger/ 2 rogue) and for melee that character was very powerful. I was looking at my 10th level wizard wondering if the ranger turned on me could I stop him

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[TwoSix]

I certainly hope that the Champion is a weaker DPS option than a battle master if the battle master is played well. As a powergamer, the last thing I want to see is the tactically simpler option be the stronger DPS option. There should be at least a loose positive correlation between mechanical complexity and damage output assuming close to optimal play.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

no way.

Paladin crits double smite dice. Vengeance paladins get advantage once per short rest for a 20 percent Critical range per swing with Champion 3.

My Paladin (Vengeance) 5 / Fighter (Champion) 4 / Sorcerer (Draconic) 6 agrees with you. Has spell slots of an 8th level caster, can invoke Vow of Emnity (Advantage) then Action Surge with an Expanded Crit Range. So that's 4 attacks at Advantage at 2x the Crit Range once per short rest. It's worked great in play. NO way would I of EK'd him, the spell slots are too stingy in comparison to what he gets with Expanded Crit and he already has the spell slots he wants by MCing to Sorc.